What do you know today that you didn't know yesterday?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The ‘great Irish famine’ is a myth. You can’t have famine in a country full of food. It was a deliberate attempt at genocide.

And please don’t say ‘Southern Ireland’. There’s no such country - it’s either ‘The Republic of Ireland’ or simply ‘Ireland’.

Boru

 A myth? I think we must have been reading different sources. Be most interested in seeing your supporting evidence.

I used the term 'Southern Ireland' to give an idea of where I went back packing. It was not my intention to offend. However I do not usually refrain from comments because they may give offence .

I'm aware of the belief many in the Republic of Ireland that the Republic  and northern Ireland are one country.  Not in a legal sense, as far as I know. (this was made obvious with Brexit)  Emotionally is another matter entirely and one I won't argue.

My position is that no country has right to exist. Changes occur continuously.    I love my country, which makes me a patriot.  However, Australia is not an idea for which I'm willing to die or support others in dying unless my country is directly attacked.   I am not willing to die for vague ideas such as 'freedom' or 'unity'. I will never support a civil war.

In 1847 alone - the worst year of An Gorta Mor - 4000 English ships transported food OUT of Ireland. Grain, pork, fish, cheese, mutton, butter, etc. (a majority of these vessels were under armed guard). Ireland was bursting with food. The starvation was due to British government policies. A planned policy of extermination isn’t a ‘famine’ in any reasonable sense of the word.

Boru

[Rev. Rye]

Looking it up, the picture of An Gorta Mor is getting extremely complicated. I'm finding information that, even with all those exports, imports outnumbered exports 4 to 1 (and those mostly went to feeding the fucking livestock), and a lot of those exports seemed to be the only option many had to pay their rent (due largely to the Irish Poor Laws). And looking up what historians of Ireland have to say, it looks more like the actual historians seem to see it as more neglect than genocide. Quoth Kevin Kenny: "[W]hile few, if any, historians in Ireland today would endorse the idea of British genocide (in the sense of conscious intent to slaughter), this does not mean that government policies, whether adopted or rejected, had no impact on starvation, disease, mortality and emigration."

So, it looks less like an active attempt at genocide and more just plain not giving a shit about how their policies are affecting them. Which sounds a lot like many current American policies towards minorities, to be honest.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Looking it up, the picture of An Gorta Mor is getting extremely complicated. I'm finding information that, even with all those exports, imports outnumbered exports 4 to 1 (and those mostly went to feeding the fucking livestock), and a lot of those exports seemed to be the only option many had to pay their rent (due largely to the Irish Poor Laws). And looking up what historians of Ireland have to say, it looks more like the actual historians seem to see it as more neglect than genocide. Quoth Kevin Kenny:  "[W]hile few, if any, historians in Ireland today would endorse the idea of British genocide (in the sense of conscious intent to slaughter), this does not mean that government policies, whether adopted or rejected, had no impact on starvation, disease, mortality and emigration."

So, it looks less like an active attempt at genocide and more just plain not giving a shit about how their policies are affecting them. Which sounds a lot like many current American policies towards minorities, to be honest.

If governmental policies contribute to the starvation of a quarter of the population, those policies are genocidal in their effect. The government knew the Irish were starving, and deliberately repealed policies that would have helped.

Please consider this comment from Charles Trevelyan, the architect of those policies, who was knighted in 1848 for - if you can believe it - ‘services to Ireland’:

‘The great evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse, and turbulent character of the Irish people.’

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

When the T. rex is rampaging through San Diego in 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park', a Japanese man running through the streets delivers a line in Japanese which translates as, 'I left Japan to get away from this!'

Boru

[Silver]

I was wondering about the Amish community and covid. How did they react to visitors wearing masks?

COVID-19 Has Hit The Amish Community Hard. Still, Vaccines Are A Tough Sell
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot...-hard-sell

Death and religion: ‘Excess deaths’ sweep through Amish and Mennonite communities during COVID-19 pandemic
https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2021/06...9-pandemic

[Fake Messiah]

Apollo 9, 10, 11, and 12 were all in 1969.

Every one of those was a crewed Saturn V launch.

[HappySkeptic]

Death and religion: ‘Excess deaths’ sweep through Amish and Mennonite communities during COVID-19 pandemic
https://wvutoday.wvu.edu/stories/2021/06...9-pandemic

Up my way, very few in the Mennonite community took the vaccine, and they did get hit by COVID-19.

[Rev. Rye]

Somehow, I managed to completely forget that Buzz Lightyear glows in the dark. Or maybe it’s just another of the teething troubles Pixar had with some of the finer points of CGI that become more obvious with each passing year after the original Toy Story comes out, like maybe they were having the same sort of trouble keeping a consistent dark palette of Buzz’ green armor the same way they were trying to overcome the uncanny look the living things have compared to the toys.

Edit: yep, it’s actually confirmed this isn’t a flaw in the animation, it’s an actual feature. Why, yes, I am watching the original film for the first time in well over a decade.

[Astreja]

Tonight at an art school open house I learned how to use a pencil to transfer angles from an object to the paper. (Essentially you line up the pencil with the edge of the thing you're trying to draw, and try to hold that angle while you draw the line.)

[Fake Messiah]

In 2009, Saudi Arabia created a special "Anti-Witchcraft Unit" and a telephone hotline for the public to report magical misdeeds.