BrentAllen

I'm holding out for the HA Triple Crown for the patch on the back. NT in 2009, Sea Base in 2010. We didn't make the cut for Philmont for 2011, but we still have a shot at a council contingent trip. The NT loon is going above the left pocket. My real dilema is which one to wear - the Jac-Shirt or our Troop jacket. Decisions, decisions...

Yep, it's a good thing we have global warming, otherwise, those RECORD snow falls hitting Alaska and the northeast would be REALLY BAD! Good thing we have Cap & Trade on the way to save us all from this massive problem (or HOAX.) But, wait... "The top cops in Europe say carbon-trading has fallen prey to an organized crime scheme that has robbed the continent of $7.4 billion -- a massive fraud that lawmakers and energy experts say should send a "red flag" to the U.S., where the House approved cap-and-trade legislation over the summer amid stiff opposition. In a statement released last week, the Europol police agency said Europe's cap-and-trade system has been the victim of organized crime during the past 18 months, resulting in losses of roughly $7.4 billion. The agency, headquartered in the Netherlands, estimated that in some countries up to 90 percent of the entire market volume was caused by fraudulent activities." Imagine that! Fraud in Cap & Trade. Fraud in the science. What's not to believe??

That sure doesn't match your earlier statement to GHB: "The concept that people cannot control their sexual urges is ridiculous." How do explain the discrepancy?

A Scout Hut! We are quickly outgrowing the room we meet in, and our church has so many programs going on, there aren't many other alternatives. The good news is we have a great site for a new building, in the woods, right beside the church athletic fields. The senior pastor has given us the ok to start preliminary design work, so we are beginning the process of selecting an architect and putting together a fund raising plan. My dad designed the Scout Hut for our Troop, so I guess I have a little bit of this in my blood.

Troop24, Sorry, but I can't help but notice two very different, and apparently contradictive, statements from you. "The concept that people cannot control their sexual urges is ridiculous." "I simply cannot understand why society deals the hatred and spite onto the poor soul that cannot change their desire." So, which is it? There are many men out there who married, had children, and then "found out" they were gay after "trying" the other side. The $64,000 question is - were they gay, or not? If they had "control their sexual urges," would they still be married and straight? Should they live up to their marriage vows, as you also stated? My take - if they treated homosexuality as a sin, as my religion teaches, these men would still be married fathers, hopefully being the spiritual leaders of their families. If they had homosexual urges, shouldn't they be able to control them, as you suggest GHB should be able to control his with another woman?

Moderators, I am receiving emails from an individual who says he can't get registered on the site. He has asked me to post this, to try to find out if the problem is on his end, or here with the site. Any help would be appreciated. Mr. Allen, I'm sorry to keep pestering you with this, but I still can't get in contact with anyone from Scouter.com. Did you get any response after you forwarded my initial email? I have continued to try to register with the site, even using alternate email addresses, but I still never receive the email with a registration number. I have checked the "junk mail" folders of my different accounts, and have not gotten any emails to those folders either. I received your response to my email normally, so I don't think it's a problem on my end. Maybe the Scouter.com email accounts aren't working properly. I have noticed that the list of "new members" to the site hasn't had any new names since I started trying to join, so messages might not be getting through. Would you mind posting a topic about this situation on the forum so that I can read any advice the administrators/moderators might have. Hopefully this situation can get resolved easily once the people with the tech know-how get involved. Thanks again for your efforts. Jay Newell

I finally got one on ebay back in early summer, for $35. 100% wool, never had a patch sewn on it, as far as I can tell. If you want a real deal on one, wait until summer and keep a close eye on ebay (not many people thinking about a wool jacket when it's 90 outside). Size 42's show up a lot. I need a size 44, so it took a little longer, but it was worth the wait. This jac looks brand new. As for care, the tag in this one says dry cleaning recommended.

Two issues: 1. I don't think the term is "geeky or nerdy" - the derogatory term for Scouts is, from the 50's - "square" - or more modern, "goody two-shoes." If we are to deliver on the mission statement, we will never distance ourselves from those slang terms, and I have to ask, why should we want to? We are worried about the local hoodlums calling us goody two-shoes? If you have a problem with the mission statement - run, do not walk, out the door! 2. I guess our Troop is different in that we don't have any old, fat guys as leaders. We do have more than our fair share of Eagle and Life Scouts as Scouters. Of the 9 Scouters who are either SM, ASM or CC/CM, 3 are Eagles and 2 are Life. We all love outdoor adventure. We believe in challenging to boys to step outside their comfort zone in order to gain confidence and maturity. When we talked to the boys about going to NT as a group of 13 year-olds, on a 10-day trip, a couple of them had reservations. Once there, and out on the water, those two wanted to carry the canoes on the longest or toughest portages. They wanted to challenge themselves (and earn some braggin' rights, as well). This has been alluded to, but if the boys are planning the activities, I have a hard time understanding how they can complain about them. If the activities are boring, aren't challenging enough, etc., who do they have to blame? mmhardy, I got to laugh - expecting Scouts to be present is geeky? I've seen some pretty creative excuses for poor attendance, but that one takes the cake! But hey, whatever works for you. In that vein, I guess Varsity sports and band are the super geeks, since 100% absolute attendance is required.

