The off-topic topic

[Markgway]

$25 pay on entry visa to enter the country.

With Scotland it's $25 to leave.

went on from there to an irish bar

Blimey. Those Irish get everywhere.

very distressing and ruined the day for us really.

Shit. That's horrible. I feel for you, man -- and the poor animals, of course.

[HungFist]

Recently I'm really losing my faith in the human race

The Chinese keep burning their own cars and restaurants

- http://www.ministryoftofu.com/2012/09/o ... ce=dlvr.it

And the same in middle east

- http://www.ministryoftofu.com/2012/09/o ... ce=dlvr.it

This could be in the funny thread if it wasn't so tragically large scale

[Markgway]

The situation in the Middle East proves yet again - as if further reminder were needed - just how backward and savage these so-called true believers are. Innocents murdered, tortured, assaulted... property burnt and destroyed... and for what? Because some American filmmakers slagged off their religion? So fucking what? As long as YOU believe in your religion who gives a fuck what anyone else thinks? Everytime shit like this happens it proves non-Muslims worst fears about Muslim fanaticism - which despite pleas to the contrary is hardly a minority sport. If you call me violent and I reply with a punch to the face it proves your point not mine.

[Yi-Long]

The situation in the Middle East proves yet again - as if further reminder were needed - just how backward and savage these so-called true believers are. Innocents murdered, tortured, assaulted... property burnt and destroyed... and for what? Because some American filmmakers slagged off their religion? So fucking what? As long as YOU believe in your religion who gives a fuck what anyone else thinks? Everytime shit like this happens it proves non-Muslims worst fears about Muslim fanatacism - which despite pleas to the contrary is hardly a minority sport. If you call me violent and I reply with a punch to the face it proves your point not mine.

Except it's not about religion. It's about religion-hooligans. It's an extremely small percentage who go ape-shit over this stuff and take it as an excuse to go rioting. That's just what they do, or what they're led to believe by some religious leaders that they should do.

I'm not sure what the current situation in England is when it comes to radical fanatic assholes being in the football-stadiums supporting THEIR club, but here in Holland, if you wear an Ajax shirt and you stand in front of the Feyenoord side and shout insults and abuse at them and their club for a few minutes, I'm sure there will be an extreme and furious response from some of them as well.

It's just human. idiots will be idiots. There's always going to be a small percentage of people who go absolutely crazy when you insult something they care about.

Try walking through New York in a Twin Tower shirt which says: "You brought this upon yourself!", or (like Top Gear), drive a gay-mobile through the hillbilly mid-west of the USA, or WHATEVER. It doesn't matter. Once you start insulting a large group of people, either intentionally or un-intentionally, there will be a response, and a small percentage of that response will be 'extreme'. It's a given. And it has shit all to do with race or religion. AT MOST it has something to do with how much of that response will be ALLOWED by local law-enforcement.

I'm sure in Tibet there have been some buddhist monks who have had extreme reactions to China's occupation. The peaceful calm Japanese were complete bastards in the war, and right now you see Japanese, Chinese and I believe even Koreans protesting about some shitty islands most of them probably never knew existed 5 months ago.

So I believe it's a bit 'easy' to once again point fingers at Islam as the cause of intolerance in this situation. Point being that this kinda wild outrage among a small percantage of a group is 'normal', regardless of race, religion, whatever.

That said, it's OBVIOUSLY completely ridiculous that people are so easily provoked into acting like assholes and idiots, rioting, attacking, killing, innocent people and businesses.

[Markgway]

Except it's not about religion. It's about religion-hooligans.

That's just semantics. What these fanatics do they do in the name of their religion whether the majority like it or not.

It's an extremely small percentage who go ape-shit over this stuff and take it as an excuse to go rioting.

I think that argument has worn dry. This shit happens too frequently and robustly to be considered anything like an 'extremely small minority' occurance. The volume of outrage expands multiple countries and shows that whilst still a minority (of the global Mulsim majority) it's a sizeable and increasingly dangerous one.

