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Well, I can fly helicopters, but whatever. Right, but again the thing that you don't understand is, who are you withdrawing? The mass evacuation of Afghanistan was not triggered by the withdrawal of troops. It was triggered by the Taliban retaking the country. If you withdraw in winter the Taliban will not retake the country in winter. You pointed that out yourself, in case you've forgotten. So what happens in winter? Afghanistan is a friendly country with an allied government. Why would we be running an evacuation? The Taliban would simply overrun the country in spring instead, and you'd have just kicked the exact same shitshow a few months down the road, except now you don't even have the troops left to secure Hamid Karzai Airport. I don't understand why you don't understand this simple, self evident fact. So here's a question, Trump signed the withdrawal agreement 18 months ago. We've already had 18 months including an entire winter season to evacuate all these people. So why didn't we?

From the CDC's MMWR comes a story out of Marin, CA. In one school district in Marin, all teachers were vaccinated except for two. One of them caught COVID. The school's policy was for teachers to wear masks at all times, but this teacher took it off occasionally to read to the class. Of the 24 students in his classroom, 12 of them ended up infected - most of them the closest students to him while he was reading. In other classrooms, several infections were seen. They were tested, and the samples sequenced to ensure that they were all the same strain (they were) thus suggesting that they all came from the same index patient (the unvaccinated teacher.) A total of 27 people were infected. All the children were unvaccinated because they were too young to be vaccinated. Of the adults who became infected, three were vaccinated. This tells us a few things: 1) The Delta variant is extremely infectious. In a school setting with sloppy (but implemented) COVID protocols, one infection led to 26 other infections. 2) Vaccination is effective but does not work 100%. Most of the staff (and parents) avoided infection, and almost all of them were vaccinated. But three staff members/parents who were vaccinated contracted the infection. 3) NPI's are critical, and it's not OK to be sloppy or causal about them. Masking prevents infected people (whether they know they are infected or not) from spreading the disease. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7035e2.htm?s_cid=mm7035e2_w

Unless (because again, they've spent their entire lives living and fighting in Afghanistan and know how the seasons there work even better than you do) they'd have remained patient and taken over just as quickly in the spring. And then we'd be looking at the exact same evacuation clusterfuck only worse, because there wouldn't even be any troops there to protect Hamid Karzai Airport. Hey, is there an echo in here? Edit: Honestly after 20 years of pointless fighting, 20 years of abject failure in understanding how to work with the Afghan culture culminating in this moment, you're still sitting there with such arrogance and such hubris that you genuinely think you have one simple, easy magic bullet idea to fix everything that's gone wrong over the last month. Two whole decades and you have learned nothing.

I always thought the one word was "plastics".

ABC News: Special Forces Vets Volunteered To Run Covert Evacuation Of 630 Afghan Allies

FIFY If someone puts inflated values on their personal freedoms over the rights and safety of others. There are always other jobs where they don't have to interact with anyone else.

More words..... you've realised you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

The Trump/Pompeo timetable had the US out by last May. Not sure how this makes it winter in Kabul. It took the British 3 years (1839-1842) to figure out that occupying Afghanistan was a losing proposition. It took the USSR 10 years to figure out that occupying Afghanistan was a losing proposition. It took the USA 19 years to figure out that occupying Afghanistan was a losing proposition, and still there are idiots who want to stay.

No. I don't dispute the data from the Onion for exactly the same reason. If you think thats a credible source, that says a lot about you and has almost no other useful information.

Actually, my experience as a low-timer was that you do at least as much waiting at multi turbine DZs due to many low-timer specific issues. That may be for instance since the DZ is not necessarily keen on high exit/high pullers in every load, or that the many instructors on-site are all very busy, or that available loads are spread wide apart due to the high number of fun jumpers and tandems etc. etc. etc. This is not to start an argument that small or large DZs are 'better' than the other, it's just a personal observation that there was a period of experience in my logbook where I could barely scrounge out a mere 1-3 jumps a day regardless of the type of DZ I went to. And the weather will likely remain an issue for a while, whether it be due to dust devils, rain, high winds or whatever in the general area. Also, OP, be prepared for conditions which allow others with (slightly) more experience to jump while you are benched. ETA: In all fairness, my job strictly limits my jumping activities to the weekends, and has done so in every stage of my jumping career.

