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Showing content with the highest reputation on 11/23/2020 in all areas

  1. You can do that without the vaccine.
    6 points
  2. There hasn’t been your entire life, if we’re defining unsafe as risk of catching respiratory viruses in a public setting exists. The flu, pneumonia, etc. didn’t make people not want to eat out, yet here we are pretending 12% positive rate and 99.86% survival rates (US under 70) are Ebola reincarnated. For comparison, last year the positive test rate for the flu was 52% and death rate was ~ .02% for under 70. So quite literally, the risk to your average, healthy person under 70 is .12% higher than the flu. Clearly risk goes exponentially up or down to age groups above and below the 70 line. People spent 2018 cool with a 52% chance of catching a virus followed by a 99.98% survival rate, yet are incredibly concerned in 2020 over a 12% chance of catching a different virus followed by a 99.86% survival rate. I get it this doesn’t encompass specific scenarios like elderly family with health issues, the individuals with compromised immune systems, healthcare workers in close proximity to high risk patients, etc. But, it does encapsulate the vast majority of our demographics.
    5 points
  3. Dang - she only lasted ‘About Half A Scaramucci’:
    5 points
  4. No, the Governor of California have forbid people from gathering for Thanksgiving - Doesn't mean he has the legal power to do so. As such, it won't prevent me and my family from going to Big Bear this week with three of my closest friends and their families to eat, drink, and be merry. We're also relatively young, fit, and healthy. People have to make their own choices based on the lives they've lived. We're not close to any elderly family members so it's a calculated risk, just like each time you go fly a mission, drive to work, or any other activity where potential harm can occur.
    4 points
  5. Because the shit's embarrassing, dog. There's no evidence for fraud on the scale that you and the other Trump supporters are calling for. Were there one-off cases? Probably. And they should be prosecuted. But there's absolutely zero evidence for some kind of massive, country-wide or even state-wide conspiracy against the most divisive president since Abraham Lincoln. If this were a conspiracy, then the DNC really failed at it...they wouldn't have left it close enough for there to be a question. And they would have used their access to voting systems in the legislature, not just the presidency. Please, show me actual evidence, not a Trump lawyer waving around a piece of paper that says "someone told someone they saw something", not an Alex Jones video, not someone in a MAGA hat claiming they saw a Joe Biden bus outside of a polling station. This is fucking embarrassing. This is not the kind of behavior that someone who swore to support and defend the constitution should be excited about. This is tinfoil hat nonsense and only serves to erode the last pieces of faith Americans have in their institutions.
    4 points
  6. I don't know, would the leader of the free world have called it a hoax of the opposition, not a big deal and under control while s/he encouraged people to disregard their local leaders while suggesting injecting "disinfectant" and internal sunlight until it's gone this summer, winter, next year when there's a vaccine? Salk said he wouldn't patent the vaccine because it would be like "patenting the Sun." That's how much fear polio caused. We've been coddled in our lifetimes with no serious epidemics in our country.
    3 points
  7. You’re taking his analogy out of context. Sorry. Couldn’t pass that up. Hello kettle.
    2 points
  8. Oh no! But what about the kraken of voter fraud evidence she was going to release?! I was reliably informed that it was going to be biblical... And in literally the least shocking turn of events of all time, it turned out to be a bunch of hot air. Now that the grandiose communist conspiracy angle is dead, its gonna be fun to watch our little parade of baseops trumpers revise their public mental gymnastics to contrive new scenarios where trump is somehow still in this. In the end, I think this situation is the best we could have hoped for. Trump was never going to concede so the only question was whether he'd mount a competent legal case, or a clown show. If his team actually had their legal and public messaging act together it would be far more dangerous, because they might succeed in undermining confidence in our elections. Luckily, we got the clown show and it's such a severe one it's actually turning off fence sitters and most of the moderate right. Prediction time: before the end of this train wreck, I predict trump fires Rudy too. But don't worry guys, it's just normal administration turnover.
    2 points
  9. Sure they have. Many state governments have banned smoking in public spaces because it’s been proven that one person’s second hand smoke can harm a non smoker.
