werd, slickrick…lotta folks taking shots at us – guess instead of defending their own state, they have to make salacious generalizations about Texas.

I ordinarily do not engage in debates over teh interwebs and I know I’m late to the party, but I’ve been moving my belongings to our new place & I don’t want to get up from my computer, so here we go, responding in the order I read them:

re: state size vs. Alaska. No one in Texas claims our state is the largest in the union, nor do we harbor or display any animosity toward Alaska. Alaskans understand this…why don’t people from other states?

re: gross generalizations about Texans’ level of intelligence and/or education. Generally speaking, see: farm4.static.flickr.com/3114/2509581381_4b4230e2f5.jpg. Specifically, there are 4 degrees between myself and my wife (from actual 120 y.o. brick-and-mortar schools), two CPA licenses, and two wholly-owned businesses. We’re both 25 and I’m sure there are plenty others just like us all over the place down here. CPA-geared questions are welcome to validate the presence of my education.

re: implication that the average size of male Texans’ penises is smaller than that of other US states’ male residences. What? Seriously? That’s a silly argument to make – you and I both know it – grow up. See again: farm4.static.flickr.com/3114/2509581381_4b4230e2f5.jpg.

re: The Alamo. The Alamo is a state monument because of two reasons. 1) It signifies the beginning of our state’s fight for independence from Mexico, as it was Santa Anna’s first battle to try to reclaim Texas. We ultimately won that fight (obviously). 2) The famous quote “Remember the Alamo!” was the battle cry during the Texas Revolution, and as such, we Texans decided a good way to remember the Alamo would be to keep it around. If you already knew all of that, why did you make such an ignorant argument? If you didn’t already know that, read up on your history a bit more before you make ignorant arguments.

re: Texans being “obsessed” with our state. We’re proud of our state because it’s a great place to live, work, and play for millions of residents. Most of us don’t get too offended when someone doesn’t like our state and voices that opinion, but it is remarkable when someone who has spend a good bit of time here (read: a few months, not just a couple weeks in Odessa on a business trip, and the like) and still doesn’t like it.

re: “so if you ARE Texan you ARE shit”. C’mon teezy weezy, don’t tell me you’re so far out of the common American English lexicon that you didn’t get that bumper sticker. Must be a Brit, huh?

@... LukeV1-5: Huh. Well, that sounds OK. Hate away.

@... Marrock: You seemed to have made two points, but I can’t see how either of your comments were either pro-Texas or otherwise, but OK. Thanks for the quote, man.

@... reboot: Your logic train seems to have derailed spectacularly. Try rebooting.

@... mld: Vermont is lacking a good number of the things that Texans are proud of their state for having, including having won their own independence under their own might, a well-understood state identity (everything’s Vermontier in Vermont??), and supplying a huge amount of industry to the US and the world (in ’06, Texas had the world’s 15th largest economy & was the fastest growing economy of the top ten productive states). I could go on for a long, long time, but those are three divergent answers that come to mind.

re: Ike & Texans “pissing and moaning” about being hit with hurricanes. Firstly, I doubt you’ll be able to find much to substantiate your argument that we complained any more than any other state that was hit with a hurricane, so I will counter with saying that the Houston area (I live right on the 610 loop where Ike’s eye drove right over) is almost completely back on their feet with little help from FEMA or anyone else, for that matter. A huge majority (85%+ ?) of the cleanup was done by private companies or citizens, not by waiting on the Federal gov’t to come bail us out. Also, Ike was a category 3 in terms of wind speed when it hit Galveston, and the storm surge was estimated to be similar to that of most large 4s or small 5s. see RSI’s comment as well.

Alright…all done. Thanks for your time.