Good answer. I'm guessing you would have a much different reaction if you saw one of your Scouts kissing his girlfriend? You'd probably just ignore it as normal for a teenager, right? Point being, your Scouts, especially the older ones, are sexual - either hetero or homo. Would you treat them the same? "I do not view the scouts I serve as sexual beings, yes, I know some of them are, but I think I would react the same way if I came upon a scout reveling in his description of his latest seduction, be the seductee male or female. ...There are no gay scouts, there are no straight scouts, there are only scouts"

Interesting. Is that due to the "he isn't on a Scout function, so it isn't related to Scouting" thinking, or something else? As one of the leaders in the Troop, do you not feel you have an obligation to bring this up with the SM or CC? Are you not concerned about how his actions might affect the reputation of your Troop?

Gern, I take the word of her religious leaders over those of her detractors. Those are easy to find, and you won't read anything about dinosaurs. But, as usual, I'm sure you aren't interested in the truth. BTW, has Sarah Palin visited this page? Where are you having scientific discussions with her? pack, I'm not saying anything about the age of the earth. I'm saying keep science and religion separate. We aren't allowed to discuss creationism or intelligent design in the classroom. So, don't bring big bang or other theories into the church and tell us our religion is wrong. Yes, Ehrlich was/is the Village Idiot. Unfortunately, with John Holdren, you have an Ehrlich proxy AS OBAMA'S SCIENCE CZAR. How stupid is that?? Sorry, Beavah, ridiculous predictions are just that - ridiculous. Al Gore's predictions are just that - ridiculous. AGW is the greatest hoax of our lifetime. The only people to benefit from cap & trade will be Gore and his buddies. Thankfully, this hoax sweater is starting to unravel before our very eyes. Gore is on his way to being just another Ehrlich.

"Palin told him that "dinosaurs and humans walked the Earth at the same time," Munger said. When he asked her about prehistoric fossils and tracks dating back millions of years, Palin said "she had seen pictures of human footprints inside the tracks," recalled Munger, who teaches music at the University of Alaska in Anchorage and has regularly criticized Palin in recent years on his liberal political blog, called Progressive Alaska." That's the best you can do - dig up a quote from one of her detractors?? I'm sure he didn't have an axe to grind, with that political blog - Progressive Alaska. BTW, what does her religious views have to do with science? Keep religion out of the science classroom, and vice-versa, right?

I thought science and religion were two different topics, not to be mixed. I'm not sure that is Sarah Palin's personal religious beliefs. Source, please.

Really? What, exactly, did we do to prevent the global cooling? What did we do, exactly, to prevent the depletion of key minerals? (BTW, Paul Ehrlich lost an embarassing bet about how scarce key minerals would be in 10 years) What did we do, exactly, to keep England around? What did we do, exactly, to keep 75 - 85% of all species from going extinct by 1985? I need a good laugh, so please, keep it coming. The truly sad thing is that instead of being laughed out of science, these idiots are now given a seat at the head of the table with Obama. These Debbie Downers are hard-wired for doom & gloom, along with the idea that only the government can save us. They've been wrong for 30 + years, yet some people keep listening to them. I wonder why?

We are not, of course, optimistic about our chances of success. Some form of ecocatastrophe, if not thermonuclear war, seems almost certain to overtake us before the end of the century. (The inability to forecast exactly which one whether plague, famine, the poisoning of the oceans, drastic climatic change, or some disaster entirely unforeseen is hardly grounds for complacency.) 1971 - John Holdren (Obama's Science Czar) As University of California physicist John Holdren has said, it is possible that carbon-dioxide climate-induced famines could kill as many as a billion people before the year 2020. 1986. More ridiculous predictions: 65 million Americans will die of starvation between 1980 and 1989, and by 1999 the U.S. population would have declined to 22.6 million. Paul Ehrlich, 1968 "The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines . . . [AND] hundreds of millions of people [including Americans] are going to starve to death." Paul Ehrlich (Holdrens co-author and mentor) 1968 "Smog disasters" in 1973 might kill 200,000 people in New York and Los Angeles. Paul Ehrlich 1969 "I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000." Paul Ehrlich 1969 "Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion." Paul Ehrlich 1976 "The threat of a new ice age must now stand alongside nuclear war as a likely source of wholesale death and misery for mankind." Environmentalist Nigel Calder at the first Earth Day celebration. "The cooling since 1940 has been large enough and consistent enough that it will not soon be reversed." Eco-scientist C.C. Wallen of the World Meteorological Organization, 1969 ...civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind, biologist George Wald, Harvard University, April 19, 1970. By 1995...somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct. Sen. Gaylord Nelson, quoting Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, Look magazine, April 1970. Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor...the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born, Newsweek magazine, January 26, 1970. We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation, biologist Barry Commoner, University of Washington, writing in the journal Environment, April 1970. By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half... Life magazine, January 1970. Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make, Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970. "200,000 Americans will die from air pollution, and by 1980 the life expectancy of Americans will be 42 years." Paul Ehrlich, 1973 It is already too late to avoid mass starvation, Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970. We can now add leVoyageur to the list, 2009. Congratulations.

