Kiloalpha

I’ll make this short. I have a parent who recently got a bad medical diagnosis. I’m a casual LT at a UPT base 17 hours away by car, and 5-6 hours away by plane. I don’t have a ton of leave, but enough where I can make a few trips home. Not nearly enough to make regular trips though. I’m likely to be in casual status for at least 6 months. I want to be closer to help out for treatments and be around in case things turn for the worst. From the research I’ve done, there’s a few types of emergency leave, but they max out quickly and will put me into a negative balance that it’ll take forever to rebound from. I can’t request a humanitarian move due to the fact a gaining base in the area would need a 92T0. A sabbatical might work? But I’ll owe even more time (such is the nature) and I’m not sure how that’ll impact the AF sending me to UPT/career prospects. There’s discharge options, but they’re not something I want to consider. Is there anything else I’m missing? Any options I should consider or info I’ve put down here that’s wrong? Appreciate any insights. I plan on talking with the CC after the holiday's, but I’d like to have some options at least on the table beforehand.

As I understand it, they’re mad the FIA didn’t let the rest of the lapped cars through (keeping the safety car out) which means the race would have finished under a safety car and Hamilton would have won. Am I getting that right?

If we have vaccinated people needing ventilators en masse… Something has seriously gone wrong, as the whole point of the vaccine is to at least prevent that outcome. Do we have any data showing such a hypothetical is even happening in small samples? How many vaccinated people are being hospitalized?

The WH took the only political route they could with the speech. When you know you're in deep shit, you pivot your message to anything you can that polls/looks/sounds better. Most people can sympathize with the decision to end the war, so he focused on that, offering a smokescreen to the withdrawal. Personally, what makes POTUS' speech so sad is that he tried to do a faux "I'm taking responsibility," but then he follows that up by saying he's taking responsibility for the courageous decision to leave... not mentioning the shitshow of a withdrawal. So many mixed messages, so many fuck ups. Heads should roll, but shit flows downhill.

No. Despite how tempting it is.

@pawnman, I could just as easily flip this around on you. If you're a rational human being, then you surely believe there are regulations/standards/laws/edicts on the books are either worthless or not 100% applicable. If so, then you too must be an anarchist like @dogfish78, right? The appeal to extremes fallacy doesn't work well for anyone, if you're actually insinuating the opponent believes all extremes. Now, if you're using that appeal to test where @dogfish78's limits on government sovereignty lie, fair play. Regardless, there are people against the COVID shot who are otherwise pro-government involvement, and there are people for the vaccine who are otherwise anarcho-libertarian. This isn't a left-right or right-wrong thing. Each individual is doing a cost-benefit analysis for themselves, because that's the rational thing to do. Is each side taking in wrong info to bolster their sides? You bet they are, because where one stands on COVID-19, like everything else anymore... it’s a demonstration of fealty to one's tribe/religion/party. Group-think is a real thing, believe it or not. @dogfish78, don't take this post as a blanket defense of you either. Lay off the "you're not a patriot, and may God have mercy on your soul" stuff. It's no way to engage in a conversation.

Unknown if true. I don’t think this is exactly going to endear the President to the armed forces. But if they say I need it, I’ll get it. Just think it’s a little bullshit.

Here's the thing I'm struggling with. I got COVID really early on in the pandemic. I think I even posted about it on here at the time. Knocked me on my ass for a few days, but I rebounded quickly, and had no lasting effects. Perks of being young (relatively) and without co-morbidities I suppose. I have natural immunity to the virus as a result. I haven't gone and taken the vaccine yet, because the data on re-infection is pretty clearly showing it doesn't happen very often, and I don't seem to be a good carrier of the virus, even with the Delta variant. However, I'm constantly being pressured to get this vaccine, because it's "better than natural immunity," even though it (admittedly rarely) has side effects, and hasn't been shown to do anything else for me other than make my antibodies last for a few months longer. Woohoo. I'm not seeing the cost/benefit as being worth it right now. That easily could change, and if the DoD says I have to... then that's fine. However, I'm being treated by the state and national rhetoric outlets as some kinds of a backwards idiot, because I'm one of the "unvaccinated." I promise I'm reading more medical journals and info than some dipshit who thinks Bill Gates is microchipping folks. I bet I'm also doing more research than the people who are chastising folks for not having the shot, because they actually believe "the science." Bottom line, the rhetoric on this stuff is fucked.

I'm getting a warning the site is unsecured. Tested and confirmed on both Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox. Edit: Add in iOS as well.

