CalicoPenn

Though heading inland was the prudent thing to do, the irony is that the reports I've read and heard indicate that the worst of the damage was inland rather than along the coast. One of our local meteorologists was on the radio this morning saying that he feels the hype on this storm is going to be more damaging in the long run than the actual storm damage. Based on the models, the storm did exactly what it did - hitting NC as a Cat 1 and dropping to a TS shortly thereafter - but the eastern media - no longer the sober and reserved group of folks it used to be (see Cronkite et. al.) really made this an overblown story - which is why Twocub's comment on Al Roker's hair is both funny and true. It would be really interesting to compare the amount of coverage this storm received versus the amount of coverage the tornadoes that hit Joplin, MO and Alabama received.

This is a GREAT idea - and the same could be said for any natural disaster. One caveat though - there are firewood travel restrictions throughout the eastern United States because of the Ash Emerald Borer so if you plan to do this, try to find folks that are local and not 100 miles away.

Is it just me or did the spokesperson for the BSA seem to signal a softening of the hard-line position? "But according to Deron Smith, the director of public relations for the Boy Scouts of America, Steele wasnt removed from the national council and it may have been a troop decision. Units determine their own membership, Smith said." It sounds an awful lot like a "local option" suggestion. I suspect that the Council just contacted the CO and told them what the policy was and left it to the CO. I suspect that if it was a less conservative CO, the CO might have said "we didn't ask, she didn't tell - nothing more will be done on our end" and Council would have tried to let it quietly go away. I suspect if it was a less conservative CO and they were forced to release this ASM, they would have dumped the complaining ASM as well. Frankly, I wouldn't want to work with an ASM like Inabinett.

Thanks, Beavah.

"Also, with freeing up the jobs taken by illegal migrants" Another sound bite that sounds good on the surface but has no grounding in the reality based world. We're seeing an actual example taking place in Georgia after the Governor there pushed through a bill that had the result of decimating the workforce needed by the farmers in Georgia. Though targeted at "illegal migrants", it also scared off the legal migrants from south of the US border who did the planting and harvesting on the farms. The Governor said that with so much unemployment there would be plenty of "Americans" around to take those jobs. So far, there have been about 5 unemployed "Americans" willing to step in and take those jobs - and 5 people aren't going to be able to replace the hundreds of migrant workers that won't come to Georgia anymore. When the mostly rural and conservative farmers are telling the conservative governor of their state to stop being so darn stupid, you know that the rhetoric is about to get paved under by the reality.

By 25% of popcorn sales, you mean 25% of the Pack's share of popcorn sales, right? You will want to make sure that the parents understand that otherwise they will expect $75 in a scout account if they sell $300 worth of popcorn rather than $25 of the $100 Pack share (assuming the split is still close to 1/3rd for each). Rather than a cash reimbursement to the new families, you could credit their Scout Accounts that amount - better than reimbursing cash and trying to explain that if someone makes an issue out of it. The biggest caution I have for you is the idea of transfering the Scout Account to a lad's Troop. Technically, the money you have raised for the Pack belongs to the Chartered Organization for use in the operations of their Pack. Most chartered organizations don't really want to control the funds and operate under the assumption that you can be trusted to use the money appropriately. On something like this, you want to make sure the CO is fully aware and approves of your plan to transfer money from their unit to another unit that may or may not be chartered by them. For accounting and tax purposes, this could be considered a donation from one tax-exempt organization to another. You aren't transfering a Scout Account, you are "donating" the equivalent to another organization. The BSA does a very poor job in explaining how their units need to handle their accounting - probably because each state is different in their reporting requirements. In general though, on a federal level, each non-profit organization needs to file a federal income tax return. Technically, the money you raise as a Pack needs to be reported as part of the Chartered Organization's tax return (you shouldn't have your own - even if your Pack is chartered by a "Friends of" group, they file the taxes, not the Pack - and that's even if you have your own FEIN). Their are tax advantages to "donating" money to other units - and the CO should be aware. You also need to make very sure that individual scout account moneys are properly accounted for and the money used just for scouting purposes - camping fees,, registration, and the like will fit that. You skate a fine line on purchasing uniforms (though if you purchase for a "uniform bank" for the Pack and lend the uniform, I think you'll be ok). Buying personal gear - sleeping bags, tents, etc. that a Scout will then keep after they leave the Pack is not recommended. The reason is that under federal and most state laws, individuals can NOT financially benefit from fundraising and buying gear that could be used outside of a scouting context could be considered an individual benefit rather than something that benefits the organization. Now keep in mind, that's different from "awards". You could have a set limit (say $1,000 of sales) that allows a Scout to choose an award of a sleeping bag and that's perfectly acceptable. The award is considered part of the cost of doing the fundraiser. But once you put money into a "scout account", it's now separate from the fundraiser because it could be considered mixed with other fundraising funds (even if popcorn sales are your only fundraiser). For a long time now, non-profits haven't been as closely looked at by the IRS and the states, unless there have been specific complaints or obvious evidence of fraud, but that is changing. The IRS recently purged their non-profit listing of thousands of organizations that have failed to file their returns, under the assumption that the organizations no longer exist. Their next step is going to be randomly auditing non-profits the way they randomly audit businesses and individuals. Don't put your chartered organization in a position of trying to explain something that the Pack did that they weren't aware of.

