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Smokin

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Everything posted by Smokin

  1. Yes the county will take on the debt, but that debt will be paid off by the taxes levied on Disney property. The county will have to increase their personnel, again at the cost in taxes, which will mostly be paid by Disney. The left is trying to claim this is going to be a huge cost to the people that live in that county. I doubt it.
  2. Smokin

    Gun Talk

    By the way, I'm at 13 months and counting, so hopefully the e-file speeds things up considerably. Or even better, just allow you to buy it without the paperwork.
  3. Smokin

    Gun Talk

    Pretty sure it has already started. https://eforms.atf.gov/login;referrer=%2Fhome Looks like there are already links to start filing the forms online.
  4. Nice try, but I have a masters degree in history, so I have opened a history book or two or hundreds or thousands. I agree and understand that calling yourself something does not mean that you enact that system. But, as others have pointed out, the Nazis were not pure socialists, but their economic system of governance was much more towards the socialist side than the capitalist side. Some have claimed that Hitler actually privatized large parts of the German economy, such as the railroads, but it should be noted that new majority stakeholder that benefited from that privatization was an early supporter of Hitler and was heavily involved in government activities. That is hardly a free market. Germany moved significantly away from a capitalist society under the Nazi rule and even "private" (Lufthansa, BMW, etc) companies were not free to do as they desired in a capitalist free market but were often directed what to do and how to do it by the Nazi government. That is strongly on the socialist side of the economic spectrum, thus it is reasonable that the Nazis when they called themselves socialists and were in fact socialists. Also, as others have pointed out, politics are often too complicated to put on a simple linear model. But if you were to make a simplified American political thought process on a linear spectrum, a larger and more invasive government is the left side, and a smaller and less invasive government would be on the right side. While greatly simplified, the Nazis would clearly fall on the far left in this model.
  5. So apparently if you want to be in shape, you're a Hitler Youth? Also, how did the left succeed in pulling the switch-a-roo on making the Nazis right wing? Last I checked the official party title was the National Socialist German Workers Party. Only a the modern American liberal could come up with something so absurd as a Socialist Workers party being right wing.
  6. CE requires a unit to have ownership of you. If you retire and no one gains you, either government or private sector, you age out of CE and your clearance lapses. However, there is a window of either 1 or 2 years for you to get gained by someone else. Probably not long enough to go to school and then get hired with a clearance, but plenty long if you are going to transition fairly directly to private sector or GS type stuff. It is not like the old 10 year clearance for regular secret where you could get a re-investigation a year prior to retirement and be good for most of a decade.
  7. The fact that he warned the west doesn't make it the west's fault that he invaded a sovereign country without even a hint of a pretext. Your argument is basically the same as "she wore a mini-skirt, so she was asking to get raped". Not ok.
  8. I really hope you're right, but I think the last 24 hours have shown that Putin is switching strategies and is no longer trying to minimize civilian deaths. He's shelling major cities with absolutely zero military value other than avoiding urban combat. But, even with that as an excuse, that's a poor one as history has shown that shelled cities are just as defend-able as intact ones. That does not mean that nukes are a logical next step, but the war going poorly for him does not mean the war will continue to go relatively well for Ukrainian citizens. On the contrary, the worse the war goes for Putin, the worse it is going to get. This is an ego driven war and a totalitarian leader with an ego in a losing war is a dangerous thing.
  9. Had a taxi in there where we literally never talked to ground. The freq was so busy that every time I tried to key the mic, the controller started talking. Finally, the capt just taxied to the gate (landed on the inside runway, so didn't have to cross any runways). I kept waiting for the CPO to call, but I guess no one noticed.
  10. If the current trend on the ground continues a couple more days, Ukraine should have a return of control to all of Ukraine as preconditions to peace talks. The sanctions from the EU (finally) and the weapons being shipped to Ukraine (finally) should only make Ukraine's position better and better as time goes. Maybe even the US could chip in something eventually when Biden gets back from vacation/cryo treatments. If Putin wants to dig in, he might find himself in serious trouble at home.
  11. With the Ukrainians doing this well on their own, imagine what they could be doing with a little help. Putin clearly miscalculated. Think he intended to show that Russia was back and the USSR resurrection is inevitable. Instead, he is showing that Russia is having a hard time conquering more than 100 miles of a country less than 10% of their size. Rather than scaring the west with Putin's military juggernaut, this should embolden us to action.
  12. Russia's just threatened Sweden and Finland. As much as I don't want this war to spread, one way to end Russia as we know it is for them to over-extend. The war is clearly not going as well as they thought it would and maybe they don't have quite the military we thought they did and might be on opportunity to send a real message. Admitting another country to NATO as response to Russia invading Ukraine would be a power move that would get Putin's attention. But that would take balls, so we won't do it.
  13. They've threatened nukes just if another country intervenes IN UKRAINE. If we launched an attack against Russia itself, even if everyone saw it as just against their leadership, it would be World War III. Imagine Russia sending a cruise missile against the White House. We see him as a criminal, clearly enough people in Russia see him as their leader, otherwise he'd be hanging from a bridge.
  14. For what it's worth, Russia has actually been invaded comparatively few times compared to most European countries in the last 400 years. While understanding their thought process is important, it is equally important to not to develop Stockholm syndrome and excuse their attack today because Napoleon invaded them back in the 1800s.
  15. Did he discover the problem while skiing past the Swedish women's team, again? Brilliant. Better to finish there than in 24th place...
  16. Smokin

