frankj

I would like to add my two cents, based on experience in our district. Our troop is chartered by the Knights of Columbus, but is not comprised of all Catholic boys and parents. When my son was active we had a Scout join our troop from one of the LDS troops in the town because as his Dad told me there were not enough activities and opportunities for him to advance. This young man completed his Eagle rank in our troop and is now on a mission. His parents were two of the most supportive parents to him and to Scouting in general that I ever ran into. His former troop lost a fine young man and

A slow day on the issues forum.

Eammon, both parties stink. We can point out bad legislation passed by the party we don't like, ad infinitum. Do you like to "harken back?" Sure, let's do that. How far do we go? I'll see your harkening back to GWB's admin and raise you the Clinton 8 years, then you can raise me Elder Bush's term, and Reagan, then I'll raise you Carter. Little is accomplished -- except maybe it backs up my premise, both parties stink. There are a lot of people who don't like this proposed health bill for various reasons: they don't understand what's in it, it may cut their profits, it may dump the

I'm glad this seems headed toward a happy ending. And NJCubScouter -- a funny and maybe accurate post about which MBs tend to get left to last.

He should stand. He doesn't have to recite the pledge of allegiance, but he should still stand, whatever religion he is, or citizen of whatever country he is. It is a matter of respect, like Eammon said. Does the SPL or someone leading the flag ceremony say "Please stand while we recite the pledge of allegiance."

Don't forget to get one from his dentist. Just kidding. Sounds like what I call a "localized" interpretation of the requirement. I have been on Eagle Boards where there were as few a 3 letters. For others reading this who may have a boy getting close to seeking these letters, I have encouraged boys to provide people with a stamped, self-addressed envelope to make it easy for them to write the letter and mail it.

Yes, the left-handed smoke shifter. I'm glad scoutmaster52 brought it up, I was going to. I am guilty on two counts: 1) being duped into going to get one on my first campout, and 2) sending a new scout to get one on a subsequent campout.

SR540Beaver: I'm not a regular, but I am a long term, occasional visitor. I swooped in here like a seagull checking out a MacDonald's parking lot for French Fries and whoa! ... here was this gang fight in progress! The president bashing just gave me a chance to voice one of my pet concerns. The notion that elections really don't change the Congress that much, because of the careful establishment of district boundaries, something a newpaper editor, friend of mine mentioned to me several years ago. Where are we, page 6 of comments? Pretty soon the bashers will whittle themselves down

Rejoinder to MileHigh: use of term "Bushwacker" disrespectful, but I think someone already called you on that. And when you blame everything on GWB, or when someone else blames everything on Bill Clinton for example, their argument loses steam. Sure, Presidents undertake different initiatives, good and bad, but they only serve 8 years. If we want to look at who is responsible for creating bad policy, and failing to correct bad policy, I say it is not the (relatively) transitory office of the President. Good and bad policy does not start and stop on Inauguration Day. Example:

Your definition of "all spending" being "pork" is different from mine. Government has basic functions they need to spend money on: national defense, a justice system, law enforcement, fire protection, and infrastructure like roads and streets. These are legitimate uses of tax revenue. Spending $500,000 for a dog park in Chula Vista CA, as part of the stimulus, is pork, in my opinion. In your post, you don't distinguish between legitimate spending and wasteful spending -- to you its all pork. And one cannot conclude from your last post that you think pork, (i.e. all spending by your

Link to an article that describes the errors Geithner made. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/59703.html Excerpts from the article: Geithner filed amended tax returns for 2001 and 2002 after Barack Obama nominated him. Earlier he did so for 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 after an IRS audit in 2006. He did his own taxes in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2005. Q: Aren't there some other mistakes, too? A: One of the more egregious errors was that Geithner, over three different tax years, claimed that expenses for the summer camps he'd sent his children to qualified for the chi

We are witness to the importance of the Senate NOT being controlled by 60 or more votes by one party. If the Democrats had a 60+ seats, I am convinced this stimulus package in its original form of 900 billion would have been rammed through. I like the Beav's idea of putting the line item vetoing on prime time. BHO will never do it though, too early to be making enemies among your own party. This stimulus package was outsourced to Pelosi and Reid, who bragged they could get him something to sign within a couple weeks. Well, they did and the package is less about an adrenaline shot t

Beavah: How do you KNOW this: "False for Geithner, perhaps true for Daschle. Geithner wasn't even aware of da errors until they were caught by Obama's vetting team."

