Smokin

Wrong. The US government does not tax my property. The county taxes my property based on land/home value. Very different than the Federal government. Additionally, they tax based on a percentage of current value. The Feds would tax on year to year appreciation in addition to the county tax. I'm also against the county property tax for the record, but that's another topic. I hope that you are being an honest broker in this debate as well. First, taxes have only increased in scope and percentage throughout history. When Federal income tax started, the brackets were 3% and 5%. If America accepts this new tax as legitimate, you and I will end up directly paying it in the future. This is only a trial balloon. Second, the Moore vs US case (as I understand it from reading the brief) is about a tax that virtually everyone pays if they have foreign investments that reinvests profits rather than pay distributions, so your >$100M comment is out to lunch. Perhaps the new Biden tax would only be on >$100M, but don't pretend that's the only attack on unrealized gains. Third, much like restrictions on free speech, taxes on anyone affect taxes on everyone. Saying that they only tax the wealthy is a class-warfare smoke screen. Much like 'companies need to pay their fair share of taxes' as if companies are individual people that have somehow skated out on not paying taxes. Raise the taxes on the rich for investing their wealth and they will have less wealth to invest. It will all rolling downhill.

Here's to hoping that Moore v US properly rules taxing unrealized gains as unconstitutional. If this door gets opened, Pandora's box would be almost unlimited. Your house value rose 5% last year? That's gains, so you now owe income tax on it on top of the property taxes you already pay. Not entirely unreasonable that the IRS could require declarations of any personal property of value (except classic Corvettes that double as classified storage) so they can assess if it has appreciated, even if that appreciation is just due to government caused inflation.

The words "well regulated" are interesting to think about given that words change meaning over time. Just take the term "decimated". Nearly everyone uses that word to indicated something along the lines of 'nearly annihilated', but that's not even close to what it originally meant. Used to mean killed 10% (notice the 'deci' in it). Similarly, 99.9999% of Americans would think "well regulated" means it is ruled by a lot of laws. But there are many reputable people that point to 1780's contemporary uses of the word regulated much more like the clock example stated earlier, meaning 'it works well'. That would entirely change the implications of gun laws today. https://www.americanrevolutioninstitute.org/video/a-well-regulated-militia-history-of-the-second-amendment/ On the topic, it would be interesting to know how many crimes are solved with the serial number being a significant aid to the investigation. My guess would be near zero. Think about the scenario that it would actually help in; you'd have to have a murder scene where someone threw the gun away at the scene. And that person would have had to have bought the gun legally in order for the serial number to be associated with them. Seems unlikely. Finally, as technology continues to evolve, the manufacture of ghost guns will only get easier and nearly impossible to manage. Go buy a few thousand dollars worth of equipment and you can print or mill guns. In just the last 10 years, 3D printed guns have gone from curiosity pet projects that fail after shooting a couple rounds to being able to last hundreds of rounds. More than enough for a criminal. That's just the 3D printing, you get a mill that cuts out receivers from aluminum blocks (a set up you could easily do in your garage) and you could make guns better quality than many gun manufacturers. Technology will continue to evolve faster than 80 year old legislators and 85 year old presidents can keep up with.

Fair enough, maybe just not as common where I've lived or flown. I probably average seeing 2-4 a day as I'm near an Army base (sorry, "post") and I just can't think of a time that I've seen tanks on. Back to the topic, saw an article today (sorry, forget the source) that Israel canned a planned strike on Iran after Biden called and more open sources are saying an attack is being planned. Maybe we will get an overt strike after all.

Indeed. In their defense, I've seen hundreds if not thousands of Blackhawks flying around stateside/OCONUS/deployed and I don't think I've ever seen one with tanks. Obviously a gaping hole in the pre-deployment study plan, but without intel or someone telling them they have that capability, I don't think a fighter pilot would just guess that a Blackhawk has that ability.

I'm guessing the test answers on that test were: "Not Army, shoot" and "I'm not sure, shoot if it points at us"

It'll be an interesting and tough call for Israel. Do they gracefully accept the help they received and use the short term international good will to free up a hand to do more damage to Hamas or do they strike back at Iran in a significant and public way to show they won't accept this type of thing? Striking back may be popular and gratifying in Israel but might end up doing more harm than good in the long run. My bet is nothing happens for a while and then some Iranian leader has 'an accident' or one of Iran's centrifuge facilities suffers a mysterious explosion. Something that everyone knows was Israel but no one is really able or willing to prove thus decreasing the chance of escalation while showing that they won't sit by while a country launches a horde at them.

