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All I know is that a kid has a whole lot better of chance dying in a car crash riding with just one adult than being assaulted by one adult he is riding with. Perhaps the G2SS should mandate that scouts are only allowed to ride in cars with 8+ airbags, as they are going to reduce injury much much much more than requiring that a scoutmaster can never ride one on one with a scout. Everything you do is a calculated risk. Sleep in a tent? There is a chance if you are in range of a tree it could fall on you in the night and crush you. Do we need the g2ss to say all tents must be 300 feet away from a tree? Someone standing close to a fire could trip and fall into it. Does the g2ss need to mandate how far you must stay away from an open flame? You could spill hot wash water on your leg. Does the g2ss need to mandate that rinse water may only be heated up to a certain temperature, require every troop to purchase multiple thermometers, and inform council if the water got too hot? There is probably a 1000 to 1 chance that a youth will burn his leg with rinse water or fall into the fire before any adult tries to do anything to him. We could just declare that all camping trips are now to be conducted at the local mental institution, each kid is put in a padded cell for the weekend, and given cold liquid food as to not choke or burn himself. Of course, then you would still have to get there, which is dangerous in itself, so lets just stay home. But wait... there are chemicals at home that the scout can sniff... I guess the only safe option is to not have any kids at all anymore. If you don't have kids they can't get hurt, right?

I think the missing cans could have easily been a scout or leader realizing that since they watched you make the cobbler and there are left overs, even if they are sitting somewhere in your stuff, that you don't really mind them getting used. In fact, someone could have seen it as a favor as in LNT pack-in/pack-out they were lessening your weightload for the return trip. If you really had no desire to punish the person who drank the cans, the best course of action would have been to ask for the person who drank them to give you the empty cans so you can dispose of them properly. That way you can find out who drank the soda and slip in a statement such as "please dont drink soda or other supplies that you think are leftover without asking again".

I defended the boys as I was looking at the scenario as it would play out for me, in the district that I am in, if I was a boy in the OA. First, the troop that I am with is at the far edge of the district. In fact, it is the farthest east troop in the whole council. Our troop is the only troop that has people participate in the OA, except for two other guys out of the enitre district. So you already see what has set up: Furthest from everyone plus only one participating. Which Means: Four Hour Round Trip Traveling (240 Miles Round)trips to perform ceremonies over and over at the other side of the district for people you don't know and with troops larger than yours that have MORE OA members in the troop than yours does. BUT, since they do not participate, your troop has to do all the work for troops that have the members and resources to do it themselves. Thats why last year I told the district troops that our troop was no longer going to be performing ceremonies unless they were located in 20 miles of our town. We have done one since then, and the district has had a total of one ceremony performed.

While it would have been nice for the OA team to inform you they weren't showing up, they have no obligation to perform ceremonies for you. People in the OA do many other things in life, and may not have time to fit you in. The scenario where no one planned anyting on it sounds like the kids were being forced into the ceremony team, and did not like what they were being made to do.

Today is the day my brand new bright Red Scouter Magazine for Jan/Feb 2010 arrived in the mail. The first lengthy article in the magazine is about .... ETHICS! The magazine goes on to present the story of a web page on the internet that talks about students and teachers at a school. Specifically, the page "suggests that a married teacher is having an affair." Then the page goes on to continue that 1 boy knows who maintains the website, but he agreed not to tell anyone else. The principal wants to know, but the boy agreed not to tell anyone. Now, the article continues, "Now, the principal discovers a program that enables him to identify each person visiting the web site. He is asking students to come forwards with the names of the creators of the web site. If no one does, the principal plans to question each student that visited it." The article ultimately ends, "What should David Do?" Now, lets discuss the ethical writing seen in the article on ethics. First of all, if the site perpetrates the fact that a teacher is having an affair, and does not present it as a rumor, the site can already be taken down for slander. A simple call to the domain registrar and hosting company get this done quickly. If it is presented as a rumor, it is perfectly legal (see the tabloids by the checkout), which means the principal can do nothing, anyway. If a site has illegal content, it doesn't matter who owns it. Contacting the host and registrar will get it down. Thanks for following journalistic ethics here. Next, we have the principal crowing about his program to find out who visits the web site. There is no such program in existence. In fact, it is impossible to have a program that does this. Of course, the principal could see who tried to visit it AT SCHOOL, but no where else. To find out who visits a web site, it is impossible, without getting the logs from the website's host. And THEN after getting the logs, you have to supoena EVERY ISP whose IP number accessed the site for customer information. Of course, as there is nothing illegal about viewing a site that presents slander the supoena would not be granted, and this would fall through. And that is ignoring the fact that the only way to get the access logs from the host would be to supoena them, and you wouldn't get those, even it teh site was slander. (You don't need the logs to see who published teh site.) Thanks for keeping the writing ethical and truthful through that part of the article also. The best thing that anyone could do to help the principal was give him the domain registrar records (publicly viewable) and ask him to have (in the case of slander) those slandered to contact the cops, and let them take it from there. If there is no slander, sorry principal, but you can do nothing, even with your fictitious programs. It would be nice to see a little journalistic truthfulness and ethics in an article about ethics.

