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What generation do you think made this possible? What's the average age in Congress? What generation has dominated academia for the past 30 years? Who ran the Fed? Obviously it's not an indictment on *all* boomers. There are plenty who lived honest, honorable lives. But anyone who decries the laziness, weakness, sensitivity, neediness, absence, wokeness, etc of a generation that is only just now reaching the age and ability to have influence over the vast systems they are a part of (millennials, the genZers are still completely subordinated) is being obtuse. Millennials did not create participation trophies. They didn't create infinite useless social-studies degrees to justify tuition costs for themselves. They didn't increase the tuition costs, nor did they increase the administrative staffs. They didn't change the interpretation of Title IX. They didn't put critical theory or Marxism into the curriculum, nor did they invent critical race theory or intersectionality. They didn't create CDOs, mortgage backed securities, or order-flow processing fees. They didn't set the interest rates to zero. They didn't rezone entire regions to prevent stable housing growth. They didn't lower the lending standards in 2002-2006, and they didn't bail out the banks when those lending standards destroyed them. They didn't invent Quantitative Easing and they didn't raise the debt ceiling a few dozen times. They didn't outsource our entire manufacturing base to a geopolitical adversary. They didn't come up with global warming and they certainly didn't fly their private jets to Davos to pontificate on carbon emissions. There's a huge list of societal changes that the US underwent from 1990-present, and the boomers were overwhelmingly steering the ship. Gen X certainly didn't help, but they were more profiteers than anything, and their sins, the wholesale destruction of the common polity through social media algorithms designed to increase marketing revenues, are another topic. I'm sure our generation will have our own sins, but that doesn't change the facts, or who owns them. The successful millennials who were lucky to have good parents (another factor that didn't used to matter as much in America), good genetics, and good timing should be wary of leaving the others behind. That evolved sense of fairness is not easily tamed. The boomers who created the greatest income inequality in modern American history will be dead by the time the bottom half radicalizes and starts "eating the rich." If the poor can't save (0% interest rates + inflation = savings destruction), can't invest (wildly overpriced equities), can't support a family on a single income, and especially when the implications of the Millennials being the first generation to be worse-off financially than their parents becomes the norm, cheap TVs and free phones won't keep them quiet.

I am in favor of providing support to women who carry their babies to full term. Actually, a lot of people are and operate crisis pregnancy centers around the country, completely without taxpayer support!! However, lately they’ve been the recipients of a great deal of arson, vandalism, and other cowardly forms of attack from the champions of “choice.” And since I’m using quotes, I’d also like to give a big shout out to the Supreme Court for their recent ruling that has, at least for the past few days, granted the American Left the freedom to use the word “woman” again! Because “menstruating person” was extremely “offensive” to “persons” who do other stuff besides walking around bleeding everywhere all the time.

I'd run a bus full of orphans of a cliff for a threesome with her and AOC.

I would say the lack of having any disposable income is a pretty big barrier to the poor investing.

This individual is about to make an even bigger impact because there’s no real large combat deployments affecting vast swaths of the military. When there’s not those pesky wars, that’s when the Shoe Clerk rebuilds his empire. Guarantee there was some Roman hassling some legionnaires about their sandals being tied correctly after they conquered Gaul. Nothing new.

Back to WTF:

