• Massachusetts Treasurer Tim Cahill, a Democrat, came out against the health care reform proposals, claiming it will “bankrupt” the country. He also announced, “I voted for John McCain, believe it or not.”
• Attorney General Eric Holder said that Osama bin Laden will never be captured alive.
• China’s economy may resemble a giant overbuilt Dubai, than an exporting powerhouse. The huge growth rate of 10% has come from a stimulus package that makes the United States’ package looks small.
• Google may pull up stakes in China soon.\
• China’s Ministry of National Defense faces thousands of attacks every day by international hackers.
• A New York City Councilwoman who makes $122,000 a year is suing a laborer who makes one-tenth that because she scratched her leg on the trailer hitch of his legally parked truck.
• Iran tried to buy a nuclear bomb from Pakistan as early as 1987.
• If nothing else will stop health care reform, Rep. Steven King thinks that angry mobs should storm Washington and jam everything up.
• The Hawaii Health Department is tired of responding to questions from birthers asking for Barack Obama’s birth certificate, many of the same people keep sending emails asking the same question.
• Egypt has banned international calls made through mobile internet connections.
• Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi own publishing house has released a book about him. “Love Always Wins Over Envy and Hatred” refers to Berlusconi as a superman.

Making this move even more questionable is the current state of the economy in California, which is one of its worst slumps ever.

Not surprisingly, the California Legislature’s public approval rating has fallen to 16 percent in a recent Field Poll.

Perez gave pay increases and promotions totaling nearly $132,000 per year the day he was sworn in this month, including a $65,000 raise to his chief of staff, Sara I. Ramirez. She received by far the largest raise serving as Pérez’s top assistant, according to documents obtained under state open-records law.

In fact, Ramirez will be paid $80,204 more per year than her boss, since her annual salary will now be $190,008. Perez’s own salary, by the way, grew from $95,291 to $109,584 when he assumed the speakership.

Raises approved by Pérez took effect March 1, right on the heels of former Assembly Speaker Karen Bass providing pay increases or promotions to 20 staff members, most of them low-level aides, on her final working day, Feb. 26.

In years past, it has not been unusual for a new Assembly leader to raise pay for staff members whose duties will expand. However, since the state is mired in recession, it does seem more than a bit insensitive to the plight of Californians who are out of work and losing their homes. Not to mention all the state workers and others who are getting along on smaller paychecks due to job furloughs.

Derek Cressman, Western states director of Common Cause, said the pay increases send the wrong message during a recession in which voters need government to “rise to the occasion.”

“A move like this, I fear, could do more harm than good, even if the individual decisions can be justified,” Cressman said.

Tim Hodson, director of the Center for California Studies at California State University, Sacramento, said he suspects that voters would consider any public-employee pay hike inexcusable but added, “That’s understandable but not necessarily a correct view.”

Whatever happened to leading by example? Perez should think about sharing the pain of his constituents. At least he could turn down his own pay raise as a gesture of good will.

 The officials held signs stating, “Alemanno has reduced us to our underwear,” “Parks and gardens abandoned” and “Homeless people, empty homes.”

Hopefully, there are not any budget cuts. We do not want to see this group take its protest any further.

• For the fourth time, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is considering running for governor of Arizona. He said he might run this time because it is “different.”
• Concerns are growing that texting between public officials during meetings violates open government laws.
• Here, Virginia’s Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, discusses the legal strategy to prove that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Hopefully, the same brain cells are not used prosecuting criminals, otherwise, there are a lot of innocent people heading for prison in Virginia.
• Here is an idea that is hopefully junked by the military. It has been proposed to parachute bears into Afghanistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden. Bears have a keener sense of smell than dogs…bigger brain than whomever proposed this idea too.
• Senator John McCain’s Republican challenger J.D. Hayworth is behind in the polls, and there is a reason for that. Hayworth suggested that gay marriage might lead to people marrying horses.  
• The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that one does not need to be a sex offender to be placed in the sex offender registry.
• Did the Army view Wikileaks as a threat?
• The Iranian leadership is so afraid of its people, that it is now banning a bonfire festival because of fears that the opposition might use it for a rally.
• The Romanian “drunk pedestrian” sign has been removed because of massive media attention.
• Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. said that the two nation’s ties are the worst in 35 years.

The British are considering legislation banning its sale. As a precaution they have notified foreign governments of the wand’s poor performance.

Mexico spent $10 million on 521 of the wands, but continues to ignore the British warning. Mexican officals are convinced that the GT 200 works and tout its ability to locate all sorts of contraband.

“We’ve had success with it. It works with molecules. It functions with the energy of the body.” Capt. Jesús Héctor Larios Salazar of the Mexican Army’s antidrug unit in Culiacán said.

Say what? Molecules? Energy of the body?

Supposedly this device can determine a handgun and cocaine or plastic explosives and marijuana. There must a contraband molecule yet to be discovered that this wand senses if its advocates are to be believed.

Double blind studies have not been able to validate the many claims of the GT 200.

It is not just the Mexican government that is crazy about this wand. Thailand, China and Iraq have spent millions on similar devices to the GT 200 known as Sniffex, ADE 651, and Alpha 6 bomb/drugs/ insurgent detectors.

Iraq purchased 1,500 of the ADE 651 devices at the price of $16,000 to $60,000.

Who knows what the $60,000 model does. Perhaps it passes as a divining rod for water when not pointing for weapon caches.

The U.S. military will have nothing to do with it. On retired American officer explained that it works “on the same principle as a Ouija board.”

“Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,” said Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives.

Great. We fight a war in Iraq and leave it to the fate of those who believe in magic.

Yet, al-Jabiri might be right about the “magic” part though. The user of a GT 200 must place a plastic card with bar codes into a holder that connects to the wand by a cable. Then, it gets interesting. The user is supposed to have a steady pulse and body temperature to make device work properly. The user must then walk properly to “charge” the wand. Without batteries, it needs to be charged by the movements of the user. It must be carried at the proper angle so that an antenna will swivel towards the contraband.

If the wand does not work, it is the fault of the user or, and get this, the presence of perfume, gold fillings or air fresheners.

In Mexico, last November, a GT 200 pointed at a Volkswagen with a man, woman and child inside. A search of the car turned up nothing, except for a bottle of Tylenol. That was used as proof of how sensitive the GT 200 is by its supporters.

The use of these devices would make a fine joke, except that lives are being lost by the bombs and guns missed with a wand that seems to draw its power through suggestion.

Or as one blogger put it, “The only things these machines can detect are idiots.”