Fat Old Guy

"I have to agree wholeheartedly with Rooster on this one. But I don't think it has much to do with gender. I, for one, would rather go to war at age 45, 55, 65, or 75 than send my hypothetical 18 year old son OR daughter into a war. " Hmmmm. . . noble on the face but foolish underneath. With the exception of a few, like KS who makes his living being ready to hurt people, most of us are aged, slow, overweight, and ailing. 18 year olds are fast, less prone to injury and more convinced of their own immortatlity. Even in the military, the 45 year olds usually aren't on the front lines leading charges, they are in the back using their brains. I wouldn't like my son to go off to war but he has a better chance of survival than I do. Actually, his chance of survival is pretty high because he'd spend most of his time in the brig because he didn't listen.

"Don't modern training requirement preclude the WWII model of giving a guy a rifle, 6 weeks of basic and putting them on a ship?" That was the WW I model. As I understand WW II, at least in the Pacific, the Marines spent months training for invasions. Look at the amount of time we spent in England getting ready for the invasion of Normandy. The draft served to control the flow of bodies into the service, not get them to the front quicker.

"My wife has two black belts and is working on a third." If need three belts maybe she should try suspenders. =:-o

"Maybe it's not good math," It's not bad math, it's bad physics. Akin to "Free gift". Good luck marketing your new system of anchors. Will you call them "Janeways" in honor of your internet handle? :-)

oops!(This message has been edited by Fat Old Guy)

I find it interesting that women can opt for a combat position but men have no choice. Women still have the option of getting pregnant and getting sent home. My sources in the military told me that during GW-I many women were sent home pregnant.

"FOG (that's not me calling you FOG, that's some guy named "New Jersey dude") " Hey, that's okay. There's only one denizen of this forum who may not call me FOG and he knows who he is. "I think I'll run right out and buy a pack of smokes" You've been taking lessons on how to misconstrue from Bob White, haven't you. I don't advocate smoking. I don't like the smell of cigarette smoke. However, I do expect scientific honesty in making scientific claims.

New Jersey dude, I'll tell you what my wife's oncologist told me. With few exceptions, they avoid saying anything "causes" cancer because the correlation isn't high enough. In other words, if smoking caused cancer most smokers would get cancer. Smoking only increases your risk. I don't smoke but I do expect scientific honesty.

My son has a nifty stove made by Markill that uses those small but expensive tanks of iso-butane/propane mix. I'm wondering how much cooking one can do with one of the small half pound tanks.

I read that thread. Boy were there a lot of unhappy ranters who aren't even impacted by the whole thing. The thing to do is to err on the side of safety. If memory serves, SCCA requires that safety harnesses have a breaking strength of 20,000 lbs. Now, if my frail human body is subjected to enough G's to break that belt, I've been turned into jelly. Parachute cord is rated for 550 lbs and they use many to tie a chute to a person. Why not use cords rated for 100 lbs? Safety. If you're only dealing with your own safety, feel free to cut the margins but when you're setting the standards for others, go with the max that you can get away with.

le Voyageur, I don't know much about climbing but I do know that your units don't make sense. A kN, a kilonewton, is a unit of FORCE just like a lb. A Newton-meter or Joule, is the metric unit of energy as ft-lb is the unit in 'Merican.

I don't know that we worry about calling the references since most of the people listed are registered with our troop to begin with. The committe chair would ask me to call him to ask about Bob Smith and then he'd call me to ask about Bob, then we'd get together to compare notes. I guess that we're in a lucky situation.

"Even the manufacturers say this is a product and activity that should not be used in front of minors," Did you believe the citizens of Jonestown when they said that they were happy?

If smoking caused lung cancer then my grandfather would have died of lung cancer instead of passing in his sleep in his 80s. If smoking caused lung cancer then every smoker would have lung cancer. Saying that smoking causes lung cancer is as scientifically inaccurate as saying that you can sail off the edge of the earth if you get out of sight of land. Smoking is a factor in lung cancer. Smoking increases your risk of getting lung cancer. Smoking doesn't cause lung cancer.

We have both UoS and Pow Wow at different times of year. UoS as I recall offers Cub Scout, Boy Scout, and Venturing degrees. Both are well attended, if you don't register well in advance, forget about getting a class that you want.

"we should believe PM now because they have been forced to admit they were lying then." Forced to admit they were lying? That sounds like coerced confession which gives the proceedings all the ear marks of a kangaroo court.

They were lying back in the 50's and 60's, why should we believe them now?

"Odd practice, wouldn't it be simpler just to extinguish the cigarette and then put the whole thing in one's pocket?" You'd then wind up with bits of burnt and unburnt tobacco in your pockets. That wouldn't make the laundry people happy.

" Concerning the "necker-chief", one scout suggested wearing it as a 'dew-rag'." It makes an excellent dew-rag. I often use one to wipe dew off of gear in the early morning.

"When I became Scoutmaster, I thought that this was not right. So I handed over the leadership of the troop to the SPL and the PL's. Other then ensure safety I stood back and did little or nothing. It didn't work. " Was the difference between this stage and the stage that worked the training in leadership and program? BTW, I view the term "coach" as the "instructor and guide" more than the current "coach" being "he who tells you what to do." Which what coaches did before they stalked the sidelines, yelling plays out to the players.

I had a question for which I needed an authoritative answer so I called the council office and explained what I was seeking. I was told, "You need to talk to your DE." DE's not there so I leave a voice mail. Then I send a follow up email. A few days later, I leave another voice mail followed by another email. No answer. Call the council office again, explain what's going on and ask if there's someone other than the DE to talk to. Nope, gotta talk to the DE. It isn't just this DE. We've had three DEs in the time that I've been a Scouter and none of them return calls. Is this part of the normal DE M.O.?

Having an adult on hand is no guarantee that the "responsible" person won't freeze up. I was at my daughter's school when a child with a bad cut came into the "nurse's office." The "nurse" isn't a nurse but paid adult with some degree of training in first aid. However, this person just started jabbering about the blood and took no action. I heard what was going on because there is a window between the school office and the nurse's office. I was restrained from helping because I'm "not a school employee". Neither the secretary nor the principal would help so the gym teacher was sent for. So much for having a trained professional on hand.

"How many of you out there use proper English or hear it spoken very often?"

"Okay, now you're picking on my typing." If that's what it was, I apologize. I find many trying to make a singular version of the word. "I know I read in some of the new Tiger materials that former Tigers can continue to wear the orange star or combine that year onto the yellow Cub star." I've heard that as well. BSA had to do that or be faced with supplying orange disks for the next 70 years. "So your opinion, FOG, is that it is the pack's option to round up the half year of Webelos II tenure or to just drop it?" That's what I read once and it works for me. It makes sense to me as he was a Cub Scout for more of the Scouting year than a he was a Boy Scout. "I also have a stash of orange backs I'll be willing to part with for the bargan price of $999" Hey! I might be interested.

" I have read this several times now and I don't know what 'field stripping a cigarette butt' means." It is a technique that is taught in the army, to eliminate the glaring white butts from the ground. To field strip a butt, you remove the filter and paper, leave the tobacco in the grass and put the paper and filter in your pocket. The tobacco becomes part of the ground degrades, the paper eventually makes it into the trash. Although a highly skilled tracker could find the tobacco residue left on the ground, it does conceal the fact that you were there, smoking, in a combat situation. In a garrision situation, it means that there aren't any butts left on the ground to be picked up by the grounds keepers.