That stupid smooth sharks meme has been taking up space in my brain all these years that could be used for remembering my wedding anniversary, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Porter Rockwell was dubbed the "Destroying Angel," but he was definitely a bona fide law man. But you're right that there is some evidence that he was also kind of the frontier version of a James Bond type secret service or special forces operative with a license to kill. And his boss was Brigham Young, who was a bit drunk on power. Mountain Meadows is absolutely a disgrace and a scandal that should (and does) taint the reputations of Young and other Mormon leaders of the time, but it's more understandable once you consider the greater context of the Utah war. The Utahns were paranoid and on high alert. And Brigham Young in particular was concerned about being deposed and jailed, so he had an interest in keeping people whipped up.
It's an interesting aspect of studying history that you can watch time and peace turn a mass murder into a "disgrace" and "scandal" that "taints reputations" but is "understandable in context". Those may be fair and uncontroversial words with 150 years of remove, but would obviously not have gone over well nearer the time of massacre itself.
The contemporary Arabian garb isn't exactly "native" or historical. It's a successful attempt at developing a national identity for countries that hadn't really existed as nations before the 60s.
It's unbelievable how much time, money, and wasted potential productivity the USA spends trying (and failing) to make sure that "undeserving" people don't have access to government welfare benefits of various kinds.
This is the correct framing: we are willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year as a country, so long as the framing of that money contains the lie of deservedness.
Contrast our funding of SSI with our funding of the defense industry, an industry that would be virtually indistinguishable from a middle class jobs program were it not for its tendency to start wars in the Middle East.
It’s even worse than you think. The military is constantly trying to close bases and get rid of weapons that aren’t needed to save money. But Congress blocks them at every turn. That’s the whole “government doesn’t create jobs. But don’t take away our make work military jobs.”
The military leaders have also been saying for years that our increase debt is an existential threat.
It's been shocking the amount of "emergency" funding for Ukraine that has been passed in the past 2 months. If it were for anything else other than the military, Republicans would have a gargantuan hissy fit over it and probably filibuster it to death.
And it seems like it accomplishes the exact opposite. I dated a girl who worked in a drug and rehab facility and she'd constantly complain about how the people who actually worked and tried to improve their situations on their own weren't eligible for any help, but there were a set of regulars who were deadbeat losers with no desire to get better who would essentially use the facility as a hotel. I'm not saying the losers shouldn't have access, but having a job should not bar you from getting help.
This is one of the most insidious side effects of means testing. The moment you improve slightly, you cross the threshold and lose the benefits you needed to get established. Which can mean getting a job can worsen your income and quality of life, which is deeply fucked up.
Well said, it's insane the system is so poorly designed, it benefits the type people it's supposed to punish, while hurting the type of people it's supposed to help (according to the reasoning for why we have these laws in place).
Worse than that, we spend it on people with no net worth as opposed to the ppp loans that sent out millions to companies who didnt need it at all. Only accountability for the poor
At this point, not fixing it is indistinguishable from malice. We've known for at least a generation the side effects of means testing. Keeping them around is cruelty.
The amount of fraud against COVID relief programs (e.g. PUA) was pretty staggering. Extensive abuse of welfare programs may be much nearer than we'd like to think.
There's almost no evidence that there's widespread abuse of these programs... and claims to the contrary in some cases (like women having more kids to claim welfare) are talking points that are over a hundred years old.
That sounds like a great way to burn reputation among your customers. "Why would I take a self driving car from the bar, the last one was full of puke?"
A top flight HVAC system will have a Heat Recovery Ventilator, which is a heat exchanger that warms up incoming fresh air using the heat from the exhaust air.
