GaHillBilly

Well, Beavuh, it's nice to know where you stand: " But outside of the urban slums, yeh don't quite see the same tone of anti-intellectual culture that seems to be da stock of the old south. " My Southern accent doesn't always show, and the last time someone said something like that to me, he was assuming that I was also a Yankee refugee, stranded in the land of Dixie. I let him wax on fulsomely, in the same manner as you were, before I dropped the hammer on him. Your faith in those with higher degrees is rather touching. Does that faith include Yale's Pete Singer, who takes the implications of a purely mechanical universe a bit closer to their logical conclusion? What about the atheist . . . Wiccan . . . feminist . . . post-modern English teacher with PhD who tried to teach my son a thing or two about logic? Or all the PhD mathematicians who laid the ground work for your beloved "credit default swaps" and other bizarre financial instruments that played such an important role in our current economic meltdown. I think the facts warrant the conclusion that education can give ideas power. But, as any good Southerner knows, power is like a gun, and the effect depends on where you are aiming when you pull the trigger. Much of what is worst about our society right know comes from those most educated . . . because of where they aimed. Education, like money or strength, increases a man's power. It does not increase his goodness. Oh, and don't you think it's about time that a man with "few degrees above undergraduate" drop the faux 'dumb slob' dialect? I realize that you're able to pull the wool over the eyes of us poor dumb slobs from the South. But don't you worry that some of your fellow Yankees will think you are a poser? GaHillBilly

Ho, "Merlin the King" (aka "Merlyn le Roy); You write: " You're as bad as people who say evolution is a hoax because if people evolved from apes, why are there still apes, or who say the moon landing is a hoax because space travel through a vacuum is impossible." Given your bent toward fancy and fantasy (as evidenced by your nom de Forum), I have to ask: Can you identify ANYONE who says either of those things? Or is this just another of your fancy fantasies? I'm pretty close to the evangelical community, and some of the weirder things believed by fundamental creationists, and I've never heard either one. GaHillBilly

Hey, Eagle92. I think if you're reread my post, I wasn't knocking OFGs; I was knocking OFGs without skills! But BSA National has just decided to use "fat" as a surrogate measure for unskilled and unfit. Obesity is a serious problem all on its own for many, including myself! But, it's not the core problem with Scouters, even if it's a contributing issue. If BSA National really wanted to do something, they could return Wood Badge to its roots as a SKILLS development training program. But, that's not going to happen. There is far too much inertia in the form of legacy Scouters from the skill-less 70's and 80's who'd have to give up all their frou-frou colored knots and and their large rodent awards, and actually learn how to start a fire or use an axe or explore an area BETWEEN the trails! To be completely fair, in the past year, I've talked to a couple of Scouts from the 30's and 40's . . . and Scouting was apparently NEVER all it was 'cracked up to be'. Still, in those days a fair percentage of Scouters would have had significant skills just from growing up in rural areas. I'm beginning to think that the troops people like to talk about have often had at their core an SM with real skills, a personal love of adventure, a genuine concern for boys, and natural leadership ability AND the time to apply all those to Scouting. That has probably always been an unlikely combination. GaHillBilly

OGE, you're asking the age-old question: "Have things gotten bad enough, so that it would be worth it do something drastic?" I think the answer would be yes, from the boys' view, But I'm afraid it would be "No!" from the Scouter's point of view. Scouting seems to have confused "management", which is done from behind, with "leadership", which is done from the front. The District can be 'managed', the Council can be 'managed', even BSA National can be 'managed'. But, boys who are Scouts need to be led. And, the *real* issue is functional skill, not excess fat. Most fat guys simply cannot lead from the front, because they lack both the skills and the stamina. But, some can, and they'd do fine -- though they'd do better if they were thinner! Still, the issue is functional skill and stamina, not fat per se. There are at least three critical areas required for a leader: 1. You must have the skills that allow you to be in front. 2. You must have the stamina and/or discipline to stay in the front. 3. And, you must have the personality that allows you to lead and others follow. None of these can be acquired in a weekend, whether it's OLS or a combined course. And, they certainly can't be acquired when the trainers don't have the skills themselves! I can see a path to real solutions locally and on a small scale. But, I can't even imagine a path to real solutions nationally. GaHillBilly