I'm not sure what the current situation in England is when it comes to radical fanatic assholes being in the football-stadiums supporting THEIR club, but here in Holland, if you wear an Ajax shirt and you stand in front of the Feyenoord side and shout insults and abuse at them and their club for a few minutes, I'm sure there will be an extreme and furious response from some of them as well.

I'm pretty sure no one would bomb the Dutch embassy.

It's just human. idiots will be idiots.

Would be great if we could write it off just like that... but we can't. The situation has gotten worse since the Arab Spring. The power has been taken away from the dictators and is now in the hands of the fanatics. That's why the west shouldn't supply arms to Syrian rebels - who knows how long it'll take before they're turned back on us?

Try walking through New York in a Twin Tower shirt which says: "You brought this upon yourself!", or (like Top Gear), drive a gay-mobile through the hillbilly mid-west of the USA, or WHATEVER. It doesn't matter.

Yeah, you'll get punched in the face... run out of town... yee haw... I'm not saying your argument has no merit, but this extreme response runs far deeper than the examples you proffer. 'Death to America' protests because a bunch of filmmakers made an anti-Islamic movie? Embassies bombed, an Ambassador assassinated. You really think your suggestions (at least one of which would justify a physical assault) are comparable?

AT MOST it has something to do with how much of that response will be ALLOWED by local law-enforcement.

Which goes back to the fact that most of these countries are corrupt and/or side with the protestors. It distubed me greatly to see this shit happening in London. The Met. Police should've turned the water cannons on them.

I'm sure in Tibet there have been some buddhist monks who have had extreme reactions to China's occupation.

They set THEMSELVES on fire - which is obviously fucking nuts.

The peaceful calm Japanese were complete bastards in the war, and right now you see Japanese, Chinese and I believe even Koreans protesting about some shitty islands most of them probably never knew existed 5 months ago.

You're right, but I'm talking about breadth and depth.

So I believe it's a bit 'easy' to once again point fingers at Islam as the cause of intolerance in this situation.

If nine times out of ten religious problems point toward Islam, isn't it reasonable therefore to assume that the problem lies within - if not with the text, with its blindly loyal defenders.

[HungFist]

Like Yi also said, I don't think the problem isn't that much the religion itself but people using it as an excuse. Just look at the Chinese. Burning Toyota and Panasonic factories, destroying Japanese restaurants, attacking Japanese people on streets, wrecking Japanese cars and attacking their owners, some even "campaigning" to convince the Chinese government to declare war on Japan... and it has nothing to do with religion. It's got to do with a bunch of semi-deserted islands that no one had ever heard of before, and that affect no-one's life in any way.

Yes, it's true Islam is probably the most commonly used excuse for this kind of madness. But the core problem is not the religion (which, as far as I know, forbids this kind of actions), but the people who have the need for this madness and will pick up any excuse they can find. In Middle East they become radical religious fighters, in China they become violent nationalists, in England they become football hooligans, and in a lot of countries they become plain ordinary gangsters or street thugs.

I think the whole Islam issue is much more of a cultural thing... I doubt much would change if Heka one day proved to the world that God doesn't exists. They they would just become ideological radicalists and continue the same war against "rotten Western values" without "God's support".

[HungFist]

I really don't know whether to laugh or cry...

Anti-Japanese protesters have set fire to a Samsung building, mistaking the South Korean company as Japanese.
- http://en.rocketnews24.com/2012/09/19/a ... -japanese/



edit: More from China:
http://imgur.com/a/Y7oIp

[Yi-Long]

The really sad thing is that it seems there are no repercussions for these actions from the chinese government, which is very scary. As long as you attack anything 'Japanese', you seem to get away with it. It's crazy.

I really hope this all blows over soon, cause the whole idea of it escalating into possibly a war, is extremely unnerving. Especially considering I'm supposed to move to Hong Kong this December, which would certainly be one of the first targets to get hit in case Japan would strike (back) at China.

