Think before you send a donation to Red Cross

[Cribtop]

I'd like to see someone invade Texas. That would be funny. PS - it's deer season, so we have a heavily armed (and somewhat to heavily inebriated) militia already dispersed in rural areas ready to commence insurgency Ops. [:D]

GZ, that picture of the Alamo is bizarre. I love it. However, the Texas flag that flew over the Alamo was the Mexican tricolor with "1824" in the white part. This symbolized that the Texian rebels were arguing for a return to the principles of the 1824 Mexican Constitution (abrogated by Santa Anna). The decision to pursue outright independence was not made until late in the siege, at which point we adopted a cool blue flag with a single white star and the letters "TEXAS" in between the points. Hence the "Lone Star" stuff we always discuss. A not so subtle hint to the USA that we might be amenable to membership. Also, once we finally adopted the modern Texas flag, the red bar is on the bottom. Even here people either draw it or hang it with the red on top, which causes great pain to true Texans.

By the way, we don't have the grail (some university in Chicago ended up with that, along with a cool 1940s hat from some guy named after the family dog). However, we did invent longnecks, so as usual our beverage containers are bigger and better, in accordance with state law.

[Cribtop]

A little more trivia. The Texas Revolution (funny how when you win it's a revolution, when you lose it's a revolt) was one of several separatist movements opposed to Santa Anna's rule. One such revolt (they eventually lost, so a revolt) was in the Yucatan. The Texas Navy actually sailed down to southern Mexico and fought alongside the Yucatecans against the Mexican Navy in the Battle of Campeche Bay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Battle_of_Campeche), defeating a Mexican squadron.

The professors who discovered the Mayan ruins had to get the permission of the rebel Yucatecan government. In the book they wrote describing the expedition, there's a great scene detailing the professor's meeting with the Texas Ambassador, a rather colorful Austrian who was in the Yucatan to broker the alliance that led to Campeche Bay. Great stuff.

[rockmedic109]

While I am certainly no fan of the Red Cross sticking it's unwanted nose into my GAMING hobby, I will say that they suffer the same disease that any organisation of greater than 10 people have: the utterly idiotic buffoons from the shallow end of the gene pool joining. As these individuals tend to think more highly of themselves than is warranted or safe, they are susceptible to the flattery of being promoted away from those they are interfering with. Thus they keep getting promoted because nobody wants them around and eventually end up running the organisation.

[Empire101]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

Sorry, but it isn't real. The only people that seem to have an issue separating fiction from reality are pinheads like the ones in the article.

One thing I will agree on, extremely violent video games are not for kids. What we have in that regard is a lack of effective parenting. You don't need some international committee to fix that, you need to teach parents how to be parents, not best friends. The X-Box is NOT a babysitter.

So here is an idea for these people that can't seem to understand the problem (IE the pinheads afore mentioned). Why don't we quit wasting resources regulating something that most governments already regulate, and instead figure out a way to teach parents to actually say no to their kids. The problem isn't a lack of regulation (we have enough of that as is), the problem is that somewhere in the last 2 generations, parents quit being parents.

Just my 2 pennies.

Could'nt have put it better myself.... +1

[tevans6220]

ORIGINAL: CaptDave

To address one question that was asked but never responded to: no, the Red Cross does not sell blood.  That's an urban legend that's been around for decades.

Actually that's not true. They do charge for blood. My late cousin was a hemophiliac who frequently needed transfusions. Even though my family set up various blood drives through the firehouse, social clubs and places of employment, the Red Cross charged my uncle for every pint of blood my cousin needed. My family was so mad about it that they vowed never to donate to the Red Cross again and they haven't.

[Grfin Zeppelin]

ORIGINAL: tevans6220

ORIGINAL: CaptDave

To address one question that was asked but never responded to: no, the Red Cross does not sell blood.  That's an urban legend that's been around for decades.

Actually that's not true. They do charge for blood. My late cousin was a hemophiliac who frequently needed transfusions. Even though my family set up various blood drives through the firehouse, social clubs and places of employment, the Red Cross charged my uncle for every pint of blood my cousin needed. My family was so mad about it that they vowed never to donate to the Red Cross again and they haven't.

Afaik they charge for rare blood-types but otherwise not.