Smokin

The implication is that turnover is a bad thing. He has to hire people for a job they've never done before. Sometimes they work out, sometimes they don't. Look at the rate of senior commanders fired in WWII and how well it worked out in the long run.

Other than the ice cream bribe idea, which is disturbingly possible, the only explanations that make sense are: A- He knows they committed crimes that merit prosecution or B- He thinks that the judicial system is unjust enough to commit law-fare against political opponents of the party in power If A, then clearly the Biden Crime Family is as bad or worse than the right wing social commenters have said they are. If B, I wonder where he got that idea? Maybe the last 4 years of his administration had something to do with it...

Russia is and has been a threat to US interests since 1945 (maybe 1918?). China is a bigger threat right now, but if you're fighting two guys at once and one falls to a knee, it isn't time to ignore them, it is time to stomp their face so they are out of the fight for a long time allowing you to focus on the other guy. Is it expensive to fund Ukraine? Yes. Are we getting a way better return on that money compared to much of the other junk we burn our national treasure on? Absolutely. This is another Russia in Afghanistan scenario except the "good guys" aren't Islamic terrorists. We'd be foolish to walk away from this opportunity to spend some money and help an enemy bleed themselves out. Way better to defeat an enemy via a proxy war than face them directly in a war yourself. And that doesn't even address the good of helping a free people defend themselves.

The old cone of survival saves another one

Nice find, I'm looking for a new place to land with the drastic decrease in USAA's customer service and just got soured on Navy Federal after getting a bait and switch on a car loan rate (apparently a credit score in the neighborhood of 800 isn't good enough for them).

They might be, I'm considering if this actually constitutes a deceptive practice and reporting it to the FDIC. I just googled a bit and I think they're walking a dangerous line on a deceptive banking practice under FDIC rules. Pisses me off to have spent time applying while thinking I was going to save a couple grand and then to be basically turned down. This is the first time that I've been turned down for something credit related and at a point in my life that I'm possibly the most financially secure I've been and making far more than what I did on active duty. Guess I'm crossing them off my next bank list.

Based on the apparent fact that she did over 1000 guys in a row, I'm pretty sure her standards are absolutely non-existent. If some new STD pops up in the next couple years, she is probably patient zero.

Have people had bad experiences with Navy Federal? They're currently advertising car refinance rates of 4.49% for 60 months. I applied and they gave me a rate of 5.79%. I questioned them on it and they came back with a BS statement about use of the loan (um, it's a car refinance, like advertised), credit score (excellent), credit history (not a single late/missed payment). Seems like a bait and switch operation to me because if I don't qualify for that rate, I can't imagine that hardly anyone does. I have my wife's car loan through them and everything went fine with that one, but this is pretty questionable to me.

I doubt this is what will happen, but I personally think it would be great if it did. If you don't need to wear a specific uniform because of job related physical requirements (pilots, MX, TACP, etc), then put on blues. If you work in finance, personnel, etc then it's not just Blues Monday, but Blues Everyday. You're a REMF; embrace it and do your job so the people that wear functional uniforms don't have to do your job for you. One of the problems of the in lieu of taskings during the height of Iraq was the 'every airman is a warrior' BS. If every airman is a warrior, then it is a logical conclusion that the actual warriors in the AF are no different than the finance troop. I heard Gen Walsh in person tell some random enlisted dude that at any given point he could be the most important person in the AF, as an enlisted maintainer. I think that type of mentality leads to some of the BS we have going on now and fully matures as a E-9 trying to correct a pilot's zipper not being zipped half way up the name tag. The average airman cannot articulate in a single sentence how he supports the kill chain. That's bad.

Hasn't anyone in CA thought about how much carbon those helicopters and planes are putting into our atmosphere? Such selfishness just to put out a little fire...

True, but insurance companies can't control federal, state, and city lands which are grossly mismanaged making them not just fire prone, but a ticking time bomb. Every time I walk through the forest near my house I marvel that the big one hasn't hit yet. Hopefully this will be a wake up call for forest management nation-wide. Also, I read that California prohibited insurance companies from dropping policies in areas that were affected by the fire (obviously only affecting future renewals not current policies), which might decrease their leverage for change. How anyone can think it is ok for the government to force commerce that was declined for non-discriminatory and purely reasonable business reasons is absurd. A second order effect of that might be the increase of privatization of fire fighting, which would be a rather funny thing to happen in CA. The rich people and their insurance policies already do it so it might start cropping up in the upper middle class. Net result would be the average families continue to get screwed even worse, which is par for the course in liberal states.

WSJ has a good article this morning talking about exactly the infrastructure stuff you mentioned. A utility company was widening a fire road and fire-proofing the electrical lines. They got a $2M fine and a cease and desist order in addition to the rehabilitation they were forced to do because they damaged some plants.

Sealed warrants, along with the ATF, are bull. The only possible justifications are organized crime and terrorism where any information can be used by the bad guys to stop the bleeding. But, even then it is borderline un-American like civil forfeiture and the like. I recant my defense of Liberty Safes.

Saw a picture of houses that were burned right next to the beach. Does no one have a water pump? I'm betting salt water puts out fires as well as fresh, just tough on the pump. The FEMA thing is a bit tough. On one hand, clearly this is a disaster and it is at least partially caused by government mismanagement and poor preparation. On the other hand, why am I paying to rebuild someone's house that burned down? If my house and only my house burned to the ground, would FEMA show up and give me a check? Don't think so. Why is it any different because it is a bunch of houses? FEMA should absolutely show up and hand out food, water, help with temp shelters, etc, but I don't agree with handing out money or the Federal govt handing out money.

