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This post exemplifies the real crisis in our country: an inability to talk to each other. Your first paragraph is filled with assumptions you believe to be facts. Your second paragraph is also assumptions masquerading as fact. The foundation of a functioning democratic society is disagreements are civil and resolved by good faith conversations. That means listening to the other side and asking yourself “could they be right? Can I understand their viewpoint? How can I convince them of mine?” You’re right about one thing: we don’t have much left to talk about if “talking” just means I’m brow beat with your opinions. How do you think the country hold together when convincing conversations cease and power is used to force those you disagree with to obey?

Let's re-frame this discussion then. People see the George Floyd video, and that sparks protests about police killing black Americans. Those protests then devolve into riots in some major US cities. Key Point: Those riots and protests weren't just because of George Floyd, although his death likely elevated the issue. They were about the 'systemic killing of black people by police.' Which is a lie. Period. The Washington Post created a database to try and prove the theory... and they came up empty, along with other journalistic/academic outlets. That reality didn't dissuade prominent media personalities, our current VP, and others from creating bail funds for those doing the rioting, and going along with that lie... because it made them powerful. ------ Fast forward 6-8 months. Some people see that their state voting laws are being changed without their legislature's consent due to legal action by the Democratic party/and or action from Democratic state officials, and that bothers them. Election night rolls around, and more people see "massive dumps of mail-in votes" that happened throughout the night, and several uncorroborated accounts of "fraud" being perpetuated. When coupled with that previous discontent, they believe the election is likely stolen. (Then) President Trump seizes on that narrative... because that gives him political power. Tying it together: Both the cases rely on factual things that happened to base their alternate realities. George Floyd did die at the hands of a cop. States did have their voting laws changed to boost mail-in voting. Attached to those truths are an entire web of lies that create the full conspiracies, and thus build the emotional fever required to sustain a movement. Cults work in very similar ways, actually. You could even say the same thing about QAnon... with the factual basis being Jeffrey Epstein. Moving on though, both sides took those false ideas and engaged in violence to support them. For BLM it was rioting and looting. For the right it was Jan 6th. We can debate over which was "bigger" or which made the larger "impact," but fundamentally they are the exact same thing. Political violence committed because of a conspiracy. A lie. Trump didn't invent the fraud conspiracy, he simply weaponized it for his gain. Just as Kamala Harris and other Democrats didn't invent the lies that BLM used. They simply weaponized it for their gain. Both sides in a deeper way understand this, which is why the debate naturally comes down to which side is more morally righteous. Ex. "You seriously can't compare racial oppression to a crazy stolen election theory." Which is an attempt to add slavery/Jim Crow/racism to their side of the seesaw in a clever slight of hand... by calling you a racist.

Every time someone calls they delay the release a day 😅

If you can't see why my opinion is better than yours, we have nothing to talk about. Well... Bye. The others have already covered the errors of your post, but one more I'll add: The race riots were far from organic, and they were not born from the George Floyd murder (murder, not racist murder). They were a continuation of social unrest where protests and riots spring up everytime a black American was killed by the police (or non-black person) in circumstances that were murky enough to exploit. Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, George Floyd, just to name some big ones. Remember Hands Up Don't Shoot? Was that *blatant* fantasy an organic response as well? What's hilarious in your response is almost perfectly timed support of my allegation. Me: The false depiction of a looming apocalypse is exactly the fear mongering tactic politicians are using to generate donations and votes. The side effect is it's making us hate our neighbors You: If you don't understand how the latter [i.e. your side's social unrest] is far more dangerous to our country than the former [my side's social unrest], we don't have a lot left to talk about.

Both came out of political operatives sowing lies in order to cement their own power.

Emailed AFPC again, response was waiting on signature and results will be out “possibly by the end of the day.” I have my doubts lol As many times as i’ve emailed them, if i had a slot they gave it to someone else😂

No, I sure don't. And I've never once claimed that Antifa had us close to collapse. Nor the race riots. Anyone who claims we are close to the edge for *any* reason is simply wrong. There were no tanks rolling on the capitol, no politicians arrested, no process undone. Congress was back in session in a matter of hours. Despite the fact that our political betters have convinced most of their constituencies that the other half of the country is a threat to their existence, it's never been a better time to be alive, and that applies to all demographics. The false depiction of a looming apocalypse is exactly the fear mongering tactic politicians are using to generate donations and votes. The side effect of it's making us hate our neighbors. Long term it may be a self fulfilling prophecy, but in the short term we are nowhere close to catastrophe.

