NJCubScouter

Eagle92, just to be clear, I have no problem if the decisions makers "look at all the factors involved," in fact I hope that is what they do. In other words, they should look at all the facts that are relevant to each case. If they do that, and based on all the facts of two particular cases, they approve one and not the other, I don't see that as a "discrepancy" or "inconsistency." An inconsistency would be if, based on all the relevant facts of each case, the request of Scout A is equal to or more compelling than the request of Scout B, but due to different boards applying different standards of "leniency" (or whatever you wish to call it), Scout B gets Eagle but Scout A does not. Admittedly, my belief that this sometimes happens is based on "hearsay" as well, and the same kinds of inconsistencies happen in other large "systems" as well. So I am not necessarily criticizing the BSA for this, some amount of inconsistency in a large organization is inevitable. Hopefully they try to keep the decisions as consistent as possible, by having a set of common standards as well as training in those standards for the people making the decisions, plus some "quality control" at the top. I also think that people (whether in this forum or elsewhere) should be careful about "predicting" what might happen in a particular case, or telling someone that a request is hopeless. First of all, we usually DON'T know all the facts of a case that someone posts about, and second, inconsistencies in the decision-making process might lead to unexpected results. By the way, Eagle, you mention "appeals boards." Are you talking about on the council level, or the national level? I always thought that council makes recommendations but that the decisions are made at national, and I guess I had the picture of a single person or group making all the decisions. Is that incorrect? Also, is an extension of time that is requested "before the fact" (as it could be in this case) considered with the same process and by the same people as an "appeal"? To me, an "appeal" means someone disagrees with the decision at a "lower level." In the case presented in this thread, no decision has been made yet.

By the way, there are two requirements in play here, not one: The 6-month "active" requirement and the 6-month position-of-responsibility requirement. (For both Life and Eagle.) If he has been in a POR continuously since the date of his Star BOR, then he just has the same problem with the POR requirement as he does with the "active" requirement, and presumably if he gets an extension/waiver on one he should get it for the other, because it's really the same problem. If, however, he did not have a POR as of his Star BOR, or there have been (or will be, until the date he makes Eagle, if he does) any gaps between PORs, then he has ANOTHER problem.

It does not sound like technicalities of what a "month" is are going to help this Scout. Although it is not absolutely clear, it sounds like he made Star several days after his 17th birthday, and his birthday is not at the end of the month. So normally that would be it. If there is a legitimate reason why this Scout did not make Star until shortly after his 17th birthday, the Scout should consider asking for an extension. (Or a waiver of the 6-month requirement by 5 days or whatever it is; I am not sure which way council/national would want to look at it.) Start with the SM, and if he/she approves, go up the line to the district advancement chair, who may kick it up to the council advancement chair. And I would do this, if at all, RIGHT NOW, so if it has to go to National, it gets there well before the Scout's 18th birthday. Based on what I have heard locally and what I have read on this forum, there seems to be a lot of inconsistency in who gets an extension and who doesn't. In my troop there was an extension request for a boy with very serious physical disabilities (including but not limited to being in a wheelchair), and it was sort of taken for granted that he would get another year, and he got it, and made Eagle with time to spare. In the case Seattle Pioneer mentions, I have heard of similar situations in which the extension was NOT granted. And yet I have heard of what seemed like LESS compelling situations than EITHER of those, in which the extension WAS granted. So go figure. If the SM feels it is warranted, it's worth a try.

That's been my experience too, the Family Life counselors are almost all women... and the Personal Management and Personal Fitness counselors are almost all men, at least the ones I am aware of. There's no good reason for it to be this way.

As I understand it, the three basic food groups are greasy, salty and sweet. I'm on medication for each of those.

I only got 50 percent on that quiz, and that includes the one where the question basically tells you that both answers are correct. Fortunately, when I renewed my Youth Protection training online earlier in the day, I got a much higher score.

To go back to the title of the thread, impeachment is for "high crimes and misdemeanors." Even if the president exceeded his authority (and I'm not convinced that he did), this would be a matter for a civil lawsuit -- not a criminal act or a "misdemeanor." I'm pretty sure there is no federal criminal statute on making an appointment when the Constitution says you can't. It's a civil matter.

The big question here is, OldGreyEagle, why do you call yourself "old" when you are only four or five years older than I am? And that's been your account name since 2000, so you were calling yourself "old" at the age of 47. I just don't like where this is going.

