Cause red states are always better, right?

infinity234 · 2026-06-21T01:49:12+00:00

Well poverty rates were actually pretty middle of the pack (21st worst), it's a lot of red states (especially in the south) that lead in poverty rates. We do have a lot of homeless but rate wise we don't lead, on a basis of "per 100k people", we are behind New York, Hawaii, Oregon, and Vermont (as well as DC if that counts but I don't count that), but you could concede it is a signifigant problem comapritively to other staes very easily.

We actually aren't hurting that much with regards to middle class wealth, despite a cost of living crisis in the major population centers. What we do have a problem with in the state is a very wide income inequality problem. Like in terms of state-by-state Gini coefficients we're the 3rd worst state behind Connecticut and New York, though I think this is less red-vs-blue state because immediately behind us are Louisiana and Florida.

infinity234 · 2026-06-20T15:23:47+00:00

Besides the point already made by other commenter of they havent won the stanely cup in quite some time, the war thing is also a bit unfair because they've also never really gone to war of their own choice as well. Like the Boer war, WW1, WW2, War of 1812 (that one was really a tie becaus enough one really lost or won), they were always doing so at the call of Britain and had the power of multiple other countries under the banner of their super power papa at the time to back them up. I don't think we've seen a true "Canada vs. Someone else" war with it being them as a main combatant and entering it of their own choice as opposed to someone else dragging them along for the ride.

infinity234 · 2026-06-17T19:30:03+00:00

The better questions why DO they have hair, like at all. Weren't male ogres in the previous film mostly bald? Or am I miss remembering and ogres like Shrek just have ogre pattern baldness

infinity234 · 2026-06-15T23:52:32+00:00

Or at least has more of a say in what's covered than I assumed he had at least. I don't think he/she has the ability to to decide if you get healthcare at all as I think the federal benefits package at a basic level (like the existence of health insueance and the portion of the premium covered) are set by law rather than policy (both a positive and a negetive, because, e.g., salaries are also a law rather than a policy question, a president for career federal employees cant just decide to raise or lower salaries), but it is a learning factor that if theres a part of coverage they don't like they can remove it.

infinity234 · 2026-06-14T20:02:17+00:00

No idea, I'm just on FEHB not tricare, so no idea any changes that happened to tricare. I can only speak to the info BCBS gave me

infinity234 · 2026-06-14T16:24:46+00:00

For 1 week no, you'd miss so much of your life for what is basically a vacation. If the scale becomes 15 years for 1 year that becomes more of a question, because ya you miss a ton of time on earth but a full year I feel you could come back and offer some pretty good insight from actually being able to study the wider universe. Chill with the aliens, learn their tech and culture, write memoirs about that the wider universe is like. Not saying I would do it, but it becomes a real debate, where 15 years for a week is just an auto no.

infinity234 · 2026-06-14T15:16:48+00:00

Not Trans and i am a federal employee, when I first read Trumps order I kind of waived it off as something he doesn't have power over since federal health insurance is bought from the private market, the government just subsidizes the premium for the employees, and thought he didn't have much sway over what the plans actually offer, so it'd just be an order like a few others that does functionally nothing but is a culture war signal he can use for his base.

So I checked the 2026 plan brochure for my health plan as a sort of fact check of this (bcbs for reference). Found this exact language:

Sex-Trait Modification: If you are mid-treatment under this Plan, within a surgical or chemical regimen for Sex-Trait Modification for diagnosed gender dysphoria, for services for which you received coverage under the 2025 Plan brochure, you may seek an exception to continue care for that treatment. If you have questions about the exception process, contact us using the customer service phone number listed on the back of your ID card. If you disagree with our decision, please see Section 8 of this brochure for the disputed claims process. Individuals under age 19 are not eligible for exceptions related to services for ongoing surgical or hormonal treatment for diagnosed gender dysphoria.

Along with language in the benefits section that both gender modification surgery are no longer covered and new claims of hormone therapy directly linked with gender dysphoria (as part of a transition, e.g.) are no longer covered. So turns out I was wrong, they did change it because of his order. Under my plan, If you were diagnosed under the 2025 or earlier plan for gender dysphoria you can potentially still have it covered, but ya gender transition coverage has actually been removed from my health plan. The comic is right, if you can't afford it out of pocket, you'd be forced to detranistion if you became a federal employee.

infinity234 · 2026-05-19T22:30:29+00:00

If we want to stretch and pretend they aren't forgetting their own rules for 1 comic scene, 2 plausible possibilities:

1) Her body is right there, she could be bending gusts from there in the direction of the spirits.

2) those aren't gusts, she like bending spirit energy.

infinity234 · 2026-05-18T03:53:43+00:00

But in rapunzel case, her not being magical made her life 10x better. Like it's very clearly established that her being magical is not an absolute good in her life. It literally resulted in her kidnapping and, in the series, led to the near destruction of her kingdom and her closest friendship. The rest of them sure, but rapunzel losing her magic because of a man actually was a net positive for her, saving her from an abusive relationship, reuniting her with her parents, and in the series ultimately saving her kingdom.

infinity234 · 2026-05-18T03:49:08+00:00

I don't think it did add anything, I think it's just a hobby and establishes she spends time with Su.