How in the world did she even make E-9??? Never mind, I know why, forget I asked. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

It's gone from 'hopefully' to 'possibly'. In Air Force speak I think hopeful is like 5% chance, possible is AW91's .000069%. 😂

On the bright side it shouldn’t be much longer until the 22 UFT Board PSDM is released. If I’m not picked up this cycle it won’t be a long wait to reapply again as long as they get back to summer boards again

In the end it all boils down to flight hours. The traditional Air Force pilot training experience is already significantly condensed for what they want out of the end product. If hours didn’t matter the airlines would accept every douche with a commercial and 60 hours in a Cessna. You can sit on the ground all day long and tell someone xyz, that wont be enough to develop good habit patterns in the jet. Upper echelons of leadership need to realize what we expect out of modern single seat pilots is extremely demanding and corners cannot be cut in developing it.

Military units dissenting, journalists being silenced, prominent figures disappearing, protestors meeting firing lines, businesses and property being seized based on political affiliation or identity group... Guys, we aren't close. ~5,000 idiots stormed the Capitol, and were only successful because the police response to rioting was dialed back as a result of the race riot optics. They (aggregate, not a couple here and there) didn't intend to kill people, because of they did there wouldn't be 5 deaths, there would be hundreds. You can even see in the video how they basically walk around the cops. Let's have some consistency. Either the race riots over the summer were worse, and much more representative of us going over the edge, or neither riot represented "barely missing." I think the latter. It's amazing to me how many people on both sides I talk to that think we're right on the edge, yet all of you are sitting on your asses doing nothing. If I truly believed that police were systemically killing black people in our society, or I believed that our Democratic processes were being stolen from us, I'd be taking to the street with my guns as well. I think perhaps the intellectual class has gotten so used to talking in riddles that we've all forgotten how to speak literally. We are literally not close to the edge. Yes, Trump incited a riot. And it was a shameful moment in our history, perhaps one of the most shameful. That doesn't mean it represented an immediate threat to the Constitution or our way of life.

I bet if a student was actually taught a cross check (beyond the 2.6 hours a CSI “teaches”) helmet fires would be significantly reduced from current levels...Vance’s “2.5” included. Although, in its defense, Vance’s “2.5” does give flight line IPs additional opportunity to teach a cross check. It’s not in the syllabus to use the opportunity that way, but the opportunity exists none the less. If we actually taught students the shit they needed to know, good things would start to happen. Or at least, that’s the thought...time will tell. ~Bendy Edit: Stand ups too...has always been a trial by fire brown cluster. Doesn’t need to be, we just like to waste an entire go of a FAIP’s day slogging through it multiple times a week because we had to do it too. Seems legit. Sent from my iPad using Baseops Network mobile app

How did you make it 20 years in the military?

WHO will end research into 'extremely unlikely' theory that COVID-19 originated in Wuhan lab "The investigators have visited hospitals, research facilities and the seafood market where the first outbreak was identified, although their contacts in Wuhan are limited to visits organized by their Chinese hosts." I feel so much better...

Looking at rushing ANG squadrons or doing AFRES "Civil Path to Wings" once I finish my degree. I had weird palpitations at night and went to a cardiologist to get it checked out, who was adamant that I had severe Obstructive Sleep Apnea and referred me to an ENT to do a sleep study. In the meantime I did a holter that showed some scattered PAC's and some runs of AVNRT SVT that had no clear trigger and weren't solely at night. I did the sleep study which showed an AHI of 9.5, "mild" OSA, and the tech also wanted to diagnose me with restless leg syndrome but it's never bugged me and I don't want to take benzos. DoDi 6130.03 (the MEPS manual) says that Current diagnosis and treatment of OSA and Willis-Ekbom/RLS are disqualifying, and SVT that has been ablated and with a 3-month clean EKG is OK The AMWG (Wright-Patt waiver guide) is very friendly to catheter ablation of arrhythmia for all FC, and they seem willing to write waivers for FC II and FC III for OSA for continued CPAP use, but says the ACS and AETC will not review FC1/1A waivers for OSA. My plan was to lose (honestly quite a bit of weight) and get back to doing cardio, which should put me below the <5 AHI criteria for being sleep-apnea free, as well as get the EP study and ablation done. I figure that I can make a strong case for not having current diagnosis and treatment which should get me out of the woods with MEPS, however I don't know what to do with the flight physical. Should I press for an ETP since it'd be multi-crew aircraft and I would only need to maintain an FCII after UPT? Or am I stuck looking at RPA/ABM and any dreams of UPT/CSO are out the door?

