hockeydork

That all makes sense. Like anybody else Putin cannot escape the clock, his time will end eventually. The question is once he's gone, will a clone just replace him? Or will the Russian people want to evolve into the modern way of doing things? Why should Ukrainians be subjected to another 100 years of Russia's fake democracy way of doing things just because Russia has a Nuke button. Plenty of other people have the Nuke button, they know that is a card they themselves don't want to play. I am not advocating for antagonizing him, or to put our forces on his border with Ukraine. Just advocating for a very strong defensive Ukrainian response to any incursion into their territory. I think they have a right to defend their airspace as well. If Putin wants regional influence he should try doing it through amicable means. Its amazing how many kids will want to play with you at the playground if you stop throwing rocks at them.

We wasted time on diplomatic solutions that were never gunna happen. He already took part of the country a few years ago, how can anybody not see that he ain't leaving without more of it? What people fail to understand, is that there is no reasoning/logic when it comes to dealing with individuals who mentally have departed orbit and are hell bent on their own narcissistic self-fulfillment. War IS bad and should ALWAYS be avoided, but as civilized as humanity may become, underneath it we're all still animals. And every once in awhile you get an animal with killer predator instincts (Putin) who ends up in charge of a metric f*ck ton of tanks, artillery and surface to air missiles, and who wants to go bully the shit out of a little democracy and crush it because it feels good. Ukraine should have been flooded with defensive weapons, instead he's got Europe by the balls with his natural gas so they're to puss to do anything. And we sent 200 million of weapons, when it should have been 2 billion. It's like trying to reason with the serial killer as he tapes your hands to put you in the trunk of a car. You don't reason, you bite his damn ear off first chance you get. I'm with you. I am an incredibly empathetic person, think war is terrible, but if this goes down I hope Russian casualties are high enough that maybe somebody turns on him/the Russian people say WTF. This is another free world vs non free world battle. Hard for me to have empathy for the other side when it comes to the principle that is being fought over.

Word. I don't run this place, I just think a debate about various COVID policies should be hashed out in the dedicated COVID thread before it turns into a major thread derail.

Related side note. Someone should get this piece of aviation history out of there before it ends up blown to pieces https://flightaware.com/live/flight/UR82060

F*ckin send em. I'll happily work my defense contracting job for free for a month or overtime to help pay for em. Its 2022, sick of this autocratic tyrannical bullshit. Whatever stance you have on American politics doesn't matter, this dude 100 percent wants to see America fail, regardless whether the left or right is in office.

Pretty good older doc "Winter on Fire" on Netflix regarding Ukraine that I don't think has been mentioned here. At the very least we should leverage our economy to give these people weapons to fight for their democracy if they want it. Doing nothing because our recent involvements didn't work out may not be the answer. All the effort spent trying to convince backward countries in the middle east to embrace democracy, and now to not lend a helping hand to one that actively wants it, feels wrong. Doing nothing may be the biggest error yet, I feel like a couple boxes of anti tank missiles ain't gunna cut it.

I don't think he is leaving without some sort of land grab. I'll be shocked if he does. There is no such thing as a guarantee about NATO membership, politicians change, agreements made now can be ripped up 4 years from now in seconds. He wants something tangible of value, and taking territory away will be much easier for him than Ukrainians getting it back, excluding some major collapse of Russia ten years down the line (which is a possibility). I think it'll be an "Oh no he's going to take all of it"...."oh wait he's only taking another 20 percent of it, whoof that's fine, disaster avoided" reaction from the West. It'll be up to the citizens if/how hard they want to resist, doesn't look like they have much chance tho. He waits another 5 years, rinse repeat, just little bites at a time. We should have pumped them full of Patriot missiles long ago, would be hard to argue that we were "decreasing stability". Defensive weapons, right? Should be done ASAP for Taiwan, just give them more of them IMO.

Gotta love how a thread about Russia invading a soverign country devolves into a COVID thread....

No I feel you. I think something to acknowledge is that as humans we live a tough life, regardless of what you believe. We are often faced with difficult decisions, with imperfect solutions. And as a society we tend to decisively labels decisions & and policies as definitively right and wrong and rub our views in each others faces when they are often far from that. I don't think abortion is anything someone strives for or should strive for. But forward progress is often built on sacrifices of those in the past. My understanding is there are lots of different places to source stem cells now, and hopefully we can get to place where fetal cells are a tool of the past someday. I don't think having an abortion for the purpose of producing stem cells is good policy going forward, and highly doubt that happens much in this part of the world. There are the ones who died building the panama canal. Or maybe its the coal workers who die 25 years early because their lungs are destroyed from black lung. How many of our goods come through that canal today? How much of your electricity/previous electricity was fueled by dangerous mines? Does that make you evil for using those items. Is there not a middle ground, where you can you use those items while still strongly advocating for a better way? Isn't that what makes us human, the constant pursuit for a better way? I guess all I am saying is the past is written in the stars, it cannot be changed but it can be used as guidance for the future. Forget COVID, let's assume it is in fact nothing to be afraid of, and instead ask ourselves this: If your 3 year old son/daughter was told they were going to die, but there was a cure developed using HEK293 cells, would you actually look them in the eye and say no, it is your time to go? If your wife was paralyzed or got ALS, but fetal derived stem cells could return her mobility, would you actually say no, this is how you will live? If they chose no, that is there choice. But that is my contention with saying stem cells are evil. For some people out there, stem cells are life and death. One final analogy: I don't think fossil fuels are the ethical way forward, and I actually think they are politically destabilizing. But I still use them because right now they are the best I've got, while leaning on energy companies to come up with better long term energy solutions.

