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It’s all fucking arbitrary. You can’t go to restaurants, your choice of faith gathering, etc, but mainline carrier X can seat you shoulder to shoulder with someone for hours straight. GMAFB and end the charades. Yeah, keep some distance from people when you can but get on with life.

This is called life. There is no omnipotent power that can protect everyone from nature. Yes that's a heartless answer. We've nerfed the world so effectively that when something like this comes along, we're flabbergasted that there isn't an answer if only our leaders would "be bold." More rationally: Society's ability to support the weaker members is contingent on being strong as a whole. Shooting ourselves in the foot economically negatively impacts our ability to do that. When small businesses fail because they can't pay their bills, those jobs go away, which means there is no job for that at risk person once nature has run its course. Unless of course everyone wants to work for Amazon and our future overlord The Bezos. Individual rights aside there were really only two rational courses of action (one of which is long since no longer available) the first is to lock down hard and starve the virus of hosts and let it burn out. The second is to rationally mitigate to avoid overloading the medical system while allowing the economy to continue. This in between thing that is happening now is political grandstanding.

Roughly 1/3 of those hours/sorties are trips to and from OshKosh.

This post is unfortunately more condescending than I like, but I guess it is what it is. Your analysis is, at best, fallacious and, at worst, intentionally misleading. I'll trust in Hanlon's razor and just assume incompetence over malice. Also, you'll note that these graphs have websites at the bottom. It's a thing called a "source." You still are ignoring excess mortality and arguing that COVID has had marginal total effects, all with no actual data to back it up. Your stats for Flu/Chronic Respiratory Disease/Diabetes show... nothing? They don't compare apples to apples. You would need to have TOTAL deaths for FLU/Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease/Diabetes in 2020, including both COVID and non-COVID - and it would need to be extrapolated to December - to compare the two datasets. Tons of people, literally the vast majority of them (>99%), live with and through those diseases every year. The fact that there are cases where they died with COVID only really proves that COVID does what has been said: causes death in the population. Literally nothing more. It just shows that deaths happen. Now if you could extrapolate the data from everyone that got COVID, then you could possibly compare the outcomes of the population without COVID that died from those diseases to the population with COVID that did, but that's not even close to what you did. Your argument that they had a pre-existing condition and would have died "regardless" is also absurd. Do you know how many people have pre-existing conditions in America? 40% of the country is obese for god's sake. The fact that a huge percentage of society has pre-existing conditions should be ASSUMED in discussions like these. The population of America is at risk health-wise, no duh, but that doesn't mean they are going to keel over and die year-to-year. 1) What do you think caused the 200k excess deaths up to this point this year? And how exactly does it matter what is a CF or a RC? When it comes down to death statistics, there is a reason why they don't put CF/RC on the death certificate: it usually doesn't matter because it's a combination of health effects that causes mortality. And before you go there, of course people with COVID that died in a car accident did NOT die of COVID, I'm not arguing that. But what's the difference from this year to the last decade? These people died because of something different. What could it be? Spoilers: It's the coronavirus combined with a naturally vulnerable population that ALWAYS EXISTS based on how humans age. 2) Here's the one other logical fallacy I'll dig into a little more (feel free to have me address more later). Your argument that folks with pre-existing conditions would have died "regardless" is horseshit. I bet even you or someone in your family has a pre-existing condition, based on the statistics. Or at least your VA claim will show it here in a few years. I'll put down money on that one. The number of Americans that have a pre-existing condition is up to 86% by insurer's definitions for people age 55-64. 48% of them have a no-shit health high risk pre-existing condition. They don't even report on those older than that, because it's basically assumed that the majority of the aged population has something significantly wrong with their health. "Sorry grandma, I know you have diabetes and high blood pressure, which you could probably live with for another 10-15 years with simple treatment, but the economy must open up. Although COVID disproportionately kills those over the age of 70 - and if you get it you have a high chance of hospitalization and a 5-10% chance of death - that is a sacrifice I am willing to make. Ignore the fact that we likely will have a working vaccine in the next year which would stop all of this, my mutual funds need to go up NOW. FAKE NEWS. DON'T TREAD ON ME." Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02483-2 It's not that hard. Wear your stupid mask, stop hanging out with all your friends, put your travel plans on a temporary hold, get over the fact that national sports and colleges aren't gonna be on TV, and understand that society isn't actually powerless when it comes to battling infectious disease. For all the shit conservatives give liberals over being babies, they have a real problem toughening up and adjusting their lifestyle temporarily for a global catastrophe. Literally FOX News hosts in the height of the deaths in April ran a segment about how hard it is to not be able to get your hair done, while, at the same time, medical teams across the world from Italy to Spain to the UK to the US were delivering bodies to morgues at a weekly rate 5-15 times higher than normal. Want to know something? Those countries don't have the magnitude of problem we have now. They learned and their societies adapted. Numerous other countries and societies haven't F'd this GLOBAL DISEASE away like we have. BLAB (BOTTOM LINE AT THE BOTTOM): Stop arguing about whether or not COVID causes deaths. It does. If you want to argue that 100's of thousands of deaths aren't that bad in the big scheme of the population and we can accept a few 100 thousand more, then that's your prerogative. I disagree, but at least now we are arguing about opinions. Out.

