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I wrote this while deployed after watching "good kill". Lots of words, some of them funny. I rented good kill from itunes the other day, and within the first 5 minutes i was p1ssed off. I thought the only good that could come from this movie is to reign in its bullsh1t by correcting the inaccuracies. I am exceptionally qualified to offer such corrections, as the film is a biography- melding the personalities of ###-### and myself to form the protagonist maj Eagan (coincidence?). please enjoy and learn from the following first five minutes: you can't hear jet noise in the GCS unless you flew your droid into a wormhole where it was teleported within earshot of the parking lot of creech and you buzzed yourself. Unless the government has invented wormhole-proof datalinks, the driod would immediately lose connection. further, the mq9 is a turboPROP. The least the producers could have done is dubbed in some droning propeller noise for accuracy but these are the same clowns who took footage of maj Eagan dancing on the rudder peddles like he's sweetening up a guns kill at WIC. NO ONE touches the rudder peddles unless you dropped your can of chew, and even then I'd use a pencil or some other inanimate object to fish out whatever fell behind those funny looking foot peddles. The opening scenes also show the driod at 9k AGL or something ridiculous. You might as well send in a 4 ship of vipers because they'd have the same noise signature at that alt. Other stupid shit in the first five minutes: the camera doesn't click- it's not a polaroid the sensor operator doesn't talk enough about world of warcraft The people in the back of the GCS talk way too much not enough awkward silence. minute 6: a car with unknown occupants (collateral) rapidly approaches from the north. Eagan and the SO get all worked up in a dither because they can't "take the shot" if it's within their FOV- never mind actual CDE numbers. Jezus, if it's the FOV they're worried about why don't they drop that bird down another couple thousand feet or just zoom in-problem solved. anyway, Eagan is in such a hurry that he expeditiously counts down from three to zero before he shoots his hellfire. He's not launching the space shuttle atlantis, therefore you don't need a stupid countdown-just shoot the weapon. However, you would be surprised how many tools would practice their counting skills before shooting a missile in the UAV world. It was a habit I tried and failed to break and i see it made it all the way to Hollywood despite my best efforts. minute 7: Rando lt col busts in the GCS to blather on about what a great strike it was and barks random orders. then exclaims "careful eagan, you're beak to beak with an mq1" and the sensor ball magically picks up some other driod trundling through the airspace faster than an IRST sensor could have. There's a lot wrong with this, like why would the mq1 be co-alt while entering the stack, but then i thought it was probably some JSTAR pilot sent to driods so that made sense. the most irritating thing was the colonel being there to begin with. You ever heard of CRM? don't mess with it and GTFO of the GCS. minute 8: the movie shows some place that is not creech AFB. there are few HumVees at creech yet in the movie they drive around like it's Baghdad circa 2004. Eagan makes a right turn out of the gate to go home. He either lives in reno (nope), the director was practicing good opsec (absolutely nope) or they consulted no-one about this movie other than some tin-hat clown on chemtrails.net about military accuracy. Eagan is then shown cruising through vegas in fancy classic car. The car is accurate-plenty of heart broke aviators tried to subdue their pain with large purchases. one need look no further than your's truly to see what happens when a figher pilot tries to replace all he's lost with large ticket toys (mooney, sports car, electric hoverboard skate thing), but no one lives south of the 215 that goes to creech because the drive is too damn long and costs more money over time. you'd rather spend that money on Avgas or up your montly on your pittycar than waste it on an extra half hour of commute time one way by living near the strip. On the plus side, his wife is accurately bummed out when eagan announces he's moving to nights. you may as well be TDY for 7 weeks. back to the inaccuracies: Eagan then refuses his wife's advances. bullsh1t. Nothing is more satisfying than wasting terrorists then going for a role in the hay. no current or former fighter pilot turns down the advances of his wife/girlfriend - ever. Eagan then drives to work the next day via las vegas blvd. I don't even take LVBVD when i'm on the strip because the traffic is so awful, let alone use it as a thoroughfare. minute 9:15- lt col says "fvck" in his welcome brief- would be instantly fired. lt col talks about how hard it is to take off and land these "birds". WRONG. many pilots have demonstrated that they can't land their previous airframe but can land the MQx just fine. minute 10: six to nine more "fvck" from the lt col during brief. Dishonorable discharge for sure. "3k viper hours as a major?". this has never happened. There are no co-pilots in UAVS- there is a pilot and a sensor operator. Let me rephrase that- there are plenty of co-pilots in the UAV community who spent 5 years in whatever platform they came from and were never upgraded, but as far as duties within the UAV community, there are no co-pilots. The new "co-pilot" is touted to have 500 hours in the MQ-9. 500 whole hours!!!! average day = 7 hours of "flight" time. that's about 80 work days of experience. Whew, the day is won and we can all relax. Eagan asks "what's the lag at?" Well Eagan, it's probably exactly the same as what they told you in the TX course and it hasn't changed since ever. But maybe I'm pessimistic and today is the day that the USAF paid general atomics a gagillion dollars to solve that latency problem. It seems like all the shots are around 10" TOF. either they doubled the size of the rocket motor on the hellfire and they now cruise through the sky with the speed of a meteor or the bullsh1t factory that is hollywood just got away with another doozie. The lt col is still nervously hovering about. I've seen leadership hover inside the GCS. when you're out of bodies and all you have left is the C130 navigator to put in a kenetic situation, godd@mn right leadership makes sure he arms the weapons and doesn't set the autopilot to roll inverted and stay there until it's out of gas while permanently shutting off the datalink but Eagan is a superstar, so seeing the boss hover around (and even give clearance) makes me more annoyed. 