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Yes. Time to move on, sorry you were misled.

From Mike Rowe (one of the few celebrities I actually trust!)...

In that case, then the entire “news” media would go out of business…which maybe wouldn’t be such a bad thing?

No, to answer your question directly, but please don't miss the point of mine. There is an important distinction to be made here. All those vaccines have been around for years (decades), they are well-understood, old technology, and most importantly, they have become part of the array of things the public accepts (see: seatbelts, no-smoking in public places, airplanes, catalytic converters on your car, etc.). There is a long list of things the American public finds acceptable that could be construed as restrictions on muh'freedom. For some reason, all those things are cool. The difference, though, is that our government has done an absolutely first rate job over the last two-ish years, giving people all manner of reasons to be suspy of what the hell is going on and in many cases to not accept the COVID vaccines as part of that "array" of things. For example: Democrats feigning suspicion of a vaccine having anything to do with Trump Republicans feigning suspicion of a vaccine having anything to do with mandates Our whole-of-government response to any discussion surrounding the origin of COVID (i.e. our attraction to the natural-origin story sans evidence) The PTB labeling anything suggesting a lab-leak to be "conspiratorial" Our holyamazeballz! response to the initial reports of 94-95% vaccine effectiveness! Our subsequent lack of an accountable discussion that recognizes these vaccines function more as therapeutics, rather than as vaccines as we all traditionally understood them Our initial government response to call travel restrictions 'racist' Our later governmental response to not call the same travel restrictions 'racist' The initial edict to not mask up - the later mandate to do so The encouragement to go eat out in China town, followed by silence two weeks later when COVID exploded in NYC The focus on passing BBB with all manner of social hand-outs and goodies, as opposed to you know, focusing on this disease that is supposedly going to destroy the world The contrast between what was considered "ok" last year (BLM protests, tearing down statues, rioting, calling racism a 'public health crisis, etc) and what "wasn't ok" (going to work, going to school, going to visit your family at Thanksgiving) In short, our collective response to this situation has been fully inept from the word "go" and it has continued to be inept. Worse yet, in the backdrop, there has been a constant drone of misinformation and a steady unwillingness of people on both sides of the isle to fairly address critiques coming from the other. All that to say I'm not anti-vax. I'm merely saying that when you take the sum total of the above self-contradictory set of environment variables, you are creating and enhancing the conditions that give people legitimate reasons to push back - and not all of those people are tin-hat types. Moral of the story, we screwed up, and now we need to eat our humble pie. Which in this case, means you encourage people to get vaxxed, while the rest of us move the F on with our lives. ///////// And as far as the FDA is concerned, they have a very important role to play, but I also think their function has been largely co-opted by other industries in our corporatist society. For example, in order for something to be considered "food" in America, it can't be shown to cause harm. For something to be included in food in European societies, it must be shown to contribute nutritional value. Forgive me, because that is a complete paraphrasing of something I was made privy to a long time ago, but it stands out in my mind as an important contrast between how our society functions vs how others' do. Why is our system like this? Probably because our governmental organizations are run by industries that write rules to benefit themselves (see Agit Pai as the FCC chairman). That's a huge problem. So yes, while a properly sanctioned FDA would and can serve a vital public health function in the USA, ours currently is functioning sub-optimally. For example, we should probably have laws that preclude high-fructose corn syrup from being in everything, but we don't.

That dude is a total douchebag, no different than the people who would yell shit at Trump. Disagree vehemently, ask hard questions at Town Halls, sure, but when you’re talking directly to the President of the United States, don’t be an ass.

Talk to your Shirt, too. The good ones are magical dealing with "people problems." The CC will have to sign off, but (good) Shirts have immense resources and connections.

You would be living with covid whether people “did things to mitigate it” or not. Do you not understand this disease? It’s not polio, it’s like the flu. It will mutate and it will be around and it will keep killing people because the vaccines for it aren’t like MMR or Polio or name your static virus you won’t get with a proper vaccination. Quit being so thick with your religion of covid vaccination.

Well, at least we now have concrete evidence that you don't know what you're talking about.

Douchebags often serve an important roll in our society. Here's one saying the emperor has no clothes, and even though it's offensive and uncouth, it does a great job highlighting the lengths to which the rest of the establishment is failing to hold power accountable and failing to have important conversations. But yeah, it's probably more important that we all just continue playing our violins.

Even the framing of your question is wrong. It implies that people can't take care of themselves. They can, and they do all the time. In fact anybody who's involved in the government is we are should be see me aware that the government is largely incapable of accomplishing anything on a grand scale. It's not just an argument of Liberty, it's an argument of Lost causes. And sacrificing Liberty for a lost cause is a double whammy.

I had someone in a similar situation, and I just assigned him an alternate duty location (his wife’s hospital), and had him check in with me periodically. It met the legal requirements.