Ha haaa he said “feedback”. I think that’s the thing on your OPR where you just pick a random date and put it in the blank while you’re writing it for yourself.... Sent from my iPhone using Baseops Network mobile app

The next earthquake that deviates the entire nation simultaneously let me know. Since the 98% of the country isn't affected, they can support those who need it. Who can support the entire country when it's all shut down?

I was a minority in a UPT class, I had zero issues. I know many minorities in UPT classes, they all did just fine to include 5th gen fighters. What invented issue is the Air Force trying to solve now?

I'll bite on this (for context my wife and kids are all Native American, I've spent enough time on the Rez and one of our family members is the Director of the BIA so I've been able to learn a little bit about this ). What it comes down to is that many native populations are 1) extremely underprivileged - a lot of the communities struggle with just basic access to running water, schools, etc. And 2) the tribal populations have also been diluted significantly due to things like the residential schools, theft of children and people leaving "the rez". WRT #1, when your community can't give you the same baseline opportunities as say your average middle american WASP community then it's a naturally steeper funnel to climb out of. So you just get raw fewer numbers of people who are even remotely capable of getting selected for UPT by that age - I'm not saying Natives can't hack it but that often they start behind the goal post instead of at the kickoff line in terms of opportunities and the resources just aren't there to foster the the natural talents/inclinations/traits that Natives might have that would normally make them a great candidate had they grown up in other circumstances. The actual talent of many Native individuals I've met is impressive though - they are naturally extremely brave, sharp and witty. It's no coincidence that our tribe (Mohawk) is known for their steel workers - guys who built the Empire State Building without harnesses, ropes or anything - literally just scaled steel into the sky and then did roll call at the bar end of the day and cheered to the men who fell that day. Some real courage and skill. WRT #2, a combination of the residential schools and skin leaving the rez in search of better opportunity has ultimately bred out / white washed the Native population. From what I have seen and learned, there literally just aren't even the raw numbers to make this a viable recruiting opportunity. By the way this is not even to speak to ancillary points like the cultural challenges of the drugs, gambling, smugling and gangs that often funnel young Natives onto the wrong path (which itself is actually not a Native problem but one that 19th/20th century Americans have given them). I think when you have a competing source of work/recreation that also would help the USAF focusing on Native communities. By the way huge props to you for identifying and recommending Natives for this, a lot of people wouldn't even think twice about this group of people who has given so much to our Nation and really got the shit end of the stick in so many ways.

