Pizza guy eliminates punk

This will be one to watch. I'm amazed that a mere pizza guy was able to get a CHL in New York. I thought you had to have special connections or something like that. It sounds promising that the police are already saying it's justified. This is another job I held in the past (pizza guy, that is, not mugger), although I was in a much safer part of the country and during the 8 years I worked there, none of our guys were ever mugged. The closest it came to any such thing was when one driver stopped to use a payphone at a stop & rob in the wrong part of town for a white guy to leave his car. He was followed back to his vehicle by a small gang of punks who "issued verbal threats." Fortunately, they were too far away to actually touch him when he opened his door and pulled his deer gun out from behind his seat (a Thompson-Center Contender). They swiftly backed away and left the scene. (Point is, it wasn't for money. You got it, it was "racially motivated.")

The photo of the attacker doesn't exactly make him look like a model citizen, either.

What am I doing here again?

The History of the Battle of Flowers Parade:

The idea for the first Battle of Flowers Parade was conceived early in 1891 by the wife of a congressman who had seen a similar parade in Spain. She suggested to her friends that a flower parade should be held in San Antonio each year on April 21 in memory of the fallen heroes at the Alamo and to commemorate the victory at the Battle of San Jacinto, April 21, 1836, where Texas had gained its independence from Mexico. These ladies formed the Battle of Flowers Parade committee, enlisted the support of fellow community leaders and the planning began. The first parade had an actual 'flower battle' with half of the fresh-flower-covered carriages, floats and bicycles going in one direction and the other half going in the opposite direction, tossing fresh flowers at each other as they passed.

By 1895 the parade had developed into a weeklong celebration. The first queen and king were added in 1896 and a princess, duchesses and other attendants were added in 1890, but parade royalty was 'hit and miss' until several years later when local organizations took over their selection. In 1901 the parade included its first horseless vehicle. By 1915-16 the parade had grown so much in scope that the floats could no longer be decorated with fresh flowers and artificial flowers were used. In 1976 the tradition of association members wearing yellow dresses and yellow hats on parade day began. In 1991 to celebrate the parade's centennial anniversary, former association presidents arrived in carriages and tossed flowers at each other and spectators as was done in the first parade. Today it includes some 40 flower-covered floats, dozens of military, college and high school bands, cavalcades, horse-drawn carriages, antique cars and giant, helium balloons. The Battle of Flowers Parade has been held every year since its beginning except during war times and originated what we now call Fiesta San Antonio.

Many businesses in San Antonio have given up on keeping this as a normal workday because of the high number of people who call in "sick." My employer is one for whom this is an official holiday. So that's why I'm home during the day on a Friday. As for myself, I've never been to anything involving Fiesta, and I don't plan on ever going. For me, San Antonio is a place to work and to stay as far away from as possible at all other times.

Engage...

This article at The Masthead is an example of what I mean by a "pernicious truth":

If you've remained nonplussed as they took down Dan Rather and four of his Black Rock colleagues, if you haven't the slightest interest in acquainting yourself with the blogosphere, don't move an inch. You won't have to. Bloggers will be knocking on your door any day now. Or knocking it down.

To many of you, bloggers are a presumptuous rabble-amateurs elbowing their way into the publishing world. You may not know them, but they know youyour face, your manners, your prejudices, your conceits.

They're your readers. And, God help us, they've become the one thing we've always begged them to become ...

Engaged.

I'm just a schmuk with an inconsequential personal blog. I'm not the guy these people should be worried about. But there are plenty of others who are the ones they should be worried about.

Sometimes good things do happen

This from KFYI in Arizona:

"Patrick Haab is a free man. Haab, 24, was arrested April 10 by Maricopa County sheriff's deputies at a rest stop along I-8 after Haab had held seven illegal immigrants at gunpoint. Haab said he thought he was in danger. After looking at the evidence, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas concluded Haab was making a citizen's arrest, stopping people he saw violating federal law. The real saving grace for Haab was that one of the illegals was a coyote - a human smuggler - which is a federal felony. Thomas says if the men weren't here illegally, Haab would be facing felony charges of his own. Thomas is repeatedly cautioning people not to start rounding up immigrants at Home Depot. He says actions like that will be dealt with severely."