On several levels that have nothing to do with political viewpoints, Drudge is nothing like The Daily Kos. It's not often somebody does something really novel or unique. Bill Gates did it, when he turned MS on a dime, and made IE the focus of the company overnight. I'd bet that's the fastest strategic move by a big company ever. Google did it, when they set out to index the Internet . . . and did. Alta Vista was good in its day, but never had the vision or tech. My boys find it difficult to imagine living in the world I did at their age, with a single immediately accessible reference source (World Book Ency.). Drudge did it too. Prior to Drudge, the Wash Post / NY Times / AP / CBS News cabal essentially dictated what US news was. I can remember in high school being puzzled about why Newsweek and Time Mag always seemed to cover the same stories. US News & WR had some original content. But, basically everybody else covered the same few stories . . . and ignored everything else. Drudge, almost by himself, broke that system. You may hate his politics, but what he accomplished was amazing. If the NY Times & sons news cabal had been conservative, a liberal Drudge could have done the same thing. But, since the NY Times was liberal, Drudge had to be conservative. There would have been no point to a liberal Drudge. I wouldn't be surprised if, when he writes his autobiography, it turns out he personally trends liberal, but took Drudge more conservative simply because that was where the niche -- and it turned out to be a HUGE niche -- was. What he did -- and does -- is mostly 'mine' the back pages of the MSM for buried stories. In his early days, that's almost all he did. Even now, I think he links to the NY Times and W Post more than any other source. But, he 'un-buries' stories they buried. And, especially with the W Post, they hate him, but can't live without him. I've seen suggestions that he alone accounts for 50% of their Internet traffic! 'Climategate' is a great example of what he does. Without Drudge, the CRU emails would almost certainly have been ignored by the US MSM. Before Drudge picked it up, I'd seen a thread on Slashdot, and a few other geek sites. But, that would have been it. But, Drudge noticed and started picking up the UK Telegraph articles by the guy posted earlier. Fox noticed it on Drudge, and saw it as a piece their audience would like and started running a bit. Then USA Today ran a small piece. Then, and only then, the NYT and WP started running articles. I don't watch TV, so I don't know if it ever made the jump to TV news. But, once the NYT and WP picked it up, Drudge immediately started linking those articles, driving huge numbers of readers to those quite liberal papers. Unlike Kos or other content creator / aggregators, Drudge hardly ever offers content he's written. He used to do so a little, but he's almost completely stopped. And, ironically, much of his so-called "conservative" content takes the form of links to articles on liberal media sites! More recently, he largely created the ASM or blogosphere as a media force. Again, Climategate offers an example of how he injects content from those sites into MSM discussions. Besides Google, and Drudge, only Wikipedia seems likely to have that sort of impact over the next decade. By comparison, Kos is just another media content generator and aggregator. GaHillBilly

Again, thanks all. I'm finding this very helpful and instructive. Beavah wrote: "Da "brand identity" of Scouting is dorky and uncool. Ridiculous uniforms. Kowtowing to fat, foolish adults. Lots of lectures and rules. Boys aren't rejecting our values in the least - they would be Harry Potter or Eragon or da modern G.I. Joe in a heartbeat. They're still ready to fight for right and freedom, same as always." That sums up the conclusion I'm reaching. And, it explains why I'll provide info on nearby troops home schoolers could enter, but focus on Lone Scouting. I was amazed at how much more the young guys were 'ready to go' than the senior Scouts were. But, I think Scouting's often like many of the churches I've seen: it vaccinates you against the real thing! What's surprised me even more have been the results of brief interactions with my wife's elementary school kids. Those cub-aged kids are info-sponges -- a few show-n-tells with live snakes and birds, and those kids were transformed into amateur naturalists. One year, they found, tracked, watched AND protected a resident blue-tailed skink for 6 weeks, and would warn off other kids who would arrow in for the stomp or snatch and grab. I've begun to suspect that the 'arts and crafts' thing that seems to be a big part of Cub Scouts is a seriously wrong direction. Eagle92 wrote: "You need to stress the MAYBE for the dads. I'm a TCDL, and I am surprised at the number that have never been camping before ever. Over 50%." Hadn't thought about it quite that way. I'd focused on the lack of skills the Scout leaders had. But, Scout leaders come from dads, mostly. And those figures are probably right, now that I think about it. It's sort of slap-your-forehead obvious: if you don't give the Dad's a place to learn the skills first, a lot of them will bail, rather than be 'dork Dad' in front of their sons. Obvious as all get out, but something I'd completely overlooked. That's a really, really important point for me to keep in mind with what I'm 'fixin' to do. A lot of Dad's would like to be more involved with their boys . . . or at least they feel guilty about NOT being involved. But, Scouting may scare the crap out of them, because they know they don't have the skills. If I don't give them a way to get the skills, I'll fail, and end up camping with my son, several boys, and a gaggle of moms. (Nothing wrong with moms, but home school boys are generally not lacking in contact time with their moms.) I'm going to have to ponder this. Very, very timely info, tho. GaHillBilly