[gasteropod]

I really don't know whether to laugh or cry...

Anti-Japanese protesters have set fire to a Samsung building, mistaking the South Korean company as Japanese.
- http://en.rocketnews24.com/2012/09/19/a ... -japanese/

Oh dear lol, 'they all look the same to me' isn't just a Western mistake then.

[Markgway]

This really isn't about uninhabited islands, it's about 70 years worth of stored resentment and bitterness. You can paper over the cracks in an international relationship, but never forget that millions of your people were murdered.

[HungFist]

You're right, it is about what happened ages ago. A terrible tragedy it was, but it's also a problem that China refuses to get over it. Someone who has done more research could confirm if I'm right or not, but it appears quite common in some Chinese schools that they are given a somewhat anti-Japanese education. I've heard some Chinese people saying "in school we were taught to hate the Japanese".

Japan has it's issues, too, including people such as Tokyo's beloved chauvinist/racist governor Shintaro Ishihara (who is partly to blame on this crisis, too. The Japanese government bought those islands in a hurry because Ishihara was planning to buy them for Tokyo and milk the natural resources...) who spread their Nanking-did-not-happen bullshit. Though in China, too, they have their own Ishiharas in the government (the rather recent scandal with the Chinese government publishing Nanking photos, all of which were later discovered to be fake, comes to mind).

But I can understand Japan's side to a certain extent. China doesn't seem to settle for a simple sorry or acknowledgement, they seem to want Japan to kneel down and beg for forgiveness. In a society where keeping face is so important that many people kill themselves because of it every day, it's difficult to kneel down in front of a foreign nation and apologize for something that you are told was committed before you were born by people you didn't know.

So, wouldn't we just move on? Past is past and is not gonna change. People involved are almost all dead by now. It's not really fair that every new generation is asked to take responsibility of something they had nothing to do with.

[Markgway]

The Japanese never properly apologised for what they did to China - that's at the root of the problem. Whereas Germany has been (largely) forgiven in Europe due to its open regret and admission of war crimes, Japan refuses to acknowledge the extent of its horrors. Politicians lie, a significant proportion of historians and academics refute evidence as mere propaganda, and this dangerously blind attitude translates into schools, where kids are taught in ignorance all about the bad things done to Japan (ie. the atomic bomb) but not what Japan did to China (and others). Of course it's wrong for innocent Japanese to be targeted in this way - and chaos helps no man - but you could argue that this revolt has been a long time coming...

[Yi-Long]

Ofcourse Mark is right and history has a lot to do with these emotions today.

Still, that's no reason to drag innocent chinese from their Japanese cars and abuse them, or set buildings on fire cause they're selling Japanese (or Korean) products or food. I know these people aren't acting rationally, but the government seems very unwilling to prevent this shit from happening, or punish those responsible.

But yeah, at a certain point in time it's time to 'move on'. Especially when this is mostly a completely new generation which obviously hasn't even lived through the Japanese atrocities. And to risk a war and thus the loss of lives of many thousands, maybe even millions, over a bunch of islands 99% of these folks didn't even know about existed 6 months ago....

... well, that's insane to me.

TBH, the argument they are taught their hate in schools: The sad truth is that even if their history-lessons weren't poisoned by nationalistic poison, the actual facts from what the Japanese did back then DOES actually warrant a hatred towards them.

Obviously, it was war, a completely different generation, most people in Japan didn't even support that war to begin with, etc etc etc.... but the Chinese did have to suffer through alot. Obviously, from such a history-lesson, you could understand an anti-Japanese bias.

As far as the comparison between Japan and Germany goes: Here in Holland we were occupied, but since the Germans were mostly after jewish people, and many Dutch people just looked the other way (and some even took the side of the Germans), I don't think we (non-jewish non-germans) were hit quite as hard by the atrocities of the Germans as the Chinese were by the Japanese.

