bfargin
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Posts posted by bfargin
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He earned them all
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Taiwan is the country of my youth. I lived there from the time I was 8yo until I graduated HS. I was there when Nixon established trade ties with the commies in 1972 and then Carter finished the deal and formally recognized them as the one true China and publicly hung Taiwan out to dry in 1979. I have friends and family there and returned in 2013 for two years but am back in the US now.
The KMT ruled harshly for years in Taiwan and always had the public stand/position that China was "one" and Taiwan's government (ROC) was the true government of all of China, but realistically Taiwan has been an independent nation since Japan was booted during WWII (1895 to 1945, but formally Japan didn't give the island up until 1952 in the Treaty of San Fran). China doesn't really have any legitimate claim over Taiwan and through the years has only sporadically ruled over the island.
I think the Taiwanese would fight, but lets be honest a shooting war between the ChiComs (1.3 billion) and Taiwanese (~23 million) would be over quickly, unless the world intervenes.
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6 hours ago, Alpharatz said:
I don't have the computer/math chops..but it would be interesting to run some numbers on what would happen if you could simulate a mass refusal of the Polio and Smallpox vaccines many years ago..but figure in the modern mass communication system...Since it appears that humans are suckers for just about anything that is presented with the skills of ? well...THAT is yet another study...Oh to be young..the PhD's will be flyin....and I ain't lyin...
It took the world hundreds of years to eradicate smallpox. I've never read much on polio. Even with laws on the books in the mid 1800s to forbid the small pox vaccine (the UK) and then to mandate it (also the UK) it took until the early 1900s for industrialized countries to almost eliminate it. It was around in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) when I lived there as a kid, but eventually it was eradicated everywhere once vaccines were available to everyone. It was brutal and even with a much smaller world population back then there were 50 to 100 million cases a year and the more severe variant had a 30% death rate. Not exactly an apples to apples virus comparison, if that is the attempt.
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And I was shocked that new Cos are only getting 100 hours a year in the jet. WTH, how are they ever going to get proficient, much less good at their job, with those type of hours? Talk about needing an ACE program. I flew more tweet hours than that my first year as a -135 Co.
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I'm always on alert and constantly thinking about options should I lose an engine in my experimental single engine. Sounds like this guy was paying attention and managed to set it down safely.
Pilot makes emergency landing on O.C. causeway
The plane landing was quickly captured by OCNJ Drone, which is based nearby.
A banner plane pilot brought merging into traffic to a whole new level Monday.
Landon Lucas, 18, was flying for Paramount Air Service when he started having engine trouble as he was flying near Steel Pier in Atlantic City, Ocean City spokesman Doug Bergen said.
Lucas released his banner into the ocean and was attempting to reach Ocean City Municipal Airport when he spotted a gap in traffic in the westbound lanes of the Route 52 Causeway between Ocean City and Somers Point.
He successfully landed at 12:38 p.m., with no damage to the plane and no injury to himself or any motorist.
Investigators are on the scene, and crews are working to remove the wings and tow the plane away.
Both inbound lanes to Ocean City are open, and a single lane of outbound traffic is now open while the investigation continues.https://breakingac.com/2021/07/airplane-lands-on-ocean-city-causeway/
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4 hours ago, Sua Sponte said:
Tinker AFB 552 ACW Update:
Hitch kicks out Group level leadership (Donovan wasn’t present to start with)
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Thanks for sharing. I have no idea what the actual tone was in the meeting but, at least from 1000 miles away, it sounds like it might have been an honest conversation and maybe a wake up call to Hitch and the rest of leadership. Again, I have no idea if the crews thought it was just feeding them more BS or if they perceived it as a legitimate and fruitful discussion.
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If Trump had only listened to the IP and learned to STFU he would still be POTUS. He is his own worst enemy, not for standing up to the political elite and calling them out, but for the indiscriminate shit flinging at any and everyone (even when clueless about his target). He is a classical liberal, but I'd take a liberal any day over the lunacy of the new left.
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2 hours ago, Pooter said:
No it isn't. It's intellectually honest to follow the science and science points to the Big Bang. Scientists are also perfectly happy admitting to you that they don't know what caused the Big Bang, or what if anything existed before it.
Intellectual honesty is admitting you don't know rather than making shit up when you reach the limits of your understanding.
Except that's exactly what scientists do when they claim a big bang (not many don't believe in a "big bang" type event and an expanding universe, we just disagree on how and who caused it)). Most of my colleagues anyway, argue for one that happened from space matter that miraculously existed before the bang. Go to any college campus and speak with researchers in the sciences (biology, physics, chemistry, etc) and they'll all dodge the question or simply tell you it's an assumption that matter was there somehow before the big bang happened. No explanation on why and how it was there, just that they assume it was there. "Faith" as I said, but we call it "scientific assumptions" and that makes it OK since no God/god required.
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My intent wasn't to start an evolution discussion but just to point out the hypocrisy of stating that creationism is totally faith nonsense when in fact both belief systems have tons of faith. Every "assumption" in science (e.g. the foundations of life/basic matter always existed, we evolved by chance...) is faith. I've had lengthy discussions about the origin of life with some of my professor colleagues in biology and chemistry here at school, and ultimately they have to concede there is indeed lots of faith in their worldview. I don't have enough faith to see what I see around me and conclude, there is no creator (ymmv).
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23 minutes ago, Pooter said:
As for creationism over CRT, I'm not sure what good teaching one brand of nonsense over another would accomplish. Especially because there are some pretty nasty implications that follow if you accept the premise that an omnipotent god created everything.
