sherpa

Second question first. Typical false premise leading to false conclusion, leading to false accusation. Tibsy path. I don't "automatically assume that women and minorities are worse at their jobs than white men." That is from you. What I assert is that in the professions I have mentioned, standards have been lowered to accommodate various individuals. Simply undeniable. Now to names. As is my habit, I don't post stuff unless I am knowledgeable of the issue. Two Naval Aviators died, and two airplanes crashed at sea because of this. One name, because it is so well known. Kara Hultgreen. Once Congress changed the law and allowed females to fly combat airplanes at sea, the Navy and Air Force were in a race to get the PR win by being the first service to find one. She was it. She was assigned to an F-14 squadron and had an approach turn stall while attempting to land on Lincoln. Her training records and personal witness accounts indicated beyond doubt that if her performance prior to that was as a man, she would never have made it that far. She was not competent to be in that position. Thankfully, her back seater, who commanded the very low altitude ejection survived. Neither she nor the F-14 did. Second, and very personal. There were no single seat pilots in the Navy of a certain race. My squadron had a guy assigned to us. An extremely great guy who became a good friend in our brief time together. The problem was, he couldn't land on the ship, which is the unique and most difficult thing in all of aviation. During workups, which are two week sea periods prior to deployment to get up to speed, he was having difficulty and had not been scheduled at night, which is much more challenging. The decision was made to get hi two day flights, then if that went well, he would be scheduled the next night. If that didn't work out, it was going to be the end of his carrier career. I was his flight lead on the first day mission that day, a perfect day to fly off the boat. On his second flight, he had an approach turn stall, (same as above), and ejected inverted at about 200' killing him at impact with the water, just behind Kitty Hawk. During the accident investigation, it was revealed that there was flag after flag during his training that should have disqualified him, but he was pushed along for a reason. It turns out he had expressed to friends in other squadrons that he was terrified of flying the airplane off a carrier. There are other issues in this accident that even more telling, but were never formally revealed. The Navy would never admit to the training stuff, so they placed some blame on my squadron commanding officer stating that he should have known about this "fear," though it was never expressed to us. Great guy. Great family that I met as one of six officers in my squadron that served as pall bearers at his funereal in Baton Rouge. Anyway, that capped the CO's career.

The issue I commented on is "lowering standards." The point I made is that standards have been lowered in order to accommodate certain people based on things other than capability, ie., race and gender. People have been killed becasue of this, along with other consequences.

Until someone gets killed. Then not so "silly."

Does this apply to firefighters, police, med school applicants, military and military special forces as well?

Where was this? Quite abnormal.

This has nothing to do with money, and nobody is comparing him to anybody. Not sure how that came up. His retirement is a great loss of an incredibly honorable man, tremendous coach and beloved individual to his players, university and community. It is also as I said, a canary in the coal mine indicator of where college athletics is heading.

I agree that it would more dangerous with missiles launched from the mainland, but either way they wouldn't survive it. Regarding Houthi actions, the way the Administration handled it was a bit "Vietnam-esque," with naval hands tied by Washington. The Eisenhower task force commander expressed a need to be more aggressive in dealing with them, ie., launching offensive strikes instead of just defending against missile attacks and then using relatively small attacks against launch sites. Those requests were denied. Would have been a bit different if their reqeusts were approved.

They tried that before and lost half their Navy in eight hours. They could have lost everything but the Chief of Naval Operations called off the dogs. Operation Preying Mantis My old squadron took part in that, though I was gone. A good friend of mine put a 500# laser guided mark 82 right down the stack of the Iranian frigate Sahand.

Whatever you think "his plan " is, it doesn't matter. The Ukraine adventure has exposed Putin. He is getting nowhere, and doing nothing.

Putin doesn't matter, unless he goes crazy and decides to use weapons that we cannot comprehend. His plan is lost. His goal is defeated. He is living in another time that is long gone, and everybody knows it.

He didn't "ask for more money," if you are referring to his salary. He is an extremely, personally honorable man. He was involved in all of this new NIL stuff, took a vacation with his wife where all this was discussed, and put personal priority over money. There are people like that left in this world, and he is one of them. Simply a great coach and individual.

Tony Bennet, the amazingly successful basketball coach at the University of Virginia announced a shocking immediate retirement, effective immediately. Completely classy man. Took an ACC program that was not Duke or UNC Chapel Hill to the peak. As a local resident, this man is so good in every way. A treasure. If I was a parent of a high school basketball player, there is no single coach i would want my son to play for. Simply, complete quality at every level. On a larger note, this resignation is the canary in the coal mine of the effect of NIL in college sports.

