Politics in Anime.

Pop culture has influence and is heavily influenced. It's the over-stated metaphore of life imitating art or art imitating life. The chicken or the egg. “The Matrix” film series that started in the late '90's almost owes its whole existence to William Gibson, the father of “CyberPunk”. The film was and is probably the best live-action film adoption of “CyberPunk” made. Other influences of the “Matrix” series includes the injection of religiosity (is that a word?) in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. I'll leave it to you on whether that was accomplished. The last major influence of the “Matrix” series is Masamune Shirow 's Manga “Ghost in the Shell”. Masamune Shirow is a unique bird indeed. Besides his artistic talents he likes studying arachnids, he enjoys diving into politics and right before you start asking “Where the hell are you going with all this?” that's where the title of this post comes in.

In 2002, GIS was converted into an anime series by a Japanese animation studio named “Production I.G.”. Its second season, “Ghost in the Shell S.A.C. 2^nd GIG” airs on Saturdays at 12:30 a.m. or how I like to think of it, 30 minutes after midnight. It sits comfortably within the “Adult Swim” time slots on Cartoon Network. It dives directly into the sometimes complex patterns of politics. The current multi-faceted second season seems to have gone full-throttle into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict model. The series orbits around a cyborg character named Major Motoko Kusanagi, a weapons and hacking expert in a future-Japan that tries to deal with, in this case, the complexities of a growing refugee population. It also includes their very own suicide bombers and an “American Empire” with a relatively detailed world history. There are two movies made as well. One was released recently and the first was made in the mid 90's. Both movies deal more with consciousness and its definition or at least tries to in both films.
Not easy.

Check it out if you get stood-up on a Saturday night or SNL is just another rerun. The series also includes a personal-favorite of mine: Music by Yoko Kanno.

-G.

"State of the — State of the Union — or state — speech to the nation, whatever you want to call it, speech to the nation" is this week.

...and "Open Letter to Chris Matthews" is asking us to monitor MSNBC to check if Matthews can inform ALL of America and not just his half. It would be nice if, during King Georgie IV's SOTU speech, all the Democrats had to go and get popcorn. All at once.

Is this the source of Tweety's bird cage droppings?

We are now well into the second week of holding Matthew's feet to the fire and he seems to be ignoring us. The comparison he made to anyone on the left of Genghis Khan was that they sounded just like OBL. It infuriated Americans who question the "reasons" for going to war in Iraq.

Chirp! Something has come to light!

On Jan 28th '06, Military.com came out with a story that got my tin foil hat vibratin'. The proud biased owner of NBC and MSNBC, General Electric, is staged to have $2 Billion cut. GE's F-35 or "Joint Strike Fighter" contract is coupled with Rolls Royce and both are gearing up for engine production, only to have King George shatter their plans. Oooooooooo. That might dip into the Tweety's bird seed.

Military.com writes:

"The Joint Strike Fighter engine is being built by General Electric and England-based Rolls Royce, and the plan to dump them as suppliers has triggered intense lobbying, including a handwritten note from British Prime Minister Tony Blair to Bush."

"On the homefront, the close to $2 billion cut would hit General Electric engine plants, and possibly jobs, in Ohio and Massachusetts and a Rolls Royce plant in Indiana."

Could this be the reason Tweety is using us as bird cage liner? Another source.

Reuters is reporting King Georgie IV will not honor his agreement with US Soldiers.

Reuters is reporting King Georgie IV will not honor his Majesty's agreement with US Soldiers. This is PATHETIC. How in the world will the military convince young Americans to volunteer for the U.S. armed forces? Will they pay for college? Will the military give those volunteering the money our "monarch" promised?

"As the war in Iraq drags on, the Army is accumulating a collection of problems that cumulatively could call into question the viability of an all-volunteer force," said defence analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute think tank.

"When a service has to repeatedly resort to compelling the retention of people who want to leave, you're edging away from the whole notion of volunteerism."

When soldiers enlist, they sign a contract to serve for a certain number of years, and know precisely when their service obligation ends so they can return to civilian life. But stop-loss allows the Army, mindful of having fully manned units, to keep soldiers on the verge of leaving the military.

The Science of Fascism.

After that speech and the release of data by Dr. Hansen on Dec. 15 showing that 2005 was probably the warmest year in at least a century, officials at the headquarters of the space agency repeatedly phoned public affairs officers, who relayed the warning to Dr. Hansen that there would be "dire consequences" if such statements continued, those officers and Dr. Hansen said in interviews. From the NY Times.

This is a cover from the LA Times' mag'zine "Parade".

I thought it could use a more realistic list. [Parody]