Cub_Mom, If Shortridge doesn't mind, I'll clarify what was said about family. The BSA was very crafty when they developed this requirement. Not only do they mention church, synagogue, mosque and temple, they also use the term "Religious Fellowship". The answer to your question lies in what is meant by Religious Fellowship. For the BSA, it's a catch-all phrase, to bring in all the other religious traditions that don't neccessarily involve the "big 4" And that catch-all does include, in the BSA's eyes - Family. A Cub Scout doesn't have to go to church, synagogue, mosque or temple to complete the requirement. His "Religious Fellowship" may just be his family. So to complete the requirement, he can find out what he can do to help his family. Now the question becomes "what kinds of things count as helping his family". The answer is pretty much anything. A Cub Scout setting the table for meals for his family is as valid a method of helping as a Cub Scout helping to set tables for a Church event. A Cub Scout picking up sticks around the family home is as valid as a Cub Scout picking up sticks around his Synagogue. A Cub Scout reading to his little sister is as valid as a Cub Scout reading to a pre-school class at Sunday school. See where I'm going with this? Don't let the requirement scare you into thinking the "help" can't be something you might otherwise consider mundane. Almost everything a Cub can do at home is also a potential way that a Cub can help out at church.

"There's nothing between DC and NY?" Well obviously it didn't affect Snooki's hairdo on the Jersey Shore so no, nothing to report there.

Beagle's got it - Scout isn't a rank, it's a joining requirement. Bobcat isn't a rank, it's a joining requirement. Bobcat is the Cub Scout equivalent of Scout (though to be historically correct, I should say Scout is the Boy Scout equivalent to Bobcat, since Bobcat came first).

Beavah, Thanks for the math check - I did indeed mean 1% but must have been number blind.

"because of the excess waste of government in managing money." Is there really an excess waste of government in managing money or is that just a perception because people have told us over and over and over again that government wastes money? The head of Medicare makes less than $200,000 per year in compensation. Medicare insures more than 40 million people. The head of United Healthcare, the largest private health care company in the US, makes over $3.4 million in compensation per year. United Healthcare insures about 18 million people. Government waste? I'd be congratulating government on keeping salary costs down and pointing to United Healthcare as being wasteful. How is "excess waste" calculated? Is $0.01 (0.01%) per $100 excess waste? Most of us woudn't consider a penny out of $100 to be a waste. Heck, that's a rounding error. Yet at $1 Billion, 0.01% is $10 Million. That's a lot of dough! The initial reaction - Wow - that's excess waste. But is it? It's still 0.01% or 1 penny per $100. At numbers that large, it's disingenuous to report that "government wasted $10 million" if the reporter isn't also telling you out of how much and if we're too lazy to do the math and calculate what that means in the real world. $10 million out of $50 million? yeah - I think we can agree that's excess waste. But $10 million out of $1 billion? It's a penny per $100. Think about this for a moment. You can buy a ream of paper at a big box office supply store for a little over $5.00 - let's round down to $5 for the math. 500 sheets of paper are in a ream, that's about $0.01 per piece of paper. How much of that ends up being thrown out (or recycled) because too many copies were made, or the toner ran out in the middle of a print job, or the paper got jammed, or you discovered an error and had to correct it, etc. etc. If even just 10% was wasted, that's 50 sheets, or 50 cents. There aren't that many folks who are going to cry over 50 sheets of paper being tossed out over the course of a week. So if that $1 billion was all paper, and that $10 million was 10% paper waste, over a period of time, it seems to me to be a bit ridiculuous to complain about that being waste but not complain if it's the same percentage on a smaller scale. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to cut that amount down. It means we need to start recognizing when folks are trying to manipulate us into fretting over something that's not fret-worthy.

The prayers may have been answered, but 0.36 inches of rain certainly doesn't solve the drought problem. Seems to be either a tepid response from God, or else the prayer was intercepted by Lucifer and he's not afraid to mess with Texas. (oh, and before anyone accuses me of partisanship, I would do the same exercise for any Eagle Scout candidate that someone suggests deserves a look see for Eagle Scout values).

