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My wife doesn't get irrationally upset about other people having commonplace opinions on issues that are almost completely beyond her ability to influence outside of an occasional selection in a voting booth. But if she started talking about politics like this, then yeah I'd suggest she take a breath and maybe give the Internet a timeout for a while.

Google AI says POTUS has a 6.5 billion net worth with estimated 2.1 billion liquid, put in $500 million and call a few friends and save this company

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/spirit-airlines-could-shut-down-as-soon-as-saturday/

You're one of those people who tells his wife to calm down aren't you...

Given how many Navy ships have caught fire the last couple of months the CNO might want to push out an MFR on the proper use of fire extinguishers….

The War ZoneAir Force Wants To Axe Its E-11A BACN Communications JetsThe Air Force wants space-based systems to take over from the E-11A in providing critical data fusion and communications relay capabilities. The Air Force wants space-based systems to take over from t

No need for a Navy thread but tribalism is alive and well in the Navy as well. A giant FU to aviators from the CNO.

Just to stoke the hate fires a little...

Pish posh...try the gunship, turned sideways looking through a HUD with NVGs for 4,000 hours...

Did I miss the memo, was Thursday failure to feed day? New AR and my trusty M-1 Garand both had issues. If you look closely the AR tried to feed two rounds...usually a mag issue. The Garand was the big surprise to me. Had my nephews down from Mass, first time shooting an AR...typical liberal brainwashing leading up to said event..."I hear it kicks really bad...terrifying weapon." .69 seconds after emptying the first mag - "this is awesome, I want one!"

Likely, but still.

Mission Accomplished! AP NewsTrump administration says its war in Iran has been 'termi...The Trump administration is arguing that the war in Iran has already ended because of the ceasefire that began in early April.Or uhhh terminated?

Gerrymandering is bad—period. Neither side should be doing it. But let’s not pretend this is some new revelation. The reality is the cat’s out of the bag, and now it’s a full-on fight because no one wants to unilaterally disarm. Packing the court? Also bad. Undermines the credibility of the judiciary and turns it into just another political tool. Yet we’re watching one side openly push for it when they don’t like the current makeup. Killing the filibuster? Same story. It exists to force consensus and protect against raw majority rule. But again, one side is eager to toss it aside the moment it becomes inconvenient. And making Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico states—not based on some sudden principle, but because it shifts the balance of power in the Senate? That’s not about representation, that’s about leverage. Call it what you want, but changing the rules of the game to lock in power is a dangerous path. History is full of examples of how that ends, and none of them are good.

Agreed on the type thing, they're going to have to put you through training either way, I don't see having a type as much of a help. As far as the degree thing, that may be a thing at Giant, but a degree is still very much a strong delineator at my air line. I can only recall flying with one guy who didn't have a degree and he was a flow. It would be interesting to see how many were hired without degrees though. Besides a the Guard babies, most pilots will have the airline mins after a 10 year commitment. Doubtful that this type of flying would make much of a difference.

They weren't being divided by ideology, which you would know if you actually read the opinion. That would have included white people and Asians, and excluded some black people who aren't "Black Rights Activists." They were specifically drawing the maps based on skin color. Zero effort was spent filtering for ideology. The fact you are trying to equate skin color with an ideology is wild.

And just to be clear, I believe that all gerrymandering is bad, but cherry picking what we call bad and ignoring it where it is beneficial is literally just more gerrymandering. Either get rid of district maps being drawn by election commissions and just split the US into amorphous blobs fairly distributed mathematically. Or just go by popular vote. If New England is 40% republican, give them 40% of the seats. Give Texas 40% dem seats. Give California 40% republican seats. Sounds good to me and much more fair than what happens now. On top of that, give third parties a chance to gain representation.

Do you actually think Black Rights are not a political ideology by definition? A political ideology is not just Democratic and Republican. You not agreeing with that as an ideology or wanting to not over represent it is a different argument, but there’s no question that in 1965 and now, it’s a legitimate political sect. Just like white rights/supremacists.

