Blue

ZeroHedge is a daily read for me, more or less. It aggregates a lot of good stuff from all over. Market Ticker is a blog by one guy. The comments section is only OK, but I think his writing offers a good view on politics, the economy, etc. Some of his "must read" archived stuff is really good (links of the right hand side of his main page). Reddit can be worthwhile, but as others have pointed out, Reddit as a whole is very biased, and wrong-think tends to get one downvoted, banned, etc. MGTOW had its issues, but there was a lot of good content there about society, relationships between men and women, etc. It was banned about a month ago. NoNewNormal was a pretty popular subreddit (100k+ members), with content revolving around skepticism of Covid lockdowns, vaccines, etc. As of just today (like a couple of hours ago), it's been banned.

This is likely inappropriate given the gravity of current events at Kabul today. However, when I sit back here in my comfy office chair and daydream, I think about what could have happened over the past couple of weeks. There was that brief several days (week?) after Kabul began to crumble, but before they closed the airport to commercial flights. Folks were getting on whatever they could. Watching FlightRadar24, a Turkish Airlines 777-300 seemed to be one of the last civi aircraft to get out (16 Aug). Would have loved to see Trump have his 757 fly to Kabul to pick up a load of evacuees. The pics and video footage and accompanying chaos in the media would have been entertaining if nothing else. I'm not an expert in 757-200 ops, but bet it could have done it in two legs from NYC.

I was also surprised at the 15k number. I knew there were NGOs operating in-country, but I would have assumed a much smaller footprint of American civilians. The sheer number of different NGOs is surprising as well. The size, impact, current status, and future of all the NGOs in Afghanistan is something I'd be interested to see.

Dang man. The discourse here is good, but if you get all bent out of shape every time you get a lousy downvote, you're gonna have a bad time.

Ongoing chaos at Kabul Airport in the video below. However, FlightRadar24 showed a Turkish Airlines 777-300 (flight TK706) landed at Kabul ~30 minutes ago, so it seems maybe some semblance of order remains?

Kinzinger will likely lose his seat in the House due to redistricting. He's in a corner, and as one tends to do when cornered, he's flailing. Will be interesting to watch where he lands.

Taking a page from the AOC playbook.....

U2 flyby opens the show today. Cool. How does that work? Direct flight from Beale, do a flyby of OSH, then return to Beale? Can it be followed on FlightRadar24, FlightAware, etc?

My SO has become fascinated with gymnastics this Olympics. She's been watching all the events, along with the accompanying documentaries and the like. My take based on her endless prattling on our meaningful discussion: US Olympic level gymnastics kinda sucks for the competitors. They start really young, and train like mad. Nothing wrong with that, but it really seems to be more driven by overbearing parents, rather than ambitious kids. On top of all the sacrifices involved with training at that elite level, you have the fact that the longtime team doctor turned out to be a world-champion sex offender (Larry Nassar). Thought there was something where Biles was scheduled for six events, whereas the other teammates were only scheduled for two? Hadn't heard of her being "deified" in the media for quitting, I got more of a sense people were critical of her for "letting her team down," etc. Not sure though, I haven't been digging into it much. My opinion, based on the little I've seen - good for her. Something to be said for having the courage to stop, assess yourself, and say no when everyone around you is pushing in the other direction. She's long since proven herself to the world. Hope she weathers the storm, returns to the US, gets married, writes a book, whatever-makes-her-happy.

Ahh, good. The "Whatabout-ism" phase of the discussion.

I am very far removed from these circles, and my only current contribution to the military is being a taxpayer. That said, in the civvie world, when a promotion doesn’t make logical sense (not based on merit, etc), the usual answer seems to be based in meeting some diversity metric. YMMV.

“Hearts exploding” might be a bit of hyperbole, but I’d challenge anyone to refute what tac airlifter said.

Well that's.......interesting. First time I've seen responsibilities for "Diversity and Inclusion" lumped in with "Extremism." Does that mean all the various "Head of Diversity" positions scattered throughout the DoD are now going have additional responsibilities for rooting out "Extremism?"

So, on the topic of government programs run amok due to mission creep and nut-job leadership: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2021/05/24/commerce-department-monitoring-itms/

Wife had friends over, so needed to get out of the house for a bit. Figured hitting the local cineplex would be a good way to kill some time. Was in the mood for some action/adventure, and narrowed the choices down to: Wrath of Man: Jason Statham does the Jason Statham action thing in a Guy Ritchie movie. Nobody: Better-Call-Saul Bob Odenkirk does a "shadowy badass pulled outta retirement" thing. Army of the Dead: Zombies and Las Vegas. And guns and stuff. Settled on Nobody. Was disappointed. Good cast, good concept, but the whole thing kinda missed, as if they had a half-baked script and just made the rest up. Glad I didn't go to Army of the Dead, just realized it's 2:28 long. Awful long for a zombie flick. Curious about Wrath of Man, but the Guy Ritchie stuff always seems to come off as all sizzle and no substance.

Alright, it's not obvious to me. What's going on within the DoD (serious question).

