www.gotfuturama.com should answer your questions, although it seems to be down temporarily... but they have breakdowns of all the box sets, episodes, release dates, broadcast dates etc.
You can also try TV Tome, which is pretty handy for that kind of stuff.
This will be my last post as I don't like to waste time arguing with people who clearly have no idea what they are talking about. I would just like to point out that 'socialism', like 'capitalism' is an economic system. Authoritarianism is at the other end of the scale to libertarianism, not socialism.
It is possible to be 'left wing' and dislike big government, just as a lot of 'right wing' politicians in the US tend to be high taxing and pro big government even though, by your reasoning, they should presumably prefer small government and maximum freedom from government interference for the individual.
Doesn't work for me... I have an original Toshiba DVD player, excellent quality but also one of the most conforming machines around. I can't even fast foward through the crap, I just get a little 'command not allowed' symbol.
I'm actually in Australia, but I got the UK versions from amazon.co.uk. Fox was too lazy to properly zone them, so they work here (zone 4 - Australia, New Zealand and South America).
If I waited for the Australian releases I would still have a few months to go for Season 4... I don't understand why Fox is so slow in the US, though.
Wow, that's strange. I do have those episodes - 'A Big Piece of Garbage' is in Season 1, and 'The Day the Earth Stood Stupid' is in Season 3, so I guess you should have one but not the other.
Could they also remove the friggin' un-skippable sections on DVDs? I have all 4 seasons of Futurama, for example, and at the start I am forced to sit through at least 60 seconds of copyright warnings for about 6 different countries followed by the 20th Century Fox animated logo. Ironically enough, because Fox decided not to do a different release for every region, the compulsory crap is twice as long because there is a warning for half of Europe, the UK and Australia and New Zealand.
It's a big step back for usability when the user can no longer control (i.e. use) the product the way they prefer to. With VHS we could skip trailers, copyright notices and assorted other bullshit - with DVDs they ram it down our throats. I mean, is there *anyone* of the millions of DVD owners who *actually* reads the copyright warnings *every single time* they come on? Are we too stupid to be allowed to skip the warnings if we choose, even though we've seen them a hundred times before? Surely it's enough that we can read the warnings if we want to, and that it is clear that we can do so.
The decisions made in the development of the DVD format smack of a cartel, not a collaboration between rivals.
"Like the war in Bosnia? Maybe Clinton was a closet conservative."
Actually, by world standards both of your parties are fairly right wing, especially when it comes to militarism and state power. Just because Bill C. thought gays were ok and black people should have some rights doesn't mean he was liberal all over.
Thanks to his lead we have the centre-right Blair government in the UK and similar moves by centre-'left' parties in other democracies around the place.
"He gave Saddam plenty of chances to behave reasonably and comply with the cease fire agreements."
Why was it up to Bush to make this decision? The UN virtually told him *not* to attack Iraq by refusing to authorise it. We (being the other 5.75 billion) didn't ask you to run the world. There is very little logic in saying 'we gave him a chance' - who says the chance was yours to give? Not the UN. If the UN wants to authorise force, it will do so directly.
"the Saddam regime was terrorist, just like the 9/11 attackers were"
Keep going. Soon the word 'terrorist' will be completely meaningless. You are wrong, of course, in the sense that terrorism refers to violence used by a minority to exert political pressure against an established government or majority. State tyranny is typically better described as 'authoritarian', 'totalitarian', 'Republican' etc. (NB: JOKE). By calling Saddam a 'terrorist' in the same way that the 9/11 guys were terrorists you confuse the issue and allow yourself to unconsciously tie together two completely unrelated phenomena. George Orwell would be proud.
The closest link between Al Qaeda and Saddam is that the US funded and actively aided both of them.
Fox News advertises Bush and Cheney every chance they get. During the war, when everyone else was being somewhat sombre, perhaps even recognising that people were actually *dying*, Fox had the bad taste to have lots of cool backgrounds showing mighty US military vehicles zooming out of huge fireball explosions.
