@Lawdeedaw

There's so much factually wrong here, I don't know where to begin. Let's start with this:

"That rape and mutilation has been going on for centuries but was significant in the Second Sino-Japanese War, a distinct war in and of itself."

Japan was in a state of almost complete isolation from the rest of the world between the years of 1633 and 1853. Even after the period of isolation ended, Japan was too busy for decades industrializing to be rampaging through China, as you suggest.

Japan DID eventually get involved in Chinese politics and in fact went to war with them in the First Sino-Japanese War... in 1894. There are no reports of atrocities committed by the Japanese military during this conflict. In fact, quite the opposite, Japan would release Chinese prisoners of war once they promised not to take up arms against Japan again.

The subjugation of Taiwan (which was ceded to Japan at the end of the first Sino-Japanese War but resisted Japanese rule) is a different story. However, accounts of what exactly happened are sketchy and most of the information we have is anecdotal. What can be gleaned from these anecdotes is that the Formasians put up a fierce guerrilla resistance campaign and that the Japanese tortured and killed anyone suspected of aiding the resistance. Still, it doesn't appear to have been on the same scale as the massacres which occurred during the Rape of Nanking.

As you mentioned, some of the most awful abuses were done during the Second Sino-Japanese War between 1937 and 1945 (the Rape of nanking occurred during this war). The abuse ended Japan's defeat in WWII.

What you can see here by doing the math, is that Japan's military abuses in China lasted a grand total of 50 years--from the subjugation of Formosa (Taiwan) to the end of World War 2--not "centuries."

Next, let's talk about misrepresentation. You seem to be implying that Japanese textbooks don't say that Japan is the aggressor in WW2 (or previous conflicts). As I pointed out in my last post, that is flat-out wrong. There is ONE textbook that was approved for use that whitewashes the history but that book has been ignored an not used by the vast majority of schools in Japan.

If you want to criticize Japanese textbooks, you could criticize them on the grounds that though they mention the terrible things that Japanese forces did, they don't go into a whole lot of detail. See this article for more information.

As far as Abe goes, what exactly has he said that is so terrible? Yes, he hangs out with revisionists. Yes, he has expressed his opinion that Japan should stop apologizing for WWII and start looking to the future instead of the past. Yes, he has said that the issue of "comfort women" should be re-examined in light of claims that some of evidence of their existence was fabricated. But these are not really radical statements by any means. And many people and newspapers do strongly and openly disagree with his statements, so this idea that Japanese people don't challenge him is completely wrong as well.

Yasukuni is a total clusterfuck of a situation. It is a shrine to ALL of Japan's war dead. This includes war criminals, but it also includes regular soldiers just doing their duty. In terms of Shinto beliefs, all of their souls now reside there. Basically, if you want to pay your respects to someone who died in military service in Japan, you have to go there to "see them."

Abe is a total dumbass (and the press let him know it) for going there because he knows already how China and Korea will perceive it, but on the other hand his going there does not mean in any way that he reveres the war criminals who are interred there. I have no idea what his personal views are but publically he has stated that he and his wife go there to remind themselves about the terrible toll war had on Japan the last time Japan engaged in it.

Finally, as for the link you provided, it was to a year-old opinion piece that lacks context. Abe made that statement at a time when it was revealed that some of the evidence of the existence of comfort women in Japan had been faked. It was later decided that the apology would not be changed. In fact, The Japan Times is reporting that it is likely that Abe will mention that "comfort women" had their human rights violated by Japan in his upcoming address on the end of WWII, so the comparison of him to Ahmadinejad is a bit far-fetched.

I'm old school, i still do magazines, but i do love me some Hearthstone.

Kids in the Hall sketches are also more thought provoking than SNL. SNL is more of a contemporary pop culture reference machine like Mad magazine and Family Guy.

The pop cultural references in KitH are to things of higher value like early cinema classics (Citizen Kane), Nietzsche, Morrison Hotel, surrealism, film noir; and with heavy pro LGBT, pro environmental (the beaver!) and anti corporate themes; displaying the frivolity of office politics, and the HARDCORE Canadian law enforcement.

What does SNL give but a couple'a chuckles, eh?

I married into an Asian family that run restaurants, are professional bakers, and wow, even the bad cooks can kick my ass in the kitchen. No one I've spoken to in her family has a problem with Panda Express style food ON OCCASION because the horse it's really high but it's so much more comfortable just enjoying food. Go eat a goddamn big mac, but before you take your first bite SAY OUT LOUD, "I'm just a dumb slut living on the planet earth. Eat fuck and shit motherfucker" and then eat the frelling burger. Frack you. It's good, bitch. Just stop lying to yourself, you food slut

And drink a Pabst. Hey. Asshole! Yeah YOU. Not me i know me bad but u worse so you, this I say: Go buy a 6 pack of non-lite budweiser, smoke some shitty weed out of an apple, and proclaim to the sky and no one in particular -- FUCK MY TRADITIONS AND FUCK MY AFFILIATIONS -- I will eat anything that my SLUT taste buds will enjoy. My brain may proclaim "But people and science says" -- SCIENCE and PEOPLE aren't your taste buds, bud(ette). Stop thinking what can create competition and power, the red queen effect its EVERYWHERE. When you think you're making conscious choices about your perception of food matter reacting with your taste buds, in reality your brain is making complex judgements on the world around it, cut throat and always seeking gain. You will seem to just "know" your tastes. Liar. You're competing with your surroundings. Points within time and space colliding and reacting. You don't know the difference between a tastey butt hole and the centerfold back cover of a Mad magazine.

Ok, but, don't always not think. Sometimes you must think and get vaccines and stuff. Do that. Eat orange chicken. Smoke weed. Drink a steel reserve once a month. Then go to a grocery store, buy a bunch of meat and vegetables, and FUCKING COOK BITCH. That's really the only lesson.

