I wasn't suggesting going to war with 22's-I was merely pointing-out the efficacy of an inexpensive, readily available all-purpose round that will never go out of style for small game hunting should the grocery trucks ever stop rolling....

My suggestion for preparation for the coming invasion-occupation??

To parents of newborns:Teach them Mandarin, it will serve them well as the new world unfolds-Oh, and definitely do what albrite30 suggested and purchase real estate: It's what every able-bodied, bouncing, banking Chinese national is doing with their worthless paper....China owns us, and they work on a 1000-yr-plan, unlike the United States, with our "see how this goes" 250-yr experiment.

Yeah Chomsky rips that crap apart, but as of now for the last say 38 years or so Israel and the US have been obstructing the two state solution and supporting Israels brutal occupations. So whatever leg Israel may have HAD to stand on, they don't anymore.

Go challenge your views instead of just reading statist doctrine.

Is there a sillier occupation than acting?

No.

So you assume that all cops are corrupt and incompetent based almost entirely on anecdotal evidence. That's reasonable.

Laws only have meaning when they are actually enforced. If cops were not around, there would effectively be no law and nothing to deter people from doing whatever they want, regardless of the impact their actions have on others. There are certainly bad cops out there but the majority of cops do their jobs responsibly. Like them or not, society is better with cops around.

Being rude and belligerent to someone just because they're a cop is stupid. You shouldn't be rude and belligerent to anyone just because of their occupation. It accomplishes nothing aside from stroking your ego by "standing up to the man."

"Both occupants in the helicopter managed to survive without any major injuries - literally walking away from the horrific-looking crash."

5 million bucks though...

Hahaha. Yeah, that would've made everything fine. You seriously think we're living under an occupation right now don't you? Man we are the biggest babies in the whole world, there are people fighting for their rights in places where there's real threats against their lives. They lose friends and family daily and they still fight for their rights and protest.

Americans are pathetic.

The travelling salesman trope, and it's implications, are as old as the hills. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TravelingSalesman

In that case shouldn't the narrative have been shown from the point of view of the village occupants? The closest we saw to them suffering any consequences of their actions was a distant puff of purple smoke as the Smoke Seller laughed.

If let the buyer beware was the point, then show me the buyers suffering the consequences. A massive guard dog turning into a mangy ankle-biter while defending his owner from a burgler, the boy's airplane / rocket turning back into a pointy stick and catching him in the eye, show me the old ladies at a fancy party being laughed at when their fancy bags and clothes turn back into tat, or the major becoming a laughing stock when, as he goes to unveil it to invited dignitaries, his massive monument tuns back into a walking cane (without even a jewel adorning it anymore).

'Tis sadly true, EDB, the available fare on broadcast television in the U.S. is more painful than the menu at a retirement home whose occupants have not either dentures nor much of an appetite!

Note that only one of the occupants hopped out unaided.

I never understand the argument "if x person had a gun, it would have stopped the whole thing before it started."

In this example, the lunatic had a car and the victim had a car - so they have approximately equal "weaponry". The lunatic clearly used his weapon with utter disregard for anyone's safety and without warning. I'd like to know why people think that raising the weaponry stakes would change anything. Let's rewind the whole situation and without any hindsight give both of them a gun. Now the victim would be dead because he had no idea of the danger he was in until it happened, and if a gun was involved then that would have happened and been over very fast.

I have been accosted in my car about 4 times now (i travel to uni, it's an occupational hazard) after having to brake hard from someone's poor driving (for example). In that situation i am the one who is entitled to be aggrieved, if i had a gun then of course i wouldn't use it - because i am not going to shoot someone for driving like that and rightly so because i'd go to jail.

So the mad person is always going to shoot first, and he's always going to have the initiative of knowing what's going on and what he needs to do.

Why is escalation EVER a solution? We don't say it about nuclear warheads? Surely if everyone had a nuclear warhead we'd all be a lot safer. It might seem ridiculous to say that but why do people think it's good to upgrade the madman's potential weapon from a car to a gun!?

