That is the way Netanyahu likes it

Me, "I don't know if I am allowed to have an opinion on Israel, being an American Jew, but here goes. The problem with Israel is two fold. You have a world class politician like Prime Minister Netanyahu who knows how to play both sides, Israel and how it deals with Palestinians, and Israel and how it deals with settlements in the West Bank. 

The facts are that Israel should not build settlements in the West Bank. It is not their land to do with as it pleases. This is shown time and again every time settlements are abandoned. They are bulldozes down into rubble, God forbid the Palestinians should acquire an abandoned settlement and have a decent place to live and the Israeli thinking is, we built it, we are abandoning it, so we will destroy it. Far better to destroy it then to let it to fall into Palestinian hands.

How many times should the Palestinians be devalued? It is the Palestinians who ran away during one of Israel's numerous wars with its Arab neighbors and are being refused the right to return to their lands. Why? Because millions want to return and Israel is scared there will be a new nation next to it with a huge army. Israel wants a buffer between the Arabs, and since it lost a lot of lives acquiring the West Bank, does not just want to get rid of it.

Then there is the other side of things. There is Netanyahu the politician. He is an excellent politician. He knows exactly how to play with the Israeli people's minds and world leaders. He tells one party, he is a strong leader, and would never give back the West Bank by favoring settlements, while telling world leaders he wants a two state solution. So, for him to react negatively to the U.N. Resolution this week is just another political move by Netanyahu to show the Israeli people he is a strong leader and the world leaders that they have deceived him and the Israeli people.

The thing is that Netanyahu knows that if he starts negotiations with the Palestinians it will be seen as a source of weakness so he does nothing hiding behind the fact he wants no preconditions during negotiations. So years go by, everybody gets a little older and the status quo stays the same. That is the way Netanyahu likes it."

From article, "Israelis Wonder How Long Netanyahu Can Back Settlements and Two-State Solution"

(For years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, a conservative, has played a double act, competing domestically with his right-wing rivals in backing the settlement project all over the occupied West Bank while professing support for a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

Now, with the stinging United Nations Security Council resolution on Friday condemning Israeli settlement construction as lacking any legal validity, Israeli politicians and analysts on the right, on the left and in the political center say Mr. Netanyahu’s game may soon be up.)

Battery technology has been progressing slowly but now a new Battery is about to take over the world.

Me, "A new Battery technology is getting ready to take over the world by storm."

From Article, "Finally, better battery technology is hot — but not too hot"

(Room-temperature operation is just one of the potential advantages claimed by Ionic Materials. Its new polymer also has the ability to shuttle ions between a battery cathode and electrode as efficiently as is currently achieved by liquid electrolytes, or even more efficiently.

Zimmerman’s background is in the world of semiconductors; he worked at Bell Labs and then a company called Quantum Leap Packaging. Several university researchers who have worked with the company believe that has led him to a technology that will be more manufacturable than competing polymer and ceramic battery technologies being explored.

“What is so intriguing about Mike and his folks is they are using known production techniques borrowed from the semiconductor packaging industry,” said Jay Whitacre, a Carnegie Mellon University physicist who was involved with Ionic Materials when it first started and who now is chief scientist at Aquion Energy, a maker of home storage and industrial batteries based in Mount Pleasant, Pa.

The new progress has led a number of technologists in the field to believe that batteries may finally be getting out of their rut.

“We’re in a golden age of new chemistry development which probably hasn’t been seen in 30 or 40 years, since the last energy crisis,” said Paul Albertus, a program manager at the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. “It’s a pretty exciting time to be developing energy storage technology.”)