*hat tip to the driver who made the news recently*

I'd recommend we get back to a daily lives. Wear our masks, wash our hands and keep on, keeping on. If you have 2 or more the "comorbid" conditions then you probably need to be more cautious and stay home. That doesn't mean we all stay home and be scared of our own shadows. Despite wearing my mask/washing my hands, as well as everyone around me doing he same thanks to the current rules in place, I currently have the rona. A few days of mild body aches and a mild fever and I'm back to normal, the same for my 2 other squadron mates who currently have it. No matter what you do we'll likely all end up with it sooner or later. Let's stop driving our economy into the ground over this thing and get the train back on the tracks. If someone loses their job, their home or their marriage and commits suicide, do they get counted in the covid deaths?

Direct from CDC website: “For 6% of the deaths, COVID-19 was the only cause mentioned. For deaths with conditions or causes in addition to COVID-19, on average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.” 94% of COVID deaths in our country are with underlying health conditions. So when we say 180k died from Covid, what they should really say is 10.8k have died from COVID, and 169.2k died from a combo (combo because the avg is 2.6 additional factors) of pneumonia/flu, heart disease, hypertensive disease, etc. and covid was a possible CF to some extent (but not a RC/sole cause). the hype about how it’s “deadly” to healthy people, etc. and we had to destroy our economies, way of life, harm our children, etc. because of it is gross negligence. There are sensible ways to reduce risk and address problems, and then there is lose your shit and emotionally freak out, then hide under a rock until the bogey man goes away. The media and others have pushed millions of willing Americans into the latter group. This whole thing is like a FLUG-ee with an 8 ship aborting and calling mission canx because there’s a single flanker 100nm away.

You’re right. Absolutely f*&k MSM that says it’s okay for protestors to be outside but it’s not okay for churchs to congregate. Seriously. I 100% agree that CNN and MSNBC have contributed just as much as FOX as to why our nation can’t have a unified approach to this natural disaster. I am personally not for any news organization; I am equally against everyone that is anti-science. Turns out that’s the majority of the government press and mainstream media. I believe that Dr. Fauci and the CDC are some of the last bastions of integrity and rational thought when it comes to public health, and it pisses me off to no end when news organizations cherry pick/misrepresent data from their reports to support political positions.

For the handful of peeps that didn’t like my statement regarding 6%... Flu deaths: 2014/2017 - 51k/61k died / 2020 - 68k died (with COVID) chronic lower respiratory disease deaths: 2018 - 159323 died / 2020 - 13780 died (with COVID) Diabetes deaths in over 20: 2017 - 83564 died / 2020 - 25936 died (with COVID) So yeah, the data shows, 1) These deaths in 2020 were likely to occur regardless of Covid. Read it: Only 8% of of the 2018 total of lower respiratory deaths have had COVID associated this year. 2) Covid did in fact happen to be just a CF in many cases, and not a RC. But by all means, you guys can continue to make ridiculous analogies like bleeding gunshot wounds and ignore data that doesn’t support your beliefs regarding Covid risk and mortality.

A lot of what Social D already said, so I’ll try not to repeat. But, given the unknowns back in Mar (and not applying hindsight), I’m ok with the initial “flatten the curve” actions. However after that 4-6 weeks, I would have opened the economy back up and put kids back in school. Continue to emphasize the need for hygiene, stay home if your sick, social distance to max extent possible, etc. I’m certainly not against all things that have been done to counter Covid, but I’m very against the incredibly damaging things we’ve done to our economy, mental health, and our children’s well being and development. Those were not “necessary to save the world!”, they were knee jerk reactions with no, credible data to support. In the end, we’ve essentially crushed ourselves over a bad flu season. False. That’s your opinion based on pure conjecture, not even remotely a fact.

