the implosion mechanism to initiate the chain reaction compressed it to about half the volume.

Y’know, I’ve done a lot of “hobby research” into nuclear weapons, but never really did the math on the degree to which the pit was compressed. Just on an intuitive level, it’s already a bit difficult to fathom solids compressing, but not unreasonable to imagine. However, in my head it was like, a couple percent at most. Forcing a solid ball of insanely dense metal into a space half of what it originally was just blows my mind even more.

Well, if America is no longer a superpower, then Putin and all his oligarchs buddies are planning on sweeping up the spoils of its ruin for themselves.

But see, according to my awful family in Oklahoma, they voted for Trump specifically to keep their daughters safe from all the pedophile trans people who are raiding the bathrooms of their grade school like orcs sieging Helm’s Deep. Sure, their daughters now have no reproductive rights and they’ve never seen or met a single trans person, but this was definitely the best decision to keep them safe and healthy.

Getting rid of Title IX protections is going to make surviving pretty fucking hard if you wind up with a bigoted manager who decides to fire you… Or just companies decide they don’t want to hire trans people at all.