ViperMan

The book killed me...seems like I need to watch the movie.

Ok that's cool, we're all working with our own set of terms. Yeah, so they haven't worked according to that metric. That said, sanctions never work overnight, and I think characterizing something that is supposed to work over time as a failure until the moment it works is an unfair judgement to make. I give NK a 0.0% (repeating, of course) chance of being a world-leading nation in the next 100 years under their current regime. Civilians being miserable is a necessary but insufficient condition for sanctions to work in many cases - this one included. And right now, they are acceptable collateral damage. As are their bank accounts, iPhones, and pantries. I quite literally could not care. I hope it motivates them to ask the all-important question: "WTAF?" And finally, anyone's attitude about what is and isn't funny or appropriate is a relative judgement. In light of millions of people being illegally and criminally displaced from their homes and being hungry, yeah, I think that would be a shitty thing to laugh at. Looking at some poor Russian who can no longer get cheese from Italy because his government is *ucked, is funny. And I will laugh at it.

Just noticed this today myself and have set a reminder for Dec '22 to get myself set up with some other bank that offers the 2% unlimited cash back reward (the best I've been able to find). This was literally the only thing USAA had over and above all other banks out there. Now, they don't. They can waive bye-bye to my direct deposit $$$.

Hmmm, lemme check. Ghadafi? Dead. Saddam? Dead. Slobodan Milosevic? Dead. So yeah, maybe sanctions don't "work", but if I was a dictator, it would seem to me that sanctions are a pit stop that the West puts me in for a few months or years before I wind up getting killed by someone they support. And to your comment that it's not working in Iran or NK, I will disagree by simply saying you're wrong - without evidence - because I can. Look at a map of SK vs NK when they're lit at night...I'd say they're working.

It's not necessarily about punishment per se. Though it will be punishing, to be sure. It has multi-pronged effects that are more important. Namely, no one in Russia will be able to avoid figuring out WTF is going on since their money is now worth less than shit. It will cause their government many problems at home. It will limit the ability of the Russian military to make war, because as we all know, it's not lift and thrust that makes airplanes fly, it's money. It will cause massive rift within the Russian power brokerage. It will amplify distrust of the government. It will sow doubt among those who actually trust Putin. It will diminish their future ability to modernize their war machine. In short, it will do all manner of objectively good things. So yeah, sorry your average Ivan is getting it in the pants, but when you compare that to what's happening to your average Ukrainian, that pain inflicted against the Russian populace is meaningless. Fuck 'em.

I'm a pretty big naysayer of this current administration, but what they've done so far with Javelins and tough sanctions (what they've been able to do), has been commendable. Russia's economy is getting absolutely crushed, and there is still a lot more that we can do. And we should. Putin should be relegated to permanent pariah status. https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=RUB&to=USD&view=1M

Could have been better ♟️ For all the Snowden defenders: https://nypost.com/2020/11/02/edward-snowden-shows-his-true-colors-by-applying-for-russian-citizenship/ https://www.china.org.cn/world/2022-02/16/content_78051824.htm https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/02/11/nothing-more-grotesque-media-pushing-war-says-edward-snowden Quick recap: 2013: Snowden steals secrets from the NSA. Goes to hide in Russia for "sanctuary" until he can get a fair trial or some such. 2014: Russia invades eastern Ukraine. 2021/2: Snowden downplays potential for war in Ukraine. 2022: Russia full-scale attacks Ukraine. 👍

I'm good with the Ukrainians doing it 👍 - then it's belligerent vs belligerent. Doesn't have to be us, and you're right - it shouldn't be. Either way, I think that what is conventionally accepted as gospel - that nuclear powers will fight each other with nukes - is 1950s cold war thinking. Putin is throwing his d*ck around in Europe and we are caught with our pants down. He is obviously playing by a different set of rules now, and he'll continue to outmaneuver us if we hold fast to this notion (fear) that he's got a legit itchy nuclear trigger finger. He doesn't, and thinking that orients itself around that "fact" is doomed to lose.