Respect your beliefs, but genuine question on how your thought flows, if you don't want to answer please feel free not to. This is not intended to ignite some hostile debate. Correct me if I'm wrong, aren't the HEK293 cells from one fetus in like 1973 and they've just been multiplying them ever since? If so isn't this the lesser of two evils option? Yes that fetus did not get a chance at life, which is tragic, but it did result in being for the greater good and it is already done. i.e one tragedy to save who knows how many lives. How do you rectify that with being in the military. Military officers make the decision to take life all the time, in the name of the greater good. It's really the only reason you can justify plopping a JDAM on someones head/a nuke on two cities in Japan is because you think it will save lives/make the world a safer and more secure place. Genuinely curious how you rectify those discrepancies. Come judgement day, if there is one, how do you explain that to the lord.

It's subjective but...pinning a fresh set of soft reds against a set of ancient whites for a lap, I don't know if I'd consider that in the best interest of racing. The second those tires went on everyone knew how the race was going to end if those cars were moved. F1 is just too dominated by strategy to start modifying the playbook at the finale. I guess if fans want anarchy for entertainment making it up as you go works. As a fan i found it to be a disappointing climax to the season, and I couldn't careless whether it was Merc or RB that came out on top. The integrity of competition should be the priority. Maybe they should have a provision where if a safety car comes out with less than 5 laps to go, all cars must pit, which would get rid of the stupid tire hocus pocus. And just like the FAA/aviation....there's some really dumb decisions/policies that get made. Remember, this is the series that gave us the spectacular 2021 Belgian Grand Prix. What a joke.

The irony is.....everyone is saying Lewis got robbed/stolen from. The only one who got robbed is Max, having is first WC be totally legitimate... he'll never get that opportunity again. Way to go. The ultimate move would have been if VER refused to pass Hamilton. My god, the respect i would have had for him.

My take: I am neither a super HAM fan nor super VER (actually kind of usually root for Gasley, I think he is underrated). If I was VER I'd be annoyed deep down that that's how I got the 'ship, Hamilton was faster that day and everybody knows it. VER will always have to deal with people questioning his wins legitimacy. The good news is most people can recognize that both those drivers are bonkers talented, VER would eventually win the WC regardless of this years outcome. F1 needs to really start figuring out if this is really what it wants to be. If that race had ended with the two drivers bumping/grinding and duking it out for the last 5 laps, great. But they can't. The cars are too damn sensitive with the aero work, if they touch they basically explode carbon fiber, which leads to these stupid penalties/cars "leaving the track" bologna to avoid wrecking. Maybe the new car will help, but they need to make the cars more durable even if it is at the expense of speed. What about aluminum wings, etc, so if you touch your wing maybe bends instead of exploding?

Direct hit. Although I actually never a gave a sh*t about who Trump plows in his spare time, it's his wife's business. Apparently it doesn't bother her that much because shes still there, so why anybody else cares beats me.

The girl got covid yesterday and had been vaccinated with pfizer. I do think/hope the vax is helping to lessen her symptoms, and I would still encourage it. In terms of forcing regular people to get the vax as some sort of silver bullet to "stamp out" COVID. It's not happening, even though I wish the opposite were true. At least not with this shot. Get the shot if your comfy with it but COVID is here to stay, we're all gunna have to live with it.

You kinda sound like a close carbon copy of me, starting to wonder the same stuff. I think if an interview comes off wrong or you are misunderstood you can dig yourself a hole, or at least I may have. I think AD might be my ticket if there is going to be one soon. I guess at some reasonable point you gotta wake up and say "it just didn't happen". I guess it's like pro sports, everyone wants to get to the top but not everyone does. Shut that out tho and try anyways, when you die you will judge yourself on how hard you pushed in life. From a mental point: I do recommend making sure you enjoy and are proud of your other achievements tho, which is a mistake I made. I had the mentality that if I didn't ever fly a fighter I sucked at life. Not true, plenty of hall of famers who never get a championship ring. I start my CFI gig in two weeks, couldn't be more excited. But for sure fight for it till you die (age out).

