A 69-year-old war veteran and former missionary was arrested over the weekend on the suspicion of killing a 22-year-old Cuban immigrant who mistakenly arrived in his driveway because of faulty GPS directions.

Gwinnett County jail records obtained by The Atlanta Journal Constitution indicated that Phillip Walker Sailors was charged on Sunday with the murder of Rodrigo Abad Diaz.

Friends who were in the car with Diaz told WSB-TV that they were trying to pick up a friend on the way to ice skating on Saturday but their GPS directed them to the wrong address. The friends said that they waited in the driveway for a few minutes before Sailors emerged from the house and fired a gun into the air.


Gandy Cardenas, who was in the car, recalled to WAGA that the homeowner made no effort to speak to the group before opening fire.

The Gun

What can you say about guns, eh? Anyone who has handled a gun knows that the sight of it and the cool touch and the weight of it alters your consciousness with its terrible potential. No matter what juridical and cultural structures do or do not inhibit the use of firearms, the possession of a firearm confers power whether it is welcome or not. People who have a strong aversion to firearms are just as aware of that power as those who are obsessed with and attracted to firearms. Both groups know from firsthand experience that a gun is not representative of power, it is power. It is an instrument with which you can take life, in an instant, with the quarter-inch movement of a single finger.

Guns have come to mean something very special and sought after by boys: recognition, which they easily confuse with power. And not just because most of us in my demographic categories are descended from armed settlers, though that has a good deal to do with this boy-gun thing. I grew up with guns in the house. My father born in 1906, was a very competent hunter; and my mother even had her own bird gun — a 16-guage Browning automatic shotgun.

Guns are male icons, however, not merely tools; and we see guns as icons every day on TV.

The Television

Our first television was a circular looking black and white, where I never missed an episode of Gunsmoke, the Lone Ranger, Bonanza, or Wagon Train. Guns became instruments of justice and power in my mind, as I soaked up these powerful moving images of a mythical American frontier masculinity. The one that really got me, though, was a character who was a soldier, a rebel, and a trickster – Swamp Fox, a Disney production where Leslie Nielson played the Revolutionary War guerrilla leader, Francis Marion. That was the first impetus that led to my eventual entry into the non-televised world of Special Operations in the army; and it was seeded in my brain a decade before I even graduated from High School.

Former Rep. Tom Tancredo loses bet, will smoke pot



Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) said Thursday he will uphold his end of a bet and smoke marijuana now that the drug has been legalized by a Colorado voting referendum.

The former congressman and anti-illegal immigration activist had told the maker of a documentary about the ballot initiative that he would smoke pot if the measure passed, despite not being a drug user. On Nov. 6, Colorado voters approved marijuana for recreational use 55 percent to 45 percent.

"Look, I made a bet with the producer of the film that if Amendment 64 passed (I did not think it would) that I would smoke pot," Tancredo said in a statement to Fox News. "I will therefore smoke pot under circumstances we both agree are legal under Colorado law. Hey, it's better than having to do a stupid dance as (Denver) Mayor (Michael) Hancock must perform as a result of losing a bet on the Broncos beating the Ravens."

Despite the bet, Tancredo said he was a supporter of the referendum, believing that government enforcement of anti-marijuana laws was "wasteful and ineffective."

Today is Gun Appreciation Day: a day when people of modest means will spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on more guns for their personal arsenal because they believe, no – they know – that there is a greater chance that the government will be coming after them for some reason or another than there is a chance that their kids might need that money to go to college someday.

This is why we can’t have a nice country.

Wireless carriers are blood-sucking leeches run by amoral pricks whose unfathomable greed and utter disregard for fair dealing would make Bernie Madoff ashamed enough to seek species reassignment surgery. My husband and I recently fell prey to a scam perpetrated by our long-term mobile, landline, TV and Internet provider, Verizon.

We innocently strolled into a local Verizon retail outlet a few months ago to see about upgrading my husband’s old clamshell-style crap-phone so he could stop writing notes on paper, photographing them and sending that in lieu of text messages. A more credulous pair of bumpkins has never been so effectively swindled by such a brazen pack of bald-faced liars.

The fecking feckers sold us a packet of magic beans: a bundle that would supposedly result in a lower overall monthly payment for all services while upgrading hubby’s crap-phone to a smartphone, expanding our channel line-up and improving the quality of our landline service. (That last part smarts especially in retrospect since we had intended to get rid of the landline, which we rarely use.)

But no, the lying Verizon motherfuckers told us: With THESE special beans, the landline is BETTER than free! It exudes a magickal “savings dust” that reduces your overall bill, each and every month! Plus, the new and improved landline service comes with a snazzy new transmitter base with periwinkle-colored ambient lighting and can even serve as a marital aid / can opener / wine decanter!

I came across your story and just wanted to say thanks for having the guts to tell it. It is an embarrassing one, and I can relate at least somewhat. About a year ago, I was cleaning my 1911 in the kitchen, wife wasn't home, she had our oldest with her and our baby was upstairs taking a nap, he was about a 16 months old then. I, for some reason, thought I had it emptied out, but never the less I aimed it at the floor, in a direction where I knew that even if I was wrong the penetration of the floor would only lead to the basement and a concrete floor. I even think of back stops when I am '100% sure' it is empty. I pulled the trigger, and it went off. Scared the hell out of me, and I imediately tried to figure out where the bullet had gone. I was sitting at a weird angle to where I was aiming and realized it had actually ricocheted off the carpet, through the let of the high chair, and into a wall. Exactly the direction I did NOT want it to go. Then I realized that our baby didn't cry upstairs, and went ice cold trying to figure out why the noise hadn't woken him. I can't even tell you the terror realizing that the wall the bullet had entered was right below his crib. Where it entered the wall I could see no way possible that it could have deflected again to an angle that would have gotten it up to him, but I didn't think it would have changed trajectory so badly off of a carpet either, so I wasn't ruling anything out. I went upstairs, more scared than I had ever been in my life. Went into his room, and hovered over him, he was sleeping soundly, little chest rising and falling as it should be, I even moved him a bit to hear him just start to wake to be sure, then let him settle back down to continue his nap.
I went back down to the kitchen, checked the outside wall of the house, no exit hole, dug around inside the wall from the inside and could see the bullet lodged in a 2x4 and was satisfied that it had gone no where that it could have hurt anyone.

Then I sat down realizing what COULD have happened, especially to one I love SO much, and I just cried my eyes out. Writing this now brings tears. I told my wife when she got home, cried again and told her I would only clean and handle at the range from there on out (unless of course there is an intruder). Talk about a wake up call. I felt like such a fool. Always thought of the folks who do this sort of thing as idiots who just arent thinking. Pride comes before the all I suppose, just as the bible says.

So anyway, thanks for your story, I can relate, but sure glad I didn't shoot my leg