No, not really. Not besides just starting a long and grinding slog that's going to kill and maim a bunch of people who don't deserve to be killed or maimed. I'm just suggesting that there is a much, much, higher bar for using nukes than people seem to think exists around here - especially against another nuclear state! If Putin got legitimately splattered, there would be hell to pay, but nukes coming out? Pffffft. Scoff. No one gets to put that cat back in the bag, and everyone knows it. Also, assassinate is the wrong word. MLK, JFK, and Abe Lincoln were assassinated. If Putin was killed in a lawful military strike, that's that. This. Though I will say, Russia is likely not fighting with everything they have.

Yeah. "President" and "sovereign nation" may not be the most illuminating phrases to characterize Putin and what he's doing at this point. I dunno, but IMO he is clearly WAY over the line here, into instant war criminal status. And I think both us and them are past the point of counting our nukes. We both have the ability to annihilate each other, and I personally *highly* doubt they would risk total war over one guy - even their "president" - who last time I checked was an autocrat who was suppressing political opposition in his country. I think dropping one dude as a message would maybe give their leadership chain enough of a shake up they'd be given the opportunity to back off. Clearly we will be fighting nuclear powers in the future. It stands to reason we should figure out good ways to do it.

Here me out on this one. We should hellfire Putin. Send them a *uck of a message. Shake things up. Call their remaining leadership's bluff on further escalation. Put them on notice that they are criminals and are legal targets.

So our vaccines are worse, then? I've been reliably told that we have the best vaccines and boosters. Because COVID is killing us at 20x that of South Korea and Japan...that not strange?

What's up @Negatory. I guess it's a perception error, but you honestly came across like that. So, no, I'm not trying to misrepresent you. In our discussion (back then) it was pretty clear to me that what was being implied was that there was going to be mass death right around the corner. I stated that I did not buy that BS for a variety of reasons. Also, you could have, you know, responded with what you actually meant four days ago if I "misrepresented" you. Instead you waited until now to figure out that's not what you meant back then??? You can see how I'm (still) confused. How about you explain what you meant by 15% (or 30% as you quoted), and what this other pretext was. In any case, I'm not arguing fallaciously, and you are welcome to clarify. If you had been context switching between Omicron infecting a million people a day and then back to vanilla COVID morting 5-15%, then I missed the fact that there were two separate and distinct points being made - so yeah, that's my perception problem. But I will admit that I went back and read the stuff from just prior to Christmas, and it is not clear that you were talking about two different bugs. That said, you did recognize that the data showed Omicron was highly infectious, but not as deadly - so I'll take that one. Anyway, here's the big picture I take away from our previous conversation after having been removed from it for a while: There is one group (you, et al) who are willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the PTB re: COVID measures. There's another group (includes me) who is done with the charade and all things "unserious." I mean you have people that are fine with measures being taken that were known (or thought) to be ineffective simply as a means to "do" something (I'm one who thinks masks have a limited personal effect; zero societal effect). Many people, including me, think forcing people to do things for show is anti-American. That's where I'm coming from. And besides that philosophical point, I'll say it's worth a moment's consideration to think about the implication of having the perception that something works, even though it actually doesn't, and then implementing it as policy. Do you think those types of misconceptions will lead people to take more or less appropriate risks? What will then be the actual real-world outcome of that policy? More or less infection? Seems clear to me what the answer is, but yet... Others accept at face value that "COVID" is "killing" 20x more Americans than in other nations. Apparently you need to be some kind of "expert" to notice that is an odd thing and to raise it as a question. Or perhaps this, the fact that in California (of all places) they held the Super Bowl mostly mask-less (https://www.pennlive.com/nation-world/2022/02/face-masks-were-handed-out-at-the-super-bowl-but-few-fans-wore-them.html). Where was the enforcement? Why was this acceptable? My bet is that it was cool because there was a lot of money involved in it for CA. I would like to be a fly on the wall during some of the conversations between NFL executives and the CA government (https://www.wtok.com/2022/01/05/nfl-looks-contingency-sites-super-bowl-amid-covid-19/). Anyway, it was these sorts of arguments that were (and still are) being made. My point now is the same as what it was then: This is now mostly about signaling/control, Omicron wasn't (isn't) going to kill everyone, and it's time to stop panicking and go back to (actual) normal. Stop the fear-based arguments and justifications for normalizing restrictions, lack of freedom, and unquestioned acceptance of authority. We are creating a generation of young children who are scared shitless of COVID though they are not at risk whatsoever, and are going to grow up more neurotic than they already were going to be.

