JoeBob

I've got a couple of those boys. No longer do I ask "Any questions?" Now I ask "Any intelligent questions?" I always try to have more activities than the time frame allows. That way if one of my troublemakers tries to take over the center of attention, I can bemoan whatever activity we're not going to have time for. The peer pressure, "Shut up so we can play SPUD!" works beeter than any threats I can make.

If the mosquitos don't make 'em put on a shirt, why should we?

Make pirate flags, leather eye patches, wooden swords, fake peglegs, treasure maps and treasure chests to bury. Beat metal washers into Pirate coins. Watch your fingers! A whole pirate ship might be asking too much, but you could certainly have them walk the plank blindfolded...

It's not often that I get to skate the edges of the rules so neatly: My ADL and I are sharing an 8 man two bedroom tent with our sons. We're hosting a third cub whose dad is deployed overseas, whose mom has other kids in other activities. If we don't take him with us, he'd be staying home. 3 Cubs in one tent bedroom, two leaders in the other tent bedroom; and we've limboed under the wire!

I remember a set of flash cards comprised of pictures. 'R' is for Racer - the picture was a pinewood derby car - the code for R is dot dash dot - so the front wheel was the first dot a dash was the car body and the back wheel was the last dot. Eish and Tmo are the seven easy letters. E = Dot I = Dot Dot S = Dot Dot Dot H = Dot Dot Dot Dot T = Dash M = Dash Dash O = Dash Dash Dash

I liked the looks of the Eagle Scout rifle: http://www.henryrifles.com/h004es_eaglescout.cfm But it's only in .22. Who am I fooling? I'd never shoot a collector like that, so it doesn't really matter what the caliber is! I can attest to the shootabilty of the Henry Big Boy in .45LC. ;^) JoeBob

I liked the looks of the Eagle Scout rifle: http://www.henryrifles.com/h004es_eaglescout.cfm But it's only in .22. Who am I fooling? I'd never shoot a collector like that, so it doesn't really matter what the caliber is! I can attest to the shootabilty of the Henry Big Boy in .45LC. ;^) JoeBob

Resqman: Gawd I loved Heilein! "Glory Road" was a favorite escape.

Ballad of the Skunk Polecat (Bad language cleaned up for Cub Scouts) I'm hunt ze bear! I'm hunt ze moose! Sometimes I'm hunt muskrat. Dis week I'm take my axe forego hunt ze skunk polecat. Merlyn! Merlyn say is very fine fur. Somtimes is good to eat. I'm tell my wife, she get fur coat. Sametimes, I'm get some meat. I'm walk tree, five, emm seex miles. I'm tink I'm feel strong smell. I'm tink dat polecat she gone and died! Fur coat, she gone as well. Bye'n bye I'm see dat skunk polecat, up next one very tall tree. I'm sneak up close behind polecat. I'm tink he no see me... I'm sneak up close behind pole cat; I'm raise my axe up high... Geesh boom! Dat polecat, he jump up and spreesh right in my eye! Argh! S'cableu! I am blind! GeeCry! I no can see! I run round and round an bump in beeg hard tree! I'm tro down my gun! I'm tro down my axe! I'm light out for de shack! I'm tink ten tousand skunk polecats, de climb up on my back! My wife?! She meet me at ze door! She sic on me MY dog! She say: "You no sleep here tonight! You, go and sleep wid hog." I'm try get in zat pig pen. Now what you tink? Dat mean old hog no stand for dat, on count of awful stink... No more I'm hunt ze skunk polecat! Wid dat fur and meat, I am tru! For eef number one, she smell so bad; what eef he number two?!?!?!! Beavah: How do you do it? Writing that in a dialect just about killed me!

I'll add to the survivalist Contingent: How to rig a water-powered car generator for DC current. How to treat drinking water. How to hide in an urban area until after the looting passes. How to navigate without a GPS! How to maneuver out of an urban area and avoid snipers. Trapping. How to cure meat. Edible plants. Survivalist camping: Site concealment Sentries Alarms Booby-traps A good bit of that is prety scary. But there are other areas that I think boys would find to be quite entertaining.

Did anyone else have to pronounce that 'Oh Grey Eee!' to get it to rhyme? ;^)

From the New England Journal Of Medicine: "The Medicus Firm... conducted a survey of ...1,195 physicians from various specialties and career levels. Nearly one-third of physicians responding to the survey indicated that they will want to leave medical practice after health reform is implemented." What happens when you add 30 million more patients to an already tight-as-a-tick health care system and the reduce the number of doctors by 1/3 ? Improved access? Lower costs? Better quality? How about rationing?

