We reap what we sow.

A comment to this story:

…how do we educate them (the elderly — ed.) to protect themselves from today’s youth without scaring them so bad they can no longer live on their own?

That this question even has to be asked is a damning testament to the failure of the anti-self-defense philosophy. It’s one thing to tell young people to wait on the police, but what happens when these folks get old and frail? They’re left at the mercy of the young and strong and we’re back to the “might makes right” philosophy that we’ve been trying to get away from since we started walking on two feet. Some may not like this saying, and some may think it’s cliched, but it’s the truth: God made all men, but Sam Colt made all men equal. Young and old, weak and strong.

Also, multiple stab wounds? I blame the weak knife laws. Knife licensing and registration NOW! Do it for teh old folkses!

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I wonder how they feel about this?

Texas Democrats, that is:

The government has proposed that the (dunes sagebrush lizard, which has all but disappeared from (West Texas), be listed as an endangered species, which could save it from extinction but slow the pace in one of the nation’s most prolific oil patches….

The Texas General Land Office, which (Texas Land Commissioner Jerry) Patterson leads, earned a record $108 million for drilling rights in school fund lands during a quarterly auction last month.

“If we had this hanging over us, do you think people will be writing checks just for the right to drill?” he said. “It will bring exploration and production to a screeching halt.”

I could probably guess how a lot of Texas Democrats feel about endangered species, considering how they adopt a lot of the positions of their more liberal brethren in Washington. But here one is, in their own backyard, and its listing as an endangered species is threatening to — ahem — endanger hundreds of millions of dollars in school funding, threatening to make the situation worse for certain West Texas schools than it’s already going to be with the looming cuts in the state budget. Now, I know there are Texas Democrats on the national level who do take more conservative positions on certain issues — witness former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez going on record as opposing a new assault weapons ban — but I still think it’d be interesting to see what they think of this, considering how they’ve been howling about budget cuts since before the Legislature got back in session last January.

No, they didn’t…

A couple of years ago, I remember going to the big Memorial Day celebration in Orange. The Patriot Guard Riders were part of the program, which had to be moved inside because it was raining to beat the band. So the riders didn’t get to make their grand entrance as planned. But they still came. That didn’t surprise me, but I almost lost it when their chapter president addressed the crowd and told them why the riders came in spite of the rain. She said of the fallen soldiers, “They didn’t get an opportunity to choose the weather they fought in, or to choose whether or not to go.”

I don’t think I’ll ever forget that, for the rest of my days. None of us should.

Flogging a dead horse.

I don’t understand what the point of this story was, except to agitate for yet more gun control. The folks working for the drug cartels like to buy high-caliber weapons? Really? I never would have thought. And “Hearst Newspapers survey of 1,600 guns”? Where did this sample come from? Was it a representative sample? Does anyone want to bet on the answers to said questions being, respectively, the ATF and NO, considering certain ATF officials have pushed the 90 percent lie in Congress in the past? Even looking past that, does anyone really think the media would give this an objective, honest look, considering its advocacy for semiautomatic weapon bans in the past?

Curiously enough, as several commenters pointed out, there was nothing about the ATF’s walking some 2,000 guns over the border, one of which was used to kill the ICE agent mentioned in the damn story! Come to think of it, there was nothing in that story about how a certain Supreme Court ruling three years ago basically took gun bans off the table. And don’t you love how they mentioned John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo’s shootings in D.C., conveniently ignoring:

A. the fact that Muhammad and Malvo could have pulled that off with your average bolt-action deer rifle; and,

B. the fact that those shootings took place before the Clinton gun ban expired?

I’ve asked this before elsewhere, but I’ll ask it here, though I know to ask the question is to answer it: Just whose side are these people on?

This is an old story, I know…

…but still a thing of beauty:

A Spanish mother has taken revenge on the man who raped her 13-year-old daughter at knifepoint by dousing him in petrol and setting him alight. He died of his injuries in hospital on Friday.

I am reminded of a certain exchange from this movie:

“It’s nothin’ personal.”

“Oh yes! It’s VERY PERSONAL!” BLAM-BLAM-BLAM-BLAM!

But setting your daughter’s rapist on fire is even better than shooting him, especially when it happens in real life. 🙂 She quite literally put him through hell on earth. As JayG said:

“Don’t poke the Mama Bear. Ever. She will burn your rapist ass to death.”

Say, this reminds me…UPDATED!

…right here:

Bexar County Democratic Party chairman Dan Ramos got ousted from office for making bigoted remarks against gays. Good that he got ousted, bad that it had to happen at all.

All a matter of political correctness? Sorry, that phrase denotes a certain longing for being able to be as offensive and inconsiderate as you want — without being called on it.

Now, granted, what Ramos said about gay Bexar Democrats was bad, but it bothers me that the rest of his ranting there has largely been forgotten:

I liken them to the Tea Party — the Tea Party and the fucking Nazi Party — because they’re 90 percent white, blue-eyed, and Anglo, and I don’t give a fuck who knows that. Just like the blacks … they’re American, but you can’t get your way just because you’re black.

