Pooter

3 years into the covid debate and I'm still waiting for the mass outrage over yearly flu shots, anthrax boosters, malaria pills for places that barely have malaria, and countless other onerous military medical requirements everyone just blindly accepts. Oh I forgot, none of those are political lightning rods so no one cares.

This attitude, or the idea of holding your nose and voting for the lesser of two evils, is exactly why we have two dominating dumpster fire political parties. The tribal nature of our politics runs so deep people will literally vote for a guy they hate, as long as they have the right letter next to their name.

3rd party all the way no matter if you're in a swing state or not. It's the only way we escape this broken two-party race to either extreme

Well that's weird, because China's manufacturing quality is also known to be shit, but the moment they got their hands on sensitive F-35 tech data they made the most credible adversary threat aircraft basically out of nowhere.. up to that point only having borrowed Russian designs for decades. Russia also still makes superior jet engines to China so I don't buy that Russia just doesn't have the machining tolerances to do stealth.

Philosophical FME question: who stands to gain more? Us or Russia? Or to put it another way, the more technologically advanced military or the less advanced military? First off, I'm pretty unconcerned with low dollar high volume items like NVGs or body armor. Nights 1-10 aren't going to be decided by those things. I'm concerned about high end strategic weapons we are giving to Ukraine with little or no control over what happens to them. The second a patriot launcher gets abandoned in a field, we have a big f-ing problem. So with that in mind, I'd posit Russia stands to gain more. Because it gives them an opportunity to counter, but most importantly: COPY our best stuff. This is how China leapfrogged Russia in 5th gen fighter development. They just copied the F-22/35 after hacking defense contractors. Finding out that Russia's new stuff is hot garbage gives everyone a nice warm fuzzy, but it doesn't provide nearly the same exploitation opportunity that Russia will get if they capture some tech a generation or two more advanced than their own.

Taking the bonus is quite literally the opposite of having options. I wouldn't be complaining if the money was even remotely competitive or if the BOP option didn't read like a predatory scam.

I would actually really like to see the system work, the way it would work against you or me if we stored classified docs in our bathrooms and then bragged about it on tape. Or next to an old corvette easily accessible to crackheads. You've built up this vague "system" boogeyman as a sort of foil to trump where any threat to him is just another unjustified attack that he needs to vanquish. Have there been unjustified attacks? Of course. But trump has also dug his own hole in very historic and spectacular fashion.

Exactly. One wonders the man-hours wasted in the halls of AFPC cooking up this latest crock of shit, that appeals to precisely no-one except those planning to stay in anyway.

And the craziest part is your BOP time hacks as soon as you sign the paper but the ADSC is tacked on the end after your UPT one expires.

This base of preference option looks sketchy at best and predatory at worst.

You're not wrong. But remember Russia is likely doing the same as far as FME for our stuff. I would be extremely surprised if Russia doesn't get their hands on a patriot/himars/name your system at some point, and the longer the war drags on the more that likelihood approaches 100%. There are lots of arguments for and against this war and I'm not getting into that but rather just want to point out FME goes both ways. And expecting Russia not to benefit as well when we're flooding Ukraine with western tech, with little to no oversight, would be very naive.

Agree on the polarization 100%. But I think the democrat base would pivot to support another candidate if Biden were to step aside. Sure the Dems are ideologically captured in some batshit positions but I don't see the same level of loyalty to an individual person like you do with the right base and trump. There are multiple good choices on the right who would easily beat Biden, but it'll never happen when you have 40% of the country ready to Thelma and Louise off the cliff with trump.

Fair enough, lots of polling and the reporting on such polls is click bait-ey. But I'm not sure how else you find out what people think if you don't ask them. Aggregating poll responses is one of the best ways to find out what Americans think as long as the errors are reasonably controlled for through sample size, demographic representation, and unbiased questions. CBS/Yougov are a reasonably accurate poll source (B+ according to fivethirtyeight.) So a poll showing trust for any politician over one's own friends/family/religious leader, is a deeply troubling result. You've got a huge portion of the Republican based captured basically beyond the point of no return. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out with most roads, unfortunately, leading to a democrat in the White House.

https://www.axios.com/2023/08/21/trump-republican-2024-voters-poll Respondents said they trust trump to tell them the truth more than family members or their religious leaders. 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️ This has moved past ideological capture and into full blown mental disorder.

Honestly the Walter Reed presidential dog and pony shows are shameful no matter who's in office. Clearly this was poorly handled by Biden but I don't know if trump busting in would be any better. Two slightly different geriatric egomaniacs looking for a photo op.

Then I guess they're both jets.. especially if it would bother you more

@Danger41 Not to split hairs here but the t-6 is a jet. Quite literally. It has a jet engine in it that has no mechanical linkage to the prop, and it even has exhaust stacks that make a small but non-zero amount of thrust. So stop being afraid of your douche canoe enjjpt IP and tell him to open the dash 1, learn his systems, and maybe just eat a whole dick.

None of what you said is wrong but I lean more toward "treat people like adults until they give you a reason not to." Periodic inspections are onerous and a waste of time unless you're specifically having dress and appearance issues in the unit. If dudes are coming in with dirty, torn up flight suits, unshaven, and with hair out of regs, then maybe it's time for a blues day. But only for those specific individuals and only for as long as it takes to fix the problem. The uniform is a tool to teach attention to detail, unit cohesion, and pride in your appearance. Much like other silly things you get reamed for in boot camp, its importance wanes massively once you get real responsibilities. Years of training later into the fast jet business, dress and appearance should be a given. Not something you need to periodically spot check. If you trust people to fly multi million dollar supersonic aircraft, you should trust that their uniforms are in order.. unless they specifically give you a reason to think otherwise.

If only they tested that meticulously for steroids, the sport might have a shred of credibility.. maybe even a fan base numbering in the many dozens

100%. On an individual job level the Air Force is amazing. Best flying and best camaraderie to be had anywhere. But on an organizational level it's a shitshow.. wrapped in a dumpster fire.. inside a clown show.. all ultimately governed by our broken political system. You know something is deeply fucked organizationally when they decide to cancel bonuses and pause PCSs and the first place people are finding it out is the front page of CNN.

All this and some people still believed the "base of preference" nonsense.

Republicans don't hit on democrat NIMBY-ism nearly enough. Bussing migrants sanctuary cities they ask to go to = cruel political stunt by evil Greg Abbott Turning a blind eye to small Republican border towns with no resources as they get complete overrun = "what border crisis??"

I think the meme pages hurt retention far more than recruiting. I doubt very much if high schoolers in droves are following viper driver memes and chuckling at ultra specific FLUG DCA jokes or complaints about morale shirts or FSS walk in hours. What is hurting recruiting far more IMO is the left's constant push to make people ashamed of our country and our history.

100%. Limiting principles are the name of the game. I will be the first to admit HOAs and local governments can go way overboard with restrictive regulations. But that doesn't validate the "gubment can't tell me what to do on my property" argument. @HeloDude and yes I will also acknowledge the government is ineffective in many ways, most notably in the war on drugs.. which has basically nothing to do with local level property code enforcement.

Are these things that have happened to you or just a list of Fox News prime time gripes? Regardless, thanks for validating my argument. The fact that you called it "the slums" is an overt admission that doing whatever you want on your property can have externalities and can make a whole area less nice. In an alternate reality we could have a nuanced discussion about which things the government should and shouldn't regulate on private property. No trash burning: probably makes sense. Overly specific pool fence laws: probably not. But you already came up with the most genius solution.. just stop being poor! Wonder if poor people have thought of that..