KA, I'd look into the Gold Bar Recruiter Program. With your family hardship, you may be able to find a way to spend a considerable amount of time back home at your local recruiting office or ROTC detachment instead of bumming around the UPT student squadron for 6+ months. Research it and arm yourself with a plan, even if the regs don't necessarily say it's doable. Good leadership will pick up the phone and start making calls on your behalf, especially if it makes sense.

This thread could use some homegrown satire, if you can't take a joke--I feel sorry for you. ---- Officials confused by unexpected religious accommodation requests By Pseudonym WASHINGTON – On deep background, defense officials shared with media outlets a mounting confusion and frustration between commanders and servicemembers sending up seemingly disingenuous religious accommodation requests to opt out of current COVID-19 vaccination requirements. “I don’t want to put the department in a position to judge the validity of anyone’s sincerely held beliefs,” said General Max Power. “But to be candid, we are getting backchannel communications that are making us wonder if we are being deceived.” The generalized concern has been repeated in various branches within the Department of Defense. “We were all surprised when Lance Corporal Williams told the Master Guns he wasn’t taking the shot since fetal tissue was used in its development,” Said Capt Williams, 15th Infantry Regiment, MCRD Parris Island, SC. “My Marines were telling me all sorts of rumors, but basically they were calling him out.” “Let’s be clear,” said Master Gunnery Sergeant Tatum. “Not only does Williams not have a moral concern about fetal tissue, he talked his last three girlfriends into abortions—I’m sorry to say that last point has gotten him the nickname ‘ace’ in the barracks”. It’s not just the Marine Corps that are facing issues with members with seemingly incongruent values. “Me and the Vice were puzzled when Major Smith told us his religious concern about the sanctity of life and told us ‘whoever sheds blood, shall their blood be shed’,” said Colonel Jazz Morison. “Just the other day Smith was putting together his Air Medal package with an impressive EKIA count, not to mention his master’s paper at the Weapons Instructor Course was labeled ‘What to do when you accidentally strafe the Kabul Girl’s Checkers Club tournament’, which frankly is an oddly specific issue to be writing on—but shit, the investigation cleared him.” In other branches some troops are noticing previously agnostic or atheist members are finding new beliefs in faith. "So last year my supervisor was all insistent that we call the Christmas party a Holiday party, and was all like super woke’" said Staff Sgt Meyers on a twitter post. "Fast forward to late November and we are all getting the shot, then this punk is wearing WWJD bracelets to work and demanding prayer breaks and telling me I should not reenlist so I can start a traditional family.”

It's not discounting anything. Jesus, you yourself laid out the best argument I've seen on this forum. There's simply nothing to be done. The vaccines are developed. They're not going to get any better. The therapeutics are developed, and those are getting better by the day, but they're already widely accessible. The disease is understood, and the public has been notified. The only thing we could be doing differently right now is if every single person were forced to wear kn95 masks, properly fitted and regularly swapped out. I don't think that is possible. If you think the people who don't like masks are being intransigent now, just wait until you make them wear n95s, which actually do cause a fairly significant level of discomfort compared to the way humans have breathed for the last million years. And that would be until when? The hopes that a better vaccine is developed? We were infinitely lucky that the MRNA technology already existed, otherwise we'd still be waiting. You clearly think this disease is a big deal. An entire segment of the population disagrees with you, including many who are most at risk. It doesn't matter which of you is correct, not even a little bit. Unless you can convince those people to be as concerned as you are, no amount of coercion is going to successfully result in the type of compliance required to make a meaningful impact on the transmission of this disease. And what ended up happening? The people who think like you were unable to make a persuasive enough case, and so resorted to mandates. And in the most predictable way possible, those mandates have failed spectacularly, both in preventing/beating COVID, creating a whole new source of division in our country. And every time authorities resort to coercion and force in place of persuasion, this is what happens. The excess deaths are going to come back down to normal after everybody who's particularly susceptible to it dies. That sucks, but it's also life. And it's especially life when we don't have any other options. All too often people, and especially liberal-minded people, develop policies that explicitly exclude human nature. This has been a case study in exactly that.

To be pedantic, because you are, this is what I said. Don’t misquote me when it’s literally the next sentence. We’ve been talking about those over 70 100% of the time, which I have consistently used 5-15% for.

And this fits nicely into the article by Mike Rowe. Cynical politicians seeing leverage in every crisis somehow convinced you and a significant number of Americans that this virus would go away if we just did what they told us to. Anyone with an even passing understanding of coronaviruses back in March of 2020 knew that this wasn't going to happen. There's no putting the genie back in the bottle, there never was. But, if you earnestly believe that there was a way to "erase" covid, it is suddenly much more understandable as to why you would be so openly hostile to anyone who disagrees with you. But you're not going to find any reputable sources in the scientific community who even remotely suggested the possibility of covid going away. A lot of us just realized that fact much earlier than you did.

