vol_scouter

Beavah, The anger has been building for years. It started coming to a head under President Bush because he spent too much. The TARP was a significant escalation of the anger. The TARP meeting and McCain's support of the plan started his slide in the polls (he had been gaining since then), I interpret that as voter anger. Obama was also at that meeting and approved of the plan so he has some culpability. The anger is at all of congress and several recent presidents who have squandered our industrial capacity and economic success. There is anger toward the republican congress (but no the democrat president) who deregulated the banks. Several republican congressmen got defeated so the anger is toward the self determined 'ruling class', not just democrats. I do not recall a bill that was in front of the people for months with 60% opposition during the majority of the time that was eventually passed. The people went to town hall meetings and congressional offices to complain about the Obamacare the summer before it was passed only to be treated with arrogance and condescension by their elected representatives. Those politicians know best and had no intention doing their role in a representative democracy. It is incredible that you somehow compare the health care bill which will affect the entire population and will eventually bring 20% of the economy under direct federal control to other bills. That is certainly not a fair comparison. The anger has been there for a long time but the people who are angry are not the ones who protest. They are hard working, family folks that do not hire professional protestors as the left often does. They finally are expressing their anger because they realize that this country can collapse and that the current administration and the democrat party is speeding it along that course. The anger has been there. Obama is the head of the party that is most rapidly heading the country to ruin. The republicans are not well liked either and are seen as the problem as well. The anger is towards all.

Beavah, That is just nonsense. The media has scoured the Tea Party gatherings for any kind of controversial signage and has turned up very little - far less than most leftist groups that spew hatred for those who disagree with them. The lack of policy is because there is no organization so there is no coherence to the statements about what is wanted. Much is platitudes - smaller government and lower taxes just as the left wants to tax the rich and provide handouts. The anger in my opinion stems from many things: a bad economy for which they hold the congress responsible, a healthcare bill that was not favored by the people and the democrats enacted anyway, the arrogance of the 'ruling' politicians who see themselves as above and knowing best for the people, the bailouts to some businesses but not to others, the extremists appointed as 'czars' with no oversight, the concern over the banks being controlled by the government, the arrogance to say that by adding 33,000,000 people to the health care roles that the costs will go down until the bill is passed when Obama says that it was silly to think that healthcare costs would decrease under Obamacare, to pass a massive bill affecting 20% of the economy without even reading it, I can go on and on. Nikki Haley is a tea party candidate, I saw a black new republican representative the other morning. The tea Party has nothing to do with racism. The people realize that the US no longer manufactures very much and that the congress over the past decades is responsible. The federal government has run this country into the ground and many realize that it may not survive and if it does, it could be much poorer than now. People understand that this situation is tenuous and could get much worse while Pelosi, Reid, and Obama tell them that they are not able too understand. The people understand and want real change.

I saw it. As with all reality shows, it drug a little. All in all, it was quite good. Some catchy lines, beautiful scenery, and a normal set of American family dynamics. It was interesting seeing Sarah Palin filming a segment with O'Reilly from their house with Todd doing all of the technical aspects. Clearly an initial success for TLC. The scenes and activities are certainly worth watching.

I am certainly not a fan of Truman but after reading history and being an invited guest at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) which was the successor to the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC), Truman made the most moral decision at the time and it has been shown to even more correct as more information has come out. The total loss of life in the invasion of Japan would have been more on the order of 1 million rather than the ~200,000 killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even elementary school age children had dug fox holes and were prepared to fight to the death. Operation Olympic assumed that there was no longer any Japanese air force but that was not true. They had a hundred or more planes in caves ready to attack the landing. Fire bombing of Tokyo and other cities had killed hundreds of thousands. The atomic bomb is a terrible weapon but in a moral sense, it is just more efficient than dropping hundreds of conventional bombs. It can be argued that having dropped the bombs prevented them being used again. The level of worldwide war deaths from war dropped significantly after WWII and has remained relatively constant since. Thus, those bombs may have prevented worse loss of life. Truman made the correct decision. Bush is questionable.

