Rick_in_CA

The simple reality is that going out and camping is harder to do today than it was 50 years ago. A local scouter talked about when he was a boy scout in Sacramento, the boys would just grab their gear and hike down to a clearing next to the river. They would bring their fishing gear, and 22 rifles and camp there for a week. Every day or so the scout master or a local cop would drop by to see how they were doing. Other than that they were on their own. They did this off and on most of the summer. If any group of scouts tried that today, a bunch of people would probably end up in jail. When I was a boy scout, I remember being allowed to camp in places that normally didn't allow it because we were the Boy Scouts. I remember some troops and patrols doing overnights in local city parks (almost impossible today). Today, scouts can't go camping without a train of adults providing transportation and supervision. For many urban and suburban scouts, the nearest camping locations are an hour away by car. How many troops have a camp location they can reach with public transportation of some kind? Or simply hike too? Very few. How many camp grounds no longer allow open fires of any kind? Or don't allow wood gathering (usually for very good reasons)? The real "costs" (in effort, time, equipment and money) to go camping is higher than it used to be. So we shouldn't be surprised that there is less of it than in the "good old days". None of which means that troops shouldn't try to have fun and challenging camping programs!

I agree with you in part, but I'm maybe not that cynical (entirety of recorded history?). I think it goes in cycles, we just happen to be at the bottom of one (or at least I hope we are - and doesn't get worse). I very much agree that ignorance is dangerous, especially in an electorate. Talking about political debate, if you have never read the Lincoln–Douglas Debates of 1858 (available on line in multiple places) you should. They are interesting to read for many reason. One of which is too see how much and in what ways political debate has changed in this country, and in how it hasn't.

As a right winger once complained to me: "Carrying about people that are not your own is communism! Selfishness is what makes this country great!" (he was complaining about how schools were teaching kids to think about the impact of their actions on other people). I believe, like the words "Atheist" and "Agnostic", many people don't really know what the word "Communism" actually means. They just know it means something "bad".

I agree with Matt. If your son can figure out a way to stand up to the bully, it will serve him well in the future. One thing to remember, most people are bullies because it's fun. The only way to get them to stop, is to raise the "cost" so it isn't fun anymore. Get out of that troop, but if you can, do it in a way that gives your son a chance to do it with his head held high. I was bullied when I was a child and I still feel the effects. Anything that mitigates the damage for your son will be a plus.

As someone from BSA national explained it to me, the problem with atheists is not the underlying beliefs, it the word "atheist". For to many people "atheist" means "evil", so it's the label that is the problem. If a scout or scouter labels himself as an atheist, he isn't eligible. If another scout or scouter has identical beliefs to the first, but doesn't label himself as an atheist, they are welcome.

Apparently there are others having issues with threads disappearing with vBulletin: http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/forum/vbulletin-4/vbulletin-4-questions-problems-and-troubleshooting/408283-thread-disappeared-without-a-trace I agree, it's time to dump vBulletin and replace it with something that works. I'm sure there are tools to migrate the existing content over to a new system.

Apparently he was partly motivated by his libertarian and anti-tax views: “I walk tall, proud and free, knowing that the actions I take eat away at the infrastructure that keeps oppression alive,†D.P.R. wrote on Silk Road in March 2012. “Now it is profitable to throw off one’s chains, with amazing crypto technology reducing the risk of doing so dramatically. How many niches have yet to be filled in the world of anonymous online markets? The opportunity to prosper and take part in a revolution of epic proportions is at our fingertips!â€Â

Part of the problem is that the BSA is contradictory about the religious requirement. On the one hand, there is the DRP which is written from a Judeo-Christian point of view (I understand that several of the faiths represented by those recognized religious awards when shown the complete text of the DRP are unable to agree to it - I don’t know how many). On the other we have the statement that the BSA is “absolutely non-sectarian†and that the BSA “does not define what constitutes belief in God or the practice of religion†and “does not require membership in a religious organization or association for enrollment in the movement...â€Â. So the BSA doesn’t define “faith†(I can’t find the phrase “belief in a higher power†anywhere - anyone know what BSA publication introduced that?), that is up to the scout and his family. So I can easily see how a scout that is an agnostic or atheist can easily assume that he is doing his “duty to god†in his own way. And I believe if the BSA is really honest about “absolutely non-sectarianâ€Â, we should take him at his word. So I will never boot a scout for simply saying that he is an atheist. But I will boot a Baptist (or Hindu or atheist, etc.) that is unwilling to show respect for people of other faiths. Unfortunately I have met many scouters that are unable to show respect for other faiths. I had one tell me to may face that my religion (I am Unitarian) wasn’t a real faith and I shouldn’t be allowed in scouting.