Ah yes, the old 'affirmative action is punishing men and white people' argument, AKA the "I didn't have any slaves personally and I have never oppressed women myself so don't expect me to make any concessions" philosophy.
Look, can you really call it 'treating people as equal' if you oppress a group for several centuries until your group has almost all the wealth and power, then suddenly one day stop the oppression and announce that everyone is equal? Do the formerly oppressed people go home that night to a big house and a nice shiny car that has suddenly been conjured into existence because 'equality' has swept away centuries of socio-economic discrimination?
If you really want to say people should be treated as equals, you should put your money where your mouth is. When there have been several generations in which propotionally as many non-whites and women have had access to the same educational opportunities, financial and employment security, and positions of power and influence as white men enjoy today, then sure, let's treat everyone equally. But what you are referring to is simply a legal/moral right against discrimination on the basis of race - not the elimination of the entrenched inequalities that flow from hundreds of years of oppression.
An example - why is congress made up of large hordes of sweaty fat white men, a few women, and a few members of minorities? Women and minorities both have the same right to run for office as everyone else. Therefore, there is some factor connected to their status as women or minority group members that prevents them from being as successful as white males. I think this basically requires one of the following conclusions. Either:
- women and minorities are inherently less able to perform the tasks required of a congressman (e.g. selling out to special interest groups, sitting in a chair doing nothing)
or
- there is some form of entrenched social, political or economic inequality that prevents women and minorities from realistically accessing the same opportunities as white men.
My money's on the latter, and I'm a white male to boot.
I'm suspect you, like many engineering/science/maths people, would probably fail a subject about renaissance art or English literature (the type that comes from England) or modern history. At the very least your dismissive and superior attitude would inhibit your ability to actually understand the very real subtleties and complexities of such subjects.
The attitude of people with technical degrees towards the humanities is staggering. The idea that universities are nothing but glorified technical colleges is pathetic. Personally I think some elements of an Arts/Social Sciences degree should be compulsory in every technical degree to help ensure that we don't end up like the Borg.
Incidentally I have degrees in both technical and non-technical fields, before the fl@ming starts.
(a) I do have a law degree (b) I don't come from America (c) I suggest you get a property law textbook and look up some definitions before you come here and blow your golden spunk all over us ignorant masses
I was referring to the common law concept of theft. As I'm sure you know from your law degree with honours in jerkology, even the mighty American legal system flows from the British common law in parts.
I'm so fucking tired of jackasses who think they can make a conclusive judgement about another person's intellect, reasons for holding an opinion, personality and motives based on a couple of lines of text in a remark on a website.
Are you suggesting then that it is illegal to, for example, record a CD that you have purchased onto a Minidisc for personal use? Or to rip it to MP3 for personal use?
I am familiar with Australian (C) law, but not all of its intricacies.
I also feel it is worth pointing out that IP rights are violated millions of times a day without anyone batting an eyelid. Part of the balance between the rights of the owners of copyright material and the public good comes from the utter unenforceability of much of copyright law. When cases like this come around, that balance is pushed waaay off line.
In addition, from a criminological point of view, when enough people break a law there is a tendency for the law, not the people, to be changed. I feel that ARIA/RIAA are just bringing this type of change closer with their constant, pathetic legal assault on ordinary people. They should be focusing on delivering a better, profitable digital music system (e.g. not screwing Apple so badly on iTunes) rather than this type of crap.
Actually, the legal definition of a 'thief' and 'stealing' requires 'the taking of property with intention to permenantly deprive its owner of the its use', not 'keeping it.' You are still a thief if you steal something and sell it (i.e. not keeping it). You are NOT a thief if you COPY something as you have not deprived the owner of the use of it by taking it.
So basically your argument is that you want to be rich at any cost to the environment, and you can't understand any connection between your wealth and others poverty, or your wealth and others environmental concerns?
This attitude wouldn't worry me so much if we could just build a big bubble over the USA and let you wallow in your own crapulence until you asphyxiate, but unfortunately this is not currently the situation.