Good thing I read this thread or I would still have been laboring under the, now obvious, misconception that the BSA's membership losses were tied in to the anti-war sentiments of the Vietnam War era, the explosion of youth sports, the continuing trend of the population moving from small towns to big cities and their suburbs and the change from one-wage earner familes to two-wage earner familes. Nope, all along it's because the BSA stopped teaching "Scoutcraft" in Wood Badge in favor of leadership development. I guess I never would have thought that the folks that went to Wood Badge when I was a youth, who had usually been in Scouting for much longer periods of time than are typical today - 5 to 10 years or more, rather than 1 to 2 years as seems to be fairly common these days - needed more instruction in "Scoutcraft" because they didn't have enough experience in it yet. Silly me.

A Scout is Trustworthy: Perry opposed the federal stimulus, and said loudly, over and over, that he wouldn't accept any of the federal stimulus money, took federal stimulus money anyway. Fail A Scout is Loyal: Perry has suggested that seceeding from the USA is an option for Texas. Fail A Scout is Helpful: Perry refused to tap into the state's $8 billion dollar "rainy day" fund to increase funding to Texas' SCHIP program (health care for children in poverty) despite a 25% rate of poverty among children in Texas. He cut funds to SCHIP instead. Fail A Scout is Courteous: Despite overwhelming evidence that a fire originally categorized as arson wasn't an arson fire at all, Perry refused to put on hold the execution of a man who was convicted of an arson fire that killed his family. After being put to death, the final report issued 6 months later proved that the fire was not arson, and therefore the state convicted a man of a crime that was not committed. The State of Texas has executed an innocent man under Perry. Perry has since fired 3 of the members of the commission, replaced them, and is trying to bury the report. Fail A Scout is Obedient: Perry declared, in a conference at BP, that the Gulf Oil Spill was an "Act of God". Though proving himself obedient to his corporate masters at BP, part of being obedient is knowing when tell your friends the truth. Fail A Scout is Thrifty: Under Perry, Texas' debt has doubled. Fail A Scout is Clean: Despite Texas having one of the worst pollution records in the country, Perry sued the EPA to be able to pollute the skies above Texas even more. Fail A Scout is Reverent: Though it may seem he has this sewn up, his statements show that he has no respect for any religious beliefs other than his brand of Christianity. Fail 8 out of 12 failures of the Scout Law. Reconsider the idea - not because Perry may/may not be a good candidate, but because if I can come up with a way to potentially turn his being an Eagle Scout into a negative, others can too - and that's not going to be good for the image of the BSA, will it?(This message has been edited by calicopenn)

Why compare the USPS to UPS. The truth is that the USPS could destroy UPS if they were allowed to make it easier to print postage and ship packages from your own home and office instead of making people go to the post office to ship packages (after 9/11, it became against the rules to drop anything much larger than a 1st class letter in a mailbox - you can no longer wrap a book, weigh it, put the right amount of stamps on it, and drop it in a mailbox if it's over 13 ounces - you HAVE to take it to the post office). The postal rates for shipping are cheaper - and there is none of this "zoned" shipping charges - ship a media mail package by post office and the cost is around $1.50 - usually takes 1 to 5 days to get where it's going, depending on where it's going. Send it by UPS, and you'll spend $3.50 to $8.50, depending on where it's going, and it takes 1 to 5 days to get there. If you're shipping 50 packages a day out at $3.50 but could ship them at $1.50, wouldn't you switch? Also, can UPS deliver a 1st class letter from St. Pete, Florida to Homer, Alaska for under 50 cents? Nope - but the Post Office does. Want to see the Post Office thrive? Get Congress out of its way and let them compete in a a truly free market way. UPS and FedEx thrive because we DON'T have a free market when it comes to delivery.

How much should they do? As much as possible, otherwise the Troop is just focusing on advancement and not on being Boy Scouts.

Historical analysis isn't as kind to Morgenthau. Morganthau's comment was during the thick of things. Once we passed through the period, and with benefit of historical hindsight, economists say the recovery during the depression was held back because we were too timid with our spending and didn't spend enough.

Both the Pack and the Troop put the last ribbon received on the flag staff. It would replace the ribbon earned just before it. That ribbon would then added to the ribbon collection - both the Pack and the Troop used poles to tie the ribbons to.

You'll never get consensus or agreement between those that see the issues as infinite shades of gray and those that see the issues in terms of an Us vs. Them, Democrat vs. GOP or Conservative vs. Liberal. Those of us who agree with Beavah and Eamonn see the issues in shades of gray and nuance. Those that agree with Tahawk and Seattle see definitive lines. Of course, that conflict is what makes the politics forum so interesting.