BadenP: It's not only the technology that has made world wide destruction easier; it communication technology (Cable news and the Net) that have made it easier for crazies to preach their warped views more widely. During the Crusades, it took several months of travel to reach the battle in the middle east. Recruiting soldiers from England to leave their families and farms for many months and travel across France to liberate 'the Holy Land' must have taken some serious arm-twisting. In 2010, a jihadist cleric from Iran can issue a fatwah online against anyone who dares to publish cartoons about Mohamed (Which one?). Major media companies, who'll got to prison before they'll surrender their sources, then refrain from publishing those cartoons for fear of being stabbed on their way at night.

Beavah said: "Makin' money strictly by financial manipulation is one of those areas which is highly suspect for the latter." I am with you on that one! I understand investing in a company, but the options market seems like nothing so much as Las Vegas. Don't get me started on derivatives... JoeBob

Hmmmmm. DancesWithSpreadsheets speak with accountant's tongue. Truth in naming is a good thing. So if I had invested $1,000 in Aetna, what would my investment be worth after one year? Thanks JoeBob

Evil, evil insurance company profits: **** According to the most recent Fortune 500 rankings, health insurers are not even among the top-30 United States industries in profit-margin. Health insurers rank 35th, with a profit-margin of just 2.2 percent -- less than one-fifth the profit-margin of railroads. None of the ten largest American health insurers made profits of more than 4.5 percent, and two of them lost money. Health insurers' collective profit-margin is less than one-eighth that of drug companies and less than one-seventh that of companies that sell medical products or equipment. It's also less than that of medical facilities. Yet when was the last time you heard President Obama rail against greedy hospitals? The combined profits of America's ten largest health insurers are $8.3 billion. That's less than two-thirds of the profits of Wal-Mart alone, less than half of the profits of General Electric alone, and less than one-seventh of what Medicare loses each year to fraud. Health insurers collectively have one-eighth the profit-margin of McDonald's or Coke, one-ninth that of eBay, and one-fifteenth that of Merck. In all, the combined profits of the 14 largest American health insurers (the ones who crack the Fortune 1000) are $8.7 billion. That's less than 0.4 percent, or 1/250th, of overall U.S. health-care costs, which are $2.5 trillion. **** Those Bast**ds!

DYB - The KKK was racist in it's motivations. They were not trying to spread Christianity. So you shouldn't categorize them as 'Christian terrorists'. Unless I missed the part about burning crosses in the new testament?

Ways for Cubs to get hurt in canoes: 1- Fall from one boat onto another. Canoes rock back and forth a lot! 2- Tip one canoe onto another boat. Two cubs on the same side of a whitewater boat with no paddle bracing skills are wet. 3- Tip canoe into the dock during ingress/egress. Everybody leans in when they reach for the dock. Using a paddle/thwart brace takes a good bit of co-ordination. (Handle of paddle held fast on one thwart, throat of paddle held tight on the opposite thwart, blade of paddle outside the boat on the side to exit. Canoist leans towards the bank or dock until the paddle blade comes to rest and their weight on the dock via the paddle blade provides a balance point. Maintain this position by holding on with both hands while exiting, until your center of gravity is ashore.) 4- Slip and fall inside your own boat. ABS is slippery when wet. 5- Feed a paddle blade to your buddy. "But I was just trying to splash him!" 5.5- Eat your buddy's paddle blade. "We were sneaking up behind them..." 6- Become trapped between two boats while in the water. 7- Pull your buddy on top of you as you try to scramble up the side of his boat in deep water. Heck with breaking the rules; canoes are too much fun when taken on at the appropriate age. I'd not want to sour a future fun time with a negative exposure too soon. JoeBob

Where's Big Billy Goat Gruff when we need him?

