If John was able to run for president i would honestly vote for him. Imagine the day, an English immigrant as President. Conservatives everywhere would cry

"Be Polite? Fuck You! Don't tell me what to do" lmao

This man spends the shit out of HBO's money and it's always so worth it

Stumbled in here (a few years late) and found: A comedy show with MUCH more news and actual research than the actual news. The research shown here is at a level not seen much these days. Subscribed.

John Oliver's too awesome, always shining light on the stuff most don't notice.

Fun fact about the billboards: they’re still here. And we have no idea who pays for these things, but they’ve been around as long as I can remember

I live in ND, and I approve this message. Thanks you, Mr. Oliver.

As someone who’s family has lived in North Dakota for 30 years this episode was at once both heartbreaking and extremely accurate

South DaCanada, laughed a little to hard at that.

Having come from North Dakota... I can say the oil boom has been disastrous to my community. I had to leave due to how outrageous prices got for everything from housing to gas. (Ironically enough) You almost have to work in the oil industry to have a decent life there. The lack of infrastructure is probably the most apparent problem. More deaths are resulting from that, as opposed to the rig accidents. Man, it's a mess. You did nail it though. Usually North Dakotians are ecstatic about their state or town being mentioned nationally. I don't feel that right now, except for those billboards. I remember those and they were the shit.

In the UK sub contractors count as employees under health and safety law. It avoids this kind of lack of employer responsibility.

Over 7 years in the Oilfield Services. I got out with all my toes and fingers. Thank God 🙏

This is exactly why labor unions are more important now than ever. The labor force being killed and maimed in the oil fields need a voice.

69 hours that's almost 3 full days for an explosive technician, that's terrifying

Family Guy said it best: "North Dakota.....we're not even the good Dakota."

"The longest I've ever been out on a job site is 69 hours straight" Nice. but also, you know, not nice.

I am from Texas, and I can confirm that the speed limit is "Let er' rip!"

ALL HAIL JOHN OLIVER AND THE GLASSES THAT LAYETH UPON HIS FACE!

Oil companies were trying to drill on Dad’s farm in Scobey out in the part of Montana we call West Dakota; he refused to allow it and he fought the KXL pipeline. Sadly he is gone now but the farm is still producing food and not oil. I guess the coal companies also drove him nuts back in the day...

"North Dakota is probably best known for the 1996 Coen Brother's movie Fargo, and the visitor's center can tell you all about it... " Like how all of it, save one scene, takes place in Minnesota?

As someone who lives in North DaCanada I can tell you that the only reason we're so polite is because that staves off the psychosis. Remember the last time Canadians got mad? Nazis ran away.

YES, SOUTH DAKOTA WAS MENTIONED. I'VE NEVER BEEN THIS PROUD. THANK YOU FOR MENTIONING US. SOUTH DAKOTA EXISTS!

As a person who’s visited north and South Dakota I can confirm that theyre basically as nice and wholesome as Canadians

SIXTY NINE HOURS!!! Can you imagine just being awake for that long?! Never mind driving, watching what ur supposed to be working at, listening to what you need to be listening to and for, EVEN WALKING FOR SIXTY NINE HOURS IS INSANE!!!

Did you know that Montana and North Dakota got into a war? It got so bad that the North Dakotans started throwing dynamite. The Montanans lit it, and threw it back.

Y'know, people knock OSHA for not doing a lot to protect workers, but as someone with a degree in industrial hygiene and have thus learned a LOT about OSHA in the last few years, I find that yelling at OSHA for people dying on the job is like yelling at your security guard when your stuff gets stolen when you've nailed that guard's feet to the floor and have given him a rubber band to defend himself. OSHA, for all the good its done, is still one of the most toothless and understaffed agencies in the government, and businesses will do the very crap done as reported here in this video to avoid having to be responsible for the lives of workers and save a buck. And when people try to introduce reforms or enhancements to OSHA, the same baloney comes back down the pipe of "over regulating" and "putting the handcuffs on businesses". I'm so sorry, businesses, that you feel chained down and enslaved because you're being asked to ensure that your employees and contractors are able to come home to their families alive. The saddest part of this video was Governor Dalrymple's speech about how the "regulatory environment is very reasonable" in North Dakota. That's politi-bull for "we'll look the other way on your crap safety if it means you bring us business".

Who'd have known in 2020 the barrel is worth more than oil in it .

