Netanyahu Coming To US, Mexico Buys Fraud Drug Wands, Petraeus and McChrystal

William Pewen
Matthew Yglesias
Dana Milbank

"New Rule: Glenn Beck has to stop being so hard on himself. After his Eric Massa interview, Beck said, 'I think this is the first time I have wasted an hour of your time.' Oh Glenn, that's so not true. First of all, we never make it through the hour. But when we flip by your show and you're standing on your desk, dressed in lederhosen and holding back tears, etching something about Woodrow Wilson on your crazy board, believe me those two minutes aren't wasted. They're the funniest part of our day." – Bill Maher

Forget all of the drama and chest thumping over the slight that Israeli right wingers gave our VP, we need to move on towards pragmatic solutions that works for both sides. NY Times reader Leslie Brisman has a good solution to the Israeli housing boom: "There is another, more visionary path whose time may have come at last: If the government permitted the construction of these apartments but discontinued discriminatory policies in deciding who would occupy them, we could indeed move forward toward a lasting peace.


This could be done in one of two ways: affirmative action (reserving 800 of the apartments for Palestinians) or nondiscriminatory rentals (for instance, a lottery for each apartment with an equal number of Jews and Muslims allowed to apply).


If an eventual Palestinian state and Israel are to coexist, they must do so as neighbors, and a mixed housing complex could be a model of how this could happen. I do not imagine that the residents of Ramat Shlomo will instantly welcome their new neighbors. But keeping the peace there would be an appropriate role of government in a civilized society; constructing housing (or permitting the construction of housing) for one ethnic group is not." We start with what is possible, and work our way from there...

Next up, Benjamin Netanyahu is coming to the US to speak at the annual AIPAC meeting, the most influential Jewsish group in America. Hillary Clinton is scheduled to speak also, so it should be a lot of fun, I hope the audience also comes up with better solutions than the stale politicians...


mexico buys fraud drug wands...

One reason for the mounting death toll in Mexico's drug wars, is the Mexican police force's use of the GT200, a fraudulant, hand-held device that: "are widely used nationwide at checkpoints to search for contraband inside vehicles as well as to canvass neighborhoods in drug hotspots for drug and weapons stash houses." These are being made by the British company Global Technical Ltd, and, though Britain hasn't banned the exportation of these types of devices, they have been kind enough to issue a buyer's beware statement: "Mexico’s National Defense Secretariat has spent more than $10 million to purchase hundreds of the detectors, similar to the “magic wands” in use in Iraq and Afghanistan, for its antidrug fight. Although critics have called them nothing more than divining rods, Mexican defense officials praise the devices as a critical part of their efforts to combat drug traffickers. At the military’s National Drug Museum, one of the devices is on display, with a plaque that describes its success in finding hidden caches of drugs."

“We’ve had success with it, it works with molecules. It functions with the energy of the body.”

The Mexican government is just beginning to figure out that the combination of abject poverty and lack of education are factors that draw people into the cartels, along with the ridiculous amounts of money to be made. They are just now thinking of ways to change, about 20 years too late.. Thailand is also using these wands to sniff out drugs, and arrest people whom the wands point to, even if they don't have any drugs. "Using special cards provided by the manufacturer, the detector can supposedly detect all types of narcotics and explosives by homing in on their molecules from afar. The device is so sensitive, the manufacturer says, that it can detect not just stockpiles of illegal drugs but people who have used cocaine or heroin as far back as two weeks before."

 I hope these governments sue the British companies that made them and Britain for knowingly allowing them to be exported. It's one thing for uneducated fools to be hoodwinked from their money, another to put people in jail or even cause the deaths of innocent people that could have easily been avoided. and yet, both countries are still using these devices, and saying how well they work...

general knowledge...
Even General David Petraeus has called for an end to the military's "Don't ask don't tell" policy on gays in the military. So, what's the hold up? Are we waiting for every General over 60 years of age to die off so they won't be offended? Maybe they have put it on the agenda right after successfully negotiating a two-state deal between Israel and Palestinians. Outside of where I live in Colorado, attitudes of the younger generations are much more accepting, just ask your children. ..

And in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal has decided to finally round up the Marine Special Forces and put a few constraints on their operations. Seems that they are responsible for most of the civilian deaths by US forces, and Stan cannot look the other way any longer. Part of his revised counterinsurgency program is to limit the number of innocent people that get killed, you know, so that the people we are now dealing with won't hate our guts because we wrecked their homes and killed their children. The former excuse was that our cowboys operated on their own and didn't have anyone to control them, similar to the way the mercenaries they hired also worked. Now, they are answerable directly to McChrystal, so they better not screw it up, or blow his chances for running as a candidate in 2012...