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Blue

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Everything posted by Blue

  1. Just curious - is that something new? Are you only allowed to apply twice? I believe it used to be you could apply as many times as you wanted until you reached the max age or max total commissioned service time?
  2. My assumption is the entire Democratic Party will work together to keep the "Weekend at Bernie's Biden's" game going until the 2022 midterms (21 months away from now). After that, who knows.
  3. Having trouble finding the spot where CH said this. Can you point it out to me?
  4. Because the reality is the most important consideration in choosing leadership is making sure the candidates check the appropriate diversity boxes. Whether that is a misplaced priority is another discussion (I certainly don't agree with it). When trying to fill a position like Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, you're already looking at a pretty small pool of eligible candidates. Now, add a requirement that the selectee must fit some diversity checkbox, and all of a sudden the pool gets even smaller. It's basic arithmetic. Sometimes, within the small pool you're still able to find a good candidate. Sometimes you don't. Selecting someone for a position like this is an imperfect process to begin with, and there is no sure-fire way to success. But the smaller you make the pool by adding extra constraints, the more chance you'll end up with some clown who doesn't know her ass from a hole in the ground.
  5. Chief Ian Eishen (Edwards AFB, 412th Test Wing Command Chief) is a regular on Reddit, and is pretty well received. Seems to provide a lot of good, candid feedback to the Edwards AFB enlisted force. https://www.reddit.com/user/412TW_CCC/ Of course, as alluded to above, if your going to try to use social media in an official capacity, it helps to not be an idiot about it.
  6. One doesn't need to be a trained mental health expert to know something is wrong with Joe Biden's mental state. Biden is 78 years old, the oldest person to ever sit in the Oval Office. The next closest is Reagan, who was 77 at the end of his presidency. This is a big fucking problem for the country, and I don't know how anyone can brush it off as "he's just old," or "people are just picking on poor Joe." Age-related mental decline is insidious. It comes and goes. Someone can have their mental faculties at 100% at the beginning of the day, but then as the day drags on and they wear mentally and physically, they get worse and worse. The results manifest themselves in several ways: people end up being excessively argumentative, they get tunnel vision and fixate on things with no rhyme or reason. Anyone who's had the pleasure of working with those in their late 60s and 70s has seen this play out before. It was rumored that Reagan was experiencing the beginning of mental decline during his second term; he even got some raised eyebrows during the 1984 Presidential race when he seemed to falter during the debates. That was a problem then, but at the very least you had an established team surrounding the president, and a more-or-less stable country and world. Now you've got Joe Biden, who's starting his presidency in today's chaotic world, and surrounding himself with an eclectic band of unproven staffers and Cabinet picks. Agree or disagree with Joe Biden's polices and ideals all you want. That's everyone's right as a red-blooded American. But the fact that we're starting a Presidential term with a 78 year old is a big fucking problem.
  7. The internet is full of nutjobs spouting all means of bullshit. However, just because it sounds outlandish, doesn't mean there isn't a seed of truth there. To wit:
  8. Video of Ashli Babbitt getting shot yesterday.
  9. Anyone else expected that the US Capitol would have been a little more......defended? I mean, on today of all days, I would have expected the place to be guarded like Fort Knox. Instead, it looks like the halls of Congress have been stormed by the clientele from a Waffle House.
  10. I've heard that before, but I'm not sure I buy it. When has the DoD/VA given a shit about managing healthcare costs?
  11. Another message of thanks to Jon, Lisa, and the rest of the Trident team. I'm a first-time homebuyer, and the whole process (outside of Trident) was a mess. Our landlord was inflexible about our move-out date. The sellers of our new place were balky and difficult to deal with, and almost torpedoed the whole thing a couple of times. Our realtor had her moments, but we were clearly just one of many deals she was working, and nowhere near the top of her priority list. I had always assumed home-buying was a straight-forward affair, and it turned out to be anything but. Appreciated the insight from Jon and Lisa throughout the process. They were always quick to return calls, texts and e-mails, and offered options each time we ran into issues. Also, their rates beat everything else out there. Thanks Trident!
