Free Republic

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Boy Scouts at this year’s national Jamboree were kayaking, rock climbing, zip-lining and bike riding in 90-degree heat Monday. And for the first time, scouts and their leaders had to meet new health requirements: No one with a body mass index of 40 or higher was eligible to attend. A 16-year-old boy who is 5 feet 9 inches and weighs 150 pounds would have a healthy BMI of about 22. The rugged terrain at Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve in West Virginia, where the Jamboree is taking place for the first time, warrants these new requirements,...

The relentless campaign to promote and normalize homosexuality -- and now cross-dressing and transgenderism -- for children is gaining speed in the media. These are things that are really happening. They are at the same time frightening and heartbreaking to watch and read about. On Sunday, Sept. 2, the Boston Globe featured a front-page article about a "groundbreaking" summer camp in Connecticut for "transgender" and cross-dressing children. According to the article, several of these children are being given drugs to delay their puberty so that they can have "successful" sex-change surgery. Some girls have already had their breasts surgically removed,...

[snip] While his fellow Republicans gather in Tampa, Dick Cheney is hanging this sign in late August: Gone fishin’. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/79116.html#ixzz22EN83IGC

Bill Dedman, an investigative reporter for msnbc.com, is reporting that the suspect in the horrifying shooting in Aurora, Colorado was a camp counselor in the summer of 2008 for underprivileged children in Glendale, California. NBC News has more information: Jewish Big Brothers Big Sisters of Los Angeles confirmed that [James] Holmes was a cabin counselor, responsible for 10 children at its Camp Max Straus for children ages 7 to 14 from Los Angeles. Holmes was then a 20-year-old student at the University of California, Riverside, and neighbors have said he was active in the Presbyterian church that the family attended....

It was all Occupy Wall Street all the time in Sunday's New York Times, with no less than four favorable references to the left-wing sit-in scattered throughout the paper. The Tea Party movement certainly hasn't permeated the pages of the Times in such friendly fashion. Meanwhile, the paper continues to downplay or ignore violence committed by the Occupy movement. The Times did not cover the riot by Occupy LA the night of July 12, where four officers were injured and 17 protesters arrested after protesters tried to transform a monthly "Artwalk" event into a "Chalk Walk" protest and begin hurling...

High school and college kids typically get the jobs that are left over, that no one else really wants, such as working at McDonalds. However, competition for any job is now so intense, that teens cannot find any job that no one else wants. As a result of that increased competition, Number of high-school students with jobs hits 20-year low The American job market is no place for students as the number of employed high schoolers has hit its lowest level in more than 20 years, according to new figures from the National Center for Education Statistics. In 1990, 32...

GRAND RAPIDS, MI—Scott Allan Herrick, 40, of Twin Lakes, Michigan, was sentenced to serve 95 years in prison, U.S. Attorney Donald A. Davis announced today. Herrick surreptitiously videotaped boys as they were dressing in the boys’ locker room in the YMCA in Muskegon and kept a massive collection of 100,000 images of child pornography with him at the Gerber Boy Scout Camp in Twin Lakes, Michigan. He was convicted at trial of three counts of attempting to produce child pornography. On the first day of trial, Herrick pleaded guilty to two counts of distributing child pornography and one count of...

He was scared, but the 12-year-old Boy Scout still knew what to do when he got lost during a Utah wilderness outing: He built a shelter made of tree branches and wood to get through a cold night and he covered himself in dirt to stay warm...

(snip) 2.28am An Oslo caller to BBC News has said a youth camp run by the Labour Party has been attacked by gunmen, just outside of the city. 2.12am AP reports police have sealed off TV2's offices and are investigating a suspicious package. There are also widespread reports of shots fired in an attack on a children's summer camp, also in Norway. There is no further information at this stage and it is not known if the attack is connected to the bombing. (snip)

The close-knit Orthodox Jewish community insists that rabbis, not the NYPD, get the first phone call about a suspected child abuser. "There are prohibitions and a psychological fear about saying bad things about people or talking about negative things that bring shame," said Long Island psychologist Michael Salamon, author of the upcoming book "Abuse in the Jewish Community. " The taboo had tragic consequences for Motty Borger, 24, who leapt to his death from a Williamsburg hotel the night after his wedding in November 2009. He had confided to relatives that he'd been molested while attending a yeshiva, but they...

