Your video, CGP Grey: No Flag Northern Ireland, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

OK. Imagine a giant glowing ball of fire suddenly appears floating, unmoving in the sky. The sky itself changes from the normal grey to a weird alien blue. The brightness burns your eyes. The heat thrown off by the orb compels madness - previously normal people start inexplicably removing layers upon layers of clothing.

It's happened here in Ireland, and it could happen to you too. Unless you're in Glasgow.

I genuinely can't overstate the effect that this single performance had on Ireland as a country.

I saw this on VHS the afternoon following broadcast, pre-internet, pre-twitter, the grape vine was aflame with this being a must-see event. Of course I considered myself far too cool to have seen it broadcast during the Eurovision, but curiosity got the better of me. I finally agreed to watch it as my father was raving about it and wanted to show it to me on tape.

Hear that roar of approval at the end? That's the sound of Ireland, as a nation, spurred on by it's World Cup success, it's newly booming economy, the success of The Commitments, and the global stardom of U2, finally letting go of the collective cultural shame it felt for it's diddle-eye bullshit past, reinventing itself and saying "You know what, we *are* fucking great, and our culture is something to be proud of".

I think nationalism and patriotism are bullshit. But here, now, 25 years later, it's genuinely just brought a tear to my eye for what probably will not be the last time.

Reminds me of a skating joke:

It is the Olympic men's figure skating. Out comes the
Russian competitor, he skates around to some classical music
in a slightly dull costume, performs some excellent leaps
but without any great artistic feel for the music.

The Judges' scores read: Britain 5.8: Russia 5.9: United
States 5.5: Ireland 6.0

Next comes the American competitor in a sparkling stars and
stripes costume, skating to some rock and roll music. He
gets the crowd clapping, but is not technically as good as
the Russian. He slightly misses landing a triple Salchow and
loses the center during a spin. But, artistically, it is a
more satisfying performance.

The Judges' scores read: Britain 5.8: Russia 5.5: United
States 5.9: Ireland 6.0

Finally out comes the Irish competitor wearing a tatty old
donkey jacket, with his skates tied over his wellies. He
reaches the ice, trips straight away and bangs his nose
which starts bleeding. He tries to get up, staggers a few
paces then slips again. He spends his entire 'routine'
getting up then falling over again. Finally he crawls off the
ice a tattered and bleeding mess.

The Judges' scores read: Britain 0.0: Russia 0.0: United
States 0.0: Ireland 6.0

The other 3 judges turn to the Irish judge and demand in
unison, "How the hell can you give that mess 6.0?!"

To which the Irish judge replies "You've gotta remember,
it's damn slippery out there."

"Róisín" is indeed a common name in Ireland, but the accent is Scottish, not Irish.

Going off of the name "Róisín" and their accents, I suspect this is Ireland or Northern Ireland. That said, you have to be 17 in both to get a learner's permit.

Unless this is a particularly stylish tractor...

A Mitt Romney fan, eh? You should probably read this article, which absolutely guts the myth that only half of income earners pay taxes.

As far as the top 1% paying 40% of the taxes, I agree that is atrocious--they are supposed to be paying almost ALL of it! See, when the income tax was introduced with the 16th Amendment, it was primarily meant to be a tax on the rich. The federal tax rate for middle-class people was meant to be around 1-2% whereas the tax rate on the rich was around 7%. You can see the original 1913 tax form here.

Of course, since literally the income tax's inception, the federal government has continuously been shafting the middle classes while reducing the tax burden of the wealthy. It's about as American as apple pie by this point!

The big problem is that the government relies more and more on income tax to fund federal projects. Take a look at the graph in the article I linked to at the start of this comment and note how corporate taxes keep going down while income and payroll taxes keep going up.

It doesn't help at all that most of America's biggest businesses have offshore tax havens where they can avoid paying taxes (think Ireland for Apple, Inc., though that hasn't worked out so well for them thanks to the EU being less corporate cock-sucking than the U.S. government).

So, to solve America's tax deficit problem, the solution is pretty clear--tax rich people more (as was intended), tax corporations more and cut off their tax havens, and maybe give a tax break to the people who actually need and deserve it--the middle and lower classes.

But of course all of that sounds suspiciously like socialism, which as we all know is the devil incarnate and about as un-American as naming your kid Stalin.

So if we can't prevent 100% of shootings, we should do nothing?

Also, bobbies with sticks works just fine in Ireland, New Zealand, the UK, Norway, Iceland.

Your video, Derry tries to catch a bat in Ireland, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 10 Badge!

