packsaddle

I used those methods as well, with some success. The problem with the candle is that once it's blown out, then they have nothing to lose, LOL, and they'll have that figured out very quickly. I was a den leader for all levels but Tigers. I guess I had an advantage of having some nice city parks readily available for meetings and here in the South, there's almost no weather that keeps us indoors. So I started every meeting with contests: running, jumping, etc. We did this until everyone had arrived and it burned off a lot of the energy (for me too). It helped settle them a bit. Then we turned to things that required a little more attention. On those days when we were confined to indoors, we had races in the church hallways except as crabs (as in crab soccer). They had a great time (but the little church ladies with those permanently pruned up scowls didn't like it much). I had to do a lot of apologies sometimes. Finally, and this is important...sometimes the stars are simply lined up against you. There were times when I and other parents had to just stand back and marvel at how impossible that meeting was. It was as if irresistible forces had taken them over. Nothing worked. We were completely ineffectual. We'd look at each other and just wonder at the spectacle. The moral is, sometimes you have to just shrug and smile and plan for another day. I just love the cubs.

Outstanding!!! I will say it again. I just love the cubs and now you know why. Thanks for sharing that.

OK, playing the advocate for a mythical being that has dominion of a mythical hot place: Oh how I long for those halcyon days of the Reagan administration - back when we were privatizing all those government functions. I remember those contractors well. They competed for contracts to perform certain duties. I monitored their work and paid the bills. They replaced competent government employees who took pride in their work and looked at things from a long view. The contractors were there for the money. They got paid more, did the absolute minimum that was required, and didn't give a care for anything about the people they served once the contract was done. I watched as the overall costs for projects increased as more and more of the work went to contractors. Soon some of the government workers 'saw the light' and realized they too could help raid the treasury. So they left service, formed companies with a wife or female co-worker or member of a minority as the titular head (woman-owned, minority-owned) and took over the SAME functions they had done in the past...at much-increased cost to the taxpayer. They made out like...well, you know what. Who could blame them? The assumption was (and IS) that private business is the better way. So private it became. Yes, there were exceptions in which people like me had to be retained in order to keep that 'corporate' knowledge of the field. But I watched as the contractors came and went and the money, lots of it, mostly went...with much less effective work done than before. In one sense, this was a good thing. Now, more and more, I didn't have to worry about a sense of camaraderie in the lab. I didn't have to worry about bringing in funding because Janice the contractor could just go away at the end of the contract. There was always some other Janice to hire if the funding returned. Afterward, I never had to think about her or her family again. Nice. The ability to view others as just objects or tools is exactly what we need to hold society together, don't you think? Just advocating for that mythical being....

Well....those academic 'elites' are not running the show at this institution by any means at all. The faculty who are running academic programs, determining policy, or being interviewed by media as experts are quite conservative (sensu: Beavah, not tea party or neocon). There ARE faculty who have some of the characteristics you describe but they are mostly temporary fixtures here...malcontents and persons unlikely to be tenured. Or else they are viewed with little more than curiosity, perhaps as an irritant to be tolerated at meetings (I suffered through a recent pointless diatribe by one of them). When I consider my alma mater and the other institutions in this region I see strong similarities to this one. I think you need to look around a little more and try to avoid stereotypes.

the same

OK, the results are in. Out of 72 exams, only 7 persons got all three questions correct. Guessing on my multiple choices might account for most of those. 15 students got all of them wrong. Maybe guessing doesn't work that well after all. The one that more of them were correct about was Kissinger. I think that here in the South, Lugar is too similar to a firearm to be distinguishable from the senator. They failed miserably on Viet Minh. Looks like I don't hand out that much extra credit after all.... Have a nice day!

OGE, you are a baaaaadddd boy.

OwntheNight, 10-4 on that Key Lime! One of my favorites. My all-time fav is the 'Merry Berry' pie at the Rustic Skillet near Blue River and McKenzie Bridge, OR. Pie is about the only thing the Northwest really HAS as a real home-grown cuisine, LOL. OK, maybe seafood too. I once got stopped at the Mexican Border coming back into the US. I had a pineapple. So I sat there and ate the whole thing in front of him. Probably won't work for that pie, though. Interestingly, they never questioned any of the plain plastic bags full of raw sugar. I guess it was too obvious.

