eisely

This from the Investor's Business Daily:

"President Obama's nonrecess "recess appointments" can't be excused as over-the-top electioneering. This president has crossed over from socialistic extremism into lawlessness and, perhaps, impeachability.

The U.S. Constitution established a strong presidency so strong that even one of the most esteemed founding fathers, Patrick Henry, worried it would be kinglike. But this week saw a president exceed even those broad constitutional powers because doing so fits his election-year narrative of a "do-nothing Congress" so well.

Now we have the makings of a banana republic, where the rule of clearly written constitutional law is compromised by a ruler's subjective whim.

The Constitution is crystal clear on the recess appointment authority of the president.

"The president shall have power," Article II, section 2 states, "to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session."

The Senate has not been in recess. And Congress' authority over when it is and isn't in recess is no small matter of parliamentary procedure. Rather, it is a power the Framers explicitly bestowed in Article I, Section 5:

"Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days."

Yet Obama on Wednesday, with no recess in effect and against the publicly stated position of his own Justice Department, made four "recess appointments."

The GOP-majority House has been keeping Congress in session, using its lawful power to prevent Obama from steamrolling someone into the CFPB position outside the usual Senate confirmation process because, as House Speaker John Boehner explained Wednesday, "the agency it heads is bad for jobs and bad for the economy."

Some may say these are small-potato government jobs not worth a big confrontation. But if a president can trample the Constitution on these appointments, the door opens for similar abuses of power with Cabinet secretaries and judicial nominations.

As Boehner warned, "The precedent that would be set by this cavalier action would have a devastating effect on the checks and balances that are enshrined in our Constitution."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., until recently agreed with the Obama and Clinton Justice Departments and with just about every other legal expert, liberal, conservative and middle of the road that presidents have to wait for Congress to be out of session three days before legally making a recess appointment.

Now he thinks what Obama has done is great, as does House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Why?

Again, because they think it makes Obama and the Democrats look like they're taking on a mean, obstructionist Congress during an election year.

What Obama, with Reid, Pelosi and congressional Democrats in tow, is really taking on, though, is the Constitution and one of the things that keeps America civilized and free: the rule of law.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., recognizes this as a constitutional crisis in which Obama "arrogantly circumvented the American people" and "fundamentally endangers the Congress' role in providing a check on the excesses of the executive branch."

Obama claims he has "an obligation as president to do what I can without them," referring to Congress.

But the Constitution, which Obama took an oath to preserve, protect and defend, says he can't.

The "I" word I for impeachment might not yet be on Washingtonian lips, but it might be soon."

___________________________

It would not surprise me to see articles of impeachment submitted by one or more members of the house of representatives over this, but it won't go anywhere - the actual election is now basically ten months away.

It is correct that Bush made some recess appointments, but the senate was actually in recess. Perhaps Bush should not have done so, but nobody questioned the constitutionality of his appointments. This senate has not been in recess. That is why I put "recess" in scare quotes in my initial post.

The entire business of recess appointments shoud probably be removed from the constitution through amendment. When the constitution was written the ability to make recess appointments was incorporated for very good reasons. With today's ability to convene the legislature quickly and frequently, the original rationale is clearly obsolete. As we have now seen, a president who cares not one whit about the constitution has now taken it upon himself to ignore the constitution for purely political gain.

For the record, I find the language in the defense appropriation bill about detention of US citizens even within the the boundaries of the US by the military quite troublesome. I wonder if Obama will use this as an excuse to round up opponents and critics and ignore habeus (sp?) corpus too.

Our troop uses troopmaster on a dedicated laptop owned by the troop. Since everyone in the troop has access to rosters anyway, I think the concern about information lingering on desktops is somewhat overblown.

Anyway, the laptop is a more ideal solution and laptops are not nearly as expensive as they used to be. It is the care and custody of the advancement coordinator who brings it to all troop meetings. Boys can report their work regularly and it is input into the files immediately.(This message has been edited by eisely)

President Obama's recent "recess" appointments clearly violate the constitution. Anybody worried about that?

In my capacity as district eagle project reviewer/approver I have in the past told some of the eagle candidates who have come before me that one of the life lessons they are getting out of their project is how to deal with a bureaucracy. This is still true.

Mad Max:

There is another step that is being overlooked in this discussion. That step is the council review to determine completion of all requirements prior to the EBOR. Even if no EBOR ever sees a completed project workbook, I would expect the council office to still demand it. In my experience, the council review has been pro forma, and not concerned with the quality of the project per se. Rather, have all the i's been dotted and t's crossed.

Although the entire project process imposes somewhat heavier burdens on units, that is where the burden belongs. Many units don't help their eagle candidates at all, other than rendering signatures when require.

Scoutnut is correct. One can set up an account, but you won't get any credit for it as a registered volunteer until the data is complete.

You will need to know your BSA membership number in order to set up an online account. Assuming you are a registered adult volunteer, the number is on your membership card. If you do not have it contact your committee chair who should have the chartering information.

I would definitely talk to the SM ASAP to ascertain if the SM is aware of the time pressure, and if so, why does he want to deny a POR to the scout. There may well be more to this than appears to meet the eye.

