FourFans

Frankly, I'm glad to see it. The USAF and USSF need to think joint from day one. Attending other service tactical and leadership schools is a great way to ingrain that joint understanding. Hell, I wish we sent a good slice of USAF JAIs and all AMLOs to Pathfinder, even if they fail out.

No. Not what I'm arguing. I am identifying the false argument that just because someone votes republican does not mean they have their: Just because someone is an evangelical who voted for Trump does not mean they actually support Trump. I would argue that many of those votes were votes against Biden, not for Trump. Every evangelical I've spoken too, hell most everyone I've spoken to doesn't support either Biden or Trump. So equating a trump vote to having your head shoved up is has as 08Dawg asserted is completely asinine. By that yard stick, everyone who voted for Biden supports letting your kids get addicted to hookers and blow and then covering it up. Nope, not a valid argument. My personal opinion is that voting 'against' something is a stupid way to vote. You Vote FOR something, not against it. But I've found many democrat voters who dislike Biden but will vote for him again because they personally don't like trump. They compare their personal dislike for Trump against the political narrative that they like about Biden. Completely irrational. We're supposed to compare Pros to Pros and Cons to Cons. Policy to policy, personal dislike to personal dislike, admin performance to admin performance. How they can ignore the train wreck that's been the past three years because they have an emotional aversion to a man who is emotionally repellent yet brought in admin folks who were actually competent and focused on job performance instead of DEI, I don't know...but it is what it is, not what I want it to be. As for your statistical analysis: near miss. Compare apples to apples, and read the footnotes in your own posting. You misunderstood the argument: That binary voting patterns do not tell the nuanced story that many Republican votes hate trump and that most democrats only verbally support BLM while recognizing the racist organization for what it is. Cherry picking stats from two completely different voting blocks (one set is from 2023, the other 2020), and then raging that this is a RATIONAL argument while trying to make it completely black or white is telling. It's a nuanced subject...which is my point. Calling all Republican voters trump butt snorkelers and all democrats BLM rioters is hideously out of touch. Yes, I'm aware you didn't say that. You did, however, leap to a violent and binary defense. It's telling. Before you repost anything Pew, NIH, CDC, GAO or any other government agency puts out (yes they publish good stats, but context and analysis are more important than the numbers), go read these books:

Tight chin strap, but on which chin?

I could also say bricks are edible, that doesn't make it true. Why do you associate Trump with evangelicals? That's a false association. Did some vote for him? Yup. Do some evangelicals also vote for Biden? Yup. That's like associating Democrats with BLM. While there is a connection, it's tenuous at best and therefore inappropriate in any rational debate. Put down the paint roller and pick up the detail brush.

Because some people say more words than others. Yes Green is a RETARD. That's one. I'd guess you can count the number of truly retard level right wingers on a couple hands. Not so with the left. The current (i emphasis that because in two years it might be the entire opposite) situation is that the democratic party is entertaining a untenably high number of radical leftist. Saying the Left and Right both have their radicals only makes sense if the number of radicals and the power of their voices is roughly equal to the point of providing some form of balance. It isn't. Not by a long shot. The left is has gone extreme left to an excessive degree that is in no way counterbalanced by the radicals on the right. Hell, there is no such thing as balancing radicals in the first place. 'Just admitting' both sides are divisive (which is true) is a false premise, and reduces reality down to an 'even' status that simply does not exist. In the inverse, it's like putting Tom Brady on a middle school JV team and lining them up against the KC Chief's D-Line and saying "well, they have Tom Brady so lets admit we have great players on both teams". Not a viable argument.

How? How the hell does someone like this not only get elected, and RE-elected, but placed in charge of a subcommittee on Space and Aero?! Surprising that she's not wearing a mask, bird flu is coming.

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.