Hamas is reporting record turnouts for its summer camps for children in 2011. The 'summer camps,' combining Islamic indoctrination, paramilitary training, and social activities are set to begin again this year as United Nation’s summer camps, considered competition by Hamas, are being openly denigrated by jihadists. Children and adolescents are an important target demographic for Hamas, from which its future army of terrorists will be recruited. Summer camps are an important means for indoctrinating Gaza's youth with Hamas' jihadist ideology. In 2010 Hamas ran camps for an estimated 100,000 campers, a number similar to 2009. The Islamic Jihad terror group...

I'm not exactly sure what they're trying to prove by banning several popular kids games at summer camp except that maybe the bureaucrats were always picked last when teams were selected. NY Daily News: State bureaucrats have identified a potentially deadly hazard facing our children this summer - freeze tag.That's right, officials have decided the age-old street game - along with Wiffle Ball, kickball and dodgeball - poses a "significant risk of injury."And classics like Capture the Flag, Steal the Bacon and Red Rover are also deemed dangerous in new state regulations for day camps."It looks like Albany bureaucrats are...

State police are investigating an apparent suicide after a body was found at Camp Good News in Sandwich — the same Cape Cod camp where U.S. Sen. Scott Brown said he was molested as a boy. The dead man, who has not yet been publicly identified, apparently took his own life with a gunshot to the head and was found in his car just outside the camp, according to a law enforcement source. A state police spokesman confirmed to the Herald today they are treating the death as a suicide. The 43-year-old man left a couple of notes indicating he...

Who better to teach Kate Gosselin's kids about Alaska than its most famous resident, Sarah Palin? Gosselin and her eight children have traveled to Alaska to meet up with the self-proclaimed "hocky mom" for an episode of new TLC reality show, "Kate Plus 8," reported In Touch Weekly. "Sarah, Kate and the kids will go camping," a source told the mag. Palin's brother, a third-grade teacher, and father, a retired science teacher, will reportedly give hands-on natural history lesson to Gosselin's 9-year-old twins and 6-year-old sextuplets. A mother of five herself, the former vice presidential candidate is said to be...

Twin Falls, Idaho » The headquarters for 620 Girls Scouts in south-central Idaho is moving because too many registered sex offenders live near its current downtown office, officials said. "Do we feel this is the safest environment for girls being served in the area?" asked Shelli Rambo Robertson, CEO of the Girl Scouts of Silver Sage Council, which includes Idaho, Oregon and Nevada. "We did not." The group last month discontinued meetings at the southern Idaho office and is moving to a new office near the College of Southern Idaho. The headquarters on Fourth Avenue was in an industrial part...

Camp David's woodsy confines lure him to 10th visit WASHINGTON - -- Why hasn't President Barack Obama kept his pledge to make Chicago's South Side his "Kennebunkport"? Two words: Camp David. The ultra-private, presidential mountain retreat -- a half-hour from the White House by helicopter -- has quickly found fans within the First Family. Their stay for Labor Day weekend was Obama's 10th visit.... ...With Obama's return Sunday, he has logged all or part of 26 days at Camp David, White House officials say.

New advice published in Scouting, the official in-house magazine, says neither Scouts nor their parents should bring penknives to camp except in "specific" situations. Scouts have traditionally been taught how to use knives correctly, using them on camping trips to cut firewood or carve tools. At one point Scouts were allowed to carry a sheath knife on their belt as part of their uniform although this is no longer the case. In recent years the Scout Association guidance has been that parents should carry knives to camps or meetings. Dave Budd, a knife-maker who runs courses training Scouts about the...

An Israeli Arab man has been indicted for allegedly working on behalf of Hezbollah in a plot to assassinate Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, a gag order lifted on Monday revealed. Tira resident Rawi Fuad Sultani, 23, was arrested by Shin Bet and Israel Police forces earlier this month and indicted at the Haifa District Court. According to the charge sheet, Sultani first made contact with Hezbollah agents at a multi-national Arab summer camp in Morocco organized by the Israeli Arab political party Balad. Lebanese Hezbollah agent Salman Harev, who also took part in the camp, spent...

A federal warning to beware of campers in national forests who eat tortillas, drink Tecate beer and play Spanish music because they could be armed marijuana growers is racial profiling, an advocate for Hispanic rights said Friday. The warnings were issued Wednesday by the U.S. Forest Service, which is investigating how much marijuana is being illegally cultivated in Colorado's national forests following the recent discovery of more than 14,000 plants in Pike National Forest. "That's discriminatory, and it puts Hispanic campers in danger," said Polly Baca, co-chairwoman of the Colorado Latino Forum. A spokesman for the U.S. Forest Service had...