There's a difference between public and private speech. If you're talking to someone you know, well, by definition you know them and you know where to draw the line. My friends throw all kinds of anti-Irish racist slurs at me that I would take serious offence at coming from someone else.

As for the idea that PC "hides" racism/sexism/homophobia, fantastic! The more it's hidden away, the less people are exposed to it, until it becomes more and more socially unacceptable to be a racist, sexist, homophobic asshole.

Again re the opera: first, it was Perth not Sydney, and second, I agree it's stupid. But it was the opera companies stupid decision to make. No-one forced them to do this.

Here's the importance point: PC is not censorship. Censorship is saying you CAN'T say this, PC is saying "maybe you SHOULDN'T".

Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences of speech. If someone says something racist or sexist or whatever, I have the right to express my opinion that they shouldn't have said those things. If that's PC, so be it.

It was the first 13 seconds of the match.

No one minds a cheeky, brash Irish lad with a fast mouth and wit, as long as he can back it up. And it looks like Conor is the real deal.

I was surprised to hear John Oliver discussing the "Get Rid of the Penny" topic in the USA, not because the subject is uninteresting, but because he failed to point out the glaring anachronism that Americans still call their one cent coin a "penny".

Do they not realise that they started a revolution in 1765, declared independence in 1776, and started making one cent coins in 1793?

Why do they still call cents pennies? After more than 200 years, I would have thought that even the most parochial or remote American would have heard the news.

The Canadians aren't much better. The penny finally dropped there in 2012, when they stopped minting one cent coins. The first Canadian one cent coin was struck in 1858. One strange quirk is that the word penny in Canada used to refer to a two-cent coin, even though they never issued any 2 cent coins! It is possible they were referring to US 2-cent coins, which were issued from 1864 to 1873, but more likely because a French sous was worth approximately half a (British) penny, therefore a two sous coin was the near equivalent of a penny.

In Euroland, the Irish recently started to phase out the use of one and two cent coins, but most of their discussions were also about dropping the penny!

One solution could be to emulate Zimbabwe, where high inflation means that one US dollar is worth about 360 Zimbabwe dollars, or about 520 to a British pound. This neatly avoids the need for any fractional denominations.

Talking about fractional coins:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lawrence_chard/7145393421/

...which also reveals a surprising etymological link between coins and anatomy, as does this:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/lawrence_chard/6390568191/

Perhaps the guy he mentioned getting a cent stuck in his anus was going for the closest alternative.

Ok, I think this got out of hand. My apologies. I wasn't talking about the abuse.

You said "Hers is that faith alone. Take it away and she would either A-shut down, or B-more likely kill herself."

My reply was specifically about "that faith". I didn't mean that she would get through the abuse with the help of friends and family, I meant she would get through leaving the church. And yes, this has happened. Thousands of people left the catholic church in Ireland after the child abuse scandals, many of them lifelong devout catholics.

I would never suggest that anyone simply "get over" that kind of abuse, but I can see how you might have misinterpreted my post, so I apologise for that.

That said, people do get help for abuse without churches. There are plenty of secular options available (counselling, support groups, etc).

As for the rest, I still maintain that my direct experience of abuse or lack thereof has no bearing on the argument. I could tell you all kinds of things, but you wouldn't even know if they were true, to say nothing of a betrayal of trust on my part.

Or would you expect rape trauma counsellors they have to be raped to help victims?

As for the black man example, again, you know nothing about what discrimination I may or may not have faced (hint: the Irish didn't have too flash a time of it for a long time). I would never be so condescending as to say that I know ANYONES life, but that doesn't mean I can't empathise with them. Even if I've never been shot by a cop, I'm damn sure it's something I wouldn't like.

My Favorite Irish Couple Harvesting Edible Seaweed has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579 on that post.

I suspect that accent is so cringe-worthy because most Americans have never heard a real accent and associate an Irish one with Lucky Charms. So any reasonably accurate accent is going to be misconstrued as British.

That said, they certainly picked a good character actor to play an insane vampire.

They couldn't have got an actual Irish actor to play the vampire? I cringed when I heard that accent.

I'm Irish and I know a guy called Matthew. I'll see what I can do for you.

Could you explain why you thought my previous post proposed a false dichotomy? It seems sound to me, even after looking at it a second time.

I don't disagree with your analyses of the underlying causes for the current version of the Palestinian conflict. History has shat on them and they're still stuck in it. Although I will nitpick that the tactic of suicide bombing is probably employed on account of specific Islamic beliefs, as relatively few such attacks are carried out by non-Muslims.

The IRA comparison is an interesting one with some meat on it, and I may meander a bit here as I explore my thoughts on it. The Northern Irish conflict, at its core, was not about religion, it was about sovereignty and independence. I don't doubt that both sides attempted to use the bible as a weapon. The very fact that the attempt was unable to create a sect that spread like wildfire across Christendom is a form of evidence that is it less applicable as a weapon. Certainly not proof, but I would count it a point in my favour, not yours.

Note that I'm not saying that there's nothing awful in the Bible, only that it is acknowledged that we don't take most of those parts of it seriously. Any attempt to do so would generate a chorus of condemnation throughout Christian majority countries the world over. Just look at how the we view the Westboro Baptists; they're a farce. Until the Muslim world is willing and able to do the same thing to it's fundamentals and fundamentalists it is not only fair to criticize it, it is important to do so. And when I say criticize 'it' I mean those beliefs that lead to bad shit.

If every terrorist act is predicated on worldly concerns, how do you rationalize the perpetrators of the Charlie hebdo massacre? How do you rationalize the absurd reactions to the shitty anti-Muslim movie that was made? How about the Danish cartoonist incident? The list goes on and on. These are acts that didn't significantly affect the 'injured' parties in any but a religious way. Their responses are explicitly and overtly for religious reasons, while being completely in line with a straightforward and insufficiently fringe interpretation of their religion.

I respect your position and defence of it. I must say though that on inspection, the quoted reasoning can and therefore probably has been used in the past to condone slavery in America, and other awful stuff.

The problem with it is that you state your dedication to something regardless of the morality of it.

I'm trying to think of other things that have used the same reasoning. Sexism, bullfighting, fox hunting, anti-semitism, age old wars like the irish feud (until common sense prevailed)?

It really isn't a great way to set out your stall. There are so many things that we used to think were ok that needed to change, and the world is a better place because we didn't follow that "it's tradition" ethos.

That I suppose too depends, just like the gays,

I would suppose if the blacks, Latino or Irish came in looking all thug like or the gays came in flaming gay then I would be probable to deny service.

If these groups came in dressed civilized and showed manners that the community is accustomed to then why would you not serve them.

And if you replace gay with black? (or Latino? or Irish? or Chinese?)

Still ok with it?

Minor quibble that has nothing to do with the subject of eating hot food - that's not an Irish accent!

Ah, seems Modulous has already pointed out the obvious

Your video, Irish Boy's Carolina Reaper Followup, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.