https://www.afrl.af.mil/Portals/90/Documents/711/USAFSAM/USAF-waiver-guide-201202.pdf?ver=CfL6CVKyrAbqyXS7A-OX_A%3D%3D Mentions RDI <5 as "effective therapy" and the American Sleep Association defines <5 as "Normal", 5-15 as "Mild", 15-30 as "Moderate" and 30+ as "Severe", the referenced material in the AMWG comes from the ASA

Entirely untrue. ADA, BCH, BNB, XRP, LTC, LINK, XLM. All have fixed max supplies, and those are just the top 10. There are hundreds of cryptocurrencies with similar structures to BTC. BTC is actually still in the process of inflation, by the way, with 18.6M currently mined and 2.4M still to be produced in the future. On a side note, tons of people - myself included - hate BTC when compared to many other cryptos. Originally envisioned as “peer to peer cash” that wouldn’t require a bank, it now takes at least 10 minutes to send most transactions and costs $20 regardless of how much you’re sending. Sending $10 to your bro? That will be $30. Oh, also, the energy costs are INSANE and entirely unsustainable, but that’s another topic. Elon Musk investing in BTC actually convinced me that it really is dumb money that makes the world go round. But if Tesla can exist with a P/E ratio of 1300, there’s apparently a lot of dumb money. People will pump whatever the mainstream media will talk about. And now that people on BO are speculating about BTC, it’s probably getting close to time to sell. Another fun fact: it takes approximately 4 times more energy to send a BTC transaction over the network than it does to charge a Tesla. Source: have a pretty wide crypto “portfolio” and have for years. Was invested in BTC but am ENTIRELY divested from it for the last 4 years. Still made a little over 1100% this year on crypto currencies that aren’t so useless.

Man, I think it’s been three years or better since I’ve looked at Baseops. Almost Five years since I retired. Since everything went crazy, I found myself wondering what the BO crowd was saying.Tonight, I finally looked. I’ve read through a few threads, and must say...I am still impressed by the level of discussion here. Y’all are awesome. And also, thanks to Congressman for standing up for what he believes is right. Takes some nuts. Props to y’all for great discussion as well. Quality people here, man. Proud to have served with most of ya!

Pretty sure you are still technically assigned to the j it until your date of retirement which means your BAH stays. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

In fairness, these things describe a system that has fallen off the edge, not inched near it.

I have .000069% hope that it'll be released tomorrow.

This still leaves a big out for them to not release tomorrow. I'll feel a lot better about release date once something is put on the Rated AF Portal page. Here's to hoping we find out tomorrow and being prepared for another delay.

Well, I did just say she's the (D) version of Trump... So that was kinda the point.

She'll be popular due to a failure of our institutions to protect the American Dream for regular citizens, rise because she is willing to say politically unpopular things that alienate her from the establishment but ingratiate her with her base, use social media to bypass the usual structures and speak directly to her followers, lack any sort of real understanding of the system she wishes to change, continually say things that are factually wrong, not offer a face-saving route for her opposition to side with her, and ultimately fizzle out because she can't make the transition from activist to diplomat and appeal to a broad spectrum of voters.

You forgot reflective belts...

Who needs spam in a can flying when you have computers.

The BUFF should have been pulling a banner that stated “Bring back SAC” Also... 1+2+52 = 55.

Of course the game is rigged. She checks two important diversity boxes, and she was solely hired off that. She wasn't the best person for the job, and it currently shows via her buffoonery on social media.

Nobody cares about Burma.

That red line makes me walk way too many unnecessary steps

It’s like people forget that we’re a Republic.

Looking forward to this one. The fact that they brought back so many of the original actors (and multiple roles for Murphy and Hall) bodes well I hope.

In the AF there is a culture of pretending a SGT of any sorts is superior to an officer under the rank of O-6, and if they are an E-8/9 then maybe even more authority than an O-6. It’s perpetuated across career fields and weak officers let it happen. They even support it by telling young officers they need to shut up and listen to the Sgts. I’m sure you have already noticed, that compared to the Navy and USMC, authority is non existent in the Air Force below the wing commander level. A piece of paper stamped by an A1C holds more merit than the command authority granted to most “commanders.” The need for a squadron commander to ask “mother may I” through the group and wing CC, and in some cases to a star (like covid ETPs), is absurd.

