EmptySlime

Last numbers I saw is that Trump more or less got the same amount of votes as 2020 while Harris got 15 million less votes than Biden.

Vance really is just an early oughts 4chan addict isn't he?

Not really. Using % of forecast area as % chance of rain inherently gives equal weight to your position being anywhere within that area. Even if you limit the forecast area to the 5m or whatever it is radius that smartphone GPS is typically accurate to which a weather app could theoretically do, simply using % of the forecast area covered as % chance of rain inherently gives equal probability of you being literally anywhere within that 5m radius. It would obviously still be more accurate, but those numbers wouldn't be the same thing.

A couple things. First, you might need to freshen up on your Schoolhouse Rock, because this is not true:

The 60 vote thing is true. It's referring to the filibuster and cloture procedures in the Senate.

When a bill comes up for consideration in the Senate, first it gets brought up for debate. A filibuster is when someone usually opposed to the bill makes this debate go on as long as possible to delay a vote on the bill. This process has been shorthanded a lot in recent years so senators merely need to indicate intent to filibuster so that the Senate can still attend to other business such as committee hearings and the whole chamber isn't locked in by the filibuster.

Since the entire GOP is bent on obstructing the Democratic party agenda this means in practice that you need to use Cloture to end the filibuster and bring the bill up for a vote. This is why we see so many things crammed into the Budget Reconciliation bill. It's one of the only bills that can't be filibustered like that. For pretty much all other things if you don't have 60 senators willing to vote for Cloture the bill is dead on arrival.

Oh no that's broken as well. But that same kind of disenfranchisement happens in the Senate. Wyoming per your example has ~600k people and California has ~39 million according to Wikipedia but both get 2 Senators. That's what, 65x the population but the same voting power? Then there's also the fact that unless you've got 60 votes in the Senate it doesn't matter what anyone in the House wants it won't even come up for a vote. Which means there's a lot of comparatively empty land that can basically just hold the rest of the country hostage. Point is there's a lot that's broken in the legislative branch.

I mean it was very smart for the time when the average citizen couldn't possibly know enough to make an informed decision and news that could change who someone would vote for could take weeks to arrive somewhere.

But let's not kid ourselves. Both the Electoral College and the Senate were specifically created to thwart the will of The People if it was too inconvenient for the elites. What was that quote about the Senate being the "cooling saucer of democracy" or something like that?

Of course. It's pretty much just to get headlines and for people to campaign on. But that's really all you can hope for when Republicans control the House and won't actually take up any meaningful oversight.

Idk, if I had to guess I'd say probably something like renting out an entire resort for the duration plus whatever they did there.

Defense Department Dimmadollars

Last I knew, yeah. Google bought them years ago. Moreover, I don't remember that "feature" being in Waze before Google acquired them. Those ads were the biggest reason I dropped Waze a while back.

My understanding is the majority of detransition occurs due to financial reasons. So basically "I can't afford my HRT anymore," or "I can't afford top surgery right now so I'll go back to presenting as a woman," or what have you. Then once the financial issue is gone a lot of those resume transition.

Full on "I thought I was trans but I'm actually not" detransition seems to be pretty rare. Almost like the current standard of care does a pretty good job at weeding out the people for whom transition isn't the best treatment option. But to the conservatives who've decided this is their new culture war front if literally a single person ever regrets their transition, that's enough to ban it for everyone.

So most of these bills ban pretty much all medical interventions for anyone under 18. Puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, surgery, the whole nine. Some go further and are trying to ban it for anyone under 26. You could theoretically still get counseling but you wouldn't be able to actually do anything.

And yeah sure, on its face that might seem reasonable. Wouldn't want impulsive teens rushing into big irreversible medical changes on a whim right? But those safeguards already exist. You can't just walk into a gender clinic as a 10 year old boy, say the magic words "I'm actually a girl," and walk out with an appointment for bottom surgery and a prescription for titty skittles. It takes long term counseling, social transition steps like trying out a new name and pronouns, wearing clothing that aligns with your gender, etc.

In reality that hypothetical 10 year old boy walking into the clinic is going to get extensive counseling. From that counseling he might try out using a different name, she/her pronouns, or dressing in more feminine clothing. She then might get prescribed puberty blockers here to make sure she has time to do all of this and be sure of herself without being forced into male puberty. A few years go by and last statistics I saw something like 2% of people at this point say, "No I think I actually am a boy," and they go through that slightly delayed puberty. But almost all progress to HRT and later surgery.

Do some people later truly regret their transitions and try to go back? Of course they do. But realistically, transition already has basically the lowest regret rate of any medical procedure out there. A higher percentage of people regret getting something like a hip or knee replacement surgery than regret transition.

Puberty already forces your body through permanent changes that can range from easy, to nearly impossible to reverse. That's why puberty blockers are so important. Imagine if as a young cis boy through some rare medical issue you start going through female puberty. But you're a boy! You know you are. You've got a penis and everything.

But now you're growing breasts. Like big enough that you can't really hide them. Big enough that they get in the way, they're heavy, and you have to wear a bra otherwise they hurt like hell. The other boys in your grade stare at you or bully you because you're a boy but you've got bigger tits than a lot of the girls in your grade. Soon everyone starts mistaking you for a girl. Guys start hitting on you even though you're a guy and you're attracted to girls. A lot of the girls aren't interested in you because they're attracted to more... Traditional looking guys. You get told that you should just accept it. After all you look just like a girl. But you're not a girl damnit. You're a boy. This wasn't supposed to happen. Now imagine they tell you they can't do anything about it until you turn 18... Or maybe 26. Sounds terrible right?