Wait…so let me get this straight. This is what the left wants: - Abortion up until the moment of delivery - Taxpayer funded abortions up until the moment of delivery - Taxpayer funded healthcare, whether or not the woman decides to terminate the pregnancy or have the delivery - Taxpayer funded welfare payments for women whether or not she gets pregnant, and if she does get pregnant it’s irrelevant whether or not she wants to terminate the pregnancy, and then she still gets welfare payments after the abortion or the delivery, regardless if she chooses to keep the baby or puts it up for adoption - Taxpayer funded birth control options - Businesses being forced by the government to pay a woman for work after she’s delivered a baby, even for her not doing any work during that time …and I’m sure there are others that I missed. Oh and the left believes now this all applies to men since supposedly science now says that men can also get pregnant. But yes…it’s only the anti-abortion crowd that’s the problem. Full disclosure: As I’ve mentioned in previous posts on this issue, if the argument for being pro-abortion is because one truly believes in maximum individual liberty then I’ll support their opinion (ie the Libertarian Party)…but since they don’t, they (the left, just like the right), are just picking and choosing what individual “liberties” they want and believe others should have. So let me know if you want to discuss how the Libertarian Party platform is the way to go and I’ll be right there with you. Until then, regardless of my personal opinions on abortions, it’s best to leave it up the states. And if it’s so popular as the left tells us, then I guess the Dems will win just about every federal and state election this November…though I have my doubts. This is probably a good time to remind those that Prozac thinks the government should be able to arrest/prosecute/put you in prison if you have a firearm magazine that holds more than 10 rounds. But yes, those who disagree with him are the hypocritical assholes.

That god damn whack a loon (Boebert) won her primary. I feel like I'm on a deserted island surrounded by morons.

Haven’t you heard? It’s cool to hate the -46. All the cool kids are doing it.

I posted this thread because I retired back in 2014 but this subject still eats at me like a corroded battery in a forgotten flashlight hidden in a junk drawer! I used to brag that that the people who joined the AF were those who scored high on their ASVAB but at the end of my career I realized that the AF was run by a bunch of dullards! I think the tipping point for me was when I was flying a local with our AD advisor. He was approaching 20 years of AD and for his reward for being a highly qualified examiner C-5 pilot, Big Blue was going to deploy him to Afghanistan to work in a prison! I think I was more pissed than he was! He pealed me off the ceiling of the cockpit by telling me that he had a bad knee that he kept from the med squadron and that would be his ace card from being deployed. As a Reservist in a flying squadron who was already mobilized I was spared being deployed to the sand box and only had to RON in that shit hole for a night or two, but the amount of dead wood deployed in Afghanistan for the sake of checking off a box to advance your career basically jaded me from staying in any further than I could have.

Gotten much worse, just look at Chief Bass. Still till this day, I don’t really understand what Chiefs do besides admin queep the commander doesn’t want to do. It’s especially worse on a staff. I know this thread is about shoe clerks but unfortunately many of the Chiefs I’ve met are perpetrators of that mentality.

Good use of a lesser-known term, HeyEng.

Had to look it up. Didn't know it had a different release title in the US. Here's the theatrical trailer if anyone is interested.

Should by 49/month by my math Sent from my SM-G781U1 using Tapatalk

And apologies also, my response wasn't directed at you. Just an observation to the subject and theme of the article.

Neat. But societies don't work through anecdote. You can pull yourself up by the bootstraps all you want (I certainly did as I sit comfortably in the upper 10%), but the distribution of wealth doesn't lie, and the boomers leveraged trillions of future wealth into their pockets, so now their kids have to pay more for housing, education, transportation, and investments. All while real wages have stagnated or declined. But hey, we can get TVs pretty cheap... And while all this has happened, the upper echelon of society has engineered weapons-grade blinders to avoid the unpleasantness of the increasingly desperate reality of those in the bottom half. It's much more comfortable that way, until the proletariat come knocking on your door with their pitchforks and torches. Most intelligent animals have a very finely-tuned sense of fairness, and brother, it hasn't been fair for a while. COVID was the single greatest transfer of wealth to the top earners in history. Most people can't follow the complicated chain of financial implements used to move money from the middle-class pockets into the investment accounts of the rich(Robinhood, Bitcoin, etc), but they can still smell a scam somewhere in there. What's amazing to me is how the conservatives have been asleep at the wheel. They seem so fucking proud of their non-representative success stories, like yours, that they have completely missed the raping and pillaging of our capitalist system by politicians, foreign actors, and the financial industry. Those who *do* are now subordinated to those who manipulate. I hope I'm wrong, but we'll know very soon. The chickens have all come home to roost at the same time, and the "smart money" (insiders) are already positioning themselves for the pain. I expect they'll all be on CNBC shilling their holdings to the retail investors before they become much less valuable. The final scam before the bill comes due.

