packsaddle

I realize that we are lucky in this area to have a system that seems to work better than other places. So for that reason, if a crime is committed during a troop activity I would consider having the scout arrested, parents informed, and let this be handled as part of the PTI process in this community (including the CO). I have seen some successful outcomes of this kind of 'shock treatment' and those cases have turned themselves around as a result. Again, I understand that the zero-tolerance approach taken so many other areas would merely destroy the boy's future rather than turn it around but, like I have observed in other threads, I seem to be living in Nirvana compared to the rest of the country. Our system really DOES seem to work to try to address the problems, not just to punish. Moreover, it tends to bring the community together when the boy and his family take to heart the fact that their community cares enough to apply tough love AND it reminds the community as well of their responsibilities to each other. On the other hand, I may not involve the DE or SE or any other scouting types at all. Given their lack of cognitive ability in lesser matters, it would be a waste of time at best. And I suspect they'd be much happier if they didn't have to deal with it. That local option thing again.

There are actually fairly thick reports about the diseases you can get from breathing dust from manure, etc. Some of them are really dreadful and can kill you. I suspect you'd already be dead if those were what you had, though some of the fungal things can cause you to take on a 'carrier' role. Just take this very seriously. I hope you get well soon. Edit: ...and give thanks to the countless generations of life forms before you that helped evolve your immune system...and hope that it works.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

Ryan, NICE!!!

Better get checked for Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome.

Peter Tchaikovsky studied music at Harvard in 1812, a couple of years before he witnessed our nation's valiant fighting men gloriously kicking the stuffing out of the British who made a vain attempt to invade our capital. The Overture commemorates our great victory. (source: The Ronald Reagan book of Fractured American History) Edit: did I mention that pizza was also invented at Harvard about this same time? The income from this patent was the beginning of their endowment.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

I always have the latest one on hand when I'm counseling the few that I do. I don't use them as references but I do read them to know what the boys might encounter there and to be able to compensate with additional explanation or correction if something is incorrect or unclear. Given their relatively low cost, my expectations are low to begin with so I'm not too disappointed. I doubt they go through much of a peer review process if there is any at all.

Similar experience down here only it's about 10 miles and the toll is higher. It gets about 1/3 the traffic needed to pay for itself and the investors are (hopefully) going to lose their shirts rather than the state bailing them out. The private sector insisted that the presence of this road would stimulate development along it and traffic to match. They were wrong.

I've looked around and can't find details about any of the rest of it. If what you quoted is typical of the rest of the program, my primary question would be, "Where is the science part?" The TEM part is clear enough. I am ok with ExxonMobil having a huge influence on this since they're fronting the funding. But while I clearly see the TEM part of the program, the 'S' part seems to be obscure - or absent. Any more detail out there someplace?

Have you read through this old thread yet? Not sure what you're looking for but you might find some ideas there. http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=311522

I suspect that Eamonn well understands the difficulties caused by adults, given his career. I respond to Basementdweller by agreeing partly. I disagree in that not even in the staggered manner he suggested would I accept those additional subjects for the counselor. I am thankful that when I was a boy scout, the MB program was run almost exactly the way it was supposed to. In retrospect, I well-remember the occasional MBC who slacked off and allowed boys to 'earn' the MB with minimal effort. I got one of those, Citizenship in the Community. I also remember well, and much appreciate, the ones in which the MBC was passionate about his field. Being forced to seek out these MBC's whom I had never met, to meet with them multiple times, to be given instructions on what I needed to learn, to be given a taste of WHY they were passionate about that subject, and to be given the chance to take some of that passion or interest for myself...these are the reasons I remember the ones like Religion, or Electricity, or First Aid, or Marksmanship, or Athletics, etc. The list goes on. These MBC's were persons for whom I had the ultmost respect because they were not minimally proficient in the subject - they were professionals. They were expert enough that they made their living from what they did. In every case, these wonderful men who took the time to counsel boys they had never met...were the counselor for only ONE MB. For nearly all of my MB's that I earned for Eagle, I had to find a different, new counselor, a person whom I had never met. The Scoutmaster assigned me to each one and gave me his phone number and address. My parent drove me to meetings. We met on weekends or nights. I was treated to many wonderful stories and experiences. Each one of these unique individuals helped open my life to more possibilities. I remember their faces. I remember their voices. These men really made a difference. I hope they knew how much. It is my regret that I never had the chance to thank them once I realized these things. The few MB's that I had the same counselor for were exclusively those earned at summer camp. Except for the ones on the waterfront and except for marksmanship, they were easily forgettable because those young camp counselors were NOT professionals and they did NOT have any passion for the subject and they did NOT care about anything more than getting past the time they had to spend with a group of boys, some of whom weren't interested in the first place. Sadly, this latter situation is what I most commonly observe at camp today (and summer camp is where I truly see the elements of 'Eagle mills') as well as in some troops where merit badges are 'taught' as part of the troop activities by just a few inexpert troop leaders who think they qualify in multiple subjects (but who would not even qualify as dilettantes). I am thankful that I, at least, derived benefit from a program that was done well. It saddens me to watch generations of boys who haven't and don't.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

