I agree, it will not be won with bullets.

But Israel is right now, in a situation where its civilian population is being bombarded with rockets.

Do you really expect Israel to not respond?
What kind of response do you think is appropriate?

Mind you, that Israel is in no position for an "experiment". And what I mean is, Israel can't just "try something out" and see if it works.. like, stop defending itself and give Hamas chocolates and flowers. Because, unlike the USA, if the experiment fails, Israel has a tiny strip of land to survive in. If we lose that, we loose everything. the USA on the other hand, has so much land, that it can risk certain small parts of it. (Of course, hell would freeze over before the US would give up any of its land - and rightly so!) If you're in Israel's shoes, you can't take big risks when EVERYTHING is on the line. And it *is* everything.

I'm not sure i'm the one sidelining the state of human rights in Iran.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

However, pinpoint a specific aspect of Iran is overlooking the bigger picture.

Carrying out extermination? Really?

And "only" 700 dead after 21 days?

35/day.

Wow, pretty incompetent extermination... doubt we can even offset natural population growth at this rate.

I can understand why you feel this way. In fact, if I wasn't Israeli or had my entire family and life invested in Israel, I would be tempted to feel the same. Fuck them, why do I care, right?. I do not have that privilege though.

However, the situation as you present it, is really not that simple.

The reason I'm commenting, is just to clarify a point that was implied in your text:

The Israel Palestinian conflict is really, not hundreds of years old. It's in fact, just about 50 years old now.

Palestinians, didn't really exist as a "people" trying to form their own country and government, before 1967. In fact, you can easily trace most of them to Egypt and Saudi-Arabia.

Jews, on the other hand, have thousands of years old connection to the land. There are historical artifacts, found all across Israel with Hebrew writings on them, and indeed most of Jewish history can be traced back to Greater Israel.

As an Israeli, I'm telling you that it's not true that we want to keep fighting. We're all tired from it. We rather spend our money on economic growth.

The sad reality, is that we have a "neighbour" that is so extreme and hell bent on our extermination, that we have no choice but to continue defending ourselves.

It's very easy to say: Hey, you must be enjoying the situation or else you'd sort it out by now.

But it's really, only true if there is a partner for peace on both sides. There isn't at the moment.

Please read the Hamas (aka the elected government of the palestinians) charter:

http://fas.org/irp/world/para/...

Selected quotes:

"The time(16) will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: 0 Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad(17), which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim)(18)."

"Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims."

My "standards" include giving equal rights to all my fellow citizens. That is the essence of democracy. You can't be "a little" democratic, or "more" democratic. It's either you're democratic or you're not.

Is that too high a standard in your opinion?

The people in Gaza are not Israeli citizens.
Israel does not control the civilian population in Gaza since it withdrew out of the Gaza strip in 2005.

Since I'm sure you'll mention the naval blockade, So for your information, the blockade was enacted in June 2007, when the Palestinians elected a terrorist organization (Hamas) to lead them, and started firing rockets in to Israel.

Btw, right after their election, Hamas eradicated PLO members from the Gaza strip (which were *relatively* moderate muslims), through a series of violent clashes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

How about homosexuals then?

Oh right, Iran hangs those.

(Please don't give Iran as an example for anything relating to democracy or human rights)

The title implies that we should abandon gas as an alternative to diesel/petrol.

This is done by falsely implying that pollution due to methane leaks are an inherit part of the drilling process.

Instead, what we should really do is improve the drilling techniques to avoid/minimize leakage.

I am not a physicist.

But I keep hearing that there is actually nothing mysterious about entanglement at all... Something along the lines of:

You post 2 envelopes containing cards in opposite directions, one with a printed letter A, the other card with the letter B.

At one destination, the envelope is opened to reveal the letter A. ... then through some mysterious quantum mechanical connection.... you know that the envelope at the remote destination contains the letter B.

And that's about all there is to entanglement....

Can any physicist confirm?

Chrome had it for 5 years now... talk about slow to catch up. Why is this even news?

huh?

do you even understand what this debate is about?

Forcing minimum wage to be 10% of the CEO's wage *by law* is completely retarded.

The trouble with unions is that they're nothing short of blackmail.

Why not just vote for communism and get it over with?

I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.

If the contract you signed specifically prohibits you from unlocking your phone, then they will be within their rights to sue you.

I'm not suggesting they should be given any additional rights (which are not specified in the contract that you agreed upon in advance).

Personally, I only get full priced unlocked phones. I then get a no-contract SIM card.
Admittedly, it's much more affordable in the UK than in the US.