Smokin
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Posts posted by Smokin
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You get 30 days of leave per year. You can only accumulate 60 days at the end of each fiscal year and it looks bad on the squadron if you get leave taken away for not using it. I'm approaching retirement and I've lost 1/2 day of leave in 20 years. If you are not taking 30 days of vacation a year, then there's a 90% chance its a you problem. Obviously extenuating circumstances exist (deployments, exercises, upgrades, etc) but even bad commanders rarely gives anyone grief for taking leave if it isn't during an exercise or something like that.
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Problem is after that Ferguson "hands up don't shoot" incident, I would imagine the overall quality of police recruits had to have dropped. The job never paid that great, much of the public hates you just because, and even if you do everything right you still run the risk of pilloried and left to hang by political prosecutors looking to make a name for themselves or to appease the mob. Throw in a higher turnover rate and being undermanned, under trained, and under funded and it is honestly surprising things like this are not happening more often.
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After watching the video my impression from the first report was that he entered the place was clearly incorrect. But I think one take away from this is that if I hear someone banging on my door yelling "police, open up" then I'm going to first arm myself assuming ill intent and then call 911 before I get anywhere near the door. The 911 dispatcher should be able to verify if it is an actual cop outside. As I said before, an improved front door will buy you some time.
Second life lesson for everyone; don't artificially put a sense of urgency into a situation where none is required. The cop was responding to call about domestic violence. If the cop arrived and he can't hear anything happening inside, then the chance of a life threatening situation happening inside is an unreasonable assumption. Time to wait for backup and take in the situation. Maybe if he had waited a minute he might have heard laughing or something inside that could have made him realize that his SA was not what he thought it was.
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The drastic rise in no-knock warrants (or apparently warrantless door busting in this case) is appalling. Also, a great reason to up-armor your front door. Shocking how easy it is to kick in a front door and it is relatively easy to significantly bolster most front doors. That would likely give the homeowner a minute to assess the situation a bit better. Problem is, with police acting like criminals and criminals acting like police, what would be the right thing do to? You have no idea if the guy kicking in your door is a gang-banger thug looking to rape your wife and kids or only an ATF agent looking for an excuse to discharge his duty pistol. Either way, there's a solid chance you die.
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22 hours ago, HuggyU2 said:
I just love it when someone decides to pass judgement on the financial status of others....
I get that people have different lives than me and I don't expect everyone to make similar decisions that I have made. Divorce sucks. Taking care of sick family members can take a toll. Losing what you thought was a golden parachute is rough, especially for the dudes that were near retirement or had just retired. If the 67 argument were being made on financial reasons shortly after 9/11, I'd buy it.
But the guys turning 65 now were 42 at 9/11. Off the top of my head, most majors had offered recall from furlough to everyone in the 2010 time-frame. That's almost 14 years of 401K contributions and high year airline pay to catch up from losing the pension. Someone that needs the money and is turning 65 is likely senior enough to be a wide-body captain and is capable of pulling in $350,000 by just flying the line and $60K of 401K on top of that. It doesn't take many years of that to be able to retire comfortably if you're not living like a redneck that just won the powerball. Obviously this is just for the majors, but that's all the dude in Congress that is pushing the bill is talking about.
I know there are some serious heart string cases of guys that just can't catch a break, have a sick kid, wife that went crazy, etc. But I have zero sympathy for the dude that bids captain at 100% for the money, then still lives beyond his means, and talks about his third vacation home in front of the dude driving the hotel shuttle. There are guys in both camps, but the second group looks like a party on the Titanic (both numbers and lifestyle) while the first group could fit in a few of the lifeboats. On the whole, I question the decision making ability of guys that live beyond their means then freak out when they see the end of the gravy train approaching and they realize their savings account is non-existent.
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If an airline pilot cannot comfortably retire by age 65, then I question his decision making abilities enough that I don't think he should be responsible for the lives of hundreds of people.
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4 hours ago, JimNtexas said:
What holster is recommended for concealed carry of a typical 9mm or .38 semi-automatic?
If the frame is small enough for the 38, give a pocket holster a try. It is pretty comfortable and easily accessible as long as you're not seated. Biggest benefit is that it is super fast to throw in your pocket, so you'll carry when you otherwise might not. If you wear boots, an ankle holster is also pretty nice as long as your pant legs are relatively baggy.
For a typical 9mm, my favorite is the Reckoning by CrossBreed. https://www.crossbreedholsters.com/product/the-reckoning-holster/ . Easy to use and adjust and you can add a spare mag carrier if desired. Very comfortable once you've broken the leather in (probably 20-30 hours of wear). Wear it at the 5 o'clock position so the butt of the handle is in the gap along the spine and even a T-shirt will generally cover it up if the pistol frame is compact.
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The only logical conclusion that one can come to is the agents were looking for a fight. If you think a dude is a gun runner, do you attack him in the place that he would have the most guns? A six year old could see the obvious absurdity. Or do you go get him in a place where at the absolute most he has a pistol hidden?
I am not against qualified immunity, but maybe it does need some reform when a police state can violate every shred of common sense and seemingly intentionally escalate a situation to the point that any reasonable person would consider their lives in danger and take self defense actions. If I hear someone trying to kick my door in late at night and yelling 'Police', I'm not going to believe them and I'm going to defend my home. If I hear someone nicely knocking on my door, look outside, see multiple cop cars with their lights on and police in uniform, I will know that I'm not being attacked by a violent gang and I'll put my gun away before I open the door.
