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Captain von Trapp posted:Not to sound flippant, but the relatively small number of military deaths largely moots that point. Or you could just pay survivors their fair share, if it's really so insignificant. As is, the law makes sure that the government deducts your dues from your other dues so that they are not additive, but instead subtract from each other to minimize payments to survivors of service-members who die. Add to that the fact that, even adjusted for education, children, etc, military spouses are four times as unlikely to be unemployed as their comparative peers. This isn't because of some mil spouse culture of doing nothing, especially in this day and age. Turns out moving a lot based on military whims can put a cramp in building a career.
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Jan 26, 2019 05:31
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McNally posted:
mlmp08 posted:Or you could just pay survivors their fair share, if it's really so insignificant. As is, the law makes sure that the government deducts your dues from your other dues so that they are not additive, but instead subtract from each other to minimize payments to survivors of service-members who die. I am very, very aware that things that the government does that should be cheap, easy, and humane are in fact done in expensive, difficult, and cruel ways.
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Jan 26, 2019 05:46
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Mortabis posted:I haven't seen the numbers for tricare, but I have seen the numbers for a lot of health insurance plans (one of my firm's areas of practice) and there's just no way. The benefits for dependents are very generous. It's probably old news, I couldn't find anything on it one way or the other past 2012 when DoD was getting pushback on the notion that they had to raise Tricare fees because Tricare fees had generated a $700 million surplus (over a period of time, I'd imagine, not annually).
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Jan 26, 2019 06:07
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I could be wrong, but I believe Mortabis is misinterpreting McNally here. The military did not make money off of Tricare unless you view the DOD as a closed system and ignore budget money given to them by Congress. It spent less money than projected on Tricare, to the tune of around $700 million back in 2012 or so. This could have been, depending on one's reading of some complex stuff, due to the slowdown in rising healthcare costs following the passage of PPACA or it could have been that the DOD inflated projected Tricare costs so that they could re-purpose the money elsewhere as a bit of a slush fund.
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Jan 26, 2019 06:17
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It's most likely due to dodgy accounting. PPACA increased payouts for all of our clients' plans but Tricare was probably immune from that; the main cost driver was eliminating annual/lifetime caps and I suspect Tricare never had those anyway.
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Jan 26, 2019 06:30
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Interested in this hypothetical, Academi/Blackwater decides to invade and take over one of the low countries. Light infantry arriving on chartered flights. NATO, at Trump's desire, doesn't come to the rescue. Do they succeed?
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Jan 26, 2019 07:20
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SgtMongoose posted:Interested in this hypothetical, Academi/Blackwater decides to invade and take over one of the low countries. Light infantry arriving on chartered flights. NATO, at Trump's desire, doesn't come to the rescue. Do they succeed? Unless you are talking about Luxembourg, then no. And I'd say it's doubtful even if it's Luxembourg. Belgium has about 30,000 active military personnell, Netherlands about 70,000, both of them are fairly well equipped and trained.
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Jan 26, 2019 07:32
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SgtMongoose posted:Interested in this hypothetical, Academi/Blackwater decides to invade and take over one of the low countries. Light infantry arriving on chartered flights. NATO, at Trump's desire, doesn't come to the rescue. Do they succeed? Tom Clancy, aren't you supposed to be dead?
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Jan 26, 2019 07:52
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Sounds like the perfect setting for Mercenaries 3
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Jan 26, 2019 08:26
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SgtMongoose posted:Interested in this hypothetical, Academi/Blackwater decides to invade and take over one of the low countries. Light infantry arriving on chartered flights. NATO, at Trump's desire, doesn't come to the rescue. Do they succeed? 1. The EU has a collective defense close too. See TEU article 42.7. Also note the Benelux's geographical situation compared to the EU's largest military powers as well as its political and commercial importance: most EU offices, agencies and other administrative bodies are either in Brussels or in Luxembourg, and the seaports of the Netherlands handle a disproportionately huge part of EU shipping. 2. I thought Academi's current plan was taking over Afghanistan.