Or, "just because we couldn't nail this guy doesn't mean we won't try to nail the next one." Maybe those deputies should check out some of these guys.

Friends and Enemies

This from the JPFO:

"Good news! At the urging of freedom's friend Len Savage, Rep. Phil Gingrey of Georgia's 11th congressional district has introduced H.R. 1603, 'The Fairness in Firearm Testing Act.'

This brief, clearly worded bill would require the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives to video-record ALL tests it conducts on firearms and to make copies of the unedited recordings available to owners of the tested items and defendants in cases involving those items.

Gingrey's bill was directly inspired by the JPFO documentary _BATFE Fails the Test_ (http://www.jpfo.org/batfevideo.htm). That documentary contains the first -- and so far only -- footage showing the BATFE trying to frame an innocent owner of a semi- automatic rifle.

Gun owners have been aware of such dirty ATF tricks for decades. But not until Len Savage delivered this explosive footage and JPFO made it available to the world did higher- ups in the U.S. Justice Department and Congress finally begin to believe us.

If Rep. Gingrey's bill passes as written, the ATF will have a much harder time destroying American lives. If the bill _doesn't_ pass (or gets weakened), then the ATF and a compliant court system will d everything they can to make sure We the People never again witness how that agency operates behind the scenes.

JPFO cannot and does not take a stand on any particular piece of legislation. We are an educational, not a political, organization. But we hope every reader will watch this bill carefully. (...go to http://thomas.loc.gov and search on 'Fairness in Firearm Testing.')

Watch who signs on as a co-sponsor. Watch who works to get the bill out of committee -- or who connives to keep it from ever reaching the floor of Congress. Watch who compromises, who sells out, who tries to weaken or twist the bill's language, and who stands firm. Watch which representatives vote for it and which vote against it.

Then you'll know, without a shadow of a doubt, which members of Congress are true friends of liberty and which only give lip service.

No reason why every single senator and representative shouldn't support proper conduct by a government agency, right? No reason at all.

You'll never guess why this ticks me off...

There are lots of reaons why this article should annoy or even anger me. But I am sick of hearing this word "vet" in its verb form. For many years this has been a colloquialism that, as a verb, means "to subject to a veterinary examination." What idiot suddenly decided that it was better to say that someone or something has been "vetted" instead of "examined" or "evaluated?" Yeah, this kind of thing makes me see red. Silly, isn't it? As for myself, if someone ever tried to shove a horse thermometer up my backside vet me, I would consider it a threat of deadly force and respond accordingly.

Down on the Border Patrol

I went to this site to read the comments from the Border Patrol Union Local 2544 in Tucson, AZ, regarding the Minuteman Project. I found many other things to get your dander up. Like this:

EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: You Can Now Be Detailed Away From Your Family indefinitely. Notice how everything they talk about and the reason for continuing to strip your employment rights is "TERRORISM", yet our borders remain wide open to TERRORISTS because our President kowtows to illegal aliens and refuses to shut our borders down. The good news just keeps coming folks. Read about their continued assault on your employment rights here.

Be sure and follow the link to the pdf file. Heck, just read the whole page and prepare for your blood pressure to rise.

tnx to No Quarters

Only problem is, it didn't happen #2

Just received an entertaining email about an old lady in Australia who emasculated her grand-daughter's rapists with a 9mm pistol. Only problem is, it didn't happen.

And apparently this chain email is about 5 years old.

I can't believe no one said this

"CRIMSON-CLAD CARDINALS CONGREGATE IN CONCLAVE TO CONTEMPLATE CONTENDERS"

It's okay, I have a license to alliterate.

