Pooter

Got a diversity and inclusion survey in my inbox today. Can't wait to tell the Air Force all about how difficult and unfair it is for women and minorities out there.. Oh wait, it seems I can't submit the survey because our computer networks are absolute hot garbage and it keeps crashing. #priorities

Boy that escalated quickly.. So let's go a step further with that New York post laptop story. What happened when Twitter suspended the account and "erased" said story? Did the hunter Biden laptop narrative drop off the face of the earth never to be heard about again? Of course not. Every conservative pundit this side of Jupiter got a hold of it and had a giant conniption shit fit about it. If anything The NYP story probably got more visibility. In the end conservatives all still found out about it and got super mad, while Democrats all ignored it... Weird, that sounds like exactly what happens any time a supposed scandal comes out in an election cycle. The party on defense ignores/minimizes/suppresses the story, and the other party acts like it's the next watergate. Do I like that Twitter tried to suppress the story? No. Do I think it made any difference whatsoever? Also no. You're calling people cry babies while simultaneously invoking the term "tech oligarchs" and acting like conservatives have zero power in the media sphere. Let's just pump the brakes a bit there. Some of these podcasts and blogs you dismissively refer to have viewership numbers that blow msnbc out of the water.

And I bet the day after that concert you went and carjacked someone because something something loss of morals/cultural decay. alternatively.. Matt Walsh just needs something to be outraged about to get views.

I'm not getting in some dumb semantic argument about what's the worst thing the US has ever done. The bottom line here is that delusional political extremists were actively encouraged by lies from the sitting president and stormed the capitol. And that is a very bad thing. I don't know where it places on the ultimate scale of national shame but it's the worst thing I've seen since I've been paying attention to politics. Almost as concerning is the sheer number of non-extremist republicans who continued on the trump bandwagon as he devolved into increasingly desperate political lies and tantrums. It shows how few Americans have actual principles and how many want to just pick a team and root for that team at all costs.

In a country of 300 million people there are enough things that happen every day you can craft whatever narrative you want with selective attention. If you want to pretend white cops killing black people is a super common problem you can find examples of that. If you want to pretend teenage girl tazer carjackings are a big problem you'll find instances of that too. If you want to make the case for widespread cultural rot, I'm sure at any given moment dozens of rappers are doing ill advised publicity stunts.. including but not limited to devil shoes. The point is that none of these things are evidence of any type of national trend, and in a country this big, the only thing that should matter to you on the right or left side of the aisle is large scale data. Unfortunately, humans are stupid, emotional creatures so we get moral panic on both sides based on a wide variety of fringe nonsense.

The hilarious part is previous secaf Debbie James changed IFS to IFT because they thought women and minorities were "disproportionately" washing out... I'd love to see them go back to an IFS construct for diversity and inclusion purposes only to have it completely backfire again. But back on the selection method subject: I don't agree with the diversity push for diversity's sake but the way we generate PCSM scores right now is hugely effed up and the PPL is the biggest part of that. I get that a lot of dudes sacrificed financially to get one, and that shows solid dedication and planning. Unfortunately it has nothing to do with natural flying ability or the ability to adapt quickly in a training environment. As a prior UPT instructor, you having a PPL tells me two things. You have an interest in aviation and your radio calls might not be complete trash for the first few sorties. It tells me nothing about your hands, SA, or RM/DM. This is because UPT flying is such a step up in intensity that it renders a PPL pretty much useless after a few rides. The only prior experience Ive seen that made a decent difference was 1) Singaporean students who flew the PC-9, 2) prior strike eagle/b-1 WSOs 3) a few multi thousand hour regional airline pilots. And some of them still had airsickness issues.

Mainly the invasion of the capitol and the complete undermining of our election system. Do you need more than that? We can go chicken vs egg all day long on whether Democrats or Republicans ruined elections first, but trump certainly didn't help anything. As it became clearer and clearer he was going to lose, trump became more erratic and irresponsible. And it culminated in probably the most shameful moment for America in my lifetime.

I don't think anyone here views trump as a fascist. He's just an egomaniac who says stupid things and didn't take the office seriously.. which culminated in some pretty damaging stuff happening. but to answer your question, this is terrible policy from the left. They always try to leverage emotion after shootings to pass stuff like this and it's bullshit. But that's the democrat M.O... trash policies papered over by emotional appeals, media top cover, and coordinated messaging.