    2 points
  10. Before I got out we were all hands on deck for protecting this election in case DHS called for federal help. We did some prelim research into the voting system and figured out it was a fools errand, because each state does it their own way, and we literally couldn't prepare for 50 eventualities with our resources. We could focus on the top 3 producers of voting machines, but they, like state gov'ts, do not want any "help" as is evidenced in the video. So, I don't really have any idea about what types of machines they had in particular. But again we get back to the breadth of the term hackable - everything is. There is a port somewhere on those machines, even if it's just the power cable, the CPU fans, the hard drives spinning up. Ben Gurion University in Israel has been doing amazing research on it. The question is: is this hacking plausible knowing that cyber is a finite resource that can cost a lot of treasure to be done at a professional level? Here is a report from a hacker group attacking a professional malware development company that goes through a lot of what is required. It's getting older now, but a good read. Note, it reads like 1 person did this, but it was probably at least 3, maybe more. I've seen the NBC video before. The work they do at DEFCON its great, it's why we send folks there on the regular. I think at the last one they did some of our satellites and found some of the exact same problems. But this just dropped a few hours ago about hacking the Dominion machines, Steel is the PR dude: "Well, it's physically impossible," Steel said of vote switching. "Look, when a voter votes on a Dominion machine, they fill out a ballot on a touch screen. They are given a printed copy which they then give to a local election official for safekeeping. If any electronic interference had taken place, the tally reported electronically would not match the printed ballots. and in every case where we've looked at -- in Georgia, all across the country -- the printed ballot, the gold standard in election security, has matched the electronic tally." EDIT - Actually, you need to read the article, I think it address all the lies "soon to come evidence" that is being thrown around. But I could be wrong, I'll wait for the evidence that's "Going to explode Georgia." So there is a physical audit for at least the Dominion machines. I'm 99.99999% positive there were also instructions for voters to check their paper ballot to make sure it actually reflected what they wanted. Sidney Powell's claims are just...absurd. I give it a 0% chance that "communist countries" got together to share in the spoils of a hack on the voting infrastructure of the US. Who... Cuba, Venezuela and China? Did I miss anyone? Oh wait, NK - technically communist. I guess Vietnam as well. These renowned "cyber powerhouses" that are so secret and quiet we'd never catch them until after the election was over? I phrased it that way because China is very loud on the wire traditionally. These countries have not been after these types of systems in the past. You can check online for what APT's come out of these countries and see what they target, but TL;DR - Banks, economic espionage, casinos, etc. CN tries to steal for their economic benefit to industry (J-20 anyone) and everyone else is trying to make Bitcoin through various frauds/cryptolockers. Could they have shifted their TTP's to target something else...I mean, technically anything is possible. But I'd think it very, very unlikely. Tooling up for these things takes awhile. Also, they're not culturally aligned for it. It has been amazing to see just how much the culture of each one of these nations (and our own) impact the way we all operate in cyberspace. I don't know if that's reflected in how they fly either. Is it? For the rest of the twitter thread, they disabled the computer and there was security guards doing the rounds. Looks like the report slipped in when they walked away. Humans doing human things.
    2 points
  11. I wonder if the polio vaccine would’ve been successful if the internet existed back then. 🤦‍♂️
    2 points
  12. Why is that surprising? Get an injection of something that was rammed through testing with no longterm data vs. a 1.8% chance of getting covid, and if losing those odds, have a 99.99% of recovery (numbers derived from my state specifically for anyone under 70). Seems fairly logical for anybody who doesn’t have other health concerns (diabetes, etc.) and don’t have any other circumstances, like immune-compromised family member, healthcare worker, etc. to skip it. At least until there is some long term data.
    2 points
  13. Must have missed that particular TikTok video.
    2 points
  14. 2 points
  15. I think the key there is hospitalized patients. Most patients that are hospitalized are elderly and/or other have health conditions, so they probably weren’t exactly fit to begin with. Small sample size, but I have several friends/co workers that have had the COVID, all either didn’t know they had it (except for a mandatory test coming back positive) or had mild symptoms and were back exercising within a week. To me, it just again emphasizes that people and businesses need to make the right choices for their situation. I’m in the camp of living as normally as possible. No one in my immediate family is anywhere near high risk, and we are not near elderly family. Our family engages in plenty of other “high risk” activities that are more likely to cause harm than COVID. Life is to short for us to hide in the house for something that most likely a non factor. I am all for the government “advising” what they think is best, but telling people (making laws/orders) how many guests they can have in their house is a step way to far. I have been to the hospital/doctor many times in my youth for injuries, every time the sky is falling and they want you to sit in bed until you are all better. From a medical stand point, sure, but from a practical/life stand point that isn’t always realistic. Unfortunately the medical field has been making policies for the law makers, with out to much of that common sense being intertwined, and a heavy dose of fear being thrown in. if the doctors had their way, no one would ride motorcycles, drink, play contact sports, etc. Do what’s best for you and live your life as you see fit.
