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If this is a war of economic attrition between Russia and the entirety of NATO...I feel freaking fantastic about winning that one! Fuck Putin...you can live relatively peacefully in your petrostate dictatorship for the rest of your days if you KIO with all the polonium and invading your neighbors. I sincerely wish better for the Russian people, but that's on them at the end of the day. But the minute he stepped across the border and started murdering innocent people, it becomes our business. It should have been our business in 2008 when Russia unjustly attacked Georgia and we failed on that one. As has been reiterated many times over, the relatively small amount of money being spent to help the Ukrainians defend their country and bleed out the Russian war machine has got to be the most efficient DoD money pound-for-pound spent since probably 1945.

To Nsplayr’s point, I volunteer with Young Eagles when I can; over the years I think I’m up to about 3 or 4 black kids who, when asked, “so what’d you think man, want to be a pilot now!?” responded with, “well I can’t be a pilot because I’m black.” Wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t been the one they were talking to. So why’d they answer that way? Well, the short of it is they’ve been fed a complete bullshit lie about life, this country, and the people in it. And unfortunately after a little more talking to them, my feeling has been they’ve received most/all of the bullshit POV from friends and relatives, NOT from the KKK guy down the street shouting slurs at them. The communities they live in are so uninformed/misinformed and continue to internally propagate completely false narratives against themselves. To that end, I completely support outreach/educational efforts in these communities - I want every minority kid to know they can be a pilot if they so choose, and at the end of their adolescence road, I have no problem if none of these kids are selected if they don’t make the bar, but if they do make the bar, then welcome on board and I’m glad to have you! Now, quotas and going for specific percentages - that’s bullshit and a complete miss. Targeted informational outreach and recruiting, but without any affirmative action bullshit, would be a good thing.

Rumor is we lost Afghanistan because we weren't diverse enough!! 😲😲😲

The US dollar is stronger than ever, economically we have weathered the COVID storm better than Russia, China and Europe, our population is growing without any latent time bombs (cough cough China), and Russia is taking (for us) unimaginable, catastrophic combat losses in Ukraine with little to show for it. Europe is painfully now realizing relying on Russian gas was always a bad idea and is switching to both US LNG imports, renewables, and at least holding steady on nuclear rather than closing plants. They will make it through. I’d rather be no one else on the global stage right now and there’s no more viable economic model than US-led western-style capitalism. We have the strongest economic outlook and by far the strongest military, especially considering who we have as allies. Putin can crash his fading, overestimated military against the hard rocks of Ukraine for as long as he’d like and cling to the last drips of oil and gas as the rest of the world passes him by. Whenever the Russian people have had enough and want a piece of the long-term prosperity available to them by properly joining the global economy (like their neighbors in the Baltic states and Eastern Europe have more or less done), I welcome them. Let Vlad have an “unfortunate fall from a high window” and let’s be done with him.

Agreed. Free country is about freedom of opportunity. Not equity. Equality. And there is a massive difference. Setting quotas is racist and sexist as a goal for service composition. But doing out reach and spreading the word isn’t. Good post brabus.

In this case, somebody hired off of merit would not look like they were reading statements from a book. They would look like somebody professional enough to think on their feet and talk extemporaneously with honesty about the questions that are asked, not somebody who spends 80% of every briefing reading pre-written notes that may or may not answer the actual question. Count the number of “umms” and “ahhhs” and tell me the average undergrad communications major couldn’t do better. Psaki was a liar but at least she looked competent at speaking in public.

As one of my black friends says, “the two greatest threats to the black community are the lack of fathers in the house and woke white women.”

I wasn't gonna really say much more, but you asked specifically... I think it's valuable to have a wide variety of points of view, backgrounds, etc. in a high performing group of people. That doesn't mean you can't perform well with more homogeneity, but I think diversity of thought/experience/etc. adds additional value. Some others don't share that belief and that's ok, but that's the starting point for me. That doesn't mean you're necessarily doing it wrong if you have a group that's fairly alike. My current group has, for simplicity's sake, ~50 pilots. There are three black men and four white women, and the rest AFAIK are white men. I think we have no Asian/Native/etc. and maybe 1-2 with hispanic/latino background? Zero LGBT I think as well. Those are the fairly easily discernible dimensions of identity; obviously there's way more diversity in terms of airframe background, AD vs Guard baby, how you grew up, where you grew up, family situation, etc. etc., which is all good. Hell they even let in a token liberal! #DiversityHire We are a fantastic group of professional aviators and are highly mission-ready and effective in combat - the most important thing for a leader to think about by far. Overall the AF, ops and the Guard are all fantastic career opportunities that a lot of people would both benefit from and would contribute positively to. So it's a bit curious that we're so overwhelmingly white and male...I mean I am a normal person so I understand why this is, but I look at it genuinely curious. With very few exceptions, all the people I've seen hired have been fantastic and I have full faith that hiring decisions were made fairly, without bias, and were geared toward choosing the best pilots possible from the group of applicants. That being said, why are so few women applying? Why so few people of other races? I look at "solving the diversity 'problem'" like an evangelization challenge - I want more people to hear the Good News about the Air Force, being in ops, and the Guard. I was not aware at all about the Guard when I was thinking about joining the military nor was I properly briefed on how being in ops is far superior to being a noner - I had good luck, fell backwards into flying, eventually saw the greener grass from the dusty confines of Cannon and finally wised up to joining the Guard. So my questions, after looking at our group: are people from all kinds of background hearing about our unit and how great we have it? Are lots of different kinds of people seeing themselves as future-pilots and working on the pre-reqs required to even apply? Are we reaching out to fantastic but underrepresented people and encouraging them to give us a look? I firmly believe that talent is relatively evenly distributed among races, among men and women, and around the world, so what can we do to get the best of the best along all these dimensions of identity to look at our unit and decide to apply? I think any good Commander would both be asking those same questions, yet would also hiring only the very best people each round of hiring based on the candidate's potential to succeed as pilots and officers. That's the right way to do it IMHO and I think my local leadership sees it in a similar way. It's not about preferring one person over another due to race/gender/etc. nor is it about "quotas" or changing your hiring decisions to favor anything but competence and potential for flying skill and leadership, it's about finding the best people from a variety of backgrounds, getting them to apply, and then picking a lucky few from an abundance of excellence. Realistically though, you also need to always save a few spots on the roster for the sons of random ORFs (old retired farts)...because it's still the Guard 😅

Chump change compared to the $240 Billion for student loan relief, and a much better use of tax dollars imho. Afterthought: student loan relief should only be given for those that travel to Ukraine to assist. [emoji1787] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yet another reason to stay the fuck away from Walmarts! You figure out where he's going!

Yup. We've reached a pretty amazing point where the biggest threat to black people are the mostly-white people who claim to be their champions. I've had some amazing conversations over the past few years with black friends and co-workers. All of them can be boiled down to this paraphrased statement: Well, no, none of that has actually happened to me, but I'm sure it's happening to all the other black people.

let me get this straight... you claim we're being taken in by the russian propaganda machine, then post a video of putin as your source?

Just before fire season started there were 14 C130 here for training, flew for a week everyone got certified. I counted 8 different tails. So I think ANG is involved but based on what's here currently we have 4 water bombers, ba146, dc9, dash8 and an Aussie 737 so it would seem ANG is more backup or local area deterrent.

I don't recommend doge coin or time shares. This is financial advice.

Imagine if people put this much thought and effort into flying their aircraft vs making sure we have enough minorities or women with dicks leading us into combat.

So is what you are saying we are trying to hit a random moving target with our ambiguous selection criteria because the composition of the US is changing? Nsplayer. Please explain why the military needs to match the skin color and genitalia percentages of our country? Why it matters more than combat effectiveness or capability? Also how is preferring one demographic of skin color over another or gender not racist or sexist?

Let’s just make sure we have an equivalent officer core of fatties and handicapped, we wouldn’t want to be fat phobic or ablest. Let’s ensure we retain those with severe psychological problems as well because #Fairness or we could focus on attracting people who value victory and know how to fight.

Nothing on this end brother!

I was amused when I realized that as an O-4 with flight pay and a bonus I was making more than the nonner O-6s and below that caused me the greatest headaches. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Especially compared to anyone else. Like Einstein said, it’s all relative.

