nsplayr

It becomes an either/or when it comes to cost versus capability. What are we getting from these sites in Europe and is it worth the costs both monetarily and politically? It doesn't make sense to me how these sites protect us or Europe from hypothetical Iranian missiles but it does make sense that we put them in place as a reminder to Russia what we've got our eyes on them. For that purpose, I think the cost is too high and am fine with spending that money to build a system that actually is capable of defending our forward bases from Iranian missiles. The locations aren't about Iranian sites since they are WELL outside the threat rings of current or near-future Iranian missiles. If Iran rolls up with nuclear-tipped ICMBs, then yes, the sites might be able to defense some areas of US interest, but Russia already has these capabilities and we've successfully deterred them through MADD and IMHO the sites were put in place just to piss off Russia and to play hardball with them re: other priorities. The much more likely scenario is Iran would hit Israel and/or our troops in the Gulf/Iraq/Afghanistan, in which case these missile sites will accomplish exactly jack squat.

Folding wing wouldn't fit in with the point of light-attack...i.e. using them for a time, training up partner nation to use them, leaving them with the plane to fight their own internal conflicts so we can rehack and do it again somewhere else. This plane needs to be as uncomplicated as possible IMHO and the ass pain of ferrying them to overseas locations (can we say 10-day tour across the world?) is less then the ass pain of teaching a foreign mechanic how to service a crazy folding-wing contraption. Like the idea of having a airborne carrier that launches fighters...that would rule.

Did you read your own article? And then... This whole controversy is about Russia, not so much Iran. The previous administration said the stations were to defend against Iran, which to me is BS because of where they are located (i.e. far from Iran and close to Russia). To me it was always an excuse to place missile defenses in order to curb future Russian threats and we just used Iran as a cover story. Iranian missiles are important but defending against them from Poland makes no sense when there's so many juicy American/Israeli targets that Iran would likely strike first before they started hitting northern Europe...

That is outstanding!

Aaaaand...time for bed

lolz. Kanye is a douche but I like his first 3 albums (i.e. not counting 808s & Heartbreaks); don't lie, if you like rap you generally like those albums. Props to Beyonce for making the tittie-shake a legit dance move again. Props to Taylor for being overall nice, sweet, talented, smoking hot, and for being a pretty good rapper. And a big to old crow for the almost-nip picture. I know you're not supposed to test God, but Lord, if somehow you can allow a picture of her nipples to get leaked out, I promise I will go to church every day and twice on Sundays!

Unfortunately yes. I was a junior in high school and sitting in a boring business management class. A teacher who was friends with mine came into our class and told her to turn on the TV. At that point the attack had already been going on for a little while, so we all saw the initial coverage of both towers burning and were wondering WTF had happened b/c it was the first news we had heard and thought maybe both towers got hit at once. Once we heard that the Pentagon got hit as well there was an announcement that all teachers were to turn off all TVs in the building because a ton of students had parents who worked at the Pentagon. I remember several people just up and leaving because they knew their moms or dads had been in the building at the time and they wanted to rush home and try to call them. Meanwhile the rest of us who stayed in school missed the live coverage all day until school got out. One of my best friends' father had his office completely destroyed and he most likely would have died had he been at work. Luckily he was on terminal leave before retiring from the Marine Corps a few weeks later and was at home smoking a cigar and reading the newspaper. to those guys who were jumping in jets on that fateful day while I was still a kid in school

Dude, this was the craziest thing I've ever seen in a lifetime of watching tennis. Serena is usually cool on the court but she completely flipped her sh*t on that linesman. I would probably crap my pants if she was coming after me like that b/c she's built like a freaking amazon warrior crossed with a sequoia tree.

Not a new story...it's either a good or bad move depending on whether or not you believe some people fighting against us are either persuadable/misguided/non-true believers or not. I'd hesitate to call the program successful so far though...it's a fine line between actual rehabilitation and letting people off easy.

This thing looks ridiculous and very prototype-y. Good luck bringing it to market anytime soon...it's cool on paper though.

I think that would be a nice little advantage of a camo two-piece flight suit. Wearing a two-piece in say multicam would A) not be as hot and B) help you hide if you got shot down.* Not that I plan on getting shot down but I don't think anyone plans on that... * Don't get me wrong, I love my pajamas and the 1-piece is comfortable as hell and obviously necessary for ejector types

Looks like he is trying to become a Senator from Texas...yea, good luck with that Campaign Website p.s. - He was born in Brooklyn...reminds me of that Pace salsa commercial; "New York City?!?" Get a rope!

