eisely

It is perfectly legitimate to oppose policies you think are wrong. In this regard I agree with Rush. We will have to see what Obama actually proposes, but I am not optimistic.

What concerns me as much as any particular policy position is the cult of personality that has developed around Obama that he seems to encourage. This is something novel to the American experience and worrisome.

We utilized this service in 1995. It works very well. When we arrived in the afternoon from Albuquerqe (sp?) the bus showed up dropping off other crews heading home and picked us up. When we returned home the bus dropped us off but did not stick around to pick anybody up. Apparently they were not expecting any new arrivals on the southbound train that morning. Philmont only charged us $5.00 per head for the trip, but that was a long long time ago.

I concur with the other posts that your son should not penalized for the lack of diligence at the council level.

All of this takes place at the district level where we live. We are fortunate that our council service center is readily accessible so it is fairly easy to resolve diffrences in advancement records and things like that.

As the eagle coordinator for our troop, I would have to say that most eagle candidates I have dealt with have gone smoothly. I do counsel the candidate's parents and the scout himself, that one of the lessons the scout will be learning is how to deal with a bureacracy which is itself a valuable lesson.

I am not aware of any nationally used form for references. We do letters in our council. The letters come to me and I marry those up with the rest of the paperwork and deliver the package to the district advancement chair who looks them over and schedules the EBORs. Our district normally runs boards monthly. It is just a matter of getting on the schedule.

Just when you think PETA can't get any sillier, they manage to top themselves. Go to the link below to learn about PETA's most recent campaign.

A few years ago PETA denounced BSA for having a "fishing" merit badge.

I think it was OGE who commented at the time, "Please pass the tartar sauce."

http://www.peta.org/sea_kittens/

I am not aware of any minimum hour policies in either our council or district. The district where we lived in Southern California many moons ago did have a 100 hour requirement, but I don't know what, if anything, they are requiring now.

I take it that the CO rep has been registered for some time and is not a new applicant.

The adult volunteer membership application also requests this information, but it is not retained on the copies of the multi part form. It is only on the original submitted to council.

While it is certainly correct that there is no specified minimum number of hours, boys should be encouraged to think in terms of hours in planning process. Many projects begin as way too ambitious and need to be scaled back to something doable, and one way to do that is to get people to think in terms of hours.

One of the difficulties that arises is the possibility of someone proposing a trivial project. What is the standard for rejecting something trivial?

Stop picking on the Spanish Inquisition!

I once referred the head of the physical therapy clinic where I was being treated for an injury to the Spanish Inquisition. I told her I thought she would do very well there. Her response was, "All my patients tell me that!"

How do we know that the instinct to engage in adoptive behavior by these male penguins is evidence of gayness? The article does not describe any other behavior that would be clearly homosexual. I don't know how hetrosexual penguin couples have sex, but unless these two male penguins tried to have sex with one another, I'm not at all sure that I would call the reported behavior gay.

This is copied from a story in a UK paper. This is entertaining at several levels. It also raises some interesting questions.

Occasionally one hears arguments for gay rights for humans based on observed behavior in other animals taken to be "gay" behavior. One wonders if this sort of behavior really reflects homosexual preferences among penguins, or perhaps simply an imbalance in the male/female population in the enclosure. That is, would these penguins resort to preferences for females if there were more females around?

________________________

Gay penguins expelled from zoo colony for stealing eggs are given their own to look after following animal rights protest

By Caroline Graham

Last updated at 4:13 PM on 15th December 2008

A pair of gay penguins thrown out of their zoo colony for repeatedly stealing eggs have been given some of their own to look after following a protest by animal rights groups. Last month the birds were segregated after they were caught placing stones at the feet of parents before waddling away with their eggs. But angry visitors to Polar Land in Harbin, northern China, complained it wasn't fair to stop the couple from becoming surrogate fathers and urged zoo bosses to give them a chance.

Who's the daddy? The segregated penguin couple, right, are seen here in their own enclosure quarrelling with another male over stolen eggs

In response, zookeepers gave the pair two eggs laid by an inexperienced first-time mother. 'We decided to give them two eggs from another couple whose hatching ability had been poor and they've turned out to be the best parents in the whole zoo,' said one of the keepers. 'It's very encouraging and if this works out well we will try to arrange for them to become real parents themselves with artificial insemination.'

Wildlife experts at the park explain that despite being gay the three-year-old male birds are still driven by an urge to be fathers.

'One of the responsibilities of being a male adult is looking after the eggs. Despite the fact that they can't have eggs naturally, it does not take away their biological drive to be a parent,' said one.

One campaigner who did not want to be named welcomed the move and said: 'It wasn't fair to stop them becoming parents and keep them apart from all the other birds just because of the way nature has made them.'

Last month zookeepers said the couple were removed from the group not because of discrimination, but so as not to disturb the colony during hatching time.

See link below. This is right up there with PETA protesting BSA's Fishing merit badge.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/74932/Eco-warriors-snitch-on-beavers-for-illegal-logging-

Our district provides EBORs monthly on a fixed predictable schedule (second Tuesday if I recall correctly). Depending on the number of youth needing boards, multiple boards may be arranged, but they all meet on the same evening. We are fortunate in that a local attorney who is a scouter makes his offices available for this. The district will arrange emergency boards on short notice if unavoidably necessary. I know that because I have sat on one such board. I like the idea of a fixed schedule of monthly boards because everybody involved can plan around that.

