Crowning the dragon: Chinese GDP PPP will exceed America's by year's end.

[Queequeg]

There is no account in the Bible that says Jesus was born in a stable.

Where does one usually find a manger?

In ancient times, not typically in an a separate structure, unless the owner was fairly well off.
In fact that was still common quite up into the 19th century in many parts of rural Europe as well.

Plus the whole Bethlehem story is concocted, but that is a separate issue.

It's some kind of requirement of the Messiah, right?  Being born in one of the old cities of the Kings? 

[Valmy]

It's some kind of requirement of the Messiah, right?  Being born in one of the old cities of the Kings? 

Not that I am aware of.

[Josquius]

I'm pretty confident that if Ireland wasn't part of Britain the potatoe famine would have been much much worse.
Yep, the government were a bunch of ideologically focused numpties, but most of the aid that did come to Ireland was from the UK; this wouldn't be totally removed with an I deodorant Ireland but I would imagine it would be sharply lessened.
The uk also offered a convenient place to move to, again not impossible with the two being separate countries but more difficult.
And though the Uk government did a crap job of helping in Ireland at least they saw that as a desirable thing to do. Would the ascendancy have been so concerned about a bunch of freeloading Catholics dying?  they could even see it as a positive step, nature/god doing clearances for them.

[jimmy olsen]

Yep, the government were a bunch of ideologically focused numpties, but most of the aid that did come to Ireland was from the UK; this wouldn't be totally removed with an I deodorant Ireland but I would imagine it would be sharply lessened.

Is this supposed to be independent? Talk about a Freudian slip.

Also, numpties? Really?

[Sheilbh]

I believe they were still under the inheritable feudal leasehold, and couldn't evict.  I'm not sure about that, though.

It was the opposite. They could evict for any reason, at any time. Fixity of tenure was one of the three fs of the Irish Land League (with fair rent and free sale).

The problem was that the British basically thought the same as Raz. Ireland needed less neglectful absentee landlords. Landlords needed to work to improve their estate and take an interest in their tenants as (they believed) they did in England and Scotland.

So in 1838 they passed an Irish poor law based on the English poor law. That got rid of any outdoor relief and established the workhouses. They were locally funded and, to encourage landlords to develop their estates, the tax to fund them was levied on land valued at less than £4 per annum. This meant the tax fell most heavily on landlords in the West where subdivision was common.

When the famine hit the rates were increased to cover the cost of more and more destitute. The most potato-dependant areas of Ireland were also the ones that had subdivided the land the most. Though, unlike in England, there was no right to poor relief. If the workhouse was full, or had run out of money they could refuse you, or if they didn't think you were poor enough - it was entirely discretionary. So the landlords started evicting people to knit bits of land back together so they weren't assessed for the rates.

But a source of that policy was the view that absentee landlords were a serious problem. British opinion basically thought Ireland had three major problems: overpopulation, absentee landlords and inefficient division of land. The famine offered them an opportunity to reorder them and to fix those problems.

I'm pretty confident that if Ireland wasn't part of Britain the potatoe famine would have been much much worse.
Yep, the government were a bunch of ideologically focused numpties, but most of the aid that did come to Ireland was from the UK; this wouldn't be totally removed with an I deodorant Ireland but I would imagine it would be sharply lessened.
The uk also offered a convenient place to move to, again not impossible with the two being separate countries but more difficult.

Lots of other parts of Europe experience problems at this point - Belgium, Holland, Sweden and Russia - none have a famine like this. One of the first steps taken by each of those governments was to ban the export of grains. During the famine Ireland exported a huge amount of food, mostly corn, to England - estimated to be enough to feed 2 million each year. That was never taken by British governments because it would affect Britain and it was an unconscionable meddle in the market.

It was, incidentally, what Grattan's Parliament - which was an ascendancy Parliament with limited powers prior to union - did in response to a minor famine in the 1780s.

Given the pace of emigration to the US, Canada, Australia and, yes, Glasgow and Liverpool, I don't think the Irish were overly worried if they could move to somewhere convenient.

And though the Uk government did a crap job of helping in Ireland at least they saw that as a desirable thing to do. Would the ascendancy have been so concerned about a bunch of freeloading Catholics dying?  they could even see it as a positive step, nature/god doing clearances for them.

