Pooter

This base of preference option looks sketchy at best and predatory at worst.

You're not wrong. But remember Russia is likely doing the same as far as FME for our stuff. I would be extremely surprised if Russia doesn't get their hands on a patriot/himars/name your system at some point, and the longer the war drags on the more that likelihood approaches 100%. There are lots of arguments for and against this war and I'm not getting into that but rather just want to point out FME goes both ways. And expecting Russia not to benefit as well when we're flooding Ukraine with western tech, with little to no oversight, would be very naive.

Agree on the polarization 100%. But I think the democrat base would pivot to support another candidate if Biden were to step aside. Sure the Dems are ideologically captured in some batshit positions but I don't see the same level of loyalty to an individual person like you do with the right base and trump. There are multiple good choices on the right who would easily beat Biden, but it'll never happen when you have 40% of the country ready to Thelma and Louise off the cliff with trump.

Fair enough, lots of polling and the reporting on such polls is click bait-ey. But I'm not sure how else you find out what people think if you don't ask them. Aggregating poll responses is one of the best ways to find out what Americans think as long as the errors are reasonably controlled for through sample size, demographic representation, and unbiased questions. CBS/Yougov are a reasonably accurate poll source (B+ according to fivethirtyeight.) So a poll showing trust for any politician over one's own friends/family/religious leader, is a deeply troubling result. You've got a huge portion of the Republican based captured basically beyond the point of no return. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out with most roads, unfortunately, leading to a democrat in the White House.

https://www.axios.com/2023/08/21/trump-republican-2024-voters-poll Respondents said they trust trump to tell them the truth more than family members or their religious leaders. 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️ This has moved past ideological capture and into full blown mental disorder.

Honestly the Walter Reed presidential dog and pony shows are shameful no matter who's in office. Clearly this was poorly handled by Biden but I don't know if trump busting in would be any better. Two slightly different geriatric egomaniacs looking for a photo op.

Then I guess they're both jets.. especially if it would bother you more

@Danger41 Not to split hairs here but the t-6 is a jet. Quite literally. It has a jet engine in it that has no mechanical linkage to the prop, and it even has exhaust stacks that make a small but non-zero amount of thrust. So stop being afraid of your douche canoe enjjpt IP and tell him to open the dash 1, learn his systems, and maybe just eat a whole dick.

None of what you said is wrong but I lean more toward "treat people like adults until they give you a reason not to." Periodic inspections are onerous and a waste of time unless you're specifically having dress and appearance issues in the unit. If dudes are coming in with dirty, torn up flight suits, unshaven, and with hair out of regs, then maybe it's time for a blues day. But only for those specific individuals and only for as long as it takes to fix the problem. The uniform is a tool to teach attention to detail, unit cohesion, and pride in your appearance. Much like other silly things you get reamed for in boot camp, its importance wanes massively once you get real responsibilities. Years of training later into the fast jet business, dress and appearance should be a given. Not something you need to periodically spot check. If you trust people to fly multi million dollar supersonic aircraft, you should trust that their uniforms are in order.. unless they specifically give you a reason to think otherwise.

If only they tested that meticulously for steroids, the sport might have a shred of credibility.. maybe even a fan base numbering in the many dozens

100%. On an individual job level the Air Force is amazing. Best flying and best camaraderie to be had anywhere. But on an organizational level it's a shitshow.. wrapped in a dumpster fire.. inside a clown show.. all ultimately governed by our broken political system. You know something is deeply fucked organizationally when they decide to cancel bonuses and pause PCSs and the first place people are finding it out is the front page of CNN.

All this and some people still believed the "base of preference" nonsense.

Republicans don't hit on democrat NIMBY-ism nearly enough. Bussing migrants sanctuary cities they ask to go to = cruel political stunt by evil Greg Abbott Turning a blind eye to small Republican border towns with no resources as they get complete overrun = "what border crisis??"

I think the meme pages hurt retention far more than recruiting. I doubt very much if high schoolers in droves are following viper driver memes and chuckling at ultra specific FLUG DCA jokes or complaints about morale shirts or FSS walk in hours. What is hurting recruiting far more IMO is the left's constant push to make people ashamed of our country and our history.

100%. Limiting principles are the name of the game. I will be the first to admit HOAs and local governments can go way overboard with restrictive regulations. But that doesn't validate the "gubment can't tell me what to do on my property" argument. @HeloDude and yes I will also acknowledge the government is ineffective in many ways, most notably in the war on drugs.. which has basically nothing to do with local level property code enforcement.

Are these things that have happened to you or just a list of Fox News prime time gripes? Regardless, thanks for validating my argument. The fact that you called it "the slums" is an overt admission that doing whatever you want on your property can have externalities and can make a whole area less nice. In an alternate reality we could have a nuanced discussion about which things the government should and shouldn't regulate on private property. No trash burning: probably makes sense. Overly specific pool fence laws: probably not. But you already came up with the most genius solution.. just stop being poor! Wonder if poor people have thought of that..

?? How about noise ordinances. Would you be jazzed if your neighbor was discharging firearms outside all night? Or blasting music till 4am? or how about if they were burning trash in their front yard upwind of your home? Yes HOAs suck because they tend to overstep, but the government absolutely has a role to restrict certain behaviors even on private property. Because unless you're on a ranch in rural Montana all the stuff I listed above will affect other people in a normal neighborhood. I hope you don't have to experience truly sh!t neighbors. I have. And I assure you that after they blow you off in a face to face talk, you wouldn't hesitate to get the government involved.

