packsaddle

The time zone thing is also common. I suspect that those who are located in the central time zone would see no difference whatsoever. Someone else can correct me but I've seen this before when the time is set by the server clock, not the clock of at the origin. This is almost necessary if you have people sending messages from all over the planet. Case in point, my clock right now says it's an hour later than the time stamp that will occur on this post.

Or you can go 'low tech' and merely clip and paste the quote and enclose it in "quotation marks". With Firefox I get the same blank screen you get if I try to use the 'format this post' function. Try IE instead.

Scoutfish, sorry to disagree but around here the prevailing opinion would be for a much lighter caliber - a 50 is way too wasteful. Seriously, if someone erroneously thinks medication will make them smarter, the result will be a medicated stupid person. Where's the additional harm? Are you saying it is the role of government regulation to prevent stupidity? Really? Do you think it's working now?(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

...not to mention the metric system.

I think the point is that among all the opinions given so far, I see a wonderful desire to make individual decisions based on personal needs and personal reactions. This kind of thoughtful decision, made carefully by individuals with the help, perhaps, of a physician, is what I think is being advocated in the article....intelligent decisions unfettered by thoughtless government control. Lisa, I wish you could experience my students. Sometimes I think I have the equivalent of Stepford children in comparison to what I read about elsewhere.

UCEagle72, me too. I have McAfee and FF. No problems. GChrome no problems. I don't even see the ads mentioned here. Nothing pops up or falls out or squishes through. I have no idea what's going on with the others. Edited to add: The university has a very aggressive filter that checks everything (for good reason). So far I have never seen it flag anything from scouter.com, even the spam email notices when people reply to threads.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

First, I don't agree that a medical diagnosis of a need for use of Ritalin or similar drugs indicates poor health. In fact poor health often must be ruled out first, in order to make a correct diagnosis for the use of those drugs. That said, I can't find problems with the reasoning of the authors. So I tend to think it would be ok to let the marketplace operate in this case rather than stifle it with government regulation. If the result is sharper minds, focused attention, and clearer thinking, what's the objection?(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

Or you could have referred to the episode of Star Trek, "Mudd's Women" still with William Shatner providing comic relief. Oops, I need to be more respectful of these historical documents. Anyway, the Wired article is just a summary of a commentary in 'Nature'. If anyone would like to read the commentary here's a link: http://npp.wisc.edu/newsarchive/PDF/TowardsResponsibleUseOFCognitive-EnhancingDrugsByTheHealthy.pdf But remember, this is merely a summary and position statement, NOT the original science that led the authors to their conclusions. THAT literature is referenced at the end of the commentary.

Don't worry, Custer found the cure in Montana. I'm just glad we didn't have anyone confusing Charleston with similar-sounding cities in IL or WV, just to name a few. Tough to float a ship near some of those. BTW, Charleston, IL has the world's ugliest statue of Lincoln nearby. I've seen it. You couldn't make an uglier one. O!M!G!

Welcome to the forums, Guerin. Thanks for the info, I'll tell the leaders in the pack a well. Edited to add: Brent, I found these reviews of the Wounded Knee cemetery. Except for one, they mostly sound like my experience back in 2005. You probably should have done the trip. http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g54880-d144992-r77426353-Wounded_Knee_Massacre_Monument-Wounded_Knee_South_Dakota.html#REVIEWS (This message has been edited by packsaddle)

Acco40, I have the utmost respect for engineers and what they can do after spending my first two careers working with them in the power industry and federal government. I love it when I have engineering students in my classes. They are very bright and a nice balance to some of the others who seem to have a heavy dose of undisciplined creativity. But one of my proudest moments was on a class field trip to a nuclear plant. A nuclear engineer with an MIT degree was explaining nuclear reactions. My engineering students helped out by correcting his equations. I think the guy was blown away by the first audience he'd probably ever had who could actually stay with him, maybe even a little ahead. nice.

Hi Brent, I also very much enjoyed the Badlands. If my memory serves me, I could pick out the same spots I had visited on our marathon family camping trip back in 1957 as well. I got the comments about Wounded Knee as well but they didn't sound as dire as you described so I went ahead - and perhaps got lucky. I hadn't even heard of Wounded Knee in 1957. That took Dee Brown to get me started. Back to topic....

Beavah, it would have been better if you had answered Lisa's question in a thoughtful way. There's still an opportunity to do it.

Calico, I am not sure about it but there was a packed crowd for sure. It could be that I just didn't notice some kind of special event. I for sure was not prepared for the spectacle that I observed. To me the spectacle of Mt. Rushmore is sharpened by the contrast with Wounded Knee. In the former, throngs of rich people bask in illusions of celebrity, fame, and the immortality of legend and myth. In the latter, the remnants of a people cling to their lives in the omnipresence of a reminder of the reality of their mortality and anonymity. The irony is that the throngs mobbing the former become less real in their lives as a result of their pursuit of intimacy with celebrity, combined with superficial 'knowledge' of their own history. At Wounded Knee, people who are quite understanding of reality and who know, in profound terms, their history, live lives with hardly more anonymity than those in the former group. They just know it.

double post and I have no idea how it happened.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

Calico, just getting 'round to reading this again and saw your comment. It was a 'figuratively' speaking manner in which I wrote that. When I was a boy and saw Mt. Rushmore for the first time back in 1957, there was a small parking lot and a smaller building for a visitor center. More recently, about 50 years later, when I saw the fake Lincolns and other presidents walking around, the caricature artists, and the ice cream parlors, I thought: "What's the difference between this and a Disney park?" It's a large statue that defiled a place that was sacred to native Americans in order to 'elevate' four dead politicians. What we've done with it now is different from Wally World how? I guess it's missing the Dumbo ride but as far as I'm concerned, most of the Dumbos are there, walking around taking pictures. Needless to say, I'll never waste my time with it again. No one else should either. I was far more moved by the mass grave at Wounded Knee and the understanding of what had happened near where I was standing. Edit for typo(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

OK, to me the problem is the breadth with which fields are lumped into a single category. If you take aim with your critique at perhaps a smaller target, I might find stronger agreement. As it is, I see merit and validity to some of the fields that you've lumped into such a broad category.

