FLEA

Depends. The relationship with government and business is a tough issue. On one hand my libertarian side says government shouldnt get involved. On the other, I don't want to go back to businesses lawfully being allowed to discriminate based on race/other factors, just because it's the business owners right. Personally, I could care less if drug testing was banned because I could care less if people do drugs. But none of these are apples to apples comparison. Big picture, my opinion, SWA has the right to mandate the vaccine if that's what their board wants. But the unions absolutely have a right to strike and leave SWA on its ass in the middle of a labor shortage as well. SWA needs to figure out how to balance that.

See my post on 14 Sept in the other COVID thread.

How would you guys discuss RPA time on an airline resume? I did a 3 year TAMI 21 tour and while I understand the hours and flight time are meaningless, I don't think the experience overall is. Besides the fact it needs to be documented on the resume as employment history anyway, I feel like there is some value added if I can discuss it in terms of the increasing growth of technology and automation in air operations? Is that reasonable?

When I did my masters I noticed a significant gap in literature regarding cultural intelligence (CQ) and multi-cultural aircrews in multi-crewed aircraft, and the related effects on crew resource management. Just an idea if you have an anthro or management background as well.

I think because there is more to the approval than just the chemical compound that results. Everything from labeling to directions, packaging, manufacturing conditions, and supply transport are also evaluated. The FDA likely had no way to verify those conditions were identical in earlier Pfizer batches. There is a letter from Pfizer that actually details what the ONLY interchangeable batches with Cominarty are, I posted it earlier in this thread.

Not sure if this is true or not but a Belgian colleague told me once Switzerland has a death tourism market where cancer patients or other suffering people will travel there for assisted suicide (because it's legal). But the majesty behind it all is you have to wait like 7 days in country and while you wait they tell you to go take some walks. So people go to die, then they start absorbing all the views and by the time they're allowed a procedure they change their mind. But for anyone who has never been, that is how beautiful Switzerland is. I can't really think of another way to illustrate it. It literally causes you to contemplate life differently.

Hey.... I take offense to that 😛

Honestly one of the coolest programs out there. You can use it to take an unpaid internship with a firm for up to 6 months while still receiving your AF salary. I think the reason in pilot land we don't hear more about it is because so many people go airlines and you probably don't want to disrupt your currency/recency on the way out. Know people who have done some seriously cool programs with Amazon and Mantech though. One dude got a second bachelor's out of his.

I'll be honest, I need to look this up again, but there is a specific vaccine and I'm pretty sure it was smallpox, that was actually a titer test only (and is annotated as such on IMR). As mentioned before, there were political reasons to avoid vaccination. The US military has a paranoia for biological warfare though.

Smallpox is not prevalent anywhere. It has been completely erradicated. Smallpox only exist in 2 samples in the entire world. Both are held in very high security labs, one in Russia and one on the US. Those samples by treaty are to be used for research only and not weaponization. It's unlikely you received a smallpox vaccine. You may have received a small pox test which will appear in your IMR. It's not impossible though, the military did do a few waves of immunization but most were 2002 or prior. The military generally had stopped immunizing for small pox because it was causing nerves with Russia. Whenever we immunized large bodies of our military, Russia believed it was because either we weaponized Smallpox and were protecting our force, or we believed they weaponized Smallpox and we were preparing to attack. Russia, knowing that Smallpox only exist in those 2 very specific samples, could not imagine another reason for immunization. To be honest they are pretty much right.

Like "how much" new money? Go see a JAG. If it was THAT much the AF may just honorably sperate you no strings attached. For example, if you win the lottery over a certain amount the AF will separate you. The reason is you're considered a liability if you have enough money to not give a fuck. There are security implications etc....

Can you expound on just that thought because from where I stand, Biden took our already fragile relationship with NATO and dropped a huge deuce on it. They DO NOT like Biden right now between Afghanistan and AUKUS.

This is the BEST open source Intel product on Afghanistan right now and I applaud the work this guy is doing: https://afghanwarnews.info/taliban-victory-2021/kabul-neo.htm I've seen a lot of info come across that there is some major infighting inside the Taliban and Haqqani Network right now. One of the things I specifically remember in studying regime change for my masters was the turbulence when a new regime is instilled. The people that led the revolution are rarely the people that actually take control of the country and new leadership is filtered by the party to the top. Generally they will use 1-2 charismatic leaders for their military leadership but have zero desire to instill them as political heads of state. I believe there actually is a moderate sect of the Taliban that seeks international recognition but they are actively being suppressed by the more radical elements. I predict 2 outcomes. 1.) The moderate elements attain control. The TB realize they are incapable of actually holding Afghanistan as a state and governing on their own. They appeal to their moderate side to broker international treaties with Arab states and Asia to help arm, secure and govern for them. 2.) The radicals win, they attain power and lock the country down temporarily. However they are completely incapable of militantly holding the country and governing. The country collapses into factional civil war and things get a whole lot worse before they get better.