If the game was played as someone had listed above "Your troop gets 700, or two troops get 500 each" I would have easily made the decision to dock mine by 200 to Increase another troop by 500". Why? I LIKE other boy scout troops and other good organizations to get money to run a good program, especially when the money comes from a benefactor and not from me. But if it was between me and another regular working guy, I could care less If I got half of his paycheck. I had the good idea that made my boss pay me more -- not him, why should I not take advantage of my resourcefulness? I am not going to improve company efficiency by 7%, be offered a raise (due to the money they saved laying off nonneeded workers) and give it away. Finally, I don't think I mentioned this before, but I didn't like the way that the instructors tried to play the audience. They had a suggestion board at the front of the room you could leave suggestion notes or questions on. They would answer them after each activity. After the activity was over, they instructors claimed they "found" a note on the board that says that they "forgot" to open the WB training the night before with the scout oath and law, and that they we were going to do them now to adhere to policy. I knew something was up with this, as no one had left a note on the board. I found their syllabus the next day, and this is what it said to do after the game... This is just plain manipulation of us by the instructors. If they wanted us to say those, fine, tell us that. But don't make up a reason why, we aren't little kids.

I believe that having an OA chapter in a small (people wise) and large (land wise) district is not geared for success. If the district in question has only 130 youth members spread out through 10 troops over a 70x90 mile area, there is no way an OA program can be started and succeed. First of all, we are looking at only about 50 possible kids allowed to come to meetings. Next, how many will come? And drive 90-100 miles to a 2 hour meeting? It seems to me that if you spend more time in the car going somewhere than actually being where you are going, it is not good to go. Next, there are few activities you can do at a 2 hour meeting that I know of. For example, lets take Election team training. If that is all you can do in your small district based off only a couple of scouts showing up to meetings, it is worth it to just stop altogether. Election training as the only activity creates a vicious circle. The scout asks, "Why should I join OA?" you answer "To take training to get others to join." This creates a nonsensical organization, whose only function is to increase membership. Whose increased membership will increase membership ... etc etc. The only draw that a small chapter I know can generate successfully is doing election training. If thats all you can do, it is time to stop.

I've heard rumors that the next edition of Websters Dictionary released will include a usage of the word gay - "to express dislike". Meanings of words evolve, he is just using a meaning that is not widely used or accepted by everyone yet. If we locked the words at their original meanings and never let them change, everyone would think he was talking about the uniform "looking happy and joyful". While I do not go out of my way to bash gay people, and normally it is a non issue. But if they set themselves up, you have to take a shot. If the gay person in question is not wearing makeup, girls clothes, or using a pronounced lithp, I wouldn't take any shots. But if they combine any of the above I have no choice.

Take for example we have religion A and religion B A states that a person must do XXX to reach salvation, while B states the direct opposite of XXX. Which one is right? If you cannot reach a concrete no doubts conclusion, there is no point to do either. "What if you pick wrong, and are just making him madder?" - Dewey Wilkerson

I gotta just say, cheating is way more advanced than you have ever imagined. It is a multi-million dollar industry. For 200 Bucks or so, a kid can get a hidden earpiece that works as a bluetooth speaker off his cell phone, so he could constantly be fed info. With a throat mic going the other way, he can whisper something so softly that no one 3" from his mouth could hear, the throat mic picks it up perfectly, and the guy at home on his cell with the internet can get him the answer in no time. You may think that is impossible for a throat mic to do that, but they are designed so motorcycle riders can talk on CB or other radio without any backdrop noise, as it works off throat vibrations of speech. Drop a 100 there. A 300 dollar investment for a kid for four years of high school and 4 years of college is pretty good for not studying at all.

What benefit is the question... Well, the same benefit that a painted fence gives. It looks nicer and prettier, but still does the same thing as it did before. And supervising workers setting up a computer OS is alot more intensive than supervising workers painting a fence. Can they EVER paint the fence wrong? As long as they use the provided materials they can't do anything wrong, unless they are totally stupid. (Painting the Grass?) The scout first has to train his assistants how to format the HD, settings needed to enter on install, debugging install problems etc.

If the guy paid for the trailer through paypal, or a different internet transaction site, or any way with his credit card, he can just call the auction site, or at a last resort just call his credit card company to not pay the seller. As long as he used a credit card, if he can call the company before his monthly bill gets paid and tell them to cancel paying that seller, he can not pay anything. Paypal has chargebacks, and surely with police help he can get more than enough evidence to complete that. If it was by check, too bad, unless he hasn't cashed it yet. If then, just cancel the check.

Underarmor looks good on anyone that doesn't have a big belly. Maybe the UA uniform will motivate some to lose weight? I would pay above $100 to get one of these right now. And so much for the new centennial uniform, eh? It was a failure.

Yeah, OP was a troll obviously, but that doesn't discredit any of the quesitons he asks or points he makes. Also, he is not asking you to state that the BSA is a private organization. It clearly is, but that does not answer the questions. He is not asking "IS the BSA allowed to ....". The BSA clearly is. He is asking "SHOULD the BSA ....". Which is entirely different. Just because something is legal does not mean it should be done. Take Power of Attorney of a dying man. The Person who holds Power of Attorney can legally change the dying man's will, and can legally make himself the sole heir. It has been done before, taken to court, and the man who changed the will won. That is legal, just as the BSA limiting who can enter, but SHOULD it be done? With that in light: I have no problem with aethiests in scouts. They pose no physical or mental danger. And 99% of kids are not trying to push agenda, they merely want to be with their friends. The 1% who wants to agenda push won't have much success if it is 1 vs the rest. He will become a comedy figure whenever he tries to agenda push. Aethiests give no other scouts reservations. However, gay scouts are another story for me. Can you imagine knowing that when you are changing, one of the other scouts also changing is paying attention to your body? That easily poses reservations tothe other scouts. Of course, with this known, I would fully expect the non-gay scouts to make life so miserable for him on camping trips and meetings that he would quit by himself.

about the no tent thing, our guys at summer camp opted to take down the tents (last week of camp) the night before we left and sleep on their cots out in the open so they wouldn't have to do it in the morning and we could leave and get home quickly.