FourFans

So many questions. Such as: How have we not thought of this before?! Who else is going to educate and train the Martians in guerilla warfare against the occupying Chinese?

The power of placebo and positive thinking!

Hot off the press: UPS will be hiring again. For those looking, get those apps updated for the ponderously impossible to understand process that is UPS hiring.

Experienced this as well in Europe and Africa...but I realized, they shouldn't be competent at operational planning...that's what military planners are for. State is supposed to be diplomats. They're also supposed to have the brains to realize that operational planning (especially in military related activities) should be pushed to the military, because we're pretty damn good at it. The perennial American diplomatic problem is that when things go beyond diplomacy, our diplomats seem to think they are always the smartest in the room...and they never are.

Dammit. I retired last year!

100% agree that our economy, domestic, and foreign policy would have been stronger...not to mention possibly having, oh, I don't know...a secure border. But I'm sure there would have been a totally different set of down sides to deal with. Every administration sucks at something. Some (meaning the current one) more than others. As for that list of 'accomplishments' the fact they put "Lowering Costs of Families' Everyday Expenses" at the top of it tells you all you need to know: It's complete bullshit. Notice the complete lack of reference to immigration or border security on that list? There are things this admin has done well: For example the Chip Act. There are lot more it's done poorly. My point is that we have no idea what Trump would have jacked up and done well in a second term. Any conjecture on that plane is exactly that: conjecture. We DO know that had he won, we'd almost be done with hearing his name ever mentioned again in the press, and we'd have avoided the trainwreck that has been Biden. I PROMISE you that when Biden wins again, we'll hear nothing but "Trump's fault" for another 4 years, not to mention the "Trump 2028" crowd who won't shut up until that moron is dead. If Biden wins, I'll be hanging it up concerning general elections until Trump is dead or he actually opts out of running.

Imagine a world where Trump won in 2020: The economy would have done...probably the same things it has done, with a little difference accounting for NOT locking down domestic oil production. Putin would still be putin and probably invaded...and we'd never have had to deal with Biden and we'd be 8 MONTHS AWAY FROM NEVER HEARING TRUMP'S NAME AGAIN. If Trump loses, guess what, we'll get to hear his name for the NEXT FOUR F'ING YEARS AGAIN! Not to mention deal with the ossification of policy and retardation that Biden's admin (let's admit it, Biden doesn't do a damn thing, his admin does everything). Please for the love of pete, can we just elect trump so we can get this F'ing pain over with already?

By this yardstick, 4 of our past 5 presidents were completely corrupt. Care to provide your way forward out of this problem?

Yes. However, as mentioned, somehow the President is exempt from the clearance investigation requirements while in office

Point of order: No we don't. I actively refuse. Someone wants me to call them something specific? That's fine, we can discuss that in that moment. But someone else's mental health issue is not mine to track until I meet them and I learn the specifics of their case. In my world, there are men and women. Some have mental health issues.

At my new company it's delineated who's operating and who the relief pilots are, which is kinda nice. If a relief guy needs the landing, we just audible at the plane, never had an issue with that. My prior outfit was slight less...organized.

I always found that amusing. More amusing were the FO's who were intent about seniority and authority they had as the acting CA. Rare, but I did see it happen. Outright silly.

If only there were some way of identifying toxic people before they are given command...

At my current employer we fly in and out of Kona in a 747 using CTAF VFR procedures and picking up IFR clearance after takeoff. I did that in a cessna or USAF C-130 doing VFR flying. Never thought I'd be reporting at VFR pattern entry in a 74 though. "Any traffic please advise"

On the flip side I got to learn Part 121, ORD, JFK, LAX, MIA all during COVID, when there were only 5 planes moving. Hell I cleared Runway 18 at EHAM and got to taxi to park with the tower (about a 5 mile taxi) as we were the only one moving on the entire airport. But you gotta love follow the greens man. Everyone needs to get on board with that system.

Cashing out what specifically? Are you trying to see how you can ride out WWIII investment wise? If so, it's a complete crapshoot. It all depends on how and if the US decides to get involved. All the markets will take a hit, but it's possible that riding it out IN the market will be just as profitable as riding it out OUTSIDE (meaning cash) the market. War is big business these days and a LOT of companies will profit. My tealeaves prediction: if Biden is president all bets are off, as nuclear war is definitely on the table due to his complete ineptitude. If Trump is president, I'll bet the US profits bigtime off this war.

I fly the black sea corner routinely as civil traffic. Couple months ago we made the turn and completely unmasked our GPS antennas to face north and immediately got an ANP of 20+. It's a bit of a hazard.

Got that same experience back in OIF. Also had one of our crews watch one fly directly into a mountainside near Bagram. Apparently ATC told them there was co-altitude terrain and they responded "we see everything" shortly before merging with said terrain. That's why US troops were never allowed to fly on them.

The Japanese love child of a biker rally tryst between Metallica and Styx. Those dudes are rad.

This is why you don't drop it from C-17's using hi-v chutes. The mission planner should get choked out for that. They're too worried about coming back with a bullet hole in their precious budda. Hell, the crew probably gets decorated for this drop. It's like we didn't spend a decade dropping shit in afghanistan and learning all those lessons (A: Don't let C-17's drop it, and B: use low-v chutes if you don't want to kill unaware people and break the shit you're dropping).

Let me get this straight, that 'fact check' says he was falsely accused. But the part that's false isn't the fact that these people were flown in, the part that's false is that it was illegal? Did a bot write that?

Have you ever considered that just because we're not involved (officially) yet, that WWIII can still have started? It's on full bore in Eastern Europe. It's on with Diplo, Info, and Econ with China N. Korea and Iran (almost Mil with Iran as well). Two questions: When do you think WWII started? What is your tripwire to believe WWIII has started? Please bear in mind that the USA is not the only belligerent. Fully agree that we're headed right for disaster, especially if Biden is re-elected...but it's looking just as bad if Trump is elected too...

I live in Gaetz district and voted against him. Fully agree with you.

Apparently you haven't noticed, but WW3 is already on. Now it's all about the roll we (USA) is going to play in it. My guess is we reprise our WWII showing and stiff arm it until even the far left and far right isolationist in our country can't ignore it any more. Then we hit heavy. In WWII terms, it's 1938-39. How we should play in it is, and should be, hotly debated. But ignoring that international hostilities (remember your DIME levers of power?) have already commenced is flat-out ignorant. This thing is happening whether you want it to or not. At least acknowledge that fact. The sooner you move on to the solution phase, the less it will cognitively hurt. I don't want it either. No one should. But thanks to the likes of Putin, Xi, Kim, Khamenei, Biden, and others it's happening. Gotta take the world as it is, not as we want it to be.