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Unfortunately for them, their own plans are about to lead them to cultural ruin. Bush's plan to provide High Speed internet to the nation should be read as what to him would seem akin to the Rural Electrification Project. Where the idea was, lets get power to the people out in the farms so they will be more competive and produce more. That sort of backfired. They got used to the power and started wanting more. More TVs, DVD, Fancy cars and the lowly Banana.

The upshot was that the young started to abandon the farms in droves. As they did the cheap labor of the farm children was replaced by cheap labor from immigrants. The old cycle was that the Farm would be inherited by the children of the farmer and next generation would take over. As the found new jobs as computer programmers and got MBAs they let their parents sell of the old family farm to large agro businesses. Large Farms got larger and Cities got bigger.

Wiring the rest of the county will give reason for companies to relocate to cheaper parts of the US and bring good jobs to town who's main income was the local speed trap. If your a Conservative Rural Republican in a Red State, visions of selling farmland to city slickers for housing and commercial parks must seem like heaven. Voting for Bush was voting your pocketbook.

Now here comes the other side of the coin. Unlike mining towns of the 19th and early 20th Century you really can't lock people in. Your neigbors will undercut your housing deals because they all got buckets of land and nobody to grow whatever.

City Slicker Programmers and the upper skilled workforce are not Conservative Rural Republicans, There those damn Blue State Liberals. They eat fish RAW!!!!, A lot of them aren't even from the USA, most dress like they were extras in that confusing movie The Matrix. As Techs and Tech businesses move to the boondocks they will turn the red states blue.

Right now the current FUD is that Liberals don't respect people with Faith. The fact is that the rural people can't afford to break the back of the liberal technology complex. Ever wondered why Strict harsh and very communist China hasn't stompped all over Hong Kong? China needs Hong Kong more then Hong Kong needs China.

The Ghost in the Shell TV Series: Stand Alone Complex which was a wonderful watch for many reasons. You can find more information about it here Also, there is a sequal series to Stand Alone Complex out in fansub groups that is worth looking into. At the very least, worth keeping your eyes open for.

Yes... Yes they do. But the ending and the wrap up are just too incredible to just blurt on on some discussion board (even on /.).
As not to flame-bait, I'll just say that you have seen them before (and I'm not talking that 2 min. video clip where the laughing man pulls out a gun during the news cast. The beauty of the ending is how it encompasses all of the side story lines that I though where just there to be entertaining or were just too damn slow as compaired to the rest of the episodes.
Oh... and if you didn't know, the dead-mute line was taken from "Catcher in the Rye" but slightly changed, and of course Togusa is the only one to notice. Wonder if in any past episodes there were any deaf-mutes worth mentioning? ^_^

Hit here for the Catcher in the Rye stuff: [destroy-all-monsters.com]

and you might like this, A Laughing Man logo screensaver: [bandaivisual.co.jp]


That and the starchild logo was ill...

Anyhow, tetrodotoxin fascinated me then, and it does now. Maybe someday I'll be in Japan and actually get to try Fugu and have a first hand experience with a light consumption of tetrodotoxin.

Then GITS:Stand Alone Complex is the one for you! 26 episodes in the current run, and was renewed for another 26. Fansubs currently only exist up to 22 because the title was licensed for translation and distribution recently. No idea what the timeline is for release, though.

Episde Guide

Will the Invading aliens from another dimension drink Sprite?

No, but they'll drink 7-Up and eat Reese's Pieces, or whatever.

The Matrix is to movies what wolf3d or doom have been to games. It has set a trend, a particular style of filming which lots of movies seem to be aping

Good example, but not the right point.

It's one thing to criticize something that has already been done and say that it is such a horrible thing that it should not exist. I'm all for that. We all exercise this right when we decide to watch a particular tv show or repeatedly visit a given restaurant. If the food at a restaurant makes you sick, I'm not advocating that you support their effort because 'at least they tried to mix fugu with spinach.. what an interesting concept!'.

I'm saying that if someone has an idea for something, they should never let their fear of failure put the kaibosh on executing on that idea. Sure, they should examine their idea for flaws, etc. but fear of failure is not only an awful reason not to do something, but it's also the reason why many people never do anything.

These people who made this star trek show have something that they can be proud of for the rest of their lives. For that, I salute them.