windseeker

I hope we get some interesting food trucks. DC has lots of them, but maybe we need to reach out to them to let them know about Otakon? Here's a good tracker for food trucks around DC: http://foodtruckfiesta.com/

lol, again? Wasn't that a past theme a few years back? Or maybe my memory is starting to fail me...

Hi all, So I pre-registered for Otakon at the early bird rate before I had confirmation for my panel and got the codes. My co-panelist was able to register using his code, but I was unsure if I need to do anything with mine. I know about getting reimbursement later down the line, but I wasn't sure if I need to use my code to register as well or if I just am fine as is? Thanks!

Just don't flash it when outside the con, put it in your bag if you go outside. I had a cosplay a few years back that also had a realistic looking gun (I had to hot glue parts of it to make it non usable, when I got it I found out it made a loud sound when the trigger was pulled) and only took it out for pictures. No issue.

Do I see correctly that for the second year in a row there will be no Friday/Saturday night fan parodies? :'( And is it just me or are the panels very mecha-heavy themed this year?

...you know neo nazis?

I recall those fears too, but they were pretty different situations. The Baltimore protests happened in late April going into early May, and Otakon happened in late July, so fears were pretty misplaced. This 'rally' will be happening on the same day as Otakon.

Not remotely the same, but you're trying hard. lol. Sure you were. And the goal of strategic bombings wasn't to "create terror among civilians" it was primarily to cripple industries and military targets. Japanese balloon bombs on the other hand...https://www.wired.com/2010/05/0505japanese-balloon-kills-oregon/ So...you take issue with testing how incendiaries and other bombs will work? They were looking to take out cities, and were studying how to effectively do it. Makes sense in the context of a world war where avoiding civilian casualties is next to impossible. Once again you fail to offer an alternative to using violence in a world war scenario. All you have so far are appeals to emotion (argumentum ad passiones), which is a pretty weak logical fallacy to throw out. Its easy to sit cushy behind a computer screen and thumb your nose with the knowledge of hindsight brings . Once again, you offer no real alternatives or arguments not based in emotion.

Just pointing out there's emergency alarms in each car and a line to the conductor.

LOL...nice Whataboutism. This is even flimsier than your first attempt. Did you miss the part where we were talking about fighting the Nazis and not the Pacific Theater? Should I go into a diatribe about the Rape of Nanking, comfort women, Unit 731, etc? I'm not sure how familiar you are with war, but the way warfare was conducted at the time it was pretty impossible to avoid civilian casualties, especially in Japan where industries and military installations were in proximity to civilian areas. There's actually a fairly simple answer to your question there - the emperor wasn't really in charge of the war! He was a figurehead and killing him wouldn't have ended the war and would have likely become a MAJOR rallying point for the Japanese population. Keeping Hirohito alive was strategic for the US, he was critical to get the fighting to stop in the end. As for Dresden, it was a major rail transport and communication centre, housing 110 factories (including poison gas, anti-aircraft, and field gun factories) and 50,000 workers in support of the German war effort. That made it a strategic target. And once again you conveniently leave out how the NAZIS and their Axis allies were the aggressors in the war. The civilian deaths are the faults of their governments, plain and simple. If violence should have been left out of the equation, please enlighten us as to how the Nazis should have been dealt with. Also, please note that using the bombing of Dresden to try and create a moral equivalency between the Allies and Axis powers is a tactic used by Holocaust deniers and pro-Nazi individuals like David Irving....you might not want to link yourself to that.

Living near DC I agree with that overall, but I also don't blame people for being apprehensive.

The concern is of how those who attend the rally will scatter later. I've heard people worried about taking the metro or encountering them while walking. Plenty of Otakon attendees are people that could be targeted by rally attendees (POC's, LGBT, etc).

Apply that logic to WWII and see how flimsy it is.

Yeah, just people waving nazi flags and sporting swastikas. Nothing nazi-like about them at all

"Peaceful" and "nazis" don't belong in the same sentence.