Politics

[Altitude sickness]

Trump needs to dump illegals back inside Canada. And specifically those on the terror watchlist and gangbangers in little Castros neighborhood

 

[Brent in Az]

Say what You will about Trump. He's commanding the world stage.
Joe Biden could barely command an ice cream cone on a Delaware beach

 

[Wheels]

Interesting to see who is freaking out the most regarding USAID.

 

[BSO Dave]

I tend to think like many things there are two sides to most issues. TDS is an absolute correct diagnosis of the behavior of many with regard to Trump. But there also is TWS - a Trump Worship Syndrome - that denies the leader can have any faults.

In all seriousness, do you really have that short of a memory or do you just not actually read what I post??

If you are suggesting that I suffer from TWS, you are way off base... Throughout years of discussion on this forum and scores of posts, if you care to look back you will clearly find that I have criticized Trump when criticism was due, just as I have defended him when credit was due...

This particular debate wasn't even about Trump directly. It was about the lies and the false narratives the left and TDS'ers continue to perpetuate without rebuke... What I absolutely can't abide is the perpetuation of the lies from the left and the RINO haters whether they pertain directly to Trump or not...

With respect to what you heard, it really doesn't matter. It only matters what others heard. I remember the UV light comment as well. We joked at the time whether one would be placed in a chamber or have a flexible light tube shoved up one's nose. We should also remember that it was Trump who also gave Fauci his daily pulpit to address and spin the nation.

With respect to what you think you heard, your personal take on that particular instance is actually representative of a very small minority who also tend to have extreme cases of TDS... You have made a great many posts on this forum suggesting TDS... You didn't vote for him, and obviously still do not support him...

As far as mocking and dismissing Trump's suggestions into looking into these alternative treatments, you do realize that UV light, laser, and radiation therapy is quite real in treating a very broad spectrum of disease and ailments including many cancers specifically in prostate cancer where a probe is actually shoved up somebody's ass... Laugh and mock all you like... This stuff is real...

IMO, Trump's biggest mistake in regard to covid was not firing Fauci and Birks... I believe he badly wanted to, and was given bad advice not to do it... He would never admit a mistake, but I believe he would have fired the majority of the task force starting with Fauci if he could do it over again...

His second biggest mistake was keeping the country locked down as long as he did... Again, I think he wanted to open up right after the infamous "two weeks to slow the spread" campaign and was pressured not to do so...

Trump is both uniquely inarticulate and undisciplined with respect to what he says. I think most honest observers would also add to that his writing and texting. That in no way means that he can't accomplish great things as a president. But does mean he provides a fountain of material to his critics which can only undermine his efforts - obviously not those with TWS - but it can affect that other 25% who voted for him and have stayed with him the last two weeks.

Trump's communication style is nothing new... I disagree that it will have any significant effect on his performance or his support... In fact, his manner of direct speak is what endears him the average American, and a huge part of what got him re-elected... His results will be the determining factor in his approval and popularity. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for those with the most severe cases of TDS to admit that he is kicking ass and taking names just as he said he would...

 

[Tanks]

Changing the subject to AI. Recently we got a project to upgrade 25 pump stations, and a central monitoring system for a client in the LA basin.
Each pump station is controlled by a Bristol Babcock RTU (remote terminal unit) that was discontinued a decade or so ago. Additionally, there were no drawings indicating the I/O at each station.
The programming manual for the language used to program was last updated in 2001.

The task was to reverse engineer the programs to figure out what they did, and most important figure out the I/O so our electricians could trace the wires from the RTU to field devices, label them prior to replacing it with the latest Siemens equipment.

I had called the last known programmer, but he said he was not interested in providing documentation even though I offered him his rates X 2. He was retired and was going to stay retired.

I had budgeted $50K in the project for one of my guys to reverse engineer the code.

But, I had an idea. I fed the source code for one of the sites to "Deepseek" and asked it to document the code. It did. Next, I asked it to identify all I/O and it did. Total time was about two minutes.

I asked one of my engineers to feed it the source code for all pump stations. He did it, formatted it and gave it back to me to submit to client. Took him a day.

