Saddam Hussein has been executed! It is an important footnote in history but it will not change anything in Iraq right now. Nobody is joyous about this except his Shiite enemies. There was not the brief euphoria on the American side that happened with his capture. On the other hand I don't think things will get much worse with his death. Well, it can't get much worse anyways. The Sunnis may step up their attack for a while, but they were going to attack anyway. The Shiites will go on taking revenge on the Sunnis. Al qaeda and everybody else don't need any more reason to attack Americans. So it will be business as usual. The only chance for dramatic change in the Middle East is to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict and we are far from accomplishing this.

We have to learn from our mistakes with the rise and fall of Hussein. Originally we supported the rise of his Baath party's rise to power in Iraq because the previous regime was pro-communist. The enemy of my enemy is my friend theory. After Hussein became a tyrant, we continued to support him because he was out to get the Shiites who were supported by Iran. Again the enemy of my enemy is my friend. We helped Hussein even when he used chemical and biological weapons against Iran and Shiites and Kurds in his country. This coziness with the dictator caused him to believe the U.S. will not stop him from taking parts of Kuwait. Of course now we are talking about the free flow of oil and so we stopped him. We should have finished him off during the first Gulf war but we didn't because the first Bush felt that we may need him still as a counterweight against Iran.

This theory of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" has not serve us well. From South Vietnam to Chile to the Talibans, the support of dictators ultimately cause us more problems. If we don't learn these lessions we will get into more mess in the future. In the name of fighting terrorism, will we support human right suppression by the Chinese government against Muslims in northwest China?

The California Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that Indian tribes can be sued for violating campaign disclosure rules. This is a minor victory in trying to keep Indian casinos from buying off politicians to help them continue to expand. This is not about self reliance but about letting a small group of people, not a large percentage of Native Americans, profit from a vice that is a danger to our society. I am also against state sponsored gambling such as lotteries which hurt poor people. Las Vegas? I am also against it but not to such an extent because there is a lot of entertainment besides gambling there and unless you live nearby it would take a lot of efforts to get there. The Indian casinos, however, are all over the state with more on the way.

Just as dangerous, if not more so than the types of gambling mentioned above, is poker on the internet. Now people do not have to get up and go to a casino but can gamble in his pajamas. Poker is growing rapidly as demonstrated by the numbers of times it is on ESPN, FSN, Travel channel and the old Outdoor Living Network. What poker has to do with outdoor living is beyond me. But since the "sport" is popular among the young, various channels are broacasting it. In the past the game is played by ugly old men in dark glasses and long beard, the type you would run away from in a dark alley. Recently I surfed through one of the sport channels and noticed all the poker players in a tournament were young men. Several of them were Asians. Some of these young guys had quit their job to go on the poker tour full time. One Asian kid had dropped out of U. of Florida where he was a pre-med student with a 4.0 GPA. Even if these young men are successful on the tour, we are wasting a lot of talent in this gambling business that could have been used elsewhere.

Few years ago I wrote something tongue in cheek that said that UCLA should get rid of their football and basketball programs because they were hiring blacks who normally would not get into school to play for them. With the large number of Asians at the school, they should have scholarships for sports like ping pong, gymnastics, and field hockey so that the Wongs and the Patels can play. If enough Asians actually concentrate on sports, they will do less well and will actually lead to more opportunities for other ethnic groups to get into UCLA. Although it was tongue in cheek, I truly believe that having role models in sports and entertainment business actually hurt blacks in the long run. Very few blacks actually make it in sports and entertainment and they would be better off understanding that and try to make it in academics. If the sports opportunites existed for Asians, then less of them will do well in academics. This may become prophetic from what I see on the poker tour. If more Asian kids believe they can play poker for a living, whether on tour or on the internet, they will care less about school. Asian females already outnumber their male counterparts in colleges and the gap will only widen if poker and other forms of gambling become even more popular. On the other hand, I did see couple of Asian women the other day on the professional billiard tour.......