The provisions in the health care bill will gradually and encourage everyone into a single payor system. Switzerland is clearly socialized but has several insurance carriers. How medicine will be practiced and what must be covered is dictated by the federal government. If you don't want to call it socialized, would you prefer fascist? I certainly have little latitude in caring for my patients and the federal government has made it increasingly difficult to take the best care of my patients. If the plan stands the court test (I doubt), it will make medicine a less desirable field than it is now and will further degrade the care that I can provide my patients. Such control could be dubbed fascist or socialist - take your pick - it is certainly no longer a capitalist system.

Former President Bush is typical of most former presidents who try in some way to justify or explain decisions made, though not always via a book. They usually are able to bring out their some of the various facets that affected decisions which makes them more human. People always tend to see former presidents in a better light with time. Former President Bush is no different. For me the water boarding issue is that from what I have read, the Allies tried belligerents for war crimes of water boarding. I have not read the original transcripts. I suspect that if the only thing done by an individual in WWII was water boarding, they were hardly worth pursuing considering the atrocities at the hands of the belligerents. Still, how could the attorneys who reviewed that procedure have ignored that history? Perhaps, the reports that I have read in the MSM were biased and wrong as is often the case now. If former President Bush did as he said and asked his attorney advisors whether water boarding was legal and they said yes, how could anyone hold him responsible. Though water boarding would clearly be a very unpleasant experience, I am not sure if it is torture (not sure that it is not either - seems to be a borderline technique to me). Bush should have avoided Iraq and expended more resources on Bin Laden, He should have said no to the TARP. All presidents make mistakes, He is no exception. I think that if the country survives the current problems (likely) that he will be judged much more positively in history.

The Republican party says that it is for a small representative fiscally responsible government. When they lean to the left, they leave those principles behind which makes them RINOs. I suppose you could call a Democrat who voted consistently for lower taxes, decreased spending, and fewer federal government services a DINO. Joe Lieberman was too conservative for the Democrat party leadership who opposed him in the primary. This led to his defeat in the primary only to win as an independent candidate. Sounds al ot like Joe Miller and Murkowski to me. The Tea Party realizes that the level of spending that Obama and the Democrat party has sidled our country with is not sustainable. They realized that the representative government was mocked when a federal government socialized our medical center by unashamedly buying votes when ~60% of the electorate opposed the bill. They were incensed when told that they were not able to understand the plan that many of them read but the Democrats ramming it through the Congress had not read it but said "trust me, I know what is best for you". They know that the Democrat party had just thumbed its' nose at the Republic. They were concerned when Obama surrounded himself with extremists (remember conservatives out number liberals 2:1). They realize that our country can be destroyed and that the Democrat party is leading it to that destruction. They are the folks in the 'fly over states' that the elite detest. It seems to me that they have spoken clearly in the last election. I do not think that it makes any difference which party the candidate claims as long as they support a smaller government, fiscal responsibility, a belief in the constitution, and a dedication to a representative democratic government. The debt commission seems to have gored many sacred cows. I am sure that there are aspects that all of us like as well as aspects that we don't though our lists would likely be different. Remember how the base closure bill was agreed in both houses of congress to be a strictly thumbs up or down with no amendments? What if the same thing happened to the debt commission? No amendments just up or down. It seems that it is the only way that there is a realistic chance to decrease spending. A Representative or Senator can say that they didn't support whatever but voted for it for the good of the country overall. It allows them to do the right thing but take less blame. They could even pass on an acclamation. That way no one would ever have to say they voted for it. If we don't rein in spending, we are doomed in the face of Asian countries.

Beavah, I did that see that news. It is sad but it does say that Alaskans picked the better person if that is his response prior to the vote counting concluding. I totally agree that he should have filed in state court and once all avenues have been exhausted in state court say "I lost". Also, using a reasonable man test, I would assume that most of the names would be reasonably interpreted as Murkowski. This is not a federal issue. Even if there is evidence of vote tampering, the first court should be state. I hate to see any RINOs in congress but Miller may turn out to be one as well with this kind of response.

That's Mr.Fusion that was on the trunk in the second "Back to the Future" movie.

The flux capacitor required Pu (plutonium) as an energy source. You are thinking about Mr. Fusion after all it is only 20 years away as it has been for the last 40.