A post of clarity in a sea of sport-bitching. I like this thinking. Here's my problem with the discussion. Roe found that abortions were legal until 28 weeks, because that was the court-defined point of "viability." Ok, let's use that term/idea as the consistent standard. To be logically consistent, pro-choice people should now be for restricting abortions after 22 weeks, because medicine has improved since 1973, and the data shows that babies are surviving at 22 weeks. Hell, one was just born at 21 weeks in MN, albeit it was a miracle. The standard Roe sets is a sliding scale. As medicine improves, that number should keep going down. It could even theoretically go down to 1 day. Are abortion advocates going to hold that consistent "viability" standard if that happens? Hell no, because "viability" isn't really their argument. The true argument is "choice." It boils down to this: My ability to live my life as I choose, without the responsibility of a child, is more important than the fetus' right to live. Read that twice, and tell me that doesn't make you uneasy. Idk what the answer is, but I can't support that argument.

Pretty simple. He’s using a parallel example of Mars to show the error in your/society’s whimsical definition of “life.”

I've taken part in use of force scenario training a few times, and each time I had my eyes opened a little wider to what law enforcement deals with. If your local department ever offers it, please take up the chance. In the first scenarios I ran, the Taser was strategically placed to be different than the firearm (chest mount). I saw people choose the wrong use of force that day, (wanted to shoot someone that could have been tased) but never saw someone mix the weapons up. However, I guess all departments don't run things that way, and its possible to have a setup where one could mix up the two, despite their training. The video pretty clearly shows it's a fuckup, and whatever training/awareness failed. Two things are true here. - His resisting arrest put himself (and others around him) in greater danger, and contributed to the circumstances that led to his death. - The cop clearly pulled out the wrong weapon and as such, killed the individual. She made the trigger pull, she killed him. She's directly responsible for his death, and should be fired/face legal penalties. However, let's not remove his culpability here. I wish all cops were quick thinking 160+ IQ individuals who get it right 100% of the time, but they aren't. They're average people with (in my opinion) average training. The closer you place them to a life-death split decision, the more that lack of training is going to become a problem. Bottom line, don't fight the cops. Don't stress them out any more than necessary. Film/record them if necessary, and fight the legal battles later.

That’s fantastic. Great work

Same issue for me in Firefox (Windows) and Safari on iOS. The insecure message Huggy mentioned sounds like an SSL issue.

That’s correct. Hasn’t happened before though.

It’s bound to happen. When the market runs out of what it really wants, it’ll go for the next closest thing. Not to mention the “runny egg” headlights will be retro at some point. Which makes me feel old. As for the Tesla’s... I’d highly suggest checking out Rich Rebuilds on YouTube. The guy rebuilt a Model S, and the absolute bullshit Tesla put him through along the way is insane. Long story short, they have zero interest in user serviceability. Their customer service sucks, and you never truly own the software inside the car. Case and point, Tesla decided to disable Supercharging on all Rebuilt title cars... even after some customers spent thousands of dollars for Tesla to “certify” that it can be used. They’re also removing software upgrades you paid for (performance pack, etc) from your own car... if you sell it. Their logic being... well the new customer didn’t pay for it. You did. So much for retaining some resale value on those. After watching that series, and as a guy who loves working on his car when it needs it... ain’t no way in hell I’m getting a Tesla. They sure are cool though.

I agree. He deserves the spears from the media for leaving, but some of the spears (comparing him to Chris Christie in the WaPo article for example) are a bit much. Touche on the last point. That's very true.

There's two things at play here. 1. As far as I can tell, there isn't anything Ted Cruz can do in his capacity as a Federal officer to fix/mend this situation, due to Texas' unique regulatory situation and the fact that all levers of change/power are at the state level. The Federal government has already declared an emergency. Cruz can flex his influence, which it appears that he has, but for the Washington Post to compare him to the Governor of NJ leaving his state before a winter storm is unbelievable. Ted could have made phone calls from Cancun, and used a VPN to answer constituent emails/direct complaints or help. I mean hell... the entire country has been doing exactly that for the last year. Not to mention the Dad points he'd be gaining as a result. 2. This is bad political optics, and it's completely preventable. Any rookie politician should have seen this coming, and as a result... wouldn't have put themselves in this situation. I can't explain why he did it, but Occam's razor seems to point toward him just trying to be a good Dad. Time will show if that's correct, I'm withholding judgement until then. 3. Thinking on this for a while has me coming to the conclusion that it must be hell trying to be a decent father and a modern politician, and that applies to anyone of either party.