This sounds like Camp Emerald Bay on Catalina Island. It's a council owned camp that has been there since 1926. It is more expensive, but I would expect anything on Catalina Island to be more expensive. It's not a big island, and all the supplies have to come in by boat from the mainland. In addition the land is leased, not owned by the council (almost the entire island is owned by the Wrigley family or the Catalina Island Conservancy). I have heard good things about it, but I have never seen the camp myself. http://campemeraldbay.org/

Someone protested your promotion of an 'alternative holiday'? Really? For wishing everyone a happy winter solstice? How very unscoutlike of them. I am increasingly amazed at the small mindedness of some people.

For Christmas dinner we had the traditional (for our family) leg of lamb with focaccia, two vegetable dishes, green salad and price pilaff. Pumpkin pie and lots of other baked goods for desert. Yummy!

I remember reading that the original BSA campaign hat from the early years (the one illustrated in the Norman Rockwell paintings) was crushable like the current brimmed hat. Much more practical for running around in the woods and rain than the current stiff hat. Does anyone still make a crushable campaign hat?

Perhaps we are not speaking the same language. The phrase: "Health Insurance Losses to Get Worse: 51 Percent to Lose Employer Based Insurance", reads to me as 51 percent will no longer have employer based insurance. Which isn't what the federal register says. How hard is that to understand?

You wrote: "93,000,000 - CBO estimates that will have lose their Employer provided insurance in 2014, despite the prez promising otherwise:". The report doesn't say that. Having your employer replacing the grandfathered health plan with a new one is not the same as "losing your employer provided insurance". So yes, equating changing an insurance policy with "not having insurance" is scare mongering.

Actually that isn't what the report says. The townhall.com story talks about a Forbes story that talks about a commentary in the Federal Register (not a CBO report). The Forbes story provides a link to a pdf of the report itself so you can go an read it. What the report actually says, is it estimates that just over half (51 percent) of employers will CHANGE their offered help plans and so will not be grandfathered anymore. That is not the same as "loosing their insurance". So we go from "51 percent will change their health plans" to "93 Million Americans Will Be Unable To Keep Their Health Plans Under Obamacare" to "Over half will loose their insurance!". Scare mongering anyone?

"We still have a better time of it than , I think, any other country in the world." I curious, are we really better than Canada? The UK? Australia? New Zealand?

"By carrying a gun, you increase your chances of being shot your assailant by 550%." Really? Where does that statistic come from?

Pack18Alex: Thank you for your thoughts and insights!

Actually, California de-gerrymandered itself in 2011 (the voters took it out of the hands of the legislators and put it in the hands of a bi-partisan committee) and many formally locked in districts became competitive. The result was that the Republicans lost a lot of ground and no longer have blocking power on the budget (their representation in the legislature is now much closer to matching the actual percentage that voted Republican in the state). It will be interesting to see what the Democrats do with it in the long run.

KDD is right. Jefferson was a Christian Deist (hence his creation of the Jefferson Bible). Several of our "founding fathers" were. Since Christian Deism rejects the divinity of Christ it is difficult to classify them as traditionally Christian. For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_deism

"However, by the time they are Boy Scouts, they'll need to determine if they have a faith in a higher power or not." Really? This is what the BSA actually says about this (from Guide to Advancement, pg. 33): "The Boy Scouts of America does not define what constitutes belief in God or practice of religion. Neither does the BSA require membership in a religious organization or association for membership in the movement. If a Scout does not belong to a religious organization or association, then his parent(s) or guardian(s) will be considered responsible for his religious training. All that is required is the acknowledgment of belief in God as stated in the Scout Oath, and the ability to be reverent as stated in the Scout Law." So the BSA requires a belief in God, but refuses to define what it is. So not even a "belief in a higher power" is required. The only thing required is for a scout to define what a belief in god is for himself, and then to have that belief. Even if that belief is that God is fictional. So atheists are welcome as long as they don't call themselves an "atheist" (according to the people from BSA National I have spoken with it's the label that matters).

As I wrote in the now missing thread, my belief is that their reason for leaving and creating their own group was not really about gays, but about non-sectarianism. The vote was the signal that their 20 year quest to turn the BSA into a conservative Christians first club (anyone can join, as long as they recognize that non-conservative Christians are second class members) had failed. I've been reading the forums on OnMyHonor.org and now the new web site, and the gay question is definitely secondary to the religion question. At least for most of the forum posters. Given what some of those posters had wrote (why we need to keep the dirty Muslims out, or why we shouldn't allow Jews), I'm glad those particular posters are leaving. And the lack of "I disagree" posts in response was disturbing (there were a few). But these were just forum posters, not arguments from the founders. I just hope it doesn't reflect the attitudes of the general membership. I personally think it was discussions like this, that became one of the reasons they deleted the old forums when they launched. As for the new organization as a whole, I wish them well. There is plenty of room in this world for good youth groups!

Actually, I believe trade mark law requires the BSA (or any other trade mark holder) to take aggressive action or loose it's trade mark. The BSA doesn't really have a choice here.