79 Comments

Aspen Colorado? Sounds like a paid vacation.

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Betchya' there won't be a dry roasted cricket anywhere near their lunch buffets.

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Aspen in late September? Might even be able to sneak in a few runs on the ski slopes between pity parties - oh the humanity!

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Perzackly.

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I have NEVER been to an event organized by academics in a place like Fargo in January, East St. Louis, or Bossier City, Louisiana.

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I've presented at professional conferences in garden spots like Elizabeth City, NC, and Edwards AFB.

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I've done sessions at places like MCB Quantico, but those academics were the Marine War College and MCWL. Civilian academics have seemed to like places like San Diego, Orlando, the Gaylord-Opryland in Nashville, Seattle, Las Vegas,etc.

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This is beyond academics, this is the cabal of think-tank know-it-alls, consultants and professional polishing. They rub elbows with the Patricians while sniffing each other's farts. Their stomping grounds are Jackson, Sun Valley, Park City and Gstaad,

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This is so irritating I might have to "Shereka" about this! (Hint: POC listed)

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Another one of those pesky Norwegian Lutherans?

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Exactly. And the timing especially craws at me. End of the FY when EVERY year I get told don’t plan a thing because of funding, the Commissars get a paid conference.

You want to improve sailor morale? Plow the money spent here on base improvements. Barracks first.

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When I worked for a state government lab in the 1990s, our group had a large stack of POs available for lab equipment when we started approaching the end of the fiscal year - stuff the department had seen cut out of the appropriated budget for the year. As the agency tried to figure out how to spend funds appropriated to other divisions so as not to show a surplus for the year (and thus hurt future budget requests), we would be ready to help them solve that "problem" - sometimes to the tune of a couple of million dollars.

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Don't get me started. A competent manager is supposed to have an end-of-year surplus - it was his management reserve. Not letting him hang onto that money, roll it over to be the NEXT year's reserve, guarantees wasteful spending.

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True.

We weren't exactly *wasting* the funds - the end of year money pretty much just funded capital equipment we had requested in that year's budget but had not received funds for. We DID have one of the most modern drinking water testing labs in the country - more up to date than the USEPA research lab in Cincy, for example, but being able to modernize equipment actually made us more efficient (thanks to being able to keep up with automation technology).

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A sailor told me today one of most morale crushing things is lack of base parking. If you ain’t on base by 0630 you’re f’d…. And cno is preaching about taking care of your people?!

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Didn't see any military, much less Naval experience in that Board. Course the board did have former ambassadors from first tier strategic partners, Benin, Thailand and Ecuador.

participants: 4% white, no mention of the military, lots of Global Government vibes:

"ICAP HAS HAD OVER 810 FELLOWS OVER THE PAST 26 ANNUAL SESSIONS. Nearly all have had advanced degrees (Masters, JDs or PhDs), had command of two or more languages and had 5 or more years of professional experience when they first became ICAP Fellows. Current employment of ICAP alumni is roughly similar in sector distribution to their distribution when recruited although there has been much movement across sectors and to more senior positions. At present, 61% are at middle to senior level positions in government, with the State Department (including 12 current or former Ambassadors) and USAID most heavily represented but many from Agriculture, the International Trade Commission, Labor, Commerce, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Government Accountability Office, the Center for Disease Control, Hill staff and others as well; 19.5% are in NGOs (including several executive directors) and foundations (including senior program officers); 7.6% are in the private sector (including a number of CEOs and other senior officers); 2.4% are in educational or research institutions; and 1.5% are in state and local governments. The remaining 8% are independent consultants, in media or entertainment, in transition between positions or retired.

The diversity of alumni in employment sectors ensures a wide range of perspectives on international issues and provides trusted and supportive individuals to whom alumni can turn for help on both personal and professional matters. Having senior Congressional staff, non-governmental leaders, private sector executives and officials from across governmental agencies as an on-going support group is invaluable.

Women have accounted for 68.3% of the total number of participants and men were 31.7%. 46.1% of the participants have identified as Black/African-American, 28.5% have identified as Asian-American, 20.3% identified as Latinx-Americans, 1% identified as Native American/American Indians and 4% have identified as non-Hispanic White participants. While applicants have not been asked this question, a significant number have self-identified with the LBGTQ+ community. On occasion, there have been chair-bound and visually impaired Fellows as well. This diversity ensures that the program is not focused only on the issues faced by a particular marginalized group but by problems of marginalization more broadly. "

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“Women have accounted for 68.3% of the total number of participants and men were 31.7%.”

That adds up to 100%! What happened to all the other genders? And the 4% white participants presumably had some other intersectionality factor so they would fit in?

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"While applicants have not been asked this question, a significant number have self-identified with the LBGTQ+ community."

Without having been asked the question, dare one ask "How have they self identified?"

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Man buns?

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ICAP Fellow? Isn't that discriminatory in and of itself?