Gern, This is an area where we agree. Solar water heaters are a great solution but will not be viable until the price of energy is a little higher. We had a great solar water heater. When the tank finally started leaking, we investigated replacing it. Unfortunately, it was cheaper to remove the solar panels that were prominent on the front roof (appropriate side but an eyesore), tank, pump, etc. and get a gas water heater installed. If the pump had died, there were no replacements. That said, if the price becomes competitive, solar water heaters are great. Pack, Good comment. I am against most biofuels since we could end up in the situation where our choice is between fuel or food. I see many areas where farmland is converted into subdivisions. Thus, there is less available farmland so biofuels seem risky. I agree with the oil development policy of using cheaper middle eastern oil. Nuclear fuel will not last 1,000 years unless we have a breeder program to reuse the fuel. The decision on Yucca mountain was clearly political and not based upon good science and engineering.

Slightly off the initial post but in keeping with the thread's direction: There are significant problems in managing the grid with alternative energy sources. In power generation, there are two classes related to the load (the amount of electricity demanded). They are the base and peak loads. The base load is approximately the minimum load that is always required such as the middle of the night. Nuclear plants are great for base loads. Peak loads is the difference between peak electricity demands minus the base loads. Peak loads require relatively rapid changes best handled by hydro, coal, and natural gas plants. So say that you have a nuclear power plant for base load and large wind farms to assist with the peak loads. What if a large wind storm occurs? The windmills will provide too much power requiring that the nuclear plant power down. You MUST balance the supply and demand. If the windmills produce more, the nuclear plant must produce less. Also, the electricity has to go somewhere so you either cease to produce or it has to be used. So you power down the nuclear plant which due to the nature of nuclear reactors will have to be down for 3 days. During those 3 days, the nuclear plant will have to be replaced by fossil fuels, natural gas or coal, for electricity production. The fossil fuel saved by not using fossil fuels for peak loads but using it for the 3 days as the base load can exceed the saving in fossil fuel. Solar is available only in the day. Batteries are expensive and use toxic materials so using them to store energy for the evening is a problem. What is the impact to the environment to covering large ares with solar panels? Those panels will absorb some wavelengths of solar radiation and emit others but the spectrum will be different than the ground. What is the impact if this is widespread? The answer is we don't know. The problem is that there is no light weight, mobile source of energy that comes close to that of fossil fuels. The emphasis is alway on better sources of energy but what about conservation? Why should sports not all be natural light and most outdoors? Fewer computers, tv's, GPS units, etc.? This is not meant as a criticism of anyone's post but an attempt to show that the issue is very complex and has no simple solutions. I concur with Brent and Beavah on the fuel tax.

I like your 10% 'tithe' since I have given away 17-23% of my time and income every year that I have been in practice. Can I get a refund? I need a new car, will the car dealers give away 10% of their cars? How about attorneys, accountants, and other licensed professionals? Are they to be forced to provide free services?

OGE, The resources are limited. Even if the physicians work for free, there are significant costs to a bone marrow transplant. If services are continually given away, the hospital will go broke. My practice has ~17% medicaid and no pay. Medicare pays about 80 cents on the dollar whereas medicaid pays about 10 cents on the dollar of charge. At some point, the physicians will go broke as well. I know that you work with some well paid doctors but many are less well re-imbursed. At some point, 80 hour weeks, stress, and the threat of lawsuits that could wipe-out personal property is not worth the pay - that is why there are too few primary care doctors. So not everyone who needs expensive procedures and does not have the means to pay (third party payor + personal) could have it. Who should get the treatment?

Gern, The expert panel could be made up of doctors, lawyers, and members of the community. It would certainly be more fair than the current system. A friend who is a plaintiff's attorney in medical malpractice who practiced in Indiana liked the expert system and felt that the panels were fair. Tort reform does not dictate actions only limits awards. Socialized medicine controls people.

Gern, My proposal was to have a board of experts determine if there is a case (as in Indiana). The plaintiff would only be at risk for paying in the event of a loss if the board did not find in favor of the plaintiff. When a physician is sued, there are many costs incurred by the physician since we only make money when working. The suit takes many days away from work even if the case is frivolous. So it is fair to expect the plaintiff to be at risk if experts do not believe that there is sufficient evidence to proceed. Your concern with liberty and freedom seem disingenuous since your desire for socialized medicine takes away freedom and liberty. Socialized medicine removes choice of treatment and diagnostic procedures. Beavah's comments are correct about the trade-offs between a market based system and socialized medicine which removes freedom and liberty.

