Leaderboard

I've personally enjoyed the amount of communication we have received thus far from Gen Welsh. I honestly believe that he cares about mission accomplishment, Airmen, and our service's viability in the future. Sure there will be a lot he can't fix, but his messages at least give me confidence that he is trying. The only communications we ever got from Norty were safety messages or directives to wear blues. My wife is a developmental engineer and got an email from the CSAF addressed to 62Es thanking them for what they do and acknowledging some of the issues they face. She was relatively certain Gen Schwartz was unaware that the 62E career field existed. Add to it the fact that my blues have been in the dry cleaning plastic for about a month now, and I'm pretty excited about his leadership right now.

Not sure where you get your numbers but the rate changed from 4.2% back to the original 6.2%. So if your FICA/OASDI was $240 then you are most likely taxed on a base pay of $5,714,29. Now multiply that base pay by the 6.2% and that comes to $354, not $400. That is a 47% increase using the FICA rates. When it was first implemented everyone saw a 32% decrease in the rate. Funny how the percents are not the same. Bottom line, you are only paying another 2% of base pay to FICA ($114). http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123331498 In my honest opinion they should have never messed with social security rates--some tax holiday it will be one day when it runs dry.

I'm assuming your current PDS is CONUS. You can change your mailing address but that does not drive the zip code used for the rate of BAH. BAH is based [edit] on your PDS and while you are on terminal leave, you maintain assignment to that PDS. Therefore, your BAH stays at the rate of your current duty station and you cannot change that, only PCS orders or an AF Waiver can change it. I've never seen a waiver for a BAH rate at time of separation or retirement--probably because the JFTR doesn't provide for that type of change. For more reading, check out the JFTR, para U10401.B and subparas 5 & 6 under that one. And specifically para U10416.E - BAH upon retirement or separation

Just as "outrageous and scary" as an AR-15 appears to people who want the AWB, and with similar (lack of) rational reasoning behind it. Just because someone is scared of it doesn't make their fear logical or rational. Biden can say just about anything he wants, but he is also not the person who can actually execute any of the "recommendations" he makes because those recommendations to have to adhere to any particular laws...which EOs do. Biden couldn't even say what the EO might do, because he has no idea. It is some gun owners who seem to be taking that comment and turning it into a 12-foot-tall monster in the closet, mostly based on their own lack of understanding of the law. EOs have very specific guidelines that include not being able to create new law where there was not one previously. That is a fact. What someone is scared of them being is irrelevant.

Yeah, it was a real rocket (engine thrust - about 18k, airframe fueled weight - about 17k with a pattern ride fuel load) and the first ride put you on your back so fast that you didn't really grasp it. The trick was to get it going straight up from standing start to vertical right over the middle of the runway (about 3000 ft from brake release to accelerating vertically), then be able to control it so you recovered without winding up on your back at low airspeed and lose it inverted. You could actually accelerate vertcally until you reached max limit airspeed, and even farther if you wanted to tear the wings off! However, the scariest part of that first ride was when the IP decided to go look at some rental property that he wanted to buy...suddenly there we were about 15 miles SE of D-M at about 100 ft in the -CT hopping over tree lines and wires while he tried to find the apartments. I was "concerned" to say the least, but he didn't seem to think it was a big deal. We went over some trees and pushed back down and wound up staring eye-to-eye with a guy in a big tractor on the rising terrain. We pulled up and he bailed out the side. I couldn't believe it. There was a slightly different attitude among some of those old guys in the 60s and early 70s! Luckily, I flew my next rides with Hector and it was a bit more sane, and we never heard about it from anybody (police, FAA, newspapers, etc.).

Reminds me of this: A collection of Pogs

Very interesting Brady Bill testimony from a lady who lost both her parents when a guy began shooting up a restaurant. http://beforeitsnews...eo-2524352.html

How about the one that smoked an American citizen, and his 16 year old kid, with no due process? As a practical matter, I have no issue with al-Alwaki (sp?) getting a Hellfire enema. Philosophically, I do. How about ordering the armed forces of the United States to engage in a protracted offensive military campaign against a sovereign nation without any sort of Congressional approval as in Libya? I did, and do, have a problem with that. As well as Congress acting like a puss and not pursuing it. Or appointing members of government requiring a Senate confirmation without one via recess appointment despite the Senate saying it was in session? Again, the Senate let him get away with it, so that's on them. Shall I continue?