ATF is setting itself up to be next after Dept of non-Education for cost savings under the next administration.

The other thing to consider is basically fireproofing the closet or whatever your safe is in. I originally considered adding three layers of fire rated drywall (which is basically what gives the safe a fire rating) on all the sides, which might allow the contents to survive a real fire. My current plan is to basically line a room in the basement with fire drywall and then cinder blocks. Big problem to solve is how to protect the ceiling... I actually did do the safe within a safe, put a "fireproof" document safe inside the "fireproof" gun safe thinking that the documents might actually survive. Until I didn't have space in the gun safe. Did the feds have a warrant for the Liberty event? While I'm against a backdoor code even existing for something like a gun safe, if they had a warrant then they were going to get into the safe one way or another. Just saved some time, money, and destroying the safe.

Impressive. Looks like it said 45 on the door as it opened, so probably 45 min at 1200. Also impressive as it's my understanding that most fire rated gun safes like that won't really survive a house fire. The temp and duration of the rating is usually well under what most stick built houses will burn. I'm getting ready to build a fire-proof walk in gun safe room and was going to sell my safe, but am now thinking of putting it in the corner as a double protection.

Disclaimer, I'm not a computer nerd, so I'm sure many people here will be able to amplify/correct this: Yes, https encrypts your data between your browser and the server. Which is why when I'm at home, I don't use the VPN. However, when you're on a network you don't trust, which should basically be any that isn't yours, there is a pretty high amount of traffic and peripheral information that is visible to anyone that knows how to look for it. Think of the https as you sending a message in code over the radio with both the sender and the recipient named in the clear. Anyone with a radio can hear that you are talking to site X, W, and Z. The VPN takes that same coded message, but now encrypts it a second time and all anyone can see is that you're sending data to site Y. The VPN (site Y) in turn talks to X,W, and Z, but the person monitoring the network can't see that. Its just another layer of protection and protecting information that isn't protected with https.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/the-feds-have-some-advice-for-highly-targeted-individuals-dont-use-a-vpn I don't think that you and I are currently the people being targeted. The concern is the VPN itself gets hacked and then everything you're sending gets intercepted when you think it is GTG. Not a problem for us, at least not for a little while yet. Also, may be just the free or lower end VPNs, so could be defeated/mitigated by using a quality subscription. Kinda like a home break in or mugging, random people like us just need to make it difficult enough for a bad actor to chose another target. A national politician or celebrity needs a totally different level of protection. I strongly agree with using a VPN for the things you said and I use one myself 100% of the time I'm not on my home internet. Will be interesting to see if that holds true in the long run. I think it will for the higher end subscription ones like Nord. When traveling, I think you'd be borderline crazy to not use a VPN for a hotel wifi. And you would think that just using cell data is fine, until someone makes a fake cell tower and intercepts data that way, which is happening.

On the parts website to make sure it matches. Lesson learned, skip the VIN on any parts search. My guess is Carfax or someone like them buys the data from the parts website to increase their own database, so when you search for a new bumper, the assumption is there was an accident that necessitated a new bumper. A poor assumption as it could have been bad factory paint, or maybe I just wanted a new bumper. But by the time I realized it, it was too late to challenge the data, assuming there even is a way to challenge the data. VPN wouldn't help with that as no one relevant to this has access to any of my internet data (at least that we know of....). I use a VPN anytime I'm not at home, to include my phone. There was an interesting recommendation from some cyber think tank recommending high profile individuals to actually not use VPNs so obviously they're not a magic bullet. Luckily I'm pretty much the opposite of high profile.

Not just insurance companies. Gotta watch out anytime you put a VIN in ANY system. Had a driving lesson for my kid go badly and hit a tree going slow enough that the bumper broke, but that was it. Found a new bumper online and replaced it myself. A few years later, went to sell and Carfax showed it as an accident. Crazy and a bit scary that they could pull info on something like that. It was at our house, so no one besides my family and my google search/credit cards knew anything happened but Carfax found it.

I think it is hilarious that zero of the top 4 seed teams won a single game during the playoffs. Almost as funny as zero legacy SEC teams making the semi-finals. I'm waiting for the argument that the Georgia - ND results were only because of the delay and that the three loss Georgia is really better than ND or Ohio State, so they should continue on in the semis and bump out one of those teams because.... SEC.

That's assuming that it was an intended landing. No gear and no flaps would be a very strange intended landing. Might have been a go around with too fast of a flap retraction that settled back down to the runway. Or, if it was a bird strike that caused problems for both engines. Pilots that hadn't practiced engine out landings since they flew a -172 probably are not going nail the landing.

I wouldn't worry about Korean Air, that's the Korean equivalent of a legacy compared to the Jeju, which is the Korean equivalent of Spirit. I'm sure the investigation will have some pilot error to fault, but the biggest issue seems to be the concrete barrier in the infield. Virtually zero chance of an international upgrade. Even guys that spend tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on an airline in a year only get a couple passes a year to upgrade international.

That may explain the 3x Zyns, but hardly covers the other items BQzip's mom put there...