This has nothing to do with the subject of the thread, but I noticed Packsaddle mentioning that the Earth revolves around the Sun and likely will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. However, I have read that the same is not true of the Moon and the Earth. Right now the Moon revolves around the Earth, or more scientifically speaking, around a point within the Earth (the "barycenter.") The barycenter is not in the center of the Earth, and the Earth actually revolves around it too, but since it is within the Earth, we say the Moon revolves around the Earth. However, the orbit of the Moon is very gradually getting further and further away from the Earth, and eventually (in millions of years, I believe) the barycenter will be outside the Earth, so both the Earth and Moon will be revolving around a point that is between them (but still closer to the Earth.) At that point the Earth and Moon will really be a double-planet system rather than a planet and its satellite. At least that's how I understand it. And by the way, religion is nothing like science. You can't prove that the beliefs of one religion, or any religion, are correct or incorrect. Beliefs are beliefs. Observable facts and results are observable facts and results. Science isn't perfect, but it's not based on pure belief as religion is. On the other hand, I would never call someone else's religious belief a "myth"... and yet we as a society seem to have no problem using that term for a religion that is "extinct." I have been hearing about Greek, Roman and Norse "mythology" my whole life, and yet those were peoples' religions at one time. And you have to admit, those gods seem like they would be more fun to be around than the ones who are popular today.

Packsaddle says: Heck (am I allowed to say that?), for that matter I kind of miss Rooster7, Bob White (sorry NJ), and littlebillie. Did someone mention my name? (Well actually part of my pseudonym.) I actually haven't posted here in a couple of months myself, but nobody misses me, apparently. I suppose I could give some of the reasons why I don't miss Bob White, but then you as a moderator would have to decide whether you needed to redact part of my response to your own post... or you could leave it to the other moderators. Do I want to give you guys work to do, in my first post in the new year? Which reminds me, Happy New Year everybody! Finally a holiday in the "holiday season" that everybody can agree on.

There's a term for posting something controversial on an Internet forum just to be a "pot stirrer"... wait, I'll think of it... I think it rhymes with "scrolling"... (It has an associated noun, but I don't like to call people names.)

I have seen the ad you are talking about, a number of times. I have thought, a couple of times, about posting about whether it is really appropriate for a Scouting site, but I know that the site owner doesn't choose the ads, and quite honestly I was not sure how to describe the ad. 83Eagle basically "copped out," as we used to say, by saying, "you know what I mean." Yes, I think anyone who has seen the ad knows what you mean.

I was wondering about him too, even though I don't think we have ever agreed about anything. It is good to hear he is just taking a break. It's a good idea, I have taken breaks from this forum a couple of times. (I think it was two years the last time, that might be a little too long.)

The evidence may not be extremely compelling, but there's definitely more proof of the Occupy protests being anti-semitic than Tea Party rallies being racist. BS-87, that's not what you said in the first place. You said the Occupy Wall Street protests were anti-Semitic, now you are couching it behind relative amounts of "proof" in comparison to the so-called "Tea Party." (To me, the actual "Tea Party" were the guys in Boston Harbor in 1773, and for a modern-day political faction to misappropriate that name is ridiculous and wrong, in my opinion.) Anyway, the videos you linked to provide no "proof" of anything. I just wasted more than eight minutes of my life (total for the two videos) watching two obnoxious idiots argue with people, with no indication of any support for their anti-Semitic and anti-Israel positions from anybody else. Most of the people crowding around with the sign seemed either confused or amused, and one of them called him an anti-Semite. At least one of them seemed to be a reporter for somebody, or maybe a counter-protestor. So if this your "proof," my question is, you got anything else?

I may very well end up regretting having asked this, but... ok, BS-87, how are the "Occupy Wall Street" protests "anti-semitic"? Being a "Semite" myself, I was just wondering.

As moxieman said, it appears that all of the posts in all sections of the forum from sometime on Sept. 4 and sometime on Sept. 26 seem to have been wiped out. That includes some entire threads. I know I just recently posted on the thread in Open Discussion called "What if the BSA had required that its members be Christian," or words to that effect. That entire thread is gone. I wonder whether the posts are still recoverable somewhere.

Wow, talk about "local option." Good job, Scoutfish.

evilleramsfan, I have read the court opinions in the Dale case a few times and I don't think there is anything in there about the CO. Based on the factual statements, the article in question appeared in a newspaper, and Dale then received a letter from his council terminating his membership in the BSA. The newspaper in question is a statewide newspaper, so it is quite possible that someone from his home area saw the article even though it was about a seminar that was conducted elsewhere. As for him being "openly vocal about his homosexuality," well, he was the president of an organization of gay students at his college. (I believe he was 19 years old at the time this occurred.) The other leaders in his troop may or may not have known that. The point is, I think it should have been left up to his troop to decide whether he was suitable as a leader or not, regardless of how "openly vocal" he was. That is not what happened. His council terminated him from the BSA entirely, citing a supposed national policy that gay people (or openly gay people) cannot serve as leaders.

This forum is "an echo chamber of liberals"? On what planet?