Sample: lamentations, lamentations, lamentations worldwide

Watch out (repeated)

LB: In the beginning men and women had an obligation to their children
Lateef: Then there was a real and true necessity in need for building
LB: There was still the discipline and will proliferate the lineage
Lat: Matters of the spirit, mind, and body taken serious
LB: But the way that we became what we became
Somebody please explain
Lat: Well we could tell you if you're curious
Those that reign got the masses in chains
And their minds enslaved
Both: And that's the part that makes me furious

Watch out (repeated)

Both: Cos they're definitely aint no info readily avai'
Lable to the general A (?) people so let me know x2

Lat: It's easily this multimedia crews that feed you to the neediest
It's the greediest trying to cheat us out of our God given right
LB: To a quality education minimal opportunities available
Limited occupations we are not given a choice
Lat: Or given a voice within a political system pimped and gangsta'd out
Wherein the people are the victim sheep being lead about
LB: While the followers and the patrons of any faith outside the mainstream
Are being raided, falsely painted as endangering the way things work
Lat: And the way things are remain
LB: I can't believe that things aint worse
Lat: When all the wicked seeds we've sown have grown
LB: And poisoned all the Earth
Lat: It serves us right
LB: Can't really act surprised when the harvest has no worth
Lat: The curse that's lurking round the corner
Both: Is the product of our work

Watch out (repeated)

Right now
LB: The holy war's growing opposing forces polling of the origins
Of which have been historically been ignored
Right now
Lat: Our foreign policy is mallets of democracy
Upholding an aristocracy of secret terrorist cells
Right now
LB: The global poverty that we accept so commonly
Turns people into property one step away from hell
Right now
Lat: Healthcare battles bioengineering for the worldwide scare
Of the plague the we're fearing
Right now
LB: They got the right to put our lives under surveillance
Right now
Lat: They got the right to lock us up we don't obey them
Right now
LB: Modern education don't prepare the youth
Right now
Right now
Both: Do what you gotta do
Right now
LB: There's people shooting at people that's throwing stones
Right now
Lat: There's a movement of people across the globe
Right now
Both: Right now is where we're at
What goes around comes around
Time for action before the last trumpet sounds

I love VS for these kinds of debates, but I see some straw-man arguments going on here.

First, not every Palestinian belongs to Hamas. In fact, the majority of the population does not belong to Hamas. Similarly, very few Germans were actually members of the Nazi party. German citizens backed the Nazis because they felt they were the best hope for getting Germany's economy out of the toilet, getting Germany out of what the citizens perceived as the unfair terms of the Versailles Treaty, and protecting Germany from (Nazi manufactured) external threats. Again, similarly, Palestinians back Hamas because they see Hamas as the best hope of dealing with Israeli oppression.

For 45 years the world (read: United States) has shown little interest in stopping the Israelis--who are supplied with arms and training by the United States-- from forcibly displacing people from their homes and relocating them to what Chomsky calls "the world's largest open-air prison."

How could the Palestinian people possibly expect to defend themselves against Israel in an open and conventional conflict? The Palestinian people back terrorism because it works--it forces Israel to the negotiating table. Consistently, these Israeli "flexing our big muscles" incursions and retaliations by the military have failed completely to stop rocket attacks, suicide bombs, etc. and at some point they must always go to the negotiating table. A side benefit is that the terrorist attacks and subsequent negotiations get the world's media eye focused on the region and what Israel is doing there.

So this talk about whether Hamas are terrorists or freedom fighters is besides the point. They're terrorists to Israelis and they're freedom fighters to the Palestinians. Israel and the U.S. are just as much terrorists as Hamas if not more so. You can watch Chomsky clearly explain why on this Sift: http://videosift.com/video/noam-chomsky-is-america-a-leading-terrorist-state

Second, let's look at the casualties from this latest conflict:
Israel: 3 Israeli's dead, 60 injured from shrapnel (all adults according to latest reports)
Palestine: 100s dead, including 26 children

Yet, Israel tries to spin its military campaign as one of self-defense. The balance of power is so skewed here it's comical.

