packsaddle

On this day, surrounded by plenty; family, friends, food, a fire in the fireplace, I also am thankful for the outstanding scouts and students I know and have known. Once in a while I get a nice note or message from one who remembers..but the only thing I need to feel good is to know they are well, doing well, and also are surrounded by family, friends, food...and sure, a fire in the fireplace if they want. I hope all of you are having a Happy Thanksgiving.

Wow, Gern, you must have watched the movie! Do you remember the twist at the very end? Anyway, many years ago when I was a deputy registrar, the process was totally run by the county and the database was confined to the county. Except for two county employees (part time) almost everyone involved were volunteers working out of our homes and autos. I never saw any 'state' presence other than the wording on the voter application with regard to qualifications (you know, like age, literacy, etc.) Then another volunteer force ran the precincts. The people I met...the stories I could tell... But that card would not, by itself, allow you to vote. You also had to be checked against the list of registered voters. Today, all you need is a DL or government ID.

Mine joined because his buddies did it. Stosh, he also almost quit when he was Star so I talked with him about finishing something that he starts and told him that if he wanted to quit and do something else, I'd support his decision. He changed his mind and stayed for Eagle and aged out after that. There seems to be a crest of a hill for some of them...that if they can just get to the top of the crest they can see where they're headed...and go on. Sometimes not. But like I tell the boys I talk with about these things...there's nothing wrong with leaving with Life, Star, or First Class. It's just whatever they decide for their lives...I'm always there to help if I can.

Vol, not according to David Stockman who was the architect of those budgets: "Mr Stockman, now an investment banker with the Blackstone Group on Wall Street, explained how 'tax-cutting soon became a movable feast for special interests'; how the spending cuts meant to match the tax cuts never materialised; how Mr Reagan skirted responsibility for the fiscal doomsday machine he had created. When a secret deal was cut with key Democrats to deal with the burgeoning budget shortfall in 1982, Mr Reagan vetoed it, suggesting 'the deficit would 'serve a good purpose',' concurs Mr Weidenbaum. ' 'They keep the liberals from new spending programmes',' he quotes the former president as saying." http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/the-price-of-reaganomics-1464121.html This is the first time Stockman admitted this ulterior motive. He made this first admission just a few years after he left the administration. I'm also glad he's owning up to the deception again recently. Too bad he couldn't have been more honest at that time he was IN the administration.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

I found this really interesting. Evidently this all began with Ireland guaranteeing the deposits in Irish banks with NO LIMITS. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/11/23/131538931/how-the-irish-bank-bailout-shook-the-world I'd be interested in other thoughts on this.

And in state court, indeed he did file: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/11/23/5515131-2010-miller-files-suit-in-state-court

So Beavah, or anyone, what happened to the Republican Party? There was Eisenhower, and then possibly Goldwater. But after the LBJ debacle, Nixon seems to have been a turning point. Or was it somewhere else? Strom Thurmond? I can't quite find a place in time where Republicans decided to go the way they've gone. The closest thing to it that I can spot is Lee Atwater as the strategist, and ultimately mentor for Karl Rove, and South Carolina from which it seems to have originated and to which it returned in 2000 only to be carried forward by McCain/Palin. I'm going to have to take a closer look at this - here's a snippet: and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UwJYfTC9Hw&feature=related(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

Folks, the trend is AWAY from marriage, not toward even greater numbers of spouses. Maybe what Eagledad meant was 'promiscuity'. I mean...SHEESH..can you even imagine???? All that nagging and whining? I mean ol' Bear Claw had it right! Hi Vicki! :)

As a moderator, I have sought the ability to make the topic title a bit more PC but, alas, have failed...to my udder sorrow.

You'll definitely see manatees there but won't be allowed to swim with them. Actually they have no snorkeling at all within the park and it is also a tobacco-free zone, the whole park. It's fairly nice. I'd also recommend Rainbow Springs State Park, not far from Homosassa Springs. It has a lot of amenities and a nice campground as well. The spring is the 4th largest in the state and they have canoes and kayaks for rent. People swim and snorkel in the springs all the time. A really nice place, but no manatees as far as I know. Farther to the north is Ichetucknee Springs State Park, closer to Lake City and I75, another really nice park. You can do everything there although I've never seen manatees there either. I have seen 'gators at both springs, little ones. There will also be snakes and turtles and birds and lots of fish, nice wildlife.

Looks like Miller has the judge on his side: http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2010/11/alaska-senate-battle-continues-as-joe-miller-gets-respite-from-federal-judge.html

WAKWIB, yeah it doesn't really change the mess but at least I don't feel as badly about it. SA, I agree. I suspect Goldwater might even have been considered 'liberal' on some topics. The irony is that he largely got punctured by the 'Daisy' ad which LBJ's campaign used to imply that a vote for Goldwater was a vote for nuclear holocaust. And then, years later, we bet the ranch on a war of choice based partly on a similar deception. We never learn I guess.

According to this report, marriage is trending down anyway: The Decline of Marriage And Rise of New Families http://pewsocialtrends.org/2010/11/18/the-decline-of-marriage-and-rise-of-new-families At one time I noted to my wife that our children had a good chance of finding mates from single parent homes. Now it looks like we're batting 1000. Oh well...evolution.