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Jan 26, 2019 08:49
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SgtMongoose posted:Interested in this hypothetical, Academi/Blackwater decides to invade and take over one of the low countries. Light infantry arriving on chartered flights. NATO, at Trump's desire, doesn't come to the rescue. Do they succeed? So In the Netherlands case, some light infantry on commerical jets vs a mechanized, a motorized, a air assault brigade and a marine brigade. I don't know how large blackwater/academi/are but NL/BE at least are rich countries with population in the 10-20million range.
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Jan 26, 2019 09:39
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Cyrano4747 posted:Think of it this way: if you look at military spending as a jobs program it’s likely cheaper to just pay off the workers directly (welfare, make do jobs stacking government bricks, whatever) and buy a cheap boat from Korea than it is to buy a boat from Irving at inflated prices. Then take whatever is left over and build part of a community college or whatever. I'm just trying to imagine the timeline that leads to Canada becoming a pariah state that needs to build all of its own military hardware. Perhaps unlawfully detaining too many foreign nationals for no reason? 
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Jan 26, 2019 10:01
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mlmp08 posted:four times as unlikely What.
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Jan 26, 2019 10:07
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Platystemon posted:What.  I was tired. Military spouses have four times the rate of unemployment compared to their peers, controlling for education, age, etc. edit: Watch the Navy's newest weird destroyer with a fraught history get commissioned in a few hours if you like http://navylive.dodlive.mil/2019/01/23/uss-michael-monsoor-ddg-1001-commissioning/ mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Jan 26, 2019 |
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Jan 26, 2019 15:10
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Friendly reminder that Academi are a chickenshit outfit run by insane fundies and mostly specializes in
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Jan 26, 2019 18:30
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So? They don't care about winning, they want money. KBR was literally killing American troops ffs.
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Jan 26, 2019 18:34
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Can we talk about what's happening in Venezuela or is that veering too far into polchat?
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Jan 26, 2019 19:09
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It’s definitely set to be a fine poo poo show of interventionism if we decide to step in. The marginal light is other countries besides the US seem mad at the situation. https://twitter.com/trevortimm/status/1088922643007328257?s=21 To keep it Cold War an Iran Contra chucklefuck now has an official position in this nonsense.
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Jan 26, 2019 19:18
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Sperglord Actual posted:Can we talk about what's happening in Venezuela or is that veering too far into polchat? Not trying to backseat or anything but unless you can find a picture of the Tu-160s that were just there with Caracas in-frame (ideally with the protests visible) it would probably be best to take it to the D&D thread (which is  )?
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Jan 26, 2019 19:19
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Alaan posted:It’s definitely set to be a fine poo poo show of interventionism if we decide to step in. The marginal light is other countries besides the US seem mad at the situation. Probably by far the most experienced candidate for the position
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Jan 26, 2019 19:26
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Number twenty-nine. Tucson is next at the end of February, then Duxford in May.
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Jan 26, 2019 20:30
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Phanatic posted:What a weird paint job. mlmp08 posted:Connies lay their eggs inside the cocoons of other, far more beautiful aircraft, their larvae feeding on the host airplane before bursting forth and then crashing. So that's why they called the engines Wasp Majors.
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Jan 26, 2019 21:30
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FrozenVent posted:If it wasn’t for the Canadian procurement services, we wouldn’t have Davy Shipyard and Federal Fleet Services dunking on Seaspan and Irving all day every day on social media so it’s a wash really. So recently I was in Vancouver walking around the new quay shopping complex in North Van with my aunt when she made a comment about Seaspan being major local industry. I confused the hell out of her by going on a tear about American politics that went on for a good 15 minutes until I realized I was staring at the word SEASPAN painted in fifty foot high letters on the steel wall of a drydock at the shipyard and she had not, in fact, been referring to C-SPAN. 
