skeptic

When a "church flag" is displayed, it takes the position of precedence, since it stands for God. Most of the time, the church flag, if it is there, is on a higher level than the American flag, so it is not an issue.

Moderators: Please pull the plug, permanently!!!!!

The solution G.E. is really obvious; but for some reason, no one wants to make it.

Yes Sherm, you could join the team; you just would not be allowed to swim. Help with timing, shallow water exercises, and so on. Nothing says someone cannot do things out of the water, or in shallow water, as a member of the team.

While we have a few here that simply will not accept anything as possible, I find this whole thing to be the proverbial "smoke and mirrors", whether referring to the LDS, or the related subject. Parents "in" the program have "chosen" to be here; and it only makes sense that most of them chose with at least "some" agreement that this was acceptable to them. The people, for the most part, that continue to harp about the Gay issue are outside the the organization; though there are a few apparently here that are not happy, and have an agenda. That is a separate discussion of course. As far as the LDS elephant, I had a number of interesting conversations with LDS leaders at the Jamboree, many wearing gold tabs. I found it interesting that they are aware that they need to be "more involved" at district levels, and also are working on keeping dedicated leaders in place whenever possible. This is big change to many, as the discussion has noted; but it is interesting to me that they seem to be taking note, and working towards more effective ways to keep their program viable. In our own area, we have numerous very dedicated scouters who are LDS, and a number of their units have longer term leaders than was normal ten years or more back. They are intricately involved in most district and council activities, and are accepting and flexible in regard to the needs and wishes of non LDS units at camp and at camporee. Maybe it is time for some to quit dwelling on the past, and start looking at the present. And those who are so disenchanted perhaps "do" need to consider their real motives in being involved, "if they truly are". This is a youth organization that is "supposed" to focus on them. It is "not" a political tool for people that want to modify society to fit their idea of how things should be. An interesting dissertation relating to this can be viewed here: http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/0/7/2/8/pages107284/p107284-1.php While it is just one more take on this, it seems to bring up some valid points; or at least seems to do so to me.

Young flatulators have more stamina I fear.

http://scout.org/en/information_events/news Lots of interesting stuff going on outside our little world.

Scouting on Tiananmen Square We, Scout Association of Hong Kong are lucky to have the blessing of the Chinese Central Government Liaison Office in Hong Kong, and have their utter trust and confidence in conducting scouting activities in China in scout uniform. These functions are under the invitation and with full support from the Chinese Government and the All China Youth Federation (another name for Communist Youth League in external affairs). We were provided with special pass, train and transport arrangement. It speaks so much of the close cooperation of the two youth bodies. Every year we have hundred of scouts visiting China, by coach, by train and by plane, all in scout uniform. This Summer, a special train of 10 cars of scouts and youths (600 strong) departed Shenzhen on 18 July (a border city north of Hong Kong) and travel through China from South to North, all the way crossed the Yangtze and Inner Mongolia before converging with another group of 150 scouts who arrived Peking by plane on 25 July and rendez vous in Tiananmen Square before the latter will travel by train through Central China to Chengdu to do service to the earthquake areas of the Sichuan Province in Western China." News received from Mr Alexander Wong, International Commissioner, The Scout Association of Hong Kong Annual summer exchange programmes involved the youths of Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and the Mainland China(PRC).

Beavah; You seem to have forgotten the new doctrine: The majority no longer means anything if it is deemed "politically incorrect".

Because of the sets of supposedly controlled and restricted centennial patches showing up on eBay, National issued "very strict" dictates regarding following the letter of the rules on these types of items. I was told about this action at Jambo by one of the National Supply people with whom I was working. So, that is what I meant by "some greedy" individuals ruining things for others. And, as pointed out by someone else, local people might be more flexible with people they are confident will not misuse the items for personal gain. If anyone, with an Eagle card, could buy restricted insignia at any scout shop, it would make the whole system less effective. Adults are the primary abusers of trust in regard to these issues. That is obvious from things that occurred at Jambo and in Washington D.C. in regard to "traders".

"The sky is falling!!" "The sky is falling!!"

Does not matter which rank it is; paperwork is "supposed to be" furnished to support it. And yes, part of the problem is just that; too many people have been buying them and then trying to profit from them on eBay. It only takes a few greedy idiots to make things more difficult for others.

From a coal mining site newsletter in November, 2009. Do I read this correctly; the mineral rights are part of this? That could be much like the income from the Philco Tower. Massey Energy Co. said today that it worked with the Boy Scouts to transfer mineral and surface property rights to the land that was acquired for the new Scouting site. Additionally, Massey Energy pledged a $500,000 contribution to support construction of the project.