@ packsaddle: Thanks -- that was an interesting summary. I file it away -- stuff tends to become un-findable on the Internet over time, and now that terabyte drives are cheap, I can save and index everything I find interesting. I did note that it was a wind energy association document, so I assume it was best-foot-forward data for wind power. As such, it wasn't what "vol" was talking about. @ vol: Still would like your data too, if you can lay hands on it, or find a link. @ eagle92: Thanks for the UK Telegraph link. I'd missed that one, even though that guy has been the primary originator in the MSM. Drudge of course pushed it front page in the US, but the Telegraph seems to be the one who's been lifting the info out of the ASM, and then Drudge posts it. @ voy: Ok, I understand now. You didn't grow up with English as your native language. That explains a lot! (Lots uh foks thank anyone from roun heah didunt grow up speaking rite, either.) GaHillBilly

"At any rate, your argument hinges on the idea that sexual predation is a major issue among gay youth when they are with their non-gay, same-gender friends." Not at all, as I think you already know. My "argument hinges on the idea that" there is no functional difference between letting a male hetero in a girls shower room . . . and letting a gay guy in a guys shower room. Y'all are acting like idiots. I don't think ostriches ever actually do put their heads in the sand. But y'all -- it wouldn't be safe to take y'all to a beach. So many suffocated SMs would be hard to explain. I guess y'all have never wet yourself, trying to get your junk back in your pants because a hulking gay gay had occupied the urinal next to you, and was leaning over to get a good look! Good for you! I certainly didn't find it an enjoyable experience. American guys traveling alone in Europe in the 70's were the potentially weak victim that Euro-gays pursued and tried to coerce. It was not a fun element of that year, for me or for other guys who experienced the same. But when you try to imply that gay guys in the shower aren't going to behave like hetero guys in the girl's shower, you are just convincing me that you prefer PC dogma to facts. I would not have guessed how determined many here are to deny the obvious. What is particular amusing, in a depressing sort of way, is that several here who are all "Evolution's the answer!" in a sneering sort of "I'm smarter than you way" are, in the realm of gay behavior, determined to overlook the sociobiological implications of putting stronger youths with younger youths they are attracted to. Stronger males -- in many mammalian species, including -- tend to take (force, rape, coerce) sexual activity from weaker victims to which they have easy and safe access. There is ZERO reason to suppose that this sort of behavior which occurs between senior football 'studs' and freshman cheergirls, or between male Army sergeants and female privates, or between stronger male prisoners and weaker ones . . . will not occur among Scouts. But, our fearless evolutionary males here stand firm for evolutionary truth, till it becomes inconvenient, and then they hop in step with the latest PC double-think. You only have to look at the recommended texts on the GLSEN site to discover that active gays think gay guys coerce others into sex: they describe their own experiences being coerced. Again, you only have to look to discover that they hope gay / gay sex goes on at Scout camps: they describe their fantasies in detail. But, I'm afraid some of you are perfectly happy to submit some (1%? 3%? 5%?) of your young Scouts to the tender embraces of older gay Scouts who are "just exploring their sexual diversity with their peers". At least, doing that makes you happier than slogging through the incredibly explicit descriptions of what gay advocates think young gays should think and explore and do. I don't know what the actual percentages are. I've seen figures in the Army to the effect that 10% of all Army females are raped at some point during their enlistment cycle. But, it will happen. Some of you are reasonably well read. Have you never read anything of what traditionally went on in just such an older boy / younger boy situation in the traditional British public schools? Where do you think the word "faggot", which used to mean a bundle of wood, got it's meaning? And it's most likely that today's Scoutmasters will do just about as well as those headmasters did. I have NO confidence that many SMs will forcefully confront out of bounds behavior. What I've seen suggests just the opposite; that they will put their head in the sand in order to avoid acknowledging that the Eagle or Star or Life Scout THEY trained is so warped. I thought I'd grasped the worst in Scouting, when I finally wrapped my mind around the skill-less-ness of most of the leaders and the dishonesty of the advancement process in the majority of troops today. But, I'm realizing that I'm wrong. There's even worse stuff I hadn't understood. Still, I'm finding this discussion very educational and stimulating. So, that's good. GaHillBilly

"The total energy generated in the expected lifetime of the windmill is approximately equal to the energy required to fabricate and construct the windmill." Vol, you don't happen to have access to a source document or link on that, do you? If valid, that's a very cool statistic. But I don't think I have to tell you that no one advocating "Go Green, All Green!" would believe it without support. GaHillBilly

