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busdriver

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Posts posted by busdriver

    The WOKE Thread (Merged from WTF?)

    in Squadron Bar

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Guardian said:

    I tried again. Made it to page 7. 

    It's full of political buzzwords, but the substance is mostly stuff they were probably doing anyways (investing in base schools, helping spouses get jobs, etc. etc)  There's a bit of investing in STEM at HBCUs and the like, but whatever.

    So basically, standard response from the bureaucracy.  Insert all the buzzwords into the current plan and claim to be doing the thing.

    Energy Policy

    in Squadron Bar

    Posted

    The problem with solar and wind is one of time.  Their peak production is not aligned with peak demand.  There's also a square foot of land for production vs. population density problem if the suburban NIMBYs ever lose their fight.  Although I suppose we could just turn the desert southwest into a giant solar farm and storage facility.

    The problem then is that the entire production system needs to be very oversized (expensive) or a storage system is needed.  All the current storage technologies are not really suitable (huge and expensive), at least for now.

    The other option is dispatchable energy sources, natural gas currently plays that role in Texas.  They ran into some issues with the big freeze, but that was mainly a system design problem not a fundamental problem with their concept.  They use a lot of renewable energy.

    In the longer term, less reliance on oil/fossil for energy is a good thing for multiple reasons.  Nuclear power production technology has been stagnant for a long time, and I'd be fine with some R&D grants/competitions/etc to get the technology caught up.  

    nuclear good idea fairies:

    Fusion: obvious, but also may be a pipe dream

    Recycling reactors: something like 80% of the energy is still in spent fuel from legacy reactors, France does re-refine the spent fuel to reuse.  Negative: produces plutonium as a by-product.

    New design fission reactors: goal of reducing proliferation concerns, improving safety

    Ramp-able reactors: current reactors can't ramp up and down quickly, and are only designed to completely shut down a limited number of times in their lifetime.  Not sure if this is a pipe dream too.

     

    • Upvote 1

    Energy Policy

    in Squadron Bar

    Posted

    3 hours ago, GrndPndr said:

    Guess I picked a bad day to own a vehicle which only consumes premium fuel.  $5.15/gal this morning.  

    Regular is up to $5 in Vegas.  And I get 13mpg.

    Driving to Cali in two weeks is gonna get pricey.  Vidal Junction is up to $6.59 (it's in the middle of nowhere)

    Feel my pain!

    • Sad 1

    The WOKE Thread (Merged from WTF?)

    in Squadron Bar

    Posted

    2 hours ago, dream big said:

    Absolutely true though, free speech has consequences and only protects you from the government. 

    Point of order:  The first amendment protects the people from the government.  Free speech is a concept, and as the bill of rights are only an enumeration of natural rights the conceptual framework can stand as a point of argumentation.

    One can argue that social media is effectively the public square based on how politicians and the press treat it.  A conceptual argument for free speech would be applicable. 

    God help us that the youtube comments without the youtube is now considered public discourse by people in positions of power........

    Wisconsin Parade Attack

    in Squadron Bar

    Posted

    39 minutes ago, dream big said:

    Makes you wonder sometimes. 

    It's hard to stir up controversy when the Georgia law that was the only thing those three were attempting to stand on was changed before the trial even started, and everyone who looked at that case thought they were guilty as sin.

    Covid Injection Tyranny - Share and Discuss

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Once a member submits a religious exception request, their status should be changed to "admin refusal" and they are no longer bound to the current requirement timeline. The exception process from start to finish takes about 6 calendar months, including an opportunity to appeal AF surgeon general if denied at majcom level.

    Ref:
    AFI 52-201, 48-110
    DoDI 1300.17

    Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

    The Next President is...

    in Squadron Bar

    Posted

    About 6-9 months ago I was curious about this debate and dug into average annual pay on manual labor jobs in 1969 compared to the 2007.  Those years didn't have any real significance, other than having data that was easy to grab.

    The average annual pay of all manual labor jobs had risen very slightly in real terms (43k to 44.5k).