    USAA

    Overall, their product has gone downhill considerably over the last 6-9 years. Used to be great and way ahead of the competition. Now it is mediocre at best. All the disadvantages of a virtual bank with almost no advantages over the standard commercial big bank. I'd move everything now, but that's a pain. Once I retire, I'm probably done with them. I also noticed my dividend basically disappeared and everything started the downhill slide about the time they started putting ads on TV. Strange coincidence....
  17. You're right, we are still the richest country by far. And while I don't think we should always be the only cop in the world, if we don't help defend a friend's house when we see someone about to break in, how long until our house is next? We are still richer than we think if we straightened out our priorities a bit. I think we are able, or at least could be able if we wanted to be money-wise. The real question is, are we willing?
  18. Gulfstream is working on a similar concept, except the overall aspect ratio is variable due to basically a large pitot that extends/retracts almost the entire length of the airplane. Retracted for taxi/takeoff, extends in flight to create the quiet boom aspect ratio.
  19. Smokin

    Gun Talk

    Maybe they need to look up what concealed carry means.
  20. Not even remotely close, but nice try. With the specific regard to classification, the President is the ultimate authority (as I understand it, I could be wrong). Not breaking and entering, not obstruction, not murder, not any other crime. So unique that I can't even think of a reasonable analogy to make about it. Not saying that I agree with it or with the person, but merely an interesting point to ponder.
  21. What ClearedHot said. Breaking the law to get potential dirt on your opponent is bad. Breaking the law to frame a sitting president in order to overturn an election is really bad. If Trump had done this to Biden, we would not be able to see any other story on TV for the next 6 months. Of an interesting academic note to ponder about those records; my understanding is that the executive branch makes all classification decisions. As the President is the ultimate executive authority, I don't think a President can actually break the law regarding the handling of classified materials. If he reveals Top Secret information to the press, he just declassified it. Clearly not a good idea, but if the records were moved while he was President, it would be interesting to see if he could actually be prosecuted for it.
  22. United has a robust training capacity. I don't have figures available, but in the 2018-2019 hiring wave they were training 4 indoc classes a month and were still renting out a fair amount of sim periods to other airlines. And they built a bunch more sims in 2019. There's been talk of 2500 new hires a year coming up and I think they could keep up.
  23. Smokin

    Gun Talk

    Proof that our future alibis are legit!
  24. Most airlines will ask for something like this. How forcefully they ask is airline dependent. It has been a while, so I don't remember the exact verbiage (which is important), but my airline basically asked for either separation orders, terminal leave paperwork, or a letter from the commander. I did the letter from my commander and they didn't blink. For me, everything happened so fast that there wasn't time for the normal paperwork process to run its course before my indoc started, so that may have been part of them not saying anything about just getting a memo. Law always trumps airline policy; Delta is learning that the hard way with a current lawsuit that they are almost certainly going to lose and lose big. But unless you are willing to throw your job on the table and sue the airline like those guys did, the policy might win.
  25. Not throwing spears, but I've heard many guys say "USERRA requires...." and not be correct. USERRA is a relatively short document, the rules are really pretty general, and it is a fairly easy read. If you are military and have another job, just read it yourself instead of relying on internet pilot lawyers. They won't be out a job if you get fired and they won't be out your two months of BAH, etc if you sell your leave unnecessarily. Probably 1/3 of most indoc pilots are on terminal leave. If it is not terminal leave, have a good faith plan for your transition. Communicate that plan to your commander and the airlines. They will tell you if they have a problem with it. Chances are that if it is no kidding a good faith effort to transition without having to drop any mil leave during your indoc or sims, and just use your leave in a suto-terminal manner, you're probably good. But, just like that reading rainbow guy says, don't take my word for it. Read it yourself and if you don't think that the leave status will allow outside employment, ask your JAG. That would be a military requirement; from what I recall from the last time I read it, it doesn't specify anything about types of leave. https://www.justice.gov/crt-military/userra-statute
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