Twocub, the above product is merely a metal-containing chemical that, when added to an existing fire, imparts a color to the flames. It isn't technically fireworks although I would be concerned about the fact that heavy metals are being distributed into the environment. In any case, as soon as I can I'm going to close this.

I have seen these in native American villages. Also in the Caribbean (actually clay bricks but it's pretty much the same). I've always wondered about this so I'll see what I can find out. I do know that the difference in the breads also depends greatly on the flour and recipe...that restaurant might have perfected the combination...see if you can find out the secret and tell me. Edit to add: I see that the road-killed Beaver was slightly ahead of me. Thanks for that web link.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

Eamonn, if you had grown up the way I did you would be familiar with the phrase, "...slopping the hogs." It's a vision that I revisit during every summer camp. And in this perspective the questions you have would no longer be of importance, except for that last one. Improvements? Answer: bigger troughs

Fella, when I started reading this thread I thought you were going to ask about wearing the food you spilled!!! I must be hungry, time for lunch!

Plus there's no way anyone will ever be tempted to steal it for their own use.

The forums do not market products within the threads so this does go against the normal rules. Therefore unless there is an objection from the forums, I (or another moderator) will soon close this thread. Edit to add: I can edit or delete individual messages but evidently the ability to hide or close a thread is not working (and I have tried) so I have removed references to other units and to the original website. (This message has been edited by a staff member.)

Here's another idea: Refer to the Southern Baptist Convention and inform her that her place is to submit to you. Yeah, try that one.

You keep responding as if I'm in disagreement. Am I not getting through to you? Remove the salary cap. Most public servants are already NOT in unions. If you're that concerned about the few who ARE in unions, firemen, police, etc., no problem, take 'em. But remove the salary cap and then let those with top performance command top salaries. While you're at it, I'd be interested in reading your performance metrics for determining that performance. BTW, any stock broker who WASN'T raking it in during the boom years OUGHT to be slinging hamburgers or living on the street, homeless. The ones I know were practically printing money. They had really nicely feathered beds to fall back in during the crash. The really, really good ones made a pile of money during the crash as well.

Tell her you are thinking more like Odysseus captivated by Calypso, as portrayed by Vanessa Williams in the movie, or perhaps exiled as in Napoleon and Josephine. Edited to add: Or if you're feeling brave, mention something about Al Bundy or Archie Bunker. Try to get a video if you do....(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

All of the responses on 12 March 2011 were to an original post which I deleted at the request of the original poster. The original poster expressed gratitude for the information but may have been concerned about anonymity - as suggested in one of the responses. The original poster may rejoin the forums at a later date but if so, they expressed the intention of doing so with a more-anonymous forum name. That said, the responses WERE useful so unless someone else requests their complete removal I have left them for others to read - without reference to the original poster.

OGE, that IS quite a quote. Before some tea-party toady thinks it's real or something, they should remember that Dan Akroyd really isn't even a very good actor (although I did enjoy his portrayal of Elwood Blues). His satire of science was entertaining but he would have had to work to pass any of my very real courses. Beavah, I suspect you have been pranked. Edited to add: OGE, that was naughty of you! I liked it!(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

If a promise is made that can't be kept, then it could be called a lie especially if the people making the promise know it can't be met. However, in the case of the school board the fact that politicians reneged on a promise with regard to taxes (did anyone really believe a promise like this?) does not relieve the people of the legal and moral commitments associated with THEIR promise to public employees. Moreover, while the school board has a clear problem with a promise like they made (many unforeseen circumstances could require a tax increase), the ability to keep a promise to public employees only has the constraint that the people simply don't want to make the sacrifices necessary to keep their promise. In other words, whereas the school board could fall on their swords and it would have no effect on their ability to avoid breaking the stupid promise they made, 'we the people' have no such constraint. If we decide not to keep our promise to public employees it is because we want to keep it for ourselves. It's that simple. In the promise to pay pensions the words, "...but only if we feel like it" probably don't occur at the end of the agreement. To return to the original question in the title of this thread, consider that in this very RED region, the very RED state of Georgia's system returns about 68% of the employee salary in the form of a pension. It is a right-to-work state and only 14% of its public employees have collective bargaining. In contrast, Vermont, with over 50% of the work force with collective bargaining, only returns about 20% of salary as pension. The impact of collective bargaining on the costs to the state is unclear at best. This combined with the fact that the split bill made collective bargaining the clear point of the conflict, tends to support the contention that the action in Wisconsin is mostly about Union Busting. But it's done now and now we can sit back and watch the drama unfold now that Walker won.