You have, what, 1/24th the world population and you use 25% the world's energy. And all those goods are not flowing to other countries, either, they are mostly going to be used by you at home. I don't really give a damn about your personal comfort, it's still inequitable.
Not slaughter them, just raise the cost of beef to reflect the damage they cause, thereby reducing demand and eventually reducing the number of cows.
The reason developing nations have looser targets in Kyoto is because we in the west have already been through our industrialisation phases where we move from agricultural societies to mass production societies. Asking the developing world to stop in their tracks would basically mean we have taken a hugely disproportionate share of the world's wealth and then we expect others not to develop to try to take their share.
Yep, I pretty much agree with (parts of) your analysis.
I think the US is somewhere in between, though - some people with vast economic power don't seem to take all that much interest in the political world, they are more concerned with smiting business rivals. I think Gates actually falls into this category - he is interested in politics insofar as it affects his business.
More directly, however, you only need look at the way campaigns are run now to see how much influence money has. Who has more of a say? The ordinary guy who sends $20 to Howard Dean, or the huge company donating hundreds of thousands to Bush (or other candidates, not meaning to make it Dem v GOP)? Anyone who says 'every vote is equal' is missing the point that the votes don't really matter in that sense.
I too look to the decline of 'old media' as a good thing for Democracy. I hope that the rise of the Internet and other forms of distributed communications will lead to a generational change in the political system of the kind that happens from time to time - where older parties sink out of the mainstream or morph into something new and more relevant.
To say that free software is a 'loaded gun' at this stage is perhaps a tad optimistic, IMHO. Perhaps it's an application for a licence for a loaded gun, and we're in the middle of the three day waiting period and background check:)
I couldn't agree more - any economic model that included environmental costs of some kind would be an amazing leap forward and represent a huge (and needed) change in our attitude to the planet. This is why I personally think carbon credits and similar schemes are a good start, even though they certainly have drawbacks.
The real tragedy in my opinion is that we have the power to undergo what would basically be a second industrial revolution and move to a technological era where large scale pollution is basically unneccessary.
Example: recently a major manufacturer of biscuits has moved to a new type of packaging that is completely biodegradable in a very short amount of time when exposed to water. This replaces plastic which basically doesn't biodegrade ever. If we applied this type of technology to all food and goods packaging we could almost totally eliminate waste management problems - we could even use packaging as fertilizer.
I strongly favour economic/market based solutions as I think it is the only realistic option. However, all markets operate in a legislative framework, and this framework needs to create a value for environmentally sound practices.
People (especially young people) like to have a cause they can feel passionately about, one they feel all but defines their lives.
This attitude is demeaning to the young. There is some evidence to suggest that your intelligence and learning ability peaks early in life and then drops off gradually as you get older. Yet the young are condemned or ignored if they dare to be idealistic.
You do know that most of the methods we have for fighting cancer is almost as bad as the disease itself, right?
So what, you should just die? Anyway, that's why I said 'get it checked out.' In any case, now that I think about it it is quite appropriate - there may be some pain involved (i.e. economic adjustment) but long term at least you are more likely to survive.
Find it yourself, I'm not a research assistant. Off the top of my head, the US still leads by miles on per capita and total greenhouse pollution production.
It's not a religious issue, I just think it is worth considering that the US did attend the Kyoto talks and negotiate the agreement along with anyone else. It was significantly later that they withdrew support.
Quite a few countries are actually taking Kyoto quite seriously. If the Russians had not made the unfortunate decision to hold off on ratification, quite a few would now be subject to an international agreement with enforcement mechanisms for the protocol.
Well, I think it is perfectly natural that the rest of the world is afraid of US domination. Imagine if the Russians had won the Cold War and America was a smoking shell of an economy - how would you feel about Soviet domination of all foreign policy issues? How frightening would it be to see a huge foreign nation militarily intervening wherever and whenever it pleased with no chance for anyone to stop or defeat it?
Of course Europeans see checking US power as crucial.