Alright, I'm tracking. So if you have 30 days to sell and retire on 1 Mar (for instance), you're saying you'll collect your base pay ($9,000) and get your retirement pay ($4,500) collecting $13,500 in total? for example? At the end of your second month (30 Apr) retired you'd have collected $18,000. Ok I'm tracking this gameplan now. I wasn't before. By my math, if you take the leave (starting 1 Mar), you'll go on terminal, collect $9,000 + ~$1,500 (BAH) + ~$300 (BAS) + $1,000 (Flight pay) = $11,800 and then one month later you'd get that first retirement check (~ $4,500) and come out at around $16,300 so you're short about $1,700 - given a hypothetical (lowish) BAH rate. That said, something everyone who is approaching retirement should be familiar with is exactly how retired pay is calculated. If you stay active that extra month, you're not only bumping one of your lowest months of pay off the bottom and replacing it with one at your highest pay, you are also getting a multiplier bonus - which I don't think everyone is necessarily aware of. So when you retire with exactly 20 years of service your multiplier is .5000. When you retire with 20 years and 1 month, your multiplier is .5 + 2.5 * ( 1 month / 1200) = .5021. With 20 years and 2 months, it's .5042. I think most people think you need to trip another full year of service to collect another 2.5%. With this in mind, if you're a Lt Col at 17 years in Jan of 2020, your retired pay would wind up as $4,732.13. If you retire with 20 + 1 mo, it becomes $4,766.99 (+$34.85); with 20 + 2 it becomes $4,801.97 (+$69.83). Eventually, in about 4 years, you make that original $1,700 back and then have more retired pay forever. Choose your adventure. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/1401 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/1409

Nope. Just trying to have a reasoned debate/discussion using fact, reason, and logic to best understand and orient myself in this new world we find ourselves in. All while navigating heaps of disinformation spread by those who know better and those who are equipped to know better.

Ok, there's an instance you actually DO get more money.

I get that, but the day you work until is the day you work until. If you work until that day you get paid all of your normal compensation. If you then sell back 60 days of leave you get your base pay (you lose some pay). If you start terminal leave on that day, instead, you get all of that PLUS BAH/BAS. So you get more money by NOT selling it back. What am I missing?

That distinction doesn't make a difference, though. You can't get base pay + retirement pay because you can't get retirement pay until you're retired... If you separate (not getting a pension) you can start your job, so New Job + Mil Job > New Job + Mil Job - BAS - BAH. I guess if you need a fist full of dollars now it makes sense, but that's the only condition where it could make a difference. The end sum would always be greater if you stay on AD longer and collect everything you're entitled to.

@Clark Griswold this one? I've never been impressed with her or Stephanopoulos. But I'm not sure what I find more concerning, what she said or the fact that very little besides her jaw moves anymore...too much plastic. Way too much.

Mkay. I'm glad you never said it directly. I suppose you're unfamiliar with the concepts of implication or multiplication. You did strongly suggest those numbers, however, with the 5-15% death rate you quoted numerous times. Sooooo, 5-15% of 1.0M people per week is 50K - 150K. Since approx 16% of people in the US are over 70 yrs old, that means we should have seen approx 8K - 24K people (only those older than 70!) dying every week. We didn't see that. And many of us knew we weren't going to see that. And the actions our government took during those early weeks of January reflect their knowledge that we weren't going to see that, either. Some on this board are overly disturbed by others' lack of faith. Your numbers were and are wrong. So sure, you can state under oath that you didn't say it, but you said it. Anyway. The point is some of us knew this wasn't going to be as big a problem. Many others were running around freaking out and imploring everyone to share in their panic. I just felt like it was worth invalidating some of the previous BS on this thread a little bit more neatly now that we do know for sure.