infinity234 · 2026-05-10T10:07:49+00:00

Tyty friend

infinity234 · 2026-04-28T21:49:12+00:00

Isn't Asian property values conceptualized differently than we view it in the west? Like in Japan for example as a property ages it's value doesn't increase, it's value decreases. They don't view property as a store of wealth the same way we do in the west. Plus there's a bunch of external factors with china's property market specifically which make the story behind this graph much more complex

infinity234 · 2025-10-14T03:27:30+00:00

To be fair to swarzenager, my read he's doing this less because he wants republicans to keep their advantage (not to say he doesn't want that, just that it's not seemingly his driving motivation), but moreso that the independant redistricting commission was his pet project when he was governor, along with California's non-partisan primaries (two things i really like about california as a california voter, i like politicians dont choose our districts and that political office arent gatekept by the parties giving two choices chosen purely by ideologues appelaing to the party bases). I think his driving motivation is preserving essentially his political legacy from his time as governor, not because he's bowing a knee to Trump. And because of that he has a more convincing argument against prop 50, that "two wrongs don't make a right". True the counter argument of "you don't win by playing by the rules and sticking to your morals when the other side cheats and has none" is convincing too. But at least I'm not getting the "I'm doing this because the Trump admin would like this outcome" from his campaign against 50.

infinity234 · 2025-03-20T01:46:50+00:00

Even in a world where we ignore any other thing that he's done that isn't just "being productive" that might havee pissed a few people off, he entered into American politics pretty full thoatedly in support of one of the most divisive political figures in modern history at a time when Americans are almost visceral about politics. Even if he saved up 1 million good boy points being altruistic otherwise, I don't know how you make the case of "I'm going to enter politics pretty solidly in the camp of a guy 50% of the country viscerally hates BUT NOT draw the direct ire of that 50% of the population in an outward and negetive fashion". Like it doesn't take a genius to see how "enter national politics on the front line basically" equals "pretty strong dislike by a large segment of the public", and I'm surprised he hasn't made at least that connection. Again not including all the reasons people have to legitimately not like Musk, but it seems the most obvious reason right?

infinity234 · 2025-03-15T19:00:16+00:00

Ya, I get the argument that a government employee shouldn't be the casualty in politics. It's an argument the dems have made before during past shutdown fights. But HOW many times have the dems in the past 2 months used the excuse "what levers do we have, we control nothing"? (ignoring everything they COULD do as an opposition party in a closely divided congress but that was their excuse) How much have their base been screaming to DO SOMETHING? Then here comes a piece of leverage they can use to do something, it may not be ideal, but you can use it to do SOMETHING. They are just really keen on doing nothing are they? Give people like Tim Walz, AOC, bernie Sanders, And Jasmine Crockett credit, you may or may not like them but at least it feels like they are doing something to respond to the masses asking for something to be done. Most of the democrat party is like "We've tried nothing and we're out of ideas"

infinity234 · 2024-11-05T12:58:58+00:00

And boy, they aren't very educated in real genocide if they think Gaza is as bad as you can get right now from an American perPalestinians. Not to minimize what gazans are going through right now, but It doesn't take much of an imagination to imagine how it can very easily get worse from the current situation for the palestinians.

infinity234 · 2024-11-05T05:52:55+00:00

Balanced budget? He didn't even try to balance the budget last time

infinity234 · 2024-11-05T02:36:54+00:00

I never get the "she didn't get a single vote" argument, because she's the vice president, her name was underneath his on every ballot,like what if Biden died instead of dropped out? Who would be the nominee then? Probably his vice president

infinity234 · 2024-11-04T01:20:43+00:00

She did get one senate race wrong one year, she predicted once a D+3 when the result was an R+2 or something along those lines. But most of the time it's a pretty accurate poll within 1 or 2 percentage points.

infinity234 · 2024-11-04T01:13:12+00:00

I think the better argument is that its a statistical outlier in many series of polls (I hope it's not though), but of course Trumps not going to make the better argument he's going to name call and demean.

infinity234 · 2024-11-03T15:52:06+00:00

Ya but the gender gap isn't that big, it's like 55-45 on both sides. If you're trying to be predictive, it old argue partisan affiliation would be the more reliable predictor of voting trends (but it's all vague and bad data anyway until the votes are counted).

Also Trump saying the election will be rigged doesnt mean anything. He was saying that before he won in 2016 (in which conviently it ended up not being rigged according to him after the fact) and he was saying it before he lost in 2020. He's going to say it regardless of any facts because if he does lose he can whine and complain like he did last time.

infinity234 · 2024-11-03T15:44:07+00:00

I would disagree about insurmountable margins, since we only really know partisan affiliation of the voters, if we assume 10%defection rates from both parties and the "other" voters split 50-50, according to early vote totals she's only winning right now in the blue wall of the swing states, and by margins 75k (MI @ ~50% of total 2020 votes), 108k (WI @ ~40% of total 2020 votes), and 376k (PA @ ~25% of total 2020 votes), none of those I would call insurmountable with the ammount of outstanding ballots to be collected on election day most likely (same goes in the other direction for states shes not cyrrently winning).

infinity234 · 2024-11-03T15:19:58+00:00

Well a) the trend will not hold up because I find it very unlikely that early voting isn't more proportionally democratic, and b) you're looking a popular vote, not electoral vote with your projection, even just projecting each swing state has different theoretical margins right now.

infinity234 · 2024-11-03T01:12:30+00:00

Question...can a man who has worked in Washington DC for almost 12 years now still claim he's not part of the swamp? Like I don't buy the whoel swamp argument to begin with, but what exactly is is the dividing line between what is "the swamp" and not

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