HiLo, you are posting utter nonsense! You wrote, "Putting a gay boy with a non-gay boy does not make it any more likely." This is logically identical to having said, "Putting a girl with a boy does not make it any more likely." . . . which is simply idiocy. If that were actually true, YPT would only apply to adults. Gern, I can make up stupid insults too, but there's no point. We're not on the playground anymore. Lisa, since I posted another explanation did occur to me: psychological denial. HiLo seems to be an example. I should have thought of it -- I've done more PC rescue work for 'friends' than I ever wanted to do, and I have never found a PC used by a teenage boy that didn't have porn on it. At the same time, every single parent I dealt with denied that that could be happening -- usually, it was "because of their cousin" or friend. (You have to tell them: free 'pron' = malware, Trojans, & viruses!) So, I'll acknowledge that (denial) as another plausible explanation. GaHillBilly BTW, about now, some of you are thinking, "Oh now, did that Best Buy tech find the porn on my machine when he recovered the hard drive or removed the viruses?" Answer: "Yeah, about 5 minutes after he turned it on." Unless you wipe the drive, it's virtually impossible to remove it, if it's ever been there.)

Lisa, I didn't say what you said: "But, I'm coming to realize that many gay advocates, outside this forum, wish no such thing: they plan for, and actually prefer, that teens be sexually active and 'experimental'. I'm not sure that all are completely conscious of this, or of the contrast between their goals and those of others here. What I've noticed, HERE, is that the idea of Scouts having sex together, at camp or on a campout, whether it's homo or hetero sex, seems to fall into the 'ho-hum' category for the gay advocates. If I'm right, they may be 'downplaying' the negatives because they don't SEE them as negative. I'm not sure about all this . . ." Please note the phrase "outside this forum", and the last phrase "I'm not sure about all this". However, if you want to know WHY I think that what I wrote MAY apply to some of the pro-gay folk here, there is a reason though I haven't stated it before. Sexual hazing and sexual activity -- if it occurs -- is most likely to occur on outings and especially in sleeping or showering situations. This is why most non-family group activities have ALWAYS segregated by sex. The assumption behind that segregation was simple. It was presumed that if you put people who may be sexually attracted to each other together in a sleeping or showering situation, sexual activity, consensual or not, will occur with a significant frequency. And, the solution was simple: keep people who may be sexually attracted to each other apart, in bathing or sleeping situations! In more naive times, it was assumed that this was as simple as keeping boys and girls apart, because the boys wouldn't be attracted to other boys, and so on. Nobody here (or anywhere) has challenged the validity of either the assumption or the solution. So, presumably everyone here agrees that if you put kids together in a sleeping or bathing situation, some of whom are sexually attracted to each other, sexual activity will occur. OK, that's what every has agreed to, either implicitly or explicitly. So, to keep things straight, let's use the term "sexual segregation" to refer, not just to keeping boys and girls apart, but to keeping ALL Scouts out of tents which contain people they are attracted to, OK? Now, to the controversy. => First, it's been asserted that taking gays camping is not a problem. => Second, it's been accepted that "sexual segregation" is the correct way to prevent sexual misconduct. That immediately produces a conundrum: how can you carry out "sexual segregation", when ANY two people present may be sexually attracted to the other? + you can't put boys and girls together for obvious reasons. + you can't put boys and men, or boys and women, together for all the reasons that are covered in YPT. + but, add in gays, and NOW, you can't put boys and gays, because the gay boys are attracted to the hetero boys, regardless of what the heteros feel. + and, you can't put gays and gays together for reasons that are just as obvious. All that's left is "one Scout, one tent", and yet the gay advocates are NOT advocating that! So what's left, for our gay advocates? 1. Sexual segregation is impractical once gays are allowed, which they know. 2. They do NOT advocate the impractical "one Scout, one tent". 2. In the absence of effective segregation, gay activity -- welcomed or not -- will occur with some frequency. (JUST LIKE hetero activity -- welcomed or not -- would occur if you put boys in the girl's tent.) 3. Knowing these things, they STILL want gays on Scout camping trips. Therefore, it's reasonable to conclude that the idea of gay sex on Scout camping trips doesn't disturb them nearly as much as it does me or the parents I know. There could be another explanation, beside my conclusion. But they haven't offered it, and my conclusion remains a reasonable, if unproven, one. GaHillBilly PS. Some will be inclined to retort there are ALREADY gays present. And I will agree. I would have suspected it before, but after seeing some excerpts from RECOMMENDED teen materials on the GLSEN.org site, have to acknowledge that it obviously has occurred. However, what's described in the excerpts there is gay boys finding gay boys and mixing it up in deep secret. And that ALL. Why? Because under current regs -- just like in the Army -- an accusation of gay activity, even if it's 'he said, he said' is going to bring everything to a screeching halt, and almost certainly result in a fast trip home for everyone involved, and probable immediate expulsion of any ID'd gays. Fear of severe consequences can often (not always) restrain behavior that would otherwise occur. So, just like in the Army, a few gays may find each other, but most will either remain celibate, or keep their sexual activity far, far way from either Scouts or the Army. Just like in the Army, that restraint will vanish when the severe consequences are replaced with acceptance. The consequences were recently graphically illustrated by the punitively coercive homosexual environment that was tolerated at the US Embassy in Kabul, till the gay security staff managers were outed, by an audit.

