packsaddle

Skeptic, I thought they were 'theses'. Merlyn, as if I have to tell you....'hell' is a myth and 'Satan' doesn't exist.

Or we could leave it to the CO to make the decision on whatever basis they want. The church of inclusiveness could admit everyone and the church of universal prejudice could admit no-one. Then the market would take care of things nicely.

Dan and vol_scouter, I do not ask these things entirely in jest. I don't know much about these things professionally other than their existence and the biological factors associated with them. I do have a couple friends who are transgender. The complexity associated with one of them goes far beyond anything either of you (or I for that matter) have described. I merely accept these persons as friends with very unique experiences in life.

"The purpose of religion isn't to bring people together." This evidently may apply to religious organizations like BSA as well.

The real risk and real danger here is a creeping tendency toward health food and (dare I say it?) vegetarianism. It will be interesting to see if the ELCA eventually has the same experience with BSA as the UUA.

Oh, what the (mythical place)! My favorite gum of all time, discovered at the age of my earliest memories: 'Juicy Fruit'. I just can't help myself. And as for hats, I really like the idea of an ostrich plume. Oh yeah! So, if a person who has a Y-chromosome but develops with female characteristics enters a relationship with a 'normal' male, is this 'gay'? If a guy decides to have 'the operation' and operationally becomes a woman, and marries a guy, is this 'gay'? I'd really like BSA to clarify on these things. I've asked this before, but do those members whose homophobia is so strong advocate karyotypes or other genetic tests, perhaps jsst to be sure?

"For the record, feel free to pigeon-hole me with Lisa and Dan. It'll make it easier to skip any of my posts in the future, as well." ME! ME! I want to be in the pigeon hole too...sniff.

My wife thinks she's insulting me when she tells everyone that "he'd be happy sleeping in a ditch." She's pretty much right. I can sleep almost anytime, anyplace (especially during sermons and 20-minute prayers). I just pack whatever is the lightest pad that keeps me warm.

Lisa brought up a good point and I agree with her observations. The cheater obviously has a thinking error. They likely will fail anyway. I too write 'challenging' exams. I tell the students that I do this not to discourage but rather to assess where they are. I can always back off. But if I make it easy, I have few options in the other direction.

Hal, You have a point. I teach mostly senior-level courses. I'm not including the graduate-level courses because those students are held to much greater scrutiny/standards. And you're probably right about your observation. Chances are that most of the students who are 'working angles' get discovered or move on to other fields before they get to me. Nevertheless, if that is true those losses must be minimal because the year-class sizes don't change much. Again this is hard to account for because real losses are also compensated by transfers from other programs. Yet, while advising, I also have to say that the incoming students seem first-rate. I can't pretend to have met all of them but the ones that do cross my path are persons whom I am proud to have in the department. I count myself very lucky. I do teach one sophomore-level course and that one is the wildest ride of all...for me and for the students. It's not a survey course but it is a course that has majors from every department on campus. Yes, I expect some of them to be 'working' any angle they can but if so they will not perform well, if history is any kind of guide to these things.

I have to note a different experience. While I have detected cheating, it has been a tiny minority (I can count them on one hand). The vast majority of my students are highly-motivated and sincerely interested in learning the subject material. Most of them do fairly well. I tell them they earn whatever grade they get and they do. My multiple choice questions are kin to the Grim Reaper. Not only must you have excellent reading comprehension, you have to work the problem up to four times before you can figure it out. I also use essay questions and about once each semester I offer them a take-home exam. They fall for it every time. Even taking that exam insures they will learn a lot because I require it to be written by hand, with proper references to sources. They have settled overall on an average of about a high 'C'. And my enrollment continues to climb. I understand the 'horror' stories out there but I am pleased not to observe them here. These students (especially the engineers) are just great. I had a guest lecturer once, a nuclear engineer who explained the fission process. My students interrupted several times to correct mistakes in his equations. I just loved it. Afterward the guy mentioned that he'd never take students for granted again. I replied that they had done exactly what I wanted them to do - question everything. It was wonderful.

I guess it's OK for states to restrict 2nd Amendment 'rights'. It does vary by state but even persons with concealed carry permits are often restricted from schools, churches, and establishments which serve alcohol, not to mention any establishment that posts its own restriction, like malls, etc. And possession at a school is more serious than a misdemeanor in many places.

Eagle92, I write this in jest but you'd make a great attorney or politician or conspiracy theorist, I'm not sure which would be best.

When Trevorum made that statement, was I the only one who saw the twinkle in his eye? OK, This has almost nothing to do with either Alexander or the other guy, no matter what flavor he comes from. It was a statement of Trevorum's relationship to them and that has almost nothing to do with differences or similarities between Alexander and whoever. It DOES have to do with Trevorum's view of them. And there is only ONE person who understands that, Trevorum. Enough already.

