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I believe that Hunt is correct. The idea is to eventually catch up with all the volunteers in the system when national initiated the criminal background checks. Submitting a new form will trigger that. The new form will also have the social security number for the adult member that had never been requested before.

I am confused by some of the earlier posts. I don''t think that forms are required every year. That just does not make sense to me. Only on change of position or taking on a new position, e.g. unit commisssioner, outside your unit.

As far as physical exams go, we require these only if adults are participating in the outdoor program. If you are just a merit badge counselor for Family Life for example, no physical required. If you want to go to summer camp or backpacking, the physical is required.

I am well beyond the age where Class IIIs are required, and I thank my lucky stars that I have gotten annual physicals just for BSA purposes. I might not have bothered otherwise. Several years ago my doc, in addition to doing standard blood work, starting ordering PSA monitoring as well. As a result prostate cancer was caught in an extremely early stage and guess what? I''m still here!!!

Living in a suburb of a major metropolitan area I use rapid transit almost every day just to get to work. I also used rapid transit when we lived in Oak Park outside Chicago and in the Washington DC suburbs in Virginia. Having said that, I too object to the level of subsidies for little used services. In Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay Area we have a county run bus system whose buses run mostly empty.

Many folks see public transit as a panacea for a variety of ills, including global warming allegedly caused by humans. Good public transit renderes positive benefits but I doubt if many systems would pass any basic market test based on real usage.

One of the positive aspects of owning a home in California is the cap on property taxes passed by the people in 1978. Taxes cannot exceed one percent of assessed value without local voter permission.

There are two scout camps on Catalina Island off the coast of Southern California. These are Cherry Valley and Emerald Bay. I believe that they are both on the landward side of the island where there would not normally be much surf, but they are probably worth checking out. Emerald Bay is run by the Greater Los Angeles Council. I don''t know who runs Cherry Valley.

Ohio Scouter:

Can you give the complete citation for the book?

The electoral college and the process for selecting candidates are two different subjects.

Going to a more truly parliamentary system has a great deal of appeal. If you eliminated the two year terms for the House of Representatives and treated it as a "house of commons" for lack of a better phrase, you could select the prime minister out of that house. You might preserve a presidency for ceremonial purposes. The primary benefit of going to a prime minister coming out of the legislature would be that it would make the parties more responsible. Right now there are serious disconnects between the conduct of the legislature and the executive and it does not seem to matter who is president.

One "reform" that should be avoided is going to a proportional voting system where parties put up slates and get seats based on their shares of the votes. This is the Israeli system and it too gives too much influence to fringe elements.

We probably got better candidates out of smoke filled rooms than out of the current primary system. The primaries make both major parties too susceptible to their more extreme activists, as these are the folks most likely to vote in the primaries.

I have been involved as a BSA trainer now for six years. My original motivation derived in part from my dissatisfaction with the training course that I had gone through some years earlier (then called Scoutmaster Fundamentals or something like that). It apalls me that they did not ask for evaluations at your event. How will those running the program know what to do better the next time?

My district actually collaborates with two other districts and together we put on very effective, on time programs. The trainees consistently give us high marks, and occasional helpful suggestions that we adopt. Some people at the council level apparently dislike the fact that the three districts collaborate but they are afraid to mess with success.

I wish you well. Sounds like searching out a new troop is your best option, or even starting a new troop if you can find a charter partner and feel up to it.

As noted in an earlier post, the electoral college was created to deliberately give more weight to states with smaller populations. I don''t see that as a bad thing. It forces politicians, particularly those running for president, to be attentive to the issues in the less populous states, not just a few big metropolitan areas. Living in the lala land of California, it suits me just fine that the smaller states have bigger voice. I would hate to see the things that California is attempting forced down the throats of the rest of the country.

I think another reason for the electoral college was that the writers of the constitution did not trust direct elections all that much. The house of representatives was the only part of the federal government to be elected directly by the people. The senate was originally chosen by the legislatures of the various states until that part of the constitution was amended. I forget which amendment that was, but I don''t think that happened until after the Civil War.