As far as apologies go, there have been a few from the side of Japan, but I guess it's either too little, or the Chinese just won't hear of it, or accept it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wa ... d_by_Japan

Obviously, I know this isn't just about those islands. It's about people having an excuse to riot and incite hatred and target innocent people or buildings...

Wow... they must be muslims(!)

[grim_tales]

For some reason I just entered a giveaway to win copies of Lady Snowblood 1 & 2 on BD just to see what would happen

[gasteropod]

For some reason I just entered a giveaway to win copies of Lady Snowblood 1 & 2 on BD just to see what would happen

[Yi-Long]

For some reason I just entered a giveaway to win copies of Lady Snowblood 1 & 2 on BD just to see what would happen

Martians will come down to Earth, rape our women, then order buckets of KFC hotwings! Ow Grim, what have you done!? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?!?!??

[HungFist]

kids are taught in ignorance all about the bad things done to Japan (ie. the atomic bomb) but not what Japan did to China (and others).

Actually, that's more like the official Chinese belief of what education in Japan would be like. While I can't speak for the whole country, every Japanese student I've talked with about this has stated that Nanking and other such topics were, in fact, covered in school. When I mentioned about history books that skip some parts of history, I was told there's only one publisher who distributes such a book, and it's not used by almost any school. Also, I've never met a Japanese person who considered Japan a victim in WWII. Rather the opposite, most Japanese see Americans as heroes and role models.

I'm referring mainly to people in their early 20's. If you go back to yearly 90's, yes, the Japanese kids would travel to Taiwan or Hong Kong to a rock concert and have no idea why they were disliked by locals...

edit: this should be the case we're referring to:

In 2000, Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, a group of conservative scholars, published the New History Textbook which was intended to promote a revised view of Japan. The textbook downplays or whitewashes the nature of Japan's military aggression in the First Sino-Japanese War, in Japan's annexation of Korea in 1910, in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and in World War II. Subsequently, the New History Textbook was used by only 0.039% of junior high schools in Japan as of August 15, 2001.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_h ... troversies

[Markgway]

Actually, that's more like the official Chinese belief of what education in Japan would be like. While I can't speak for the whole country, every Japanese student I've talked with about this has stated that Nanking and other such topics were, in fact, covered in school. When I mentioned about history books that skip some parts of history, I was told there's only one publisher who distributes such a book, and it's not used by almost any school. Also, I've never met a Japanese person who considered Japan a victim in WWII. Rather the opposite, most Japanese see Americans as heroes and role models.

If that's indeed true (and I've no reason to doubt your claims) then it's good to see Japan taking a step forward in terms of educating their young. The Japanese government needs to do more in broadcasting this message of contrition to China and Korea. The truth and perception of the truth need to be one and the same for real healing to begin (albeit decades too late). Clearly China has not received (or been offered?) this apologetic volte-face.

[HungFist]

Bad news and good news

Bad: gonna miss all the Night Visions Film Festivals* in Helsinki for at least the next 2½ years.

Good: that's cause I passed the motherfucking entrance exam. Master's in here (Japan) from April!

* this fall's program: Henge, Seeding of a Ghost, Cut Throats Nine, Shogun Assassin, Nightbreed - The Cabal Cut, Tulpa, ABC's of Death, John Waters retro...

[Markgway]

Anyone else think the new BBFC website design is utter shit?

www.bbfc.co.uk

[gasteropod]

Anyone else think the new BBFC website design is utter shit?

http://www.bbfc.co.uk

What a mess! And before you could just scroll down and look for the red text indicating when a release is cut, but now you seem to have to click on each release individually.

[grim_tales]

Yeah thats annoying, and reasons why a film is cut is harder to find too.

[Markgway]

Finding info is next to bloody impossible now.

[Markgway]

Spielberg to direct his own biopic:

http://hollywoodandswine.com/steven-spi ... rg-biopic/

[HungFist]