High praise from a dude from Ireland living on the South Island of New Zealand. I know you've seen quite a bit of natures wonder.

Yeah, but even within religions people can't agree on the rules.

Within Christianity, you have catholics, protestants, baptists, pentecostals, eastern orthodox, evangelicals and god knows what else. All of whom disagree on various aspects of their religion (sometimes fairly major points).

Islam is the same (shia, sunni, etc).

There isn't one single religious text that is the definitive version.

And I grew up in catholic Ireland. Everyone went to church, everyone believed in god (hell, it was in the constitution) and even public schools actively participated in religious rituals.
You would find it incredibly difficult to argue these people weren't religious.

Yet, they ignored large parts of their religion from the minor (dietary restrictions, etc) to the major (sex outside marriage, contraception).

I never met a single person who thought the penalty for apostasy should be death. I still haven't.

Sorry, but @slickhead is right about this point. That's a No True Scotsman fallacy.

I think your environment was the exception rather than the rule.

For what it's worth, as an Irish whiskey drinker (in both senses of the phrase) I can tell you that the nicest whiskeys I've tasted from outside Ireland and Scotland are Japanese, including a Santori whose name eludes me.

In case you're interested, next comes Indian (a lovely tipple called Amrut Fusion), followed by a few nice American samples... I'm not a big fan of bourbon, hence the placing.

As for the spelling thing, yes, usually Whisky is Scotch and Whiskey is Irish, but that's not 100% true, and if that's your worst spelling mistake after a few then you're doing well.

If the second coming of Jesus happened tomorrow and it turned out it had been David Bowie all along and he was wearing a leprechaun costume I would still not give 45% chance of a unified Ireland.

Great overview, but i think the specifics are a little academic (as in not based on first hand experience).

Good article, but Greenwald is missing one key point:
it's not just the "media elite" who can't understand the Leave vote. Most "normal" people outside England and Wales are perplexed by this too.

Talk to the average person on the street in Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, etc. and they'll tell you the same things:
a) the leave vote was the wrong decision
b) it was brought about through fear mongering and lies

So that leaves two possibilities:

1. the rest of the EU are media-brainwashed idiots and the people who saw the light were Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson and the kind of people now screaming racist abuse at "foreigners" (aka anyone non-white or with a foreign ancestry even if they were born in the UK).

or

2. it really was a dumb idea.

I have friends in Scotland. They think it is highly unlikely either Ireland or Scotland will leave the U.K. over this. Apparently there are some vocal groups calling for a vote but public opinion in general seems apathetic to the idea, especially as the Scots apparently enjoy a great deal of financial support from being in the U.K. and losing that support would cost more than any benefits gained from independence.

Go go Ireland and Scotland.

Oh crap!!! I had no idea about Ireland. What idiots. Afraid of possible bombings, they have now ensured more bombings.


EDIT: It seems they didn't even know what they were voting on. Google searches from the UK for "what happens if we leave the EU" and "what is the EU" have tripled in the last hours as their economy goes into freefall. Many "leave" voters have buyers remorse already, as clearly they didn't consider the implications of 'leaving'. Just wow. No surprise Trump is congratulating them on destroying their (and the worlds) economy over silliness, hate, and fear.

You're not kidding.

Today we saw that racism, ignorance and fear can win votes anywhere.

BTW, some additional happy news: the Northern Ireland peace agreements are now void. The U.K. remaining part of the EU was a non negotiable condition. So we have that fresh hell to look forward to.

Well done, xenophobic fuckheads!

As someone on the other side of the world, it doesn't really bother me. If Ireland was to have a similar poll, I would certainly vote in favour of staying in the EU, if only so that I still have the option of working in Europe at some point (unlikely as that might be).

But I have recently discovered a fool-proof way of deciding any issue. Basically if UKIP are for it, I'm agin it!

@Mordhaus

"We have always been a gun violence culture up until the post WW2 era. Think frontier, wild west, duels, and mafia shootouts. We glorify violence everyday, we even give sickos who shoot up groups of people mass media coverage. "

Don't you think that that idea is outdated in 2016? Fine, that's the culture. Change the fucking culture.

When I grew up in Ireland, nobody gave a second thought to driving drunk. Sunday after church, people went to the pub, had a few pints with the neighbours, the kids played space invaders and then the whole family got back in the car and drove home.

And most of the time, it was absolutely fine. People got home, there was the occasional accident, but ya know, what can ya do?

Until it wasn't fine. And it took decades, but eventually, it became socially unacceptable to drive drunk.

"I'm just extremely leery of package deals like lets ban everyone who ends up on a list from having weapons based on a government decision."
I get that. But be reasonable. You're ok with not letting people fly, but you draw the line at owning weapons?

That is some fucked up list of priorities. I would be far more concerned with restricting someones right to travel (essentially restricting their freedom of movement, or a lighter form of incarceration) than whether they can own a gun.

You say that owning a gun is a constitutional right whereas travel isn't. I say that freedom of movement is a fundamental basic human right... oh, look at that, Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights!
"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state."

I'm completely willing to say that it should be a lot harder to put someone on this kind of list, but there's no way the right to own a weapon is more important than freedom of movement.

Finally, re: slippery slopes
"The Patriot Act, meant to be a well intended set of rules to help us protect ourselves, has been perverted to lessen quite a few of our rights."

The Patriot Act wasn't a slippery slope, it started at the bottom of the slope and went straight over a fucking cliff. It should never have been passed in the first place.

er, by the time of the Last Crusade, Indy has seen:
- the literal manifestation of the power of god melt Nazis faces
- some magic rocks burning an Indian guy

I think it's pretty safe to say that Indy has accepted that in his fictional universe, the supernatural is real. Hell, if I saw what he'd seen by that point, I'd be a god-fearing Christian.

As for Pascal's wager, I've always viewed it as the height of moral cowardice. If you want to believe in God and you're not shoving your beliefs down everyone else's throat (looking at you, ISIS, evangelicals, catholic church in Ireland, etc), go nuts.

But don't believe because you're afraid of hell. If you're a good person and you die and it turns out there is a god, if he condemns you to eternal suffering for not believing in him, then fuck him, he's an asshole and I wouldn't want to spend eternity under his thumb anyway.

Billo can fuck right off. Ireland doesn't want him.

3:00 "do you think this conversation is happening in any other country?"

FFS, does anyone really think that the US has a monopoly on political conversation?

The same conversation (well, a less retarded version of it anyway) is happening in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. And that's just in English. There are political debates in Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Portugal. Hell, I bet no talks about anything ELSE in Greece!