Smokin

We have walked away from what made us great. Every great power I can think of in history that walked away from what made them a great power has completely collapsed. I cannot think of any that have peacefully transitioned from one type of successful society to another. Perhaps Great Britain, but that was also driven by the two worst wars in history and still caused her to fall from the status of a great power. Athens was a great power due to their navy and empire. During the war with Sparta, they built up a land army and rested on their laurels with their navy. Sparta built a navy, took the empire from Athens and Athens has been a marginal power since. Ironically, Sparta's change from a small elite land army to a larger naval power led to her collapse. Similarly, Rome became great largely due to their style of government and incentives for conquered peoples to profit from joining Rome. After Cesar, the government slowly grew to be completely out of control (sound familiar?) and Rome collapsed. The United States became great because of a combination of a limited but effective government, the work ethic of the citizens, the ideal that anyone could rise as high as their talent and effort merited, an abundance in natural resources, and, most importantly, a strong sense of Judaeo-Christian values even if the founders did not always profess that faith. Today our government has grown so far beyond what it started that the founding fathers would almost certainly rise up in rebellion if they were somehow transported in time to be now. The work ethic of our citizens appears to be at a depressingly low level and I personally know healthy, capable individuals that would rather sit at home on unemployment than take a job they were offered. The new 'equity' movement gives the appearance that skin color is more important than merit. Even if you do well, you have combined tax rates pushing 50% in some states that drastically reduce the appeal to work harder to earn more. Finally, we are willingly stopping from using our own natural resources in favor importing those exact same natural resources from other countries. Most importantly, the Judaeo-Christian values that this country was built upon are being actively attacked and portrayed as hateful. Those values are/were the bedrock of the American family which is a microcosm of America in general. Without that traditional American family unit, you cannot expect children to grow up and endorse those values in any significant percentage. As others have mentioned, you cannot rip the foundation out from under a house and expect the house to stand. We are living in a house where members of the household are taking jackhammers to the foundation. If this goes on for too long, the house will collapse and take many of us with it.

Sorry, been busy. How about these: https://financesonline.com/single-parent-statistics/ https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/less-poverty-less-prison-more-college-what-two-parents-mean-for-black-and-white-children/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/12/u-s-children-more-likely-than-children-in-other-countries-to-live-with-just-one-parent/ https://www.educationnext.org/education-gap-grows-adolescents-single-parent-families/ https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2015/february/teens-from-single-parent-families-leave-school-earlier.html Single parent homes are an effect of the change in American cultural values and there are significant consequences for subsequent generations. It is not an excuse for subsequent generations, but in general they do have to work harder to catch up to their two parent home counterparts.

Sure it's 1%? When I looked it up (it was close to two decades ago so may have changed) it was 1/4 of 1%. As in 1/12 of the money I get back using my good travel card.

While epidemic in the black community, the rest of the United States (and the western world overall) isn't far behind. This is absolutely the root cause of the majority of what is wrong with America.

Great to see there are still people in our country that run toward the sound of gunfire. Good on that cop wearing the body cam both figuratively and literally pushing any of his fellow cops that appeared to slow down. A plan of nothing more than 'run to the sound of the gunshots and shoot that person' violently executed right now is better than SEAL team six showing up in 5 minutes. Now if only we can get some of the front office people armed and doors that consist of more than glass, we might have a chance at this being a page three news article about someone being killed trying to break into a school.

They found the "boat accident" stash: https://www.foxnews.com/us/new-york-ffisherman-tips-police-cache-rifles-handguns-submerged-jamaica-bay

Careful with all this backdoor talk or the eagle drivers will take over this thread...

That's scary accurate...

I would not. Assuming that hiring continues along the current trend and you're going to a legacy passenger airline, you won't be forced to sit reserve very long. Commuting to the worst line is usually better than commuting to reserve. Once you get a line, you'll have a decent chance of either commuting in or home, so your nights in domicile on your own dime could realistically be under 6 within a reasonable amount of time and possibly down to zero within a year. I just stayed in a hotel when I commuted to reserve (roughly 5 months back in 2019) and only spent maybe $100-200 more a month than most my buddies that had crashpads. For that price, it's worth it to me to have my own room, a shuttle on demand, and every 4-5 days paid earns enough points for a free night. Also opens up the opportunity to pick up cross town trips for a bit extra pay and just commute straight into the cross town airport.

How so? Military pilots go through a rigorous flight school and experience a wider variety of problems to solve before being ready to be hired by a major than most civilian path pilots. While most require some adjustment to the 121 world, very few former military pilots I know (including single seat fighters) have had any issue in training or on the line. This is the opposite of a DEI hire; hiring an individual that you know to be highly experienced, well trained, disciplined, and more potential than your company needs and with potentially no more training required than any other new hire.