Aside from the technicalities over which everyone else can agonize, I'm of the opinion that he had an opportunity to complete this decades ago. He's not a boy anymore. It's over. Time to be a leader and if he wants to make a contribution, use this as an object lesson so that a BOY might avoid the same mistake. It's no longer all about him.

To get past that caffeine headache without making coffee, there is a product called 'Diurex', sold at many pharmacies. It is advertised as a diuretic but in fact the active ingredient is anhydrous caffeine. Each pill has 100mg - about one cup of coffee. Cheap, lightweight, easy. Enjoy.

I'm responding to that part where your advancement chair is seeking guidance from the council and you're just wondering what 'we' think. So here's what I think, given that I HAVE no clout whatsoever. In this district the DE picks the district advancement chair. That person maintains a list of approved counselors. In order to become an approved counselor, we require registration and counselor training. I have no idea how extensive that training is. Moreover, there is an application form that a prospective counselor fills out on which he notes which MB(s) he or she thinks they can do. This district (last time I checked) limits the number of MB's to a maximum of five per counselor. There are questions regarding the expertise which qualifies them. That is the official version. In theory it seems to be a good system. In practice, in the past at least, almost anyone could be a MB counselor except for ones like lifesaving or first aid in which we seem to have an abundance of doctors and first responder/lifeguard types. Also in practice, few boys actually go to the list to find a counselor. The scoutmasters don't use it much either. IMHO, this person should only be allowed to be a counselor for MB's in which he has professional expertise. Earning the MB as a scout should not qualify him. (I still object to summer camp which uses teenagers who did nothing more than earn a MB be the counselor for subjects like the natural sciences. I've watched what they do and they basically waste the boys' time.) Good Luck

Between this thread and the one on interrogating scouts, you guys have convinced me that I don't want to attend another summer camp. I'll encourage the unit to plan to do 'our own thing' in the future. Thanks. I think.

Holy Toledo! I'm reading all this stuff and beginning to believe that I actually HAVE been taken by a rapture to a better place. You guys are living in hell!!! The worst thing I've experienced was someone sneaking a candy bar or skipping out to sleep in his tent or (Horrors!) using an aerosol can to make a 'flame thrower'. Get thee behind me, Satan!

At risk of blowing his cover, there has been another pro here in the past under the moniker of dsteele. Dave was fairly active and (I'm guessing here) he might have made the same observation that Richard made regarding debate. I'm just hoping Dave is still lurking out there somewhere, he seemed to be a reasonable person. But I agree with what Richard just wrote about debate in these forums. It isn't perfect but the fact that someone who feels strongly about something can't be shouted down or interrupted (save for Godwin's Law), it is probably a better debate forum than the so-called 'debates' we use as TV entertainment at intervals of 2,4, and 6. At any rate, I like the fact that there are diverse opinions. I actually learn stuff that way. And it's fun too.

I just sank, not like a rock but only a little slower. And I'd keep sinking too, if I didn't start moving to stay 'up'. I felt like a failure that I couldn't float. It still doesn't work.