If she's not atheist or gay, what's the problem?

There may not be a cost saving at this time and you might not have factored in discounts or other subsidies (not sure if these are still available). That was back then, but for slightly more than the cost of SeaBase in addition to MarineLab we also fit in a stop at Cape Canaveral and the Space Center. Anyway, MarineLab doesn't offer a similar program to SeaBase. What they have is oriented around environmental education. Our guys all REALLY completed the oceanography MB as well as parts of some others. The students (who also range into adult ages) are in the water in various parts of the ecosystem in the morning and again in the afternoon every day, three meals, after lunch class on the next topic before the afternoon trip, and air conditioned sleeping areas, a volleyball rec area, plus there is a lecture/lab every evening. On some nights there is a cruise to see the phosphorescence and collect the organisms for study or to study the constellations and learn celestial navigation. There is always a friendly contest about the program content and when the little guys start kicking butt on the older guys, the older guys take a huge interest. Surprisingly the co-ed nature of the program also does not seem to slow things down or cause problems. The biggest problem I ever saw had to do with another of these thread topics (cell phones). It seems to be a universal problem but salt water sometimes removes the problem, heh, heh. The staff are professional educators, as well as divemasters and certified life guards. Their knowledge of the ecosystems is excellent and their care at protecting both students and the environment is impeccable. This program does not require an ability to swim, amazingly, although that is advised. SeaBase didn't have anything comparable that I could find. I'm not sure about the Ocoee, I think our youngest was about 12 for that trip at any rate. There is no such rule for the Chattooga that I know of, only limits established by the outfitters. I've seen kids much younger than 8 out there as part of a private trip, even on section 4. No one even mentioned it. I took some young people out recently and if there has been a recent change, I'm not aware of it. There certainly might be 'guidelines' such as you mention. It probably ought to depend on water level as well...makes more sense that way. Edited part: let me add to the original post that I just remembered that we also took the troop to a church camp and all of the boys, without regard to age, did the high ropes course. They had a real blast and there wasn't a single problem.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

That's not restricted to Christians.

Brent, To me the ones that don't arbitrarily exclude the younger boys are better, especially if those boys compose the majority of the unit (the vast majority in our case). The troop has been to SeaBase and to the Boundary Waters (Northern Tier). We have an additional problem of having fewer older boys and sometimes have to team with other troops to make a trip. To my knowledge no one from the troop has ever made it to Philmont. We have been to MarineLab as the alternative to SeaBase on several occasions and had wonderful experiences every time. We all, including the few older boys, want to do it again. We mostly visit the Nantahala, Chattooga, Ocoee, they are just so convenient. We talk about the New River and some of the others but the boys seem to like the local attractions. Edited part: I guess the question had to do with the age thing and Whitewater and I didn't address that. We usually go with one of the commercial outfitters and their age limit is 8 years old. We don't have the equipment ourselves so by the time we rent, etc, we might as well hire the outfitter. So that's what we do.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

http://zfacts.com/p/318.html We can point to Reagan as the one who started the most recent upturn in the debt. He criticised Carter for the $67 billion or so deficit and then promised to balance the budget in five years. A few $hundred billion later put the lie to all that. As I have written before, I am not optimistic. I haven't been since the Bush lies became obvious. Obama, for that matter anyone else, cannot solve this. We're going to pay the piper. Just a question of how long it will take and how bad it will be.

Back during the Civil War, Southern soldiers called the book 'Lee's Miserables'. Guess that explains one reason the North had its way with the South, LMAO. Anyway, I think Les Miserables is one of the great works of literature of all time. My favorite film adaptation is the 1934 version by Raymond Bernard (you have to understand French or be able to read subtitles). I haven't encountered it often here in the South. Another great version was actually a made-for-television version in (where else?) France back in 2000. It's kind of long, six hours, but also very convincing and fairly true to the original story. At the end of the day, all the BSA vagueness and wanderings by councils and units is tending to a de facto 'local option' reality.

We just take our own whitewater excursions any time we want. The age limit is thoughtless and we ignore it. I first discovered the age limit when my son's new troop left for a high adventure camp and left behind the vast majority of the troop because those new boys (who really, really wanted to do stuff like that) were too young. So when I took a leadership position I dispensed with the age limit and took ALL of the boys on high adventure trips...just NOT at a BSA high adventure camp. Not only did the boys describe it as the best thing they'd ever done, the place was set up with staff who essentially took over all of the leadership aspects. The troop leaders basically got a vacation! And the food was great! And it was co-ed! And there were students there from Japan and Germany in addition to the US. And the educational component was absolutely first-rate. So I pretty much wrote off BSA high advanture. Better alternatives out there. Lower prices too.

