nsplayr

Troops in Germany has long since evolved beyond us defending Germany instead of the Germans. US troops in Germany means a forward-yet-permanent presence that covers basically all of Europe and also serves as a staging ground for fun side-quests in African and the ME. I can see the logic of perhaps diversifying beyond megabases in Germany to places like Poland, but an overall reduction of troops in Europe doesn't really make sense to me based on my views on our geopolitical threats.

While you are technically correct, an increase of 1.6% over almost 50 years is...not great. Neither is a 6.1% increase. As you can see from the lines, the trend is divergence of the top 10% away from everyone else. (source: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45090.pdf) Further down in that chart, real wages for men in the bottom 10% in particular have fallen 13.3%, and that's a huge source of despair and rage among the poorest men of all races in our country. The jobs that have gone away and are never coming back were the ones that allowed our fathers and grandfathers to scrap by and make it with hard work and a little bit of luck; that's harder than ever today for those on the very bottom, whether you're in rural WV or urban NYC or anywhere in between.

They are numerous examples in plain sight if you care to see them. Over on the new thread there's an excellent article by David French sharing very specific, racist incidents his family has dealt with since adopting a child from Ethopia. I hate to just post a quote from some old dead guys as a means to making my point but... “It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.” - Epictetus

They don't. Twitter does not equal real life fortunately enough. Slight quibble, but if poverty is a lack of money than giving people money would certainly help! I'm looking forward to a technocratic future where strong-yet-benevolent AI has taken over large swaths of the labor required to sustain human civilization and in turn people are supported by a UBI that frees them up for more creative and exploratory pursuits.

Excellent article, thanks for sharing.

@Guardian, as a fellow Guard guy now I sincerely hope you're not in a leadership position in your unit given your comments on this issue. I'm not sure why this particular conversation that Gen. Goldfein and Chief Wright are having has riled you up so much, but no one is going to investigate them, no one is going to punish them, no one is going to reprimand them. They are not ashamed to be leaders and have hard, uncomfortable conversations with the men and women they lead. I'm a white guy, and talking about race and racism is an uncomfortable conversation, I get it! But my friends who are black also say the same thing. Everyone I know would rather be talking about fast cars and cold beer and flying planes and killing bad guys. That being said, we're Americans and we don't back down from a challenge, and right now our country is being challenged by our long history re: race and how that history impacts people today. The people who are speaking out against racism and about starting a conversation about race in American and in our Air Force are signing their names and showing their faces. If you truly believe our leaders have a "sick mentality" and are doing a grave disservice to the Service, I honestly think you should speak out, sign your name and show your face in the same way. The kind of John Q. Public, anonymous leaking, etc. is just not my style and I don't think any of that helps nearly as much as speaking up frankly and standing behind what you believe in.

For another POV check out this podcast episode with author Jesse Wegman discussing his book Let The People Pick The President. The quirkiness & hackishness of the Electoral College didn't used to be a partisan issue, and I'm disappointed the discussion on reforms to our system has reached the places where it's at today. Other than the obvious electoral outcome (I'm a big-D Democrat as well as a small-d democrat), I was sincerely hoping that Kerry would have eeked out Ohio in 2004 over GWB and thus become President while losing the popular vote. Had that happened, the Electoral College would have been eliminated in short order, having affected each party once for two elections in a row, 2000 and 2004. FWIW I'm a big fan of automatic voter registration, ranked choice voting, expanding the size of the House of Representative (we can build a bigger room people!) to bring the Reps. closer to the people they represent, and eliminating the Electoral College. All small-d democratic reforms that bring more power to individual citizens.

Have you run this opinion past anyone who is not a white man?

What type of charges do you propose?

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/flight-attendant-unknowingly-emotional-discussion-race-airline-ceo/story?id=71004828 Heart-warming story an all, but my biggest takeaway is ?!?! that Doug is flying in the back of the jet on Southwest haha. Truly a man of the people I guess. He said all of the seats on AA were sold out 🤣

Which of those two cars is faster though 🤔

I think because especially for the waist measurement and sit-ups, people are typically or necessarily all up on each other. I’ll say this though, COVID has destroyed more queep than any other entity, friend or foe, in the history of the US military. And for that I’m thankful. #SilverLinings

Also the “waste of time” measurement is suspended for all until Oct 21. And I say this as someone who always maxed those points...it’s stupid. In order to maintain the health and safety of the force as testing resumes, the abdominal circumference component will be temporarily suspended through Oct. 1, 2021 or until further notice. During this period, all Airmen will receive a temporary, one-year abdominal circumference component exemption, and the next scheduled test date will be based on the overall fitness score. This one-year temporary abdominal circumference exemption will take precedence over any other shorter term temporary abdominal circumference exemptions. https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2195964/fitness-testing-suspended-until-oct-1/

Not meant to be condescending at all, my bad if it came off that way. But I wrote that because... It seems like some folks don't have a good understanding of how our system of government works. Executive branch rulemaking and executive orders are absolutely 100% in line with our constitutional form of government. Arguments can be made as to whether or not there is too much executive action vs congressional lawmaking and I generally agree that Congress has abdicated far too much power to the executive branch on the federal level. Fully agree that this should be moved to the COVID thread or elsewhere and I'll disengage on other unrelated topics here; cheers.

