packsaddle

Canoe trip across the Okefenokee Swamp. Wait until the temperatures are a bit cooler though. Prepare to see lots of 'gators. Also many great segments of the AT to backpack.

I have enjoyed laser tag in the past but I confess that young people have the advantage of being quick and having a much larger target. But I agree with Bob White here. As nice as it is to think about killing people or perhaps just wounding them, and as fun as it is to pretend to do the same thing in a game or ritual, I think this is not in line with scout spirit and probably not one of the 'aims' of the program (the killing part, not the fun part). Yes, I know I'm in a minority view. Yes, I understand that for many, the thrill of killing another person is one of the best feelings a person can ever have and that most of us think we need to teach our boys the best tactics on how to do that. It's just my HO and I disagree.

I hear something like this about once a year. It is sad and yes, I'd love to catch someone doing something like this. When this unit essentially put EVERYTHING into their trailer I cringed at the thought that someone could drive away with it all. We've been lucky. I'd also like to suggest that you get the trailer titled, registered, and licensed, even if not required by your state. That is also a deterrent and you might eventually find it. I've heard of THAT before as well.

He** Yeah!

Eagledad, after WWII, perhaps partly because of it and the New Deal, there were very strong public institutions in support of public health (Public Health Service, VA, etc.) Many if not all of these are now terribly underfunded and unable to provide for all the indigent care that is needed much less for any others. I see this against the ascendency of Big Business Medicine. I see a move toward total privitazation and BECAUSE I know the accounts of what it was like before the public institutions, I understand the predictable outcome of health-care-only-for-those-who-can-pay. Yes, in some sense it WAS like that in the past. Those old days weren't necessarily the good old days...just take a stroll through a very old cemetary and check out the incredible number of dead children. Check out the life expectancy back then. Don't get me wrong. I'm with you on this. I am ready to embrace the Darwinian approach. As luck would have it, I am in a family that has been uncommonly healthy and long-lived for many generations. We have a family joke that we take the old ones out and shoot them at 100 years. So let's go for the profit! Or as your idol so famously said, "Bring it on!" Edited part: Merlyn, I'm thinking that perhaps the anthrax attacks were on 'people' not 'property' and maybe that's what he meant. Property, you know, is REALLY important.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

Acco40, not really, you were just the person who stimulated the response. There is no way a purely private approach is going to provide universal health care. One way or another, health care under the private system is going to be provided either poorly (to keep costs down and maximize profit) or denied to those who can't pay. I want people to understand that the 'every man for himself' approach employs a Darwinian approach with obvious outcomes...and if people decide to take the country in that direction I want them to embrace it AND the outcomes explicitly.

Bush suffered a surprise loss in NH to McCain - by a wide margin - and the Bush campaign knew that if he lost SC, a state in which McCain was already very popular, Bush would probably lose the nomination. So they used push-polling to spread the rumor that McCain's daughter, whom he had adopted from Bangladesh in an act of incredible compassion, that this young girl with very dark skin was McCain's illegitimate daughter through some extramarital liason with a black woman. And it worked (of course it did, it was SC!). Bush got the momentum back and took the nomination. That was no small matter in my mind. It was dishonest, dishonorable, and cowardly. It used a child to target a political enemy. It ignored real issues (of course it did, McCain was kicking butt on the issues) and fostered the most despicable kind of racial prejudice in response to the total lie that they perpetrated. The Scout, if you think that is no reason to criticize someone, then you have a different sense of morality from mine. I guess that goes without saying.

Dirty politics is not a reason to criticize someone. Wow. Only you, The Scout, only you.

Gern, if there was even an 'optional' system like that, I'd opt into it for reasons of portability if nothing else. I think that McCain's best (but poor) option is Romney. Romney is a ZERO. I can't avoid looking back and wishing that Republicans had not done to McCain what they did to him during the 2000 SC primary. If he had been President instead of Bush...just think of how much better everything would have been now. But he didn't get the nomination. And for what?...a race-baiting lie pretty much ended it and gave Bush the nomination. In retrospect it fits the Rove/Cheney/Bush ethic perfectly. McCain would have been THE man to have back then...perhaps pursuing simlar policies to Bush and perhaps not, but he would have executed his duties honestly, with honor and integrity.

I am told by students and some concerned athletics people that there exists a certain culture among the athletes that views out-of-wedlock children as a status symbol. This is at the college level. I suggest that if this is true, this attitude starts even earlier someplace.