I can't agree with this point entirely... because we simply don't have the renewable technology to handle a majority, much less 100%, of our energy needs. Not to mention, our continued technological breakthroughs in oil/gas technology are the exact reason the US beat all other nations in reducing CO2 in 2019 and 2020. Coal is the greatest CO2 emitter, bar none. Thanks to hydraulic fracturing, we're shutting down our coal-fired plants at a record pace, and are able to deliver a much cleaner energy product to the end customer. So in a really ironic way, we need to continue to develop oil/coal infrastructure to make them less impactful on the environment. Fair point on the economics of the pipeline, but don't cite the NRDC. They're left of the Sierra Club in their environmental activism (near Greenpeace), and are hardly impartial on the topic. Fun fact, I had to deal with them protesting outside of a power plant that was switching from coal to natural gas. What were they protesting for, you ask? They wanted the entire thing shut down. The only power plant next to a metro area. Genius. Electric cars just shift the energy need to something else... and in this case its the US power grid. You seriously think our power grid is prepared for an all-electric car surge in usage? For an electric car to go 100 miles, it needs around the same amount of electricity as a "average American home." So we're adding ~200 million homes to the grid by 2030... but without fracking to provide cheap (clean-ish) natural gas power? Hello poverty, or rolling blackouts. At the end of the day, someone has to pay the piper. All this plan does is shift the polluting burden from the end consumer (me and you) to energy companies, who are going to be running their power plants ragged just trying to keep up with more demand. I think we're on a good path, actually. Electric cars are naturally finding their spot in the market, primarily for folks who are doing short-distance commuting in cities. Gas cars are becoming more efficient (but way more turbo-laggy, another topic for another thread). Power plants are switching to cheaper and cleaner forms of energy, and the US is looking at installing offshore wind. On the future front, US companies are actually close to mass-producing biofuels that could power planes, and Lockheed continues to claim they're getting closer to a fusion reactor. Couple that with the steady increase in energy efficiency among US homes and our electronic devices... and we're not looking too shabby. Despite what one might read elsewhere. End point: I'm sorry, but all of these "green new deal" plans, and electric car mandates read like an economic suicide pact in the pursuit of some sort of moral panacea. Rather than pushing for "zero emissions" (an impossibility), we should look to foster a market that can reach "lower emissions" (reality). Which is what we're doing.

Let's re-frame this discussion then. People see the George Floyd video, and that sparks protests about police killing black Americans. Those protests then devolve into riots in some major US cities. Key Point: Those riots and protests weren't just because of George Floyd, although his death likely elevated the issue. They were about the 'systemic killing of black people by police.' Which is a lie. Period. The Washington Post created a database to try and prove the theory... and they came up empty, along with other journalistic/academic outlets. That reality didn't dissuade prominent media personalities, our current VP, and others from creating bail funds for those doing the rioting, and going along with that lie... because it made them powerful. ------ Fast forward 6-8 months. Some people see that their state voting laws are being changed without their legislature's consent due to legal action by the Democratic party/and or action from Democratic state officials, and that bothers them. Election night rolls around, and more people see "massive dumps of mail-in votes" that happened throughout the night, and several uncorroborated accounts of "fraud" being perpetuated. When coupled with that previous discontent, they believe the election is likely stolen. (Then) President Trump seizes on that narrative... because that gives him political power. Tying it together: Both the cases rely on factual things that happened to base their alternate realities. George Floyd did die at the hands of a cop. States did have their voting laws changed to boost mail-in voting. Attached to those truths are an entire web of lies that create the full conspiracies, and thus build the emotional fever required to sustain a movement. Cults work in very similar ways, actually. You could even say the same thing about QAnon... with the factual basis being Jeffrey Epstein. Moving on though, both sides took those false ideas and engaged in violence to support them. For BLM it was rioting and looting. For the right it was Jan 6th. We can debate over which was "bigger" or which made the larger "impact," but fundamentally they are the exact same thing. Political violence committed because of a conspiracy. A lie. Trump didn't invent the fraud conspiracy, he simply weaponized it for his gain. Just as Kamala Harris and other Democrats didn't invent the lies that BLM used. They simply weaponized it for their gain. Both sides in a deeper way understand this, which is why the debate naturally comes down to which side is more morally righteous. Ex. "You seriously can't compare racial oppression to a crazy stolen election theory." Which is an attempt to add slavery/Jim Crow/racism to their side of the seesaw in a clever slight of hand... by calling you a racist.

I can't help but think this whole thing will end badly somehow, because the little man very very rarely wins. That said, I bought $AMC on the dip. Partially because they just used the short sell spike to pay off their debt (very wise business decision) and also because I do think we'll see a rebound of people going out and doing shit after the 'rona subsides. Relatively short term play, but a chance for decent gain. Couple that with this short squeeze and a chance to say f-you to the financial hedge fund bros? I had to. If I lose some/all? I sent a message, so it was worth it. Also, this political bi-partisanship might be show, but I've seen from a number of outlets/articles that both sides are actually shocked by Robinhood's suspension of trading. So, for a brief moment, I felt relieved that something might get done. But, then I saw AOC tweeted this to Ted Cruz's agreement with her: They can't get out of their own way, even when that "unity" happens by pure dumb luck. So much for that feeling; it was nice while it lasted.