I think most Americans should watch the German period drama "Our Mothers and Our Fathers." Is a German perspective of WW2 and the Nazi rise to power. Sort of gives insights that painting every German as absolute evil in 1942 is a very broad brush. Many had no idea what was actually happening at concentration camps until the end of the war, many believed they were just fulfilling patriotic duty. Many believed Jewish treatment was abhorrent but the political system was still in tact enough to reverse it. It's not an apologetic piece by any means. But it's a really good sense of the slow and methodical numbing approach the Nazi party used to change society into such a horrific machine and some of the awful choices faced. One of the more interesting parts is when one character only recognizes the awfulness of what's happening after he's already been deep enough to become complicit in it and the mental turmoil it causes him until the final episode. Point is, it's a good perspective for Americans because we have this complex that this is something that could never happen to us, that it would be impossible. The reality is, Hittler was an overwhelmingly popular elected leader to start and a decade later he completely turned his country into one of the most evil empires in history. We are always a breath away from losing our democracy/humanity/values/culture unless we are vigilant about protecting it.

With this TA, it appears they haven't even gotten off the couch to reach for the neck of that goose.

Could also belong in WTF thread....

In a single sentence you prove my point. Exactly what is an "anti-Democratic opinion? Are you implying the court overruled a democratically enacted law on abortion? I'm not sure at this point that you understand the purpose of the SCOTUS. Or perhaps you aren't familiar with how Roe was ruled? I'm but a layman, but I'm pretty sure voting, not opinion polls are how democracies function, yes? Again, please point me to the democratically-enacted abortion law (either through direct voting or representative legislation) that the court has overturned here. Ok, you're fucking with me now, right? Who exactly do you think is *constitutionally charged* with determining what is correct in the constitution? I'll give you a hint, there are only 9 correct answers... This goes back to you not not understanding how an originalist works on the court. He did not call for re-examining whether you can use contraceptives with your wife. He called for re-examining whether that determination is meant to be a legislative one, or a judicial one. If you can't grasp the difference then this conversation will go nowhere. But you wouldn't be alone. Yes, exactly how Roe cited the 14th amendment. And yet there's nothing in the Fourteenth amendment that in any capacity protects abortion. This is where reading either Roe itself or the majority opinion would be valuable, as it quite clearly spells out the utter lack of support within the 14th amendment for abortion protections. Let's take a look: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Life and property obviously aren't at issue here (unless you mean the fetal life, which you don't). So we have liberty and equal protection. Now, if you believe that in 1868 the country believed that anti-abortion laws represented a threat to the liberty of women, I'm not sure you'll find much historical support for that. So liberty is out. And men are not given any special privilege to abort a fetus, not does constitutional law consider gender differences to be "unequal protection." So explain to me, slowly, because I don't read much, how the fourteenth amendment applies. This is another one of those strange misunderstandings of how the court works, which is much more eloquently explained in the majority opinion that I could ever hope to do. But this logic doesn't hold in any historical context, as we have some pretty heinous rulings that had to be overturned 50 plus years later to right egregious wrongs. I think every black American is quite happy that stare decisis is not immutable. I don't think you know as much as you think you know.

Somewhat aviation related

If they hire someone that tells their personnel to answer an email with something other than “call me”, I’d be happy. Cant stand working with the FAA.

Not only do they not hire someone with aviation experience, they hired someone that comes from the worst transportation area in the entire country.

Hey Pete! Focus on the FAA! When you can get aircraft registration renewals below 5 months, let us know.

We always used to do the great Ambien challenge while staying in Camp California at Manas. You pop your Ambien in the camp, then need to walk the 20 minutes down to the bar, chug your two "#9" beers, then cross the street to the Green Bean and get the strongest coffee you could, because the challenge wasn't over until you made it back to Camp California. Many tried, few survived.