We teach all kinds of nonsense currently (e.g. evolution, psychology is a science (we just call it a "soft" science), people are equal, etc.). The real nonsense is believing that the world was spontaneously formed by accident (out of stuff that magically happened to be around) and happened to fall together perfectly in the exact location in the universe where it could maintain stability. I saw an article a few years back where some top mathematicians did the analysis of probability of this occurring, and the number was a decimal followed by 40 zeros before the first nonzero digit. So it's definitely more intellectually honest and not nonsense to believe in a creator of some kind (even the made believe flying-spaghetti-monster is more intellectually honest than self initiated big bang ).
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I know it was years ago, but whenever I went TDY I always wore a TN Air Guard patch and never got hassle from anyone (even the guys who knew the active duty base I was tdy from). I'm sure the patch helped deter comments from those who might have tried to "chief" me outside my chain of command. Plus, I DNGAF what anybody said anyway outside my direct chain of command (and most of the time even within).
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43 minutes ago, Prozac said:
Also, you may indeed know “very few” people concerned about COVID death, but this is very much a circumstantial statement. Over 600 thousand Americans have died from this disease. That is a staggering number that should be shocking to all Americans. Some of you will say that those numbers are inflated. Ok. Let’s cut the number in half. Still an abysmal result that, in any other circumstance, should have most Americans crying out for and supporting far more aggressive and potentially risky solutions. Many of us here willingly and happily went to war after lunatics killed a few thousand Americans in New York. But half a million dead and we don’t want a shot? Blows my mind.
Not to be argumentative and I know it's a serious illness to many but, No, 600K did not die from Covid19. If you're going to call out people then be more honest in your claims as well.
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11 hours ago, FLEA said:
I will allow you this. For Trump supporters much of Trump's first year was overturning Obama era policies. It will take about a year for Biden to set the playing field to start building the progress he wants, for better or for worse.
That is of course, after "they" tell him what progress he wants. We're getting a good preview of the idiocy that will be.
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It's not a "fix" per say but really having a friend or two who you can tell anything to and trust the confidentiality is crucial. Even if you have to seek out a person or two that you completely trust and have them as a sounding board and confidante. I have a couple of best friends who I can do that with but I also established (weird at first but now it really works) a contact that I'm not great friends with, but completely trust his judgement and character. He is, for lack of a better term, my "accountability" partner. We don't always hang out and he's a bit eccentric at times, but I trust him and discuss stuff with him that I might not want to talk about with my friends or a wife. Admittedly it was a little awkward when i first approached him with the idea, but it works and I usually chat with him at least a couple of times a year even if nothing is happening (just to stay engaged). The chaplain is a great idea though and for the most part I'd guess won't care if you talk about flying, relationships, depression, work stress, or anything ... and its confidential.
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I just read the free chapter. Looks like it would be a fun read!
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1 hour ago, jazzdude said:
Along the same line of thought, is an amphibian needed, or would a pure seaplane suffice?
Amphibian adds complexity, and landing on water with a gear hanging would basically guarantee the loss of the aircraft and the cargo it carries, and possibly the crew. You can usually recover an aircraft following a gear up landing on land, but a gear down landing on water is typically catastrophic.
If anyone's interested, this is a pretty interesting seaplane story set in WW2:
https://www.panam.org/the-long-way-home
The book is a touch dry in the story telling, but tells the (true) story of a Pan Am flying boat that was in the Pacific when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and the crew's/aircraft's journey back to the US the long way (eastbound starting in the Pacific, attempting to avoid the fighting in both the Pacific and Europe)did you mean westbound? East is the short way home to the U.S. West coast, unless they were down under India somewhere and then it's closer to 50/50 on what direction to fly.
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10 minutes ago, kaputt said:
Has it been defined yet what “extremist” views are?
Can’t believe this is legal.
anything that the eavesdropper disagrees with
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I guess I was mostly surprised that they put it right out there in words, for all to see. Didn't even have the decency to hide the truth while screwing somebody.
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"This decision was based on public comments made by Lt. Col. Lohmeier in a recent podcast," a Space Force spokesperson said in an email. "Lt. Gen. Whiting has initiated a Command Directed Investigation on whether these comments constituted prohibited partisan political activity."
I find this very problematic. So, lets fire the commander while we determine if his words are an issue/problem and violate any rules.
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4 minutes ago, Day Man said:
we're discussing whether it's considered 'living'...your viewpoint isn't as universally accepted despite how much you want it to be.
Now you're talking complete shit. there is universal agreement by medical and scientific communities that human life is present the moment of conception. The only discussion might be the term "person". You might not like that fact anymore than I like the idea that "person"hood can be debated, but its established fact.
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This recently happened here in TN. Here, according to criminal law, an unborn child is a "person", but this wasn't true in civil law. I'm not sure if the Governor signed it yet, but once he does, it will be true in civil law also.
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Now that its out of the other thread I'll add my .02 again. We have a definition of human life according to science and there really is no debate there, but as Prozac pointed out "person" might be a little more nuanced. I think you have to be pro abortion to nitpick that, but that is just my opinion and I'm definitely not a linguistics expert.
Edit to add: I do acknowledge that current US law for citizenship doesn't recognize a person for citizenship until they are born. So, with that standard, the "person" protection afforded by the constitution could be argued not to apply until the baby is born (even though as y'all know, I don't like that).
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Degradation of SUPT
in General Discussion
Posted
Is DOR like the old SIE (quitting UPT) or is it failing /washing out?