fanfic insert posted:

The post is explicitly about reality not matching paper and you say nuh-uh and link the paper

Punished Turtle posted:

mlmp08’s silence on Palestine is deafening

mlmp08 posted:

Hatebag posted:

i can understand people not believing that because shipping 70-ton tanks back and forth across the atlantic for maintenance is maybe one of the stupidest ideas i've ever heard.

Punished Turtle posted:

mlmp08’s silence on Palestine is deafening

mlmp08 posted:

In sincerity, the collective punishment and war crimes against the Palestinian people is so gross, enduring, and indefensible that it's just not even remotely fun or interesting to trade barbs with psychopaths who think they aren't people and deserve it. And the one weird trick of "if you think Palestinian civilians shouldn't all just eat it and hope they don't die, I guess you love terrorism" is so loving boring. Even if someone wanted to be some real-politic edgelord to make excuses for killing civilians, even from that twisted view, it is not a compelling argument, and it sucks. So I avoid the I/P zones where people lose their loving minds about Iran or something while gasping that it's okay to indiscriminately bomb civilians and cut off their food, water, medical supplies, on top of just blowing up their homes. Pretty hard to say "oops, just collateral" when you're cutting off basic human life support and being indiscriminate by design.

Cuttlefush posted:

shipping tanks back and forth is a thing that sounds really dumb but also that's kind of always been the game plan and logistics/fuel costs are well worth keeping people at least maybe a little refreshed on how to get tanks to the periphery if you want to maintain your holdings

big dong wanter posted:

Admittedly I am one of gods stupidest creatures but if you are shipping tanks from the USA to Europe then those transport ships have to make the return journey anyway so you might as well fill those boats with broken tanks. Iirc the USSR had a similar theory with aircraft engines where they were not really meant to be serviced thoroughly at forward positions because it makes a bunch of sense to just bring in good spares and take them back to central locations for rebuild.

gradenko_2000 posted:

that reminds me of how instead of trying to figure out how to cool the barrel of a machine gun, the MG42 just made it really easy to swap in a new barrel after the current one was overheated

Cuttlefush posted:

well hold on now... i think a lot (all? not sure) of the shipping is done through https://www.arcshipping.com/ and they also do commercial transport. not sure i'd compare it to ussr's logistics, which is also on land and rail-based and not the weird private Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement (https://www.maritime.dot.gov/national-security/strategic-sealift/voluntary-intermodal-sealift-agreement-visa) bullshit. who even owns arkshipping?

also lol bonus whatever this is https://www.maritime.dot.gov/sites/...re-8-1-2019.pdf

Hatebag posted:

lol of course they outsourced the shipping. i bet a lot of people who make the tank boat decisions retire to fake jobs at the shipping company

mlmp08 posted:

In sincerity, the collective punishment and war crimes against the Palestinian people is so gross, enduring, and indefensible that it's just not even remotely fun or interesting to trade barbs with psychopaths who think they aren't people and deserve it. And the one weird trick of "if you think Palestinian civilians shouldn't all just eat it and hope they don't die, I guess you love terrorism" is so loving boring. Even if someone wanted to be some real-politic edgelord to make excuses for killing civilians, even from that twisted view, it is not a compelling argument, and it sucks. So I avoid the I/P zones where people lose their loving minds about Iran or something while gasping that it's okay to indiscriminately bomb civilians and cut off their food, water, medical supplies, on top of just blowing up their homes. Pretty hard to say "oops, just collateral" when you're cutting off basic human life support and being indiscriminate by design.

"The US is losing WW3" may well be apt!

mlmp08 posted:

In sincerity, the collective punishment and war crimes against the Palestinian people is so gross, enduring, and indefensible that it's just not even remotely fun or interesting to trade barbs with psychopaths who think they aren't people and deserve it. And the one weird trick of "if you think Palestinian civilians shouldn't all just eat it and hope they don't die, I guess you love terrorism" is so loving boring. Even if someone wanted to be some real-politic edgelord to make excuses for killing civilians, even from that twisted view, it is not a compelling argument, and it sucks. So I avoid the I/P zones where people lose their loving minds about Iran or something while gasping that it's okay to indiscriminately bomb civilians and cut off their food, water, medical supplies, on top of just blowing up their homes. Pretty hard to say "oops, just collateral" when you're cutting off basic human life support and being indiscriminate by design.

"The US is losing WW3" may well be apt!

The Oldest Man posted:

From the I/P thread

mlmp08 posted:

people within the US government debated and still debate both sides of it, at length.

And a lot of the debate is not about the tanks, it’s about housing and moving family members and whether that is good or bad. Don’t need families if the troops are “deployed” for 9 months at a time away from families and living in barracks and doing exercises nonstop rather than having family around and going home at the end of each day. Plus political issues of stationing and building base infrastructure or not.

quote:

During her opening remarks, Waltz said the sealift fleet had concerning readiness rates in recent exercises.

Van Ovost said Transportation Command was analyzing the results of the 2022 Turbo Activation exercise and using better metrics so it would have more confidence in being able to assess the fleet’s readiness.

“We have not yet seen the return on investment” in various modernization efforts and reforms that followed after the 2019 exercise, Van Ovost said. Only 40 percent of the ships involved in the exercise were capable of being put to sea on short notice.

Frosted Flake posted:

We built a town, Lehr, for 4 CMBG

hth

Zadok Allen posted:

Wasn’t “psychohistory” in the Foundation novels essentially an anemic knock-off of Dialectical Materialism?