In my simplistic view of the world 'the government' is not some alien thing that is outside normal human existence. In a representative democracy 'the government' IS essentially a thing created BY 'the people'. Because the politicians are our elected representatives, they speak for US. We The People made those bargains. We The People agreed to the terms of those deals. We The People promised public servants whatever it is that their contracts state. And We The People, each and every one of us, are the ones who are going to renege if our elected representatives make that decision. If I promise to pay someone in return for a service, if they give me the service I damn well pay them. If I owe someone I will sacrifice whatever I have to personally to make sure that debt is paid. I don't care if I am in a minority of 'one' on this but I don't like it one bit for a majority consisting of deadbeats to force me to be among them in reneging on an agreement like this. And as far as I'm concerned that's what 'We The People' are whenever we fail to live up to our obligations. Oops, what am I saying? Yep, considering what we've loaded onto future generations, 'deadbeat' is a generous term.

I was in a very similar situation (without the pressure from my wife). But I had to stay on as CM for a while to provide some continuity while my son went on to the troop. I think it was good for him to do that. I followed as ASM a couple of years later. So, while I agree with Beavah's statement about pressure from your wife, I think that even without the pressure, it would be worth considering - to send him out to discover how much fun it can be without a parent. All that said, and as others have noted, you and your family know each other better than anyone else. Think about the experiences of others but don't feel bad about making a decision based on what you know best and what you know will be for the best.

"And the biggest problem is keeping the uneducable and those not interested in education in schools, where they corrupt the academic environment and suck up resources." I hope this answers any question that anyone might have had of whether or not the Civil Rights struggle is even close to over. These are almost the exact words I heard the soon-to-be Republicans repeating in their objections to integration of the schools back in the 50's and 60's. Wow. What a terrible prospect: that the opportunity for education be made available to those "uneducables". Why don't they just stay where they know their place is supposed to be?

Most any college that wants to survive will have a general program offering tutoring and counseling services along those lines. Just for example, all of the universities of California have such a program: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/collegeprep/welcome.html Sub-programs aimed at specific-needs groups are a bit more difficult to isolate but programs like I mentioned above will know about those specifics at each parent institution. My advice is to identify what direction your interests seem to point and make a list of the schools that could fit them. Then check out their materials and if they look promising, contact those general tutoring and counseling offices for more specific information. I would not, however, make the choice solely on the basis of the presence or absence of such programs but rather on all the factors including, ahem, cost. Like I wrote, I wish you the best of success.

I don't think I actually disagreed with your overall approach did I? As a former fed, my area was the nation. As a fed, the pay scales were banded and difficult has hell to advance, nowhere near as easy as the private sector if you're good. As far as pay scale...are you kidding? Are you not aware of the salary cap? Heck yeah! Remove that salary cap, make the pay scale comparable and take the measly benefits. When public servants can earn like a stock broker or private professional you'll achieve the kind of parity you suggest. I might even consider going back myself... I do know that for this state, the salaries are low compared to comparable employment in other states (not mine, I'm doing just fine). But believe it or not, salaries are not the only attraction to public service. I was not attracted to federal service by the money. I was attracted by the stability of having a long-term outlook on the development of a research program, raise a family, as well as the resources to get all of it done right. I couldn't care less about having a new desk, paneled office, or nice phone. Give me the lab and competent people to work with and some security for my family. What I saw was that the decisive incentives to attract the best candidates to public service are often the stability and fringe benefits of public employment, not salary. Candidates that are looking for the greatest personal gain tend to try their hand with the private sector where they can advance much more quickly both professionally and in real economic terms...if they're that good. But given the current status, if you remove those non-salary incentives, those public servants who are most able to compete elsewhere will tend to leave. I left. The ones who can't compete will tend to remain in public service. Combining the loss of those incentives with an inability to 'escape', they may become disgruntled or worse...not exactly a prescription for stellar service. The public would naturally respond even more negatively...see the cycle? Moreover, because of those disgruntled employees AND because of persons like ME, the word is getting out to the best young persons.."avoid public service". It is mediocre pay, thankless, with slow or no advancement, and now with not even the incentives of stability or benefits. Might as well go for the dough. It's the American Way after all, and like I said at the end of my previous post, I support your approach...I'd like to see it happen. So hey, what's the problem? (This message has been edited by packsaddle)