ViperMan

Dudes, whether or not it "filters" COVID out of your breath is not the point - of course it doesn't. What masks do accomplish is reducing the "energy" of your breath, thereby minimizing the size of the cloud and the distance it travels. That is why it's more difficult to breathe through, and that is the point - to minimize the spread. It takes more than one individual virus to infect you, so the less exposure you have, the less chance you have of contracting the disease and spreading it yourself. Point being: masks are accomplishing their stated goal.

RE: education One thing we need to do if we really are concerned about the rise in education costs is ask ourselves why the cost of education has gone up. It's all well and good to lament the cost of higher ed and just throw more money at the problem - which is exactly what student debt "forgiveness" (transfer) is, in actuality. The solution is likely counter-intuitive, though, and IMO this means eliminating all (yes, ALL) student loans from the federal government. I get that this is a problem affecting a generation, but if we are going to solve this problem, let's solve it permanently, and avoid going around the merry-go-round for another lap. There is good evidence that the student loan program which has swelled from $3B in 1970 to over $160B in 2017 (https://www.mercatus.org/publications/education-policy/reevaluating-effects-federal-financing-higher-education) is driving up the cost of college - it just makes sense, right? I mean, if you're an institution of higher learning, what incentive do you have to not raise the price when there is effectively and unlimited stream of money to tap into? Other studies have determined that for every $1.00 subsidy (in student loans) the price of college rises between $0.58 and $0.78 - not much bang for our tax buck (https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2017/02/22/how-unlimited-student-loans-drive-up-tuition/). My compromise? Fine, let's all "forgive" student debt, but any discussion along those lines needs to come with an admission that the student loan program has unequivocally failed, having had the opposite effect from its stated goal, and hence will be permanently scuttled.

Nah bro. All I said was state welfare for NK wasn't the only way forward. I guess that was against your orthodoxy. For the record, I thought going into AFG - in the way we did - was a mistake in '01. And for the record, I thought going into Iraq (in '03) was also a mistake. That's where I'm coming from. Now, I'm gonna go hang out in a thread that has reading comprehension. Peace.

No. I do not consider her center. She is extreme left.

Ehhhh, so party "A" makes a LOT of money, and that means party "B" needs to transfer some of their money to party "C"??? mmmmmmkay. Copy timeout. Pk miss. Leave previous point red. Play.

Well it is, though, actually... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/climate/green-new-deal-questions-answers.html https://www.npr.org/2019/02/07/691997301/rep-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-releases-green-new-deal-outline This effort has the support of many "center" democrats such as Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren, Mazie Hirono, Ron Wyden, Richard Blumenthal, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Tom Udall, etc. Of course the reality is that group is actually extreme, though few in the mainstream democratic party would place those individuals into the SJW twitter mob...or would they? https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/policy-2020/education/free-college-tuition-four-year/ Plenty of other "mainstream" democrats support the notion of "free" public college. https://www.vox.com/2019/4/22/18509196/elizabeth-warren-debt-free-college Liz Warren wants to give this subsidy to those making between 100-250K/yr...seriously? Forgive me, but this is what passes as "mainstream" now-a-days, so the push back from the right is completely understandable. Even the language that is used around these topics is deceiving. They call it debt "cancellation" when it reality it is more accurately classified as transfer.

The first time I read your response I thought you were replying to someone else - the amount of straw in your response is unreal. It actually made me re-read my post to see if I somehow wandered way off reservation. You completely avoided the point I was making, that is: the way forward with NK isn't exclusively dependent on "welfare" from their betters. The rest of what you responded to is in your head - none of it came from my mouth. NK doesn't have natural resources. Cool. Neither does SK. How is SK so successful? East Germany still has slums from the Soviet era? Cool. Los Angeles still has slums from the democrat era. Are we just gonna throw the towel in with LA? Point being, you brought up a lot of things that had no bearing on the point I was making, but I'm sure it was fun chaffing the lane.

The Rock?

I suppose I basically agree with you, if the only way forward for NK was welfare... Another perspective, though, is that there are companies that are DYING to invest money into NK because what it actually represents is massive, latent economic output which is currently handicapped because of its government...never mind the hundreds of thousands of SKs that have relatives in NK they'd like to reunite with. While it would take "trillions" to repair it, I think the ROI would be positive. Take a look at SK for two seconds...what makes them so different? Nothing. 0. Currently, we're "investing" much more in Africa, which has two things: far more potential, and far, far more cost to getting up to the modern world...yet no one scoffs. NK is NOT far behind what East Germany was post war - they are a nation that currently has the ability to produce nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, yet most of the population lives off of rotten cabbage and a little tiny rice bowl three times a week. They have every bit of potential to be as productive as SK given the opportunity. A lot of trade and "economics" already happens between the two states. Their problem is 100% political. The problem isn't how much it would "cost" - the problem is letting a festering wound continue to fester. Worrying about a 1.2 trillion dollar "hole" misidentifies the root cause. Here's an article calling Corona a $16 trillion dollar event (https://edhub.ama-assn.org/jn-learning/video-player/18553761#:~:text=The costs of the coronavirus,costs%3A the %2416 trillion virus.). Do you really think Corona is going to end the world...really?.. REALLY? Get some perspective. 20% of all money has been "created" in the last year (https://moguldom.com/310861/strategist-almost-20-percent-of-all-u-s-dollars-were-created-in-2020-alone/). Worrying about cost is cute, but that position has to ignore the broader context. What is the cost of continued conflict in that region for the next 350 years? Hint: far more than 1.2 trillion.