A couple ponder points: * We have 1 earth. Judging by our inability to come to a middle ground conclusion about a stupid virus, our ability to up and leave and find a new one isn't looking to hot. Yea maybe a couple people will make it to Mars, ...to live in bubble houses like lab rats. Sounds like a blast...not, just kill me. * The earth doesn't give a shit about you, whether your left, right, christian, jew, a human, a monkey, a cute polar bear, saint or murderer. It is a giant space rock that everybody is undeniably screwed without. * Lighting things on fire releases heat and C02. Kinda hard to dispute that one. Humans are designed to exist in a certain temp range, hard to dispute that too. So if we light shit on fire, kinda makes sense that if we do it too much, it will likely effect our atmosphere and eventually cause problems. *Peak oil, running out soon, not running out soon, doesn't matter. One day we will run out, might as well stop depending on fossil fuels sooner rather than later. *If you were a big oil company, wouldn't you be willing to spend massive coin on protecting your market share and financial power. Whatever it takes, just shut those tree hugging nerds up so we can keep giving everyone their fix. *The American military has been employed on a large scale in the oil rich regions of the world twice. There are so many other "horrible people/regimes" we could have gone after and killed. So many starving people we could have saved and fed as a display of our American morality, yet we often do nothing. Wierd. The above is just pure observation and critical thought. US should add as much wind/solar hyrdo capacity as the country needs, back fill with nuclear/natural gas during high peak/lulls in the wind/solar. I'm down with you to skip the bug eating tho. Or we can keep letting those West Virginian senators keep screwing over their own coal workers by convincing them that coal will power the world forever rather than retraining them as turbine technicians. Wind turbines/nuclear power are like aircraft carriers. They should make you feel like you're punching terrorists in the face.

Sounds like the move than is go with the CFI gig, dump the defense contracting gig, try and enlist. As long as you're flying something I feel like you can't really complain about life.

Data point of 1: when I went to NAMI to do my initial flight physical with the Navy as an AF student pilot at Whiting Field, I was told by the flight doc "Unfortunately, your career as a naval aviator ends here because you don't meet Navy vision standards. Fortunately for you, you're in the AF and they already approved your vision waiver. Have fun flying." At the time navy standard was ~20/40 vision with no waivers, vs AF's ~20/70 with waivers available. Thanks for the data. And well that sucks lol. Any idea if flight experience plays a role in waiver being granted for the AF? I'm considering enlisting at a unit I really liked if they'll take me, if I cant fly i wanna do it anyways. However I got my CFI ticket complete (300 hours so far) and I got a line on a good CFI gig. Wondering if enlisting is worth the cost of me building even more experience/getting like 50 hours of aerobatic time, or if that additional experience isnt going to make any difference anyways, so just enlist now and get it over with

Just wondering, is the Navy more lax than the AF? Like less red tape, more likely to get a waiver, etc?

I think I have read articles about all of those people, there is also a 130 guy I think with one eye, and there's a United guy with a partially developed arm who flies. All have are inspirations to say the least. Tho I sometimes get annoyed with my situation, I am very lucky it is only what it is. Bfargin situation is tho can we keep someone in the cockpit controlling a jet with just hand controls. I really don't see any reason why this cannot be achieved in modern FBW jet. Another fascinating thought is the idea of a special stick or yoke being portable, and potentially carried by the pilot and swapped onto an air frame quickly. Could have some sort of standardized wiring connector across all air frames, since control axis are control axis regardless of the plane. Said pilot would just have to demonstrate ability to fly with device never touching the pedals. If you do run with this, I would know what you come up with. Side but related rant: I encourage you all to consider donating your child's amniotic membrane/placenta after birth if able (we are not talking about abortion here...don't start). These contain cells that have special healing properties in the medical field. For you rich Delta guys who have no idea what to spend your coin on, I also encourage donations to the Mayo clinic. CNS injuries are incredibly complex and research into healing them needs to happen sooner rather than later.

My vote is for this one (for my own reasons I am also passionate about this topic.) I am not versed in airliner rudder pedal setups but on the Airbus aren't they FBW controlled? For something with a side stick like an A320, what if on it, it had a mini spring loaded left/right toggle switch so as you fly you can use your thumb to control the rudder deflection? The switch is riding in a hinged slot that is also spring loaded than can be deflected by the thumb for brakes.

Thru the vine meet and greet mouth invites went out for the 120th, if someone who got one wants to confirm. I am trying to cancel all my reservations now, might have a two hundred dollar hole in my pocket for a hotel tho if someone who got an invite wants it.

Looks like they may filter out more peeps, but I grabbed a rental too in case I end up going. Not sure what the plan will be but I'd be down for food/drinks if you know any places.

Understand the real strategic answer may be classified/cannot put on these forums. Is there a reason we don't pump Taiwan full of defensive weapons sooner rather later, in order to make China pay a ridiculous price in order to impose their will? make it so that if they attack, their forces become severely degraded, they look like aggressive assholes, world shuns them. We come out on top. If the people of Taiwan want to fight for their freedom, seems pretty un-American to let them be squished easily. I've seen some articles that they are expecting upgraded patriots in 2025, seems like it'll be a little late. Status quo should be maintained IMO, whatever that takes. American politics are rough, but I'll take it any day over living under a king in presidents clothing. Assuming the people of Taiwan feel the same.