Zero. No such thing.

I haven't read up on it because I couldn't care less about Spirit, but if it is anything like the other mergers or acquisitions that the Biden admin has stopped, then it is 100% power politics to either help out influential donors or play to the unions. Just take a look at the canceled Japanese acquisition of US Steel. A mutually beneficial acquisition canceled because a competitor has access to the White House.

What good does it do for the AF to send a space dude to not one, but two significant Army schools? And why would the Army accept them in that school? Makes no sense to me.

Problem is: 1. Being able to tell the difference between the obvious need for politicians to play to their bases (thus saying things they have no intention of doing) 2. Understanding that even if the people at the top don't actually believe it, the middle and lower levels of government may actually enact what the top is saying 3. People tend to ignore what other people say about themselves and their intentions (just look at some of the left's defense of Hamas, an organization that would use a dull knife to cut the head off 95% of Americans if they could and then brag about it to their mom)

There was a pilot who ended up behind actual bars and then kicked out for falsely claiming BAH for his wife while he was in Korea. Don't remember the exact details, but something along the lines of she moved back to her parents house in a small town but claimed a NYC or SFO zip code.

ORD was my first taxi out as an airline pilot. Dude, talk about a wake up call. Luckily I had a good captain who looked at me right before I called for clearance and said "wait, this is your first time ever taxing a commercial aircraft?" "Yep" "Ok, write this down" and proceeded to give me what he expected the taxi instructions to be. He was 95% correct and a huge help. He also said 'don't be surprised if they read off your taxi instructions and then go on to the next airplane without giving you a chance to read back'. I think I said "WTF, can they do that?" "This is Chicago, FAA regs are more like suggestions..."

I may have taxied in Ohare from the runway to the gate without ever getting a spare second of radio time to make contact with ground. Just jumped into the flow and no one noticed us.

Good form

They will pretend to be outraged at the Jewish "atrocities" but they don't like the Palestinians much more than Israel does. I would bet they are relatively unconcerned about the chutes not opening as long as they can pretend they're helping.

If my adult neighbor drank a full bottle of jack every night, I'd try to convince him not to and help him out of his situation, but at the end of the day it's his choice and I can't stop him. If my neighbor's 12 year old kid drank a bottle of jack every night with the encouragement of their parents and doctor, that is child abuse. The parents and doctor should go to jail and the kid should be placed in a foster family where they have a chance at life. Life altering surgeries because they have been pushed into or allowed to continue in a mental delusion is no different.

Highly unlikely. One, it would be very difficult to see the bombs from the ground until it was really too late. Two, by the time you could see it and intercept it, the bomb would practically be at the target already. Three, the miss distance you could cause with a MANPAD would likely be insignificant. Unlikely to cause the bomb to cook off, best case you could cause a fin failure. Even if it worked perfectly, I doubt you would really achieve much and you would have wasted a SAM that would be better used against the target they're intended to shoot.

It is also amazing that a people group that is apparently under constant genocide by a nation-state with a relatively decent military somehow grows in population. Maybe the meaning of the word genocide has changed since I went to school.

One problem with assuming that it isn't going to happen is the baseline assumption that removing the support from the bottom of the structure will make it all topple down. Once a movement gets started, it can grow capable of sustaining itself. And the "oppressed" minorities will soon be the majority. A 51% even spread of voters can do whatever they want.

But it's ok, you don't need guns because those local bad guy police will protect you... oh dang, that makes no sense.

It has to take some serious commitment to willingly burn yourself to death. He could not have been more wrong in his convictions, but I'm impressed he was able to hold out as long as he did and with almost no indication of the agony he was surely going through. Maybe, just maybe, not everyone that is woke is a wussy coward. Not sure if that is reassuring or not. As has been said, imagine what this dude could have done if he had put that same commitment towards a worthy cause.

The 8th AF museum is ok, but in reality it has a whopping 5 aircraft. A must visit is the Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles or the SAC museum near Omaha. You could fit over a dozen 8th AF museums in either of those museums.

You're kidding yourself if you don't think that we're all already on the list...

Cocaine is one hell of a drug