I do not believe the US government gave a damn about Saddam being a brutal dictator. The US supported him in various ways, including militarily, for many years before 1991. If you are dismayed by mistrust, you should consider why America has lost the trust of its non-core allies (i.e. everyone but the UK and Australia). There is a long history of US support for exactly the type of regime Hussein ran in Iraq.
I find it unbelievable that you never heard the US described as a superpower. In many international law academic circles the US is often called a 'hyperpower' now to reflect its total military dominance.
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2003/11/02/pol it ics/campaigns/20031102_ECON_GRAPH.html
Ok, now for your claims.
1. "the economy is heading back up" - One quarter of growth does not a recovery make. You still have unemployment problems and the biggest deficit ever.
2. Don't feed me that bullshit that the economy is bad now because of Clinton, and before that it was good because of Bush Snr. Whatever else you can say about Clinton, he did oversee a remarkable period of strength in the US for almost his entire term in office. Since Bush has taken over, things have gone south and stayed there, probably because of September 11 but also probably because of his fiscal policy, which has been mixed at best.
3. IRAQ DID NOT SUPPORT AL QAEDA. There is NO EVIDENCE OF THIS WHATSOEVER. There were some brief communications ages ago between them and nothing concrete ever came of it. Even Bush has retracted his insinuations that this is the case. I cannot believe there are Americans intelligent enough to type on a computer who actually believe this Grade-A BULLSHIT. THERE WAS NO CONNECTION BETWEEN IRAQ AND SEPTEMBER 11. Bush and his handlers invented it.
4. "Israel is only trying to survive on a stretch of land that is by all rights theirs." Another myth. Yes, Israel has a right to survive. However, Israel is currently occupying a stretch of territory that IS NOT part of Israel and was captured in their war with their neighbours. They freely acknowledge that it is not part of Israel proper. This land is the major cause of conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians at present.
Slashdot Mirror
www.gotfuturama.com should answer your questions, although it seems to be down temporarily... but they have breakdowns of all the box sets, episodes, release dates, broadcast dates etc.
You can also try TV Tome, which is pretty handy for that kind of stuff.
'"Socialism" is a better term.'
This will be my last post as I don't like to waste time arguing with people who clearly have no idea what they are talking about. I would just like to point out that 'socialism', like 'capitalism' is an economic system. Authoritarianism is at the other end of the scale to libertarianism, not socialism.
It is possible to be 'left wing' and dislike big government, just as a lot of 'right wing' politicians in the US tend to be high taxing and pro big government even though, by your reasoning, they should presumably prefer small government and maximum freedom from government interference for the individual.
Well, that's it. Bye.
Doesn't work for me... I have an original Toshiba DVD player, excellent quality but also one of the most conforming machines around. I can't even fast foward through the crap, I just get a little 'command not allowed' symbol.
I'm actually in Australia, but I got the UK versions from amazon.co.uk. Fox was too lazy to properly zone them, so they work here (zone 4 - Australia, New Zealand and South America).
If I waited for the Australian releases I would still have a few months to go for Season 4... I don't understand why Fox is so slow in the US, though.
As for the Simpsons...WTF???
Wow, that's strange. I do have those episodes - 'A Big Piece of Garbage' is in Season 1, and 'The Day the Earth Stood Stupid' is in Season 3, so I guess you should have one but not the other.
Could they also remove the friggin' un-skippable sections on DVDs? I have all 4 seasons of Futurama, for example, and at the start I am forced to sit through at least 60 seconds of copyright warnings for about 6 different countries followed by the 20th Century Fox animated logo. Ironically enough, because Fox decided not to do a different release for every region, the compulsory crap is twice as long because there is a warning for half of Europe, the UK and Australia and New Zealand.
It's a big step back for usability when the user can no longer control (i.e. use) the product the way they prefer to. With VHS we could skip trailers, copyright notices and assorted other bullshit - with DVDs they ram it down our throats. I mean, is there *anyone* of the millions of DVD owners who *actually* reads the copyright warnings *every single time* they come on? Are we too stupid to be allowed to skip the warnings if we choose, even though we've seen them a hundred times before? Surely it's enough that we can read the warnings if we want to, and that it is clear that we can do so.