Merlyn: "All it takes to get thrown out is for that information to get to the wrong person, which can happen in any number of ways, not necessarily due to any "problem" caused by the atheist. Saying every case has to be due to the atheist causing a problem is just blaming the victim." I painted with too broad a brush, Merlyn; you're right. SIZZLE! Now that the lightening bolts have simmered down around my keyboard, let me concede the presence of many 'Holier-than-thou' types looking to elevate themselves at the expense of less Godly individuals. As a tolerant relegious person, holy purists just iritate and embarass the grits out of me! DYB Mike: All of your examples of Christian terrorism are ancient history except for Ireland. You nailed me with the IRA. Are the protestants trying to eliminate the Catholics, and vice versa; or are they just adhering to their religious grouping in a struggle for political power? Which one is vying for world domination? I really don't know. Lisabob: I apologize for the thread hijack. I truly hope that you're correct and I'm paranoid. I know I'm paranoid, I don't know if you're correct.

OGE: Sometimes I'm not on my side either. I never claimed to be a nice person, but I sometimes pretend to be one online. At the bottom of it all, isn't the health care debate really just a different version of wealth envy? Nancy Pelosi today: But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy." Transparency, anyone? PING!

To further the point OGE made; if health care is a right, then every non-payer has a right to a part of my life, ie- my money earned through my labor can be confiscated to pay for their doctoring. I'm sure that most indigents will still get healthcare at charity clinics, where funding is obtained from voluntary donations. That's how Catholics got into the hospital business in the first place. An un-intended consequence of not underwriting free healthcare might be a reduction in violence. Where's the deterent in a wounded hero resting up on clean sheets in an air-conditioned room with cute nurses and cable TV? Watching his fellow gang-banger slowly die of gunshot induced septicemia might be just the motivation a young fellow would need to forego shooting up the streets himself.

Lisabob: "Why you would believe that a small percentage of people who hold radical and violent beliefs are representative of the great mass of people who follow Islam throughout the world, is beyond me." As the site Bare Naked Islam puts it, "It isn't Islamophobia when they really are trying to kill you." http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1993321/posts 'Our policy of turning the other cheek up until 9/11 only emboldened Radicals. They kept escalating the violence until they hit us so hard we couldnt ignore it. And theyre going to continue waging war on us, whether we fight back or not, until Allah grants them victory (as theyre confident he will). Ignoring them hasnt worked in the past. Why would it work in the future?' Searching for Christian terrorism only returned hits from atheist sites, who claim that 'the Republican war on science' is terroism. McVeigh was anti-government. He just happend to be Christian. And EVERYBODY in Christian leadership condemned the OKC bombings.

Beavah, I can't quibble with much of what you said. Lisabob, you sorta make my point: If medical care was not given to those who didn't pay (read no insurance) the costs would drop significantly, and 1- more people could afford insurance; and 2- there would be a strong motivation to buy insurance. We're in a 'death-spiral' now. What is it, 70% are paying for 100% of the costs, while 30% freeload? How expensive is it going to be when only 50% pay? How long can the system support 80% riding on 20% paying? BCBS of California had to raise premiums 39% because of rising costs. What part of the population in California is paying for insurance? Please don't try to villify the insurance industry for having large profits. They only run a 3% profit margin; grocery stores typically run a 6% profit. 3% of 1/16th of the US economy is a large number that can be pedagogged. Thank goodness it's a 3% profit! What if the insurance industry ran a 3% loss? They'd be gone in a year.

Merlyn: I'm proud that you disagree. Does your 'being a problem' extend beyond this forum to have a negative impact on your scouting experience? If so, then it's probably because you want to be a problem. LisaBob: "This is how religious wars get going. I hope nobody's religious entity is "telling" them to do anything about the growth of other religions..." Do you not believe the radical Muslim clerics when they tell the world that their purpose in life is to wipe out Christianity and all faiths not Islam? The individual Muslims I know are fine people (with a damn good work ethic!), but I'm dissapointed that there aren't many moderate voices out there condemning the attacks of the religious war which we're already in. Sadly, I'm left with the impression that behind closed doors most Muslims are working to promote Sharia law. There are too many examples to list which bolster my position. I'd rather cut to the chase: Christianity spreads through God's love inspiring people's faith. I'm not supposed to hate, fight, or murder (although killing in war is not murder). At what point does self-preservation and protecting our families justify a preemptive strike? Do we have to wait until after Iran pops a nuke in NYC? Mental meanderings: 1- How do the Hindus of India view this same conflict against Muslims? They've been trying to live with Islam for a few centuries. 2- Are God and Allah two sides of the same entity? Jekyl and Hyde? I guess that wearing a burkha makes it easier for women to get out of the house in the morning. But I don't want to lose the other freedoms inherent in Christianity. My daughter would be pissed! PING!