"Not to worry, I've seen plenty of Eagles who couldn't do the basics such as hunt, track, stalk, skin, butcher, make leather, smoke meat, plant a garden, can, sew, cook, raise meat animals, chop/split wood, work a forge, harness or shoe a horse, fell trees, lay out a plat, make molasses, buck hay, or communicate in Morse Code... " Wow, Voyageur, after all your talk about Indians, I would have thought you and those around you had real skillz. I guess you are a fan of 'virtual Indians'? Does that mean that all your facts about Indians are just 'virtual facts', too? Merlyn, I judged by tone and content, not # of edits. So, it was an assumption on my part, one which might be incorrect. However, there are two articles in Wiki that I mostly authored. There have been MANY minor edits since I wrote them a couple of years ago, but they are substantially unchanged (or were, when I last checked them several months ago). GaHillBilly

Miller/Urey, not Miller & Levine. The ref was to an experiment described in textbook(s) not a particular textbook. Here's a Wiki: [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey_experiment ] The article seems be generally accurate, but have been largely written by a fan-boy who minimized current problems. Elsewhere, in the same texts that contain Miller/Urey you can usually find info on early atmosphere conditions, and they aren't the Miller/Urey conditions. GaHillBilly PS: Sneering at 'idiots' not present in the discussion doesn't really further the discussion. I could sneer all day long at SMs and ASMs who can't box a compass, orient a map, start a fire without a "fire starter", distinguish a pileated from a red-headed woodpecker, quickly tie a correct bowline or chop wood without burying the axe in the ground. And, I'd take 10:1 some of THOSE folks ARE in this discussion. (In fact, all the Scout leaders I've encountered would fail at least one of those rather basic outdoor skill tests.) But what purpose does it serve?

HiLo, gotta a link to uniforms? I Googled, and got to the Scouting Australia site, but couldn't quickly find a link to pictures of your current uniform. I could have looked longer, but I'm lazy, and if y'all's site is at all like the US site, finding stuff can be real hard. GaHillBilly

Thanks for the info, skeptic. I remember 'old' drive-in camping, though not the first time I went (June 1955, b4 I was a year old!). And you're right. Drive-in then was much more remote than hike-in is today. That area now is the province of hunters, and 24-pack swilling off-roaders. Not fun. And, yeah, I'd forgotten that bit from "Follow me, boys". Of course, that movie does bring something interesting. In the 50's and 60's, 'nerdy' was not as 'nerdy' as it is now. I wonder, if the extreme importance on fitting in is also one of the negative outcomes of the 60's & 70's? Certainly, that was the generation when kids became markedly estranged from their parents. Today, it seems somewhat different. At least in home school circles, many kids are very close to their parents. But, I also see another kind of closeness, where the parents seem to adopt their kids values, rather than the other way round. In fact, that was one of the issues in the last troop we were in. GaHillBilly

"We don't have a problem with boy on boy sex." Wow! Do you really mean that? GaHillBilly

Dates, guys! Please, I'm trying to timeline this thing. Kudu's not speaking for himself currently, but I'd guess he might suggest that Scouts as nerds got a big boost after the '70's switch to teaching "management" rather than outdoor skills. I'd be real interested to know if Scouts were nerdy in the 50's and 60's, too. GaHillBilly

"Are there really many people today who actually believe that dinosaurs and people existed at the same time?" Sure . . . just like there are people who believe in a 'confluence of spiritual power in Sedona' or in re-incarnation or that Al Gore is an honest man! But, I gather that there may actually be some ambiguous fossil evidence that could be interpreted to support the man + dinosaur conclusion. You also have to keep in mind that most mainstream journalists LITERALLY have no idea what's wrong with the statement, "due to acid rain, the stream's pH had risen to 8.6". So, when they react with horror to Palin's supposed man+dinosaur statements . . . it's only because someone has clued them into how they are SUPPOSED to respond. On their own account, it's very unlikely that they remember (or ever understood) the succession of extinctions that are essential elements of the current "evolution story". GaHillBilly