Some pretty funny stuff coming out about Sidney Powell's defamation lawsuit right now. Apparently the only strategy left for her is to intentionally dumpster her own lawyer credentials in the hopes a judge will deem her election fraud claims too far fetched to be believed by any reasonable person. ..which is true. No one with half a brain should have believed her. But she was serious at the time and that's what matters. Trump seems to have this weird effect on people where they, like him, think they could get away with saying anything they want. Here's to hoping trump and his merry band of idiots get absolutely cleaned out through these embarrassing lawsuits. Republicans need that if they want to take back control of their party.

😮This is my shocked face. So now we know he's a shitty pilot and human being. Newsflash: the raptor demo pilot ONE DEMO TEAM AGO was a black guy.

I'd be interested to hear from anyone here who knows more about the situation with this guy. My initial read is that something is a little fishy here. How does a supposedly shit hot raptor pilot/Harvard grad land himself as a line IP at the Randolph IFF squadron doing some innovation ball wash for AETC.. Is it because the organization with POC as the secdef, csaf, and cmsaf is viciously racist? Or is it because he pissed the wrong person off or was a douche in his community and was put out to pasture like so many other iron majors before him? Sorry dude, I know it hurts. But it's happened to white dudes too. In fact.. almost exclusively white dudes.

Apologize for any ambiguity. No I don't think you're combat deployable once pregnant. But that still leaves most of the flying that happens in the Air Force as fair game. I'm not sure why you're so intent on splitting hairs over this. Pilots should be flying as much as possible. 4-5 months out of the jet is a hell of a lot better than 9 months out of the jet. The Air Force has a policy that actually makes sense (for once) granting pregnant pilots some flexibility to continue to do their job. And now they've made a uniform so they can do that job comfortably. Both of those things are wins in my book.

Agreed that there are bigger priorities, but when has a president not paraded around for getting some low hanging fruit? And it really didn't take up much of anyone's time until Tucker decided to go wildly high aspect about this issue. Current guidance says non-ejection seat aircraft and it can go at least part way into the second trimester. Those regs have existed for a while so this is really just a case of uniforms catching up with already existing policies.

Having said that... I'll play devils advocate again here and say that making a pregnancy flight suit isn't a very heavy lift for an organization with more than half a million people. Tucker is presenting a false choice here between accommodating people and lethality. An organization as large as ours can actually do both. Making a uniform to accommodate pregnant women does not come at the expense of lethality. There are those of us who go to work every day and train to China and Russia and Iran and Syria scenarios and that training keeps going no matter what new uniform is being developed. Obviously the job of the military is to kill people and break their shit. But the military is made up of individuals and individuals have needs.. other than simply being a badass tactician. I'd even argue that accommodating people does make us more lethal because it improves quality of life allowing service members to actually focus on tactics instead of not having a uniform that will fit your body. This is the entire philosophy behind all of the MWR resources the government pours money into at every base. I wonder how big of a conniption tucker would have if he found out that most bases have a golf course, bowling alley, auto hobby shop, arts and crafts shop, thrift store, etc... I get that people like him and Shapiro want to fight back against the endless woke bullshit that's pushed on us every day. But he did it in a really really stupid way, and chose a bad example. I'm not surprised at the backlash at all and frankly he deserves it. If we can make a flight suit to accommodate women flying non ejection seat aircraft well into their second trimester to support the killing of our enemies, that is awesome.

@Lord Ratner "trip over their equity erections to attack the conservatives tripping over their social-collapse erections" probably the most accurate description of modern political discourse I've ever seen

Sorry I thought the intent of this forum was to be like the squadron bar.. you know the place where you bitch, moan, argue, and solve world problems. If it would bother you less, I could just agree with everyone. But that doesn't sound like any fun at all.

Agreed. And yet.. when there are easy things sitting right in front of our faces that can mitigate some of that risk, we generally do those things.

I'm glad you aren't in a panic about covid, but regardless of how you feel, your risk is not zero. Risk is never zero for pretty much anything and this is exactly why we compare probabilities. Then we use those probabilities to decide what to be most concerned about. I think statistics, history, and current experience all show your risk of actual observed effects from covid is much much higher than some hypothetical future side effects from a vaccine. In reference to your political point: I've said from the start in this thread I don't think politics should factor into your decision. Neither should dumb Air Force policies. Of course kamala is going to shit on the vaccine when trump is in charge and then advocate for it when she's in power. Is that an indictment of the vaccine or of her as a two faced, manipulative, power hungry person? Trump would've done the exact same thing if the roles were reversed. Political posturing and dumb regulations in response to this crisis were always going to happen and they have nothing to do with the actual scientists developing a vaccines.