I'll tell you why it is worthy of comment. BHO repeated the "change" mantra over and over during his campaign and we aren't even in a couple of weeks and 3 attempts to appoint people run into the same old problems. Or, are we all supposed to so sophisticated that we really don't expect successful candidates to follow through on what they say? Yes, he is now our President, but there is nothing wrong in expecting him to appoint people who aren't tainted.

She withdrew and this morning the announcement came out that Daschle withdrew.

This is from a George Will column last week (the next two paragraphs): "The stimulus legislation would create a council for Comparative Effectiveness Research. This is about medicine but not about healing the economy. The CER would identify (this is language from the draft report on the legislation) medical "items, procedures, and interventions" that it deems insufficiently effective or excessively expensive. They "will no longer be prescribed" by federal health programs. The next secretary of health and human services, Tom Daschle, has advocated a "Federal Health Board" similar t

Mr. Geithner is appointed to an important government post and discovers he needs to pay approximately $34,000 in taxes, interest and penalties. Then, Mr. Daschle is nominated for an important government post and he pays approximately $102,000 in back taxes, interest and penalties. If these two dollar amounts are the beginning of a series, how much will the next nominee likely owe in taxes, penalties and interest? a) $0 b) $50,000 c) $100,000 d) $306,000 Pardon my cynicism, but is this the change we were expecting?

The tent opening should face south if you are in the northern hemisphere, and it should face north if you are in the southern hemisphere. If you pitch your tent on the Equator, you have your choice.

Congratulations to these young men. "The Eagle Scout plans his own ceremony." I remember this from my son's Eagle COH. If these young men and their families want to combine into one ceremony, more power to them. Make sure you have a big enough hall! I hope you get great, positive press coverage.

My two cents. It is common for organizations to justify salaries based on the "talent" arguement. "We have to pay these amounts to be competitive and attract and retain top talent." Wall Street comes to mind, high pay, but lots of bad decisions. Top posts in government come to mind as well. So the "talent" arguement doesn't always wash. Organizations have to stop thinking that there is no one else who can do the job as well, and for less money. Perhaps the top group at Scouts should dial back their salaries by some significant percentage and then with the help of an outside organizatio

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/specials/scoutslogging/boyscoutsresponse.pdf (29 pages in length) This is a link to BSA's response. I tried the one skeptic posted but it didn't work for me. My understanding is that the Seattle PI (Post Intelligencer) is going to close its doors soon. It is one of two daily papers in Seattle, the other one being the Seattle Times. They have a long and colorful history of mutual animosity but for a number of years now, they have had a joint operating agreement entered into at a time when they were stuggling. The PI has run other anti-logging arti

Was this supposed to be a news article, or is it an anti-Scouts editorial? In some places it is hard to tell. It looks to me like an editor decided that a hit piece against the Scouts was in order and they went on a nationwide hunt. What they found was that yes, Councils cut trees down, and yes, they make money from it. So what? The business about Camp Delezene -- the biologist mentioned is associated with one of the most litigious environmental groups in the state of Washington, so his comments are no surprise. Logging in Washington is governed by regulations administered by a sta

Concerning Eric Holder's role in the pardon of FALN terrorists. http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NWFlZGE4OGUwNjU4NWYxNDMwYTBlN2EyMjQyNzExODY= "Change you can believe in ..."

How about for this purpose: Holder gave bad advice when he was in Clinton's administration and now he is being recycled into Obama's administration into the the AG slot, where just may give more bad advice. This is not the type of "change" that some people were expecting. Is there a new rule that no one can say anything critical of what they perceive to be a bad cabinet pick?

Scrooge's words from the posting by lisabob: "...decrease the surplus population ..." And lisabob's closing comment: "I don't think anybody could get this much clearer than Charles Dickens did." There IS someone who can get it much clearer -- and she has the power to institute controls on the surplus population, Nancy Pelosi. She believes more money thrown at abortion clinics will help the government cut costs. If this is what increased government involvement in health care is going to become, then we baby boomers better redouble our efforts to locate the Fountain of Youth, because