I am a global warming skeptic. Recently it was revealed that NASA had erred in the way it was calculating temperatures over the years and was ultimately forced to correct the data. No publicity for that though.

I look at Gore''s film as another propaganda piece in the same league as Michael Moore''s output. I don''t think Gore has stooped to Moore''s level, but it is propaganda nevertheless. I don''t mind Gore''s film being shown in schools as long as the competing views are given equal time.

Hero is the wrong word. I should have written "main character." I don''t think the movie is trying to make a hero out of him.

My wife and I saw this movie recently. The critics tend to love the movie but I find it somewhat disturbing. I look at the story as that of a narcissist who foolishly puts himself into a situation where he eventually starves to death.

The movie portrays the young man''s parents as pretty awful people and the primary justification for the hero walking away from everything. Even accepting the awfulness of the parents as factual, I find it hard to think that the hero''s solution is praiseworthy. The most interesting parts of the movie are his adventures in the lower 48 states. There are some interesting characters and fine acting presented there. The hero walks away from those people too. (I keep referring to the main character as the "hero" since I cannot remember the name of the character.)

I have not read the book on which the movie was based and do not intend to do so. Apparently it is all based on the diaries he left behind.

Frankly there is one episode that I doubt actually happened. He is shown buying a used kayak and making it through the Grand Canyon alive, by himself, with no apparent experience in white water. I wonder.

Why do the critics think that a movie that celebrates stupid reckless behavior that causes great pain to others who did no harm, namely his sister, and the eventual death of the main character brought on by his own stupidity, is a great movie?

I am a bit confused. Just how many dogs are currently in your household?

I don''t particularly care for spiders either, but the big ones in North America are likely not a threat to humans. In fairness to spiders generally, one has to recognize the benefits they provide to humans by keeping the insect population down.

Here in the San Francisco bay area October is tarantula mating season in two large nearby state parks, Mt. Diablo and Henry Coe state parks respectively. There are even festivals of humans to celebrate the season. So far I have passed on those celebrations and intend to continue to do so.

The big hairy spider went up the water spout....

A grey area indeed. If I were the district guy signing off on the project I probably would have told the scout to find something else. But I am not your district guy and I would think that the district signature is sufficient. I suppose there is a possibility that somebody at the council office may object when they review the final package. You might want to confer with whoever at the council signs off on the eagle application just to be sure, even though I doubt the council would reject the application as long as the district approved it.

I have always believed that the requirement can be met by serving in more than one position. I don''t know of anything official to contradict this view.

Concerning Edith Wilson, I think that experience, along with Eisenhower''s heart attacks late in his presidency, helped lead to the idea of the XXVth amendment.

I recognize many but by no means all of the names of female heads of state in the prior posts. I think the jury is still out on Merkel. Indeed, unless there is an active election, we ought to reserve such judgments until the person is out of office.

Peron''s widow was another person I had in mind in my snarky comment about spouses of heads of state. She was a disaster for Argentina.

OGE,

Responding to your second point, I don''t know if the US is ready for a woman president or not. Since WWII there have been at least two elected female leaders of democracies, namely Margaret Thatcher and Gold Meir, who were quite effective. It is important to note that both of these women ran and gained office on their own merits. If I were required to place a bet on who will be the next president, I would bet on Hillary Clinton, not because I agree with her or think she is demonstrably competent as an executive, but just because she is in the best position to win. But that election is well over a year in the future and anything can happen in the meantime.

When one considers people like Madam Ceasescu in Romania or the various spouses of presidents in Argentina, the idea of a spouse gaining power just by being a spouse is scary.

OGE, I have to totally disagree with you about Carter. When he first left the presidency and confined himself to Habitat for Humanity I thought he was setting a wonderful example and I myself felt that he was our best ex president at that time.

His more recent behavior qualifies him as our worst ex president ever as he actively works against the interests of the US. Like any other citizen he has a right to his opinion, but up until Carter and Clinton, our ex presidents of both parties have had the good sense and graciousness to not criticize their successors, particularly in front of foreign audiences. Carter''s biases against Israel are so obvious and profound that several members of his own board of directors of his foundation in Atlanta quit in protest rather than continue to lend their good names to Carter''s activities. Carter''s intervention in the nuclear issue with North Korea in the mid 90''s made that situation much worse and more dangerous rather than better. Carter should just shut up and go fishing.