Gern, First, remove some of the legal shackles that prevent medical staffs from removing 'hacks'. Second, damages should be limited to something commensurate with the damages. So if lifetime care is required, a reward of a few million dollars when properly invested and spent should provide the lifetime. Third, if no gross negligence then no award. Fourth, set up panels to review the claims. If the panel says that there is not adequate evidence for a suit and the plaintiff chooses to sue anyway, then the loser pays all costs. This would decrease the likelihood of being frivolously sued without removing the right to sue. Fifth, a suit should be able to financially damage a physician no more than a business owner, i.e. the business can be bankrupted and sold but the businessman will not be held personally liable and so will not lose their possessions. Similarly, physicians could lose their business but their personal holdings are not on the table. [Note: In some cases that does not hold for businessmen and likewise could be done with physicians, e.g. homicide disguised as a medical act]. Those are my off the cuff thoughts.

Gern, I agree with you there. That said, awards should be made because of negligence resulting in lasting harm - not because the accused is "able to pay". The awards should reflect the damages. Finally, as long as I and my family can lose essentially everything for an honest mistake or even worse - for a bad outcome, physicians will order extra tests and extend hospital stays so that there is ample evidence that everything was done.

Gern, It goes back to a prior poster who said: "Who is in the best position to bear the burden of the damages caused by a serious medical mistake. If they aren't borne by the provider, the most seriously injured will become public burdens." The jury saw a family of very modest means with the plaintiff in quite poor condition and decided that the physician could and should pay. They did not feel that the patient had a responsibility to followup from the initial instructions but that the 'nanny state' mentality should prevail and that the physician should have made multiple documented contacts. It is advisable to keep patients in the hospital until all tests have been done and all potentially critical results are back.

5. Yeh have to be willing to limit civil liability for malpractice to something equivalent of willful neglect, not simple or gross negligence. Why? Are the patient's damages any less based on the level of fault? Who is in the best position to bear the burden of the damages caused by a serious medical mistake. If they aren't borne by the provider, the most seriously injured will become public burdens. Malpractice judgments are a very small piece of the pie and experience in states that have limited awards shows that it doesn't lower premiums. Massachusetts Medical Society First-of-its-kind Survey of Physicians Shows Extent and Cost of the Practice of Defensive Medicine and its Multiple Effects of Health Care on the State "The physicians group says such defensive practices, conservatively estimated to cost a minimum of $1.4 billion, also reduce access to care and may be unsafe for patients." Massachusetts is not a large state so fear of lawsuits has a significant impact on the cost of medical care. As a professional, a liability claim that exceeds one's insurance coverage can result in the physician being forced to sell property and pay the remainder. An internist in my general area was sued because a patient was told to have a procedure and did not. The patient later had a large stroke. Because the physician had not repeatedly called and written to the patient telling the patient that it was important to have the study (it was not disputed that the patient was informed at the initial contact), the physician was found guilty and the plaintiff was awarded $20,000,000. The physician had a typical policy that covered $1,000,00 per occurrence and $3,000,000 lifetime of the policy. The physician thus owed $17,000,000 to be paid personally. Internists in this area make on the order of $150,00 - $200,000 so the math is clear. Is it right that the board of Ford weighed the costs of the Pinto's gas tank rupturing and incinerating people versus a cheap fix. They were in no way personally liable. Physicians are not the only ones held to such a standard (all licensed professionals in general) but it does add significantly to the cost of healthcare.

The AMA is a small organization that represents a minority of physicians in this country. The federal government estimates that there are 954,000 practicing physicians in the US. From Wikipedia: "MedPage Today estimates that the AMA only represents 135,300 "real, practicing physicians" as of 2005 (15.0% of the United States practicing physicians)". After the AMA's support of the health care bill, that number is likely smaller. The AMA can provide opinions on health care issues that state and federal governments might use in decision making. However, the AMA DOES NOT SPEAK FOR ALL PHYSICIANS, AMA MEMBERSHIP HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH LICENSURE, THE AMA DOES NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH MEDICAL SCHOOL CLASS SIZE! The federal government controls MD medical school class size. Therefore, the physician shortage is entirely due to the poor management of the federal government.

