packsaddle

Yeah, isn't it GREAT!!!

You're at low elevations. Filter out the heavy particles with a coffee filter and then boil it. That will kill all the viruses and drive off many of the organic contaminants. Won't do a thing for heavy metals. Most likely, neither will a carbon filter although the carbon would adsorb some of the organics.

Vol_scouter, this is an aside but sort of on topic (it connects to the education aspect)...anyway I thought you'd get a kick out of it. One of the scouts from this unit (he earned Eagle) graduated a couple of years ago blah, blah, blah, and is pursuing his Ph.D. in physics. I just learned that he is pursuing his research for this degree at the LHC in CERN. So here's the punchline: if the earth gets gobbled up by a man-made black hole, an Eagle just might be responsible. That is just WAY cool!(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

When I as CM, the pack I served, as a matter of blanket policy, left matters of religious faith to the families. This requirement fell into that category. We decided that persons outside the family should not poke their noses into the religious beliefs of any family. And interestingly, all the families seemed to like this approach. It's almost as if they valued their privacy or something.

I'll add to the response to this one, "From World War II through the 1980's, the science journals were dominated by USA researchers. That is far from true now." This is one of those comments that asks for several responses. First, that 40-or-so years was a time during which the US published many of those journals, many of which expanded or even began during that time. With the economic successes of globalization, such journals have grown in many developing countries which previously had little such activity. As a world society, this is a good thing. Countries like India and China and Brazil recognize the relationship between research and economic success. My congratulations to those success stories and condolences to the dolts who don't understand it. Second, if you go back BEFORE World War II, and examine older scientific literature (actually fairly easy to do now online), that same literature was often dominated by other countries back then. The relationship between science, innovation, intellectual activity and socio-political-economic factors is a strong relationship. In response to the comment, however, I ask: Do you think the cuts to education, research funding, etc. are going to IMPROVE the status of the US in the world scientific community? These things seem to cycle. If you had looked to the literature going back, say, to Copernicus, you'd see dominance by different nationalities at different times. Heck, for that matter go back thousands of years and see the dominance by the Arabs and the Greeks. The history is still being discovered but the Chinese, too, had some innovations independent of what we think of as 'Western' discovery. More recently, Russia, for example, had some of the best mathematics and genetics research in the world. But their political and social situation allowed for the decline of math and explicitly destroyed genetics as part of an overt pogrom, driven by political ideology. Any of this sound familiar? Germany had a brain drain before and after World War II because of the social, economic, and political situation for minorities who represented an important segment of their scientific community. The United States hit its stride around the time of Sputnik (I'm one of the beneficiaries) and now with people like those in the Tea Party demanding devastating cuts to education, we're on the downside of the cycle, probably not to change direction. What do you expect to be the outcome in an anti-intellectual social and political atmosphere? To expect anything else but decline is disingenuous. So yes, as Beavah notes, the US is still a popular destination for international students. That trend is slowing some as well because in some fields, India and China and Brazil, for example, offer opportunities that are as good and cost less. For that matter, I have advisees who, to save money, go overseas for at least a semester or two. Over the last few decades, what I see in many institutions is that we've cut them to the point that most of the resilience is gone. I think we're edging toward the failure and elimination of some, perhaps many, of these institutions in the next decade or so. Oh well.... All this is a predictable outcome of policies that the Tea Party seems to promote. And I'm wondering why anyone from the Tea Party would engage in hand-wringing over it....seems like a success story like this would be cause for celebration and joy.

Where is it that the article claimed to be anything OTHER than an opinion piece? Duh! So that's his opinion. Are you saying that you think that the Tea Party does NOT want religion to have a prominent place in politics? What do YOU think most strongly distinguishes the Tea Party from the rest? And why do YOU think that?

Actually, it was about the Tea Party and purports to contrast the basis of Tea Party support with conservative issues. Moreover, the bottom line of the article (if you had read it, BS-87) was their claim that the strongest relationship was with the goal of involving religion in politics. "Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics."(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

That's right, Scoutfish. Play it safe and spend the weekend with us, at least get to higher elevation. During Hugo, we had friends from Charleston stay for weeks while they tried to clean up and recover. Their house was damaged but at least the family was safe. When Andrew hit, we had friends from Florida. The wind is deadly but the storm surge may be more damaging. During Hugo, we had a coastal laboratory that was practically untouched by the wind but the surge lifted and moved the entire 2000-4000 sq ft building off its foundation and left it crumbling off to the side. All of the equipment was ruined, $$$millions. But untouched by the wind.

Just noticed this interesting article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/opinion/crashing-the-tea-party.html?scp=4&sq=tea%20party&st=cse "So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do."

Was the Darth Vader gargoyle damaged? I hope not.

Wow, Eamonn, I hope you never get angry with me. But in an attempt to test you, I'll respond to this: "Any professional who isn't bring in enough money to cover his salary plus a whole lot more isn't worth keeping." You do realize, don't you, that this might be contrary to the spirit of leadership training that some of us argue about? I guess I didn't expect idealism to come from someone in your line of work. I argue that it is difficult to find ANY such administrative type leader who qualifies under your criterion, not just in scouting. I openly refer to them as 'percentage parasites'. They don't actually produce any kind of product and the best we can hope for is that they won't stifle the rest of us in the process of supporting their worthless carcasses, maybe once in a while actually help make things easier (not holding my breath). The reality is that their success is measured by their ability to get OTHER people to do this for THEM, measured in $$$, any way they have to. It thus may be unrealistic to expect them to sully themselves with actual scouting. To use a phrase which has little contemporary meaning anymore, the way to 'break this dog from sucking eggs' is for enough of us to stop selling popcorn. In the real world, these guys derive their power from positions in which they can control the lives of the subordinates. As volunteers, the only source of such power is the guilt trip you describe. It only works as long as we are susceptible to the guilt. We need to recognize that THEY are the ones who are on the dole. So the answer may be to treat them the same way some of us in these threads would treat the indigent. Cut off the popcorn sales. They'll be forced maybe to find legitimate work instead. Have a nice day.