The decisions made in the development of the DVD format smack of a cartel, not a collaboration between rivals.
"Like the war in Bosnia? Maybe Clinton was a closet conservative."
Actually, by world standards both of your parties are fairly right wing, especially when it comes to militarism and state power. Just because Bill C. thought gays were ok and black people should have some rights doesn't mean he was liberal all over.
Thanks to his lead we have the centre-right Blair government in the UK and similar moves by centre-'left' parties in other democracies around the place.
"He gave Saddam plenty of chances to behave reasonably and comply with the cease fire agreements."
Why was it up to Bush to make this decision? The UN virtually told him *not* to attack Iraq by refusing to authorise it. We (being the other 5.75 billion) didn't ask you to run the world. There is very little logic in saying 'we gave him a chance' - who says the chance was yours to give? Not the UN. If the UN wants to authorise force, it will do so directly.
"the Saddam regime was terrorist, just like the 9/11 attackers were"
Keep going. Soon the word 'terrorist' will be completely meaningless. You are wrong, of course, in the sense that terrorism refers to violence used by a minority to exert political pressure against an established government or majority. State tyranny is typically better described as 'authoritarian', 'totalitarian', 'Republican' etc. (NB: JOKE). By calling Saddam a 'terrorist' in the same way that the 9/11 guys were terrorists you confuse the issue and allow yourself to unconsciously tie together two completely unrelated phenomena. George Orwell would be proud.
The closest link between Al Qaeda and Saddam is that the US funded and actively aided both of them.
Fox News advertises Bush and Cheney every chance they get. During the war, when everyone else was being somewhat sombre, perhaps even recognising that people were actually *dying*, Fox had the bad taste to have lots of cool backgrounds showing mighty US military vehicles zooming out of huge fireball explosions.
Ah yes, the old 'affirmative action is punishing men and white people' argument, AKA the "I didn't have any slaves personally and I have never oppressed women myself so don't expect me to make any concessions" philosophy.
Look, can you really call it 'treating people as equal' if you oppress a group for several centuries until your group has almost all the wealth and power, then suddenly one day stop the oppression and announce that everyone is equal? Do the formerly oppressed people go home that night to a big house and a nice shiny car that has suddenly been conjured into existence because 'equality' has swept away centuries of socio-economic discrimination?
If you really want to say people should be treated as equals, you should put your money where your mouth is. When there have been several generations in which propotionally as many non-whites and women have had access to the same educational opportunities, financial and employment security, and positions of power and influence as white men enjoy today, then sure, let's treat everyone equally. But what you are referring to is simply a legal/moral right against discrimination on the basis of race - not the elimination of the entrenched inequalities that flow from hundreds of years of oppression.
An example - why is congress made up of large hordes of sweaty fat white men, a few women, and a few members of minorities? Women and minorities both have the same right to run for office as everyone else. Therefore, there is some factor connected to their status as women or minority group members that prevents them from being as successful as white males. I think this basically requires one of the following conclusions. Either:
- women and minorities are inherently less able to perform the tasks required of a congressman (e.g. selling out to special interest groups, sitting in a chair doing nothing)
or
- there is some form of entrenched social, political or economic inequality that prevents women and minorities from realistically accessing the same opportunities as white men.
My money's on the latter, and I'm a white male to boot.
"the coloring books their mid-terms are based on"
I'm suspect you, like many engineering/science/maths people, would probably fail a subject about renaissance art or English literature (the type that comes from England) or modern history. At the very least your dismissive and superior attitude would inhibit your ability to actually understand the very real subtleties and complexities of such subjects.
The attitude of people with technical degrees towards the humanities is staggering. The idea that universities are nothing but glorified technical colleges is pathetic. Personally I think some elements of an Arts/Social Sciences degree should be compulsory in every technical degree to help ensure that we don't end up like the Borg.
