Smokin

nsplayer is right, civilians don't face the same dangers cops do. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/25/empire-state-building-shooting-nypd-bullets-shot-all-nine_n_1830007.html Just think, if the police had been limited to the same seven bullets, they could have only shot 7 or 8 bystanders. Sounds like NY needs one more gun law...

Good on that flight doc; getting ambien from some flight docs is like pulling teeth. If you have a fear of ambien, no one is forcing you to take it. I'm pretty sure that the radar dish sitting three feet in front of my family jewels is doing far worse than an occasional ambien anyway.

If you want to have a rational discussion on firearms, tell me rationally why my rifle cannot have a bayonet lug or a stock that is adjustable? Explain to me why we are even having a conversation about 'assault weapons' if you want to talk rationally. Since 1982, there have been 513 mass shooting deaths (3 or more victims). Since 1982, there have been roughly 105,000 accidental drownings in the US. Formal swimming lessons decrease the risk of drowning by more than 50%. A federally mandated swimming lesson program would save roughly 100x as many lives as gun control even if gun control stopped all mass shootings. No one is talking about an issue that is 100x more lethal than my assault rifle. Why is that?

Why is it impossible to make a point here without you accusing others of having to dumb it down in order to understand it? Do you really think that I am actually proposing a solution where every single person in America basically works for free for a year? Did I say this situation must be fixed in a year? I am merely illustrating the point of how spending is THE problem (not just part) and it will not get fixed by raising taxes within reason. There are these things called analogies and examples that people use to get a point across. Just because someone uses an analogy does not mean they are incapable of understanding the complexity of the issue. You are correct that the issues are not as simple as family finances, but they are not quantum physics either. Congress has not passed an actual budget in years because, like a teenage girl with her dad's credit card, they are unable to control their spending. Oh, sorry, another simplified analogy. That obviously means that I have no understanding of the situation and should defer to your implied superior intellect because I have to dumb things down to the point of ridiculousness to understand.

You are correct.

When we are in debt more than an entire year's GDP, I argue we have a spending problem regardless of our taxes. Raise federal income tax to 100% for all tax brackets with no deductions allowed and a year from now we're still in debt. How is this not a spending problem regardless of our tax levels?

The days OCONUS TDY should be on the virtual MPF under duty history. It keeps track of all the TDYs you've ever been on and the tracking system seems to have gotten better since DTS took over all TDYs. Short tour credit is not as simple as hit 365 days, get one point. We're not back under the old system of 300 days in 18 months. Does not have to be consecutive, but if you hit 300 days within 18 months, you should get a/another short tour credit and your STRD will be reset to when you arrived back at home station. As to the question about guys with short tour credit getting hit up for a non-vol 365, I haven't personally heard of that yet. All the guys I know who have been non-vol'd did not have short tour credit.

If you are going to do a partial boil (boil around 3 gallons, then add in tap water to make it 5), a 4-5 gallon pot will be plenty big enough and will be easier to store. You won't need a wort chiller because you can put the extra tap water in the fridge (inside your sanitized and sealed bucket/carboy) the night before and have 70 degree wort within 69 seconds of finishing the boil. But many brewers prefer to do full boils once they get the hang of it. It requires a bigger pot and a wort chiller, but you will end up with better beer. As schokie said, you're going to get out of the hobby what you invest in it. If you only want to spend $69 on a Mr Beer kit, you're going to have homebrew, but it won't be nearly as good as beer you could make if you invested the time and money. Ignoring the equipment costs, my beer costs me less per pint than a comparable beer would at the store, but including the equipment makes it much more expensive. But there is some satisfaction knowing that I haven't bought a beer at the store (except for roll calls) since I started brewing.

Looks like a fairly good kit, but you will eventually find the 5 gallon pot to be too small. That pot will be fine for partial boils where you add bottled water at the end, but after you brew a few batches, you will likely want to do full boils even with partial grain kits. Consider looking at a kit that does not include a pot and just use the biggest pot you have for the first few batches. Then buy a nice 8 gallon pot and a wort chiller when you're ready. As with any hobby, if you're willing to spend more, you will have more fun. But brewing is one hobby where it is pretty easy to upgrade as you go. That way, it's also not such a shock to the budget. I started out with a $150 kit for my first two beers and have probably spent around $1K on equipment now just buying one or two things at a time over the past year.

You can regulate airplanes all day and everyone knows people will still have access to them. What we really need is an excise tax on aviation fuel. That will make it cost prohibitive for people to be able to fill them up, then kids won't be able to borrow/steal them. Or maybe publish a map to everyone's house who owns a plane. Think how many lives will be saved. Won't someone please think of the children!?!

Sounds like that instructor needs a new wife.

Interesting article in Rifleman this month about the XD-S and all the engineering issues they had to overcome to make a light but reliable .45 cal. Makes me wonder if the XD-S will really be as reliable as their other weapons.

Iraq used chem weapons and we didn't invade for 13 more years (also something that people who claim it was an invented war from made up political intel conveniently forget). That red line is really more of a general guideline... Like Windshear said, seems like this must have been a false report, or greatly exaggerated (tear gas maybe?), as no major outlet is carrying the story. As Patton said 'never believe the first report you hear, especially if it happened at night.'

