FourFans

So you are saying Biden is honestly the best option for leading our country right now? Regardless of the track record to date? You're willing to vote for him again instead of someone like desantis who has a proven record of success in implementing policies that are both wanted by the people he leads and actually result in good outcomes? It sounds like you are advocating for siding with politics instead of reason because we can't change the world, so might as well accept shitty performance out of our leaders and move on. Do you accept that same stance with your financial advisor, mechanic, plumber, or home repair specialist? If not, please address, specifically, the items you are very happy with from Biden. You may agree with his policies, but please show me the exact outcomes in, lets say: economics, that you are pleased with. Do you believe Biden has unified or divided the country through his efforts? Is our international footing better or worse because of the policies of the last two years? Get specific please. You wouldn't ignore strange noises under the hood after a visit to the mechanic, and you'd want to know exactly what's wrong. I'm asking the same questions. Don't tell me to ignore what's broken just because "Politics has always been somewhat dirty/disingenuous/cynical". Without fail, every time I ask these kinds of questions I get one of three responses: "Somehow Trump's fault." "You won't understand because I already know what you believe" or "I don't want to talk about his." Never have a I heard a rational, unemotional explanation of why people are pleased with Biden. Not Once. The truest response I ever got was "Doesn't it make you feel good that we're voicing support for the oppressed?" Those aren't answers. That's dodging the question because those people are afraid to answer questions with real facts and are running away. So yes, I will call that what it is. Cowardice.

Truth about USAF FS sucking at their jobs aside...let's not pretend that the Flying Class 1 is a high bar.

I am neither conservative nor liberal, democrat nor republican. I never voted for Trump. I never voted for Biden. I currently have been voting more conservative simply because I have been agreeing topic to topic in that direction. It's not always been that way. For example: Democrats used to be anti-censorship and anti-authoritarian and I agreed with them often. Now they aren't, so now I don't. I'm an American who prefers adults making difficult decisions using humility, reason, logic, candor, and a certain level of social awareness. Our current president has none of those attributes. He is a hollow shell and you clearly understate all your critiques of him. It shows in how you carefully craft those critiques. Have the balls to admit the truth: Biden, Trump, and a vast majority of our current government have no business leading anything...ever. Yet you support them. If you let these people run your house or manage your daily decisions, you'd be homeless, divorced, and broke....and like addicted. I implore you to stop being a coward and call a spade a spade. Our government under Biden's administration has amplified political divisions rather then unifying as they claimed they would, has undercut our self-defense capacities, and is in the process of putting our economy nearly a decade away from fiscal recovery by way of spending beyond their means. There is no way you'd run your personal life the way this administration is, yet you actively support how they run our nations affairs. Such dissonance is not sustainable psychologically or socially. That's not understatement. That's factual information from each of those areas of focus. Ignore it if you want, but if you choose to refute it, please bring facts that prove your point, not emotions. You'll note I reference no social agendas, politics, or hot topic issues. It's the basics that are completely messed up. Live within your means. Make rational decisions. Protect the family unit. Don't pass on debt to your children. Unify, don't divide. Basics. If you insist on supporting agendas simply because they are "mainstream democrat" I beg you to reconsider. Acting in that way makes you what Marx called a "Useful Idiot", and you are hurting our country.

You're seriously still standing behind this guy?

I know some are adverse to facts...however, the $25,000 was established sometime in the early 90's (best I can tell). Congrats, they basically finally adjusted for inflation...for the first year of the 10 you'll be receiving it. Have fun with your AFPAK HANDS 2.0 assignment when they create it. Good work, great incentive. P.S. Don't take the bonus. https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

I'm sure that counter-argument works well in the bar.

Kinda obvious when he has to follow a pilot to make it in the door.

Good points all. I'll increase the gain on my sarcasm detector.