"Well, I was one of those nerds/geeks in HS" Not to be nosy, but how long ago was that? (I'm curious how long Scouting has been 'nerdy', and also, whether it's nerdy in all countries.) GaHillBilly

"I strongly believe that advocates of the various homosexual social goals tend to HEAVILY DOWNPLAY the negative aspects of homosexuality. I think we know them, or many of them, and yet choose to ignore our reservations simply because no one wants to be perceived as 'mean' or 'unfair.' " I think that's true (the downplaying) in part. But, as I've read through some of the pro-gay-Scouting posts here, and have started collecting data on the top US gay advocate (Kevin Jennings, asst. US sec. of ed.), I've begun to change my mind. I'm beginning to suspect that pro-gay advocates do not view teenage participation in sex the same way I do. I'm not sure that the majority here are consciously planning to help their own kids be virgins at margin, but it's my guess that most 'wish' or 'hope' they will be. But, I'm coming to realize that many gay advocates, outside this forum, wish no such thing: they plan for, and actually prefer, that teens be sexually active and 'experimental'. I'm not sure that all are completely conscious of this, or of the contrast between their goals and those of others here. What I've noticed, HERE, is that the idea of Scouts having sex together, at camp or on a campout, whether it's homo or hetero sex, seems to fall into the 'ho-hum' category for the gay advocates. If I'm right, they may be 'downplaying' the negatives because they don't SEE them as negative. I'm not sure about all this. But if I'm right, it would explain why some of the arguments here seem to fly right past opponents. Each side is assuming that what's critically important to them . . . is critically important to their opponent. I'm no longer sure that's true. At a minimum, the literature coming out of the GLSEN, the organization founded and run for years by Kevin Jennings, not only assumes, but encourages teens to be sexually active. (An interesting side note: apparently, a number of gays either had their first homosex experience in Scouts, or else fantasized about doing so.) Anyhow, it may well be the case that the real split in this thread is between those who, consciously or unconsciously, see Scouts as a tool that helps prepare boys to be a faithful husband to one wife and a conscientious father to one set of children . . . and those who see those goals as unrealistic or unimportant. GaHillBilly

"my point was that in biology today, and to some degree in physics, opportunities are governed, NOT by scientific rigor or skill, but by groveling submission to the current PC notions." packsaddle asked: "GHB, is this your opinion or do you have actual evidence? Perhaps you could be more specific. If you do have evidence, please share. What you just described does not occur in any department with which I've had interactions." It's an opinion but not just mine. It's backed by a number of observations, again not just mine. But it's OT here. However, what I said here triggered some further discussions with my older son, and some book purchases. I may start a thread on this topic later. However, if you want to track that stuff down now (on the physics side, at least) Google for "Not even false" or "Lee Smolin". - About Palin and her dinosaurs & people claims: I do know that quite a few people, some of who supply home-school science books, have made similar claims. They don't appear to be very well founded, but the problem is that the folks on the other side dominate the issue AND the physical sites, and do suppress such things. Some years ago, when trying to get biology texts for my oldest son, I ended up with the attitude of 'A pox on ALL their houses' toward both creationists and evolutionists. If there ARE any 'just the facts, ma'am' scientists on that topic, they don't seem to be publishing. Anyhow, to the non-scientists within the evangelical community, some of the dinosaur & human claims (and other similar bits) seem to be as well supported as secular claims like, say, AGW. ;-) - About religion and science What many folks, even within the scientific and evangelical communities, don't get is that there are two utterly incompatible views about religion and science. The 'modern' view is that science is here, with hard data, and religion is there, with faith. Although not all evangelicals understand it, that view is TOTALLY incompatible with orthodox Christianity. (The RC Church has also dabbled with a similarly bifurcated view of truth, though I gather it's been drifting back from that.) Orthodox Christianity has always -- if not clearly or distinctly -- asserted that ALL truth is God's truth, whether it's from the Bible, the Magisterium, or science. Incompatibilities between apparent truths from these differing sources are understood to result from errors on man's side of things, whether it's misreading the Bible or mis-measuring the data. Now, it is true that, particularly with in American evangelicalism, there has been a thread of thought that says that the Bible provides sufficient information not only for "life and Godliness" (from the Westminster Confession, circa 1600's), but for science and history. This view has been espoused more by preachers than trained theologians, but has been widespread. However, it appears to me that this is fading, like the RCC bifurcated view of truth. (The orthodox view is that, while the Bible may speak accurately of such things, there is no reason to assume or assert 'sufficiency' or completeness.) Regardless, fully orthodox Christianity has ALWAYS asserted that Christianity is about FACTS. As St. Paul notes, if Christ was not raised (physically from the dead) we of all men are most to be pitied (because we are fools). Incidently, this same view of truth is held by all traditional adherents to religions in the Judeo-Christian stream, such as orthdox Judaism or orthdox Islam or even heresies from orthdox Christianity, like Mormonism. This is why it's such a big deal about whether someone has found Christ's body: if they have, all honest orthodox Christians have to abandon their religion. By contrast, all flavors of modernism -- Christian, Jewish, what-not -- have more in common philosophically and theologically with each other, than they do with their nominal 'parent' orthodoxy. The statement, "I could never believe in God like that", is fundamentally modernistic, and is equivalent to the statement, "I could never believe in a GRAVITY like that". As you can see, the statement ONLY makes sense, if you don't think "God" is a 'fact' outside your control or opinion. This is why I've said things like, modernistic religions are more about what you like or what makes you feel good, than they are about what's true. Thus, modernistic religions are fundamentally about what's going on inside YOUR head. Oppositely, orthodox religions are an attempt to deal with whatever God or god or gods who is / are out there. This is also why external 'facts' don't matter to modernists, but are battle-line issues to the orthodox. GaHillBilly