I'm not saying they're walking dead, I'm simply saying we can protect them and not completely destroy our economy. According to the CDC, 61% of all covid "related" deaths come from 7% of the population. If we drill down further and look at those with multiple comorbid conditions, the percentage of the population with an elevated risk get smaller. Take out the numbers of people killed needlessly (because we didn't know better at the time) BECAUSE they were put on vents and the number gets even smaller. Throw out the deaths caused by leadership senselessly forcing retirement homes to take covid patients and that number continues to plummet. Hindsight is 20/20 and all, but we have learned a lot! I'm not saying we cast them off, but we sure as hell can develop a better plan to move forward and mitigate the threat. Ok so I'll ask again, what if we don't have a cure by this time next year? 5 years from now? 10 years from now? How long do we sustain this footing? When do we say enough is enough? Eventually we'll even run out of ink to keep printing money. Hyperinflation sucks and will cause lots of death too! I couldn't agree more, though I place a lot of fault at the feet of MSM as well. Currently, I believe they're the single biggest downfall and threat to our country, but that's a whole other discussion.

It’s a general observation bro. I don’t need to interview the thousands of people all together in the street yelling, screaming, breaking and burning shit, and getting in people’s faces to know they don’t give a fuck about covid.

Dang, you beat me to it... Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Have a date, location or source for the BLM protest shot? I fully believe you that there were probably a bunch of idiots not following mask and physical distance rules, but looking at that picture, you can’t see any masks anywhere. Not even hanging around necks or off ears. I find it hard to believe that zero people were following guidelines in a crowd full of “bleeding heart liberals”, but sure, go ahead, post something that makes you look lazy. I’m sure it would have been real tough to find an actual picture supporting your point... Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

So do you have a refutation for the post, or just gonna run away with your feelings hurt appealing to some supposed future moral superiority? It was well laid out, even had pictures for our presidential types, and has sources. Dude's not a robot, and is passionate about it. "It" being not killing old people with our selfishness. But whatever, you do you from 6ft away and/or with a mask please.

Putting a cabinet on the bailout chute quite literally sealed the deal

It's the condescending posts that impress me the most. Just makes me realize that if I only agreed with my betters, I'd be "on the right side of history." Or something...

0 seats that go bang. Bail-out procedure is: Stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door. Except you can only half-way stand up in the back. There's no hook-up, just remember to pull after exiting. The bail-out/main entry door is between flight deck and crew compartment. If the emergency happens quick, not many, if any get out. If it's somewhat controlled, then it's possible, but not a sure-thing. If they experience a cold cat, they try to escape via hatches over the two pilots and one in the back. Before 100,000 tons of steaming steel runs you over. As for the E-3, cost savings, baby! Think how much cash is saved by not having all those 'chutes (that the chairs were designed to hold and suck as regular seats) and all that extraneous life support shop.

That’s 100% more bailout capability than the E-3G

You're right. This is absolutely a solution in search of a problem. I don't think there is any long term race or gender based washout data that exists, let alone any that supports this idiotic COA. But what's worse is that the people who this is geared toward are actively recoiling against it. The person who brought this dumpster fire to my attention is a female pilot. When I asked her if this initiative would help female student pilots feel more included and improve their performance, she said not only no, but f*** no. Turns out a good way of making people feel like they're part of the team is to not sequester them over on the side doing their own special thing. Women and minorities can do anything in the Air Force.. except avoid being pandered to by generals.

It’s almost like they’re doing it on purpose....

corona virus is over. time to move on with our lives.

Indeed, and those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. A higher second peak in the fall that exceeds our hospital capacity will kill at a much higher rate than now where we have kept them under capacity. The overwhelming consensus is that the vaccine will be available by Q2 of next year so this is a non issue we thankfully do not need to consider. But since you asked, in the extreme hypothetical where was no end in sight for 5+ years, we should then find the policy limit at a local level that keeps hospitals right near their ICU capacity and keep it there until herd immunity is reached; then invest in hospital infrastructure/resources and continue to ease restrictions at the limit to accelerate herd immunity.