The Iraq Study Group came out with its long-awaited recommendations. There were no surprises, from the bleak outlook currently, to the need to withdraw combat troops by early 2008, and the call for the Iraqi government to do better. This is a repudiation of the Bush policies and I think with the results of the mid-term elections combining with this report, the Bush administration may finally be less arrogant in insisting we are going to win. Neverthless, I see Bush only making minor changes. He will announce some shift in strategies but I don't see us out of Iraq by 2008. Bush will finish his term with troops in Iraq and then it will be the new president's mess. Eventually we will leave Iraq and then Bush will claim that if we had stayed we would have prevailed. Of course history will not buy this and future historians will regard Bush as one of the worst president, if not the worst.

This report by the ISG has no influence at all on my opinion. While it recommends the troops be out by 2008, I believe we should just get out now. When Al Zarqawi was killed, I said we should get out now and save face. (June 10, 2006) People said back then that if get out now a civil war would break out. Well, civil war is here now, whether you admit it or not. Right now the Americans are caught in the middle and Shiites, Sunnis, Iran, and Syria all blame the U.S. for the instablity. Once we leave, there will be no "occupier" to blame and nobody who will keep the violence down for either the Sunnis or Shiites. Well, we should just leave and then all the clerics that are inciting the violence will have to figure what to do along with the Iranians and Syrians. The timetable for withdraw should be negative 3 years, in my humble opinion.

This brings to one of the more interesting recommendations by the ISG. This is the diplomacy with Iran and Syria. During the Hezbollah-Israel battles during the summer, I recommended that we talk to Syria. I still believe that Syria will more likely come around than Iran. But in any case, neither one wants to have instablity in Iraq without the Americans there. Right now they are friends because they have a common enemy in the Americans. Once we leave, Syria will have to support the Sunnis and Iran will support the Shiites and the conflict may spill into their territories. There will also be conflict between Shiite Arabs in Iraq versus Shiite Persians in Iran. So threaten them with American withdrawl now. They may not be helpful, as the Bush administration insists, but what have we got to lose? For decades we negotiated with the USSR and it was much more dangerous than Iran or Syria. This is not appeasement to our enemies like Chamberlain did with Hitler. If one decides to negotiate with us, the other will have to also or risk being isolated. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is too stubborn and refuses to talk to the Iranians and Syrians.

One recommendation that is lost in the report is the Israel-Palestinian issue. People are so focused on the Iraq war and terrorism that they forget that the Israel-Palestinian conflict is what begat all these mess in the first place. The report mentioned that we need to work more on this conflict. This actually is the most important thing in the long run. There is no chance for victory in the war on terrorism without first ending this conflict. Of course, this have been ignored by the Bush administration from the beginning and will continued to be ignored while it tries to salvage Iraq before the next election.

The LA Times had an article recently talking about the increase in political officeholders among Asian Americans after this election. There are 20 statewide elected officials that are Asian Americans versus 16 before this election. I don't know if that translates into a high percentage as I don't know how many elected positions there are in the state government and the Times did not give any info regarding that in the article. An increase from 16 to 20 does translate into a 25% increase so that is not bad. There are not many Asians in high profile positions though. And no, Tan Nguyen, did not win his Congressional race.

The article talked about there may be a mistrust of Asians after the scandal involving money from China being donated to Al Gore a few years back. The Democrats refunded that money and most donations from legitimate Asian American sources. It was as if all Asians were considered same as people from communist China trying to buy influence. This in turn soured many Asian Americans from participating in politics. I don't know if this is all true like the Times said but I do think there is a reluctance of Asians to enter politics and there is a general reluctance of Americans to vote for an Asian American. How big are these two reluctances are subject to debate. Also Asian Americans are divided almost equally between Republicans and Democrats so an Asian candidate may not even get much more than 50% of the Asian votes even if he or she is well qualified.