HiLo: "I suspect that the membership slump and recovery reflect several things. Scouts had become very introverted and nerdy looking to outsiders. We got some new chiefs at the top with better media and PR skills, a new uniform - dramatically different, some great TV ads, and some good PR around the centenary" Its OT in this thread, but I'd be interested in knowing how & why Scouting became "nerdy" in Australia. That perception is a huge impediment in the US, but I didn't realize that it transcended national borders. Has Scouting ALWAYS been 'nerdy'? My perception of 'old-time' Scouting may have been warped by the fact that the handful of old Scouts I know are sort of the ultimate in toughness. But, come to think of it, they may well have been perceived as something along the line of 'loner nerds' as youths. Regardless, I'd really like to understand better the association between Scouting and 'nerdiness', if there's interest in spinning off a thread on that topic. GaHillBilly

""You can be that way." Excuse me, sir, but I don't believe you know me well enough to make that kind of value judgment. One of the reasons I gave the caveat of "anecdotal" is because, unlike some people, I *am* cautious of presenting my personal opinions as hard facts." What I wrote was ill-phrased. I should have said something like, "You can adopt that way of thinking about it." or some such. Actually, that doesn't sound much better; regardless, I didn't mean it the way it came across. I was trying (and failing) to say -- in a colloquial manner -- that anecdotal evidence, even when it's intensely personal, doesn't lead to valid statistical conclusions apart from a complete statistical context. And, that citing isolated personal experience sometimes provides a data point, but nothing more. But I'm sorry for your experiences with birth defects. Even if I think it's improbable that TMI was related, I do NOT think it's impossible. And, I do think such problems are to be regretted, however they occurred. GaHillBilly