Get Outdoors misses the point of Introduction to Outdoor Leader Skills. No one expects proficiency out of inexperienced trainees.

Like Seattle Pioneer, I participate as a trainer for OLS twice a year in a three district combined effort. The people who go through it, both experienced and inexperienced, all widely praise our course. The training staff also picks up ideas from the trainees over time.

Some straightforward lecture is unavoidable, but we make our training as hands on as possible, with numerous live demonstrations.

Some suggestions:

Try to set up round robins. Among other things you will get smaller groups at the various demonstrations and they can get closer to the action.

We struggled with first aid for awhile. It is difficult to make it exciting. We focus on (1) the basics required of the scouts,(2) those things which occur with greatest frequency, and (3) those things which are most life threatening.

We do set up a short orienteering course for which we have a map and combine that with a nature hike. This is not a timed event, but an opportunity to practice map and compass skills. The nature staff station themselves at some of the control points where they can discuss and point out various things of interest in the vicinity.

We also offer an optional segment on star finding after all the other Saturday evening evetns are done. Between light pollution and fog we often end up canceling this, but at least we try to make it available.

We gave up on Friday evenings a long time ago. We start early Saturday morning and do not finish until about 4:30 PM on Sunday.

We routinely attract trainees from other districts, and even other councils from time to time.

Good luck.(This message has been edited by eisely)

Returning to the question as asked....

The new advancement guidelines may have something to say about this and I confess that I have not picked those up yet to study them. Be that as it may, in my mind the SM has a great deal of latitude in handling the SMC for eagle. I always viewed signatures and initials in the scout's handbook as a backup record system, in the event the troop records are incomplete. Since we use Troopmaster on a dedicated laptop, it is easy to print out a report of all the information that the troop has recorded. As a scoutmaster I would want to see that, copies of any final blue cards that have not been processed, and the completed workbook for the eagle project. If these things were not available I likely would not schedule a conference.

In my view, when the SM signs the eagle application, the SM is essentially certifying that the POR requirements have all been met in a satisfactory manner. After the SM signs eagle application the SM essentially loses further control over the process. Even if the POR requirements have not been signed off in a handbook, the SM should know where an aspiring eagle stands with regards to this requirement.

On Novembefr 22, 1963 I was in Charleston, SC preparing to depart for my first permanent duty station in Germany. I was at a car wash getting my car cleaned so I could turn it in for shipment when the word came over the radio. I don't recall reacting in any particular way to the event since I was very focused on the things I had to accomplish to be ready to board the airplane the next day. Further I was not a fan of JFK so I did not feel any sense of personal loss.

The country did go into shock, but that did not delay the flight schedule. By the time we finally arrived at Frankfurt am Main, a "holiday" had been declared for federal employees as part of the official mourning. Fortunately enough local civilian employees realized that there were planes still arriving that needed to be dealt with. I probably would have watched some of the ceremonies had I had access to a TV.

Last June, we put together a 50 miler on the Sacramento River above the City of Sacramento. Put in at Red Bluff. Biggest problem was identifying places to camp as most of the land is either farmland or off limits habitat. We were able to put eight people in four canoes, with an adult in each canoe. River was running very fast. On our last day we covered over 20 miles in about 4 1/2 hours, including breaks. Maximum speed obtained (per GPS) exceeded 10 mph on occasion.

Eagle92,

Not to worry. All can be explained. Unfortunately the space limitations here will not allow a full explanation.

As far as I know, all maps published by USGS are published oriented on true North. Hence the need for declination when working with a compass.

The UTM system establishes "grid North" within its grid zone. The globe is divided into 60 grid zones at the equator. Within each grid zone, grid North never changes. One will occasionally see civilian maps with declination diagrams showing grid North in addition to true North and magnetic North.

What you think may be crooked lines are are simply grid north lines that are diverging from true North, the closer you get to the poles and the further East or West you get from the center of grid zone.

Latitude and longitude are sometimes referred to as "geographic coordinates" as distinct from UTM coordinates. While any point on the surface of the earth can be accurately described using the geographic coordinates, the longitude lines are not parallel lines and converge on the poles. Hence it is difficult to use the older geograpic coordinate system for certain applications; for example, gunnery problems in the military. The UTM system provides a set of Cartesian coordinates that can be used to describe and locate any point within a grid zone. The North-South grid lines in the UTM system are parallel and do not converge.

In our council there are three districts that provide training on a collaborative basis and we maintain a web site for training materials. Go to the link provided below. It will take you to a pdf file that I created for map and compass skills. Go to page 9 of this file for a more detailed explanation of these coordinate systems.

http://www.3districttraining.org/OLS/MapAndCompass/Map_Compass_materia_Oct18_2011.pdf

I have to agree that the use of the word "trust" here is probably not the best choice. But I do not have an immediate alternative.

There will always be an issue in any volunteer organization that uses paid help to perform various tasks at different levels. By definition the paid help has built in differences in priorities that volunteers do not have. Does that mean that scouting should not use paid help for anything? Clearly not.

In general, the closer the paid help is to actual units, the more I trust them simply because I see more of them and tend to know them by first name.

