pawnman

I remember reading an opinion piece a while back, prior to the Egypt protests. The thrust was that, in this area of the world, the US is in a tough spot. We have authoritarian governments who are at least notionally friendly to our interests...but we also support democracy. And the fear for a long time has been that one of these countries, with the huge influence that Islam has on the culture, will elect religious leadership. Perhaps even radical Islamic leadership. Which is not friendly to US interests. Do I personally believe that is what's happening in Egypt? I don't know. I'm not a foreign policy expert. I do wonder, though, between Egypt and Tunisia, is this just the start of something that will sweep across Northern Africa and the gulf? The Saudis are already saying the protesters in Egypt are plants to undermine the faith in the Saudi government. Probably about as believable as Israel dumping sharks in Egypt's tourist hot spots, but it does speak to the fear other governments in the region have. The protests are already destabilizing the regional economy...Saudi's stock exchange has dropped more than 6% since the protests started. It'll be interesting to watch it play out. Hopefully it can get resolved without too much additional violence.

I understood it as "I have your name and the name of your unit, I (or my commander)will call your commander when I'm done here and tell him you were late/rude."

So, now that we have a deployment-specific uniform, what's the over-under on the date when starching your ABUs becomes mandatory like it was for BDUs?

Just like us, eh?

Eh. I've known for a while now we've deployed far too many people, who have no useful function in theater (or in the Air Force, but that's a separate thread), who are deployed for the sole purpose of being deployed. Guess you can't make TSgt without the "GWOT"...excuse me, "OCO" ribbon nestled between your good conduct medal and longevity ribbon.

Three weeks into tour 2, and it seems to have died down. Although I have gotten about six emails from leadership on various levels stressing OPSEC to ridiculous levels...to included trying to prevent the wives from telling anyone their husband is deployed, and alot of the "Undisclosed Location" BS. Just sayin', if it were really undisclosed, we probably wouldn't be selling T-shirts and coffee mugs with the name of the base plastered all over them.

Nicely done, Steve. You cool fucker.

http://www.geekologie.com/2011/01/knokkers_like_pool_but_with_bo.php Pool + bowling = awesome.

Day or night? Wow, even the Deid isn't that bad.

I tried to leave a message for this DD, but I got an error message. I don't care enough to keep trying. I wonder if they haven't disabled comments, seeing as none have been posted.

F-you, England!

There's a new one. Including queep about powerpoint slides at 3:05.

Despite what AF REMFs think. They forcibly ejected a Marine from the chow hall at AUAB for not having one.

Anyone know where I can find tiger-striped reflective belts? I looked on the BeReflective website (the guy who makes black, skull, and ammo, among his other reflective belts) but I didn't see one one there.

Where's Rainman when you need him?

If your approach to Force Protection is to make sure my T-shirt stays tucked in on the track, then you are not the person I want protecting the force.

I certainly feel for the MX guys trying to fix the jets. What does anger me is how often we don't have an aircraft or a spare, and the next day maintenance wants to add a line "because this jet needs to fly/this system needs an in-flight ops check/etc.". It especially bothers me when MX wants to add a line on a scheduled no-fly day (happens around jet-swap time to the AOR ALOT).

Even better than the shake-weight.

They go out there, get indoctrinated, and bring it back here. It's just taken this long for the shoe clerks to all rotate through during their AEF cycles.

We've proven that safety considerations include well-lit areas inaccessible to vehicles...I think indoors is just an extension of that policy.

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123236029 New revisions to the test...really, just some clarifications (you don't have to lock out your elbows for a pushup to count). The last bullet was the one I found interesting...no more patches for 90+ scores.

The news is reporting that he executed at least one go-around...I wonder if the icing got too bad to make the runway on the second try.

Rigfoot will be missed by all of us. He was in my squadron, and he was the model of what you want in a young copilot. Excellent flying skills, smart, and eager. No matter how crappy the job, Rigfoot was happy and enthusiastic to be a part of anything that would help the squadron. His loss is truly a loss the squadron, and the Air Force at large.

Your main problem in putting up a UAV as an air superiority fighter against a peer/near-peer is the link itself. Unless we give these things a very solid decision making program, they're going to be vulnerable to attack on the link between the ground station and the aircraft.

Also, Megamind. I was laughing the whole time.