stoned butch blues

and turns out the foxes were UNJUSTLY ACCUSED

http://thehorseaholic.com/the-forgotten-story-of-meat-eating-horses/

1) The BBC filmed horses eating fish on a beach of an English Island.

2) In Iceland pastured horses are provided, salted fish as a protein and mineral/salt supplement.

3) Horses have been known to consume raw meat and blood willingly in Arabia, New Zealand, and United States.

4) Lord Chamberlain of Bhutan confirmed that the 40 kings horses routinely received a special meal of Tiger fat and still feed their horses beef, and yak meat.

5) There was an American gelding in 1958 that routinely hunted and killed and even consumed small birds. He also repeatedly attacked humans. He was known as “Freight Train”.

This is because they still want nice things and will work for those but the part of their energy that was devoted to worrying about if they have enough money to pay the rent and bills this month is now freed up to do other things.

Policy Brief: Impacts of Unconditional Cash Transfers by Johannes Haushofery and Jeremy Shapiroz - A look at the new trend of charities just giving people in need money and letting them get on with it. (Case study is a charity called GiveDirectly)

Cash Transfers and Temptation Goods. A review of Global Evidence by the World Bank Policy Research Working Group - This study shows that poor people who are just given money do not spend any more than they usually would on luxury goods such as alcohol and tobacco and in some cases the spending on these items actually decreases.

“Cash Transfers for Children. Investing into the Future” An Editorial article in The Lancet - This is the study that out and out says giving people money makes them less lazy and less dependant on the state. Direct quote:

“Emerging data from cash transfers, conditional or unconditional, largely dispel the counter arguments that these programs prevent adults from seeking work or create a dependency culture which perpetuates intergenerational poverty.”

The Town With No Poverty by Evelyn Forget - A look at the case study of Dauphin Manitoba that introduced “mincome” to the poorest citizens to bring everyone above the poverty line.

Why Not Guarantee Everyone a Job? Why Negative Income Tax Experiments of the 1970s Were Successful by Allan Sheahen (warning this link is a download link, not a webpage) - Study of a similar “mincome” experiment in Denver that found that when people did stop working as many hours as they had done before the money it was because they were furthering their education or working hours better suited to raising their children. One woman who had dropped out of High School to get a job in order to provide for her children went back into education and ended up with a psychology degree and a job as a researcher.

“Daniel Moynihan and President-Elect Nixon: How Charity Didn’t Begin at Home” by Peter Passell and Leonard Ross for The New York Times - This is a look at how President Richard Nixon (Yes, that Richard Nixon) wanted to introduce basic income to the USA and was defeated by ignorant congressmen and senators that trusted their gut over the clear evidence. 

The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend: An Experiment in Wealth Distribution by Scott Goldsmith - This is a look at Alaska’s policy of using the State oil revenue to give every single citizen $1000 a year.

Relationships Between poverty and Psychopathology - A study that outlines how growing up poor exposes children to a myriad of psychological problems and mental illnesses.

Assessing the Economic and Non-Economic Impacts of Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, North Carolina - The Harrah Cherokee Casino is widely studied and a resounding success as a case study for Basic Income.

An Estimate of the cost of child poverty in 2013 by Donald Hirsch - This is a British study that estimates child poverty costs £29 billion (£44 Billion-ish). Basically child poverty is massively expensive for governments and Basic Income could essentially pay for itself by removing these expenses.

When Pundits Blamed White People for a Culture of Poverty by Matt Bruenig - Article that discusses how the idea that poor people are lazy and deserve to suffer is racist, classist and morally dangerous.

Rediscovering Poverty: How We Cured ‘The Culture of Poverty’ Not Poverty Itself by Barbara Ehrenreich - An article on how trying to improve the morals of the poor so they can work harder and get themselves out of poverty is a ridiculous waste of time and money and quite frankly an insult to the people we force into these programs. My favourite waste of money that Ehrenreich points out is the $250 million dollars that President Clinton set aside for ‘Chastity Training’ for impoverished single mothers, the US government in the 90s simply assuming that poor women were too stupid to understand where babies came from and that’s why they were poor, rather than, you know, having no money, no support structures and no affordable child care and healthcare.

In the Shadow of Speenhamland: Social Policy and the Old Poor Law by Fred Block and Margaret Somers - Speenhamland was a town in the UK where a Universal Income was introduced at the end of the 18th Century. After a few years it was declared a terrible failure and proof that poor people are evil and lazy and should be punished for being poor not helped out of poverty. Speenhamland led to the creation of Workhouses and the abolition of the Poor Laws that had worked as a form of social welfare up to that point. For 150 years Speenhamland was used by politicians and academics all over the world as proof that poor people were almost pathologically incapable of being trusted with their own money. Except the whole thing was a lie. The man sent to study Speenhamland hated the project and was unable to correctly interpret the data or factor in cultural issues that were also affecting the town. Modern researchers almost unanimously agree that Speenhamland was a success but the damage that 150 years of ignorance has done is deep and long lasting.

All of these examples and hundreds more can be found in Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman which lays out the argument for this issue far better than I ever could and also discusses issues such as raising the minimum wage and drastically cutting working hours. 

I love Alex Schaefer impasto works depicting branches of Chase bank going up in flames in daytime. They were from a series by him called “Disaster Capitalism,” and apparently the banks (and cops) would pretend he was planning acts of arson to try and make him stop painting. [via mutantspace, via Janie]

[…]

Stonewall is remembered because it is marked by an international commemorative ritual — an annual gay pride parade. Accounts of other events are confined almost exclusively to books by historians of sexuality. Explaining Stonewall commemoration is central to understanding its privileged position in gay collective memory. Stonewall was not the first of the five examined events to be viewed by activists as commemorable. It was, however, the first commemorable event to occur at a time and place where homosexuals had enough capacity to produce a commemorative vehicle — that is, where gay activists had adequate mnemonic capacity. That these conditions came together in New York in 1969, as opposed to in other cities at earlier times, was a result of historical and political processes: time and place mattered. Gay liberation was already underway in New York before Stonewall, which enabled movement activists to recognize the opportunity presented and to initiate commemoration.

[…]

Our findings suggest a rethinking of the role of Stonewall in gay movement history. This research suggests that the claim that Stonewall “sparked” gay liberation was a movement construction — a story initiated by gay liberation activists and used to encourage further growth. The Stonewall story is thus better viewed as an achievement of gay liberation rather than as a literal account of its origins.

other person, slightly weirded out but taking it in stride: oh it’s a ford falconwing xx you know :) v36 engine and all that

Ukrainian immigrants in the United States offer free borscht to celebrate Stalin’s death .