Ahh, is that not one of the ideas of making a training program extremely tough, to get individuals to work as a team from different back grounds to achieve a common objective despite their differences? Most of my class had similar skin pigments besides the internationals, beyond that many of us had very few similarities, yet we had little trouble studying together and bonded over embracing the suck. I have no problems with the intent of getting more quality candidates from different back grounds and groups, but the execution is poor. If your aren’t helping someone that fought tooth and nail for their chance at their dream job because of their skin color, genitalia, sexuality or whatever then GTFO. And that’s a two way street. The middle eastern guys with a different flag on their shoulder, different skin color, and different accent had no issues hanging out and studying with us while we drank beer and ate bbq. If you can’t get along and be a adult with other Americans working toward a common goal of getting your wings you probably are going to struggle.

Slightly more information: https://www.wavy.com/news/local-news/accomack-county/plane-crash-reported-in-accomack-county-monday/ No peanut jokes, please.

Dude, I totally understand where you’re coming from and I agree with what you’re saying...to a point. We cannot move forward with a shuttered economy and our kids out of school indefinitely. But the argument that the fatalities were already walking dead is problematic. This country has seen somewhere around 200k excess deaths so far this year. Yes, the vast majority of them had underlying conditions, but it was COVID that pushed them over the edge. These people would not have died had it not been to the virus. So we introduce a serious ethical dilemma when we argue that this virus should be allowed to “cull the heard”. The vulnerable are still human beings and as a society we make a big deal about the value of all human life. We don’t throw our weak and sick to the wolves. We protect them. ~60k Americans died in Vietnam and it tore the country apart. A couple thousand died on September 11 and it had a major impact on our economy and drug us into two wars. But we are going to pretend that a threat that has the potential to kill more Americans than WWII doesn’t exist? No. We need to take all reasonable precautions to protect vulnerable Americans. That doesn’t mean we shut down completely but it probably means you don’t get to go to a football game this year. For the areas of the economy most affected, we should be spending whatever necessary to ensure they are still around when we get through this thing. For individuals unable to make ends meet through no fault of their own, again we should spend whatever required to help. The debt incurred will be far outweighed by long term economic damage if we do not. I believe national government (both parties) is currently failing on all accounts.

I have a V-Line Brute and it’s fantastic. My gun safe is a don’t ask, don’t tell situation. My wife doesn’t ask what’s in it and I don’t tell....

I guess flying rubber dogshit out of Hong Kong isn't such a bad deal after all.

Just be glad he didn't say air lines.

We grunts who fought the COIN fight down below appreciate the TIC service.

What happens when this person gets to a squadron and finds that the majority of the squadron is genetically different? Going to ask for help or going to wait for the squadron demographics to change? You have to fight with what you have where you find the fight not what you wish you had and where you wish you were. I admit getting through the program is a foot in the door, which is great, but the education in UPT is more than just stick and rudder activation.

I met the board as the Deputy IG, so at the Wing, with a P. 5/10 eligibles. I made my peace with being a major for the rest of my career soon after I got passed over the first time. I am definitely not in the 1% of people who are going to get promoted APZ with a P. I got a nice assignment now...that's all I can ask for. I can be done volunteering for one-off projects and additional duties trying to earn a strat...just do my job, to the best of my ability, and let the young'uns knife fight over strats.

So it's not full segregation, they're just robbing the diversity from the surrounding classes to make one super diverse class.. Sounds like this is going to accomplish a lot