"And if you prefer one or the other, I can adapt. Humans are good at that. ;-) "

No, they're not. Or did you miss the part where some of the smartest people on the planet crashed millions of dollars into another planet? People are TERRIBLE at these kinds of things. One conversion? Fine. Ten conversions? No problem. Hundreds, thousands or millions of conversions? The probability of error tends to 100%.

It would definitely be more efficient if everyone used one common language (especially for cross cultural endeavours such as business and engineering). In fact, that kinda happens by default and that language tends to be English.

However, there are practicalities in play. First up, there aren't just two languages, there are hundreds, and there is a broad split in the number of speakers of each language. Whereas in metric v imperal, the US is the ONLY country in the developed world that hangs onto imperial.

Second, learning a new language is an order of magnitude more work than changing to using metric.

I'm speaking from experience here; in the course of my life, I've studied Irish, French, German, Spanish and Japanese, and I am in no way close to fluent in any of them

On the other hand, when I left Ireland, it was officially metric but imperial was still common (distances were in KM, speed limits in miles, people used imperial weights for humans, metric for food). When I moved to NZ, everything is metric, and honestly, relearning happens without effort. Once you immerse yourself, you eventually just start thinking in the new system.


Finally, metric is just a better system for everything. There isn't a single scenario where imperial is a more useful measurement.

Come on America, join us. It's awesome and you don't really want to use "English" units, do you? Did you fight a war to get rid of them? What would George Washington say!? It's unamerican, I tells ya!

Can confirm. A cm or so of insulation on live and neutral pins on plugs here in Ireland (and UK) have definitely saved me and probably my toddler from shocks / death / learning experiences.

I can tell you it was a little alarming seeing how he unplugs stuff. It's hard not to give into the temptation of a few hundred volts of rigged 'I told you so', but no one wants him living like Medhi here.

I live in NZ. There's very much a "she'll be right" attitude to H&S here. And in some ways, it's great. It's easier to set up sports clubs, if you want to go in the wilderness, you're pretty much on your own, etc.

But the flip side is the fact that we have a terrible rate of injuries and actual deaths in industry, especially in agriculture and forestry.

And quite honestly, I think this "H&S gone mad" attitude is actually promoted by companies who don't want to pay to keep their employees safe. And that's not hyperbole, there is literally an ongoing investigation into a company that skimped on safety resulting in the deaths of 29 miners.

I agree it can be taken too far, and maybe the UK really is insane, but in my experience, it's one of those things that people whine about when they don't understand the reasons behind it.

PC, we'll agree to disagree.

Smoking: again smoke if you want to, but just not around me. Why should I have to put up with smoke when I'm having a meal? More importantly, why should the staff who have to work there, have to put up with a toxic environment?

As for the competition argument, it doesn't really hold water. A few pubs in Ireland preempted the smoking ban, and they went out of business, because there's almost always one person in a group that smokes. Having it as a law makes a level playing field.

I've been in three countries now when smoking was banned in pubs. Every time, the hospitality industry said it would be the death of them. 10 years later, no one gives a damn. People still go to pubs and a lot less people smoke. It worked.

Sometimes I feel like people have to expend a lot of effort to miss the point so well...

OH&S - We had a MSDS for Spray and Wipe in the office which required us to use gloves and a facemask. Ordinary surface cleaner. And it was enforced... This is what he is talking about. Taking what started as a good idea and going way too fucking far with it.

PC - You kinda prove the point right off the bat with "straight white dude". You're discriminating. You feel justified in doing so because white males are so fucking awful to everyone on the planet (it's true, I heard a feminist say so..), but it doesn't change the fact that it's discrimination. You're either politically correct all the time or you're a hypocrite. I happen to support your right to discriminate, but take issue with hypocrisy.

Smoking - Missing the point, the government makes it socially unacceptable, removes the places where you can do it, but leaves it as legal and runs up the cost to astronomical levels to keep the revenue rolling in. It's an innately contradictory position.

The bit on Ireland was more a commentary on the Irish than smoking...

And of course smokers are one of the few groups within society that almost no one will stand up to defend. Very easy to be non-PC and discriminate against (gotta let all those uptight PC dickheads vent their spleen somewhere I guess... =)

As much as I love Steve Hughes, and as much as I hate taking a comedy bit seriously, he's pretty much wrong about every single point in this video.

Oppressive health and safety? Oh please can we return to when employers could order me to endanger my life just for a paycheck.

PC? Been down this road a million times, but it's really easy for a straight white dude to talk about not being offended.

Smoking? I give zero fucks if you want to smoke, just don't do it around me. Oh, and I was in Ireland when they banned smoking in pubs. It was fucking great, and yeah, it encouraged a bunch of people to quit.

Anyway, as I said, it's a comedy bit and it's funny. Just don't go actually believing it.