I think she is incompetent on every level, but none more so than the military, foreign policy, and specifically Israel. Thumbing her nose at Netanyahu's appearance before the US Senate, and then having the US UN Am ambassador not bother to show up at his Security Council presentation are gross misjudgments, and set the stage for incredibly successful IDF actions the last few weeks as the IDF realizes it is on its own.

Looks like the head of Hamas, that Sinwar guy, was killed by the Israelis. Bills win Monday night. Sinwar dead. Shaping up as a pretty good week.

I can't listen to her constant head bobbing, and abrasive voice for more than a second longer than it takes me find the remote and mute button. But.....I do think that Brett Baier looks just like a slightly younger Eagles Don Henley.

Not a chance. He's in the Brian Williams school of resume creation.

Without commenting on this individual, the lack of business people in the Dem party is what drove me away. The true talent in the US is in business, not politics. It is an infinitely more merit based group, which politics is absolutely not. Still, you have to have some level of understanding of international issues and some exposure to the military. That is why I supported Nikki Haley. She had everything. Trump is not my guy, and Harris is the single worst candidate for national office I have ever seen. Just my view, but I much prefer an ex Governor who has prepared and lived within a budget, has that executive experience and has some knowledge of the military.

Iran has had a really bad month.

I'm a bit confused. You had a dead guy and an electrical fire on the same flight? Anyway, regarding the issue, a passenger would not know the best course of action. For instance, in your example, the strongest jet stream winds on earth are over the northern Pacific east of Japan during fall and winter. Often over 200 knots. That means that if you continue east towards the US or continental North America, you would have a 400+ knot groundspeed advantage over turning back west to Japan. Regarding in flight stuff, a dead passenger would not cause a divert. A serious medical emergency would, depending on the circumstance. I've had a few of these. Nobody dead, but a couple of rather serious medical events, including one on a Japan to Chicago flight.

To answer the question, you always have a "primary divert," which is an airport that can service your airplane, has access to medical facilities etc. On routes from Japan to N. America, after a few hours it switches, generally, from a Japanese airport to Anchorage. There are other options depending on how far south the route is, but generally its Anchorage. You also have an an emergency divert, which you would go to if you absolutely had to get the airplane on the ground as fast as possible. The only real criteria is weather above minimums and a long enough, wide enough runway and taxiways. These things are discussed in the cockpit as the flight progresses, and you load them in the nav system and change them long the way.

I expect much less than you think. Other things US, but not tech stuff, and they are proving it every week, to the shock of Hezbollah, Hamas and Iranian leaders, now dead.

I think this view misjudges the position of this alliance. Israel is not the step child of the US, and their sovereignty and self preservation is their own business. They are involved in a battle for survival, and pleasing the US, while it would be nice, is not their top priority. Given recent dismissive diplomatic insults by the US, they seemed to have determined to do what they need to do without "permission" from this administration. Regarding tactical questions, like "how are they going to get to Iran to counterpunch," they seem to have done a pretty good job the last month without direct penetration. The tactical question is too big for this thread, and there is nobody here who can discuss it with accuracy. I know I can't, and know quite a bit about strikes, weapons, ranges and other factors involved. Best.

Didn't want to anger you, I was just unsure of what you were saying, and on this site, best to be certain. Anyway, what Israel wants is an end to offensive actions orchestrated in Iran and carried out by it's militias. They also want to not have to deal with a nuclear ballistic missile launched from a country determined to destroy them. However they achieve those goals is not something the US controls, and the last few weeks have seen an absolute diminishing of this alliance.

I'm not sure what you are saying here. Too many undefined pronouns. If you are suggesting that the US won't allow Israel to strike Iranian oil fields, I don't think that is true. The US has lost a good bit of influence over Israel over the past six months in my view by clearly slapping them by not having the VP, who heads the Senate, not attend Netanyahu's address, and then having our UN Ambassador not attend his UN speech. Those are diplomatic insults directed at a head of state. Stupid and intentional, and I think they realize they are on their own for a bit. Regarding their "oil fields," I don't think that is the best way to effect their income. They have a rocky and shallow shore, so they use oil platforms at sea to export their product, as large tankers are much more easily supplied by those. Either way, something is going to happen, and probably pretty soon. Either way, I think the Biden Admin has lost a good deal of influence over them.

His "quest for war?" He's defending his country from seven belligerents, all funded, trained armed and equipped from one country that has a countdown to Israel's destruction in a main marketplace in their capital. "If you want war, we are masters of war," reads the slogan at the top, written in Farsi. The slogan underneath, in Hebrew, reads: "Israel must be wiped from the face of the earth and this is the beginning of the story."