Paranoia Agent

I was watching Adult Swim last night, and there was this very interesting anime called Paranoia Agent on. I was web-surfing so I might have missed parts.

Basic gist (for the one episode I saw):
Four women meet outside an apartment building, three of them are middle-aged, and seem to be rather close friends. The fourth was hanging on, trying to fit in. They were exchanging stories about the source of this guy who's been going around clubbing people with a baseball bat.

[story 1]
A mother is living with/visiting her son and his wife. The son is at work. The mother is upset with his wife for not being a traditional Japanese wife, and decides to instruct her on proper behaviour. After a little while the wife is completely fed up. She grabs a wood cooking utensil and glowers at the mother. The doorbell rings. Mother and wife both run to the door screaming 'Toshi' for their son/husband. Door opens, and its Li'l Slugger, on roller skates and brandishing a semi-broken baseball bat.

[story 2]
Its a baseball game. The pitcher is not doing well, late in the game. He goes to pitch, and there at the plate is Li'l Slugger.

At this point the fourth woman claims that that couldn't have happened because everyone would have known about it. The three women friends close ranks and all agree that they know the story because they were at the game.

[story 3 - this one made the least sense to me]
A woman is pregnant. She had been about to try in-vitro, but then she got pregnant. The assistants in the doctors office are telling the doctor that the woman was impregnated with the wrong fertilized egg (didn't get where the wrong egg came from). The doctor tells the assistants that they are not going to reveal to the woman that the embryo is not hers. The woman goes home happy. A few months later she's back complaining about severe pain from the pregnancy. The doctor is in a visible sweat, saying that everything's ok because its her baby. He pulls up the ultrasound and inside the woman is Li'l Slugger, complete with roller skates and broken baseball bat.

The three women say that the fourth woman made the story up and it wasn't a good story anyways.

The fourth woman goes home. She opens the door. Her husband is lying on the floor, bleeding profusely. She becomes excited and asks him 'how did this happen'. He responds: 'Slugger. Call an ambulance'. She asks again, 'No, tell me how he did this.' Her husband seems to fall unconscious.

[/end show]

I think there was another story in there but I cannot remember it. But I have to admit I am intrigued by this program.

Two Top Unions Split From AFL-CIO

This is something I've seen coming for a while. Unions have "lost their way", basically. From all the strikes and clammoring for unionization I saw as an undergrad to what's been going on in workplaces around the country and around the world, unions needed to change.

Unions have been made out by the Republicans and business owners as the enemy of the workers. This argument should not hold water. But it does. Why? Because some unions forced companies out of the country or out of business rather than take a benefit cut. Much of the dues paid by members was put into meager political gains. The jobs people were doing changed. We simply do not employ that many people in manufacturing anymore: they're now in service industries. [why that is bad is a topic for another day]

Unions were - and still are - a necessary balance to the power of corporations, many of which are only getting stronger. White collar workers at some point may see how unions will help them. Unions gave us the 40 hour work week - how many of us still have that? (I have varied from 40 to about 90 hour work weeks). They made so many revolutionary changes in how contracts are structured and how much better workers got treated, that at this point in time we just take all of it for granted.

Two Top Unions Split From AFL-CIO

I hope that the split unions work better to show the reasons why we have labor unions in the first place. Clammoring for pensions (which are bankrupting the country) and health care benefit increases (which are also bankrupting the country) won't cut it. They need to clammor for universal health care.

Wedding Planning

I think its a plot to guarantee that brides planning an event have no time to be with friends, follow what's going on in the world, and thus keep them in a state of subservience to the guy since he actually had time to keep on top of things in the world.

We got the tuxes today. It took ~30 minutes. All the tuxes for everyone, excluding the one measurement that needs to be done. That covers shoes, vests, tux, cufflinks, ties. Meanwhile, I went on my 3rd fitting for the dress (out of 6 I think). I still haven't heard back from two of my bridesmaids as to whether they received the fabric swatch. I had to leave work early twice this week to go sample cakes. Admittedly, not a bad thing to do, but, I had to take vacation time.

According to the Knot, I'm way behind schedule. I think I'm going to be cutting some things close, but otherwise I'm OK.

I need to schedule the photographer for the engagement photos. Argue with the florist over flower arrangements. Decide on the exact food setup. Finalize all the invitations - I think we have the final wording, but I need to make sure we have all of the addresses. I think that's tomorrow's job.

For all this stress and 30 grand, you too can have a big wedding in NoVA.

London Attacked

So, one of the terrorist organizations has hit London. A different one hit Madrid not that long ago. There have been lots of terrorist attacks in Israel, India, Malaysia.

Are we winning the war on terror? Can we "win" the war on terror?

The answer is a resounding no.

Terror will always be an instrument of those with nothing left to lose. You cannot defeat terror until noone has nothing left to lose. That means more than "spreading democracy", as democracy and capitalism are systems which give the *chance* to succeed, and the *right* to fail. And when you fail, you lose everything.

I still believe, as I have always believed, that going into Iraq was not the way to "fight" this war. If you want to eradicate the Islamic Fundamentalists (although why stop at Islamic... I'd like to make it all fundamentalists) you need to understand why they feel they have nothing left to lose, and then fix that. It needs to be a religious war: not of Christianity against Muslims, but of moderates of *all* religion against the fundamentalists of *all* religions.

Fundamentalist Jews, who insist on populating the West Bank, and keeping the settlements, or expanding them, are a problem.
Fundamentalist Christians, who insist on denigrating science, evolution, medicine, and as such harm the future of their countries.
Fundamentalist Muslims, who want to wage Jihad against the West for not conforming to the word of Muhammed.

I don't know of problems with fundamentalist Hindus, but I'm sure someone else can enlighten me on that.

Rove may have complained that liberals wanted to understand and offer therapy for the terrorists. Yes, we do, in a way. We want to understand why they want to cause us harm, so that we can stop that. We don't want to go out, guns blazing, and kill all in the way, which we think causes more harm than good.