"I think that if I had the opportunity to share a campfire with you, Dan, pack, and most others, that we would have a great time and be in much harmony as long as we stayed away from these few divisive issues that we do not control. " Heck, I bet we'd have a good time even discussing these issues. I appreciate those who disagree because often I can learn from them.

I applaud the calls on both sides for sources of evidence to support claims. I see some misunderstanding about what constitutes a source for this kind of discussion. This is addressed to Mr. Boyce, most recently, but actually to all readers who are not experienced in proper referencing. I offer the following example of a proper source for others to reference, taken from the instructions to authors for that journal: Doe J. Epidemiology and public health. Int J Epidemiol 1970; 5: 702-10 This is just one example and different journals have different styles but most of them require similar information. Specifically: Author Year of publication Title of article (if not a book) Journal or book title Volume (and sometimes number) (Edition, if the book has been revised) Pagination (page number for first page of article - and often page number of last page of article. Number of pages if a book) For sources such as CDC, there is a simlar protocol for citing reports, white papers, bulletins, or even internal correspondence. Without this level of detail, the reader has little hope of actually finding the references or information you claim to have read. In a peer review, without this level of detail, your claim will be dismissed as unsupported. If anyone in this discussion would like to claim actual technical validity, the onus is on you to provide a means by which everyone can access the evidence. Some sources have online access. Here is an example for the above journal: http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/current.dtl#MENTAL_HEALTH You will note the ability to read online or to download as pdf in most cases. Much older literature and older government reports (CDC, for example) sometimes are not available online but may be purchased from third party print sources. Otherwise, if you don't provide actual source information, you do nothing to advance your argument...actually you hurt your standing by cultivating the appearance of someone who merely makes unsupported claims.

Please! Stop already! "My religion and religious beliefs are clear that homosexuality is a sin. So not matter what others are doing, I am trying to stay true to my own religion and beliefs." This is the essence and the fundamental truth of vol_scouter's view. The context of the phrase, "...no matter what others are doing..." pretty much says it all. It is also unassailable by reason or logic because it is based in faith. Time to let it go.

Horizon, "Mr. Boyce: Your .pdf link is interesting, but while skimming it in only 1 or 2 places does it appear to compare the rates of risky or dangerous behaviors of homosexuals to those of heterosexuals. Without showing the rate among equivalent heterosexual populations (and controlling for appropriate factors such as income and education), you can not make a scientifically backed judgment call." Not to disagree. However, I would note that even the correct use of statistical methods to make comparisons does not by itself necessarily comprise 'science'. Worse, flawed comparisons that don't control for other variables are simply not useful or valid, as Horizon and others have noted. Dan later mentions 'bad science'. To me, 'bad science' simply is not science at all but something else pretending to be science...often used as such for political or other agendas. This is a term I hear from time to time and it has many connotations, two of which are notable here. First is an approach which correctly examines the available data to 'make the best' of what is available. If it stops there it is incomplete. Moreover, this approach, if employing statistical methods, might employ exploratory data analysis (EDA) but is not exactly the process described in the previously mentioned statistical comparisons. EDA is useful even if the data do not lend themselves to anything conclusive because the approach CAN explore the data to find testable hypotheses, few of which are mentioned in these studies. EDA is designed to eliminate biases, thus leaving potential numerical relationships. If EDA is followed by experimentation or other forms of tests, the overall process is more complete. But if it stops with the statistical results, even if done carefully, we're still left with little more than intelligent speculation, regardless of the bias of the speculators. The second connotation of 'bad science' is a process that begins with a pre-conceived notion and proceeds with attempts to prove those notions. This is a popular view of science held by the general public and unfortunately it is the opposite of what 'good science' is. The preconceived notion itself is benign if it is constructed in the form of a hypothesis that can be tested experimentally or falsified through other means. But the 'test' is a process in which the 'good scientist' attempts to DISPROVE the preconceived notion. This healthy self-skepticism seems to be absent from the 'sides' of these arguments and I could be wrong but it seems to be absent from ALL of politics (religion also, I might add). To me what we are left with as a result is a system of competing biases, few of which are likely to prevail because all of them suffer from the same 'true believer' advocates. Sorry folks, we've drawn sides and until someone produces testable hypotheses with unequivocal test results, this topic is just going to continue as little more than a quibble. Furthermore, I expect such unequivocal experimentation and results to happen shortly after we pay down the national debt. In the meantime the reality is that the BSA policy allows 'unavowed' gays and atheists to be members. They are there. We just don't know for sure who they are. And anyone who clings to moral absolutes will just have to tilt against imaginary windmills. It is a situation that is unavoidable and can only change if BSA changes to allow gay or atheist members. Trevorum may well be right in his prediction. In the meantime, tilt away.