Increasing the diversity of the hiring pool is very different than increasing the diversity of those hired. The pure civilian path to an airline pilot has traditionally been an expensive ordeal. Loans were likely not available to inner city kids that had no credit and no one to co-sign the loans. If we are talking about looking at creative ways to get kids that have the right aptitude and attitude, but not the means, into that training pipeline then that increases the pool of applicants. However, that is only a very small part of the discussion right now. United has stated that they want 50% of their new hires to be women or minorities. I think it would be naive to think that is not being considered at some level during the actual hiring process. That serves to reduce the effective size of the hiring pool, which makes it certain that you're going to end up with a less qualified pilot being hired. Finally, the diversity we should be interested in is diversity of thought, not skin color. I have met many people that look very different than me that think in a similar way I do. Hiring them only makes us look diverse. But if you hire a white dude from Texas and a white South African, I guarantee you're going to have more real diversity than hiring two Air Force fighter pilots that happen to be different races. Obviously that's not important because we all know that only appearances matter these days. This is why our superpower days are over.

The other thing to consider is that you generally buy insurance for something that is unlikely but expensive. It is unlikely that my house burns down, but it would be financially crippling if it did and I was uninsured. I know that my family and I are going to need dental work over the course of our lives and the expense is not generally crippling financially for most middle income people. In my mind, the only reason to have dental insurance is if it is significantly subsidized by my employer.

That letter can also come from the MPF if said commander won't write it. Just have it say the day the leave starts and the day the orders end.

Don't kid yourself. He's a figurehead.

APKWS future balloon buster? Maybe make a few with less explosive to get a slower decent rate to examine all the stuff inside. Or even one with a parachute instead of a warhead that deploys when the rocket burns out. Just to punch a couple 2.75" holes in it over land and let the thing slowly descend. Almost no risk to US citizens and we get the balloon intact.

We just spent 1000x as much money shooting down the balloon as China spent launching it. If I were them, I'd launch 20 next week and just watch us waste missiles, flight hours, etc.

That also assumes the visibility was good enough. Strange that the visibility and weather has not been mentioned in any report I've seen.

I think that you guys are talking past each other. HeloDude is correctly saying that if you currently have a fully assembled AR pistol that was legal a week ago, it is now technically illegal even though the ATF is giving a grace period to register it. Pretty much everyone else is saying more or less that either it is not realistic for the ATF to know that you have one or if you simply remove the upper, you no longer have an illegal pistol, so then you can request to "build" an SBR out of the parts you legally own. The easiest solution is to put a full sized upper on the lower that was born as a pistol and it'll now identify as a rifle and be completely legal. We really have 3 options: 1. ignore the ruling and potentially become owners of illegal firearm(s) if the courts don't fix it 2. remove the upper, then turn in a form 1 to legally own an SBR, reassemble once stamp is received 3. put a rifle upper on it (16" barrel min for a min 26" overall length) and pretend this whole pistol thing never happened Clearly option 3 puts you on the ATF's radar the least, but is also the least fun. Option 1 is somewhat risky, although I guarantee that many gun owners will knowingly or unknowingly go that route. Option 2 lets the ATF legally have a record of you, although I think we all know they already do.

In no way do I think this is a good deal or benefits me. I'd be much happier having my pistol as a pistol that theoretically the government doesn't know about. However, sometimes when the government changes the rules there are ways that people can take advantage of it in an unintended way. For example, I know individuals that make close to $200K a year as small business owners but have figured out how to legally qualify for subsidized medical insurance under Obamacare. This was clearly not the intent of the law or rule change, but changes can create unintended consequences. Perhaps a free SBR stamp and thus the 'freedom' to put full up stocks and whatever I want on it is one of those consequences. However, I do plan on holding out for the majority of the grace period in hopes a judge puts a stop to the nonsense.

When Congress basically told a bunch of blue collar railroad workers to pound sand and get to work, I can't imagine they'll suddenly take up the cause over for some upper-middle class white collar pilots. It is a little funny that labor unions spend millions of dollars getting Dems elected, only to have the Dems completely ignore the union when push came to shove. I flew with a CA one time that was almost yelling at me that "you have to vote with your wallet", which I found odd since he was telling me to vote for a party that is associated with higher taxes and more spending.

I generally don't believe a conspiracy theory that could otherwise be explained by stupidity and incompetence.

Interesting read. Going to do some more research, but I'm considering the registration route (never thought I'd say that!). As others have said, I know the feds illegally know I have guns. The fed's unwillingness to follow their own laws have been extensively documented. Combine that with google and the credit cards tracking everything and cooperating with the government, I don't stand a chance of not getting a knock on the door if it comes to gun confiscation. All that said, I don't think I'm giving much information away that they don't already have for the chance to do basically whatever I want with a weapon that previously identified as a pistol and now identifies as an SBR. And, if I end up going that route, one more thing to research is when the purchase period cutoff is. As in, can I go buy 3 more pistols next week and then register them as SBRs for free...

On the flip side, they have waived the fee for registering a SBR during the implementation. Chance to modify the pistol into a real SBR for free. But is that worth telling them that I know a guy that has one?

Remember that the Bill of Rights was written entirely by people who had won a revolution only six years ago. Anyone that thinks 'well-regulated' equals ANY type of control by the federal government, is are ignorant of history. Such a militia would have been fighting for the British, not for the Patriots in the American Revolution. Zero chance that this is what the framers had in mind.

Maybe SCOTUS will say enough is enough and hold the lawmakers in contempt. There has to be some recourse to punish those that are passing laws they know will get struck down, but are just doing it to make life miserable for law abiding gun owners in the meantime.