    1 point
  16. It’s a 360 degree turn in plane angled to look like a loop to the show line. It isn’t a loop. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app
    1 point
  17. They're not wrong though. AD is punitive and vindictive. Interactions, let alone social media ones, of any kind w/ leadership are a North Korean parade. And don't get too comfortable with the ARC; AFRC is not too far behind, especially for the full time cadre. The issue at hand with the specific senior leader in question here, is that he is known to hold grudges, and has made recent manning and funding distribution edicts that make it clear he has an axe to grind. Some people argue the stint at DLF broke Chuckles. At any rate, initially everybody assumed that the ideological "commitment to one's own legend" would be a limited compared to the aforementioned AETC/CC. But that mirage quickly faded into today, clearly plastered all over social media. As such, engaging such figures on an open vest forum like FB is just asking to get homed-on-jam. Caveat Emptor.
    1 point
  18. 1.) I didn't quote anyone. However, the provided quote was endemic to German thought. I've worked closely with the German government in a security cooperation position and the provided thought process does not surprise me. 2.) What roof? You mean the collapsed plywood on the mud hut in September of 2001? Yeah that was like that when we got there.
    1 point
  19. Impressive, ridiculously dangerous? I don’t know, but those dudes have some balls, I’ll give them that. Now I’ve seen everything...
    1 point
  20. Oh man, you should see all the felating of the General that is going on in that thread. Sir sandwiches and kool-aid chugging of his every word.
    1 point
  21. Not where I live. Maybe the Covid numbers are better where you live.
    1 point
  22. Our earlier discussion got me wondering about not just about cyberattacks on our voting systems, but other systems as well. Turns out, the COVID-19 virus has exposed massive inconsistencies and inadequacies in our global systems architecture. According to experts, a future cyber attack would "make COVID-19 seem like a small disturbance in comparison." Fortunately, the Cyber Polygon event (maybe you've already heard of it) has allowed us to use the COVID-19 pandemic as a timely opportunity to reflect on the lessons cyber security community can draw and improve our preparedness for a potential cyber pandemic. Anyway, I thought it was a cool website and thought it'd be right up your alley. https://cyberpolygon.com/results-2020/ This guy has some amazing things to say about the importance of cyber security. Maybe you'd enjoy it and I'd like to hear your thoughts.
    1 point
  23. I'll give you the flip side to my story above. I was grooming a CGO for WIC. On a feedback with the CGO he was instructed to update his records as his records didn't show that the CGO had a degree (ANY not advanced) listed on the CGO's RIP. Started to peel the story back... turns out the CGO didn't have a degree, and paid $300 for a fake transcript on the dark web to get commissioned. Currently the CGO is a SSgt in Leavenworth. No extenuating circumstances, saw it as the path of least resistance (testified under oath)... Things that make you go "huh..."
    1 point
  24. Dude, this is why people think you’re a troll. An analogy is just that, an ANALOGY. No analogy will be perfect but you choose to nitpick banal facts rather than see the overarching intent of the comparison.
    1 point
  25. -80 degrees C (colder than dry ice) is not your standard refrigeration obstacle.
    1 point
  26. Whoah, let’s not go that far.
    1 point
  27. I feel like this has to be someone trolling Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    1 point
  28. Fuck'em, let them takeover more of a role if it's so important to them. GTFO of that shit hole tomorrow!
    1 point
  29. 2. Count me as a hard no for #2. If you all haven’t heard about it, Moderna and Pfizer are using genetic therapy/modification technology that has NEVER been used for a vaccine (believe it’s called CRISPR) ever before. Most currently approved vaccines use attenuated or dead virus cells to create an immune system response. Modified RNA (mRNA) used in these two new COVID vaccines will reprogram (essentially changing targeted parts of your DNA) cells to produce Covid and Covid like proteins/enzymes/etc...Add to this, it’s the first vaccine that hasn’t had trend data for at least 3-4 years to verify safety before approval for use. Moderna also hasn’t produced a single vaccine in the past. I’m not a doctor/biologist/virologist, but I’d encourage all of you to not take my word for it. Check it out on a search engine besides google. I’ve seen I Am Legend, doesn’t seem like a great idea to me.