IMO, the condition is a population that knows something about the greater world (Iran) that you can apply indirect pressure against. That's why a strategy like that would work. As far as NK, they don't have a populace that knows much about the outside, so there's no real hope that change can arise internally.

100% in agreement. I say we continue with our current plan...it seems to be working.

I recommend writing a strongly worded letter to them.

Do you think she will?

Soooooo...war or war. Ok. We're not threatening them with destruction - we're giving them a choice between pursuing a policy that will result in them possessing something that will result in their upending, or not doing that thing and continuing with the status quo. Right now, they don't possess nuclear weapons, and we're NOT overthrowing them. So the idea that they have a legitimate right to pursue nukes in order for their own security is a non-starter. NK doesn't give one F about the US - it's a performance. It's a show. We are their boogeyman so they have something to justify their poor existence. 0 reason they actually want to use nukes on us or SK. Iran views Israel as illegitimate and has made statements to the effect that they should be destroyed. That, combined with a desire to use non-conventional means to implement their policy, puts them into a category altogether different from NK - it makes them an actual threat. Like it or not, we are the world's police, and the world order is dependent on us - right or wrong, that gives us the responsibility to ensure suitcase nukes don't blow up in Jerusalem. If that pisses off some al-whoevers, IDGAF.

Nah. The best deal is a simple and clear foreign policy that states "You can't have nuclear weapons. And if you build them, we'll take them away from you and destroy your government."

I guess I just felt like making a point as irrelevant as yours.

That's true, and it's BS. Businesses should be enforcing the mandates in order to minimize the potential for spread. And I have zero toleration for the "F you, I'm good" crowd. That said, those people are a fact of life and it's impossible to avoid them. I'm more irritated by the larger political context that is screaming that the sky is falling and what I consider a fairly immature response across the board.

Yes, it is virus theater - we either don't know exactly what to do, or we do know exactly what to do but it's so hard that we can't do it. Instead we all collectively play make-believe that wearing a mask while you transit a restaurant is doing something will have an effect. It won't, and newsflash - it isn't. COVID is raging right now and I literally do not see anyone not wearing a mask while I'm out. I've eaten in restaurants weekly since COVID began - no issue. That's not to say I don't take it seriously or that I don't think we should wear masks, but to say there is no "theatrical" component to this whole thing is to be denying reality.

I wonder if the Third Reich would have been successful if the internet existed back then. 🤔

False choice. The threat is anytime your perception doesn't match or correspond with reality.

If incognito doesn't work, disable javascript - there's a chrome extension. Works like a charm on NYT. $0 spent.

I was mostly referring to the displacement of basic job competency and it's replacement with "leadership" that has occurred throughout all levels of our society - including the Air Force. Good leaders can be many different things - one thing they ALL must be is extremely competent in their basic job responsibilities. I think there are valid complaints throughout the AF that such a reversal of priorities has taken place. I fully support the notion that EQ and people matter and agree that there is a mindset of "hacking the mish is all that matters" is sometimes used to disparage all the "queep" that exists in the AF. Some of that is justified, but it is usually used to justify laziness or neglecting other important shit. That doesn't mean leadership is more important than basic job ability. Cynical? Myopic? Ok. Sure. Do you have a counter argument? Or are Clark Griswold quotes valid for kills in this debrief now? My test for racism is swapping some of the variables and seeing what it looks like. Donald Trump saying he's only going to hire straight, white males is the same thing as Joe Biden saying he's going to only hire a woman of "color." One of those gets a pass (nay, applause) - one most certainly doesn't. Undergirding both of those different (but same) statements is the tacit argument that those immutable characteristics provide value in a place where the other person cannot. i.e. it values man over woman, or white over black, or woman over black, or black over white. No one I know is comfortable making that argument. If they're put to the task, some sort of hand-waving like "representation" comes out, but that just shifts the racism to who's being represented...we keep it treetop, but at the end of the day, it's racism. Frankly, none of this (IMO) should even require defense or justification - it should be common ground we all can agree on. California is an example of a democrat monolith that is completely out of control and is trying to do absolutely ridiculous things. I don't live there, either. I just worry about what might come out of there. Wasn't asking you to care about CA, I brought it up to help you see "my" bigger picture and where I'm coming from re: the democrat establishment. To bring it back to the original point, again, I'm much more worried about an empowered democrat establishment that has the entire corporate media complex carrying water for them, as opposed to one singular personality, such as Trump or Obama.