Redheads need love too. She used to be so hot before she did all that coke...

You're welcome and "12" on your hotness gyros being out to lunch. Redheads can be smokin' and if you haven't met a good one you should make that a priority in life.

Sh*t happens I guess. It's a big country and they haven't exactly maintained their technology to the utmost in recent years. Plus there are still a lot of areas that would love to break away from Moscow.

Quick question, are contacts a go for deployed locations? I don't know why they wouldn't be but since I'm a rookie I didn't know for sure. Only flew with my actual glasses once and it was my civilian-looking ones issued by the AF. I'm guessing those would meet the requirements of the reg w/o looking ridiculous since they were provided directly by the military eye doc.

Kinda veering off course here but I couldn't resist... WOW being in ACC must be something else. All that sounds like fun but honestly I don't think it's gonna help out the snacko on question. Here's a snapshot of how all that would go down in my squadron: Roll Call: Ineffective because 1/2 the squadron is deployed at any given time and there are dudes that have been in the squadron over a year and don't know each other because of opposite rotations. Conformity Check: Well we don't have friday shirts and most dudes don't have callsigns, so that's not really gonna work Hail & Farewell: Hails would overwhelm the meeting and take 69 minutes to process all the new dudes that are getting crammed down the pipeline right now (sts) Anyways, my point in all of this is that the snacko in question seems to have a squadron more like mine than like yours. Good on the dudes who can hold regular roll calls like the one described, but for dudes in squadrons where this type of thing isn't possible, I think the suggestions about Friday lunch preparation are a winner. I also liked when we sold bottled from a single barrel (apparently thing thing can be ordered special for your squadron...idk details b/c I'm not the snacko). We don't sell them for profit really but you could and the popularity would probably still be high (b/c who doesn't like "special" booze?)

I can say just from the school standpoint taking Arabic hurt my GPA and I didn't really learn much from traditional classroom learning. That's not how languages are naturally learned and I had trouble with such a difficult language in that setting. Kinda wished I had taken something else and ended up with a better GPA. I'm not a pilot or in the Guard but I'm gonna guess they're not gonna care unless you're fluent and even if you were it might not really matter. My advice: major/minor in what you're interested in and think you'll do well at and then get a hold of Rosetta Stone later on.

Love the DS9 shout-out pawnman. Back to my nerd cave...

Noted...good to know if/when we try to rent one day.

Just bought in FL and USAA's rates were almost the best I found, but I ended up getting a better deal from a local lender. And as far as insurance goes, I will have USAA homeowner's insurance out by Herbie, so not sure what you're talking about UCF...I know I heard they won't insure homes of a certain age but we're buying a 2003 and it wasn't a problem.

Looks nice. I've heard the 2-piece is money for hot-wx ops. Any thoughts on the culture shift of USAF aircrew one day not wearing the bag and looking just like everyone else?

Looking forward to seeing these out there, glad there's 2 seats, wish they were in AFSOC.

Yes, I'm sure we have no idea about the 69 CBTs, yearly SARC briefs, and TIB-appreciation briefings we're required to box-check in order to do our jobs... Yea, let me know how that works out...ya know why we go to these shops complaining? B/C 95% of the time the people who work there are too f*cking incompetent to do their jobs right the first time. Some support people are great, but you sir are not among them and you give them all a bad name. You are The Shoe Clerk with capital letters. Ya know what is a great teamwork exercise...FIGHTING A GOD DAMN WAR! Maybe if we had more people fighting the war and less people sitting back at CONUS planning team-building TIB exercises some of us wouldn't be on 1-1 dwell with double digit trips to the AOR since 2001. And this isn't even me personally, I'm some FNG lieutenant and I'm this pissed off in place of some of the guys I know who are out there doing the work and don't have time to troll BO.net all day getting butt-hurt. I hope some crusty old gunner puts you in your place one day when he comes to you looking for a little help with a FUBAR travel voucher...

Not sure when it happened exactly but to me it was kind of a queepy-linguistic change. A UAV is a vehicle, like something operated by a human being. UAS includes "system" which encompasses the satellite link that makes communication possible, the intel systems that are strapped on board, the "system" of shoe clerks who now feel part of the fight, etc. We fight in a "system of systems" and someone got another star by inventing another system out of what used to be a vehicle.