These ATF agents and the leadership that approved the raid need to be held accountable. They killed a US citizen in his home when he almost certainly thought he was under attack by a band of lawless criminals, which isn't actually that far from the truth.
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4 hours ago, ClearedHot said:
I am guessing you've never been in a gunfight or you are a world class combat tested shooter. It is one thing to drive nails at the range, quite another once the adrenaline starts to flow...trust me.
Countless studies have proven the impact of stress on accuracy in real gunfights. The data on police shootings is very consistent, annual hit-rate averages in large departments such as New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Las Vegas, for example, have typically ranged from 22% to 52% over the decades.
A more recent study in Dallas examined 149 real-life OISs recorded over a 15-year period by Dallas (TX) PD. In nearly half of these encounters, officers firing at a single suspect delivered “complete inaccuracy.” That is, they missed the target entirely.
At 120 BPM – You begin lose fine motor skills. You are unable to dial a phone or aim a weapon. At this level, gross motor skills are generally unaffected.
At 150 BPM – You begin to lose your complex motor skills. Hand-eye coordination and timing
deteriorate. Practiced techniques that do not require fine motor skills are still generally available.
A 180 BPM and above – At this level you begin to lose rational thought processes. Though
trained gross motor skills are not drastically affected.In the 134 cases where researchers were able to calculate the hit rate, “incredibly” it was merely 35%. Another study examined fire rate, as stress increased so did the first rate, by a factor of two. Combining these too factors together, it is usually better to have more rounds. We can also discuss actual stopping power of the .45 versus the 9MM. While the .45 is a larger projectile it is moving at a slower velocity and has less penetration than the 9MM. Hollow-point 9MM rounds typically penetrate deeper and interestingly expand to almost the same size as the .45. I am not hating on the .45, I own several but from personal experience I would rather have more rounds.
I've never shot a rifle or pistol at a person and hope I never have to. And I don't doubt that my accuracy would be drastically decreased if that person might be shooting back. But I would be very interested to see an in depth study like the above data on CC shootings. Just based on personal experience, I've been to multiple shooting ranges both civilian and military and have coincidentally been shooting next to police officers multiple times. Not a single time was I impressed with any of their shooting. I know that there are many cops that would shoot circles inside my groups, but I wonder how the hit rate of CC shooters would compare with the average.
That said, more bullets is always better, which is why I'm still looking to figure out a folding M4 for my truck gun.
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1 hour ago, brabus said:
It’s not surprising, each of their communities did what anyone would do - expel the garbage to somewhere else ASAP. And smartly they sent them to AU where they can have the least impact. Related note, I’m still undecided who’s the most useless - AU or the ATF.
How about a win-win and just abolish both? Obviously that would also entail firing everyone that currently works for both organizations with a life-long ban of those individuals ever working for the federal government again. The country would be a better place.
Send the Capts to a spring break destination of their choice for the entire month of March and watch retention skyrocket and have zero loss of learning.
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XDS Mod 2 for normal carry, LCP for summer work out shorts carry. XDS is a good tradeoff between weight, bulk, capacity, accuracy, and firepower for me. LCP because a 380 with buffalo bore ammo is better than nothing if you wouldn't have otherwise carried.
I am looking at a truck gun and that Ruger PC Charge is interesting. But I already have two of the previously pistol brace Form 1s that I'm looking to mod into a folding stock if any of the companies that make bufferless uppers or BCGs would ever have those things in stock.
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7 minutes ago, Negatory said:
The US gov already does tax unrealized gains with home valuations and property taxes. Is that unconstitutional or unethical?
What do you guys propose to do about the ultra wealthy who never cash in equity and take cash loans on their unrealized net worth? It is clearly tax evasion that is harmful to the US gov and not in line with the intent of the tax system.
Also, I hope you are being honest brokers in this debate and are aware that the changes only apply to net worths >$100M. It is likely literally never going to directly impact any of you, the middle class, the upper professional class, or anyone in your family. It is aimed at only the ultra wealthy.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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I'm guessing the test answers on that test were:
"Not Army, shoot" and "I'm not sure, shoot if it points at us"
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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.
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4 hours ago, ClearedHot said:
USAF shot down 70....repeat 70 drones last night. How many drone aces in the strike eagle community today?
Zero. No such thing.
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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.
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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.
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5 hours ago, HeloDude said:
If election officials in X state or Y county truly believe that our democracy is over if Trump gets elected, that he’ll be a dictator, our right will end, blah blah blah…why wouldn’t they manipulate the vote if they can? If you truly believed you were going to be living under a gestapo style police state, wouldn’t you do something in order to try and stop it? Manipulating the vote if you’re able to do so is a lot easier/less dangerous than an armed rebellion. What I’m saying is we have to start listening to what these government officials are saying and not just assume it’s 100% political rhetoric. Arresting people for being on beaches during Covid wasn’t political rhetoric…it actually happened.
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)
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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.
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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..."
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Esophageal issues
in Aviation Medicine
Posted
I was just diagnosed with this as well and the doc said to take "gaviscon advance". It is OTC and available on amazon. I've been taking it for about two weeks and I think it is helping. Almost no instructions on the meds, but he told me one before and after breakfast and another after lunch and dinner. Might be able to control it without any other medical intervention.