GAD!!!! Calico's comment stimulated me to read this thing as well. Eisely, where do you get that 'scientific' aspect of this paper? Anyone who is the least bit skeptical about global warming ought to be able to tear this study a new one with ease. Calico has it right. If anything, this paper confirms Mark Twain's opinion about the three types of lies. At the beginning of their methods section they state, "The ideal experiment to estimate the effects of Fourth of July would be to allocate participation in the event randomly to some individuals and not to others, and then compare preferences and behavior across the two groups. In the absence of such evidence, and because we cannot audit actual participation nor control for unobserved factors likely to motivate those who join the festivities, it is difficult to measure the impact of celebrating Fourth of July." In other words even in their distorted idea of what an experiment IS, they can't even do that. And then, "The key innovation of this study is to exploit random day-to-day variation in precipitation to estimate the effect of Fourth of July celebrations." ...the effect being voter participation and political identity far into the future. Anyone who thinks this is anything more than an attempt to find weak statistical trends in a massive dataset is ready for a Harvard degree in sociology or psychology, definitely parapsychology. But NOT science. One of the mandatory regression assumptions is equality of variance or 'homoskedasticity' in the arcane language of statisticians. They admit that even for their primary independent variable, "The challenge faced when implementing this idea in a regression framework concerns estimating the likelihood of rain on a specific Fourth of July for each cohort born between 1920 and 1990. If the probability of rain would be constant across years at a given geographic location, the problem could be solved by simply using fixed effects for the proper geographic identifier, such as the county. This is insufficient, however, as the likelihood of Fourth of July rain has decreased over time (results not shown)." To address this problem they add variables to bring the variance more in line with the regression assumption. This also increases the variance. However, in that last sentence in the quote, if the global warming skeptics don't get nervous, then their neurons are just not firing at all. The very next line ought to seal the deal, "Hence, even conditional on county, climate change has lead [sic] to earlier cohorts experiencing more rainy Fourth of Julys on average than later cohort." Wow! Climate change has turned us into Republicans. As Calico stated, this should not make it past the initial screening of a scientific journal. Near the end of their introduction they state, "...despite extensive sociological research on rituals there are no empirical studies using causal inference to investigate the transitory and lasting importance of national days in general, and Fourth of July in particular." And I would say there still aren't, as confirmed by their statement near the end of their conclusions, "While it is reasonable to assume that our findings are driven by variation in participation as captured by rainfall," (I'm dubious of this claim) "...this is something we cannot establish empirically given our methodological design." Indeed.

grease gun, spray gun, flit gun, caulking gun, glue gun. If anyone can tell me that these things are synonymous with firearms, I'd like to know the reasoning.

Yeah, I'm OK with what you are saying and I agree. Edit: oops, hit the wrong button. So if I read you correctly, this means I can eat the chocolate, right? No guilt? OK, maybe just a little?(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

The following analysis essentially agrees with what Beavah just wrote: http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20110629-seattle-plot-jihadists-shifting-away-civilian-targets?utm_source=freelist-f&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20110630&utm_term=sweekly&utm_content=SECtitle&elq=5434b5683c3944ac8d27eace912fce91 This site normally costs but this particular article was free so I'm sharing it. Pay particular attention to the last sections starting with, "Vulnerabilities".(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

My list of a few things I've been told were sins: Coffee Alcohol Pot Tobacco Dancing Gambling Singing (might be correct in my case) Flying kites (I just don't 'get' this at all) Coveting almost anything Lying Stealing Borrowing money Causing unnecessary harm Wanton waste etc. So sins might be pleasurable. Or they might be harmful. Or both. And some of the above are confined to interactions between persons. But only a few seem to be universally accepted as behaviors to be avoided. And I doubt that many of us would claim ALL of this list as sins. I can't tell you how guilty I felt when I had to take out a loan to pay for my first child's medical expenses when he was born (insurance didn't cover any of it). And once in a while I feel a little guilty when gobbling down chocolate in front of almost any woman (well, not TOO guilty). Oops that one wasn't on the list. Let's see, I've coveted lots of things - cars, houses, ability to sing...so far I have not coveted another man's wife (why in the heck would anyone who is already married do that?...they're already miserable enough) I fly kites shamelessly. And I partake of caffeine...h'mmm...no guilt there either. I don't smoke pot or use tobacco. I have consumed alcohol before but went cold turkey on that about 3 or 4 years ago. I have told lies (why do women ASK us those questions anyway?) and once in a while I steal from the cookie jar (I always confess later). To go along with singing, I can't dance either so I'm safe on that one. I have gambled before but it is something I evidently don't 'get' so I couldn't care less about it. I buy lottery tickets for my MIL, I guess that is a sin too. I never intentionally cause unnecessary harm but there are a few persons I would like to cause harm to. I know I'll feel guilty, though, if I ever do it so I probably won't. Sad to say, when Rooster7 implied that I would experience warmer climes someday (and he didn't believe in global warming), I know that if that mythical place really does exist and I get to bask in the heat, it will probably be due to sins of omission (a whole other category). I agree with Acco40, while we should not have to 'think' about some of these things each time we're tempted, it would be nice to understand the rational reasons that we should or should not make certain decisions...without mindlessly following some rule book. Of course, that rule book is useful if.....

Acco, until Loving vs Virginia in 1967, there were 16 states which applied anti-miscegenation laws. The spirit of those awful times for Germany lived on in United States laws for quite a while. I remember too that my elders claimed Biblical authority for that as well.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

Barry, one of the other associated videos is about the effectiveness of TSA. Evidently during tests, about 70% of prohibited items make it through. One guy unknowingly had a loaded .40 automatic make it all the way through to his destination in his carryon. He discovered his mistake later at the destination. Sigh, if ONLY he had been wearing a diaper...this would not have happened.

This link might be messy: