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Why not? A supportive population, in fact an actively supportive population, is a part of the war machine. If we start down this road then we have to retroactively denounce Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Tokyo, Dresden, etc... Easy to do when it's not our own brothers and kids being killed on the frontlines. If I have to choose between their civilians and our soldiers in a war they started, it's a pretty easy calculation for me. No country in the history of combat has spent as much energy, money, and blood protecting the civilians of their enemies, not even the US. War is ugly specifically because if requires the mass death of civilians.

It’s literally under a thread called “Today in hypocrisy…”, not “How to fly an ILS in the T-6.” The thread is fine as it is.

I know, I know, two seasoned veterans having a serious discussion about ethics and yes, innocents dying is legitimately never good and it's a tough situation...but all I keep hearing is:

Not a bad list (disagree about Carson but YMMV), but low-key Mnuchin was the best senior Trump Admin official. And I was highly skeptical of him when he was nominated! Dan Coats as DNI was also good IMHO. Mnuchin also took one of the best cartoon-villain pictures of all time haha.

Your Air Force dreams are dead statistically. You have three priorities now: Rack up hours for your airline application (fill the app out now and keep it updated every month). Start learning about the airline application process. Make damn sure you don't get promoted on the second look. You are forever a second class officer now. Some escape the gravity of a late promotion, most do not. Going to PIT should be a great way to not get promoted. Failing a PT test will guarantee it 😅 Prepare yourself mentally, financially, and logistically for a life outside of the AF. Where do you want to live? Do you know how civilian investing works? Are you ready to live lean for a while until your next career starts paying well? If you don't want to be an airline pilot, then you need to start networking aggressively. Spend the next year finding people who work in the field you're interested in and learn everything you can from them. We have people here who can speak to that world, I only know the airlines. As for airline hiring, I think we are possibly in a phase where the people hired today will be furloughed in a year or two. Maybe. Doesn't matter. Being furloughed means no airline apps to maintain and most importantly, no flying currency to worry about while you work outside of the industry. When hiring restarts, you get called back, no questions asked. Your airline will pay for your training and re-currency, which will put you in a spot to change airlines if you desire. This is part of the reason why you always take the first airline job you're offered. Good luck, and feel free to ask questions.

The response from NPR - "NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment." This is the same leadership team that fired Juan Williams for being too conservative for their company, they even went on to call him "psycho."

Not a Class Patch. My regular C-141 squadron patch on the left, the 18th MAS “Blue Diamonds. the one on the right was the first SOLL II crew at McGuire, so we kept the same theme, but with our Grim Reaper motif..

My Class Patch, perhaps the most boring annd uninspired ever designed. I can draw decently, so I was tasked to come up with some designs. I like heavy metal music and came up with about 5 other patch designs, one with Van Halen’s “Light Up the Sky” as a theme. My lame classmates chose this one, the worst of the bunch! Then the guy who was tasked with getting them made chose a bargain basement company who only offered a few colors, he thought he did us a favor by saving money!,,The one on the right was another I designed in 1991, for a Special Ops crew I was on. Metallica’s Black Album was big at the time, so “Sleep with one eye Open” from Enter Sandman was perfect. The Grim Reaper was our mascot..

The facts and reporting would say otherwise. Fewer crossing points, random rejections, extended inspections. Also, Israel striking an aide convoy doesn't help the situation. Review your own statement...ETHICALLY. Again, they could do far more. I believe they have gone to great lengths but they can still do better...see aide convoy above. Not at all, I've read the reports from the ground, the number of crossing points, the number of trucks Israel lets through, the rejections without cause. Israel does not get all of the blame, but they certainly get some. Of course Israel would never do what Hamas has done.., see my they (we), are better that that argument above. However, if you are being intellectually honest you have to look at the situation holistically and over time. Since 1948 Israel has conservatively killed 66,000 Palestinians. Don't get me wrong, I know who the good guys are here but when viewing conflict it helps to view the history and the long game. If you believe the Palestinians had a choice when it comes to Hamas you truly don't understand what has happened there. Not saying they are right, but they are a complete pawn and victim of other interests and players. Again, Hamas is EVIL and MUST be destroyed. You are dead on to point out they want the casualties (which kind of proves my entire argument about having a choice), and intentionally placing civilians (and hostages), in, near and under targets has drastically increased the civilian casualties. Those facts are a sad fact of war and something that can't be helped. However, what is happening the with aid is a completely different story and if you pause to do a little research you will see BOTH sides hold some blame.

I'll go in pieces: Israel is not starving anyone. Hamas is. It's not Israel stopping the aid, it's the complete absence of anyone to receive and distribute it. Because Hamas wants more dead Palestinians. They have stolen aid for years, and continue to do so. Those deaths are irrelevant because they have nothing to do with Israel. Because as you are pointing out, what matters is how you wage the war. What does not matter is how many innocent civilians die as a result. You wage the war ethically, and that's all you can do. Especially in this situation where civilian deaths are specifically being used as a countermeasure to Israeli attempts to destroy Hamas, arguing that the arbitrary number of deaths is somehow relevant is literally playing into their strategy. You seem to have bought the Hamas narrative that Israel is starving the Palestinians. Nonsense. Sure, but that's global policy anywhere and anytime. It's not like the Allies didn't have culpability for isolating Germany and turning it into a pariah state. That ended up with World war II, but we still killed a fuck ton of Nazis. The dirt on their hands arguments is always used to draw a moral equivalence between the two belligerents in a war. But there is no moral equivalence here. Israel has never done what Hamas did, and by any rational account would never do what Hamas did. Hamas not only did it, but the vast majority of their population celebrated it. Anyone who has even the slightest difficulty understanding who the good guys and who the bad guys are in this war, and I'm not saying that's you, has no place in the discussion. Ultimately you have to base your judgment of a society on what they do, and what they proclaim. Based on this, I choose 100,000 dead Palestinians today over 100,000 dead Jews over time. I would rather neither, but not all civilians are equal, because not all countries are equal, and not all cultures are equal. Hamas was chosen by and supported by the Palestinians. At a certain point the population has to be responsible for the type of country they create. Again, that doesn't mean you have a green light to intentionally Target civilians. But that's not what's happening, and that's not what I questioned from your first post. The number of dead civilians does not serve as the measure for whether a war is fought ethically. There would be a whole hell of a lot fewer deaths if Hamas didn't purposefully put their military targets under and around civilians. And our long-standing rules of engagement allow for killing those civilians. Doesn't make it fun, but it doesn't make it unethical either.

Because we, and by extension, Israel, are better than that. To defeat Hamas you likely don't have to starve a bunch of kids to death. War is ugly, Total War is even uglier. Using your logic why we just green flag Israel to drop a nuke on Rafah and get it over nice, clean and quick. We were pretty upset after 9/11 but I didn't see us firebombing cities in Afghanistan. Innocents died, but we at least tried to be measured in our response and we most certainly did not purposely starve a population that was supporting the Taliban. Hamas started the current fight but I hope you are not so Naive as to think Israel has no dirt on their hands. I FULLY support Israel and their right to exist. I do not support Hamas in any way, shape, or form but Israel has also done some shitty things to the Palestinians through the years in the name of "survival". An actively supportive population is a very shallow argument given the living conditions, most have not choice. Not an excuse, but certainly a consideration.

The cycle does repeat, and Strauss and Howe do a great job illustrating that what we're going through today isn't new, but the circumstances and concerns of a vastly different population with vastly different technologies are. Never before have this many people been lifted this far out of poverty. A reversion to the mean would be a disaster unlike any previous cycle. Never before have this many people believed that not only will we suffer at the hands of human governance in the crisis phase, but that we are also now approaching planetary constraints in terms of environment/resources. No one can say how true it is at this moment in time, but unlimited consumption in a finite system isn't sustainable. People are compelled to take extreme actions on that belief now, and I don't think that can be said of any previous saeculum. I know it's cliche, but the closet example in history to the American empire is the Roman empire. As it endured through many cycles, it ultimately fell completely, and for many of the same reasons we're experiencing today. During this saeculum, America has dominated the world in nearly every aspect of civilization: Technology, Innovation, Production, Society, Freedom, Humanitarianism, but those things did come at a cost. We may have begun self-reliant, but we currently draw upon human resources around the world to sustain our advancement, e.g. Iphone. It's subjective, but I think one could argue that we've been operating under the law of diminishing marginal returns for a while, and may be entering an era of negative returns. America no longer exists to provide you, me, our grandkids, friends, and neighbors with the highest levels of safety, security and standard of living in history. It is a means to provide the corporatists you mentioned earlier with those things. Now that we are reaching a sufficient level of advancement where they may not require the productive efforts of many Americans, or even other populations to ensure their security, they must address the issue of "useless eaters". America, Western nations, and their ideologies are being dismantled. Immigration, reduction of freedoms, destruction of culture, civil unrest, inflation, taxation, household and national debts, sustainability efforts, and engagement in conflict are the attempts and methods being used to level the playing field. Perhaps our grandkids would stand on a holodeck one day, but it won't be as Americans, it'll be as members of the United Citizen Federation. lol.

This has been argued at the end of each and every saeculum. You think our differences are more polarized than say, the build up to the civil war? You think the abuses of wealth and power exceed the 1920's? I don't. I think it requires enough of a time gap that the people we could be asking about the differences, if there are any, are dead. They could give us, as a population, the perspective needed to keep from repeating the cycle. But that's exactly why it's a cycle. Because those who lived through it are no longer around, no longer in charge, so we now *have* to experience it for ourselves. Because we have not gone through what the previous generation went through that created the America we long for today. But we will, and if we win the war, again, then we will have another 80ish years of American unity and strength, at which point our great-grandkids will have holodeck arguments about how America is collapsing and it will never be the same again.

Epic karma slap to a clown penis. While calling inflation stories misinformation he is interrupted by a live report that says inflation is up again. Also, this "Disinformation Czar" claims prices are DOWN 40% since Biden took over when in fact they are up 39%.

And Iran is threatening a "large, direct strike on Israel proper"...that should calm things down. Last night Uncle Joe caved to the left and called for a Cease Fire. Terrible situation, Hamas can not be allowed to survive, but you can't kill hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the process. More please!

What if actual price inflation was what is reported...

Ranger school is a leadership school and that’s why every Army MOS can attend. It’s why every member of the 75th Ranger Regiment had to attend Ranger school in addition to passing their assessment (RASP or RIP depending on when). I was pretty surprised to learn you can’t be a cook in the 75th without passing both. They also have spots every class for other service members that often go unfilled. The Air Assault one and Sapper is more interesting to me. I’m sure it was sold as leadership development or some such, but it seems a bit odd. Good on him though!

Optics. The USSF is trying hard to establish a cultural identity. The press on, "the first" nearly anything in the military is what really excites the ambitious. Influence from high enough in the food chain can get anybody into a training program. No spear at the particular individual in this case, well earned and timing was in his favor.

So are we 🇺🇸 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_missile_strikes_in_Yemen

If the economy was so great then we wouldn’t be running a $1.8 TRILLION annual deficit…

Ok a Reagan judge decided the case. You do understand that it was Biden's administration that brought the case right? You understand one of the most basic features of our government and the separation of powers is that the judicial branch can't charge people? That they can't bring cases? That they can't actually direct the very power they wield?

Hey y’all is BO.net a better place now that literally almost every single thread is a political circle jerk? I for one vote no. My investing advice is VTSAX and chill plus don’t buy too much shit you don’t need. There is little need to go beyond that unless more complicated & time-consuming investing is a hobby you personally enjoy. Most of my portfolio is up ~26% in the last 12 months so life is good there. No trading, no crypto, no art/wine/startups/etc. just DCA into index and move on living life. Literally the easiest path to comfortable wealth available given enough time and some modest inputs, especially if made early on in your life. Also if your parents can be rich I’ve seen (but not personally experienced) that it helps tremendously 😄 Next time around I’d like to try that route out.

Nope. USAFA dude. While I find Ranger school weird for him, too, he had a helluva resume even before Ranger school (except for the UPT quit/washout part).

In case anyone was unaware, the 194th Fighter Squadron (F-15EX's) in Fresno, CA is currently holding accepting UPT applications. The deadline is April 30th, 2024. Get those applications in while you can! https://www.144fw.ang.af.mil/Resources/Pilot-Boards/

The left has more retards. Full stop. However the right has been in the process of catching up probably since around 2008. As best I can tell that is when the corporatist take over of the government was successfully completed. Starting with the tea party and probably peaking with Donald Trump, the populist movement within the conservative right means that the historical metric of success for Republicans, money making, is being replaced. Sure there are retards who succeed in the business world, but by and large you're going to see more intelligent people if you start filtering by income. But now that the Republican party is more interested in bravado than income as a result of the decimation of the middle class, I suspect we will see Republicans reach retard-parity in fairly short order. Once that is complete and there are no longer intelligent mature people to run the government, we should get ourselves into a nasty shooting war in pretty short order. That will once again reinvigorate the American desire for competent leadership, but only after much blood has been shed.

As a matter of fact, I visited one of the WB pilots (who is a good friend) from that flight earlier today. Great story on how they did that 2-ship. And funny. Those NASA pilots don't get paid much as compared to commercial pilots... but the job satisfaction sure looks great.

The difference on the board between R's and D's is that the R's are willing to call out and name their retards. The D's defend their retards and/or don't recognize that they're retarted. That's the difference on this board. It plays out on a larger scale as well.

any party that tells me a man can identify as a woman and *magical LGBTQTIA+ dust* IS a woman...is extreme. and retarded.

So many questions. Such as: How have we not thought of this before?! Who else is going to educate and train the Martians in guerilla warfare against the occupying Chinese?