"Business friendly" = "Civil Enemy" That's how it sounds, at least.

i find it hilarious that the north dakota video has 6 times more views than the population of N Dakota.

3:01 "...like a solar eclipse, you _really_ shouldn't look directly at it." Insert picture of Trump staring into the solar eclipse...

What hit me hardest was that people were burned. That to me is the worst type of injury. Medical professionals have a hard time controlling pain from burns.

The fact that I miss these kinds of stories and having time to worry about the environment is depressing.

North Dakota: Come for the culture.....Stay because your car won't start..

As a Texan, the "Let 'er rip" speed limit thing is 100% true.

I would totally love to hear a follow up on this subject matter.

Standing Rock is in North Dakota. This report came out just before the huge protests. The stranglehold oil has on the state was absolutely the reason for all of that unbridled police violence. Oil benefits a few in the short term and hurts so many more in the long run

I love John Oliver. He knows just how to simplify complicated topics while not making it sounding like he's dumbing it down, plus he's seriously funny.

John please do a segment on the TPP!

My friend worked in the Bakken oil fields and came home with leukemia. I wonder how many others got sick?

one aspect why they are so great, I'm watching this vid 8 years later, pretty cool for a "weekly news" series. Thanks!

Born and raised North Dakotan. Grew up in Bismarck and I hardly recognize it anymore. Porches, Ferraris, massive houses in gated neighborhoods. I just can't stand it here anymore. People, especially in big cities, are rude. At least in a place like NYC or LA you'd expect it. But with the massive migration to this state, they've brought that with them. Granted, the first time I tried Japanese food was after the boom, but I'd rather stick with lefse, kneophla, and hotdish if it means we could have our state back. I really encourage journalists to check out the levels of corruption in our State Legislature. It's sick. But the citizens are too polite to say people aren't doing their jobs in government. It's true. We'd rather be seen as ignorant than rude. Being rude is a big deal here. Thanks for bringing attention to the issue, John.

Ooooo, the censors missed one

I've lived in North Dakota 11 years... and I had to look up that turtle monument. Practically in Canada as far north as it is. But I'm still proud. Next time I head west to visit in-laws, I'll be making a detour to see it. Thanks John Oliver ;)

John and his team must have saved lots of lives raising awareness

Regarding the explosives expert required to work shifts up to 68 hours long... Uhh, well, I've spent a lot of the past few years voluntarily not getting enough sleep so I can play video games and make posts on webforums regarding video game lore. One thing I've learned about my sleeplessness, is that after 24 hours awake or so, I do not consider my mental state to be capable of playing the easy mode stuff in video games with a sufficient level of competence to actually get anything done. I've been up to 68 hours (and further) without sleep on some occasions, so I know something about the mental state of someone who's been awake that long in a stress-free environment. That explosives expert was required to handle explosives competently while he was constantly hallucinating, the size and shapes of objects constantly shifting, and he probably couldn't walk in a normal fashion or be able to complete a grammatically-correct paragraph. The fact that no one at that site was killed during that work shift is a god damned miracle.

John please do an episode on the problems in Alaska! Most people don’t even know we’re a state or that we are not an island. Despite the glaring issues with global warming they constantly vote against doing anything about it or other issues

I have a slightly ridiculous suggestion. When we were in Seattle last year, my father wanted to photograph the welding sparks at a construction site near where we were staying. He did this several days in a row. He noticed he was getting nervous looks, and asked someone about it. "You from the government?" the guy apparently asked. "No," my father replied, "I'm just taking photos of the sparks." The guy laughed and said, "I don't think I'll tell the boss. He's been double-checking all the safety equipment since they saw you." My point being, if you dress business-casual and carry a large camera, you can sometimes get someone's boss scared enough to follow the law. Even if you have no authority. Schrodinger's OSHA.

There is only 2 seasons in ND winter and road construction

I moved to Minot for a year and a half during high school, the first night I was back a few people died in a bar stabbing that involved a lot of oil workers with too much to drink. Violence indeed rose a lot in ND because of the influx of new workers.

Those billboards straight up remind me of They Live.

"The price of oil has dropped in the last year." 2020, 2021, and 2022: *Allow us to introduce ourselves*

From Texas here... John is spot on about what he said regarding my state... 🤦🏽🤦🏽

Coming from Saskatchewan the oil has had a disastrous impact to communities. it's made the crime rate skyrocket made once nice neighbourhoods turn into ghettos.