    The average cost of healthcare had risen 5.5% to 22% of that annual pay.  

    The median home value had risen from about 400% to 3500%.

    An average college degree has gone from 22% to about 100%.

    Average car cost had gone from 60 to 69%.

    Everything else stayed the same cost or got cheaper.

     

    So there is a real something in medical costs, home costs, and college costs.  Any discussion about addressing those needs to actually look into the root cause of why the cost went up.  Throwing government money around doesn't inherently do that.

     

    • Like 1

    Finally done in Afghanistan?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Lord Ratner said:

    Under Trump a couple high-profile generals resigned because of this idiotic desire to return to isolationism. Where were the resignations under Biden? 

    So you're mad that more generals didn't resign in protest because you don't like the political decision that the elected president made? 

    • Like 2

    Finally done in Afghanistan?

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by busdriver

    3 hours ago, LookieRookie said:

    What does that have to do with trying to cover it up after the fact?

    Nothing, but that wasn't what I or Negatory were talking about.  Pay attention.

    Are they covering it up yet?  Have we crossed that line?  Beats me.  News moves faster than the bureaucracy.  

    Finally done in Afghanistan?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    56 minutes ago, Negatory said:

    Do you have any reason to believe it’s different? 

    I believe that there is a better place we can get to than to never hold the military responsible 

    Any reason to believe that the process under a different administration, under a completely different operational scenario, after a massive explosion killed a bunch of people in a very public way?    -  I don't know.

    Big public failures like the VBIED at Abbey gate have resulted in relaxed ROE before (Blade 11).  I would imagine the intel sources on the ground were a bit constrained as compared to a couple years ago.  Does another VBIED escalate our withdraw more or less than a bad hellfire?  What is the political/public/strategic impact of another attack and more dead Marines?  Does that make it more likely that the NCA would end up pressured to "do something?"

    I do think that the operations surrounding the evacuation were not business as usual.

     

    For what it's worth I get the anger, I've picked up a lot of broken people there.

    • Like 1

    Finally done in Afghanistan?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    19 minutes ago, Negatory said:

    Somebody should be held responsible, though. ......

    let's get a debrief on what went wrong. The American people deserve it.

    Never holding leadership accountable will result in generals that skirt responsibility

    You don't know who signed off on the strike, or what the approval level was, or what the ROE was, or what the intel was, or anything really.  You're looking at an outcome and demanding... something. 

    What, a public debrief and root cause analysis?  

    War is messy, innocent people die, mistakes are made, people do horrible things.  This has always been.  There is no fancy all knowing technology that will make it something else.  There will never be a process that will satisfy a libertarian sense of due process prior to engagements.  It will always be fucking terrible.  The answer is to not engage in it when it isn't absolutely necessary.

    I'm not saying accountability and transparency isn't important, or that simple admission that a mistake was made (when a mistake was made) isn't the ethical thing to do.  I'm saying the urge to cut off people's heads says something about the people demanding it as much as the act that draws the mob's ire.

    • Like 1
    • Upvote 2

    Finally done in Afghanistan?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Some of you guys are hell bent on demanding someone's head.  Doesn't seem to matter who however....

    Do you think the Generals were the ones saying "yep that's a secondary, good strike" or that maybe it was some folks sitting in a box?  or imagery analysts?  or nerds on a staff?  

    Those at the top can be ultimately responsible, but the guillotine won't fix any of the problems.

    Covid Injection Tyranny - Share and Discuss

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Estimates of R0 for the delta strain have wide variation, depending on where the study is conducted.

    https://academic.oup.com/jtm/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jtm/taab124/6346388

    The estimates for England are 5-8 per the above link, and the lower end of that spectrum (5.2) with a secondary attack rate of 4.3%.  There are CDC studies that show a much higher secondary attack rate in some cases, but not others:    (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7028e2.htm) so there's still quite a bit of "who knows?"

    Probably safe to say it's still bad, so more contagious is more badder.

     

    I am curious where they got their efficacy of masking percentages and how they broke that out from social distancing efforts and the various lockdown strategies.

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