Good talk gents, faith in humanity briefly restored. Stay safe out there, pour one out for those who never made it back, kill some terrorists, and try not to get the Rona. 🇺🇸

I get what you're saying and understand the sentiment if you're on the more libertarian spectrum. It's easy to denounce executive actions you despise as unfair power grabs just like it's also easy to cheer ones you like as "cutting red tape." But bottom line, a big percentage of all the rules governing our day-to-day lives are created and maintained by agencies of the executive branch of local, state and the federal government. Many of the things that affect your everyday like fuel mileage standards, food safety, VA lending, FAA regulations, public health orders, etc. are largely rulemaking by the executive branch. This is a part of every modern system of government; it's not some kind of voodoo tyranny. Those kinds of agency actions and regulations as well as executive orders can be abused and it's fine to be skeptical, but your best COA is to vote for mayor/city council/governor/POTUS wisely and lobby the myriad of executive agencies and the appropriate level rather than to just break the rules because you somehow think it's your right to do so.

I respect you man but this type of thinking is so disappointing. “Self-described experts?” People like Dr. Fauci are experts in their field, full stop. World-class expertise. Top 0.01% level expertise. Lots of other doctors and scientists and public health experts are working hard to try to beat this thing so we can stop people from dying and all get back to living our lives as normally as possible. The problem is that science is hard and uncertain and this virus is novel and translating scientific data and observations into public policy is also hard and gets filtered through 50 different governors and the entire federal executive branch. I’m totally fine blaming public policy leaders for failures (I certainly do right now!), but to let public policy failures lead you to throw out the entire concept of expertise is really unfortunate. You are an expert in your line of work; would you want some random guy off the street to completely discredit and mistrust you if there was a mishap or CIVCAS incident? I think not. I mean, they will and they do, but it’s not the right stance to take. The article The Death of Expertise is really relevant here, check it out if you can. The book with the same title was fine but the OP article is really all you need.

It's not that antibodies don't help, they do. Like you said, that's the basis of most vaccines. It's just that science is hard and it takes time to figure things out with enough peer-reviewed certainty to make policy based on them. What level of antibody response is necessary to confer immunity? How long does that immunity last? Do antibodies developed from exposure to slightly different coronaviruses work against SARS-COV-2? Great questions, I'll let the scientists find the answers. Same goes for the masks. Honestly I think it was a pretty big own-goal was when the CDC said people don't need masks early on. Several other countries who have really suppressed the virus encouraged masks early and often. And I know why the CDC did it, US healthcare workers didn't have nearly enough already and they didn't want an even bigger crush on the demand side, but IMHO masks (when coupled with many of the things we did go) absolutely would have helped prevent lots of illness & death had everyone thrown them on in March. I've been wearing a cloth mask/neck gaiter out in public anywhere where I'm within 6-9 feet of another person since March 15th and it's honestly the least all of us can do. People who want to re-open the country quickly and smartly and get back to normal sooner (which is most of us!) should be lining up to wear and encourage other people to wear masks. The emerging consensus is not, "but it couldn't hurt;' it's that masks help. The CDC explicitly says so now which I mean, better late than never I guess. To what exact degree masks reduce transmission, it's hard to say with certainty, but just like warmer weather and being outdoors vs indoors, face coverings seem to meaningfully help stem the transmission of the virus. Humans > viruses; let's do the things we all can do to beat this thing so we can continue living long and prospering. Edit to add: This is all more appropriate for the COVID-19 thread: let's not Godwin's Law this otherwise valuable thread about the airlines.

It's not clear that testing positive for coronavirus antibodies conveys immunity for COVID-19, or if it does for how long. Seems like the consensus is that it probably does for some period of time but more work needs to be done and more time needs to pass since it is a novel virus. Agreed that hopefully additional antibody testing is part of a broader strategy for how we re-open safely, but I don't expect some kind of iron-clad "immunity card" or bracelet or whatever like there was in the movie Contagion to make one-eyed guys (sts) Kings in the land of the blind.

No hate, looking sharp! Here’s one of the same jet from a slightly different angle 🇺🇸

Without getting into specific capes, all assets have pluses and minuses, and current ISR/strike RPAs (i.e. MQ-9) are no different. Great at some things, terrible at others, so-so at many. Manned ISR/strike aircraft are the same. For "armed overwatch" where I think part of the idea is to also sell to other countries (or is it...I don't remember which trip around the carousel we're on now...), manned is obviously the way to go there. Same goes if you want rough-field, simple-MX, etc.

Long-term I think the future is bright (https://pressroom.ups.com/pressroom/ContentDetailsViewer.page?ConceptType=PressReleases&id=1569933965476-404). Short-term, I know some fairly young and inexperienced 18X pilots who recently got picked up as RPA contractors so 🤷‍♂️ All pre-pandemic so who knows how that all shakes out.

Valid. Hope no one steeped in a certain AFSOC program is ever in an acquisitions role for something the Bronco would want to compete for oh wait a second... ::Shot of a PC-12 taxing:: Narrator: "These aircraft fail to perform in these new and unintended roles." GFY Leidos et al. And I'm not an experimental aircraft nerd like some of y'all are or anything but this just looks like a freaking kit plane, am I crazy? And not in a good way. Like it's 1 step up from a gyrocopter or something...

The sooner you realize that the DoD is nothing more than a streamlined, efficient way to spend taxpayer dollars at an astonishing rate, the sooner a lot more military decision making starts to make sense.