One area that Californians seem to like see Asians in office is related to finances. In California we have three separate departments to waste, er, control our taxes. There is the treasurer, the controller, and the Board of Equalization. It is not clear to me the exact role of each of these and I don't know why we need all three. Even the federal government just has the dept. of the Treasury. Anyway John Chiang won the election for controller this year. As controller he will also serve on the Board of Equalization. There are 4 other spots of the Board and three of these were won by Asian American women. It seems to me Californians are reluctant to elect Asians in most positions except when it comes to controlling the money. Could it be that stereotype of Asians being good at math and saving money be a factor here?

I was wrong about the Democrats coming up short of gaining control of the Senate. But then again I didn't think that Joe Lieberman still counts as a Democrat. It will be kind of awkward at the party conferences! I noticed that Lynn Swan lost his governor's race and Jim Ryun lost his seat in Congress. Both are Republicans. Heath Shuler was smart enough to run as a Democrat even though he was a Republican before and won with the momentum of the Democrats. This got me thinking about athletes as politicians. Here are some of my ranking of athlete politicians.

The three I like the best:
1. Bill Bradly. The ex-senator was All-American basketball player and played in the NBA. He was also a Rhodes Scholar. He was on a New York Knicks team that had such smart people as Dave DeBusherre, Jerry Lucas, Willis Reed and Walt the Clyde Frazier that the current Zen Master of basketball coaches, Phil Jackson, had to come off the bench not only during the game but during quiz contests as well.

2. Tom McMillen. The basketball star at Maryland was a pre-med student and valedictorian. But he was smart enough to forget about medicine and became a Rhodes Scholar. He played decently in the NBA and then became a Congressman. He is now a venture capitalist.

3. Gerald Ford. Of course I have to pick someone from U. of Michigan. Some would argue that President Ford was not too coordinated, having tripped getting off Air Force One and almost killed people with his golf shots . He was a great center at Michigan and graduated from Yale Law school. He only got 4 A's though at Michigan. This either means that athletic ability counts a lot at Yale Law or grades meant differently back then.

Three terrible politicians.
1. Jim Bunning. A Hall of Fame pitcher who threw no-hitters in both major leagues strikes out as a politician. Named one of the five worst people in Congress by Time magazine, Bunning is a confused old man. He squeaked out his last election win only because his original opponent was involved in a sex scandal and the replacement only had 600,000 to spent. Nevertheless, Bunning demanded that he conduct the debate by video feed with the questions given to him ahead of time. Then it was discovered he read the answers from a teleprompter. Despite his mental incapacity, Kentucky relected him.

2. Fidel Castro. It is unclear how good Castro is actually at baseball. Some have suggested that he tried out for the majors but I don't think that has been proven. But I guess he may have more influence on more people than any other former athlete. Unfortunately it is bad influence as his policies have hurt the lives of many cubans.

3. Fang Fengdi. Better known as Yao Ming's mother. You would not know it judging by the mild manners of Mrs. Yao today. This is a woman beloved by Yao Ming's teammates and some rivals such as Shaq. But at one time this 6 foot 2 former top notch player on the Chinese national team was a Red Guard official. She was responsible for chastising and sending many Chinese peasants into hard labor camps. Obviously, reflecting on what she did today, she would not repeat those actions. But an impressionable young person, even one with intelligence, can be manipulated into doing the unthinkable.

Three tough and weird guys.
1. Jesse "the body" Ventura. Comes from the fake sport of pro wrestling to the office of the governor of Minnesota. Actually had some good ideas but never really learned to compromise and could not stomach a re-election bid.

2. Our own Arnold Schwarzennegger. Shows the nation that a moderate Republican in a blue state can win in 2006. Of course he didn't have much competition. He stumbled quite a bit last year but has made a nice recovery. Unlike Ventura, Arnold learned how to compromise. Still, given how much money he is worth, I would hope he stops taking money from special interests as he had promised. Since he can't run for president, is he through after the next 4 years? I look for him to go against Barbara Boxer for her senate seat next.

3. Ben Nighthorse Campbell. Former Judo Olympian is the only pony-tailed, Native American senator from Colorado who can probably outlift Arnold and Ventura. Instead of war, we should sent these three to arm wrestle the leaders of other countries!