My colleague, Roland Griffiths, was the lead author on the study cited at 1:38. It's been said that his research kicked off what is now being called a "renaissance" of clinical trials involving psychedelics that has increased in number in the last few years.

Also, in cases like this video, they were probably getting credit back from the publishers. It's common practice that the items need to be destroyed for them to get back their credit. It's cheaper than shipping all back to the distributors.

I've also worked in a large book store. (Chapters/Indigo Books)
When all mass market books are removed from the shelves, we stripped the book jackets from the books (tore the covers off) and ripped the rest of the books up. we only had to send the covers back to the publishers to get our credit back on them (same with Magazines). We would destroy books by the hundreds, because it was cheaper to destroy them, and have them print more than to ship them back for re-distribution.

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,782141,00.html

Arafat spent it on arms and bribes.

(don't let those straw-boogey-men sneak up on ya)

The video is only part of this multimedia article - http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31588720

She was someone who was trying to sell records and whose record label and management were adamant of the necessity to stay in the closet. Not the same thing as a private person.

If you listen to it again with that in mind, that she has been instructed to stay in the closet by folks eager to make money off her... she is subversively brilliant, I think. About as out and proud as you can be inside that straitjacket.

I remember when she came out of the closet. She was on the cover of a magazine, displayed prominently at the grocery store checkstand. Two women in line in front of me saw the cover. They were shocked -- SHOCKED I SAY -- that k d lang was a lesbian!

Different times. Nobody would be shocked today. She wouldn't be in the closet today.

I mean, look at Adam Lambert on American Idol. As gay as anything, and even he took a while to say it. (I think. I don't watch the show but I seem to remember huge speculation and then he finally just said it.)

And that was just a couple of years ago.

And that is why they couldn't just say it. Arsenio helped her say as best he could, she said it as best she could, within the constraints of the times.

There is no such thing as news. No network reports news. Hunter Thompson damned television news for copying his Gonzo journalism. In documentary he rants angrily news existed once but they copied his magazine Gonzo style he invented which was for magazine pseudo-fact for enjoyment.

I believe its a small reason he blew himself away. That last documentary was harsh

I'm definitely not seeing any actual legitimate censorship issue and no legitimate point or argument--and certainly no censorship "rule." There is no rule or law against showing nipples on the internet. The decision to blur the photograph was made entirely by this V Magazine at their own discretion for their own reasons.

Compared to many western countries, the United States is relatively light on censorship precisely because of the codification of the first amendment. There are very few circumstances in which the federal government uses criminal law to enforce censorship, and using civil law to do likewise (such as in cases of libel) is relatively hard. Naturally, the truth on the ground is always more complex, because of all of the ways you can sneak sort-of-censorship into local and state laws such school boards determining public school curriculums, shady contracts, and discriminatory public decency laws. That last, which is really more what this guy is arguing about in a ham-fisted way.

I certainly don't believe there should be different laws for men and for women. If a bare-chested man in public is acceptable, I believe a bare-chested woman should be just as acceptable. In this case, I'd go so far as to say I believe that should be federal law, but that can likewise backfire in ways I don't agree with (eg, I believe wether to allow concealed handguns should be a local decision), so I'm not quick to make blanket statements.

Certainly the US is socially and psychologically backward in many, many ways, but it's also better in that respect now on balance than it has ever been in the past.

If only that were true.

This girl is 5 years old. Over the past 5 years, in every commercial she's seen on TV, on every magazine cover she's seen by the checkout counter when she's grocery shopping with her parents, in the majority of the cartoons she's watched and the dolls she's probably played with, in every reaction she's seen in adults' faces to how women dress and behave, she's been culturally programmed with and internalized what modern Western society deems as "beautiful."

It's unavoidable, really, as @Truckchase pointed out above. It's part of the socialization process. But if you've read about how Carrie Fisher struggled with body image issues and eating disorders throughout the filming of the original trilogy, then you probably (like me) find this video more tragic than cute.

Quite true, but someone woke up inspired to come up with the concept... a cool ad for some decidedly iffy products.

Hmm... a little research later and I might have to take some of that back:

http://www.blog.generalmills.com/2014/11/worlds-most-incredible-cereal-pouring-machine/

The Dad and daughter are Mark and Jane Frauenfelder, and Mark is the founding editor-in-chief of MAKE magazine. He says, of the ad, that:

My daughter Jane and I had fun in this video for General Mills and Megabloks about the joy of using cardboard and spare parts to create a Rube Goldberg contraption, as part of their Rev Up the Breakfast Table campaign.

I think she's opportunistic and more interested in pumping up her profile than legitimately advancing feminism.

She picked the one media that was guaranteed to get a worldwide furor (the 'establishment' loves to hate vid games, but movies/books/magazines or heaven forfend rap bloody music, meh, yesterdays news) by lambasting mostly male, mostly young guys for playing games where, frequently, women fulfill the same stereotypical roles they do everywhere else in our culture...

The same demographic that is most likely to, clad in the armour of anonymity and mounted on the soapbox of the internet, to say the most horrible and abominable things (things they would never dare say to the face of an actual female)...

She's a troll and she barely needed to bait to get the desired reaction... Ironically, she's also patronising as hell because us guys are obviously too fucking stupid to understand that women are still objectified... /eyeroll

But the internet will keep giving her exactly what she wants (and needs) to stay relevant. Like any good troll, they only go away if you actually ignore them, and that ain't going to happen.

ps. For the record, I have no skin in the GG bs either way, the whole thing is a bad joke and completely abrogated so idiots on either side of the line can insult and attack each other.

Magazine. MAGAZINE!