Link to the Disqus page of "Military Watchdog." where you can see his comment (about three comments down), under article headline "Space Force CO Fired Over Comments About Marxism in the Military Now Subject of IG Probe." @Springer, thanks for posting that. Any kind of "comments section" of an article usually seems to be an exercise in sifting through the nonsense to find the occasional gem. That particular comment is very insightful. Edit to add: Is it really possible that this one guy, Bishop Garrison, is the cause of all the Woke nonsense endemic in the DoD? His Linkedin bio certainly support the assertation he's some kind of beltway bandit bullshit artist, who's spent the better part of the last 10 years running around DC as part of various Institutes, Policy Centers, etc, to include stints on Hillary's campaign and the Biden transition team.

Once something like this is kicked off and funded, it'll be impossible to kill. More concerning, as is inevitable in any government program, Mission Creep will eventually set in. While this program may have some good intentions at the start (even if I don't agree with them), there is no telling what it will end up as 10 years from now.

Does your home state have a fighter unit? Or any state that you've called home in the past (if you went to school out of state, or lived out of state for a long period of time)? Experiences vary, but having a tie to the state seemed to give you at least a small measure of extra consideration from some units. Looking at your post history, seemed like you applied to some New England units? Do you have ties to the area? Did you ever call any of them up to get any kind of feedback on your interviews, or if they'd be open to you trying again? Also, I did the "engineer at a defense contractor" gig for a bit. Good experience, but I think I'd go homeless before ever going back. It's OK to start, but chances are it'll eventually become soul-sucking, if it hasn't already. One of those things where you either leave as a hero, or stay long enough to become the villain.

You forgot to include his position as a Executive Consultant amongst the "elite" at Afterburner Inc...... https://www.afterburner.com/daniel-fuzz-walker/

Sigh. That clip really just seemed like another newscaster being incendiary for the sake of being incendiary. Whatever brings in the ratings, I suppose. The whole thing is tiresome though. The Air Force has decided that they need to appease the woke mob, and the associated Drive for Diversity, regardless of reason or logic. I honestly don't understand the background and chain-of-events that resulted in the current state of affairs, but regardless, here we are. I think everyone in any kind of position of power has seen the writing on the wall, and understands you're gonna get on the Woke Express, or you're gonna get left behind. Thus, you get Lt Gen Webb's comments. None of it really matters though, because the DoD doesn't really care about promoting diversity. They just care about the appearance of promoting diversity. Like anything else, just follow the money. If anyone really gave a shit about increasing the diversity of Air Force pilots, there is a pretty easy path. Take a small pile of money, and start installing tutors and AF JROTC programs in schools that have the diversity you're looking for. Put resources behind helping kids succeed in school. Take the kids that show promise, and put more resources behind them, like funding their PPL. Stand up the same programs in colleges. Tutors to help people succeed, and PPLs for those who show promise. FFS, it's Learning to Fly An Airplane. The vary nature of it tends to attract the hopes and dreams of kids and young adults. You'll have no shortage of people wanting to give it a try. However, all of that takes money, resources, and not to mention the leadership to promote a course of action that is going to take a couple of years to start generating winged pilots. And because the Air Force only wants to show the appearance of caring about diversity, you'll never get any appreciable resources and leadership behind it. You'll just see the endless calls for "More diversity in the ranks!!!" from the woke mob, and replies of "But, we're trying!!" from the DoD. And people like Tucker Carlson will make more breathless news clips that get passed round the interwebs. The clip above has been out for a little more than 24 hours, and already has almost 700k views and 10k comments. Not too bad for folks like #Tucker.

Can you give us a synopsis?

Sometime around November/December 2022 is when I anticipate you'll see the formal transfer of power. Post mid-term elections. Ol' Joe will probably experience "a fall," or some other mundane injury that'll put him in the hospital for a week or two. They'll invoke the 25th amendment, and Harris will be "temporarily" in charge. Joe will emerge from the hospital after a couple weeks, but it will be revealed that he's suffered "something" (a blood clot, a minor stroke, a minor heart attack, etc) that prevents him from continuing to serve. At that point, the Presidency will formally transfer to Harris. Some of the unfolding of events will occur over the holidays. The parts they don't want you to pay attention to are easier to mask during the holidays (much like bad corporate news is always released on a Friday before a three-day weekend). At the same time, they'll try to leverage the "spirit of the season" to rally the nation behind Biden and his family. Expect candid pictures of Dr Jill Biden and a bunch of grandkids waiting patiently at Walter Reed for news on Grandpa Joe, complete with a Christmas tree or two in the background. January 2023 will dawn with Kamala Harris as President of the United States. What that means, who the hell knows. I'm sure there will be renewed federal support for transgendered non-binary circus clowns, and other such theatrical nonsense. More importantly, any remaining roadblocks to our increased intervention in the Middle East will be dropped. Who ever is our Enemy #1 in the desert will be attacked with renewed vigor (either overtly or covertly). Iran would be the first guess, but if not, maybe some second-tier player like Libya in the early 2010s. At the same time, they'll crank up the monetary printing presses for good, and break-off the knob. Fun times I'm sure.

While I certainly don't agree with everything Kinzinger does, everything I've read points to Illinois' inevitable loss of a congressional seat happening somewhere in Southern IL (nowhere near Kinzinger's district in Northern IL). Have you seen different?

Congrats on the CSO slot. That's some varsity-level ineptitude on the part of your leadership.