Paintball this weekend - Orion Valley - March 28, 2009

We will be playing this Saturday, March 28th in the Valley. We'll get started with playing at 10am, with guest briefing at 9:45am, so make sure you are ready to go at that time.

If you had planned on bringing on someone as a guest this weekend, please make sure they are there by 9:45am. And also please let me know in advance, so that we can have some gear put aside for them. Bring a ruck and what you need to sustain while playing. Like last time, we will pack down into the Valley and not come out until the day is over.

Note: we will be having a "Pistols and Pumps" scenario in the very near future, so let's discuss that - should it be during a regular game session or during a different time, etc.

Please note, if you need directions they are posted in the forums, under the "Orion Raiders Paintball" section. There will also be a games discussion for this weekend listed there as well.

Sportsman's Warehouse is going out of business

Just a quick head's up that the two Sportsman's Warehouses near us (Round Rock, San Antonio) are going out of business. Right now most of the stuff is marked down 10-30% (paintball stuff is 10%), but it will keep going down at the weeks go by. They are going to stay open until May, or until they sell out all of their goods.

Here's a highlight from the SA store:

Tippmann 98 Custom - $99
Spider eMarker - $99
Spider marker (standard) - $39

If you have been thinking about picking up a new marker or a second marker for back-up, it's a good time to pick one up.

Now that's bananas!

Just when you thought the deadliest thing in a Whole Foods Market was some yuppie's ability to self-aggrandize:

World's deadliest spider found in Tulsa store

TULSA, Okla. – One of the most deadly spiders in the world has been found in the produce section of a Tulsa grocery store. An employee of Whole Foods Market found the Brazilian Wandering Spider Sunday in bananas from Honduras and managed to catch it in a container.

The spider was given to University of Tulsa Animal Facilities director Terry Childs who said this type of spider kills more people than any other.

Childs said a bite will kill a person in about 25 minutes and while there is an antidote he doesn't know of any in the Tulsa area.

Spiders often are found in imported produce, and a manager at Whole Foods says the store regularly checks its goods and that's how the spider was found.

More.

Could be worse, I suppose.

There could have been a rogue orangutan hiding out in those bananas!

Some perspective

Texas Independence Day - March 2, 1836

One of the most important documents in Texas history is the Declaration of Independence, adopted in general convention at Washington-on-the-Brazos, March 2, 1836.

Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Texas

UNANIMOUS
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE,
BY THE
DELEGATES OF THE PEOPLE OF TEXAS,
IN GENERAL CONVENTION,
AT THE TOWN OF WASHINGTON,
ON THE SECOND DAY OF MARCH, 1836

When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty and property of the people from whom its legitimate powers are derived, and for the advancement of whose happiness it was instituted; and so far from being a guarantee for the enjoyment of those inestimable and inalienable rights, becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression; when the Federal Republican Constitution of their country, which they have sworn to support, no longer has a substantial existence, and the whole nature of their government has been forcibly changed without their consent, from a restricted federative republic, composed of sovereign states, to a consolidated central military despotism, in which every interest is disregarded but that of the army and the priesthood – both the eternal enemies of civil liberty, and the ever-ready minions of power, and the usual instruments of tyrants; When long after the spirit of the Constitution has departed, moderation is at length, so far lost, by those in power that even the semblance of freedom is removed, and the forms, themselves, of the constitution discontinued; and so far from their petitions and remonstrances being regarded, the agents who bear them are thrown into dungeons; and mercenary armies sent forth to force a new government upon them at the point of the bayonet. When in consequence of such acts of malfeasance and abdication, on the part of the government, anarchy prevails, and civil society is dissolved into its original elements: In such a crisis, the first law of nature, the right of self-preservation – the inherent and inalienable right of the people to appeal to first principles and take their political affairs into their own hands in extreme cases – enjoins it as a right towards themselves and a sacred obligation to their posterity, to abolish such government and create another in its stead, calculated to rescue them from impending dangers, and to secure their future welfare and happiness. Nations, as well as individuals, are amenable for their acts to the public opinion of mankind. A statement of a part of our grievances is, therefore, submitted to an impartial world, in justification of the hazardous but unavoidable step now taken of severing our political connection with the Mexican people, and assuming an independent attitude among the nations of the earth.

Full text.


TEXAS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE . . . . The Texas edict, like the United States Declaration of Independence, contains a statement on the nature of government, a list of grievances, and a final declaration of independence. The separation from Mexico was justified by a brief philosophical argument and by a list of grievances submitted to an impartial world. The declaration charged that the government of Mexico had ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people; that it had been changed from a restricted federal republic to a consolidated, central, military despotism; that the people of Texas had remonstrated against the misdeeds of the government only to have their agents thrown into dungeons and armies sent forth to enforce the decrees of the new government at the point of the bayonet; that the welfare of Texas had been sacrificed to that of Coahuila; that the government had failed to provide a system of public education, trial by jury, freedom of religion, and other essentials of good government; and that the Indians had been incited to massacre the settlers. According to the declaration, the Mexican government had invaded Texas to lay waste territory and had a large mercenary army advancing to carry on a war of extermination. The final grievance listed in justification of revolution charged that the Mexican government had been "the contemptible sport and victim of successive military revolutions and hath continually exhibited every characteristic of a weak, corrupt, and tyrannical government." After the signing of the original declaration by fifty-nine delegates, five copies of the document were dispatched to the designated Texas towns of Bexar, Goliad, Nacogdoches, Brazoria, and San Felipe. The printer at San Felipe was also instructed to make 1,000 copies in handbill form.

More.