AGW is the greatest hoax of our lifetime. Al Gore makes the Snake Oil Salesmen from the old west look like rank amateurs. I, for one, will be proud to tell my grandkids I never fell for the great scam that was AGW. I hope they study this in Social Studies, so they can recognize these charlatans if they ever reappear.

Gern, We ARE living up to OUR values - we aren't living up to YOUR values. No worries - the world is full of people who compromise their principals. As I posted before, Honor is probably the most difficult virtue to uphold because it requires that one first be honest with oneself. Merlyn, If the Scouts Canada membership decline due to admission of girls and gays is a post hoc fallacy, then I can claim the same thing with the BSA decline. The problem is, neither of us can prove our point. Too many variables and not enough information. Unless, of course, you can prove what caused the drastic decline in Scouts Canada membership. Care to share? Let me know what your new Spelling Word is for next week, ok?

Good afternoon to all my fellow bigots (yes, including you Gern) If this is a bigoted organization because we discriminate, then all who join must be bigots. Either you are a bigot because you agree with the values when you join, or you are a coward, since you can't actually stand on your own two feet and say, "I disagree with the positions of the BSA, so I will not join to support them." So, which is it - bigot or coward? Merlyn, Yes, that 2% increase is something to brag about! By percentage, the US loss in membership is a drop in the bucket compared to Scouts Canada.

"The BSA would have to get rid of the bigoted, ignorant "leaders" who profess to be concerned for the well-being of the Scouts but only succeed in passing off their ignorant bigotry on another generation of young people." Yep, either that, or get rid of the psuedo-Scouters, who don't have any respect for, nor do they live by the ideals and values. You libs might want to check out what happened to Scouts Canada, where they opened up membership to girls and gays. From 1997 thru April 2009, they have lost around 138,000 members, on average 11,500 members per year. At this rate, they will have no members by 2017. Membership in 2000 was 188,318.

The thread name brings back some old memories, as we hiked this trail when I was a Scout. I wasn't sure if it was still in operation. nationaltrails.com has a different mailing address: Blue Beaver Trail, Inc. P.O.Box 274 Signal Mountain, TN 37377 I have no idea if it works, but might be worth a try. http://www.nationstrails.com/trails/trails-TN.html

CRW, While I believe in letting the PLC handle minor discipline issues, cases of severe misbehavior that merit possible removal from the Troop should be handled by the SM and the Troop Committee. If this Scout gets upset about being kicked out, you don't want him retalliating against the boys. Leave this one to the adults.

John, I completely agree. That, coupled with their age, where they are really only concerned with what is going to happen in the next 30 - 45 minutes (at least that is what I see in our oldest boys, at 14), is a big problem to overcome. I think I will start hitting the PLC with quick and short emails a little more often throughout the week, in hopes of getting them moving in the advance planning direction. Some of this is just going to come with maturity.

While not nearly as exciting as Lisa's fire idea (which I think would be great, with lots of parents interested in viewing, as well), I'm thinking that learning how to properly go on a night hike along the roads might be a nice change of pace. Learn and practice the real lessons - tie a white cloth or reflective material around your right arm and leg, use flashlights or headlamps-but keep them out of the eyes of drivers, stay single file on the left side of the road, etc. Add in using a compass, how to find direction at night (will be tough to do with all the ground light, but might be possible). With the compass, they could record their path and write it up as for directions for another group to follow. Or have the PLC lay out the course beforehand (teach advance planning) and have the patrols follow it, with them all ending up at either Dunkin Donuts or Starbucks for hot chocolate.

OGE, does your Troop prohibit Scouts from dating until they are 18? There are a lot of stages of intimacy. Kissing and hand-holding, for example. How would you feel if you saw one of your Scouts kissing his girlfriend at the high school football game? How would you feel if you saw one of your Scouts kissing his boyfriend at a high school football game? Would you do or say anything about either of the above scenarios? If you choose to answer the questions, please do not assume anything on my account.

I think the problem boils down to not being able to come up with ideas (the lack of advance preparation Lisa mentions). Our PLC has the same issue, and I think I finally figured out why. If the PLC meeting is at 7:00, the boys start thinking about Scouts at 6:59. They wait until they are actually in the meetings, sitting at the table before they start thinking about the program. Then, they have no resources to work with and they end up like the proverbial deer in the headlights. I've tried to point out that they need to be thinking about Scouting during the week, looking for good ideas for meetings and activities. Boy's Life, Scouts from other Troops, other programs (parks & schools) all provide ideas, if they would do two things - keep their eyes (and minds) open, and jot down some notes so they don't forget when that brilliant idea comes along. This thread has given me another idea - starting a "Suggestion" box at meetings, where other boys can submit ideas. Maybe come up with a simple prize each quarter for the idea that turns into the best meeting. Yes, I know, ideally they would pass the ideas up through their PL, and hopefully we will get to that point. Right now, I'm more interested in getting the ideas flowing. Good thread.