Calicopenn writes: "A married man who sneaks around and has sex with adult males is either a closeted homosexual or is bisexual. A married man who victimizes a male child but would never have sex with a male adult is not a closeted homosexual, is a criminal." Certainly an adult male having sex with an underage youth is a criminal but that does not mean that he is not a homosexual. It is intellectually vapid to say that every time an adult male has sex with an underage male that it cannot be due to attraction. Homosexuals can lust after underage youth just as heterosexuals can lust after underage youth of the opposite sex. If either act upon it, it is a crime. Some same sex relationships between adults and youth is a crime of power while some are of sexual passion just as in heterosexuals.

I believe that several have touched upon the reasons that scouting does not hold the interest of older boys. The boys advance too quickly so become Life or Eagle at an early age, they wish to have new challenges in leadership but they do it early, and they want new challenges. In my mind, they are inter-related issues stemming from two things: 1) National's desire to 'push' boys to Eagle quickly and 2) Our youth are not required to master anything. I would like to focus on the second point because it is something that Scouters can influence or control. We allow or youth to learn a skill for a test instead of mastering the skill. I doubt that most boys at their Eagle Board of Review could tie all the knots that they were required to learn. So they never mastered the skill, only passed a test. Mastery requires more time and repetition than is the current trend. I agree with someone earlier in this thread who said it should take 2 years to reach First Class. For most boys, it will require 2 - 2.5 years to actually master the skills to be a First Class scout. If troops demand mastery, then the boys will master the skills. This can be tied to the adult leaders allowing the older youth to actually run the troop. The adult leaders can encourage the boy leadership to push for scouts to have higher ranks for some positions of leadership in the troop. Thus, only the older boys will actually lead the entire troop. Also, there can be activities on outings that the boy leadership specifies that one must have a certain rank to do. For example, everyone can go mountain biking but only the more senior youth can take a longer more demanding trail. I have seen this approach work. It will be to the benefit of the boys to require to learn how to master skills rather than do what they do in school and learn for a test only to quickly forget much of the information.

Scoutfish, You have brought up some good points. One's background will certainly influence the way that they view others. It is not alway possible to predict the effect. For example, someone who grew up in a very structured family may view that as good (agreeing with their upbringing) or bad (feeling that the structure was a bad thing). Physicians are instructed to not allow their backgrounds to influence them but that is clearly impossible. Determining normal and abnormal behavior is done with studies and then by vote of a committee. In general, a study determines the prevalence (how often it occurs in a defined population) of a particular condition. If the prevalence is less than 4%, it is considered abnormal. However, before being declared abnormal, it goes through committees who vote on what are the signs (physician discovered evidence based upon examination), symptoms (patient supplied information), and laboratory/radiologic findings that together constitute the disease. Then the committee votes based on the whole package of information. It can be a cut and dried process or very contentious. In the case of homosexuality where according the CDC less than 2% of the population is a long term homosexual. Thus, in a statistical sense, homosexuality is abnormal but a vote in the 50's or 60's changed it from abnormal to normal. So the method is complex and not entirely scientific because it deals with behavior that is difficult to define and multi-factorial. So what constitutes ADD and ADHD is determined the same way. Once a patient has a given diagnosis, there are accepted treatment options which the physician should choose to avoid liability issues. If a physician does not follow those guidelines, then they are not following the 'standard of care' which opens them up to lawsuit. So even if a physician does not believe that a child is best served by amphetamines, they can violate the standard of care. Before outright condemnation of such a system, it does prevent physicians from straying too far from proven therapies. On the other hand, it somewhat removes the physician's judgment. This is a complicated system and difficult to describe accurately.

Skeptic and Scoutfish, I totally agree with the advertising comments. The warnings are mandated by the FDA so the pharmaceutical companies must include these pages. My belief is that they are seldom read in the journals. They are more likely to be read when prescribing the drug for the first time. The current trend is for the access to physicians to be increasingly limited which encourages more marketing to the public. I and I think nearly all physicians would like there to be no advertising to the public. Beavah, The most discouraging thing about the current situation is that it will likely encourage the next generation to find medicating their children even more acceptable. As to what to do now: be supportive of children who are having difficulties, do not allow their issues to in someway 'handicap' them or to give them a special status, make them (and all youth) earn their ranks and badges, understand that children learn at different rates, understand that children excel unequally in different areas. For another group of children, do not hold the bright and driven children back, especially when for convenience.