I can’t believe I’m going to weigh in on this topic at this point. But, I’ve got time as I sit here dealing with my breakthrough case of COVID. I’m vaccinated and I ended up in the ER. It sucked. To me, this whole argument comes down to basic problem solving skills. There has to be a starting point and some understanding based on common sense and predictability based on human nature. My dad used to say “what, so what and now what”. That approach isn’t based on emotion or fear. It’s just a matter of fact approach to a problem. One of the most basic things you would think policy makers would understand at the start is that not everyone will get the vaccine. They just won’t. And it doesn’t matter why. There is absolutely no point in calling people “ignorant assholes” or threatening people with a “winter of death” or whatever the divisive language is. I understand moving the goal line. That’s really all we’ve seen since this started. But, I don’t understand moving the starting line.

No, these vaccines simply aren’t the silver bullet you were led to believe. In the President’s own words from the other day, over 200M are “fully vaccinated” and we have the same case loads and deaths we did a year ago when he claimed he had a plan to stop COVID. It’s all just hollow promises, and it’s unfortunate for everyone.

Danger...hit me up with a PM....include your email and phone. I just turned over the NALE job with an 0-6 that works at the TRAWING down there in P-Cola....I will push you his info. He would be a good POC to get some gouge. Cheers ATIS

Took a quick search through the 2022 NDAA and I found something to the effect of ‘extending special pay/bonuses’. So, it doesn’t look like the max will change. Now it’s up to the AF to decide how they want to spend it.

They're just going to pay for your ATP, Airline Apps, Prep course, etc.

Try making your own butter, its pretty dang good. Lots of videos on how to do it. It might be cool to watch your wife make it like this.

Okay, you’ve added arbitrary constraints to fit your argument. Let’s remove those and get back to the point. More specifics to the scenario: The virus is latent and asymptomatic for 6-12 months, where it is still transmissible. Then the host experiences a very high death chance over about a month of illness. Based on this, many people claim it’s not even real. The R0 for this disease is similar to Delta, ~5-8. Scientific papers have been watching and writing about this virus in small populations over the last 2 years before it started spreading more and are relatively certain of these characteristics, although they can’t know anything definitively. You’re the president and you get to choose. Option A: Do something to limit the spread in an attempt to retain American society. Option B: Maintain liberty for the next 2 years while society likely collapses. This is all just an exercise in proving that black and white stances are asinine. I promise I can give you a scenario that is contrived enough that you have to act. We don’t have to keep going down this path, but we can if you want. The point is that there actually should be a point where the governments balance of liberty and security require them to focus on security based on those risks. Arguing there is no red line is ridiculous. Arguing where it should be is a much more intelligent discussion.

I think we just bought 8 lbs of butter at Costco today. My wife likes to say it helps you maintain a glossy coat 😂🤣. But partially hydrogenated oils are fantastic for making shelf-stable treats, which is why damn near everything had them. Turns out it's one of the few dietary studies that is actually recreateable... PHOs are just bad news. Be that as it may, they are nearly extinct despite then being legal. The market is often capable of doing what done tell us only government can accomplish.

If I’m guessing right about what your talking about learn how to bake and use butter and lard. Turns out it’s not as bad for you as the gov’s been telling our mothers and grandmothers. Everything in moderation applies. Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

You can't take the minimum percentage for a group of people and cite that as the percentage. The statistic was that people over the age of 70, as a group, experience a 4% fatality rate per year. That means that some significant portion of that group is going to experience a lower fatality rate, well another portion experiences a higher rate. He didn't say "people above the age of 70 have a rate of death within their one year age range of 4% or greater. People over 70 is the group. You have to take the mortality rate of the whole group. Using your own citation, at 60 years old you already have a probability of death of 1.1%. so in this case I think you are misreading the statistics.

If old things still make sense, keep doing them, if new things make sense, do them instead. The Air Force would be a lot better off if the understood that.

To very loosely paraphrase Nicholas Cage in Con-Air "In any other year that would be strange"

Breaking news, congress doesn't care. They might ask 'did the 29% of fighter pilots that took the bonus complete their weekly CBT on transgender anti-racism training?'

Please, for the love of God, stop with this false nonsense. If you want to argue on the merits, please do but the vaccines lower the chances you get it. If you don't get it, you can't spread it. No vaccine stops transmission to unvaccinated people...that's why California had an outbreak of measles not that long ago. The Covid vaccines are about as effective at stopping Covid as flu vaccines are for stopping flu, and we in the military line up every year for the flu vaccine...which is an even LOWER risk category than Covid.

The small changes would make a difference if ignorant assholes would stop making "I refuse to get vaccinated" their whole personality. You know why breakthrough infections are rare for measles? Because the vaccination rate is really close to 100%. You know why Covid continues to spread? Because we're nowhere near 100%.

And yet I've never seen medical professionals or the military protest flu vaccine requirements...