Obviously I'm not here to change everyone's minds either, and I doubt random internet commenters opting out of the vaccine will ever directly impact me. I just enjoy playing devils advocate especially when these threads get a little too echo-chamber-ey. My main motivation is that I'm a very data driven person and all the data I see point to getting the vaccine. The data also points to lockdowns being stupid, lest to you think I'm some far left nut. But to me the vaccine makes sense not only for your personal health but also to put an end to the national and military-wide covid rules stupidity. It's crazy to see people complain about covid restrictions and then turn down the vaccine.. the one thing that might actually make a difference and get these rules lifted.

Sounds like a nasty hypothetical. Here's another one. You skip the vaccine, catch covid, and end up losing your class 1 due to actual observed long term side effects of covid that we already know about. All you have to do to know this vaccine side effect argument is misguided is to look at the history of vaccines. Adverse side effects across a variety of vaccines are on the order of 1/10,000 to 1/100,000. Depending on your demographic covid has a 1/100 to 1/1000 chance of killing you. So basically you're choosing to risk a much more likely and much worse outcome now, to mitigate a much less likely and much less severe thing later. Am I missing something here? Also I'm really curious how, in the minds of conservatives, the FDA went from giant bloated stupid bureaucracy to ultimate vaccine gatekeeper seemingly overnight.

I don't have any beef with you that covid policy at both the national level and Air Force level has been botched to a preposterous degree. That is plainly evident from the devastating shutdowns in places like California. But my entire argument is those things shouldn't factor into your personal vaccine decision. At the end of the day we have a dangerous virus and a vaccine to reduce your chances of getting it by 95%. All current medical evidence, the CDC, and the medical community of the entire world say the vaccines are safe. And by getting it you protect other people too as it has been proven to reduce transmission.

Right. So since I'm sure you are aware how percentages work, that reduces your chance of death from less than 1 in 100 to less than 5 in 10000. Seems like a pretty good deal to me for a mild headache and a few days of arm soreness. But hey maybe 1/100 chance of death is good enough for you. Not the response I was expecting. I guess you got me. So add a fourth one to the list, just sheer carelessness or apathy. Do you also not lock your doors at night, wear a seatbelt, or do other basic things to minimize low likelihood/high impact risk items in your life?

Of course there are other reasons. Medical conditions precluding you from getting vaccinated are basically the only reasons that hold water in my opinion. But based on this thread the only other motivations people have for rejecting it seem to be: -spite -generalized institutional mistrust -F U don't tell me what to do Here's my point. In my organization it was unbelievably easy to predict which people would refuse the vaccine. If it had been a Vegas bet I would have made a shitload of money. So why is that? Do I just have an amazing spidey sense of exactly where everyone stands on issues of personal health? Or maybe is it because vaccine refusal is inextricably linked to a particular political ideology, and it's super easy to spot the far right political loud mouth complainers in the squadron..

Because not getting the vaccine could cause you much bigger problems... I'm sorry your friend got brain fog from the vaccine. That's a new one I haven't heard about. But I would urge you to weigh the risks of the two options: Option one: give yourself ~95% protection from the virus and risk hypothetical long term side effects and the occasional case of brain fog. Option two: risk it with a virus that's killed half a million people in a year. Oh and we also don't know what covid's long term effects might be either. And If we're doing brain fog anecdotes, I'll chime in with my anecdotal evidence too: every single person that I know who has gotten the vaccine felt slightly off for one day, had arm soreness for a few days, and then went about their life.

I think we're conflating two things here. Whether or not you should get the vaccine, and the Air Force's dumpster fire policies relating to covid are two completely separate issues. Anyone who has been in the Air Force for more than a day should have been able to predict that they'd enact idiotic policies, and commanders would revert to extreme risk aversion. But none of that should play into your decision of whether or not to get the vaccine. Getting the vaccine should be based on your personal health and that is it. Big Air Force nonsense shouldn't play into that decision and neither should politics. But what I'm seeing in the 1/3rd of service members turning down the vaccine are a bunch of political blowhards refusing it out of spite. It's a selfish act of political defiance, a middle finger at big blue and the libtard lockdown people, with not a second thought given to their actual health. And that is a problem.