Smokin

The way I understand the development of the Max, is that if an airline is to blame, then it's American, not Southwest. Apparently they went to Boeing looking for a big new order they wanted quick. Boeing had a new airplane on the design sheets and said it would be X years until ready. American said, thanks, guess we'll talk to Airbus. Boeing said, wait, how bout an updated 737? Now we're all stuck with the Max.

To paraphrase, Joe Rogan, prior to COVID, I would have likely ranked vaccines as one of mankind's greatest accomplishments. Now? Not so sure. After COVID, I wonder how many of them are just full of junk that I don't need and won't work anyway. Has the flu vaccine really worked for me? I've had the flu many times after the vaccines, so was it really less severe than it would have been? I fully recognize that vaccines defeated small pox, polio, etc (reference the greatest accomplishments thing). But when governments and big corporations team up to almost force people to get a vaccine that hasn't been fully tested to prevent an illness that wasn't as bad as many were claiming, you have to wonder why. And then as soon as you do and you realize there's a guy behind the curtain telling you to ignore the guy behind the curtain, that makes you question a lot of things you had previously accepted as fact. I think part of being a conservative is a natural distrust of consolidation of power. Governments and big companies used COVID to consolidate power and vaccines as an enforcement mechanism. Hence the right's relatively newfound distrust of vaccines and many medical 'experts'.

If this were another "do more with less" then I'd agree with you guys. But, this is finally a "do less with the same". As in, same budget but less mouths to feed that don't contribute to the mission. There is plenty of ripe fruit in the DoD to pick if Congress gets behind this initiative. For example, I learned absolutely zero at TAPs from the mouth breathers reading me the slides and there's an online CBT option. Drop the entire TAPs staff to a single person at each base and you just saved the military millions. And I would bet that when they start looking at the DoD, they will likely focus on the contract side, which is where I think they could make some serious money for actual warfighter budgets. If that house budget increase of $3T is legit, that is absolutely absurd and only proves that Trump and most Republicans now are not actual conservatives, simply populists. That last section on the ways and means tanks the entire thing. Prior to that committee it was a $1.2T reduction in the deficit. As much good as they can do, there is no way that DOGE finds enough efficiency that will stick long term. We as a country need to come to the realization that entitlements and unbalanced budgets are going to bankrupt us.

Interesting, I never flew into DCA. I guess if it is an expected procedure, then maybe not the contributing factor I thought it could be. Although it would have been a fairly minimal one at that.

So far, this is about the only criticism of the RJ crew that I can think of: accepting a change to the approach and runway that close in. In a fighter in VMC? Absolutely, no problem. But the latest that I've accepted a change to a landing runway in an airliner has been outside 10 miles and even that was pushing it. You can hardly call that causal, but it is something to think about and learn from as an airline pilot. Don't let ATC fly your plane. Had a captain tell ATC no to keeping us high and fast on an approach (my airplane does not like to slow down in any decent). He told them 'we can be high or fast, but not both'. ATC tried to shame us by then slowing us to approach speed and vectoring another flight in front of us and even made a comment to the other airplane about them being able to do it. Capt basically shrugged said 'whatever'.

To be fair, they didn't suck at war. They were far better at it man for man than the north was. If the Confederate Army had the same population, economy, and industrialization to draw from that the Union Army had, the world would be a very different place now. I'm a solid northerner, but to say the Confederates sucked at war because they lost is like saying Sparta sucked at war because they were conquered by Rome. And to the FAA thing, HeloDude is spot on. The only reason to change it in the first place was politics, so to call out someone for lack of focus for changing it back is a bit ironic.

Maybe. But the regional pilots likely heard one side of the radio traffic that would have lead them to believe that the military traffic had them in sight and was deconflicting from them. Before this accident, I'm betting the vast majority (like 95% or more) of pilots would hear that and move on to focusing 100% on flying the non-standard night visual approach they likely hadn't expected or briefed. Also, if the FO was flying, that would only make it less likely that he would time share looking for the helo while on short final. And that's if they even had an idea of where to look for it.