    1 point
  30. How about the profound silence of increasing the concealed carry on base? The Navy awarded those that responded and talked about how they ran unarmed toward an armed shooter. Should that not have caused them to think "why did our sailors have to run unarmed towards an armed shooter?" I fly with a 20mm gun that shoots 100 rounds a minute and live bombs going to the range. I'm trusted not to go crazy and go bomb or strafe the base and/or the nearby city, but can't be trusted with a concealed pistol before or after the flight.
    1 point
  31. Ft Rucker 21-02 UH-1N Andrews UH-1N FE Warren HH-60G Alaska Guard HH-60G Kadena CV-22 Kirtland
    1 point
  32. Here's something that's well worth the time, 90 year old P-47 driver tells his story. Kind of long but well worth it. Living history from someone who was were there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo_irQ9bjzU&feature=youtu.be
    1 point
  33. Most responses are way out of line, illogical, and many probably illegal. This is 90% emotional/political and 10% about actual public health. Social distancing, mask when you meet the definition of close contact, and improved hygiene (or really what you should have always been doing) is acceptable at this current point. Everything else, especially with the data on hand, is utter bullshit. That’s my somewhat succinct viewpoint.
    1 point
  34. It was always great going through the CBT that was about 4 changes old and spent a good chunk of time talking about RVSM for an aircraft that isn't allowed to fly that high...
    1 point
  35. I hear you but still...Where was the DO? Perhaps another needless soapbox rant but honestly I have thought about this incident 100 times over the past few days and how many different people failed this young man. Yes we can blame the institution...the writing has been on the wall for some time and others have alluded to it in this thread but in a haste to plug the holes in the damn the system made a conscious decision to push as many people as possible through the system. At a very senior level he was failed when the decision was made to start pushing basic skills training from the RTU to the ops unit. When I read the Viper bros were pushing defensive BFM to the unit I thought it was a joke...how can this be? As much as people celebrated Fingers (I did not for personal reasons), he let it happen. He and Mobile bought that risk and risk is never pushed right at a 1:1 ratio, it has a modifier when it comes to basic skills. Should he have been able to land at night without incident...of course but I think everyone who has read the report and knows his flying history can feel the weight of crap that was on his shoulders that night. Senior USAF leadership failed this kid in an epic fashion. The problem is systemic...and the disconnect at senior levels is STAGGERING from my point of view. Probably reason #69 why I didn't make GO but I remember being in the room when a training and conversion plan was being briefed to the MAJCOM commander. The A3 and A1 folks were tag-teaming a brief on how they were going to convert AC-130W and AC-130U crew members into the AC-130J. The training folks were doing their best and their plan had every AC-130 pilot in the command by name and how they would flow through the system....come off the battlefield and start conversion training, PCS to new base, then immediately deploy in new airplane. I knew it was a house of cards and I couldn't hold my tongue, I blurted out "what retention rate did you use in your plan." Well sir we used the historic rate of 64%. "What was the Gunship retention rate last year?" (I already knew the answer) Well uh sirrrr....it was 34%...but we have mitigation strategies form the USAF that we think will help retention. I looked directly at the A1 and asked him if he knew about the 14 gunship pilots who were up for the bonus this year and what had just happened? He just stared at me...so I turned to the MAJCOM Commander and said sir there are currently 14 AC-130U pilots up for the bonus, only one has taken it. The MAJCOM commander was very celebrated in our community, honestly until his reply I worshiped the guy and would have done anything for him...that all ended when he opened his mouth and said in front of everyone....and I quote "They will stay because they are patriots, and if they don't I WILL JUST MAKE MORE." I knew at that moment...every bullshit comment he made about people and families was a lie...and that was it, his mitigation strategy was to let decades of combat experience just walk out there door and he would fix it by making more. I didn't even invite this dude to my retirement. I can point fingers at all the senior folks but for me I want to know...where the fuck was the DO. He/She was supposed to be the last line of common sense in the storm. I had a lot of interesting jobs in my career and made it to a fairly senior level as a Wing/CC down range in combat. Of all those jobs the toughest far and away was being a DO. Yes commanders work hard to take care of people but DOs are supposed to protect people and the mission. As a DO in the WIC it was a struggle...you think going through WIC is hard...trying being an IP there for 6 years. Sprinting a marathon becomes the norm. In fact, as a DO