Prozac

Depends entirely on one’s priorities. There are certainly opportunities to make more money. Those opportunities will vary airline to airline as every contract is different. Every airline will have a guarantee that ensures you will be paid for a certain number of hours even if you fly less. Best advice I can give: plan to live at or under guarantee. If you make more, bonus! Invest it, send your kids to a good college, buy an expensive toy, whatever. But always be able to pay your bills on guarantee alone. This industry is cyclical and downturns tend to take people by surprise (they shouldn’t).

Well, I think we found our fix to fix nazi. That said, you ain’t shit unless you can shack a F2F directly into a holding pattern, correctly apply the Mercedes Benz method for holding entry, proficiency triple the drift on the outbound leg, call ready for the approach after the first turn, then precisely fly a DME arc, compute the proper lead radial, and roll out on the NDB final within a degree, maybe a degree and a half (I mean, the needle does waiver a bit so I’m willing to cut a little slack here), figure your descent rate, execute a complex missed with a non-standard climb, and F2F yourself right back to the IAF to do the VOR this time. No GPS. Under the hood. In the Tweet.

I’m more of a water man myself. Yeah….like, from the toilet.

Pure political theater on all sides. We will not default. There will be a last minute deal and both sides will claim victory. Despite what they want you to believe, neither side is serious about reducing deficit spending & that won’t change anytime soon. Until we seriously address social security and Medicare, we aren’t making a dent. We could cut all other discretionary spending and we’d still be deep in the hole.

Well goddawum. Now we just need Luke Wilson (or any Wilson brother, really) to announce as his running mate & this election might get interesting. 🤨

Well thank goodness the Russians finally solved that spate of people accidentally falling out of windows. Unfortunately, knowing how morbidity trends unfold in Russia, I suspect this case is just the beginning of a run of sudden, unknown illnesses that unexplainedly affect dissidents & critics of the current regime. Hopefully, Russian medical personnel can identify the causes of these trends soon and address the underlying problem with a coup…..oops, I meant to say ‘the miracle of modern medicine’.

You just have to read the ensuing posts to see that there is plenty of trans hate going around. While I fully agree that a post pubescent individual who has subsequently transitioned probably shouldn’t be competing against born females in organized sports, two things can be true here. Reasonable people can make a logical argument against trans athletic competition while acknowledging that the hate and bigotry do exist. Adult human beings have various reasons for making the choices they make. None of us are in their heads. While I will probably never comprehend what would make someone want to go through with such a procedure, it must be a gut wrenching decision for those that do. Why anyone feels the need to make them miserable is something else I’ll never understand.

Good read (yes it’s NYT…Still, very well written and reasoned). Would encourage those here who are concerned about escalation of the war to read with an open mind. There are myriad reasons that appeasing Putin’s nuclear threats are a bad idea, not the least of which is that the threat itself becomes a weapon Putin can use at will to get what he wants. This essay expounds on that idea & makes a good case for holding the line against Russian threats. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/09/opinion/russia-war-ukraine-nuclear.html

Many times, over the middle of the Pacific in the wee hours of the morning have I considered the number of latex dongs I’ve helped deliver around the world, spreading pleasure to women everywhere. Then I remember that 90% of them are probably just headed to BQZip’s mom’s house & I throw up in my mouth a little & wash it down with some freight dawg coffee while I try to think about something else.

☝️

GHOSTED You’ve been warned. Do not waste your time. The only saving grace here is that Ana de Armas is onscreen for most of it. Otherwise, your average Hallmark holiday romance has more depth, character development, and directorial skill than this sorry piece of garbage. I don’t think this would’ve even been greenlighted as a made for TV movie in the 80s. Two hours you’ll never get back.

Just one of the many reasons flying freight is better than flying pax…

Exactly my thought. Symbolism is sometimes worth a lot in a war.

You had your epic troll moment years ago. Don’t sully your legacy.