I fail to see how this is ever the case. If my calculations are correct, you ALWAYS make more money by taking it as terminal leave and collecting BAS + BAH + Base Pay > Base Pay. Am I missing some detail?

@Negatory @Prozac : Now that we have more data, I would like to close out our conversation from back in late December/early January re: how bad Omicron was going to be, how worried everyone needed to be (i.e. panic, NOW), and what our society's response should have been going forward. The Science™️, is in, and it is settled: there weren't ~15K deaths per day from Omicron. Deaths did not exceed the 4x multiplier cited as panic porn - which is what was predicted for you guys on this very thread, since we knew then from South Africa that it was 70x more contagious than Delta. So I hope this can be at least one data point that you should be careful which "experts" you trust and who you outsource your thinking to. There's my credentials. I should now be more credible than Fauci in your eyes. It turns out out that my non-expert opinion was better than all the other "experts" out there that were cited by you guys. What's more? The "news" cycle this morning: "We may not have reached the peak, yet, but let's go ahead and drop all the mask mandates." So says Phil Murphy and other democrats (NJ, RI, NV, IL). I'm sure that has everything to do with the fact that it's as deadly as you all said, and nothing to do with the fact that the midterms are pending...yeah, couldn't be. I'm personally wondering why they're not sticking to the CDC's advice, which is "not so fast" when it comes to dropping the masks. What about the experts!?! LOL. The cognitive dissonance is so loud I can hear it outside their own rattle cans. Our response was and still is almost wholly subject to political calculation at this point. I can't wait for all those Dems to be taken to task on NBC/ABC/CNN/MSNBC next week for 'bucking' the experts as the R's were. I won't hold my breath though. https://www.nj.com/opinion/2022/02/the-end-of-mask-mandates-sheneman.html https://www.providencejournal.com/story/news/local/2022/02/11/ri-covid-mask-mandate-indoors-schools-planes-buses-colleges/6736653001/ https://www.fox5vegas.com/coronavirus/gov-sisolak-lifts-mask-mandate-in-nevada-effective-immediately/article_78ae3250-89cf-11ec-b5e6-470f4b068c75.html https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-11/did-mask-mandates-work-the-data-is-in-and-the-answer-is-no CA, WA, OR, and a bunch of other Dem states to follow: https://finance.yahoo.com/video/covid-19-more-states-end-204102454.html Anyway, now that the data is there to support it and none of us needs to hypothesize (or appeal to the authority of so-called "experts") anymore, I thought it was important to publicly state, for the record, that I was right and you were wrong.

I would like to take a moment to note that NBC, this morning, is choosing to carry coverage of curling and ski-jumping on fake snow instead of covering the pending war that's about to break out in Europe. To be sure, Chuck Todd is a complete tool, but for one of the networks (and anchors) that couldn't stop squawking about Russia for four long years, you would think that this story would be right up their alley. Instead, they are making a conscientious choice to cater to their funding stream to serve advertisements to us in lieu of informing the public about the most consequential foreign disaster since Vietnam or maybe even Korea or WWII. At least on CBS I can witness Jake Sullivan stating for a second time in only a few months that "Americans should go ahead and evacuate themselves from harms way." What a great look. Here's a story about Russia and China using the Olympics as a platform to "partner up" against the West. And no one finds it odd that NBC is airing this event instead of putting Putin on "blast"?? Who's side is NBC on again??? JTFC. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-china-tell-nato-stop-expansion-moscow-backs-beijing-taiwan-2022-02-04/

Maybe this will help refresh your memory; I don't think it's a smart bet for ya...here's Mitch imploring his colleagues to not change the rules, in no uncertain terms, lest they come to regret it. So no, Rs have not been the ones in recent memory changing the rules of the game to suit their position - that is a distinctly democrat mode of operation. The whole reason for the filibuster is precisely so you don't have a group of 51v49, puffed chests, running amok with a "mandate" to "get things done." The Ds have 0 mandate. They need to govern with this as their reality - because if they do change the rules, you better believe it's gonna come back on them - hard.

Let's be honest, they're all 1's. The x/10 scale is just how close she is to "1".