17:00 - choppers at creech. no one lands there except the thunderbirds with EPs because real pilots don't like the uncomfortable looks they get from a thousand heartbroke aviators. It's like bringing chipotle to refugee camp in Somalia and not having enough for everyone. 21:00 someone asks eagan "i heard you want to go back to combat". And i heard that octo-mom isn't a virgin. 26:00 lt col still hovering about, giving clearance to engage and pi$$iing me off about the whole bullsh1t hollywood establishment. 26:30 "3 2 1, rifle" good grief. 29:00 after whining about being a droid pilot, Eagan's boss tells him to take the day off. I'm delighted that the manning situation has improved so much that they can give days off to disgruntled majors who can't handle the stress of sitting in a chair for 8 hours a day. 33:00 enter the CIA, who apparently thinks that in between hellfire shots is the best time to discuss foreign policy with combative droid crews. 35:00 there's some doubt as to whether Eagan can make the shot happen due to turbulence. that's like asking me if i can still do a good carrier landing on a veneer table top vs marble- it doesn't fvcking matter. 36:00 cafeteria food at creech- WRONG. they had a casino next door that served good food but the AF demolished it. they have your standard bullshit subway, but most importantly there is a delicious Korean restaurant on base (I know, WTF, right?) that has decent seating outside. 43:00 mouthy sassypants good-looking sensor operator opens her lippy piehole again with her politically driven vitriol and asks "what are we, Hamas?" well ms sassypants, maybe we are, it depends on who our enemies are at the time. If we're fighint ISIS, then I suppose we are on the same side as Hamas. If we're securing bagdad in 2003, then no, we want to kill Hamas and the other Shia militias but she nor hollywood has any idea nor do they give a sh1t. 45:00 more political discussions than capitol hill. shutting the fvck up WRT political viewpoints is a survival mechanism almost all of us have developed after our first 6 months in the military but having a stoic disposition and com discipline doesn't sell movie tickets. 47:00 the "date" between ms sassypants and eagan is awful. If I could have taken my wife up for an f-16 ride like eagan claims he did, just think of all the money I could have saved had I not had to court her and get her to look past my ginger good looks without the expensive dog-and-pony shows at nice restaurants and spontaneous, impromptu, fun, rebellious dates. "hey wife, just strap in the back seat of this D model and stand by for marriage". Fvck you hollywood. 48:00 "the thrill of landing an f16 on a carrier". Hollywood, fvck you. the whole date with ms sassypants is bullsh1t. I saw several officers lose their sh1t (and careers/families) because they submitted to the siren's call of ms sassypants. pretty hard to get a job as a washout uav operator with paperwork. 54:00 when egan "turns off the video recorder", he is actually turning off the pilot and sensor consoles of the GCS. Hollywood got away with another one. 55:00 eagan is texting in the GCS. this isn't the ops desk at base x-cell phones are not allowed. 59:00 and the rest of the movie- they've finally found a way to make that elusive hover-mode work. 1:05 Hollywood sends eagan on a huge pitty-party around this time, where he confesses to his wife that he blows everyone up to include the attendees at funerals. It's so full of bullsh1t the septic tanks here at base-x have less fecal matter in them. but during this whole time what pis$es me off the most is Eagan has been wearing his leather jacket the whole time, in vegas, in the summer. Bro, i get it. Those jackets look SHARP and I love my custom jacket from dark-horse more than any man should love a piece of clothing. but if you want me to listen to your bullsh1t about how you kill women and kids, don't distract me with your wardrobe. 1:22 I was blown away when i noticed a small detail in the briefing room- the 8 point orbit drawn on the white board!!! that is accurate, as were some of the other things drawn on the board. These clowns talk about landing f16s on carriers but had the hired expertise to accurately draw stuff on the whiteboards? I'm so confused right now. 1:23 ms sassy pants has to be told twice to turn the laser on. weird how I've never had to tell my index finger twice in the viper. 1:29 sh1t looks pretty bad for eagan. his wife left him, he's never going back to the viper. looks like it's time to execute plan B: "Plan B" is when you target your own GCS with a hellfire missile. think about it, it's some existential, deep futuristic sh1t. 1:30 eagan stops drinking after his wife leaves him. Wife=drinking problem. The rest of the movie is full of more horrible inaccuracies, and we all remember the "i'm still first class" line of crap ms sassypants ends her hollywood debut with. Of note, he turns off his "video recorders" (GCS) again and shoots that bearded crazy at the end of the movie. never mind that there was no laser energy guiding the weapon. Finally, at the end of the movie, he makes a left turn leaving creech. I was relived that the producer finally got something right but not 14 seconds later he's in Reno. Verdict 2/5 stars. the two stars come from the accurate portrayal of the compensating-for-somethin car and the 8 point orbit drawn on the white board. the rest is sh1t. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I chuckled while reading this flashback to Andrew Jackson's inauguration in 1829 and the rager that followed at the White House. They draw some parallels to our current times, but my takeaway was simpler: Despite the feeling of uniqueness to our current times, there is little that is truly new. And party guests always follow the booze...always.

