Pooter

Agreed. The craziest part to me is that PC guidance from above isn't new and it certainly isn't a difficult thing to work around. You just have to think creatively, and be straightforward with your squadron. "I'll have your back if you have mine" kind of thing. Hell, you can still have names that are acronyms for offensive things and then just create a PC cover story for them. This shouldn't be hard.

That pisses me off more than anything because you know gen rand was around back in the heyday when you could get away with anything. But now that he's old and the one who has to provide top cover he's not into it anymore.

Fisker had a lot more problems than a simple bankruptcy. See this video for more details:

There is no world in which fighter pilot callsigns will be run by the EO office. It's hilarious that this dumbass of a squadron commander thinks that would ever be a thing that anyone would agree to. I would 110% prefer to not have an official callsign than to do this dickdance and I know every single other pilot in the entire CAF feels the exact same way. The predictable result of this is that squadrons are just going to have secret roll calls and namings off base with no bobs invited. Those will be twice as rowdy and irresponsible as if they just let us have our fun in the bar. If I was the mayor during this train wreck I would, in order: -resign -cancel all future rolls calls and namings -tell everyone in the squadron to stop wearing their callsign name tags -and then I'd coordinate on the bro level to throw the biggest effing offensive secret naming rager of all time.

I agree. I can really only think of two reasons not to buy a Tesla over similarly priced competition: 1. You are going to use it as more than just a commuter car and live in a place where the charging infrastructure isn't full up yet. 2. You are an enthusiast and want a drivers car. But for pretty much any other situation the Tesla is going to be the superior choice. When you consider cost of ownership, performance, features, practicality, and continuing improvements in the form of over the air updates Tesla simply blows everyone else out of the water.

Shack. This isn't an us vs. them debate because the situations aren't even remotely the same. I lived in Del Rio for five years and saw probably three snow flurries in that time. 6 inches of snow and a week of single digit deep freeze is absolutely unthinkable for most of the state. Meanwhile, California's power grid shits the bed most summers due to completely standard hot weather. If there were routine rolling blackouts in Texas in the summer, the situations would be analogous, but that isn't a thing. I'd love to see what would happen to LA if they got six inches of snow.. likely hundreds if not thousands of deaths, complete grid failure, and almost certainly a few decades worth of shitty climate change documentaries.

Yeah but the question is how much internal resistance and manufacturing complexity the power company is willing to take on to mitigate a once in a decade storm. My bet is not much. They'll apologize and give a few superficial refunds and the same shit will happen 10 years from now. The key with renewables is the energy storage technologies need to be seriously improved. This will help not only catastrophic snowstorm recovery, but also routine power demand at peak hours if it happens to not be all that sunny or windy.

There's an enormous false equivalence here. The "race riots" were an organic reaction of the populace to a thing that actually happened.. the brutal killing of George Floyd by police.. caught completely on video. The capitol riot was incited by the sitting president of the United States spreading blatant falsehoods about a fair election because his own ego couldn't handle the fact that he lost. And even though the number of people who stormed the capitol is very small in the grand scheme of things, the scariest part of this is that ~40% of republicans believe the same narrative that motivated those rioters. If you don't understand how the latter is far more dangerous to our country than the former, we don't have a lot left to talk about.

You don't think having an armed mob storm the capitol to interfere with the certification of a democratic election counts as "falling over the edge?" Something tells me if it was antifa who did it, you would.

Sorry guys but this isn't really up for debate. Trump will go down as one of if not the worst president in US history. The longer you deny that or make mealy-mouthed statements about how his SC picks were pretty good or how he didn't actively start a new war, the longer you will look like an ignorant fool. Send me your address and I'll ship you 15 more punisher/Molon labe stickers for the back window of your sweet truck. The best parts of trumps presidency were when he stuck perfectly to a script or when he did absolutely nothing. Anything he actively involved himself in went to shit almost immediately.. including but not limited to: the border wall, immigration in general, covid, saudis murdering a journalist, not being a sexual predator and hanging out with them, the election, Iran, literally anything having to do with the climate, literally anything having to do with race, his own family business, nepotism, any public speaking event ever, his own taxes, public health guidance, respecting people in the military, being tethered to reality etc.. etc.. etc... He got three Supreme Court picks.. wow amazing. Now tell me, is that more luck and timing and having a Congress that green-lit them for you or is that just trumps brilliance? I bet it was the former because his own SC picks didn't seem to think he was too brilliant when he brought them nonsensical election fraud allegations. I would never argue with you over the fact that most politicians are phony and will lie to get ahead. But there's only one politician in my life and in my parents life and in my grandparents life who denied fair election results right up until the moment his followers invaded the capitol, killed people, and endangered our elected officials who were actively working to certify that election. It literally took the entire world standing still, looking at America, and wondering, "are they about to implode in a civil war" for this damaged egomaniac to back down. I'm 1000000% with @Homestar on this one. Trump was bad on a different level. If one good thing came out of his presidency, it's that his treasonous antics separated the principled conservatives from the droves of bandwagoning celeb-obsessed trash, and maybe that will allow a healthier conservative movement to happen in the future.

The really crazy thing is that basic levels of organizational accountability are now originating from Reddit forums and Instagram meme pages. B-2 pilots on tik tok, a mortuary affairs patch with flankers on it, a cmsaf who doesn't understand her job or basic personal accountability.. These are all things that were started by and are in the process of being fixed by anonymous internet jokesters. It's certainly not the system we deserve but it's the system we need right now, and goddamn if these train wrecks aren't a treat to watch.

Yeah totally different from the last generation who confused the generation before theirs with newfangled social media nonsense too.. definitely way different...