That is how many British saw it. Charles Trevelyan (who has been the subject of revisionist biographies) was the Treasury official in charge of relief efforts, who saw the famine as a 'mechanism for reducing surplus population' and added 'The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated. ...The real 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 people.'

A lot of that moral failing incidentally he blamed on the potato itself - it was too easy to farm, it made people lazy and prone to breed.

Also this is based on a perception that the potato famine only really affected the Catholic areas and mainly the South and West. It was encouraged by Protestants at the time but it's not true. The mortality rate in the province of Ulster was higher than it was in Leinster. There's parts of Eastern Ulster which were not badly affected because they had significant oats as part of their diet and they were mainly Protestant, but that exception aside the famine hit Protestant and Catholic communities alike in Ulster.

however as I said earlier I kind of wonder if the things might not have gone differently if WWI had not messed up the Home Rule business.

I very much doubt it. I think Isaac Butt is probably the last believer in home rule and his federal solution. There's no doubt Parnell's goal was independence and I think that's true of all subsequent home rulers.

[The Brain]

There is no account in the Bible that says Jesus was born in a stable.

Where does one usually find a manger?

A $2,000 manger?

[celedhring]

There is no account in the Bible that says Jesus was born in a stable.

Where does one usually find a manger?

In ancient times, not typically in an a separate structure, unless the owner was fairly well off.
In fact that was still common quite up into the 19th century in many parts of rural Europe as well.

Plus the whole Bethlehem story is concocted, but that is a separate issue.

The Bible does speak of an inn though. An inn owning a stable seems logical to me.

[The Minsky Moment]

Luke says that Mary and Joseph were *turned away* from a kataluma [Greek].  Also that is often translated as "inn" but in fact is a broader term referring to "lodging" generally.  It could equally refer to a guest room in a private house, which arguably makes more sense in context.

[Malthus]

There is no account in the Bible that says Jesus was born in a stable.

Where does one usually find a manger?

In ancient times, not typically in an a separate structure, unless the owner was fairly well off.
In fact that was still common quite up into the 19th century in many parts of rural Europe as well.

Plus the whole Bethlehem story is concocted, but that is a separate issue.

Seems logical that it would be associated with a stable, whether or not actually inside it.

The traditional story is that, being unable to stay in an inn, they bedded down in the inn's stable, presumably on a pile of hay for a bed, and when Mary gave birth, they put the baby in a manger in lieu of a bassinet.

Only the first and last parts actually made it into Luke, but the middle part seems a very reasonable extrapolation. The alternative is that they bedded down outside on the ground for the birth, which strikes me as less likely.

Of course the whole story is mythology, but this part isn't in any way improbable.   

[The Minsky Moment]

Re Bethlehem it is associated with the Davidic kingship as the place David was annointed.  There is a prophecy in Micah about a messiah being born in Bethlehem.  Which is inconvenient if the messiah-to-be is from a hamlet in the Galillee.

[Malthus]

Luke says that Mary and Joseph were *turned away* from a kataluma [Greek].  Also that is often translated as "inn" but in fact is a broader term referring to "lodging" generally.  It could equally refer to a guest room in a private house, which arguably makes more sense in context.

We know that there was a manger nearby. Whether an "inn" or "private lodging", makes little difference. Where there is a manger, there are animals that need feeding on a regular basis, making a stable also nearby seem more likely than not.

[The Minsky Moment]

A common practice in the ancient world and well after was that animals would be left outside in the day and brought indoors at night inside the lodging. (this also served the purpose of providing heat). The feeding trough would be in the lodging.  The provision for an entirely separate structure just for housing animals would imply fairly high levels of wealth probably not typical for a small backwater settlement like Bethlehem.

[grumbler]

While we are on the topic of pretending that stories are real and can be analyzed like real events, was the fact that Peter Pan never grew up due to genetic defects, or was he not, in fact, even human and was just bad at "aging" his human disguise?

[Valmy]

While we are on the topic of pretending that stories are real and can be analyzed like real events, was the fact that Peter Pan never grew up due to genetic defects, or was he not, in fact, even human and was just bad at "aging" his human disguise?

Oh for Godsake grumbler.  Peter Pan was only symbolically ageless.

[Eddie Teach]

Peter Pan left Never-Neverland and founded a company that makes very greasy peanut butter.