$50K line-item invoice to client is on the way as soon as the project manager gets around to it. My Rigby is halfway paid for thanks to AI.

 

[rookhawk]

Really? 2000? Are you privy to info the rest of us aren't or did they update info?

"Koziol, the Army aviation adviser, said the instructor pilot had about 1,000 flying hours and the co-pilot, who was undergoing the evaluation, had about 500 hours."

Investigation into deadly midair collision focuses on helicopter flight

What happened inside the Army Black Hawk helicopter in the moments before the fatal crash is key to unraveling the disaster, experts say.

www.nbcnews.com

Just to put it into perspective:

You meet a sharp 23 year old kid that is busting ass for slave wages doing Grand Canyon tours for minimum wage while living in a trailer and charging his life expenses on a credit card. Why? He needs the flight hours so he can get picked up for the milk run with one of the larger carriers.

Before he can take one tour group in a cessna 206 or 210, just to get his commercial license to apply for that first job, he had to have 1500 flight hours. (post 2009, before that it was as little as 250-300 hours)

A Cessna or Kingair in the example above can crash land with everyone walking away under a myriad of conditions and they are fairly stable, simple aircraft. (read reliable) If they are at altitude and the pilot is competent, he can glide to a runway 30-40 miles away without power because they are great aircraft.

Compare that to a Blackhawk, a pretty darned complicated craft that can glide nowhere and mechanical failures are much more grave. I'd expect a bit more hours than 500 and a 1000 respectively if those are indeed "total hours" and not "hours in that type rating". I don't have the facts to know what their hours really meant, a disservice to their reputations if it really was their type rating hours entirely in a Blackhawk.

 

[BSO Dave]

Yes, I am an engineer that also has worked with light including communications connectors using light spectrum to transmit data.

Nowhere in my 50+ years I have come across a solution where one injected light. He went from one thought of injecting disinfectants into the lungs, to light.

You're an engineer but in 50+ years you have never seen or heard of UV light being used to kill microbes?? UV light filters are used in hundreds of industrial applications to disinfect but you've never heard of that before? Focused UV light is also used to very successfully treat a great many medical issues where the light is directed into a very specific area of treatment no different than an "injection"...

I guess you've also never heard of lasers being used for everything from fixing vison problems to removing diseased organs...? Then there is red-light therapy used to treat everything from muscular aliments to acne and hair loss....

Yeah, Trump's the dumbass.... LOL...

 

[Lone Star Bluegrass]

Interesting to see who is freaking out the most regarding USAID.

View attachment 662887

View attachment 662888

Why merging USAID into State would undermine U.S. strategic interests

George Ingram explains how efforts to merge USAID into the State Department threaten its independence and U.S. strategic interests.

www.brookings.edu

A great article where the author tries to twist and bend an argument about why the State Department should not and cannot control federal funding of infrastructure, etc. in foreign countries.
You have to wonder how these people look themselves in the mirror every morning.

 

[Altitude sickness]

I don’t disagree with the premise that trade imbalances need to be corrected. In the case of Canada, I haven’t heard a clear explanation of what we are after, and I certainly don’t agree with the approach being taken. Canada/US trade is highly complex. I’ll give two examples that are significant to the US on a national level:

Our most complex fuels refinery is in Pine Bend, MN. It is designed specifically to process heavy Canadian crude supplied by a pipeline originating in Hardisty, Alberta. This refinery is not configured to effectively process lighter US Crude oil. Cripple this refinery and you will feel the effects wherever you live in the US. Canada has for years evaluated an over the mountain route to allow waterborne export of their crude to non US destinations. We do not want this to happen!

Our big automakers run operations on both sides of the border. Raw material, components, and assembled vehicles move back and forth in a complex dance. Throw a bomb into the middle of this and you negatively impact multiple industries of national importance.

Again, I’m not saying we should not push for a better balance of trade with Canada. However, let’s act like adults and proceed with caution. Somehow we seem to be forgetting that they have been one of our greatest allies.

The UAW has made a public declaration that they support Trumps tariff on Canada. They understand that eventually this inequity needs to be dealt with.

Mini Castro just caved in. That didn’t take long.