Or change the subject. Like this. Here is a picture of trumps bum boy Pompeo and the Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar. The smug look on Pomeo's face is because he just finished trump's orders and tied President Biden's hands and sold America out.

I sense That you have found a new Q to follow.

If you don't want your name known, well, you are too late. If you want a bus load of people to pass through Taliban lines what would be your solution? Have everyone lie and go without the documentation they will need to enter Kabul Airport? Send a SEAL Team to escort the bus? How about accept reality within the confines of the shit agreement Trump laid on us and play ball? Sometimes there are no perfect choices.

I support President Biden, primarily, because he isn't Trump. These are the sorts of choices one is often faced with in a rational world. As we don't live on a kindergarten playground, we who so chose Biden are mindful of the reasons that caused us to make the decision. So, no thanks to your constant invitation to act as if we just poked a beak through our shells and the future starts today.

Just get the vaccine. Because if one Delta doesn't get you. The other Delta will.

Do you think the intel, military and state department advisers told him that the 20 years and trillions of dollars were so poorly spent that the Afghan forces and government would implode almost instantly? I think what the GOP is most concerned with is that this will hamper drumming up voter support for future wars and therefor it will likely impact defense lobby dollars flowing into their coffers.

I am anti-insurrection, but I would totally be down with the representatives fighting *each other* in a MLB styled bench clearing brawl.

20 year conflict, but Biden owns it. Buddy, you couldn't be more partisan if you tried. More than enough blame to go around. Trying to pin it all on one person, one president, one decision shows a serious lack of understanding and quite frankly shows a lack of intelligence.

Sometimes riggers throw out the "20 year rule" because they are tired of arguing with customers about why they should not squeeze one more season out of their faded, frayed and filthy rig. Since they customer has been jumpoing the rig the whole, time, they do not notice its' slow deterioration. During the same year, the rigger has inspected hundreds of other containers that are in far better condition. Perhaps the rigger is just weary of sewing patches on top of patches. I told one DZO not to send his old Vector tandems to me because I was tired of patching them. Thankfully, he replaced them with some half-life Vectors. P.S. I started jumping tandems in 1986, so am so old that I have jumped tandems without drogues. I consider Vectors slow to repack, but in the air they fly pretty much the same, especially after they have been updated to ZP canopies. Yes, I am so old that I started jumping when F-111 was the "hot" new fabric. Nowadays I only jump ZP mains.

They are the ones who released all the terrorists who are currently killing people in Afghanistan.

I am. Biden has the balls to actually do it. In the present.

How would you compare your feeling to those you had for the previous administration? Because the policy on Afghanistan is largely the same. It could have been crafted by Steve Bannon five years ago. The only real difference is that Biden has the balls to actually do it and take the heat.

Do you have anything to say about the video? Because posting stuff without comment is strongly discouraged. Wendy P.

Come on dude. I don’t know how self absorbed you need to be to see the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan only as an opportunity for domestic partisan backbiting.

There are 2 speeds: Indicated airspeed and true airspeed. The speed that the jumper will feel in freefall is always indicated airspeed and for a jumper that falls at an indicated airspeed of 120 mph, he will fall at that same indicated airspeed regardless of altitude (except when going so high there is no air at all). If you could take an airspeed indicator with you in freefall, it would always register the same airspeed, indicated airspeed, regardless of altitude for a give body position. Your true airspeed will change with altitude and at 41,000' your true airspeed, with an indicated airspeed of 120 mph, would be about (depending on temperature) 245 mph. However, your body would only feel the indicated airspeed of 120 mph. Mike Mullins Oh yes I will. Mike

OAN got it's feelings hurt, so it sued Rachel Maddow. They lost the suit, and judge awarded Maddow $250,000 in legal fees. One America News Owes Rachel Maddow $250,000 That's a shame.