I think your last paragraph, perhaps unknowingly, identifies the reason women have taken on more different roles in scouting. Where are the men? If men were stepping up to the needs in greater numbers along with the women we would all be better off. I have observed the hostile attitude towards female leaders other than den leaders from time to time, even from moms of boys in various troops. Unfair and unwise.

I remember a controversy over ten years ago in Southern California. There was a small troop with all female adult leadership in one of the towns near Santa Barbara. These were largely single moms stepping in to provide a scouting program for their sons. They had to sue the council to get to go to summer camp. The council refused them because the camp had no facilities for women (lame excuse). The adverse publicity alone was enough to turn the situation around.

What do cows wonder about besides graves?

We elect youth leaders twice a year, in September or early October, and then in January or February. This makes for unbalanced terms, but there is much less for the elected leadship to do in the summer.

While the position of any candidate on the issues of the day are obviously important, the ability of a candidate to function as an elected executive is also important. I have suggested that governors have probably the best background, yet Jimmy Carter, a former governor of Georgia, was one of the worst presidents this country ever had.

To the extent that a candidate had to deal with challenges in prior positions, we should evaluate how the candidate dealt with those challenges. Coming back to the management of natural disasters, it is obvious that both Mayor Nagin of New Orleans and Governor Blanco of Louisiana totally failed in their responsibilities in dealing with hurrricane Katrina. This is not to excuse the failures on the part of the feds, but the first and deadliest failures were at the local and state levels. Would anyone seriously consider Blanco as a viable presidential candidate based on her performance? I would hope not, even if I agreed with her 100% on all the issues of the day.

I have to agree with those who do not want to turn away youth because they may not be able to afford a complete uniform. One partial solution to that is to operate a uniform exchange whereby parents donate uniforms their boys have outgrown to a pool that younger boys can use.

The comments about General Patton are interesting. When I was in the US Army in the 60''s the uniform regulations specifically allowed general officers (brigadiers and above) to customize their uniforms. Patton was a notable example in WWII and many general officers that I observed directly also customized their uniforms somewhat.

Another notable example in the American civil war was General George Armstrong Custer. For all his failings, and even barbarity, as an indian fighter, Custer was one of the best, and youngest, cavalry commanders in the untion army in the civil war. He was jumped several ranks ahead of officers very senior to him to the rank of brigadier a few weeks prior to the battle of Gettysburg. One of the less appreciated fights in that three day battle was a cavalry fight a few miles behind and to the East of the primary union lines at the same time as Pickett''s charge. Custer led an outnumbered union cavalry force in victory over the much vaunted confederate cavalry led by Jeb Stuart. Custer was noted for his flamboyant uniforms, but in his instance they served a real purpose. One of the things he did when he was promoted was have a uniform made for him of his own design. The reason was that he wanted his own troops to be able to easily identify him in battle and therefore follow him.

Re Volting!!!

Here is a completely different cow story for you.

In the past we held our camporee in a large park. This park was so big and primitive that the park district actually let some ranchers keep cattle there on a grazing lease. One spring we were setting up an event on Friday afternoon that required use of a 100 foot steel measuring tape. The camporee was the next morning. The cows were curious and there were no scouts around to frighten them away. They managed to break the tape in two places by trying to eat the tape. We shooed them off and did our best to put the tape back together with masking tape, but they came back and got themselves tangled up in the steel tape again. When we shooed them off again, they took the remains of the steel tape with them. We gave up for the evening and I rushed to a hardware store to buy a new tape so we could complete the task first thing in the morning. These cows must have been suffering from a serious iron deficiency or something. Just goes to show that when you think you''ve seen just about everything, there is another surprise right around the corner.

Merlyn,

The way I framed the thread at the outset was to not consider stands on issues. Your view of Jeb Bush does not surprise me and you are certainly entitled to your view. But coming back to performance as an executive in a major emergency, would you agree that Jeb Bush''s record is pretty good?