JoeBob

Once spent a nice Christmas on the Buffalo River in Arkansas. Wilderness camping on gravel bars. The spiders would crawl up out of the pebbles to enjoy our warmed tents. I think there is one class 3 riffle on the whole stretch, but who wants water in their face in January?

The attack lawyer won't eat me?

JMHawkins, Sounds like you and I have run into the same trainers/zealots. The very name, 'Leave No Trace', is impossible; unless you stay home. Anyone with much tracking experience knows that there is always trace. (My kind of zealotry) There are many acceptable practices in the LNT principles that do leave a trace, and the zealots like to focus on the unattainable name. I'm not sure what motivates those scouters who insist that catholes are unacceptable trace. The ones I have to put up with claim to want the boys to enjoy the woods. If there are more picky rules for b

BaldenP, I see you've resorted to the 'Ad Hominem' defense, once again. But I can see where you're coming from. I can't type that fast, either.

As a CM, pack campouts are too much work for me to actually enjoy. Don't get me wrong, there are lots of high spots and memories; but I feel like I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. I get lots of personal satisfaction from non-scout camping trips, like this one: http://s1213.photobucket.com/albums/cc473/JosephBob/ I volunteer in scouting hoping to instill a love of the outdoors in all my boys. Hopefully they'll want to take their children and friends to the woods when they get older... Also, in personal camping you don't have to hide the wine bottle, and your dog

BadenP - Thanks! You've made my point. If you teach an UNREALISTIC, OVERBEARING, (May I say ridiculous?) outdoor ethic, it will be ignored. And then you'll have NO outdoor ethic. The Boy Scouts who got scouting banned from the parks in your area weren't practicing LNT, were they? You can't say that they weren't taught LNT, because it's too deeply embedded in BSA advancement requirements. They just didn't buy into the LNT hyperbole. Why might kids choose not to buy into LNT? There are some parts of LNT that flat out don't make sense in all situations, and once an inquisitiv

LNT is the wilderness version of political correctness, delivered with a Woodbadger's EDGE...

Is there anyone on this blog from Australia? How is the education system there? Can you point me to a link outlining the emmigration requirements? New Zealand would actually be my first choice, but I hear they're a bit picky about who they let in. And I stink from work.

Let's boil it down to the most basic level: Is it your money to do with as you want? - or - Is it the Government's money to do with as they want? If it's the government's money, why should I work to earn it?

Beavah, Problems with your position: Beavah: "Concentration of capital means an end of meritocracy." Nope. The opposite is true. Stealing half what a man owns when he dies robs him off any motivation to accumulate capital. Dynasties are not a modern problem: 1. According to a study of Federal Reserve data conducted by NYU professor Edward Wolff, for the nation's richest 1%, inherited wealth accounted for only 9% of their net worth in 2001, down from 23% in 1989. (The 2001 number was the latest available.) 2. According to a study by Prince & Associates, less than

My thanks for the vocabulary lesson. I'm not too proud to admit that I had to look up 'eponymous'.

Thanks for allowing me to keep 22%.

Gern, That's outrageous, even for you. I've busted my hump for 35 years to build my business. I've paid taxes every year. Lots of taxes. If I'm able to continue successfully for another 15 years, before the eyes go bad, my business may be worth $5 million. Both of my kids like working in the business. (They're too young to be paid or to be serious help. My point is that in 15 years they would probably like to take over for me and ihherit what I've built.) If the Democrats have their way, and put a 45% tax on estates, my kids will have to borrow $2,250,000 to pay the IRS fo

We're number ONE! Japan just announced a 5% reduction in their corporate income tax rate. They're trying to stimulate the sluggish Japanese economy. That makes the US corporate tax rate the highest in the developed world! YAHOO?! How many businesses are going to race to set-up operations in the US so that they can pay the number one highest tax rate! How many other businesses are going to quietly shift their operations out of the country? How many good-paying jobs are provided by poor men?

Gern, Tissue? (R. Lee Ermey was grand marshall of the Veteran's Day parade our cubs marched in. I like that Geico commercial the best!)

FYI: The Guvenator called the Kalifornia House Democrats "Girly-men". But it is bi-parisan wseeping! Obammer was teary-eyed while answering questions and abdicated the POTUS seal to Slick WIlly: "RealClearPolitics has the video up of Obama having his meltdown after being pressed too hard to answer substantive questions about the economy. Hes teary-eyed, and his pale purple tie looks drabless SEIU than moldy sardines. His ill-fitting and rumpled suit jacket is dingy and his eyes are puffy and sunken, like hed been crying all day, perhaps realizing how inept he is in the role of

Nobody argues that we shouldn't pay for the freeloaders' health care. Why does everyone accept that premise? Isn't death natural?

Obama's liberal ideals have run smack dab into reality: Close Gitmo? 1- No other country (or state) wants the prisoners. 2- Most of the released prisoners return to the battlefield. Hold terrorist trials in NYC? (The Lawyer employment guarantee policy) 1- Security costs out the wazoo. 2- Biased jury pool. 3- The one trial that was held in the US got ONE conviction out of 286 charges? Withdraw from Afghanistan? That idea has been thouroughly trashed in previous entries in this thread. Tax the rich? 1- The rich are the most mobile - they will leave. 2- Ever

I trust different news people on different topics. Lou Dobbs was a good source for imigration. Neal Cavuto is good about looking at both sides of economic issues. John Stossel always shoots straight with his investigative pieces. George Will provides a good overview of politics. Charles Krauthammer is a rapier to liberals. Chris Matthews tries to do the same to conservatives. Listen to 'em all, and make your own decisions.

Shermi - Don't be so close minded, ya big lefty! The people at UCLA who study such things find that: Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, Only Fox News' "Special Report With Brit Hume" and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter. "If viewers spent an equal amount of time watching Fox's 'Special Report' as ABC's 'World News' and NBC's 'Nightly News,' then they would receive a nearly perfectly balanced version of the news," said Milyo, an associate professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Missouri at Colum

Here's an excerpt: "Some locations are given unique billing. The Nadym gas pipeline junction in western Siberia, for example, is described as "the most critical gas facility in the world". It is a crucial transit point for Russian gas heading for western Europe. In some cases, specific pharmaceutical plants or those making blood products are highlighted for their crucial importance to the global supply chain. The critical question is whether this really is a listing of potential targets that might be of use to a terrorist, our correspondent says." The cable contains a simp

Now that WikiLeaks has published a list of critical infrastructure in the US, are they a terrorist; yet?

Palin's Alaska - As a gun-freak and ethical hunting proponent, I was un-impressed with Sarah Palin's caribou hunting display on last night's episode of Palin's Alaska. Her father fell down a slope onto his rifle, which Sarah then used to shoot at a caribou. The badly off-zero scope resulted in 5 misses. Sarah swapped rifles and nailed the critter, first shot. Anyone who travels for hunting should know to check zero in camp. That rifle had been through one truck ride, two small airplanes, and under a falling 180 pound man. I'm really relived that one of the misses didn't result

JBlake, My favorite clean up assistant is snow. After dinner, you pack your still warm cooking pot with snow, and leave it outside to freeze solid. (Well away from the tent in bear country...) Before breakfast you turn the pot upside down, clank it on something hard to dislodge the ice block and all the burn-on noodles or whatever from last night, and put it on the Optimus stove to cook again.

Aethists pray that there really is no God!