and CC I would remind each new graduate that they had to regulate expectations when they got back to the unit...as much as they wanted to change the world they would have to do so with some finesse or risk alienating the rank and file. You would think being a DO of a WIC squadron would be easy....all graduates, all top tier, all type A...but that presented a different problem in that they would run until they fell over dead. In order to protect them I often had to make tough calls to protect them from the system and from themselves. I didn't always get it right, but damn I tried. I remember one hellish period when we were flying multiple stages of the syllabus do to support asset availability. We typically ran a CAS phase then an Interdiction phase but for two weeks we were running both phases simultaneously. As most know WIC debreifs are purposely painful and on Thursday of the second week it was 0330 and we were doing data collect on the 6th sortie in 10 days. My ADO was leading the sortie and he said "Ok, we will see the WUGs back at 0700 for the formal brief." I looked around the room and all I saw was serious fatigue in both the WUGs but more importantly my instructors. I jumped up and said STOP! "WUGs and Instructors come back at noon for the formal debrief, everyone GO HOME." The ADO was pissed and he followed me back to my office...we had a very heated conversation in my office and he certainly spoke his mind as I always encouraged them to do. I listened then said, "messaged received, go home, I will see you at noon." For two weeks most of the WUGs had been grabbing a few hours of sleep in the squadron, not wanting to waste the time it took to drive home and then back in the morning. That week I noticed about half of my instructors had done the same thing and I knew I had to step in and protect them...from themselves. I might not have been the best DO but that is how I saw my job...PROTECT my people while accomplishing the mission. Where was his DO and how in the world the DO let this kid step that night is beyond me...simply beyond me.
    1 point
  36. Ruh roh. Not a flattering look for the ACES seat. No way even the most experienced driver is going to have the presence of mind and the in-the-blind dexterity to pull the manual override in a ground level ejection attempt, at night no less. Manual seat sep from a ground pull is just not a realistic expectation under any circumstances. Surprised this hasn't got more public scrutiny in the community. The TUL ANG ejection cited even allocuted to the fact that dude had the benefit of daylight and a looong freefall to gather his thoughts and remind himself of the manual seat-sep option. This kid (he was a student of mine at DLF) didn't get that chance. The most contentious and soul-searching weeks of my AF career by far, were the weeks immediately following the 38 crash in our AD associate squadron, due to the NAF level leadership's unwillingness to speak immediately as to the SIB-relevant facts pertaining to the condition of the seats following the fatality. That soured a lot of people, and created a climate of open dissent, and led to a couple of firings. Ugly stuff all around, even for DLF (which was just coming out of Mollygate and the T-6 MX firings, and is a football bat of a place on a good day). Then there was that big boo boo in Midland with the Bone, and the eventual inspection revealing NONE of the seats would have fired. I could go on. These are fundamentally confidence-eroding trends, and big blue better get their @ss around it or it's gonna lead to chaos. The pointy jet/non-deadstickable business doesn't have the off roading option like I used to joke about during my T-6 IP days. On this side of the street you need confidence in your seat or things get insubordinate real quick. As to the decision not to controlled eject, I'm not gonna second guess the element lead and SOF. That's a tough one though. Even by the AIB's own stipulation, the kid would have still faced the hardship of having to have the presence of mind to manually seat-sep a faulty seat during a controlled bailout attempt... At night, not knowing he had a bad seat. Eff those odds. I don't know the Viper's landable gear combos, but in the 38 one main up one main down is a no-go. Difficult to ascertain the weight bearing capacity of a damaged MLG on this accident, especially given the indications of brace damage as described by the chase ship. The kid did the best he could given the information presented at the time. That seat betrayed him period dot. That pull was textbook in the envelope, should have led to a canopy. I'm at a loss.
    1 point
  37. I think the hardest problem operating in this whole thing from a Military Orders and Mission Command perspective is the people with Birds/Stars on shoulders/Sleeves that are supposed to be making the play calls for us to take guidance from have all backed away from any decisions that have to be made. The reason they are doing that is the last great example of somebody with a Bird/Star sacking up and saying “this is my call as a commander and I’m making it,” got publicly fired out of a cannon and his Carrier taken away. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
    1 point
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