Yeah it probably wasn't a great time immediately after that impact. But my point is that far more calamitous things have happened to earth than humans driving cars and flying planes, and it's still here supporting life. The earth has been far colder, far hotter, and far more polluted than it is now and supported life throughout. So the notion that we're going to somehow irreparably break the earth or make it completely uninhabitable is just a cute case of humans having main character syndrome, and failing to understand how tiny and insignificant we are in the cosmic sense. The other piece climate panic pushers fail to account for is how good humans are at adapting. Earths population grows every year, and climatologists tell us natural disasters are getting more severe and more frequent *citation needed.* But somehow we find that less and less people every year are killed by natural disasters when you adjust for population growth. Seems counterintuitive but that just shows how good we are at adapting to and mitigating problems. As green technologies progress they will become cheaper, more efficient, more reliable, and will one day take the place of fossil fuels. I truly look forward to when that happens. But trying to force them into prime time use prematurely by outlawing energy forms that we still depend on is not the way to do it. Saddling our economy with restrictions while China still pisses in the pool is also not the way to do it.

66 million years ago the earth got hit by a 6 mile wide meteor traveling 12 miles per second. It resulted in 600 mph winds, 300 foot mega tsunamis that obliterated global coastlines, threw 25 trillion metric tons of debris into the atmosphere, which rained back down causing mass wildfires destroying 70% of forests on earth. The impact also caused an explosion the equivalent of 72 trillion tons of tnt which is more than all of the nuclear weapons currently on earth combined. The earth is still here. Still supporting life. But what's really going to determine the future of earth is whether you drive a F-150 or a Prius to work. 🤦🏻‍♂️

She's the one who wants the total ban on fossil fuels. Not my idea dude. She's an ignorant rich child that doesn't understand the 2nd and 3rd order effects of what she's proposing. Parts of the developing world still burn wood and dung for heat and would kill to have basic fossil fuel infrastructure. (Which would also be a green improvement.) Again, It was her stated goal to eliminate fossil fuels in 5 years, not mine. This would be disastrous to the 3rd world and 1st world alike. Luckily we didn't do it, which might have something to do with it being literally impossible right now. Green technologies are progressing but trying to force it down everyone's throat on an unrealistic timeline is how you get the Texas windmill freeze debacle or the California's rolling blackouts or Europe's disastrous dependence on Russian natural gas. This is her personal crusade and it is divorced from the realities of what our power grids demand and what green energy can supply right now. The Energy storage piece is another huge component to the green infrastructure that is not fully figured out yet. But if you still don't think she's a spoiled, grandstanding, holier than thou, hypocritical climate influencer I'll offer up this. Instead of flying commercial from New York to Lisbon for a 2019 climate conference, she chartered a ride on a rich couple's racing catamaran across the Atlantic. Cool. Super green. Except for the part where they flew her boat captain commercial from Britain to New York prior to the voyage, later promising the flight would be offset with carbon credits. Which begs the question, why doesn't Greta just fly places and pay for carbon offsets? why it's almost like it's one big publicity stunt

Maybe someone could make a documentary about how much government money these rich people are costing the taxpayers to get rescued from their stupid rich people adventure. Seriously how in the hell is my local beach "swim at your own risk" but we'll muster the whole coast guard in the futile task of looking for these billionaire a$$holes 2.5 miles under the ocean. Unless these dudes took out a 10 billion insurance policy to repay the government there is no reason public funds should be used to look for these idiots. Play stupid games win stupid prizes.

My favorite part is the fastest way to kill off a massive part of the developing world would be to outlaw fossil fuels on a super aggressive timeline with no suitable replacement infrastructure. But that nuance is likely lost on the petulant professional complainer who grew up in Scandinavia driving mommy and daddy's electric polestar around. Maybe, to get some perspective, instead of Gucci climate conferences in NYC and Lisbon she could sail her stupid f-ing catamaran to Somalia and see how well her fossil fuel plan is received.

Yeah RFKJ is a quack on many issues. No doubt about it. But he is a well-intentioned quack, which is more than can be said about most of the political elite class.

You’re wrong that this is “common.” You or I would be in prison for over a decade doing what he is on video doing. Standard Democrat two tier justice system in action. Correction: standard two-tier justice system **for rich and connected people of all political persuasions** in action. Money buys good lawyers. Good lawyers get you out of things. I'm sure having daddy as president doesn't hurt, but fundamentally if you are rich and connected in this country you live (mostly) above the law, left, right, and center. Funny part is trump has stepped in it so hard with these classified docs that even the most talented lawyers might not get him out of this one. Especially when he continues to self-incriminate almost daily through social media posts and/or tv appearances. It takes a special level of ego to continue blabbing against the advice of all of your lawyers, and I'm so so here for it. Even barely sentient houseplant Biden has enough legal common sense to deflect or no-comment in response to questions about his derelict son.

Yeah man.. welcome to the real world. The right isn't exactly jumping through their ass to prosecute their own people either. Last I checked the DOJ is under the executive branch. Do you live in some moral high ground fantasy land where it's realistic to expect Biden to prosecute himself? Or his son? Or his friends? You're talking about how politics should be. I'm talking about how politics is. If you want to even the scales, stop complaining and start winning.