  12. For those keeping score at home, the Epoch Times has a decent summary. They have a right-leaning bias for sure, but they also have done a decent job of keeping up with the status of the various lawsuits and other legal actions. https://www.theepochtimes.com/election-2020
  13. Putting out a lot of smoke, noise, and bombast via Twitter, and then subsequently walking it back is kinda Trump 101. Early on, it did seem like there were a lot of legitimate questions about the election. Indeed, most of those have not stood up to any level of scrutiny. I anticipate Trump and his team will continue to push back until the Electoral College formally casts their ballots on 14 Dec. There is some precedent after all; Bush v Gore wasn't decided until 12 Dec. Assuming there isn't some kind of last minute "Hollywood-style reveal" of damning evidence in the next four weeks, I assume Trump and his team will start executing a more or less orderly exit after the Electoral College casts their vote. I'm sure there will be all kinds of media speculation about Trump refusing to leave, which will all turn out to be false. As much as Trump gets vilified, I sincerely doubt he'll barricade himself inside the Oval Office as some seem to think. I would have liked to see someone in power use this moment to advocate for a more confidence-inspiring federal election process. Would have loved to see Joe Biden stand up the morning of 4 November and state his full support for Trump utilizing all legal means to verify a fair election. Alas, that didn't happen. We have such a vast array of technology and wealth at our disposal, and yet we continue to look like a banana republic when the elections end up being close. Would love to see something change. Instead though, the memories of the 2020 election will start to fade, and we'll do it all over again another 4/8/12 years down the road.
  14. I love this article. "To be clear, we're not going to have quotas. Instead, we're going to...........................have quotas."
  15. Thought this was an interesting read on Arizona's shift from Red to Blue... https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/jodv7y/with_senate_win_mark_kelly_becomes_4th_astronaut/gb7u03m?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
  16. How? Get rid of the tremendous amounts of Dark Money that really drives what politicians do. A worthy diatribe from Reddit just a couple hours ago below. Awful long, but I felt like it was worth the read. https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ivlkl2/obama_calls_on_senate_not_to_fill_ginsburgs/g5t1vlj?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
  17. Mx Squadron culture and morale is a perennial topic on https://www.reddit.com/r/AirForce/ Toxic NCOs seems to be one of the more common threads, as opposed to O's.
  18. Timely question for me, as this as recently become a hot topic of discussion on the homefront. Stumbled upon this in Quora of all places, which I think captures what a lot of folks think. Not all encompassing by any means, but you get the idea.
  19. Not so much a defeatist. I'd say it's better described as cynicism, brought on by seeing all of the previous "attempts" to fix acquisition. Stract, can you give some examples of things Roper has done to make things better (honest question - not trying to be a smartass)? I've googled around, but didn't see anything concrete. I saw his bio as well. Props to him for rising to that position at just 41 years old, but his resume seems light for the caliber of the position.
  20. Sigh. He's about two and a half years into his tenure as the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. This is a position where folks historically have spent anywhere from 1-3 years. And he wants to completely up-end how we buy fighter jets? At a base level, his reasoning is sound. The reduction in players in the defense business is a bad deal for the services and the American taxpayer. But the resultant "winner-take-all" production contracts are a great deal for the defense companies. So, I'm sure Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop and the like are nodding politely at everything Mr Roper says, and will send a nice card thanking him for his service when he departs his position 6-9 months from now.
  21. I'm not as up-to-speed on these issues as many of you, however isn't drewpey right? The Supreme Court more or less told the Trump administration to "go back and try again?"
  22. Even though no one really asked, Air Force leadership took it upon themselves to make their statements. They could have seized this opportunity to emphasize the fact that the US Military has a long track record of being one of the most inclusive institutions in the country. They could have highlighted how the military will take people of all races, mix them in a unit together, and make them work together to accomplish a goal. They could have emphasized how the military demolishes any perceived barriers based on race. Instead, Air Force leadership chose to just jump on the victim bandwagon. They'll be all kinds of thrash, PR, and probably a CBT or two. And then it will all dissolve as soon as the next crisis pops up.
  23. So, the Air Force is jumping on the latest Social Justice Warrior nonsense. This should be surprising to no one who's spent more than a year in uniform.
  24. I believe that's referred to as a "false dilemma," or more accurately, a "false choice." In other words, "a deliberate attempt to eliminate several options that may occupy the middle ground on an issue." I'm certainly no expert, but you can't tell me with a straight face that the United States Air Force, with it's ~$160 Billion yearly budget, had no other option than choosing between retiring the A-10 and the Personnel Hunger Games.
  25. Currently retired and (unsurprisingly) working for Lockheed.
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