Not even remotely the same. Ukraine didn't send a bunch of thugs into Russia to rape women, randomly kill people, and literally throw babies into bonfires. If Ukraine had done that to Russia and Russia invaded Ukraine as a response, I don't think you would see anyone here advocating helping Ukraine. Keep in mind that Hamas was elected by the people. They knew the type of people they were putting in power. The Palestinians celebrated Oct 7th as a victory. Women and children beat hostages and cheered as they dragged the bodies naked dead women down the street. What's a reasonable long term solution? Clearly the status quo isn't working and is only going to lead to more death and suffering. Palestine was offered statehood in Gaza and they rejected it. There will be no long-term peace. This is one sad situation where there doesn't seem to be any middle ground and so it looks like it is going to be a winner-take-all solution. If that's the case, I support the side that doesn't celebrate throwing babies into fires. As far as the region, the leaders of other countries in the area only pay lip service to supporting Palestine. They don't like or want the Palestinians and I would bet that if they could get a good excuse to look the other way while Israel takes over Gaza, they would do so happily. Only reason they pretend to support the Palestinians is because it would look bad to their people to favor Israel.

He initially pressed the Arab nations to take the Palestinians, which they have basically refused to do since 1947 and still refuse to do. Hopefully, this is a shot across the bow that the other countries in that region need to chip in and figure out a real long term solution before the US basically turns Gaza into a Middle East Hong Kong. The idea has also been floated of bulldozing the entire strip and just leaving it bare for a while. Hopefully that is what actually happens. Then in 10 years, Israel turns it into a tourist beach resort area and shows the world what the Palestinians could have done but instead chose to elect a government of terrorists more focused on killing other people than providing for their own people.

I have a couple piston ARs, including a higher end LMT and they are great. For sure they run cleaner, cooler, and have less problems. Admittedly, the less problems might be the fact that they are higher end ARs rather than PSA types that some of the other ARs that I shoot often. But for most guys, it won't matter that much. The reason I want to get rid of the buffer tube is total length. I'd love to be able to put a full up SBR AR under the seat of my truck or side by side. Throw a side folding stock on there and you have an awesome do anything rifle/handgun/whatever the ATF decides it is this week.

I've been trying to find an upper to modify my SBRs to be exactly that. Just haven't been able to find an upper to do that yet. Seems like every company that has figured out how to get rid of the buffer tube is only selling complete rifles.

The only CAs I've considered putting on my no fly list have all been 64. Coincidence?

Since we're on the home defense theme, I think a lot of guys overlook or underestimate the value of the passive home defense. For example, according to the FBI, a house without a visible security system is 3x more likely to be broken into than a house with one. Additionally, over 1/3 of break-ins go through the front door. Most people way over-estimate the strength of their front door. In a previous house in a good neighborhood, I discovered that our solid oak front door had been kicked in before we bought it when I was doing some other repair work (previous owner just glued it back and called it good). The door jamb is the weak point with most being made of fairly thin pine going with the grain so it is easy to split. A simple kick will bust in the jamb and trim and keep the door intact so that it will more or less close behind the assailant and a neighbor driving by would never know. Home Depot has a $30 kit that would make this WAY tougher and might even break a foot first. Spending $400 and a Saturday installing this and some cameras will drastically decrease the chances you'll need anything we've been talking about. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Jamb-Repair-and-Reinforcement-Kit-59-1-2-in-Installed-Steel-Construction-White-U-11026/204254635

