I actually LIKE Greedo shooting first in Episode IV. It's more consistent with Han's character through the rest of the classic trilogy.
What I have never forgiven Lucas for is editing Sebastian Shaw out of the final scene of Return of the Jedi. Having Hayden Christiansen show up destroys the ENTIRE arc of Anakin not being completely destroyed. I really think this is a far, far more serious change than Han/Greedo shooting first. But I guess it's just me.
No-one outside the USA thinks of the Republicans and the Democrats as anything but "right wing", often to the right of the most right-leaning mainstream parties in European countries.
The fact that Americans think otherwise says more about the homogeneity of beliefs in free-thinking[tm] America than it does about anything else.
Even lumping Canada in with the USA and Israel and Russia into Europe, there are still 4.5 whole continents with populations, and one continent-wide research station that are neither European nor American. And there are some pretty repressive regimes in Africa and Asia that are to the right of mainstream American politics. I think someone's horizons need broadening...
Actually, Hans Blix (the chief UN weapons Inspector at the time) said several times in 2002 that Saddam was not cooperating with UN Resolutions which called for military enforcement. He also somehow thought the sanctions were working; when he himself kept stating they were failing. It is not W.'s fault Saddam was more concerned about Iran knowing he didn't have WMDs than convincing the USA he didn't have any. And England and France saw the same Intel the US did, and came to the same conclusions. Only Germany had real reservations about the intelligence.
The real lesson of March 2003 is that the UN is a joke that outlived its usefulness. Either Saddam defies the UN with impunity; or the USA defies the UN to enforce the UN;s own policies. Either way, there's nothing the UN can do.
And hey look, Iran is doing the same damn thing right now!
There are a tremendous number of people who have grown up in an age where it is so easy to copy information, and where it is so easy to self-publish so you *think* you're creative, and the idea that it's not FRAUD to benefit from someone else's hard work just because their work is easily copyable in a computer...it boggles my mind.
FTFY. It's. Not. Stealing. There was no physical product that was removed from merchantability. There is, however, now an unauthorized copy floating around. Unless it was a fair-use, backup, or alternate-format copy; in which case it was authorized. Now, if only the record companies and the movie studios paid those hard working creative types, I could actually feel for whatever the legitimate losses actually are. But as long as they insist on spending far more time and effort antagonizing their customers by completely ignoring any concept of consumer rights and grossly mis-characterizing the nature of the acts they are addressing there's no hope of resolving the underlying issues satisfactorily to society,
//GO.SYSIN DD *, DOODAH, DOODAH