There is no way you can be taken seriously. You post a single picture from a complex situation (there are several videos of it which would completely debunk the spin you're putting on it), and attribute a narrative to it while intentionally leaving out numerous facts. Perhaps you missed your calling as a modern day journalist. Let's dissect your post. First, these guys weren't "victims". They were chasing an armed dude down who just defended his life, and Anthony Huber attacked him with his skateboard (on video), which 100% is a deadly object. He was shot in the chest and died. Gaige Grosskreutz did not have his hands up for more than a very brief moment, the he charged . He was joining in on attacking Rittenhouse, was armed, and was shot in the arm. The events immediately leading to the first shooting of Joseph Rosenbaum are very clear from several available videos. He was pursuing a retreating Rittenhouse with what any objective person would agree was an aggressive disposition, while shots were fired from a third party. He got to within touching distance of Rittenhouse and was shot and died. I agree with your second paragraph if Kyle took a gun across state lines. Looking at the second part of your post, though, I'll make a few changes to reflect the feelings of a growing number of Americans: Many RIOTERS crossed states lines to a city in which they didn't reside, ostensibly to destroy local businesses. They were young and old, immature, untrained in crowd control or use of force, and seemingly not scared. They had no business injecting themselves into the situation they created, and since armed Americans trying to protect others were present, the results were predictably tragic. Prozac, I find your post to be in poor taste and antithetical to American values. I don’t know you. The fact that you’re active on this board means that in all likelihood you are in fact a veteran who loves his country. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re a decent human being who will take my comments as considered criticism and not a personal attack. That’s not what this is. But to equate American citizens rioting in the streets and attacking a scared young kid just trying to naively help protect innocent people to “victims” is abhorrent. We're talking about people trying to burn down Kenosha Wisconsin, USA, not Mogadishu. EVEN if some of these armed civilian business protectors were participating in illegal activities, they are US citizens entitled to due process, not foreign enemies to be attacked in the streets by a rioting mob of felons (all three shot had impressive records). With more calling for de-funding the police, crazy assholes rioting and wanting to take it to the suburbs, and local governments stepping back to let shit play out, this is the only logical outcome. The vast majority of people want to preserve America rather than destroy it while turning us into a lawless entity, and we will start to see more and more of these scenes develop. I also find it strange that you would call out another vet because they called a bunch of rioters "skinnies". I think you're offense to the pejorative is manufactured. The truth is the threat these rioters pose to Americans, on American soil no less, is far greater than any Somalian in Mogadishu, and they weren't shot down in the streets in the manner you implied. They were killed while acting as parts of a mob burning a city, by a dude defending his own life as they attacked him. A military member called them a name which, on this forum, universally ID's them as pieces of shit. While you may not agree, it's batshit crazy for you to not understand where Brick was coming from.

What is amazing is that, in an Air Force that is massively overly concerned with "how things look", on this one they're mostly concerned with trying desperately to gaslight the people who have identified that there is a problem into thinking that *they* are the problem. The AF can't even get their own dysfunctional leadership processes and priorities executed well.

It’s irrelevant as to whether the Russian/Chinese FLANKERS are on an American military unit emblem because of a mistake or because or regulation. What matters is that it makes you look stooopid. Surely it’s someone’s job in the Air Force to give a shit about that, even if it does mean having to know your arse from your elbow?

This is not the same kind of dominance that Ferrari or Red Bull had. Mercedes has won something like 80% of races and 90% of poles in their run. Red Bull was won just over 50% of races and had less than 70% of poles. In 2012, 7 different drivers across 5 different teams won the first 7 races. Ferrari and Red Bull were superior. Mercedes is dominant. Shit, Mercedes has more front row lockouts in 10 years than Ferrari does over 70. Yes, boring races and the occasional boring season are normal, but this has been an extreme. Sent from my SM-N975U using Baseops Network mobile app

That's like saying gunshot victims are actually dying from blood loss and sepsis as comorbidities, and not the gunshot itself.

I appreciate your unabashed honesty of your ignorance. It's clear you haven't read anything about it and have gone to great lengths to avoid learning anything about the report, and nothing I say with change that. Back to fox news old man.

The excess deaths number currently stands at around 200k. This supports the CDC’s roughly 180k current coronavirus fatality number. Are you suggesting some other, unseen and unknown factor has caused roughly two hundred thousand Americans to die prematurely? That’d sure be a hell of a story. Maybe Q Anon will pick it up.