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A WEEK in Aspen in September, the same time the ships are trying to get OMN funds for critical unfunded requirements prior to the end of the fiscal year. Someone must have borrowed the duty brain in N1 for senior leaders to allow this to happen.

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Our GS Nomenklatura and Diversity Zampolit require their training. The death by suicide of a few proles in the yards is but an insgnificant price in their mission to further DEI.

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In a fair world (and it is not) you'd deserve 10 bonus points on your Social Credit Score, Jet, for that post. Makes me a little jealous. I could use the points myself.

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Real world, they'd wipe my slate clean.

As deep as my cynicism runs now, I'm surprised I haven't been banned.

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I have been, but not yet here:)

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Deep cynicism, huh. Do you measure yours in feet, fathoms, furlongs, or parsecs? And isn't cynicism sort of passé now? It's more like having a unique world view that gives you superior insight into universal truths. Please don't say "metres"...it'd add a few fathoms to my own depth. Any deeper and I join the bottom feeders and DEIsters.

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"F the Proles" that's what I say

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Some of us begin to worry you'll lose your head, Citoyen Orwell.

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part of the application:

------------

Ethnic Status (optional)

Please check the appropriate box.

0 Black/African American

0 Hispanic/Latino

0 American Indian/Alaskan Native

0 Other (specify)

0 Asian/Pacific Islander

see what isn't there?

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Gah! It's right there, plain as the nose on your face: "Other (specify)". Geez, "Otherness" is a thing. A prized thing. Embrace it or moveon.org, SGT. : )

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that would make us both minorities then?

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Maybe, but drat, I have two unique disqualifiers. Born with blue eyes and blond hair. Me on the left in 1952: https://imageshack.com/i/pmIRHhZIj

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Ah, but at least you were on the left, comrade.

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Da, but to the right of my brother.

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After I got shitcanned to the coffee mess. (For working on light duty and answering yes if I'd do it again.) I used to tease my skipper about being the only Jew in the squadron and working retail. His response? Right person for the job, as he laughed.

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Sorry, need clarification; was working wrong and you were shitcanned for not promising not to do it again, or you were voluntold to keep doing it because you didn't complain enough like a real soldier oughta?

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Was caught doing maintenance while on light duty. Was only person in shop that day, airplane was broke and scheduled for another sortie. So, I fixed it. I told the Senior Chief if those circumstances arose again, I would work light duty or not.

The Senior Chief was correct to fire me because it was his ass on the line if I made the injury worse, and because I was disobeying a lawful order by working.

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Had a friend / O-3 back in the 90s that always chose "Other" and wrote in "American"

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That's the approach I'll need to remember to take in the future.

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We need people to attend ICAF and learn something useful like how to produce weapons not ICAP where they will be indoctrinated with Marxist claptrap.

Why hasn’t the SECNAv and the CNO - the lady with a degree in journalism - been summoned before the HASC and SASC to explain her funding priorities?

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Because SASC is run by.....

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"This is a highly competitive program...". Am sure that is correct. An 8x10 glossy B&W photo may be required because that's the best way to sort out problematic applicants without having to read all those applications. A picture speaks a thousand words, and it doesn't lie like a bunch of word-smithed supplicant-speak can. By Gar, if it worked to weed out fatties, officers with too daring facial hair and "uglies" for promotion and assignments back in the day, it'll work for ICAP. I dunno. Maybe swab the inner cheek and send it off to determine one's haplogroup? Simpler, fairer?

https://us-browse.startpage.com/av/anon-image?piurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.etsystatic.com%2F10853729%2Fr%2Fil%2F40d7be%2F2279715388%2Fil_fullxfull.2279715388_nknd.jpg&sp=1711646591T3b3dc7206ed0217672d362f49b7e0e07ac84e47ab7feee4154009dc9d5791362

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our military is not serious. our military is not trained for combat.

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Inconsistent observation, Ahmed. They are seriously not trained for combat.

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Oh come on Sal, we have a CNO that's a diversity hire, who's surprised here. We're going to stager into the next war as unprepared and shocked as we staggered into Korea. As much as I despise FDR and his whole coterie of socialists, they at least had us starting to prep before WWII punched us in the nose.

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I don't think we have the recovery skills, industry, motivation, or technological acumen we had in 1951 to catch up.

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Sadly I believe you are right.

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Further evidence that the HR designator needs to just go away.

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WTF... just WTF?

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WTF? TTF.

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I have a strong guess that NSA Millington is NOT on the Russian or PRC nuclear target list. Far better for their purposes if we simply screw ourselves into the deck. I note with some sardonic level of humor that the BUPERS mailing address is 5720 Integrity Drive, Millington, TN 38055.

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"Don't turn around, wa-uh-oh (yeah-yeah)

Der Kommissar's in town, wa-uh-oh

You're in his eye

And you'll know why"

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"Don't turn around, wa-uh-oh (yeah-yeah)

Der Kommissar's in town, wa-uh-oh

You're in his eye

And you'll know why"

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