Join ACLU, hang out in the desert, and smoke dope. It's cool, man!

All the dope on the ACLU breaking the law in more ways than one over at American Princess.

Punching holes in anti-self defense arguments

Be sure and check out the Weekly Check on the Bias at Alphecca.

I meant to mention this earlier...

...but forgot. April is Jazz Appreciation Month. How to celebrate? Just listen to some jazz. If you live in San Antonio, tune in to KRTU, 91.7 on your FM dial. Or follow the link to listen online. It's a jazz party, baby.

"Guns don't kill people, doctors do."

Some interesting statistics.

tnx to VodkaPundit

What Age Will You Die?

I suppose this thing is based on some statistic or other. What is interesting is that if I began practicing yoga and meditation again (as I did for several years during my 20's & 30's), it would add 3 years to my life. If I changed my outlook and began considering myself a "lucky" person, it would add an additional 3 years. The yoga would be easy. Changing my attitude to consider myself "lucky" would be a major undertaking. Most of the time I think someone placed a curse on me at birth.

Now that's stoppin' power!

If my BAG Day wish list could have included non-existent fantasy firearms, it would without exception have been this one. Yeah, I know, there is no such gun. I just said "non-existant fantasy firearms" didn't I?

Some interesting stuff this week tnx to Tech Dirt

On weekends I catch up with large-volume newsfeeds, like Techdirt. So here are a few links that interested me.

Authorities arrest four, seize 60,000 pirated Nintendo game consoles in NY, NJ: More bad "journalism," as an AP reporter in this article can't figure out if games are being pirated, or game consoles. So he/she/it just switches back and forth, calling them both. (And look at the game names. Donkey Kong? For goodness sake! Somebody get me a pirated copy of Joust).

Local cable companies, who once sat fat & sassy with their monopolies, are now scrambling desperately to do anything to maintain themselves, like pushing for a tax on satellite TV service just because it's satellite TV service, as this report from BroadbandReports.com points out. I don't have the option of cable where I live, and began using satellite TV 4 or 5 years ago. However, I have seen the anti-satellite TV commercials coming from Time-Warner Cable (which services--yeah, that's a good word--San Antonio), and they insult my intelligence. Some idiot is crying because he doesn't know how to read a compass. Of course, no one requires you to self-install these days, so I guess their commercial is kind of obsolete. I wouldn't use them if I could. Passage of taxes like this can affect everyone who uses satellite TV, even those like me who don't have a cable option. So I say: up yours, cable fascists. (Of course, they have not yet tried this in Texas, but it's only a matter of time).

Intel pulls a bonehead stunt, and offers a $10,000 reward for a copy of the April 19, 1965 edition of Electronics Magazine, apparently forgetting about an old-fashioned thing called a library archive. Now some librarians are expectedly steamed because their magazines are disappearing.

"Swell of support for reservist who held migrants at gunpoint"

Lots of stuff going around lately about Patrick Haab, who was arrested for being on the scene and doing what had to be done:

"[Maricopa County Sheriff Joe] Arpaio has said that Haab's actions were illegal and dangerous and that he had no right to take the law into his own hands."

Yes, actually, he absolutely did. He saw the law being broken, and he stopped it. This is what law-abiding citizens do to protect their neighborhood and their country. If he had been acting as a "vigilante," he would have just started shooting. But instead, he detained them and called the authorities. This is the action of a responsible person, not a whacko. I'm surprised I even have to say this.

Well this is a bummer...

Bloglines is down until midnight my time. I guess I'm going to have to bookmark all my blogroll so I can read them directly, if this keeps up.

So many good links...

Carnival of Cordite #9 is up. My favorite of all the links: IT'S HIT THE FAN...NOW WHAT? from Bad Example.

Another dead orc...

Just another link to a store owner protecting his life and his livelihood that I must link to. I just wish they would put more details in these kinds of reports, like what gun did he use and where did the shots hit? That kind of thing could be useful for future reference.

tnx to No Quarters