Here in So Cal, if the fire hazard is at the highest level, you can have no fires period, including liquid fuel stoves and lanterns. Gas stoves have to be canisters. Makes it very limiting, and make overnights far less enjoyable. For backpacking, it is okay, other than not having any fires after dark, which curtails much evening activity. Only so much you can do with battery powered lights. Better than burning the forest down though.

You smaller critters need to watch out for those swooping eagles. And, I'm going to work my ticket if I can.........

Not sure if this is the real place to put this, but certainly is related. Just got off the phone with a contact at Vandenburg AFB on the central coast of California. Was trying to see what we could do as a unit there on a weekend trip. The nice young woman told me that they no longer offer weekend tours to scouts or other groups; supposedly due to staffing issues. But, there was a time when you never had a problem staying on base, often in the gym, or some specific area set aside for youth groups, which generally were scouts or similar organizations. At least she was able to confirm that we really have little chance of doing any interesting and exciting thing there, as we used to do a decade or more ago. Same seems to be the case at Edwards, where they no longer have the on base camping location, and do not allow anything beyond week day tours. So, what are the thoughts from others here. Is it really due to staffing, or is it more to do with pressures from our friendly PC people? Seems to me that most of our tours in the past, other than having use of a few facilities like the campground, youth center, and pool, were staffed by volunteers anyway. Though, they may have been allowed to do the volunteering as part of their regular duties I suppose; not sure, as we often had tour leaders in civies back then, apparently doing it on their own time. Seems to me that the exposure to the "real" military mission activities on some basis is nothing but positive for the military. The tours we did in the past were always well attended and favorites to try to do every year. So, when they "suddenly" became pretty much impossible, unless you have the right contact, it was a real blow to the programing.

OGE; That is a matter of opinion.

Pack; I can guarantee, you will know. Try catching piglets to castrate them, while the mother is in the pen. Keeping her occupied long enough to grab them a few at a time is an adventure to be sure; and she lets you know her feelings very loudly. The same goes for catching a 300+ lb hog to ring it, so it will quit rooting the gardens. When you finally corral it long enough to get the ringer on its snout, you think its previous noise was minor. Fun and games on the farm.

Yes, it does appear that there likely are a number of high profile type patches that may very well be "made up" ones. Right now on eBay, one guy is selling one that supposedly is real that says "I saw the president of the United States". I somehow do not think this is an authentic issue, as there was no sign of it until a week after the event was over. The same guy is also selling a "black" staff medallion which is supposedly authentic. But, it was never offered in the catalog as far as I know, and also I do not remember seeing it offered in the TP. I bought the official event one, so know what it looks like. Are a few other suspicious ones on eBay at the moment; but people still buy them. Too bad that some feel the need to make a fun pastime more difficult and cumbersome.

You can only order if you were a participant, as you need your Jambo number, as well as logging into Scoutstuff. Hopefully, this will put the brakes on the nonsense on eBay, at least for these. There are a few other restricted, or limited items in demand there, such as the Mike Rowe patch, which only ran $3 in the trading post. Guess I should have grabbed the last few there, instead of just one. Also, the fancy embroidered rounds, and the triangle are popular. I never saw the triangle at all, but did get the jacket and shirt versions of the round. Hope they learned a lesson from this.

Yes, you need to ABSOLUTELY USE "IE" when doing the on-line courses in order to get the completions. For whatever reason, they will not complete with other browsers.

Agree with Eagle92 overall. I do, personally, count additional summer camps as two camping days towards the camping merit badge and OA, just like a long weekend camp. But, they still only get one whole week counted towards that merit badge.

"For homosexuality to be fully accepted as moral behavior, the culture will have to restrict, discriminate against and eventually out law the practice of religion. The culture will sacrifice one for the other. It wont be the first time in history, it was how our county was founded." Anyone care to compare to Greece or Rome? Just asking!

Scoutgroove; If you can find a copy, look at the now defunct "Rank and File"; I still have it, but it no longer is viable except for a few areas, as they opted to quit fighting to get things approved with National. But it had/has many of the things already noted, including the ability to export to Excel and Word. Was really quite flexible, and overall a good program, or at least so I felt. I lost my records unfortunately when I had a hard drive issue. Thought I had backed it up, but did not. That was one of the areas in which it was hard to use, and I tended to not make the effort due to its difficulty, or maybe simply incompatibility with my system for some reason.

"While there really are aggressive, in-your-face, atheists"; Where?? :-}