Strong-er than pretty much everybody else. It’s all relative my man. What country would you rather live in at the moment?

Mississippi… Sent from my iPad using Baseops Network mobile app

My grandfather retired from the USAF in the late 1960s. He started in WW2 as a B-26 bombardier and flew as a flight engineer in other aircraft in Korea and Vietnam as well. Guess what? He started a second family in Germany after the war. My mom says that my grandmother used to beat the shit out of him on a regular basis when he was home lol. But in all seriousness, he had a huge drinking/womanizing problem. My grandmother had enough and left him when my mom was around 7 years old. My mom says she remembers my grandfather screaming violently in his sleep quite a bit. I never knew this side of my grandfather. By the time I met him, he had given up alcohol (not his chewing tobacco or women) and he was very supportive of me getting into military aviation. I know other people who struggle with PTSD. It's not a joke. I have a good friend who lost his FAA flight physical a year after starting his airline career because of it. We all know people who have died from war and suicide from the last 20 years of fun in the sun. The point I'm trying to make (besides the fact my grandfather had bigger balls than I can ever dream to possess) is that war F's with people's minds. It breaks down the strongest warriors (even the services guy handing out towels lol) in some way. Hell, the stress of flying training sorties has broken down grown men. I want someone who's going to perform in a stressful environment. In my experience, war (military aviation) is not the place for social experiments. We need strong minded people in the military, not dudes with purple hair taking hormone pills. Once the dude figures out who they like to bang, let them in. The time and place to figure that out is prior to joining. Who do want to lead your children into the next war? A drunk (drinks more than two per sitting) who knows how to lead in battle or a nice guy who knows what pronoun the kids prefer. I know who I'd rather fight against.

I mean I hear ya, and in some cases that might be true. But there's no shortage of well-integrated women in the United States for example. In my ops group as an example, out of ~50 pilots, the four who are women are as follows: 1 is a patch, 1 is a Commander, 1 is an IP, and the fourth is a soon-to-be-IP and probably future patch. They're significantly over-performing on pretty common tactical and leadership job milestones compared to the average rando dude in the squadron, including yours truly! BL: We need more pilots like that to choose from when it comes time to hire new folks, and there's not really a great reason I can think of for there not to be more women who apply or who we reach out to and recruit. I agree with you here. Please don't take the terminally online SWJ left DEI warriors to be the only voices on this issue. Trust me, I think they suck just as much if not more than you do because in this case, they and I are on the "same side" in general, but I really think they're f-ing up a lot of chances to make positive progress by taking everything up to 11. Most people are not overly racist/sexist/etc., and I want to convince more conservative people to see the added value in looking for and embracing diversity along many vectors on top of what you should always screen for in the first place - competence, intelligence, interpersonal skills, future potential, specific job skills, etc.

Maybe few woman and ppl of other races are applying because certain elements in the media and an entire political party have built a following around the idea that white men are trying to systemically oppress them at every turn. Or maybe it’s that these entities built a platform around the idea that America is a country one should be ashamed to be from, not even worth the simple act of showing respect for its anthem. Yeah, after 20 years of hearing/seeing that messaging play out I can’t imagine why these groups don’t want to come work for the government and salute a bunch of mostly white guys..

would you rather that money is spent on developing weapons systems...intended to defeat the russians (among others)? I really don't get the aversion here...

Come on guys I am older than most of you; lets get it right: Throttles – Idle Rudder and Ailerons – Neutral Stick – Abruptly full aft and hold Rudder – Abruptly apply full rudder opposite spin direction (opposite turn needle) and hold Stick – Abruptly full forward one turn after applying rudder Controls – Neutral after spinning stops and recover from dive

I wish they paid better, because it does look like a great job from the mission/flying aspect. Also, why aren’t there a bunch of ANG units doing this? Seems like that’s the perfect setup for a unit to do no-shit state missions, which is in theory a big reason the guard exists.

quality save

All of the spending is ridiculous. it’ll bite our ass someday in the near future…

Isn’t it impossible to make the percentages of skin color and gender when you can change how you identify at any given moment? Gotta believe that’s a little difficult. But we should spend our treasure and time to try to do it. Who cares about doing military type things.