Thanks for the response. First, my broader point is that making an argument about Trump being an outlier, bad-(leader/executive/whatever), or otherwise for firing people isn't a good point. The man fires a lot of people, has fired a lot of people in the past, and will probably fire a lot of people in the future. We knew this before he was president and now we feign surprise? Or use it to make some meta-point about him being X? I just don't think arguments that ignore the context of who someone is really get anywhere - that's what I was trying to get at. Honestly, I have been basically pretty neutral about ALL the presidents I have served under and if I'm being honest, haven't seen that big of a difference between Bush, Obama, and now Trump. My day-to-day has been fairly consistent and IMO not tied to who was in the white house. What I don't like is the hyper focus on personalities that we (meaning smart officers) are exhibiting throughout this tumultuous time. If I could go back four years and examine my opinion about what the impending Trump presidency would have looked like, I would have proved myself 100% correct - which is to say he didn't change all that much. The political and media apparatus was fully united against him and invested in a useless presidency. And low and behold, that's more or less what we've had. So all that is to say I don't worry too much about any one individual, as much as we like to pin the tail on the donkey, some of these problems require more that one person to address. That said, I am extremely concerned about what I see taking place within the democrat party. To your point about leadership, fine, I guess, but I've never been one to drink the AF's koolaid that leadership is a magical panacea for each, every, and all problem. That's a meme, and one that I think infects a lot of peoples' mindset in the AF. What we're missing most, IMO, is job competence and accountability. Are those functions of leadership? I suppose depending on your frame, more or less so. But when we call literally everything a leadership problem, we lose focus on how to solve problems because everything becomes the proverbial nail. Re: MX officers being better able to lead the USAF. This argument is the literal manifestation of "my dick is bigger than yours so I should be in charge." God bless our MX leadership - lord knows I don't want to do it. That said, the size of the organization they've "led" doesn't lead to them knowing the first thing about winning an air war or leading an air campaign. Nope. That's why they're not in charge of the Air Force and also why they should never be in charge of the Air Force. It's also why the type of leadership (or skillset, perhaps) disparaged above is exactly what's required - because it's serves the greater, fundamental purpose of our organization. No matter how many 0700 meetings some O-5/6 spends going over the blotter, they won't ever have the experience garnered only from Red/Green Flag, combat, pilot training, etc. They work a critical piece of the USAF, but it still only serves a supporting role. Finally, about DT's racism. Fine - he's extremely crass and says shitty things. But consider, if you will, that Joe Biden chose a running mate based on two primary factors: a v_gina and dark skin. Which of those (or both) qualifies you to lead the free world? Maybe it wasn't either. Maybe it was her ability to garner peak support of 15%? Maybe it was her ability to drop out of the race when she was teetering at about %1? The point is that the democrats are literally choosing their leadership based on what flavor of ice cream you are - it's not about any ability - let's not kid ourselves. That is racism - any which way you slice it. And it's particularly dangerous because it's "acceptable" - it's disguised. It is all done in order to create the facade of a "diverse coalition" in order to implement whatever bullshit they know they wouldn't be able to get done with white guys at the helm. Their "diversity" is a tool. Consider, if you will, California's most recent attempt to instantiate a racist policy into law (https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/prop-16-failed-in-california) - thankfully it failed. Consider the numerous other examples from the democrat party wherein they are attempting to do wildly Un-American things (i.e. blanket student debt forgiveness). So while DT may be an incompetent, racist, homophobe and everybody knows it - look at what the "woke" democrat party is trying to do - and they have the media on their side. That worries me a lot more than one Obama or one Trump. Hence, my disillusionment with the hyper-focus one individual.

Shoot, I meant to make my post about the guy being a big deal in another thread - my bad. Also, you forgot to mention he was a community organizer, too. Which, also, makes him a big deal. That is amazing - but we were talking about executive-level decision-making. This is basically the exact corollary to Obama (i.e one who "checks all the boxes" sts) - are you saying the Obamas in the MAF are where they should be?

To be clearer though, you are surprised that a president who was previously a reality TV show host who's tagline was "you're fired" is firing people at an ABOVE AVERAGE rate? You find that surprising? I'm surprised with your surprise. Comparing Trump (who has been an executive for decades) with Obama (who had never been an executive) is not a valid comparison. WTF had Obama led before he became the leader of the free world? Seriously?