Don't think you'll get very far if you ever run for a public office in Ft. Lauderdale or maybe Palm Beach or Boca Raton, heh, heh. But I agree. I rationalize my decades of contributions to the system by balancing it against what my mother received. By the time she died, if I amortize it over the time she was retired from her job, she got just about exactly what I (and my employers) had contributed over my working life up until then. I could have just handed it to her and done away with the bureaucracy to save some money. But that's not how it works. To respond to another suggestion, I suspect FDR understood the actuarial aspects of what he started. Like all predictive models, it would have been impossible for him to predict very far into the future all the things that have happened. So he did what he thought was right at the time. That I can forgive. I can't forgive agenda-driven deceptions or selfish people grabbing what they can get regardless of the harm to others - harm in this case to future generations. Beavah's right...LBJ probably wasn't the first liar in the Oval Office but he sure cost us big with the ones he perpetrated on us. I can't say for sure that things would be better today if Barry Goldwater had been elected instead. But I think it would have been. Too bad.

or it could be the spirit of freedom and equality for all citizens.

I located a local park that wasn't playing ball at den meeting times. It had a shelter. So I started meeting the den there. First thing, while we waited for everyone to arrive, we'd start with the contests and games: running, crab soccer, jumping, etc. The ADL would be setting up the den activity while all this was going on. Sometimes we'd take a short hike and terrorize wildlife around the periphery of the park. Then, with energy burned, we'd get some water and start the activity. The snack would be visible. If the group behavior was good, after a time some special snack would appear. They picked up on this quickly and became self-policing. After the activity and snacks, we'd have free time while parents picked them up. They'd start their own contests and games and run them with ADL assistance. Sometimes the moms and dads would just sit an talk for a half hour or so while their children extended the den meeting time out in the open air, the sun, the grass, and with each other. I really miss the cubs.

Gern, that was addressed in the movie, "The President's Analyst", but central control was with a corporation...namely, The Phone Company. Incidentally, TPC won. Closer to real life than one might think, perhaps. Edit: Gary, if the federal government mandates standards (i.e. airport security measures, immigration, etc.), then why should the states have to pay for it? On the other hand, if we have to rely at the national security level on the sketchy variations of state attempts to keep from meeting the requirements, by producing 50 or more different cards produced by low-bid contractors and potentially with 50 different designs and levels of reliability, explain to me how that is a superior way.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

WAKWIB, I can't believe that you are only just now waking up to the reality of the massive deception we've been playing on ourselves with regard to the SS and Medicare systems. Your money was spent as fast as it came in and more besides, borrowed against the futures of our children. You have already kissed your so-called investment goodbye and if you thought you ever had a chance of recovering any of it, I'm sorry for your blindness. But I can't respect the expectation that our children should shoulder the burden of others' lives once a those others have decided not to support themselves anymore. I consider that to be a selfish and self-serving expectation. To answer your question, the moochers are those of us who have already gotten more return than we ever put in and, even though we have the resources to live on our own, continue to collect. The way to correct this and to start a modicum of fiscal responsibility is to terminate those systems. If, at some time in the future, we have the resources to squander on individuals who cannot take care of themselves, then we can decide to do that - then. But I think is it immoral, even obscene, to shackle debt that WE incur to our children. They should not pay the price of our consumption. If the remedy is painful, so be it. Any true conservative who values personal responsibility and self-reliance ought to agree. I'm not kidding myself. I don't expect this to happen. I expect the mass of so-called, 'conservatives' to rationalize our way into even longer-term, deeper debt...or else ruin...or both. As I mentioned earlier, I doubt that we have the backbone. So please, show me I'm wrong.

I'm with you Scoutfish, I loved working with the cubs. And I miss them.

The passport already serves as a federal ID. All that is needed is to make them mandatory. But I can't think of anything that will thwart illegal immigration, other than legislation making it legal.

Simple. Soylent Green instead of food stamps. Edit: From what I've seen, retirement villages are pretty much dens of iniquity already.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

For all I care they can eat the cat. Or grandma can die (face it, she's probably next on the list anyway). The purpose of SS is not for moochers to be able to keep the economy churning along. For your economic argument to work best, it would be better for the taxpayers to spend their own money their own way than have the federal government reallocate wealth to the moochers. Yes, they'll fall on hard times. Tough luck. That is the outcome we must choose if we are to get the budget under control without increased taxes and without making our children hostage to our wasteful ways. But take heart, it seems fairly clear to me that a lot of people are going to mouth the words and then either do nothing about SS or else they'll change their minds. We just don't have the backbone to face what needs to be done.

They'll either live off their own resources, go back to work, or JoeBob will help support them - or they'll get handouts from local food pantries and churches, maybe move in with JoeBob or go homeless. But they won't be mooching off my tax dollars or, in reality, taxes yet to be paid by my children and their children's children.

Look, the means test is an idea for wimps who are afraid to take the bold steps that are really needed. The means test is something I reluctantly go along with as a last resort. But I recognize that acceptance of these welfare programs in any form essentially is endorsing those welfare programs. And as long as they exist, there will be a tendency for them to grow and once again become engorged with taxpayer dollars. If we want to really solve this problem we must terminate Medicare, Social Security, and similar welfare programs. Let the thousand points of light and the private sector provide for the needy. The rest of us can protect our futures with private investments.

You know there originally were 15 Commandments...until Mel Brooks dropped five of them and the tablet was broken? I saw it on the history channel. Edit: H'mmmm, maybe that was another channel. Actually, I was hoping for an explanation of 'natural' that was more general and could be applied to other aspects of the world besides sex. What IS this pre-occupation with sex?!!! Sex, Sex, Sex. We seem to be so doggone concerned about other people having sex, sex, sex. I haven't been as astonished since I heard Orin Hatch talking about 'Long Dong Silver' over and over and over. Why this obsession with sex, sex, sex?!!! Good Grief!(This message has been edited by packsaddle)