Ramos not only leveled his hateful rhetoric at gays, but also whites and blacks whose only crime seems to be…well, that they’re not of Mexican descent. And no one said anything about that. I guess it just goes to show that some folks are still more equal than others. (What’s that old saying, silence equals agreement?) It’s an interestingly different dynamic here, from what I can tell — with the Latino activists engaging in the demagoguery that black activists like Al Sharpton do elsewhere — but it’s disgusting no matter the ethnicity of the demagogue.

UPDATE! Albatross in comments says, “Don’t forget he slammed polio victims, too.”

Mm, so he did:

Look: this is not natural. This is like a kid who was born with a polio leg, you can’t kill him and you can’t sweep him under the rug.

Lovely. So far as I remember none of the columnists at the San Antonio Express-News said anything about that either. It is to the credit of Bexar County and Texas Democrats that they urged Ramos to step down, but the issue of how someone like him got elected to lead Bexar County Dems is one that is just begging for an examination.

Hey, if it’s good for Hagee, it’s good for the Methodists.

From the letters to the editor in this morning’s San Antonio Express-News:

Recent Express-News stories convinced me it’s time to stop tax breaks for churches and start tax audits. John Hagee’s church has a large security team. Why? Is there that much in the collection plate? Or is this “church” just a PAC with an altar?

One wonders if Marie Martinez thinks, as I do, that the Methodist Church should have had its tax-exempt status revoked for founding the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence 35-plus years ago. Or does she think that only the churches that support right-wing causes should have their tax-exempt status revoked? Somehow I think I know the answer to that, as it seems that only the leftists whine about certain churches and their tax-exempt status.

Yet more resources down the drain…

…here:

Bryan Andrew Theriot, 33, also known as Tow Down, and Bernard Harry Theriot, 37, were arrested on Wednesday and accused of illegally cultivating about 600 marijuana plants inside three homes in the area, authorities said….

Also arrested on Wednesday were Warrick Earl Washington, 40, also known as Triple; Kevin Patrick Manecke, 27; Flabio Alberto Rodriguez, 30, and Clyde Bazile, 44, all from Houston; Timothy Allen Maness, 20, of Daisetta, and Kurt Wilson Fregia, 23, of Raywood, authorities said.

Each faces 40 years in prison and a $5 million fine if convicted of the federal charges of conspiring to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance, authorities said.

Oh, wait, that’s not the proper line. Hooray, more people off the street for breaking the law! No matter that the laws in question are malum prohibitum laws that enable the rape of the Bill of Rights!

Seriously, eight people facing 40 years in prison each? How much money is going to go down the drain even if they all get a fraction of that? And you know what else this means, right? It means eight fewer jail slots for people who actually pose a real danger to society, that’s what it means.

Some folks are too stupid to live.

And lucky for us, sometimes they’re criminals and they get exactly what they deserve:

An intruder was shot dead inside a Northeast Side residence, apparently after driving to the home in a Lexus stolen there two days earlier, police said Wednesday…..

Police said the house sitter grabbed a shotgun, walked out of a bedroom and turned on a light in the living room, confronting the intruder, who cursed and reached toward his back.

The house-sitter fired three shots, striking the man twice in the chest and once in the pelvis, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene, and the shooter isn’t expected to face charges.

Police said a white 2010 Lexus sedan stolen there Sunday night was recovered at the home, leading officers to believe the person who stole it was the intruder killed Tuesday.

Now that’s some high-grade stupidity right there. Seriously, going back to a house you burglarized earlier in the week in the car you stole from said house, breaking in, and then going for a weapon when one of the residents draws down on you with a shotgun? God bless Texas, where taking these creatures out of the gene pool is not only allowed but also encouraged.

Oh yes, I would be remiss in not noting that said resident was the homeowner’s son. Props to ’em for raisin’ the boy right.

We’re the Only Ones getting away with rolling unmarked cars…

…or, Hey, look! Another cop gets what amounts to a slap on the wrist!

A former San Antonio police officer who flipped an unmarked SAPD vehicle while driving home drunk from a barbecue was ordered Wednesday to serve three days in jail as a condition of probation….

Prosecutor Sergio Ybarra argued during the brief Wednesday hearing that (Winder) Morales doesn’t deserve probation because he violated a position of trust and put the public’s safety at risk.

“We have a law enforcement officer in a taxpayer-paid-for vehicle.” Ybarra said. “He crashed that vehicle after a night of drinking, then throughout the investigation he lied about it.”

Defense attorney Jesus Garza pointed out that his client supports three children and has no criminal history. He asked for six months probation.

If Morales does end up serving time in jail, his safety could be at risk because of his former law enforcement career, Garza said after the hearing.

Cry me a river. Winder Morales made a conscious choice to get behind the wheel of a car drunk, and he deserves to face the consequences. Perhaps putting him in protective custody might be understandable, but to get off with probation? What if he killed someone like he had five years before in a different situation? I just don’t understand. Reporter Craig Kapitan noted that the judge was not sure if the wreck was the result of Morales’ intoxication or a tire blowout — but even if the tire blowout was the cause, couldn’t it still be argued that the intoxication was a contributing factor? And even if it wasn’t, would Morales have gotten off so lightly if he were a civilian?