Incidentally I have degrees in both technical and non-technical fields, before the fl@ming starts.
Dear jerk,
(a) I do have a law degree
(b) I don't come from America
(c) I suggest you get a property law textbook and look up some definitions before you come here and blow your golden spunk all over us ignorant masses
I was referring to the common law concept of theft. As I'm sure you know from your law degree with honours in jerkology, even the mighty American legal system flows from the British common law in parts.
I'm so fucking tired of jackasses who think they can make a conclusive judgement about another person's intellect, reasons for holding an opinion, personality and motives based on a couple of lines of text in a remark on a website.
Well, I guess that just strengthens the argument that when enough people routinely break a law, the law is liable to become irrelevant.
Are you suggesting then that it is illegal to, for example, record a CD that you have purchased onto a Minidisc for personal use? Or to rip it to MP3 for personal use?
I am familiar with Australian (C) law, but not all of its intricacies.
I also feel it is worth pointing out that IP rights are violated millions of times a day without anyone batting an eyelid. Part of the balance between the rights of the owners of copyright material and the public good comes from the utter unenforceability of much of copyright law. When cases like this come around, that balance is pushed waaay off line.
In addition, from a criminological point of view, when enough people break a law there is a tendency for the law, not the people, to be changed. I feel that ARIA/RIAA are just bringing this type of change closer with their constant, pathetic legal assault on ordinary people. They should be focusing on delivering a better, profitable digital music system (e.g. not screwing Apple so badly on iTunes) rather than this type of crap.
Actually, the legal definition of a 'thief' and 'stealing' requires 'the taking of property with intention to permenantly deprive its owner of the its use', not 'keeping it.' You are still a thief if you steal something and sell it (i.e. not keeping it). You are NOT a thief if you COPY something as you have not deprived the owner of the use of it by taking it.
So basically your argument is that you want to be rich at any cost to the environment, and you can't understand any connection between your wealth and others poverty, or your wealth and others environmental concerns?
This attitude wouldn't worry me so much if we could just build a big bubble over the USA and let you wallow in your own crapulence until you asphyxiate, but unfortunately this is not currently the situation.
You have, what, 1/24th the world population and you use 25% the world's energy. And all those goods are not flowing to other countries, either, they are mostly going to be used by you at home. I don't really give a damn about your personal comfort, it's still inequitable.
Not slaughter them, just raise the cost of beef to reflect the damage they cause, thereby reducing demand and eventually reducing the number of cows.
The reason developing nations have looser targets in Kyoto is because we in the west have already been through our industrialisation phases where we move from agricultural societies to mass production societies. Asking the developing world to stop in their tracks would basically mean we have taken a hugely disproportionate share of the world's wealth and then we expect others not to develop to try to take their share.
Yep, I pretty much agree with (parts of) your analysis.
:)
I think the US is somewhere in between, though - some people with vast economic power don't seem to take all that much interest in the political world, they are more concerned with smiting business rivals. I think Gates actually falls into this category - he is interested in politics insofar as it affects his business.
More directly, however, you only need look at the way campaigns are run now to see how much influence money has. Who has more of a say? The ordinary guy who sends $20 to Howard Dean, or the huge company donating hundreds of thousands to Bush (or other candidates, not meaning to make it Dem v GOP)? Anyone who says 'every vote is equal' is missing the point that the votes don't really matter in that sense.
I too look to the decline of 'old media' as a good thing for Democracy. I hope that the rise of the Internet and other forms of distributed communications will lead to a generational change in the political system of the kind that happens from time to time - where older parties sink out of the mainstream or morph into something new and more relevant.
To say that free software is a 'loaded gun' at this stage is perhaps a tad optimistic, IMHO. Perhaps it's an application for a licence for a loaded gun, and we're in the middle of the three day waiting period and background check
I couldn't agree more - any economic model that included environmental costs of some kind would be an amazing leap forward and represent a huge (and needed) change in our attitude to the planet. This is why I personally think carbon credits and similar schemes are a good start, even though they certainly have drawbacks.