That's cute. Be sure to tell the PJ that after he pulls your ass out of some shit hole. Everyone who's been there knows that the color of the nomex doesn't actually matter so long as it works. F the nonners. They play no part in a warrior's self esteem. I need to R2 my sarcasm detector

Agreed. However the context is vastly different. The overwhelming majority of the population in 1860 was intimately familiar with warfare, combat, death, and hardship at the individual level. Simply living anywhere west of the Allegheny Mountains was hard. Death was commonplace, and owning lethal weapons was a demanded way of life. Fast forward to our modern culture where life without toilet paper is considered difficult and owning a lethal weapon is actually a debated topic. A civil war, true violent cessation, and the attempt of one part of this country to break away from the other would require hardship to be endured by all individuals. Most importantly would be the economic hardship. Imagine trying to live in California or New York without the US federal presence or without the food provided by the midwest. Yes, cali produces things, but not the things that could support them independently. New York doesn't produce jack shit. We need each other. Any kind of real state fracture will readily expose that fact, and pressing into it will require serious endurance and privation at the household level. You think white suburban women came out of the woodwork to vote against trump? Imagine what would happen if you actually deprive them of their soy lattes and avocado toast. Frankly, modern American's don't have the balls for that kind of hardship...at least not over neighborhood politics. Southern Californians DEFINITELY don't have the balls for that. Modern Americans are all about kicking someone else's ass so long as that person is on the other side of a pond and can't actually hurt us. People in 1860 knew what blood spilt on our soil felt and looked like (1776 was less than 100 years prior, and then war of 1812), and were prepared to live through privation in support of a belief, and a patriotism they held dear. Modern Americans, writ large, are not. Less than 10% of our population has experienced combat of any kind, and less than that in our governing bodies. Our fractures will stop at political action, and I believe any re-organization (greater Idaho for example) will be largely peaceful and political, with any violence being restricted to localized policeable actions such as protests and riots. Militias are not about to start fighting each other or the federal military. Americans are both too smart and too comfortable to do that. Our country is not going to try and break apart. Re-arrangement and re-organization is possible though. My bet is that an international action sometime in the next five years will put all that to bed anyway. As a country, we galvanize like no other.

Primarily democratic politicans and democrat supporters...oh, and SVB. Shocking. Presumably @nsplayr if he's 'way more involved in democratic politics.' Unless he meant that as a little d democratic, not a big D Democrat. BTW nsplayr, just because you haven't met them, doesn't mean they don't exist. BLM made enough money for the shady purchase of a $6M mansion with donation money. That's not insignificant, but it is highly corrupt...and largely funded by your party. Accountability much?

I have to agree with @nsplayr on this one point: We're nowhere near a civil war. Such a thing would involve a vast majority of the population. Right now I would argue that 10% or less of the US population composes the highly vocal left and right. Civil unrest? More likely. If we can elect some leadership that moderate and actually has some form of wisdom in their decision making, we'll be fine. Our current administration is populated by muppets and morons, which is why we're in the economic, political, social, and international troubles we're in.

@nsplayr Elsewhere you were musing and wondering what liberal left stuff are we concerned about This:https://www.cbssports.com/general/news/vermont-high-school-banned-from-tournaments-after-refusing-to-play-team-with-transgender-player/#:~:text=The Vermont girls high school,will apply to all sports.

This quote seems to be an exact foretelling of what we're living through right now. “What I want to fix your attention on is the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence—moral, cultural, social, or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how Democracy (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods? You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them ‘tyrants’ then) sent an envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of corn, and there he snicked off with his cane the top of every stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level. The moral was plain. Allow no pre-eminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser, or better, or more famous, or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level; all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals. Thus Tyrants could practise, in a sense, ‘democracy’. But now ‘democracy’ can do the same work without any other tyranny than her own. No one need now go through the field with a cane. The little stalks will now of themselves bite the tops off the big ones. The big ones are beginning to bite off their own in their desire to Be Like Stalks.” ― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters: Also Includes "Screwtape Proposes a Toast"

Looking at the stats on the FAA site, it appears that the number of runway incursions is staying relatively stable from past years. Perhaps we're just seeing more press on them now with trackers like FlightRadar24 and such. Still, not good. https://www.faa.gov/airports/runway_safety/statistics/