Beavah, "Good science looks at da cure rate vs. the worse-outcomes rate vs. what would happen if yeh just continued with ordinary measures." You haven't identified what constitutes 'cure', 'worse-outcomes', or 'ordinary measures'. A cure is also an outcome and you haven't distinguished 'cure' outcome from 'worse-outcome'. But even if I ignored the inherent risk of bias contained in such subjective terms, this is merely a statistical comparison. If you had stated a hypothesis, it might have appeared to be 'science' but really its best hope is to find a statistically significant difference - with no particular understanding of why there is a difference. However, what you just described is a way to form a hypothesis that might lead to good science IF you did find a significant difference and IF you could identify an underlying mechanism that explained the difference. The neuro-chemistry on which SSRI's and related medications are based IS good experimental science. When these basic neuro-chemical mechanisms are employed in treatments with success (like the cases I observed), that constitutes evidence that "it is possible to alter brain chemistry in a way that is beneficial to the patient." I said it's enough to convince me. However, I can be swayed to the doubter side - I often note that I usually side with the null hypothesis. So show me experimental evidence that SSRI's do not in fact operate in the way that has been shown experimentally and that the derivative medications do not in fact produce the effects I've observed, and I will gladly join you in your opinion. I'll also be available for the climate change doubters if relevant evidence comes to light.

Yes, I agree with Horizon. A teacher is free to state his/her opinion no matter how uninformed or incompetent they are to state that opinion. Parents are free to tell them they're not qualified to make those claims. Parents ARE in control, even though they might feel like they aren't in some situations. But they have to exercise that control and there are procedures to do this and laws to back them up. It is incumbent on parents to learn about these things and then to take the responsibilities that come with that control. I'm not delusional because I too have "been there and done that." We exercised our parental control and got the IEP that was needed. Everything turned out just fine as a result. If we had 'caved' to the unqualified opinions of others, I suspect the results would not have been successful. Here's the catch. The parent MUST be willing to pay the price of independent, competent assessment. It takes the expensive investment of time and money and in my experience it also sometimes requires sacrifices that affect career and relationships. A parent who decides for whatever reason not to pay this price has made the decision nevertheless, that the price may be paid by the child. I have seen successes and I have seen terrible outcomes. In most cases, teachers are not the ones who made the difference. In most cases it was parents who were interested enough to make the sacrifices...or not.

I'm sort of with Lisa on this. I think there are actual neuro-physiological mechanisms that we do understand that are associated with some of the things being mentioned. I am not sure that the field of psychology can be assessed on the basis of those topics alone and even if it could, I'm very certain that few in these forums, including me, are competent to offer much more than an insubstantial opinion. I too have seen some very good success cases and those alone are sufficient to convince me that it is possible to alter brain chemistry in a way that is beneficial to the patient. The fact that there are some excesses or failures does little more than show the need for greater understanding, and yes, perhaps greater competence for some practitioners. The idea that anyone would characterize the opinion of a teacher as a "diagnosis" is incredible. Yes, a teacher can point the parent to counterproductive behavior or other problems. The parent, then, is free to seek the best medical attention, if needed, that they can afford. If the parent merely relies on whatever the school district is required to provide by law, then the parent has decided to place the fate of their child in the hands of the school district and not to take further personal responsibility. That is their choice and if it is out of ignorance, thrift, stupidity, or poverty, it is still their choice. They should expect to get the high quality care, opinions, and diagnoses that are commensurate with what they paid for it. But thinking that a teacher or guidance counselor can diagnose something this complex is delusional.

I thought about you when I took ours in for the recall on that problem. The department just got a new one, maybe I'll leave it parked near the admin building...just a thought.

The Yorktown is the crown jewel so don't worry about it. The others, however, I can't be sure of. What does scrap metal go for these days? The Charleston city government is merely operating according to the forces of the market. As Rush Limbaugh says, "It's all about money". And these days the 'bald ego' seems to be correct about that, at least. That said, they might make more money by turning over the entire operation to Disney and just take a cut plus taxes from the increased tax base...sort of like the US and South Dakota did with Mt. Rushmore.

Hello Ed, and welcome to the forums! I was a CubMaster and den leader for years a very long time ago so I can't help much with the current status of things. But I do remember that the unit had its own checking account that the CO did not have to sign off on. This may be different from state to state so I'm not sure if you'll be able to do this. But we had something called a 'non-interest-bearing' account. It was in the name of the pack and there were two persons who could sign: the treasurer and the committee chair. Not all banks were willing to create an account like this but I've also done it for professional meetings: those accounts were set up, knowing they would only last until the last meeting expenses were paid...again the bank set them up as non-interest-bearing. Hope this helps. By the way, I loved the cubs. Those days were some of the best ever and I miss them dearly. Live it up while you can.

OGE, Nah, by now you'd do better to be thinking about Father Guido Sarducci... "I blame myself..."(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

Hi Vicki, I bet you know what I'm thinking right now (that female intuition thing is sooooo dependable). So I'm not even going to write it out loud. Oldsm, just savor that story.