New Crossfire series on Newsmax? 🤣

Oh but it does. The money, the power, and the elite have always been there. Things were demonstrably worse for the majority of people living in this country when the founding fathers put quill to paper. Slavery, racism, women’s rights, poverty, child labor, and many, many other issues plagued this country early in its existence. Don’t kid yourself, George, Ben, and the gang were out to enrich themselves just like any other politician from any other era. What they did have was the apparent awareness that politics are dirty & the foresight to give us the best possible framework to keep the graft in check. That system still works. It’s why we’ve made great strides in all of those issues I listed, & why we’re not some third rate kleptocracy like so many other places. We may sometimes take two steps forward and one step back but our lives are better on the whole today than ever before. Flawed as our country may be, you live in the best era in the history of mankind in the richest, most powerful nation on the planet. Many of us could take step back & recognize that fact once in a while.

So, no concrete examples then. Got it.

Oh boy. I thought we were having a conversation about whether Christians were mistreated by the media. I’ll remind you of your own argument: Since Liberty is rather notorious for making such statements, I chose them as an example. Mind you, I’m not judging their or your beliefs here, just making note of the example that you yourself presented. And no, it’s not just Muslim extremists. The Saudi government was very much in the news in a decidedly negative light when it hosted the World Cup despite its despicable human rights record. So, getting back to the original conversation, can you provide concrete examples of “the media” slamming Christians while letting others slide or are you just joining the current trend of wanting to play victim?

Let me put it this way: If Liberty University comes out and says gay marriage is a sin, that has the potential to affect millions of Americans since that institution has the ear of most conservative politicians. People rightly want to know that institution’s positions because it will influence legislation that will affect their lives. Now, you say that Muslim extremists don’t receive the same negative press. Jury’s still out on that one for me but a not insignificant number of them have certainly received something much more violent than bad press over the last few decades. I don’t recall too many Americans or news outlets, liberal or conservative, crying over their loss. I would argue most Americans implicitly agree that Muslim extremists are bad since we’ve seemed to be ok with a large part of our budget being expended to vaporize them.

Muslims in the Middle East do not have the access to American politicians or influence that Christian groups in the US do. We expect to hear those views come from the taliban. It’s news when influential Americans tout them.

Got it. What controversial statements made by other religious groups in our country did the media not cover in the same time period? Assuming there were statements made by Muslims, Buddhists, Pastafarians, or other religious groups, did any of those groups have the political influence of Christian conservatives in the US? If not, guess what? It’s not as consequential a story and will receive less print/airtime.

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a concrete example of the scenario you’re talking about. Not saying it doesn’t happen…just that I haven’t seen it. But let’s just say it does for the moment. Why do you think that might be? Perhaps it’s because Christian religious groups wield tremendous power in our country and when they make a statement like “God hates gays”, it’s a much bigger deal than when, say Louis Ferrakhan (who has had plenty of negative press if I recall) says similar.

Examples?

Certainly there is plenty of bias to go around. Just curious as to why you think bias (and/or what flavor or bias) is driving the reporting in this case?

Curious as to what “slant” media outlets may be playing at on this one? Do you see a difference in how liberal vs conservative outlets are handling this story? What about domestic vs international outlets? Why might an editor want to protect the Dalai Lama while calling out the Catholic church’s violations? What would an outlet gain by shuffling Buddhist wrongs to the back pages? Personally, I believe the Dalai Lama’s actions are absolutely as equally disgusting as anyone who has taken advantage of a child. But I’m with others here arguing that this is simply about ratings, not some international extension of American culture wars (Occam’s razor & such). Most Americans probably couldn’t correctly identify which religion the Dalai Lama is the head of, or in which country he resides. On the flip side, there are millions of Catholics here and many, many Americans have been either directly or indirectly affected by the Catholic Church’s indiscretions. Remember, news organizations are primarily in the business of selling advertising, not necessarily providing equal coverage for similar events.