I don't see how this is a free market/capitalism issue, but I feel like we'll just talk in circles about that. Those high school kids/local folks were making a wage at the equilibrium of supply and demand in their area. What illegal immigration did is add in a ton of supply (workers) who are willing to work for incredibly low wages due to no overhead/taxation, while keeping the demand (# jobs available) around the same. That type of change forces the supply curve to shift hard, which in-turn reduces the price of labor across the board. Couple that with a cost of living that's about the same or higher, and you've just KO'd a large chunk of people in the area who a) no longer have a job and b) are now forced to work for wages so low they can hardly afford to live there anymore. Business owners are choosing to hire illegals because they'd be economically stupid if they didn't. Their competitors definitely will, and the market/government isn't exactly punishing them for doing so... so why not? That doesn't make it right, however. Also, the American consumer writ large doesn't know that their Chinese food is made by Hondurans, or their french fries are salted by Mexicans. They genuinely don't. Illegal immigration primarily helps businesses, which in turn helps the consumer (through competition of costs among peers). But let's not act like every time you walk in for a cheap burger you're making a choice to pay the illegal in back. You just go where the food is good and the prices are cheap. There's no ethical question of who cooked it for you. It would make for an interesting experiment if you did have to know before your purchase, however. Yep, see above. Fair, healthcare is another topic for another day. However, ponder this. If we had universal healthcare... then that same cost burden of non-payment would still exist, only moved now from the ER to a doctor's office, would it not? They still won't pay the bills, you're just shifting the cost burden onto doctor's offices (and the taxpayer) under a socialized system. You wouldn't solve anything other than reducing the demand at the ER, but maybe that was your point. Idk man, it's an industry. https://apnews.com/article/d4c42c5311ba8a6661855cadd12f0fed I also have a ton of anecdotal evidence that says otherwise with regards to working the system. I'd like to think you're right, and I hope that number is at least more than 50%. But the reality is that we don't know what we don't know. In my opinion the only fair way forward would be to have the illegal immigrants either repatriate back to their countries or sign up for a Federal guest worker program, and after x number of years of good behavior/paying their taxes (and subsequent interviews by the government), they can apply for citizenship. Something like that. I know, this is just a terrible issue morally. But there's no way to make everyone happy. We can't make everyone an American citizen, and based on some of the fucked ethics in other countries... we shouldn't. But we can agree that immigrants are the reason our nation is awesome, and we should do the best we can to make sure the right people get in, and the wrong people stay out.

I agree there are multiple options when it comes to actually choosing who stays and who goes. My point in that post you quoted was simply that we need to have a stable number of folks who are going to be in that gray area before we implement any decisions. If we start hashing out/implementing an amnesty plan without focusing on border security first, I promise you we'll see more visa overstays and more border crossings. We're already seeing a new caravan coming up from Central America, and they're reportedly doing so because they know Biden is favoring amnesty and increasing the number of refugees admitted. It's common sense. Bottom line, you have to have a stable border security apparatus to seal the perimeter, and then start implementing plans for amnesty or deportation. It's going to be hard enough to determine information about the individuals in question. We have no way to tell when they arrived in the country, and we don't have any information regarding their criminal histories. So it sounds great to say "we'll take all the people who arrived here at 6 months old," but what if that 35yr old guy is telling the Feds he got here at 6 months... when he really walked across last week? Who's telling the truth? As a bonus, any case denied amnesty is going to be litigated to all hell, and you know the Feds will just rubber stamp people in response. Instituting an amnesty plan is going to be a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

No offense, but no... the Federal government can't. If we announce tomorrow that all illegal immigrants in the US will be given citizenship in 3-4 months, does that increase or decrease the incentive for people to enter the country illegally? It would increase it exponentially. With an already porous border system, you're going to add more folks who weren't here otherwise, but figure "why the hell shouldn't I try?" You really think Border Patrol is equipped/prepared for that? Also, do you think the incoming Administration has the guts to turn away anyone who is caught coming across in that timeframe? As for the 44% number, that's from the Center for Migration Studies of New York's study. It could be valid, but it's using DHS data calculated from the ACS survey that only asks 2 million households. We could have asked the entire population during this year's Census, but as we're all aware, Democrats objected to including that question. I'm against all illegal immigrants, overstays or those that cross the border.

Amazon, Apple or Google can cancel or end whatever contract they like, in my opinion, as long as they’re doing so legally. Parler will have to find someone else, or make their own solution. Such is the cost of business.