People, tactics, equipment; in that order.

These leaders act like money is the devil and we shouldn’t be making any decisions based on it. Completely disagree. The money is a huge reason whether I’m going to stay or not. But not the main one. Every time I move my wife loses 2-6 months of work which causes a pay cut. A bonus helps with this. There are some assignments or a 365 that I never want to do. But I would if the bonus was 60-75k. That money Maybe pays for my child’s tuition or funds 3-4 vacations in having to take a less than idea assignment. Are we all patriots ? Yes. We signed up to do the job. But once they commitment is up I’ve paid my dues and it’s up to the military to entice me to stay. Not the other way around.

Ruger PC Charger with a Glock mag well to accept Glock large cap (32 round), magazines. I added the SB Tactical brace and a red dot. Fits nicely in my go bag and easy to hang on the back of the seat in the truck.

Holy shit, well, let it be known if you ever need to summon a grey beard, just stand in front of a mirror in a dark room and say "I have the aircraft, sir, I will maintain aircraft control, analyze the situation, take the proper action and land as soon as conditions permit" 3 times while holding a candle.

My violence is "principled", and your violence is "terrorism". Protest should make people uncomfortable....unless those people are elected representatives of the people, in which case it is illegal.

Whether it’s the treat environment or the tyranny of distance or some combination of the two (look at early Syria for example), the idea that getting home after riding the silk is just a quick helicopter ride is insane. The limiting factor isn’t going to be whether we send a helicopter/tilt rotor and how current it’s SIRFC is, or whether it’s got 4th or 5th Gen support to get it in. The limiting factor is gonna be based whether or not you can keep the isolated evader alive and hidden while you crack the egg on where and how to get them. The best way you keep Joe Oklahoma fighter pilot alive 8 minutes (or 8 days) after his feet touch the ground in a country where he doesn’t look or sound like the locals is getting him somewhere to hide and sending some friendly locals to stash him somewhere to buy time. Threat/distance/both will result in more time that evader needs to remain an evader to facilitate a successful recovery. At the same time with high threat, we are going to see a lot more possibility for evaders become active in theatre. Now you’ve got your JPRC playing triage of what is worth sending limited assets after in an environment where some are just flat out of reach. Everybody likes talking about successful recoveries like Vega because the stories are sexy, but look at for example Desert Storm where a lot of guys were for lack of a better word “abandoned to their training” because fact of the matter was the air recovery option was neither actionable nor would it be smart/effective. So I put to the room, would you rather the military spending bazillions of dollars on stuff that might stand a more survivable chance of coming for you, or do you think it’s more useful to cultivate those clandestine options and give you equipment to make you a better evader. There is a reason during evasion scenarios and SERE training you don’t get “rescued” out of the hide site by some Pavehawk or Chinook doing a training flight to support the school houses. Read the theatre spins, know your EPA, get good socks and a quality boots and train in them. That’s gonna mean a hell of a lot more than whether or not the supporting CSAR elements are running with 60Gs or the new Whisky hotness. And it would be nice since this is technically stuff I need to do my job, if the shoe clerks and bean counters that figure out what uniform items to provide actually thought about that requirement instead of crap like whether your boots are the right color of green/tan, 1 piece vs 2 piece, fire resistance at 780 vs 450 degrees. Taking me back to my original point, let’s invest in some quality skivvies, uniforms, and boots you could hike around in the hills with whatever guys needing you to not be a burden on them trying to keep you alive. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I picked up a Class-A RV and that is the retirement plan for my wife and I when the kids are out of the house. We have had vacations at Virginia Beach, Coronado Island, Pensacola, Corpus Christi, etc all at $30-$35 a night. If you can deal with the smaller space, it may be a good alternative to a dedicated summer home or Air BnB. Cheers!

There's an enormous false equivalence here. The "race riots" were an organic reaction of the populace to a thing that actually happened.. the brutal killing of George Floyd by police.. caught completely on video. The capitol riot was incited by the sitting president of the United States spreading blatant falsehoods about a fair election because his own ego couldn't handle the fact that he lost. And even though the number of people who stormed the capitol is very small in the grand scheme of things, the scariest part of this is that ~40% of republicans believe the same narrative that motivated those rioters. If you don't understand how the latter is far more dangerous to our country than the former, we don't have a lot left to talk about.