As GW comments, there is an international system for protection of trademarks known as the Madrid Protocol. There may also be bilateral treaties between the US and specific countries, just as we have bilateral tax treaties. You are still subject to local law, but filing with the World Intellectual Property Office (Organization?) eliminates the need to file in every single jurisdiction for those countries participating. Link to United States Patent and Trademark Office below:

http://www.wipo.int/madrid/en/index.html

The article linked below is fairly long for online material, but it is a very lucid explanation of how the financial crisis developed. It was also reproduced in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week.

There is much much more that could be written and that will be written, but this is a good place to start.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-madness-of-crowds-13180

The link below is to an article in the Sacramento Bee about retribution within the theater community against one of their own who made the mistake of contributing $1,000 to the Yes on 8 campaign. So much for tolerance of different ideas.

http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/1390055.html

I concur with all the opinions that state that an adult can wear a jamboree patch for a jamboree in which the adult participated as a youth. Look at the knots we can wear for youth awards.

While I do not have a patch on my shirt, I do have a large patch on the back of my red wool jacket for the 1957 jamboree at Valley Forge.

LNT principles also impact on cooking practices in other ways. One thing we used to do when I was a scout was "bread on a stick". All this requires is a little bisquick in a ziplock bag, an open fire, and a green thin piece of wood. That third item is the hard part. We would usually cut some small saplings or pieces off of a bush, clean off the bark, taste the bare wood by licking it, and put the dough on the stick. Somehow I don't think my trekking pole would do well for this use.

Two weekends back I set my tent up on a patch of something that adhered to the bottom of my tent. Further I had left my plastic sheeting ground cloth at home. When we broke up camp I did not want to roll up the tent with this stuff on it. I think it might have been some pitch off of the pines.

Anyway, yesterday I used one of several competing products to gently remove the stuff. I used a product called "Goo Gone" which is a petroleum based product. The tent itself seems to remain unharmed.

What other approaches have people used to deal with this kind of problem? Any problems with damage to the tent itself?

You really should talk to your son before doing anything. If he decides he wants to stay with the troop, then you should probably stay with the troop, if only to watch out for your son's interests. If he is ready to move one, then by all means the both of you should move on.

There are good "second career" options for adult volunteers who believe in and enjoy scouting, even after their offspring age out or drop out. Of course you would have to be careful to avoid being too creepy without a son in the program.

According to Joe Biden paying more taxes is patriotic. According to Obama, McCain and Palin are promoting "selfishness" when it comes to tax policy.

How many people participating in this forum really want to pay more taxes?

I became involved as a trainer seven years ago, partially as a response to some of the unsatisfactory training I had gone through earlier in a different district in a different council. That training was under the old syllabi, but I remember telling myself at the time, "I can do better than this." It does require another level of dedication to do it right. You should expect to be asked to help out.

One of the early major cases in trademark law involved Coca Cola. The courts decided that there was only one Coca Cola, but that there were generic cola drinks that could incorporate the word "cola" in their brands. Accordingly we have Pepsi Cola, Royal Crown Cola, and Coca Cola. I could see these disputes moving to some similar resolution.

Whatever happened to the "spiral scouts" organized a few year's back? Did BSA go after them as well?

I wish that I had seen this thread earlier, but I have been traveling.

I have to come down on the side that the priority consideration has to go to the welfare of the troop, not what may or may not be a good thing for any particular adult volunteer.

I don't know what the minimum age is for being a merit badge counselor. Perhaps there is a role for this young man in this capacity. Perhaps getting the young man into a venture crew would be a good intermediate step.

As others commented, everybody is different and a direct contact role is not best for everyone. I have not been around this young man but I have been around some asperger's youth. Erratic behavior is common with these folks and few outgrow all of this by their magic 18th birthday. One has to ask oneself, would such a person be an asset or a liability to the troop? Would I want this person leading an outing in the back country? There are plenty of adults without disabilities who would flunk the second question but can still contribute. From what little I have read in this thread, I would guess that a normal ASM role is not the answer for this young man at this time.

It is too bad your troop only does car camping. Perhaps having the wrong gear is an excuse on the part of some of the boys and parents for not taking up more challenging outings.

I concur with the suggestions that have been made:

1. Get rid of the cots. Sleep on the ground, even when car camping.

2. Move to two person tents capable of being backpacked.

3. I do not understand your objection to floors. It is not just the things that might crawl in, but also those that might fly in. Keeping mosquitos away is more than just a luxury. Likewise with ticks.

4. Similarly I do not understand the objection to zippers. I have never had a problem with a zipper on a tent and do not know of anyone who has had such a problem.

5. Another objection to large tents is that their large foot print requires more space. Smaller tents can be sited in more situations.

6. Yet another objection to large tents is vulnerability to wind.

Our troop does not own tents, and we do not encourage the use of large tents. Most people are equipped with and use back packable tents for everything we do.

A good tent should have a floor and a decent rain fly that covers the entire tent. The part of California we are in experiences a lot of rain sometimes and we want to have everybody properly equipped.