Just closed yesterday with Dave, worked out great. Our total cost of refinancing was actually a net gain. Dropped our rate to 3.25, we will get a check from our escrow, and the lender credit is basically funding our new escrow. Overall, a free refinance that will save us about $40K over the length of our mortgage and drops our payments by $150/month. As others have said, the closing was in our house, which was obviously much easier than getting someone to watch the kids while we went to a bank to close. For comparison, we had previously looked at Navy Federal and their closing costs were in the ballpark of $7K for a VA refi.

She might be able to get away with the fact that it was not in a condition that could be "readily restored to shoot" since someone would have to fix whatever they found broken in it and manufacture new ammunition or convert it to modern ammunition.

I get your point, but the government can only control its income to a certain extent. If the tax rates are all doubled, the total revenue will not double because people will make and spend less, the economy will slow down, and the national taxable income will decrease. Quadruple taxes and you will have either a revolution, a completely failed economy, or both. So, if you attack my simplification, don't over simplify in your counter-argument. Apparently my idea of a general principle in civil government participation was taken alternately as a 'this is a law we should pass' and a "softball" approach. I said nothing about combat zone tax exclusions; obviously if you are risking your life for your country, you should have a say in how the country is run. But contrary to Joe's swing and a miss at my softball pitch, I also never said anything about amount of taxes paid other than zero or greater than zero. It just pisses me off that we currently have people in this country who are physically and mentally capable of work yet chose to instead live off the the government. If unemployment went back to how it started under King FDR where people who wanted an unemployment check were put to work building roads and such, I bet we wouldn't have to extend unemployment benefits to TWO YEARS. You want a check? Here's a shovel, get to work. Strange, unemployment claims just dropped by 90%. All I'm saying is that people should contribute to the governance of their country before they're able to vote themselves more benefits at someone else's expense. If you break into your rich neighbor's house and steal his wallet, you're a criminal. But vote for a politician who does the same thing with taxes simply because the rich guy is successful and works harder and it is perfectly fine.

Complicated or interesting? I think the latter. The real issue here is that the federal government spending has grown so much that any reasonable tax rate increase still won't cover the expenses. They seem incapable of passing and adhering to a budget. Consider this example; your friend told you that he makes 50K a year and spends 90K a year. He realizes he can't pay his credit card debt and asks you for advice. How many of you are really going to tell him that it's not his spending that's the problem, it's the fact that he only makes 50K a year and he should go find a job that pays 100K a year, then he'd have 10K extra to spend. You make a budget to match your income, not the other way around. Once they can pass and stick to a budget, then they can talk income but to talk about raising revenue by X% while the deficit is 10 times X% is absurd. For sidebar consideration: the protests that started the American Revolution used the phrase 'no taxation with out representation'. In my opinion, the reverse should also be true. If you don't pay federal income tax, you don't get a say in what those tax rates are and you don't get a say in what the government does with those taxes. Same for state taxes.

As an idiot, I find that offensive. I will take a screenshot of this and hold onto it for 10 more years in case I get passed over for Lt Col and then non-continued. Then you will hear from my lawyer.

I don't pretend to know everyone's deployment schedule. That's why I said "who deploys for 4 months?" rather than "no one deploys for 4 months."

So how many of you actually list your firearms by serial number and caliber in the TMO forms like you're supposed to? When I move I just happen to have an 800 lb gun safe that is closed and locked when the movers show up, but it has no firearms inside. And, no Mr Mover, you cannot look inside.

Who deploys for 4 months? Everything I've heard of for the last 2+ years is six months or more. And there seems to be an assumption that when you're at home, you're actually at home. In reality, most fighter guys are working 55-60 hours a week when we're home and have TDYs that vary between 2 and 5 weeks every couple months. I'm not trying to compare deployment histories or say 'woe is me', but just because I'm 'home' doesn't mean I always see my kid during the week. I don't think that we're overpaid and I bet the vast majority of my squadron agrees.

The thing that pisses me off the most is that she is going after fighter pilots for creating a hostile work environment but didn't go after guys who sexually assaulted her. Her failure to report and prosecute the sexual assault downrange likely caused other sexual assaults. When that guy realized he got away with sexual assault, how many people really think he became a model soldier after that? If (probably not even an if) that guy sexually assaulted another woman later, this chick is indirectly responsible because she may have been able to put him in jail where trash like that belong. She allowed an environment that basically encouraged sexual assault by not reporting it but drew the line at hearing there might be porn in the vault?

Bishop- That's kinda of what I'm thinking about for the 2.5 gal. Most of my batches would still be 5 gal, so I could just use two kegs, but I like to have options. That way, I don't have 10 gal of beer tapped at once and I can try small batches of different recipes to see if I like it before I commit to a full batch. Also, the 2.5 seems like it would be easier to take to parties, camping, etc. -day man For the oatmeal coconut, I've had oatmeal beers (makes sense since it isn't too different than barely or wheat) but never heard of coconut. Does the coconut flavor really come through in the beer like a fruit lambic type?

Andech's Doppelbock is one of my all time favorites and is one of the biggest reasons I got into homebrewing.

Coconut oatmeal porter? Did you run out of things to make your beer with, opened the pantry, and grabbed the first things you found? I just got a new lager freezer on Black Friday so I can turn my old lager fridge into a kegerator. Next up, a Dopplebock. Anyone tried 2.5 gal kegs like this? I think I could fit four in my future kegerator...