GW, I just got yelled at by my doctor at my most recent checkup. Reason: he seems to think that three years between checkup is longer than it should be. Sorrrrryyyyyy. I just didn't feel like it. I'm in control. I chose to skip a few years and now I wish I'd made it longer. He wrote a prescription. I just threw it away. There's nothing life-threatening, no reason to waste resources that can go to other interests like, say, a new 'cycle. You can do it too. Just pass it by. You are in control too. You CAN do it. Or else you can let fear rule your life and you can pour your fortune down the health-care rat hole. Stand up to the system. Just say no. I'm pulling for ya.

Acco40, I invite you to exercise your presence in the commodities marketplace and don't make the purchase. Skip the checkups. Do without the drugs. Much of health care isn't a necessity, isn't a matter of life or death, not that we really care about that in the first place. Millions of people are demonstrating this all the time. Otherwise, if you think it is overpriced, create your own health-care business and outcompete everyone else. You'll be doing us a favor with the lower prices. We get very emotional about our reverence for fertilized eggs and then care little or nothing about post-natal life - unless it can pay for services. It is an obscene hypocrisy.

I will say that I'd sure enjoy the socialized health care program that congressmen enjoy. From my perspective, if a congressman is opposed to such a system for their constituents, it ought to be denied to THEM as well.

Actually, at my age, I would be interested in watching such an experiment in Darwinian forces played out on the socio-economic stage. I already DO advocate going totally private for education. I'm OK with doing the same thing with most of the other things, including highways, healthcare, social security, etc. The 'every man for himself' ethic is going to produce some very interesting differences in the services we now take for granted (sort of). But at least some of us will have more of the most important thing in our lives...money. It'll be just too bad that poor people were unlucky enough not to be born rich.

Even George W. Bush admitted there were no WMD. You can hear it for yourself:

jblake47, this isn't conclusive evidence but a lot of graffiti in Georgia consists of a series of XXXXs. This is because a lot of people can't....you know.... They MIGHT be able to read...I'm just not sure.

Gern, that I can answer with a word: Profit.

Gern, You probably already understand this but I'll give it a try. When we oppose universal health care, the subliminal message is, 'if you can't afford private health care, die'. Or for social security, 'if you can't afford retirement, work until you die.' As a society, we merely are too timid, for some reason, to state these things in these terms, honestly. I've never understood why not. I've only heard it stated clearly by one talk-show guy who often refers to mothers on welfare as "brood-mares" and advocates their own "ovaries fed to them stir-fried as their last government-subsidized meal." At least he's honest.

How about McKinley or Johnson or Nixon? Wilson, Polk?

Dan, I know this is a huge relief for you. I am so glad for your whole family that everything went well. Wish him the best for me. Sleep well, my friend.

Sorry, I must need new glasses but when I read that last word, The Scout, I saw 'cross-dressed' and thought, "Wow, I DO love New York".

OGE, just a quick comment: It is spelled Kool-aid not Cool-aid but besides...Jim Jones actually had them drink Flavor-aid laced with cyanide and not that other well-known drink. Sorry, these things are just too important to let stand. GWD and DYB, this is the problem with labels. I know plenty of people who think of themselves as conservative (me included) in some ways but very liberal (me included) in other ways, tolerance being one of the other ways. Labels are good if they are clear and specific. When they aren't they become rather meaningless. In the former USSR, the conservative politicos were actually the staunchest communists and most resistant to capitalism. These terms (labels) are almost worthless except to stifle discussion.

CNY, good examples. You did, ahem, mean "Life to Eagle" rather than the other way around, right?

"I think the last few elections have shown that many people in this country want things pretty much in the middle and are not swayed by ideological labels and name-calling -- at least, not for more than two elections in a row, in the same direction." Now THAT's the sense of humor that I've missed for sooo long. NJ, you are so funny sometimes, I can hardly stand it. Edited part: The Scout, technically NJ 'could' say pretty much anything he wanted, short of violating some free speech restriction while the administration was monitoring his private conversations. But if he 'could' say certain things, that just wouldn't necessarily make him correct about it. Perhaps that was your point? But the card-carrying, avowed Libertarians I know pretty much conform to his description. They shrug their shoulders and then charge straight into the turning blades of the windmill. The rest of us watch in horrified fascination...sometimes pulling for the windmill.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

GWD, big OOOPS here. I just responded to your post on the other thread. Anyone interested - just go over there and read it. As far as the fair tax goes, an instant switch to it would be to my benefit. It would protect my assets, be a HUGE cut in my taxes, not to mention the comforting thoughts of IRS out of business, an increase of disposeable income (which I would mostly save), AND it would provide a wonderful spectre of hand-wringing by all those conspicuous consumers out there making decisions on whether or not to buy. One more step closer to the Darwinian ideal. Just lovely.