So you think dividing people by an immutable characteristic (race) is the same as dividing them by political ideology? Yes dude, they're different 🤣

Could you point to the ad hominem please?

Ratner hyperventilating at his computer and retreating back to projection or Ad Hominem when he doesn’t have an argument, a tale as old as time.

Is your argument really that “racial gerrymandering is bad, but the partisan gerrymandering is different”? Because that’s what loudly complaining about democratic gerrymandering without expressing the whole picture is. Also wtf is “partisan” gerrymandering? Turns out both disenfranchise voters. To take your example to completion. Louisiana is choosing (not forced) to stop an ACTIVE election to redraw their maps in a way that will ultimately be gerrymandered more towards an already nationally biased republican advantage. Confirm that this makes sense to your principles? And to all points on New England, Texas has more registered democrats than Republicans and depending on year has 42-46% of the state vote dem for president. They are redrawing the maps to go to about 5 dems of 38 total reps.

It wasn't a come back. You're obviously upset about the things you read here, and it's not worth being on any website where the discourse is exasperating to you.

The F-35 is far worse on my mid/lower back than the F-16. The F-16 is worse on the neck/upper back. You will have issues and they will last your lifetime. But like Smokin, I’m in my 40s and am very active in a lot of physical things that most do not do. I have pain, and it does affect me, but I deal with it and it does not significantly alter my life…at least so far. Totally worth it. I also think nowadays with emphasis and money put towards pilot health/longevity, the younger guys may fair a lot better in the longterm compared to us older guys.

I’m 99.69% it’s the base honor guard practicing with empty caskets.

For reference, I flew the Viper for my entire career, so just over 18 years of Viper time after UPT. Neck pain is real and it will be for the rest of your life. For me it is mostly turning my nugget to the side (like checking a blind spot driving or talking down the same side of a table at a party) and then sometimes a constant low level pain after a physical day. Whiskey helps for both. Everyone that has flown fighters for more than a decade will have neck or back problems (back issues are more common in the F-15). It is likely that I will need a spinal surgery at some point due to damage that is calcifying and starting to impinge on nerves. That being said, it is manageable and it has not really ever prevented me from doing anything I want to do. I play full up with my kids, far more than most guys in their 40's. I do tons of physical things from back country hunting to working on the house, again, far more than most guys in their 40's. There are multiple things that are and will continue to mitigate this in the future. As more F-35s come online, they will be the new F-16 as far as force preponderance. The F-35 is not the BFM machine the Viper is and I doubt that F-35 pilots will have neck issues that are anywhere near as bad as Viper guys. I'm sure an F-35 guy is going to cry foul and talk about what a great BFM platform Fat Amy is, but he'd have to be drunk or delusional to think the F-35 is on par with the 16 or 15 in a visual gun engagement because that's not the purpose for which it was built. Another mitigating thing is the AF is finally putting it's money where it's mouth is in regards to pilot health and has started making dedicated physical therapists available just to the fighter pilots. I think this is going to be a huge long term win for guys' necks and backs and will be a huge help as guys start working with them as Lts. Also, you are largely in control of what you do with your neck in a fight. My first two assignments I wanted to win at any cost so if I thought rolling my nugget around to the other side while pulling full aft stick would help me win, I did. After I started to get more neck pain, I got smarter, kept my helmet against the seat more, momentarily let off the g's while moving, etc. More experience let me do a couple things that were not quite as optimal in a fight and still win but kept my neck from hurting as much. I could have done those things earlier and would have had less damage. Finally, I know plenty of people that never flew fighters that have had to have neck surgery. How dumb would you feel if you skipped the opportunity to fly fighters to keep your neck healthy and then ended up having neck surgery anyway? I have lots of physical issues from flying the Viper for my whole career, but if I could do it all over again, I wouldn't change much other than being a bit smarter with my neck when I flew. I don't think I'll be one of those guys on my deathbed wishing I'd done more with my life. I for sure won't be one of those guys looking back wondering if I was good enough to do what I had really wanted to do all along.