I thought the point was that this kind of stuff did not happen in Japan. Anyway that was one of the anecdotes that a lot of people brought back from Japan during the past decade.

So either those reports were overly romanticized or standards in Japan are deteriorating.

I have those friends and if I had piles of money lying around, I too would order this table in a heart beat.

The souk of Aleppo is worth at least as much a visit as the Kapalıçarşı (lit. closed market). Though I do love Istanbul more than most other cities in Europe.

I thought it was pretty cool and I find it shocking that so many BoingBoing readers -who I'd have thought would be somewhat more enlightened- are in favor of government censorship. The sensibilities expressed above are culturally biased to the extreme.

The holocaust is not felt quite as close or as horrible in most of the world. For most people the event is distant in space and a long time ago. And it hasn't served as a real lesson judging by the amount of genocide that has taken place all over the world since then.

But the story has dominated a lot of media and is popularly known. So why should people not be allowed to take it and retell it

Which are those top two XKCD comics? They're too small to read.