Three future politicians.
1. David Beckham. The British soccer star is on the down side of his career. He is wildly popular still in England and in the rest of the soccer-mad world. With his wife Victoria (Posh Spice) at his side, who would not vote for him?

2. Gary Kasparov. The former world chess champion is considered the greatest player ever so his intellect is not questioned. He is very critical of the government of Russia and is trying to find backing to go up against Putin. He has also spoken out against organized crime in Russia. He would make a great leader but his chances of success is nil because he is going up against communists and the Russian mafia. Plus he is Jewish!

3. Yao Ming. It will be 20 years from now but I think Yao can make atone for his mother's past. Despite not having received much formal education as he was trained to play basketball by the time he learned to walk; Yao is an intelligent, funny and thoughtful man. Having spend the last 4 years in the U.S. has enabled him to take an interest in the AIDs epidemic and various environmental issues. Obviously he has learned a lot about western capitalism. With his popularity in China it would hard for the communist party to deny him a spot in the government if he chooses to go into politics after he retires.

Last week on Nightline there was a story about the admission process at elite universities. In particular it focused on Duke where Keith Brodie, a former president of the university, said that there are three ways a student may be admitted. One is through pure merit, a second way is through legacy where family members had graduated from Duke and have contributed to it, and a third way is what he called "development admit" where a rich and or famous person's son or daughter is admitted with the good possiblity that a donation will be forthcoming. In the past I have heard that legacy is very important, seeing how Bush got into Yale that way as did Gore's children got into Harvard, for example. This so called development admit, which I had not heard of, is even more odious as this is simply buying a spot. Several years ago, in response to protest from Asian Americans regarding their need to have higher grades and SAT scores than whites to get in, Harvard actually came out and said legacy admits and the lack of athletes among Asians were the reason for the higher scores and grades of admitted Asian students than white students. I guess Harvard and other schools feel that is a fair way of doing admission because several years later the policies have not changed. I wonder if develeopment admits are also present at Ivy League schools?

I think most of us would agree that we should have a total meritocracy. Legacy and development admits are bad words to me in the process of admissions. We should have more outcry to get rid of them. There is also the so-called "holistic" approach to admission among the elite universities today. Of course everybody knows that is just euphemism for trying get underrepresented minorities into the schools. And the real reason why these schools try so hard to recruit these minority students is just to make the numbers look better so that the university is not charged with racism. (as they have been at UCLA and Berkeley) Many Asian Americans, despite being well-represented at elite universities, feel that they are being discriminated against as a result of "legacy"and "holistic" admissions. Daniel Golden, who wrote "Price of Admission" was also on the Nightline story. He agrees with these Asian Americans that if merit was the only consideration, Asian Americans would be even more represented in the elite schools.

While I personally would agree that legacy, development, sports and holistic are all bad words and ideas that should be rid of in the admission process, I feel that Asians should not feel too bad about this. The Jews were discriminated at the universities in the past and yet they came to dominate at every elite university. Many Jews who were denied admissions to certain schools in the past have became tremendously successful after going to some lesser known school. The truth is you can do quite well by going to a less prestigious school. This is particularly true if you plan on going to graduate or professional schools. A cousin of my wife went to Boston University after not getting into Ivy League schools. Upon graduating with a chemistry degree she was overwhelmed with offers to prestigious graduate programs. So it is not so much where you go to school but how you use the opportunities that were given to you. In the long run those who have to run uphill will be stronger than those who can coast downhill.

Couple of observation about the blood sport we call election campaigning. Here in California we are inundated by the large number of proposals on the ballot. I thought we have a representative democracy where the people we elected are suppose to make tough decisions on our behalf. Ideas that cannot pass through the legislature and the governor are put on these ballots by people often with narrow agenda. One type of proposals that gets support of the politicians frequently is the ones that raise money for a specific purpose by selling bonds. In this election there are 5 bond proposals on the ballot. They are all endorsed by the legislature and the governor. The reason is that they can raise money without telling the public they are raising taxes. In fact the supporters of all the proposals claim that no new taxes are needed. Of course by selling bonds we have to repay the principle plus interests. I have calculated the total payment of these 5 bond proposals each year to be 2.8 billion. This is per year for 30 years. Somewhere down the line, unless our economy expand to such a degree that tax revenue will cover this cost, or we will have to increase our taxes. Supporters of bonds say that this is like a mortgage where you pay gradually while enjoying the house you need right now. This is true but would you buy 5 houses at a time if you have not pay off your previous houses and you don't have the income to cover the new mortgage payments? So vote for only the bonds that you feel passionate about otherwise think about what it will cause your children over the next 30 years.