If there is any hope for peace in this region, it will only come after the U.S. not only stops actively supporting Israel but openly condemns them as well. But that can't possibly happen without the U.S. looking supremely hypocritical about the actions it takes globally (for instance in Afghanistan) in the name of the "War on Terror."

From there, as others have mentioned, you have to stop the occupation and bring both sides together on equal terms. Yes, there will still be fanatics who will fight to the end. But they won't be finding the sympathy and support of the majority of the populace if that populace is no longer oppressed and instead is living in free and safe conditions. Without that popular support, those fanatics will be much easier to deal with than they are now. It's not going to be an easy road to peace because hatred has been bred into both sides so deeply. But I do think it is possible if only the U.S. government will get its head out of its ass.

My 2 cents, anyways.

EDIT: Please don't take this post to mean that I support terrorism in any form or think that it is justified by the Israeli occupation. I am only pointing out the historical fact that terrorism gives the Palestinians pretty much their ONLY bargaining chip at the negotiating table--the Palestinian leadership (whoever is in charge at the time, though it is currently Hamas) agrees to reign in the terror attacks in exchange for humanitarian aid such as food, building supplies, etc. In other words, it "works" in achieving short-term goals but clearly doesn't help achieve lasting peace in the region--which as others have pointed out Hamas doesn't really want anyway.

The residents of Nabi Saleh and their supporters who are international activists.

It cannot be disputed that Palestinians do and have used children for political gain. Nor can it be disputed that Israelis have used excessive and lethal force against.

In this particular instance they are protesting about the expansion of the Israeli settlement of Halamish. Halamish is not a border settlement like we are led to believe most settlements are. It is 10 miles from the Israel border.

https://maps.google.com.au/maps?q=Halamish&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x151d295311c3dc3d:0xe8c9eec7d4996da0,Halamish&gl=au&ei=aJWbUISYCcTqiAf664CgDA&ved=0CIMB
ELYD

It has the constant protection, and therefore tacit approval, of the Israeli government and violates a multitude of international agreements and laws regarding occupation. Each week there are protests which are met with a military presence against an unarmed mob. These protests are monitored by Amnesty International. Unfortunately their site is down at the moment and I can't find any reliable links to this other than the BBC which says little. However you can read the following if you want to know more.

http://www.bikyamasr.com/80182/amnesty-international-declares-palestinian-activist-a-prisoner-of-conscience/

I guess the crux of my argument is this: To what extend does the use of children for political purposes compare to the often brutal and expanding occupation of a homeland? What is the right thing for these villagers to do under the circumstances?

Joris Luyendijk - They're just like people (2006)

"
In People Like Us, which became a bestseller in Holland, Joris Luyendijk tells the story of his five years as a correspondent in the Middle East. Extremely young for a correspondent but fluent in Arabic, he spoke with stone throwers and terrorists, taxi drivers and professors, victims and aggressors, and all of their families. He chronicles first-hand experiences of dictatorship, occupation, terror, and war. His stories cast light on a number of major crises, from the Iraq War to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, along with less-reported issues such as underage orphan trash-collectors in Cairo.

The more he witnessed, the less he understood, and he became increasingly aware of the yawning gap between what he saw on the ground and what was later reported in the media. As a correspondent, he was privy to a multitude of narratives with conflicting implications, and he saw over and over again that the media favored the stories that would be sure to confirm the popularly held, oversimplified beliefs of westerners. In People Like Us, Luyendijk deploys powerful examples, leavened with humor, to demonstrate the ways in which the media gives us a filtered, altered, and manipulated image of reality in the Middle East." -- amazon
http://www.amazon.com/People-Like-Us-Misrepresenting-Middle/dp/1593762569

I have no affiliation with the book, except to say I've read it and its amazing. Its brilliant at describing both the Palestinian and Israeli media extravaganza and what both sides do to get on the cover of time magazine. You'll be ashamed of the way our media forms us about the conflict and about the entire region and how wrong we all are.