Part of the solution is having the right volunteers at the board of directors or executive committee levels monitoring the performance of the paid help. At the council level, selecting the right SE is extremely important since that individual will set a tone and create an environment that influences everything that happens.

Beavah,

I think that YP standards are about more than just protecting the institution and have benefited youth who might otherwise have been targeted. The mere existence of such standards would discourage many pedophiles from even attempting anything. I also have always advocated that every parent should sit through the YP training which is now accessible on line, even if that parent is unwilling or unable to volunteer in any capacity to support the organization. All parents should be aware of the standards at all times. This will help them understand and identify situations that are questionable.

The existence of YP standards has not prevented all abuse within scouting and never will. The organization is just too big and there are too many situations that arise that create potential openings to a determined pedophile. But the standards have operated to protect just more than the institution.

In reading about the Penn State scandal, one is forced to the conclusion that BSA's YP standards have not only protected by and large both youth and adult members, but have also served the institution very well. The fact that Sandusky was able to set up his own charitable organization to serve youth and use it to serve his own perverse goals shows just how vulnerable youth serving organizations can be to ill intended pedophiles seeking to identify and exploit targets of opportunity.

It is too bad that Joe Paterno and others have fallen from grace in this scandal, but they all had numerous opportunities over the years to do the right thing and failed. Maintaining the illusion of Penn State was more important to them. From everything I have read, Paterno is likely to escape criminal liability, but some of those above him in the university hierarchy may not be so fortunate. Too bad. They brought it on themselves.

If I am not mistaken, Brunton was purchased by Silva several years ago. I do not know if any Brunton products are made in the USA today.

In fairness to Brunton, they have historically made some outstanding products. It is just their current basic orienteering compass offerings that I don't care for.

The original Brunton "pocket transit" was designed by Mr. Brunton (actually a Canadian) over 100 years ago and is still a competitive product for high accuracy work.

Silva is a Swedish company. There is a Finnish company called Suunto that makes compasses of comparable quality to Silva.

Regarding purchasing compasses in bulk, you may be able to get some kind of discount through REI. Our council owns a set of Silva orienteering compasses we use for training. I suspect it is something one has to order. I think there are 40 compasses in the carrying case.

Here are my personal tips for purchasing orienteering compasses:

1. Make sure it is liquid filled.

2. Make sure it has a full set of orienting lines in the bezel. Some Brunton compasses do not.

3. Do not purchase a compass with a tinted baseplate. You will want to be able to use this compass with a map, and tinted baseplate will distort the colors on the map. Baseplates should be clear plastic. Some Brunton compasses have tinted baseplates.

Look to the future. Some of these boys will use these compasses when they go into a scout troop. You do not want to short change them on the usability of this compass for more sophisticated applications than they may encounter in cub scouts.

My wife and I were in Washington DC last week. Among other things we went by the Viet Nam memorial on Friday. There was a huge mob of people there. Every time I visit the wall I look up one of my comrades in arms, Lieutenant Robert Van Patten.

Lt. Van Patten was one of several newly commissioned lieutenants assigned to our battallion when it was activated in October of 1966. We deployed as a unit to Viet Nam in May of 1967. In November of 1967 Lt. Van Patten was killed trying to retrieve some injured GIs in a fire fight. For this he was awarded the Silver Star and of course, a Purple Heart. He was a very competent officer, a really nice guy, and a hero. I cannot say that we were close but I always admired him.

We must never forget the people like him who gave up all their tomorrows so that we could enjoy ours.(This message has been edited by eisely)

Our troop meets on most Tuesdays and the cutoff for most overnighters is usually the Tuesday before the outing. For some things the cutoff is much earlier, particularly where serious up front cash is required.

Depending on the nature of the event and available seating, we are sometimes lenient when the outing is a day trip of some kind and no food has been purchased.

I think I finally figured out what Obama really meant with his campaign theme from 2008, namely "hope and change."

He was anticipating that few of his ideas would actually work and he would be forced to repeatedly change his policies and hope the new policies would produce the desired result.

I have used the franchise model in many of my discussions with parents and new scouters, because that is exactly what the chartering process is.

One major difference between McDonald's and scouting though, is that McDonald's pays secret shoppers to verify consistency on a sampling basis. I can't imagine BSA doing something like that.

fred8033,

To respond to your question, if a boy has legitimately completed all the requirements, the mere fact that he drops off the map for a period of months is not, in my mind, a reason to deny advancement. Further, there is no reason for not automatically advancing the boy if he completed his BOR, even if the boy does not show up at a court of honor to receive the recognition.

Beavah's point, as usual, is well taken. Where is the SM in all this? Of all the youth facing adult leaders the SM has the clearest responsibility for monitoring the boys in the troop. If a boy disappears for a while, that SM should be following up with the boy and his parents.

fred8033,

Denying advancement to any rank is a serious matter and should not be done lightly. Particularly so as regards the eagle rank.

In the situation that you describe, if the only problem was lag between cleanly completing all requirements and applying for the eagle, I don't think there would be any grounds for denying the eagle to such a scout.