The real tragedy in my opinion is that we have the power to undergo what would basically be a second industrial revolution and move to a technological era where large scale pollution is basically unneccessary.
Example: recently a major manufacturer of biscuits has moved to a new type of packaging that is completely biodegradable in a very short amount of time when exposed to water. This replaces plastic which basically doesn't biodegrade ever. If we applied this type of technology to all food and goods packaging we could almost totally eliminate waste management problems - we could even use packaging as fertilizer.
I strongly favour economic/market based solutions as I think it is the only realistic option. However, all markets operate in a legislative framework, and this framework needs to create a value for environmentally sound practices.
People (especially young people) like to have a cause they can feel passionately about, one they feel all but defines their lives.
This attitude is demeaning to the young. There is some evidence to suggest that your intelligence and learning ability peaks early in life and then drops off gradually as you get older. Yet the young are condemned or ignored if they dare to be idealistic.
You do know that most of the methods we have for fighting cancer is almost as bad as the disease itself, right?
So what, you should just die? Anyway, that's why I said 'get it checked out.' In any case, now that I think about it it is quite appropriate - there may be some pain involved (i.e. economic adjustment) but long term at least you are more likely to survive.
www.google.com
Find it yourself, I'm not a research assistant. Off the top of my head, the US still leads by miles on per capita and total greenhouse pollution production.
It's not a religious issue, I just think it is worth considering that the US did attend the Kyoto talks and negotiate the agreement along with anyone else. It was significantly later that they withdrew support.
Quite a few countries are actually taking Kyoto quite seriously. If the Russians had not made the unfortunate decision to hold off on ratification, quite a few would now be subject to an international agreement with enforcement mechanisms for the protocol.
Well, I think it is perfectly natural that the rest of the world is afraid of US domination. Imagine if the Russians had won the Cold War and America was a smoking shell of an economy - how would you feel about Soviet domination of all foreign policy issues? How frightening would it be to see a huge foreign nation militarily intervening wherever and whenever it pleased with no chance for anyone to stop or defeat it?
Of course Europeans see checking US power as crucial.
I do not believe the US government gave a damn about Saddam being a brutal dictator. The US supported him in various ways, including militarily, for many years before 1991. If you are dismayed by mistrust, you should consider why America has lost the trust of its non-core allies (i.e. everyone but the UK and Australia). There is a long history of US support for exactly the type of regime Hussein ran in Iraq.
I find it unbelievable that you never heard the US described as a superpower. In many international law academic circles the US is often called a 'hyperpower' now to reflect its total military dominance.
A little graph for you:
l it ics/campaigns/20031102_ECON_GRAPH.html
http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2003/11/02/po
Ok, now for your claims.
1. "the economy is heading back up" - One quarter of growth does not a recovery make. You still have unemployment problems and the biggest deficit ever.
2. Don't feed me that bullshit that the economy is bad now because of Clinton, and before that it was good because of Bush Snr. Whatever else you can say about Clinton, he did oversee a remarkable period of strength in the US for almost his entire term in office. Since Bush has taken over, things have gone south and stayed there, probably because of September 11 but also probably because of his fiscal policy, which has been mixed at best.
3. IRAQ DID NOT SUPPORT AL QAEDA. There is NO EVIDENCE OF THIS WHATSOEVER. There were some brief communications ages ago between them and nothing concrete ever came of it. Even Bush has retracted his insinuations that this is the case. I cannot believe there are Americans intelligent enough to type on a computer who actually believe this Grade-A BULLSHIT. THERE WAS NO CONNECTION BETWEEN IRAQ AND SEPTEMBER 11. Bush and his handlers invented it.
4. "Israel is only trying to survive on a stretch of land that is by all rights theirs." Another myth. Yes, Israel has a right to survive. However, Israel is currently occupying a stretch of territory that IS NOT part of Israel and was captured in their war with their neighbours. They freely acknowledge that it is not part of Israel proper. This land is the major cause of conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians at present.
Hint: White Americans *are* Europeans if you want to look at it that way.