One more thing, Barry. The whole point of a local option would be that each CO gets to decide whether an openly gay person could be a leader -- just as the CO's currently get to decide virtually all leadership issues. I'm presuming that your unit has a CO that would decide against it. Let's say hypothetically that my troop's CO (a Protestant church, by the way) would decide otherwise, which I believe would be the case but am not certain. So when it comes time for people to bid their significant others goodbye in the parking lot before a week of camping, you could worry about your parking lot and I could worry about my parking lot. You don't even need to think about who may be giving who a quick peck on the cheek hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Eagledad says: What you really want is general acceptance for them publically role model a gay lifestyle to our sons. I'm not talking about crude behavior that shouldn't be displayed in public, just a quick peck on the cheek from a partner saying good by before leaving on a week long summer camp trip should be acceptable. On your first sentence there Barry, I don't know who wants that. I think there should be local option on the subject, but I don't want anyone modelling "a gay lifestyle to our sons." ("Our sons" in the generic sense, my son is almost 20 and seems to be pretty much set into a non-gay "lifestyle," but you know what I mean. But actually that is interesting, my son has an older cousin who is openly gay, and knows other people who are gay, but somehow he turned out straight. Odd, huh?) But of course, the issue in your quote is really how you define "gay lifestyle," and that's what you get to in the second sentence. A quick peck on the cheek, huh? Well, we adults are not supposed to be modelling ANY "sexual" behavior in front of the boys, are we? If a quick peck on the cheek signifies a "gay lifestyle" -- and I am not agreeing that it does -- then maybe nobody should be showing any sign of affection to anybody (same-gender or different-gender) in front of the boys. I wouldn't have any problem with such a rule -- although I have to admit that in the past when my wife would drop me off for a camping trip, she would probably give me "a quick peck on the cheek." If we're going to ban that, fine, let's ban it for everybody. So, no worries about anything being "modeled" for anybody. I would also point out that in many cultures, men giving other men (beyond family members) a quick peck on the cheek as a greeting, is commonplace and has no sexual content or suggestion of homosexuality at all. And I am not just talking about French people. I remember a great-uncle of mine from the "old country" who, when I was 8 or 9 years old, used to try to kiss me goodbye (on the cheek -- and this was in front of my parents so there is no suggestion of "impropriety" on my uncle's part.) This was apparently normal behavior where he came from, and in the all-immigrant neighborhood where he lived in this country. When I shied away, he would call me a "farmer." I never quite figured that out. I am sure it has some cosmic significance. The point is, I don't think the "quick peck on the cheek" is going to win too many people over to your side of the argument.

I just did some reading about this quotation on the Internet, and the consensus seems to be that while nobody can agree on who said these words, almost everybody who has looked into agrees that they are NOT ALL ONE QUOTE. The part at the end about the sequence from bondage to spiritual faith, etc., was a completely separate quote, by a different person (whoever that may have been), than the part at the beginning about "loose fiscal policy." Apparently the two quotes were put together in the 1970's, and of course with the invention of the Internet, is one of those things that has been spread all over the place. I think it does change the significance of the whole quote to know that it is not a whole quote at all. In other words, the "sequence" in the second part does not necessarily have much to do with the "public treasury" or "loose fiscal policy" -- at least not based on this quote.

SR540Beaver, I would be curious to know, which are those democracies that collapsed "over loose fiscal policy," as opposed to some other cause such as military conquest (external or internal.) I realize it isn't your quote, but Mr. Tytler is presumably no longer around to ask, and you did say there is "much historical truth evident in the words," so I am wondering what evidence there is for the historical truth of those particular words.

The term "official Scouting publication" is a bit broad. Anything on the BSA's official web site could be considered an "official Scouting publication." I think shortridge was talking about something that Scouters are expected to refer to in carrying out their responsibilities, such as the Scoutmaster's Handbook, the Troop Committee Guidebook, or perhaps something in an official training syllabus. It's not in any of those things. I found the document that Abel found kind of interesting especially where it stated that "the Boy Scouts of America does not accept homosexuals as members or as leaders." Note the words, "as members." (As in, youth members.) Of course this is from 20 years ago, but I think the main changes since then have been changes in terminology, not necessarily in meaning. But one cannot be certain; this passage talks about "homosexuals" whereas they sometimes talked about "avowed or known homosexuals," and more recently "avowed homosexuals", as in the 2002 resolution that I linked to in my previous post (though I just realized the link doesn't work because I apparently included the period at the end of "pdf" in the filename, you need to delete that to get to the page.) These phrases do not necessarily all mean exactly the same thing.

Ok BS-87, just remember, on the Internet nobody can see you smile. That's what they invented those little smiley things for. I'm not even going to discuss the strict definition of "natural born citizen" under the Law of Nations as of 1787. It's not an area (and definitely not an era) of the law that I have had occasion to study, and in any event I don't think it's relevant to today.