Don't want to derail the threat but I felt it's important to remind everyone it's been one month now since we've left and there are still American citizens stranded in Kabul while Taliban go door to door murdering people. I can't understand how that's not getting more press. There are also thousands of green card holders and tens of thousands of Terps and SIV qualified vulnerable Afghans.

The bad thing about this is the manner the DoD is choosing to respond to each of his plays only makes him look more right that the DoD is trying to evade embarrassment of it's senior staff.

Neither men were diplomats. One was formally a diplomatic official of Canada, but both were employed by NGOs at the time of their detention. Regardless of what Trudeau wanted or not, this sent a clear message to China that their elites no longer have to comply with Western laws, to include sanctions against Iran and North Korea. The US has clearly communicated in this it doesn't have the capability anymore to enforce those sanctions.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/26/china/meng-wanzhou-china-arrival-intl-hnk/index.html Huawei CFO Meng released back to China in what can only be interpreted as the Biden admin caving to bullying. What frustrates me the most in this whole situation is how successful China's false information campaign was. There are a TON of people, particularly on the left, who believe Meng was taken in retaliation for two Canadian citizens caught spying and not the other way around. For whatever reason, there is a splinter of the Democratic party (but not all of them) who just bow to China and have no desire to protect US interest in issues involving China. But what's been extraordinarily damaging to our strategy at approaching China has been this strategy of appeasement that Biden seemed to have carried over from his terms with Obama. We need to wake up people. There are 100s of thousands of expats living and working in China. They are all at risk now to become political hostages if the US ever wishes to enforce its laws on Chinese citizens abroad.

Essentially would be like the President saying the military lost the ear in Afghanistan right after the withdrawal.

The capability to defend sovereign airspace and the capability to protect national and foreign heads of state is central to upholding a state's claim to sovereignty. So yes, I would say it is enough of a threat/issue. The problem is what is the appropriate level of commitment.

Bro, what the NSA was doing was keeping you and your family safe. Trust them, they're the experts.

It was a nice theory but it worked the wrong way. Our balance of trade with China was negative. Trade is at its core, the exchange of culture. The theory was if we traded enough with China would we subtly introduce free democratic values to their culture through movies, art, music, video games, etc... But China got the upper arm on trade and simultaneously became the worlds largest market and nearly the worlds largest producer. Because of this they are largely allowed to determine the quality of goods that are distributed across the globe. 30 years ago when the US held this position the quality was simply determined by supply and demand. Better goods for lower price would sell. However, as China has a controlled market, the government is allowed to alter the quality. What's extremely dangerous about this is that they have begun altering the quality to favor their own culture and are now using our own strategy against us. How many American children will grow up believing that China always had a historically documented claim to the 9 Dash line because they have an unconscious memory of it in the background of Disney's Mulan, displayed as a historic map? China seeks to slowly change the social memory of the world into one that favors Chinese superiority and hegemony. They are bitter and jaded of Chinese humiliation by westerners over the last 250 years. Its not going to be a good outcome for us.

4:12:49 onward. I really thought the presentation about 2-3 later where a pro vaccine doctor discussed the data of sample groups not being strong enough to overcome vaccine hesitancy was really good and right in line with my concerns.

Yeah everything from the time stamp to about the next 30 minutes is pretty eye opening.

The US is centrally at fault for this debacle but even other countries are getting accountability. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/16/europe/dutch-minister-resigns-afghanistan-intl/index.html

I've shot a view VBIEDs myself. Usually the secondary is near instantaneous to the primary. Furthermore, the secondary leaves no doubt the vehicle was laden with explosives. An 8 pax van laden with explosive material makes an enormous plume compared to a tiny hellfire. I remember one clearly; we shot in a garage and when the IR camera readjusted we realized it had disintegrated half of the multistory building it was parked under. So I was skeptical from the beginning the way leadership described it. I'm also concerned for the crew. Even if the AF doesn't come after them, living with the knowledge you just murdered a good person and his 7 children would be hard to live with. Especially if it's a newer Lt and SrA.