DAMNIT I WANTED TO GO TO SLEEP!

As an ND native, I'll give him this: South Dacanada is one I hadn't heard before.

Hiring sub-contractors. I live in Japan, have been here 36 years, and this is the standard operating procedure for large corporations to avoid responsibility of compliance to Japanese Labor law. The law mostly applies to only full time employees, not sub-contractors. And did you know that many of the workers at the pre-tsunami nuclear power plants are untrained and under-protected sub-contractors .... as are the foreign immigrant labor hired to clean up the shit?

Just watched this on TV. Did anyone else have the part about Mitchell's Oil Service cut out?

I love that they censored "F*ck you!" But then, on the third f*ck, they just said fuck censorship.

Years later, I still live in ND. We still have those billboards...

7:00 ... Oasis Petroleum? It takes a real weasel for a company that pollutes all the water to name itself after a source of water.

They forgot to bleep the "fuck you" @ 1:28. I can't believe a show on HBO didn't bleep out a cuss word. Shameful. Here I thought HBO was good, wholesome family entertainment.

Man, my econ teacher last year (who also happened to be a far-right conspiracy theorist) was going on about how great the North Dakota oil fields were. I hope he somehow finds out about this video.

Sounds like it's time for my dad's favorite joke about ND! What is the North Dakota state bird? An empty Walmart bag caught on a barbed-wire fence.

I've legit watched this episode a handful of times because frankly I enjoy watching John do the fucking news. This man hands down has the best fucking show on cable.

The investigative team on this show is absolutely brilliant.

Additionally I love John’s little evil finger tap before he reveals the bullshit lol

It's always the nicest people who get taken advantage of the most.

'I've mind fruck ya' is such a scottish phrase

This story echos the entire shale natural gas industry in multiple other states.

I'm just gonna say what everyone's thinking. That was was a f*cking awesome turtle.

My dad bought an apartment complex right before they shut down the jobs. Let's just say that it's a bad situation now. Side note... the guy who wrote Blood and Oil was in my graduating class of high school. haha

I oddly think about North Dakota a LOT. Almost specifically Bc I think of it as a “forgotten” state. What I actually forget about is South Dakota. And Idaho. I forget Idaho exists 99.9% of the time.

Being Norwegian here I never ate Lute fisk, If I ever go to North Dakota I will try that single restaurant. I just have 48 states to visit first.

I know this is an old video, but the real problem with the subcontractor system in cases like this is that it allows corporations to completely evade responsibility. Subcontracting can actually be good for local economies, by giving business to existing local firms rather than creating competition for them - or worse, transferring in people from outside the locale and displacing local workers - but the contractor themselves needs to have some degree of accountability for the actions of their subcontractors. I worked on defense contracts for several years, and at first the company I worked for was subcontracted through another company. If we screwed around and our employing company didn't do anything about, _they_ could get penalized as well as us. The same went for the DARPA liaison on top of the whole contract - if he was made aware of improper work activity of a contractor (such as one University using DARPA funds to fund research that was not even tangentially related to the subject of the contract, outside of being about the military), and did nothing about it, _he_ could wind up being disciplined or even *prosecuted* for allowing the mismanagement of government funds. Heavy industry *must* be held to the same standard, or some standard at *all* because unlike a contract that involves non-mission-critical software, peoples lives are _literally_ on the line. EDIT: Full indemnification waivers like the one in Oasis' contract should also be abolished. Some of them can be scary as hell. I had to sign one during a competition that attempted to claim that I would not assign liability to the host school even in cases of _malfeasance_. In non-legal terms, that meant that they could _intentionally_ do something that could harm me, and I could not file civil suit against them. Was it enforceable? I don't know! Even if not, though, the fact that someone would ask anyone, let alone someone who was at the time a _minor_, to sign such a waiver, is unconscionable.

The Briggs thing about North Dakota oil wouldn’t let me stop thinking about the northern wall of Briggs.

I left Fargo ND not a few months ago. And YES. Those billboards are still there.

OSHA is laughable. My first job was on a power plant, and it was a few months before I knew I actually needed an OSHA certification; and I never even got one. Others I worked with said the same.

I really wish John Oliver would dedicate an episode to the 1100 murdered or missing indigenous women here in Canada. And how the government says it is not a problem and not worth investigating any further, despite calls from the UN saying it is a crisis.