WSJ Trump May Herold a New Political Order: Seldom does a Presidential election mark a permanent shift. The Last time it happened was 1932. Trump May Herald a New Political Order - WSJ.pdf Interesting analysis of the historical contexts of large changes in US policy, and what allowed them to happen versus when some were constrained by opposing congressional moods. Notable snippets

Deep down they know why they lost.... But they also know if you say her name 3 times you'll summon her and "commit suicide" by stabbing yourself in the back 69 times (most of which will be after you are already dead).

Yup - was thinking Australia for a new OL.

Must be enough to warrant this: https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/11/lawmakers-vote-against-barring-sexual-contatct-interns/96448914/ " A legislative panel voted down a proposed rule change Wednesday that would have explicitly prevented them from engaging in sexual contact with legislative interns and pages. "

Thanks for all the links, good reads/listens. Really? And they wonder why they can't even win the legislature back. Fixing/redoing the gerrymandering isn't going to overcome a complete out of step platform with the "fly-over" states. Republican's ability to win state houses to secure the federal legislature is breathtaking. NPR's fresh air had a good podcast on it. Other notes, I've always hated the smoke-fire line of reasoning and dismissed the whole thing with Russia holding kompromat on Trump. But then we find out Flynn had a holiday call with the Ruskies, where we're assured nothing political/sanction-related was discussed. Trump also keeps tweeting negatively about the IC. Also, there's interesting correlation between the non-IC dossier released on Trump and notable "deaths" in Russia of powerful information brokers. Additionally, the Panama Papers highlighting the shell-game of corporations and money movement (at least) of Russian oil companies aligning with some of the dossier numbers/offers. What's your thoughts on Trump's ties/non-ties with Russia or otherwise?

I think we are agreed that reading is fundamental and implying that I hadn't read the article isn't. If the transition team wanted to keep him on, but Big Green was pushing him out the door, who exactly is the action figure in this scenario? And if we get "it's all Trump's fault" on these forums (liberal or not, I don't know), just imagine what the wider world is going to say - at least 1/2 anyway and that percentage of unhappy campers contains most of the media so the effect will only be magnified. - to BFM - Yep, that's the one, thanks. edited to add: The Commander of the DC Guard, appointed by the President, traditionally offers his resignation to each new Commander in Chief who decides to decline or accept the resignation. This particular commander was appointed by George W. Bush in 2008. Thus he has been in the same position for eight years. The Trump team offered to keep the MG through January 20 with his retirement effective 21 January. The MG refused and decided to voluntarily leave effective 1201 EST, 20 Jan 17. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/01/fake-news-wapo-not-tell-whole-story-dc-national-guard-chiefs-resignation-video/ Nope, it's gotta be Trump's fault...

And how is this Trump's fault? Just because he accepted the resignation? Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network Forums

It's okay, I downloaded it from a Russian porn site. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G530AZ using Baseops Network Forums mobile app

Probably because they're all going to be needed for riot control when Trump is actually sworn in and half the libtards in the city lose their damn minds and start burning buildings and throwing bricks.

I'm personally still waiting for the first female wing commander who is black and gay...these days just being a white straight female is no big deal.

Technique, don't post pictures of sh!t until the SIB is done.