Very true. I've had the pleasure of flying Gen Welsh a few times already, and he is hands down the most sincere, and personable GOs I have ever met. In talking with him, you can honestly sense that he truly does care about Airmen. I also really like how his letters & emails to the masses are in normal speak. I'm a believer & am excited to see what he can do for the Air Force.

I was deployed with the Army and they were pretty fond of POG, rear echelon mother f*cker (they never used the acronym), and FOBBIT. They also called junk food POGey bait and old Afghans were called wizards because of the beards, walking sticks, and man-jams. The last one might've just been popular on our team though.

Wrong, we used this in the Army as well, usually under the guise of "REMF-POGUE" (not POG). Cheers

How about you be reasonable to me? My guns aren't doing anything to you so why should you care? Yet liberals want to stick their ugly mug into my business and the business of 40% of the adult population because 4 people (0.000000017% of the adult population) broke the laws. You cry there will be blood in the street yet with 80 million gun owners and 300 million weapons the country should look like the Cambodian killing fields by your logic but they don't; so who is being unreasonable here?

I doubt nsplayer really knows why the far left want's to take guns away, but that is OK, maybe he will learn, and hopefully not the hard way.

It is this line that I hate more than anything else. Everybody wants me and some tens of millions of law-abiding gun owners to "be reasonable." To compromise just a little bit. If I am not vilified outright, I am subjected to such polite condescension that I want to puke (no cute emoticon for you!). I did nothing wrong. Being "reasonable" means I have to alter my behavior to suit yours, or someone like you, opinion. I want you and others like you to be reasonable and leave me the hell alone. Your, and others like you, way means I have to change. I have to compromise. I have to give up a part of a fundamental right as an American so I can be thought of as "reasonable." My way means you, and others like, you don't have to do anything. To anyone. At anytime. Which way is more reasonable?

Hmm, a little extreme reaction to a hypothetical. But ok, the premise is valid. Going full-on crazy to meet your bu11sh1t response; IF the President were to declare AR-15s illegal or contrary to public safety under some ATFE rule and therefore must be turned in within one month or any person possessing one will be detained as violating ATFE rules, I am asking thoughtful citizens to consider what they would do. I know my answer. I am not advocating anyone else to follow suit or state, other than in the hypothetical, what could happen. But, I expect the EO, if issued, to be more along the lines of directing the ATFE to be more rigorous in conducting gun seller inspections, more picky about paperwork, and other such annoying but publicly palatable shows. Which, and most definitely not in the hypothetical, is ironic considering this same ATFE directed lawful gun store owners to sell to known straw buyers during Operation Fast and Furious. Just shy 2,000 of these dreaded semi-automatic weapons were walked, with the government knowing and condoning such activities. There have been some 200-400 Mexicans, including children, teen-agers, and women, not to mention a US Border Patrol agent in Arizona and an ICE agent in Mexico, killed so far with these weapons. And as of about two months ago, the Attorney General of the United States admitted that half of the guns were still unaccounted for and more deaths were expected. From the whisky rebellion, to the Civil War, to the internment of the Nisei during WWII, Uncle Sam can be a powerful, vengeful motherfcuker if he so chooses. So you can shove your vomiting condescension up your ass to think this government can't do things that are beyond the pale.

They can ask me about firearms all they want...doesn't mean I have to tell them anything.

This is why we need tougher airplane control laws. Why was that guy allowed to own a "double-engine" airplane, in the first place? Everyone knows one engine is enough to sustain flight. If that guy had not owned that airplane that kid could not have used it legally. Enough is enough, we have to stop airplane violence.

To the CAF guys shaking their heads saying "WTF": We herbivores don't even know what a Chief Pilot is.