The whole thing with the John Kerry debacle is making me more angry against the Bush administration, even though I have been angry ever since the invasion of Iraq. It is obvious to me that Kerry was attempting humor at the expense of Bush. He failed but that in no way make him someone who disrespects the troops. It is despicable that Bush would try to make a big deal out of this. Remeber the time Bush said "Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country"? I am sure nobody believed that Bush think OB-GYN doctors are perverts. I would have more respect for him if he took the high road and say something like: "I guess there are people who speak English worse than me!" (should be "worse than I do, not worse than me") Before anyone says that Kerry is the typical elitist liberal who always attack Bush as being unintelligent, I would remind them Bush used his history as a poor student in many of his own jokes. The truth is even most conservative Republican friends of mine have expressed the feeling that Bush is a lightweight when it comes to intellectual pursuits. I think his lack of understanding of history and the world have really hurt his leadership of this country.

I claim to be an independent but I admit I will vote for Democrats almost exclusively this year. The Republicans with their support for Bush (unless one is in a close election then he would criticize Bush) and numerous scandals have turn me off completely. The one big exception is the California governor's race where Phil Angelides is so bad that I will stick with Arnold. Does this mean that I think the Democrats are better? NO! I do believe that power breeds corruption and arrogance. When the Democrats were in control of Congress, there were numerous scandals. Remember the powerful Dan Rostankowski? He got a pardon from Clinton. So don't tell me the Democrats are for the poor. They like to get rich just like the Republicans. And don't tell me the Republicans are for family value. I would not want Foley anywhere near my family. The Republicans are suppose to be against big government but they have increased the size of the government and increased pork since they came to power. So we need a balance of power and until a centrist party comes along, I will hope that the Democrats can win at least one house back this year. Even if this means Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker.

With the election coming up next Tuesday, I am going out on a limb and predict that the Democrats will win control of the House and the Republicans will still retain the control of the Senate by the slimmest of margins, ie one seat. You would think that with the situation in Iraq, the multiple scandals in Congress, the large deficit and poor approval ratings of the President as well as the Congress; that the party in control of Congress would get slammed. In reality, even though the Democrats will gain during this election it would not be as big of a defeat for the Republicans as you would imagine given the problems they have had in the past two years.

The truth is most Congressional seats are in safe districts. While most people believe that the government is doing a poor job, they have better feelings about their own Congressman. With all the pork that the incumbents bring back to their states, it is hard for challengers to unseat them. Add to the polarization between liberals and conservatives who would not vote for the other side even if their own candidate is poor, many seats are safe for both sides. Even the seat vacated by Duke Cunningham in San Diego went back to a Republican after he resigned because of bribes. Even though all 435 seats in the House are up for reelection, less than 10% are competitive. This makes it difficult for the minority party to win back control. In the Senate it is even more difficult because only one third of the seats are up for reelection every two years. It looks like the best the Democrats can hope for is that they end up having to win two out of three between the seats in Missouri, Virginia and Tennessee to get the six turnovers they need to get control of the senate. I don't think they can get two out those three.

If the two houses are split we will have more logjam in Congress. Nancy Pelosi will be Speaker and with her ultra-left credentials, there will be no agreements between the two sides. In the long run it will help the Republicans because the Democrats will have to share more of the blame for the lack of ability of Congress to get anything done. Losing the House will also force the Republicans to work harder for 2008. Basically the Democrats have no good ideas of their own, they are just gaining because the Republican scandals and incompetence of th Bush administration in the Iraq war. Unfortunately I don't see more centrist politicians with common sense taking control of the government no matter which side wins.