I would think it depends wildly on the airframe. I have familiarity in the upt and bomber world. In UPT squadrons, commanders get tagged for 89 rides virtually non-stop so this forces them to fly a decent amount. Additionally they're usually an evaluator and do a lot of the IP form 8s. In the bomber world sq/ccs are usually high time guys (often patches) with most of the LOX checked off. So they fly a lot simply by virtue of their numerous quals. The biggest flying time drop offs I see is when people move to the OSS or up to the group/wing. Other communities are probably different though.

It's almost like the demographics lining up for the shot are precisely the demographics it's currently being offered to...

Copy. Extremely selfish. Hate to break it to you but wearing a mask and getting a shot to hold a pandemic at bay are not violations of your personal rights. They're basic acts of human decency that you can easily do to protect your fellow countrymen. But if caring about the welfare of other people isn't really your thing I'll appeal to the selfishness side: doing both of those things is the fastest way to get to go back to normal so your hypothetical business can flourish. Maybe the 'make America great again' crowd could take a page out of the greatest generation's book and realize that cooperating to protect your fellow Americans isn't the gubment trying to take your rights. It's just the decent thing to do. and not sure why you keep bringing up lockdowns. I too think they're mostly retarded, but it's entirely unrelated to what we're talking about. Masking and vaccines have science, common sense, and history all backing them up.

Only slightly more than half of all eligible adults vote too. So I'm not sure what your argument is here.. because half of Americans are ignorant/lazy pos's we shouldn't get vaccinated? Also you can bet the take rate for the covid vaccine is going to be much much higher than your average flu shot. So as a "reflection of the populace" we should probably get it.

Jesus h Christ how many times does this need to be explained here. Getting a vaccine isn't just about protecting yourself. I'm glad you're in a low risk demographic. Hooray for you. Your risk is probably comparable to the flu or possibly even lower for certain age groups. But getting the vaccine isn't all about you. There are people out there who for one reason or another can't get vaccines. Maybe it's an access problem or maybe they have a medical condition that prevents it. When you get vaccinated you not only protect yourself but you also bring us one step closer to herd immunity.. protecting other people too. The fact that you're ignoring this part tells me you're either extremely selfish or being deliberately obtuse.

Yes.. I know that. Which is why I brought up another vaccine for a very similar virus, which is mandatory, and somehow no one loses their minds over that.

..comparable to the flu. And transmission rates are far far higher than the flu. Which is why this has been significantly deadlier in terms of total numbers. The military requires you to be vaccinated for every year and no one has a conniption, so what exactly is the issue here.

The free market is amazing (for businesses I personally agree with.) For example: I fully support businesses' constitutional right to not bake gay wedding cakes or refuse service to certain minorities. But the idea a business could deny internet service to a seditious mob actively inciting violence is simply a bridge too far.

One of the dumbest side effects of this ordeal is that the California covid shitstorm currently happening is going to be completely swept under the rug. It would be nice if blue states with insane lockdown rules had to answer the mail when they spike just as bad or worse than the evil Floridas of the world. But I guess trump and the far right taking a steaming dump in the halls of the capitol kind of overshadows that.

Yeah but if he had an actual press conference he might have to answer super duper unfair questions from the lame stream media. Questions like: why did you incite an insurrection? why do you continue to deny the results of an election virtually all republicans acknowledge was legitimate? why did you try to pressure the Vice President into doing something he has no constitutional power to do? I suspect this is why you're seeing mainly pre-recorded messages from the president at this point. Yet, somehow he manages to botch those too.

Go watch "the dissident" right now. Documentary made by the guy who made Icarus, it goes into detail about the Jamal khashoggi murder and the Saudi coverup/social media campaign to silence political opponents. Not available for streaming yet but you can rent it.

Your argument would make sense if it weren't for all of the prominent conservative voices that are still all over Twitter and the rest of big tech. You act like there was some giant purge and every conservative on the internet is now some sort of social media refugee wandering the wilderness looking for a place to exercise their FiRsT aMeNdmUnt rIGhts!!! This is not what's happening, but it fits perfectly into your view of the world, so it's no surprise that you believe it to be the case. But the truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle. Did some conservatives flock to parler out of fear of being silenced? Yes. Did other conservatives make an account because it's literally the first time they've heard of the app? Also yes. Did curious liberals download the app just to peep on the shitstorm? Also yes. The events of last week brought parler from a tiny fringe social media site into the mainstream (however temporarily.) And since neither of us has parler's account statistics, the only unbiased read of the situation is that any publicity is good publicity and this caused increased engagement across all demographics. As for parler's regular users, the truth also lies somewhere in the middle. I'm sure there are plenty of responsible wonderful people on parler who just want to exchange ideas. I'm sure there are also trolls, and I'm sure there of some severely radicalized, dangerous nut jobs. Also, I don't doubt that Amazon and apple have left leaning biases and would look for any excuse to axe a hotbed of conservative activity. So the job of a responsible community would be to self-regulate, and not shit the bed.. giving big tech an excuse to do exactly that. But we all saw what happened last week. The bed was shat in historic fashion and now no one is particularly interested in hearing about all of the good aspects of parler. Assuming you're in the Air Force, you should be very familiar with everyone having to wear diapers because of an isolated incident.

Maybe because interest in a thing tends to surge when it becomes the center of a national scandal/media shitstorm. It's so weird but for some reason I have a hard time believing a fringe media echo chamber with 1/50th the users of Twitter grew organically into the most popular app on the internet. Or am I making too much sense? 🤷🏻‍♂️