Great show, though.

cat botherer posted:

yeah. Asimov's ego was far larger than his intellect. IMO the show is much better than the books.

palindrome posted:

Was it in this thread people were talking about jobs at military sealift command?

The pay doesn't look terrible compared to being enlisted but life is probably horrible and you're either on a ship for 9 months, or stranded at an island naval base wishing you could be on a ship for 9 months?

Seems like being a baker or something for 100k a year would appeal to people.
https://sealiftcommand.com/departments/culinary/cook-baker/27

Maybe it's hard to get that specific job, or msc life simply sucks that badly, I dunno. It's fun to watch the videos and imagine if life has gone differently. maybe I'd be a second officer by now!

(Nope, still a liquid poo poo pumper, damnit.)

Zadok Allen posted:

Wasn’t “psychohistory” in the Foundation novels essentially an anemic knock-off of Dialectical Materialism?

Great show, though.

cat botherer posted:

yeah. Asimov's ego was far larger than his intellect. IMO the show is much better than the books.

Egg Moron posted:

dune is dialectical materialism the novel

Frosted Flake posted:

We built a town, Lehr, for 4 CMBG

hth

mlmp08 posted:

and you kept 4th CMBG there for how long post-Cold War?

gradenko_2000 posted:

What does Lehr mean because that's the same name as a Wehrmacht Panzer Division

Slavvy posted:

Or they could just make something original instead

federalnewsnetwork.com posted:

The Department of Homeland Security is setting up potential reassignments for employees in its Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction unit if Congress fails to reauthorize the office later this year.

The authority for the CWMD office terminates Dec. 21. While bipartisan legislation to reauthorize CWMD exists in both chambers of Congress, time is running short as lawmakers face another looming government shutdown scenario in mid-November, while House Republicans have yet to appoint a new speaker.

“It’s a complicated congressional environment right now,” Mary Ellen Callahan, the assistance secretary of DHS’s CWMD Office, said in an interview.

The CWMD office is responsible for working with state and local governments as well as international partners to guard against chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats to the United States.

“We’re explaining the value proposition that is the CWMD office,” Callahan said regarding DHS’s conversations on Capitol Hill. “How integrated we are with our DHS components, how we support our components, providing them equipment, training, technical assistance, and expertise. And how we also are working with our state and local stakeholders that comprise almost 40% of the U.S. population.”

With the CWMD office facing termination, however, DHS leaders are considering contingency reassignments for the 234 employees who work there. Callahan said DHS leaders have agreed to keep open some jobs in the coming months to prioritize the reassignment of CWMD employees should Congress fail to act.

CWMD employees have until Nov. 17 to select a reassignment offer. They would then be officially reassigned to those new positions on Dec. 17, which is the start of the first pay period before CWMD’s authority expires.

After Dec. 17, Callahan said CWMD would not be able to pull them back if Congress makes a last-ditch reauthorization attempt. She said it would be the “largest management directed reassignment” in DHS’s history.

“The contingent reassignment is to give a lifeboat to folks, to make sure that they continue as a fed, they don’t have a break in service, and that they can find a job that is at least within their series and grade,” Callahan said.

The office includes employees ranging from nuclear physicists and chemical engineers to veterinarians who work on bio-surveillance programs.

“These are unusual positions that we’re really leaning forward to make sure we can find a place where they can be productive federal employees, if indeed CWMD goes away,” Callahan said.

But she said the office is starting to see some “slight attrition” due to the uncertainty about the office’s future.

“We’ve had a couple of people who have left and I know other people are looking at it, or considering retirement or other exit options,” Callahan said. “I have encouraged them to stay around, because I feel very passionate about this mission. And I feel that it’s an incredibly important time for this office to continue. With that said, I understand that people have to make choices on their own. I think the closer we get to December, particularly the latter part of the month, the more we’re going to see people exiting the office at their own will.”

The CWMD office was formally established in 2018 and has struggled with morale challenges for much of its existence. Its employee engagement score of 39.4 in 2022 ranked 430th out of 432 subcomponents across the entire federal government.

The office has struggled with turnover among its senior leadership ranks, according to the Government Accountability Office. Callahan is now the fourth different assistant secretary to take the helm since 2018.

Callahan was previously chief of staff to former DHS Deputy Secretary John Tien, who led a DHS-wide morale improvement initiative.

“I’m taking what I learned and applying it here at CWMD,” she said. “I am an engaged leader that likes to inspire teams to get the best out of them, and also have individuals feel seen and heard. And I’m leading the office this way. I’m trying to be very candid about where we are. But I’m also trying to inspire the team to let them know that not only do I believe in them, but I think I can get more out of them.”

If the office is reauthorized, she said her longer term goal is to make CWMD’s operations more integrated into the processes and policymaking happening across other DHS components.

“We can help be subject matter experts for them, as we face this weapons of mass destruction issue,” Callahan said. “And that’s, I think, how to help the morale here. These people are experts, and they want to be seen as an expert, and they want to be engaged in the mission.”

The Oldest Man posted:

id call it "quantitative dialectical materialism" but asimov didnt realize thats what he was describing because

and

dune's a way, way better take on the same basic idea

jared harris is loving killing it as hari seldon though

Centrist Committee posted:

that would be unamerican

Slavvy posted:

Or they could just make something original instead

Zadok Allen posted:

Wasn’t “psychohistory” in the Foundation novels essentially an anemic knock-off of Dialectical Materialism?

The Oldest Man posted:

dune's a way, way better take on the same basic idea