I pushed the foot into the chipper last summer & the photo of me is one of the happiest I’ve ever had. We stayed in Fargo & it was sketchy af & honestly, one of my favorite things ever.

Thank you, John. You are fearless.

One of the best jobs must be the person who photoshops the images for all the show's jokes. You'd just photoshop funny pictures and read jokes all day. 15:22 - 15:31 Even the Fifa building in the field next to a windmill seems like it'd be humorous to create.

Comedians speak the truth while politicians make us laugh.

Wow, this episode was particularly infuriating... The news clip describing the burn victim losing his legs and committing suicide is just horrific. Good lord...

Had my WHS induction at my new job today and when the guy leading the meeting started talking about the two people who'd died on construction sites (already) this year in the state and followed it up with 'and I can guarantee you, in 6 months, the developers behind those sites won't be operating' I kind of just... On one hand, can we not aim to avoid loss-of-life simply to prevent loss-of-life? Does there have to be a financial motivation behind it? But, on the other hand, I remembered this episode and I was just so thankful that, not only do I work for a company that actually cares whether it's workers live or die (regardless of their motives), but that I also live in a country where this sort of bullshit blame-tossing actually has consequences.

All the contracting is basically a way for all the businesses to avoid liability and put the blame on each other without anyone ever having to acknowledge it. It also allows them to bend the rules to absurd levels. I once worked in a restaurant that basically did this and what they would do is make you work at 3 different locations for about 5 to 6 hours at each site. The result is that you basically worked a 80 hr work week, but was not considered a full time employee because you are a contractor and are working at 3 separate jobs, yet your performance at any 1 of them affects the other 2. When I finally got hurt from work related injuries (second degree oil burns), they were able to get away with not having to provide any type of treatment or services or work related injury compensation because I was not technically an employee at that restaurant.

They didn't censor the "fuck you" at 1:30

I asked my OSHA certification instructor what would happen if a company just didn't pay a fine. He said, the fine would double...and so on. So, nothing.

I always stay current with your show and often times binge watch previous shows and all I have to say is good on ya my man! Brilliance and hilarity mixed with cutting edge in depth research I wish more people paid attention!

John Oliver has taken his teacher torch and is lighting the way for all of us. I just hope his words don't fall to deaf's ears. THANK YOU MR. OLIVER AND THANK YOU HBO. PLEASE NEVER CHANGE

Hey oil companies: Why the fuck you lyin why the fuck you lyin mmmh ohmygod why the fuck you lyin

That wood chipper is an AMERICAN Hero! Steve Buscemi is a MONSTER!!

And Republicans still vote against government enforced business regulations. They'll say something heartless like: "Well, the guy knew what he was getting into when he signed the contract." Complete. Lack. Of. Empathy.

1:28 Don't bleep out fuck lol

I can be Empathetic with the guy who broke down about seeing the Derrick hand killed in the Derrick. When I was 18 I started working at a well service company in Alberta, we were slow so working in the shop, I was giving a Derrick basket a new paint job. I thought nothing of it, until I seen burn marks on it, I asked someone what happened, it was a Rig that had seen a blowout and sadly the Derrick hand had literally burned alive. I immediately felt very creeped out and quite sad honestly.

1:15 I always loved driving by these billboards. they always put a smile on my face.

"North Dakota, we're not even the best Dakota." - Peter Griffin Lmgdao! Here in North Dakota right now. Living in Minnedakota and we were just all throughout South Dakota for spring break vacation at Crazy Horse Monument, Mt. Rushmore, Deadwood, The Black Hills, Badlands NP, Rapid City, Wall Drug, The Corn Palace and Sioux Falls. That saying is soooo freakin true. "It's funny cause it's true."

John Oliver is a true genius!!!!

I did a research paper that involved FAA inspectors. Unless things have changed in the last couple years, you would be horrified when looking at the ratio of FAA MRO inspectors to airplanes flying. These FAA inspectors are basically OSHA inspectors, but for airplanes and airplane maintenance facilities. I think there were 148 globally when I wrote my paper. But obviously airlines have taken a lot more responsibility for their past actions. Which is why despite millions of dispatched flights every day, disastrous aircraft incidents are still rare.

I grew up playing on that Turtle as a kid.

I learn so much from John Oliver. He's also hilarious