Ha, almost but not quite. The exterior walls of my house are concrete, so almost a bunker minus the windows and doors. The remodel is going to put the kids bedrooms on a different floor and/or in an addition behind those concrete walls. Also, I live on a fair amount of land, so even if a bullet somehow found a window, the chances of reaching the neighbors house are so low as to not make it even worth thinking about. With the layout/construction of my house, I'm not worried about errant rounds, so I'd have the option to empty the full 30 rounds, then use the mag swap time to assess if the threat had been neutralized. I'm still debating what round to go with. 300BLK seems to me to be the logical choice, probably the full up supersonic rounds as I think that'd give me the largest entry and exit wounds reasonably available for an AR and over-penetration is a non-issue. Maybe on an SBR platform. I got a couple free Form 1 SBRs back with the first round of the ATF bump stock baloney, so might just use one of those. Guess I'll have to do some research to make sure they're still valid after all the back and forth the ATF has done since then. Although now your M-1 thought made me think about my dream of owning a full up BAR... No CQB or room clearing, just spray level across the entire house for a few mags and hire some drywallers to come patch everything up later. 🙂

USAID is basically a government version of an NGO charity and we would laugh if Doctors Without Borders tried to deny an auditor information because it was classified. Additionally, if the President directed it, then security clearances and classification are completely irrelevant as he has ultimate classification authority. If he wants them to look at our space sharks with lasers program, that's his prerogative. Maybe DOGE guys should have done the security paperwork, but there are also a lot of security process stuff that DOGE could address so working within the bureaucratic system to drastically change that system seems a bit counterproductive.

That's a crazy video. First, who puts a security camera in their bedroom facing their bed? That's some kinky stuff right there. Second, does show how important it is to train regularly with your firearm and think through likely scenarios. Third, think this just convinced me to switch my bedroom defense gun to an AR. Conveniently, we're about to remodel which will remove about 99% of the threat of missed bullets going into kids bedrooms, so no reason not to go with an AR.

That's horrific. I hope the initial impact was violent enough that no one was conscious afterward.

Completely absurd. Inexperience on the airliner caused this? I haven't heard anything to put blame on the airliner yet. Maybe they might have seen it and gone around, but if that's the argument then it's even more absurd as young people generally have better eyesight, so maybe we should lower the retirement age again...

If they reduce his rank (and pay?) it will be interesting to see if that holds up with the pardon. Glad they pulled his clearance, I'm sure that reduces his cushy consulting jobs. I'd imagine that most are not pre-authorized, but most would be more in their normal line of work, discussing exercises and such, not discussing the current internal politics of their own country. To put it in perspective, if you're a capt on the schedule to fly the next day with the wing king, you don't need to go through your SQ/CC to the OG/CC to talk to the WG/CC about the flight. But if you have something that is not a routine issue, you go through your chain.

I get the California thing (screw them) and I'm all for companies figuring out ways to expose California gun control laws for the absurdity that they are. I also like that they are actually innovative rather than just trying to improve the same basic product that they've had on the market for 20 years. But I don't and won't live in the Peoples Republic of California, so I don't really see the advantages of this outside that commune.

China and Russia want the US to produce more chips? Taxes can and should be looked at as the government incentivizing behavior as soon as you get past standard income and sales tax. Trump wants to increase US chip production, which would make us less reliant on foreign producers. His fastest and easiest way to do that is to artificially increase the price of foreign chips to make the market more desirable for US companies to enter/expand. Clearly there will be second and third order consequences, but he must think those are worth the desired effects.

Wait, what? No magazine for a pistol? Never been interested in Keltec (just seems like a cheaper version of harbor freight of guns) but this makes me a hater on principle.

Weren't they dishonorably discharged? Didn't think you get disability pay with a dishonorable discharge.

If the process for this is anything like most of my pay experience in the military, they'll get their first check in about 9 months, but it'll be wrong, so the member will have to spend 100 hours filling out various forms, then a debt will be incurred and they'll get no paycheck at all for a month, then six months and multiple corrected W-2s later it'll finally get fixed.

True. American exceptionalism has been a target by the left for decades. A claim that America is, or at least was, great implies that it is greater than other countries, which the left can't accept. Everything must be equitable, so if something is greater than other things, it must be broken down to be only as ok as everything else.