If Jefferson, Washington, et. al. truly believed that government was dangerous, then they wouldn't have fought so hard to create their own form of government, would they? What they believed is that government could be used in dangerous ways. That government could be used, in the manner of the British Monarchy, to subjugate the citizens as mere serfs and slaves. None of the Founding Fathers was anti-tax. The Boston Tea party wasn't about demanding that taxes be abolished. The Founding Fathers believed that taxation needed to be equitable, and done with representation. Case in point - the tax that led to the Boston Tea Party - British tea was taxed much lower than native tea, giving British tea an unfair advantage. The Boston Tea Party was meant to send a message that tea is tea is tea, no matter where it's from, and should be taxed the same. The representation is our legislatures in Washington (or state capital, or local government, elected by the people) debating and voting on taxes, rather than having some King just decree by fiat what will or will not be taxed. That system works well for us - and we have a good recent example when the President suggested a tax for artifical tanning, it was debated and voted down. Had we no representation, the President could have simply declared the tax by fiat. Our system of government worked just the way the founding fathers meant it too. Don't want to pay any taxes? Then convince your representatives to reduce or eliminate taxes. Just make sure you can live with the consequences. Taxes are the price we pay to ensure that we have the opportunity to live a long, healthy, fruitful, and profitable life. It's up to you to take advantage of that opportunity, but it's the infrastructure and programs that allow us to have that opportunity. Eliminating or refusing to tax for some programs may feel good in the short term, but in the long term, it will eventually affect our prosperity as a society.

How out of state/absent/ineffective do you think the IH will be when he's called to prepare to receive a lawsuit?

But there's the rub, Seattle. The people really don't want their Congress to play politics with policy. We like politics in the rhetoric, we don't like it in reality.

Well I certainly wouldn't have handled it the way these 5 adult jerks did (and does anyone want to challenge my characterization of these guys as jerks? Trust me when I say, that's pretty mild compared to what I'd like to characterize these jerks as). I know exactly what I would be doing if I were the parent - I would be in front of the sponsor demanding that these knuckleheads apologize to my son and be removed from the unit, forever. I would be contacting the SE demanding that these jerks be removed from Scouting forever. I would be in front of an attorney preparing to sue the pants off these jerks on the grounds of emotional stress for opening up this little "investigation". I would be in front of a judge getting a restraining order against these jerks to keep him away from my son, and keep them from continuing this witchhunt. And because I can be a mean and spiteful person, I would be contacting their employers to let them know that these jerks are showing an inappropriate interest in the sexuality of my son. I'd be scorching the earth in and around this Troop right now, until these so-called leaders were never let near another Scout and were hopefully cowering in their crawlspaces, afraid to come out and face the community. Bottom line, rumors of the sexuality of any Scout should never - let me repeat - NEVER - be addressed by Unit Leaders in any way, shape, or form - unless there is direct testimony by a Scout of inappropriate behavior directed toward them by another Scout. The jerks have to go - and they have to go now - not in a month, not in a year - now. Had this kid committed suicide, the parents would have been devastated and had no idea why their son committed suicide (and good on your son for doing the right thing - sometimes loyalty means not acquiescing to a friends request) and these jerks would have, in my opinion, been guilty of committing murder.

Gunny, I'm afraid the original, grassroots, tea party isn't relevant to the conversation. When the conversation is about the tea party, it's understood by most people to mean the right wing of the GOP. It's no longer seen as bipartisan, it's no longer seen as grassroots. The media has accepted the right wing as the tea party, and has helped with the co-option of the tea party by identifying them as the Joe Walshes (not the singer), Michelle Bachmans, and Sara Palin's of the world.

I always find it interesting when folks discuss the General Welfare clause and the enumerated powers that they insist on quoting only Jefferson, Madison and the Federalists and never quote folks like Hamilton and the Republicans, who were on the opposite side of the issues. I always find it fascinating that folks will quote Jefferson's statements on the limits placed on government by the Constitution without ever mentioning Jefferson's hypocritical ignoring of those limits when he refused to find a constitutional justification to making the Louisiana Purchase, thought by most, including the Federalists, to be blatantly unconstitutional. It's also interesting that in all these back-and-forth arguments about what the authors of the Constitution meant, we fail to take into account the resolutions passed by the Constitutional Convention that were binding on the convention committees that wrote the various texts. In the case of federal power, the resoluton said that Congress would have all the powers it had under the Articles of Confederation plus the powers to "legislate in all Cases for the general Interests of the Union". The framers used the Articles of Confederation as their guide, and specifically removed the limitation that Congress would have only powers "expressly delegated" to it because that provision had proven, under the Articles of Confederation, to be "destructive to the Union". For over 200 years, the Congress and the Supreme Court have interpreted the language to mean that Section 8 has both enumerated and implied powers, and that as long as it is not prohibited by the Constitution, and can properly fall into the federal sphere, then laws and programs created under the implied powers of the common defense and general welfare clauses are Constitutional. The Federalists made their arguments over 200 years ago on enumerated powers. They lost. Quoting them now is like quoting Jefferson Davis when arguing about whether slavery should be allowed.