Following your logic train for a minute here. What are the specific barriers to entry into the pilot world that are filtering out women and minorities? How is DEI removing those barriers? Is placing people in jobs due to skin color or gender not racist or sexist? Are you just as concerned that the overwhelming majority of coal miners are white men too? We're looking for equity of outcome, right? So it would stand to reason that you also want to see an even distribution of women and minorities into the oil fields of Texas and in the welding career in North Dakota. Why is the focus only on the high paying career fields and C-suit perceived disparities. If we're going to level the playing field, then actually level it. As it stands, for example in the C-suits of america, women are actually paid higher then men in those same jobs. Fact. I say good for them! Oh, but that's not the stat we want to push because it's counter-narrative. Hell, you know how many women are in the night-cargo flying business? VERY FEW. It's not because they can't hold the job. It's that very few people actually are willing to sacrifice their body to the sleep cycle murder that's involved. Or does that make night cargo-flying sexist? Perhaps it's time we recognize that different cultures have different values. Perhaps there are less women entering into the airline business, because, per-capita, there are less women that want that job then there are men who want that job. During the hiring process at the 8 airlines I interacted with, I witnessed all of ZERO barriers that filtered out anyone by race or gender. In fact, being a minority or woman upped their chances of getting hired (hear that straight from a hiring pilot's mouth). A qualified candidate was a qualified candidate. I'm sure the process to get to that point still has some problems. Fine. Get to a 90% solution and go to press. But perhaps there's credence to a culture where women are the primary care givers to children while men go earn the living. Can you imagine if they ACTUALLY CHOSE THAT LIFE?! CRAZY! It's almost as if we have some inboard instincts and characteristic that make the genders unique in their ambitions or something. Is that the ONLY way it should happen? Absolutely not. But there appears to be absolutely no credit given to that as a viable way of life. DEI is clearly intent on making some people more equal than others. Go re-read animal farm if you want a refresher on that. I say remove the prejudiced barriers to entry, retain the ones that enforce quality, and let people vote with their feet. Forcing change with DEI bullshit is just a distractor, and really is another form of tyrannical power grabbing. It's been done. Forcing everyone to be equal never ends well. Talk to anyone older than 50 and from east of Poland and you'll find out how it went.

I'm guessing you don't understand what life in a communist country is really like. I'd rather work 25 days a month and be free to quit or find another job rather than live under the tyranny of the USSR or the CCP.

@ClearedHot Was it fun flying those?

In a perfect world, yes. That's not what's happening. DEI assumes that if you have a certain skin color, then you must have had a disadvantage. Assuming you overcame more barriers because you aren't white is intensely arrogant. Imagining that you know anything about someone based on their skin color or gender has a name: RACISM. So I'm clear: DEI IS INSTITUTIONAL RACISM

Let me underscore: Employment in the airline industry RIGHT NOW will secure you for a future that is fraught with landmines of uncertainty. Social history says that our 'global society" is headed for pain. I have met the dude who was #2999 of 3000 at UPS Airlines...for SEVEN YEARS. (I can't remember the exact numbers, but he was literarily #2 from the bottom) And that ended. still SEVEN YEARS of crap schedules, commuting to the base you didn't want as a home so you decided to keep commuting...AND not knowing if you will be the first one cut. FOR SEVEN YEARS........yet he stayed.... ....he hung on. I'm telling you a fact that cannot be disproven: The sooner you get your number, the sooner you furlough-proof yourself. Is it impossible? no. The next couple decades are going to suck bigtime, there is no way around that. But if you are in the best job 'we' can possibly have, at the time, then you are the lottery winner my friend. Seriously dude. Airline pilots will make money, and live a better life (15 days at home BAby!!!) in our lifetime. AI is coming...FAST for us. But not yet. Make hay while the sun shines. You're a pilot, get after it! After 3 years of no more than 15 days a month at work: This is the best part time job I've ever had. The dirty secret: If it was 25 days a month, we'd all be happy so long as we weren't living under communism...

"Attention on guard, all aircraft in the vicinity of Kandahar city. Untethered aerostat last seen at 2000 feet..."

Genius! That would have been life changing for OPRs and awards back in my day!

A: It's not trite at all to value your time. B: Repeating the above, as not nearly enough people realize how life enhancing this realization is.

I'll throw it out there that as a crashpad dweller, I would strongly consider not making your long term dwelling in domicile a crashpad before you live in it. We dwellers are a highly varied breed. Some are respectful and treat the house as our own. Others, not so much. If there were level below 'rental', it's 'crashpad'. That said, if you can move your family to domicile, move your family to domicile. That is a MANY faceted statement though.

Fair point...but that dead horse over there...ok, yeah, I pumped a few too many missiles into that fireball. I quit.