Pretty sure the trans-inclusion movement has already reached the government

The First Order style red and dark background was an interesting aesthetic choice.

Teacher unions are at the heart of everything that’s wrong with the public education system. Dismantle all of them - nothing will fix this problem outside of complete “burn it to the ground” and rebuild from the ashes. I feel bad for all the good teachers caught in the crossfire.

Ukraine isn’t even close to Afghanistan though. It’s not even close to Iraq, Iran, or any number of third world conflicts where western weaponry has gone unaccounted for. I don’t think Charlie Wilson’s War is a remotely fair comparison here. Ukraine is (or was) basically a first world nation trying to align itself more closely with Europe and the West, not some failed state full of jihadists bent on ousting their infidel oppressors. If they win this thing or even stalemate, Europe ends up with a heavily armed actor on its eastern flank that’s proven it has the will and the ability to counter Russian aggression. This scenario has the potential to be very useful, as a strong non-NATO Ukraine could be an unpredictable wild card for Russian strategists. If they capitulate, well Russia ends up with some HIMARS, Javelins, and (now) HARMs that are most assuredly not our most capable versions of those weapons systems. Bad? Yeah probably, but not nearly the same thing as the Taliban parading around in American armored vehicles or the Islamic Republic of Iran inheriting a readymade Western air force.

The camera doesn't really give the full impact... but Shaft says they drop at 125'- 150' AGL.

But if you’re 5 and want to take drugs and/or have surgery to change your gender, the left it cool with that…

Because they are on the tail end of the policy whip…. And have no brains themselves. Do you think those people became wing commanders by a proven track record of bold leadership? Or by dogmatic compliance? I expect many of those policies to quietly change, but some will remain. People are not rational beings, pride will factor into this. And then one day a new wing commander will be asked publicly why he still requires masking and he will reply “that’s not my policy” and, just like blues Monday, we will slowly stop doing something everybody hates that has no benefit.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/tupelo-mississippi-pilot-threatening-crash-plane-walmart-police-say

Money is a merely claim on future energy. It’s finite. Who is producing it, and who requires it? if you think this is about helping those poor Ukrainians defend their homeland, it’s a bit naïve. Thucydides trap. https://amp.dw.com/en/nord-stream-1-russias-gazprom-announces-indefinite-shutdown-of-pipeline/a-63006660 Recently spent the day at the WWI museum. This gave me pause for thought.

We are playing directly into the hands of the Russian propaganda machine, and people are being taken in by it. This is a war of economic attrition. Russia knows how to live in austerity. We do not. https://twitter.com/WallStreetSilv/status/1565704584747749382?s=20&t=qRyo0YF9a949j47h5WOFgQ

That's not what I typed. "We're" playing into the hands of the Russian propaganda machine. We have a declining GDP, yet our expenditures are massively increasing. The only way that can occur is through money creation. We are now in a period of continuous emergency spending while our production of goods, services, and energy falls and consumption rises. We may be among the last to experience massive social unrest, but poorer countries are beginning to fail because their currency, pegged to the US dollar, can no longer compete on the global market. Once these new dollars are out there circulating, that bell doesn't get unrung. Enter Putin and Russian propaganda. Unless you're paying attention, you won't see the large protests happening in Sri lanka, Guatemala, South Africa, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Bangladesh, Turkey, Argentina, even Britain and on and on... all over the cost of living. They're all looking for someone to blame. Chaos yields opportunity, and Russia is attempting to seize upon it. The BRICS nations are going to offer alternatives to the US dollar. Russia just shut off the last remaining Gazprom pipeline to Europe yesterday. Why would they cut off a revenue stream in the middle of a war? Because they know it creates emergency spending, then inflation, then social unrest. I posted a video of the man himself, delivering his propaganda, to people who will be compelled by it. Isn't it important to know what we're up against? While he may correctly assess the problems (as we all can), I personally believe his solutions are fucking horrendous, but desperate people and governments we be willing to try anything.

I don’t care about other countries, I care about our own. So if you think this economy is good/strong compared to recent previous years, then we’ll just have to disagree on that one.

Well, 83% of Americans disagree with you, but you keep thinking that lol. https://news.gallup.com/poll/398963/economic-confidence-improving-weak.aspx