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Jan 26, 2019 22:37
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Seaspan is the slightly less terrible option to davie/irving but it is still bad.
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Jan 26, 2019 23:35
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Kesper North posted:So recently I was in Vancouver walking around the new quay shopping complex in North Van with my aunt when she made a comment about Seaspan being major local industry. I confused the hell out of her by going on a tear about American politics that went on for a good 15 minutes until I realized I was staring at the word SEASPAN painted in fifty foot high letters on the steel wall of a drydock at the shipyard and she had not, in fact, been referring to C-SPAN. Wait, you mean they haven’t relocated the U.S. Congress to Vancouver to take advantage of the lower production costs?
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Jan 26, 2019 23:40
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The Aviationist with an article and video on the Backfire crash from the other day. Don’t watch if you’re sensitive to fatal crashes, I guess. I didn’t realize it was a landing accident until I saw the video. Sucks. 
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Jan 26, 2019 23:57
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I expected maybe gear collapse, not a neck snap. 
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Jan 27, 2019 00:12
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Yikes. Did the bounce do that or was there prior fatigue/damage?
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Jan 27, 2019 00:13
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mlmp08 posted:I expected maybe gear collapse, not a neck snap. Can't tell if talking about plane or crew....
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Jan 27, 2019 00:17
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MrYenko posted:The Aviationist with an article and video on the Backfire crash from the other day. That's some awful weather to be landing in, runway isn't even plowed.
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Jan 27, 2019 00:23
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Nebakenezzer posted:That's some awful weather to be landing in, runway isn't even plowed. In Russia, runway plow you!
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Jan 27, 2019 01:22
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Sperglord Actual posted:Yikes. Did the bounce do that or was there prior fatigue/damage? Dunno if anyone here reads Russian, but this blog (with sort of broken English) claims a preliminary report from the accident investigation leaked. They say the cause was due to pilot error, because the "crew allowed landing with increased load." https://defence-blog.com/news/russian-tu-22m3-bomber-crash-preliminary-report-gives-details.html Not sure how that leads to the neck snapping, but I'm no engineer.
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Jan 27, 2019 01:31
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I don’t see how even one of the four survived that. They’re all up front right? Is #4 a veggie or a quad?
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Jan 27, 2019 01:40
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CIGNX posted:Dunno if anyone here reads Russian, but this blog (with sort of broken English) claims a preliminary report from the accident investigation leaked. They say the cause was due to pilot error, because the "crew allowed landing with increased load."
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Jan 27, 2019 01:44
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CIGNX posted:Not sure how that leads to the neck snapping, but I'm no engineer. The longerons on those Backfires are probably held together with used up nicotine gum, second-rate duct tape, and probably haven't been meaningfully reinforced since Yeltsin was president, and that's being generous. There's a reason they're trying to replace the Tu-22Ms with Su-34s, and even the Su-34s are having issues now. That aside, however, their pilots are all woefully behind on flight hours, so while there definitely was pilot error here, it's not entirely on them, either. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Jan 27, 2019 |
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Jan 27, 2019 01:48
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You should be aware of the fact that this is charming as all hell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad7rkB_GE6Y
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Jan 27, 2019 01:48
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This is stating the obvious, but that bird came in hot/steep. Regular landing approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-osnXmmAlo&t=44s Death approach: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHMSSU_XyxU&t=70s
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Jan 27, 2019 01:48
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mlmp08 posted:This is stating the obvious, but that bird came in hot/steep. Yeah, even in the best case scenario there, the plane would've been a write-off and a few tailbones would've been broken or cracked.
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Jan 27, 2019 01:52
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Yeah, I've seen carrier ops that touch down gentler than that accident video. Clearly came in too hot (vertically anyway) but in those conditions I can't say I'd have done better.
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Jan 27, 2019 01:54
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God drat  I was wondering why I kept hearing engines, then realized they weren't in frame, then they came crashing back down to earth. gently caress.
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Jan 27, 2019 02:06
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