I agree with Beavah on this with respect to the need for real justice, but there's another component to the argument that should be especially troubling, even to those who do want to stop with legality. If the wrong person is convicted, the criminal is free....to continue....and you gave him a 'pass'.

Scoutfish, is there supposed to be a difference between the two ends of this sentence? "You can try to win the battle but lose the war, or you can take a defeat in the war and win the overall battle." Just asking....

They're ignoring him because, like you Beavah, in comparison to the rest of that 'figure quelconque', he looks like a 'liberal'. Sorry, I just couldn't resist. (can you hear the maniacal laughter all the way up there?)

Look at it like this: your MiL was rewarded with lower taxes because instead of doing actual work for an income, her investments which gave her even more money also created more jobs....in India, China, Malaysia.....

The cats might like another brand better for the litter box. I'm not sure how the goat turds would go over. I'd probably still buy them though, as Beavah noted. 'Coins' was a figure of speech, meaning a LOT of them.

I'm with you Eamonn. I hate popcorn too. I think we've both commented on this topic in the past. I think the stuff smells like urine, in theaters I'm wondering if everyone around me wet themselves in fear or laughter. It makes lousy cat litter and the only way to make it taste better is to soak it in butter and salt (aka Southern Allspice). And once each year I hold my nose and fork over some coins to cover the obscenely-inflated prices when a cub scout stops by the house to sell it. The cats, they seem tempted to go on the carpet but then relent and use the popcorn anyway, pitiful beasts.

Bart, I think your message is correct. I'll take off my black hat now and replace it with a white one....my observations of youth today indicate some of the most sincere, hard-working, and intelligent youth I've ever seen. I think that we all form our 'view' based on a rather limited sample of the overall population and woe to anyone who bases that 'sample' on what they see in the media. So for every view based on that segment of youth who do not perform up to our expectations, I think I can show large numbers of youth whose outlook is bright, optimistic, and expect to do the hard work for the future. In short, they will become the leaders and for the most part, I think they're as good as we were, probably better. P.S. if you're thinking about those Carlisle Tire commercials in Boys Life, I think I remember those were for bicycles. They were almost as big as motorcycle tires though. Remember the Buster Brown shoes?

BadenP, I think Simpson and Bowles would disagree and I think that while they weren't perfect, they offered the best approach so far. And everyone ignored them. Alan Simpson has expressed his disgust in many interviews since they completed their work and he's right to feel that way. We paid for a bipartisan plan and got one that could actually help. In rejecting their work we have agreed that we aren't really interested in a solution. We have agreed to do nothing instead.

Closest thing I can think of for this region is Gingrich, but you already know about him. Smart, very good historian, and willing to do almost anything to promote himself. It's all about him. At the risk of slandering a magnificent group of animals, he's a 'snake'.

Beavah, I guess I'm the epicenter of the doom and gloom bunch. I'm not saying this mess can't be fixed. I'm saying that we won't do it. We had turned all this around at the end of the Clinton administration. I remember well the arguments about the Bush tax cuts. They argued that the projected surpluses should be returned to the people through tax cuts, not used to pay down the debt (as suggested by Clinton). The same people who clamored for those tax cuts are today fighting to keep them and (ironically) arguing for fiscal austerity to eliminate the deficit. These people are not sincere. They do not care about your reasoning. They have the ability to block any approach to a solution if they choose to and they are doing it. With this latest legislation, they can achieve across-the-board cuts and all they have to do is nothing. All they have to do is make sure that more legislation does not pass. And that is what I predict will happen. Frankly, after your rundown of the predictable effects of what I think will happen, you might want to give in to the temptation to join my view. I saw the deception of the Bush tax cuts when they were first passed and now I see the same deceptions at work. I really hope I am wrong about what is happening. But I wasn't wrong about the Bush tax cuts. And my gut is telling me, for the same reasons, that I'm not wrong about this. Please, show me where there is reason to be optimistic.

My favorite scene was when Olivia stepped out of the fire...AHHOOOOOOOOO!

BadenP, I tend to agree with what you say, except for that part about the heretofore unknown 4th branch of government, the Administrative Branch. C'mon, the bus is off the cliff. Finger pointing is all that IS left. We're not going to do anything else....but the view is breathtaking.

Tampa Turtle, you know...I keep hearing stories like that one...and over all the years, including the years as a TA, nothing like that even REMOTELY happened to me - EVER. I have no idea how I would have responded to such an advance but the glaring absence of anything like that has always allowed a question to simmer in my mind...what manner of insult is THIS? That I have never had such a situation...EVER? And now as I approach the end of a last career, my greatest fear is.......that after I die my wife will sell my guns for what I told her I paid for them. Oh well.....priorities!

Oops, I made a mistake. I should have written: "We make the token contribution" or not "and (still) feel good about it."