Dan, my mother followed the same sort of 'reasoning' process. If I told her that I'd read that 3 out of 100 people in Georgia had serious stings over the course of a summer, she'd say something like "That's interesting" meaning of course, "That's boring, but you're my son." On the other hand, if she happened to get badly stung during a particular summer, then there was a "serious problem" that "somebody ought to do something about" (besides dispatching one of us to deal with the particular nest). You can be that way. But it has nothing to do with a reasoned examination of the problem. As I mentioned in the thread about gays, my uncle pursued the opportunity to molest me. Fortunately, he failed, but the fact that he went after me does not in any way change the overall percentage of gays who are also pedophiles. It does, of course, make me wary of gay advocacy groups citing 'studies' that show that almost no gays are pedophiles. That's not unreasonable, so if you want to challenge the data I've linked below, and can do so successfully, please have at it. GaHillBilly "Overall, the pattern of results does not provide convincing evidence that radiation releases from the Three Mile Island nuclear facility influenced cancer risk during the limited period of follow-up." [ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2389745 ] "This commentary suggests that the major source of radiation exposure to the population has been ignored as a potential confounding factor or effect modifying factor in previous and ongoing TMI epidemiologic studies that explore whether or not TMI accidental plant radiation releases caused an increase in lung cancer in the community around TMI. The commentary also documents the observation that the counties around TMI have the highest regional radon potential in the United States and concludes that radon progeny exposure should be included as part of the overall radiation dose assessment in future studies of radiation-induced lung cancer resulting from the TMI accident." [ http://rpd.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/113/2/214 ] "CONCLUSIONS: Thyroid cancer incidence has not increased in Dauphin County, the county in which TMI is located. York County demonstrated a trend toward increasing thyroid cancer incidence beginning in 1995, approximately 15 years after the TMI accident. Lancaster County showed a significant increase in thyroid cancer incidence beginning in 1990. These findings, however, do not provide a causal link to the TMI accident." [ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18300710 ] Here's one that actually supports your conclusions, though the effect reported is weak: "Results support the hypothesis that radiation doses are related to increased cancer incidence around TMI. The analysis avoids medical detection bias, but suffers from inaccurate dose classification; therefore, results may underestimate the magnitude of the association between radiation and cancer incidence." [ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9074881 ] But another study examining mortality from 1979 to 1992 found nothing: "Therefore, it is unlikely that this observed increase is related to radiation exposure on the day of the accident. The mortality surveillance of this cohort does not provide consistent evidence that radioactivity released during the TMI accident has a significant impact on the mortality experience of this cohort to date. However, continued follow-up of these individuals will provide a more comprehensive description of the morbidity and mortality experience of the cohort." [ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10856029 ] . . . and so on. The consensus is that either TMI had NO effect, or else a very small one. The Wikipedia article is consistent with what I found, and have read before, and links some good references. Essentially, some bad maintenance and operational training lead to a system failure which destroyed the plant, but had minimal effect on the surrounding area. There's no evidence that any deaths occurred, either at the time nor later, as a result of the accident or any radiation 'release'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident "As a public service, in 1979 the Eastman Kodak Company collected all the unexposed film that it could locate in the area around Three Mile Island and examined it for evidence of radiation-induced fogging. This would provide excellent evidence of even relatively small radiation exposures, because the film would begin fogging at a mere 5 millirem. Kodak found nothing. As the reputable scientists who have examined the accident since have emphasized, this totally rules out the theory that public exposure was substantially above background." [ http://sovietologist.blogspot.com/2009/03/noisome-falsehoods-about-three-mile.html ] (This is only a blog, and I couldn't find authoritative confirmation of the Kodak film thing, though it's mentioned in a number of places.)

@ DanKroh " I have anecdotal information from various relatives about increased cancer and birth defects among both the human and livestock populations, as well as pictures of interesting mutations of plant-life in the area." Dan, I'm pretty sure you are well enough educated to know how reliable such information is, in assessing actual magnitudes of effects or risks! Some years ago, I did an experiment in social psychology, but just once! It caused way too much trouble to repeat. I've worked with commercial swimming pools of years, and have been very involved in the chemistry and pathology of both the chemicals and of the microorganisms associated with pools. Over the years I've observed many cases where identical conditions (so far as I could measure or determine them) led to very, very different reactions among pool customers. So, once upon a time as a test, I had the head lifeguard instruct a couple of guards on duty -- in a voice audible to pool users -- that we'd put some chemicals in the water that might cause some folks to itch a bit. She was to explain that the effects would be limited in extent and duration, but that they could explain to patrons what was going on, and that if they preferred, they could come back in a few hours. Of course, we had not put ANYTHING into the pool. But, as you might expect, there were some complaints, so many in fact that my little experiment quickly morphed into a "My God, I'll never do THAT again" experience. Tell people that they are going to have health problems as a result of radiation . . . and they will. Some will report pyschosomatic effects, like the pool patrons. Some will report real problems with uncertain causes. Some will report problems that might actually be caused by radiation. But the ONLY way to know for sure -- unless the radiation effects are both medically unmistakeable and statistically massive -- is to do epidemiological studies comparing the Three Mile Island community with other similar communities not exposed to radiation. It's my impression that that HAS been done, and revealed no effect. In fact, it's also my impression that the overall epidemiology of nuclear power vs. coal power has been examined, and that those studies revealed that -- OVERALL -- coal power kills more people per gigawatt hour than nuclear power does. Of course, this does not address the 'locked in your classroom' issue. But isn't that a problem caused by panic and inappropriate response, rather than by nuclear power per se? @ various others I'm all for alternative sources of power, and not even too upset over losing a moderate number of birds to windmills. But, I HAVE seen the math on alternative power, and know that it does not come close to providing enough to maintain anything other than a 3rd world lifestyle. So, I expect those of you who are advocating no-coal and no-nukes to lead the way by giving up your cars (CO2) and by heating your homes and offices to 55 in winter and using no AC ever and installing composting toilets. Anything else is just Al (must have my 10,000sft house in Carthage, TN) Gore style eco-hypocrisy. Of course, I'll also ask those of you who are not eco-hypocrites to please stay downwind on warm days! Even though I'm a hillbilly, I no longer live in a log cabin with no running water, and have become accustomed to people who don't stink so much. GaHillBilly