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Gentlemen, I believe I have solved the entire case! Marathons, Kyrgyzstan... There is only one missing link to the entire conspiricy theory! Allow me to present it here:

This seems fairly obvious to me that these dudes did not have any sort of formal training in terrorism. The news was all about how sophisticated this attack was...bullshit. This was amateur bomb making, a poorly developed plan/strategy, and absolutely not consistent with any of the attacks being carried out by Chechen extremists or AQ in other parts of the world in terms of lethality. I am very thankful these idiots were not more successful, this could have been a lot more deadly. The bombs that are being used in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria etc. are generally much more sophisticated and much more lethal. These bombs seem to be the result of google searches and very little prior experience. I do think these dudes were probably motivated by radical Muslim beliefs, but I do not think they were backed or sponsored by AQ or Chechens.

You mean like people on page 2 of this thread?

You're right -- because it never would have even gone to trial in the civilian system due to the lack of supporting evidence. The civilian court system is so burdened as is that they won't bother wasting time and money on a trial where a conviction isn't a slam-dunk. The rest of the US criminal justice system doesn't have the same hair-trigger attitude toward anything remotely sexual assault related as the military -- and the USAF in particular -- does. BTW, citizens on trial are not "found innocent"; they are presumed innocent, and "found guilty".

I get the "culture" argument, but the problem is that the ability to truly LEAD really has been taken back up to the highest possible level. There is a definite feeling of always having to ask "mother may I" for just about anything. This isn't just a "culture" thing either. If a guy sticks his neck out to change something, and it doesn't work the dude is HAMMERED for not getting "permission" first. The concept of centralized control/decentralized execution is dead. The strategic level of leadership is DEEP into the tactical level of execution, and I'm not just talking about combat ops. You just about need MAJCOM guidance just to figure out which cheek to lift when you have to fart. If you guess wrong, you're on the hook for "speeding" and not getting the thumbs up from the "appropriate" level of leadership. Your punishment can come in many forms, perhaps as simple as falling down the strat list, which sounds painless until you realize that the strat list is apparently the most important "leadership" tool out there. Most guys are content being a faceless middle third guy because taking a gamble and losing can drop you to the bottom third because the only thing the boss knows you for is your "bad" idea. THIS is what needs to change, but it is easier said than done. Until there truly is a "no harm/no foul" culture, guys will be content being graymen.

You're apologizing for him. You're apologizing for Welsh the same way that people apologize for Obama. Either the problem is too big that nobody can be expected to fix it, prattling on about culture, or whatever else. This whole "change the culture" stuff is bullshit, and we all know it. Why is it we can spend our careers dealing with knee-jerk decisions, but when it comes to changing things for the better, then holy shit, slow down, we need to take our time because culture!. Fuck that, he either lacks the will or ability to implement changes. We didn't wait to change the culture when it came to desegregating the Armed Forces. Nor did we wait to change the culture to let women serve. Nor did we wait to change the culture for the all-volunteer force. Someone said "these are the new rules", and that's what happened, because it's the military, and we don't get a vote, we just have to do it.

They got him. Edit: It's official.

I used to think you were simply ignorant. Not unintelligent. Just misinformed. Now I'm not so sure. Take your own advice and look up speculation. One of its synonyms is assumption. Look up synonym if you need to. But this isn't about symantics. It's about willful ignorance. The kind of ignorance that would cause someone to look at a terrorist strike that had all the classic hallmarks of attacks done by Islamic fundamentalists all over the world, and focus on random facts like "Tax Day, Patriot Day, city where the Boston Tea Party occurred" to "speculate" that things were "lining up" for this attack to be domestic terrorism. Now you are claiming I implied the Boston attack was done by Arabs?! When did I ever do that? I mentioned Al Qaeda and the train bombings in Mumbai. Both in reference to the use pressure cooker bombs which you authoritatively insisted weren't an Al Qaeda tactic because they weren't designed to kill large numbers of people. Al Qaeda is a Sunni Muslim terrorist group. Some Sunni Muslims are Arab. Some Al Qaeda terrorists are Arab. But Al Qaeda is a global terrorist organization. Surely you know that.

There are 1.6bn Muslims in the world, of which up to 90% are Sunni. They can't all be Arabs.

Classic. These were Islamic fundamentalist extremists. Sunni Muslims. Using standard Al Qaeda tactics (which is a Sunni Muslim terrorist organization). The same people who have executed 90% of the terrorist attacks on this country for decades. The only people who didn't see this coming are the leftist apologists who are convinced that the most evil force on this planet are conservative white males. The weird gyrations trying to twist "Tea Party", "Patriot Day", "Tax Day" into an "obvious" motive for radical right wing extremists completely ignores the reality that despite our President's claims to the contrary, Al Qaeda and Islamic fundamentalism continues to commit acts of terror all over the world that make the Newtown shootings look minor (does Beslan ring a bell?).

Not anymore... Weird there was footage of him being put shirtless into a police car...and now he's dead. Good riddance. I generally believe in the whole "innocent until proven guilty" until you start shooting at cops...

I've been thinking of the 32x24x60, fire lined with the 10ga steel liner and the stainless torch plate, manual lock, side shelves, and the safe-in-a-safe.

Uhh... you don't set it on the ground. You either set it up higher or use a suicide vest, etc. I wish I had the ability to tell a person's nationality just by a grainy photo of a portion of their face.

Like it's up to us where we operate? Are you serious?

Like we really need to get into a freakin' quagmire all over again? Are you serious?

Seventy-one years ago today Lt. Col. Richard Cole was the co-pilot for General Doolittle on his famous raid over Japan. On Tuesday, at age 97 he flew a Mitchell bomber again. Via the DAV Flight Team on Facebook: You may notice that Dick Cole is in the pilot seat of the B-25 "Panchito" during his flight with Larry Kelley and Syd Jones. He says he finally got a promotion from co-pilot! "Oh yeah, he did most of the flying today. He did the landing. He's dead on," said Larry Kelley the B-25's owner.

Governors and the president have powers of pardon, and while its raises eyebrows with some of the shady people pardoned in the past, no one is screaming to get rid of pardoning rights. In the case of the military GCMCA powers, overturning a conviction is reserved for doing do when there are irregularities with the conviction. While there is nothing stopping a GCMCA from overturning a conviction for any reason, you'd be hard pressed to find any officer who'd do so without compelling reason. Pardons, on the other hand, seem to be granted for just about any spurious reason, to include political favors (see Clinton's list of pardons). At least the UCMJ had a rhyme and reason for the process.

But it only cost a nickel to ride the trolley to the fairgrounds, and you'd still have enough leftover to go watch a talkie at the moving picture house!

Just be happy you're actually fucking commissioning...

You must be new here.

This is more of a HOLY CRAP! than a WTF, but I couldn't find a better thread for it. The attached video is a first-hand recording of the explosion today in West, TX. A guy pulled his truck over to iPhone record a building that was on fire. Then it explodes. On a side note, West, TX is a favorite little town for my family. Any time we're driving from Dallas to Austin on I35, we stop at the Czech Stop there for Kolaches. Some of the nicest people and wonderful food. The families of that small town who were affected by this tragedy are in my prayers tonight.

Perfect example of why cultural change is so difficult.

aerobatics.