Usually I find it refreshing for an immigrant to go into politics. Often he or she brings in different perspectives. It also shows the working of our melting pot. But recent events in Orange County makes me shake my head.

Tan Nguyen is a Vietnamese immigrant who is running for congress in a heavily Hispanic district against incumbent Loretta Sanchez. I don't know why he is running in the first place as he had no chance of winning. Then he decided to mail out a letter to people with Hispanic surnames telling them in Spanish that it is illegal to vote if you are an immigrant and that you can get arrested. The clusmsiness of this attempt to win an election is almost hilarious. It is at least unethical to intimidate people but for an immigrant to try to do that to fellow immigrants is deplorable. I am sure he would be upset if someone does the same thing to the Vietnamese community. He is also an idiot because there was no way he was going to get away with this stupid scheme. I have no idea why he thought he would not be caught.

Of course Nguyen is not the only idiot. Immediately after this came to light people were calling this a hate crime. And these were the Republicans, Nguyen's own party. Angelides, who has no chance of winning the governor's race, goes ballistic and says this is the way the Republican operates. The state attorney general is investigating and officers have searched Nguyen's home and took his computer. While Nguyen's action cannot be defended, this is not the KKK at work here. It is not a sure thing that a crime is committed as I don't see victims here. For illegal immigrants, they shouldn't be voting anyway. And if you are a citizen, why would you be frightened by this nonsense anyway? Having studied for your citizen exam, you would know that you are entitled to vote, so why would you be intimidated?

Yes, Nguyen is a fool and should never hold political office. But all those people who are making a big deal out of it are just as foolish. As the midterm election draws closer there are a lot more important things to debate. This is just about an unethical person doing a foolish thing. Unfortunately it is an embarrassing setback for immigrants trying to enter the politcal mainstream. Well, on second thought may be Nguyen has learned too well from the political mainstream!

Looks like North Korea may be testing a second nuclear device soon. This would be no surprise considering all signs point to a less than overwhelming sucessful first attempt. Even such a feeble effort prompted angry reaction from the U.S. and Japan. This was exactly what Kim wanted. This is an ego maniac who wants attention from the world powers. Of course we already believed that Kim has several nuclear devices before this so why should we show any worry over this. Only the South Koreans should worry because they are so close and can be hit easily. Even Japan is too far for North Korea to hit accurately with the missles they have now. The U.S. is in no danger from this in the near future.

There is the argument that North Korea can sell its weapons to terrorists which can then be used against us by way of a dirty bomb. This is possible but not likely. As I said before, Kim is a secular dictator who wants to stay in power and live. He maybe crazy but he is not stupid. Going to bed will Muslim terrorists will mean death to him. The most likely place where terrorists can get nuclear material is still from the former USSR countries and Pakistan. Nothing has changed in these few weeks.

One problem that arise from North Korea thumbing its nose at the world is that Iran will be encouraged to continue its nuclear program. Bush made a terrible mistake by lumping Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the axis of evil and then invaded Iraq. Turns out as expected Hussein had no nuclear weapons and was taken out of power. North Korea has nuclear weapon for sure and there is nothing the U.S. can do about it. Bush had said the world will not tolerate a nuclear North Korea. But all Bush call for now is sanctions. There is no talk of invading North Korea. Iran sees this and figures that the best defense is offense and that having nuclear weapons maybe a deterrent against attack. Since nothing happened to India, Pakistan and now North Korea after they tested nuclear weapons, why wouldn't Iran pursue its program? There is no turning back now. Preemptive strikes and threats that cannot be back up will leave a more unstable world in the future.

Chalk up another public official in California we need to get rid of. Attorney General Bill Lockyer either has no common sense or is courting leftist votes for a run at governor a few year after Arnold defeats his incompetent Democratic challenger Angelides. Lockyer has filed a suit against the largest automobile manufacturers seeking money for environmental damage caused by tailpipe emissions. I think the only people who agree that this lawsuit has merit are the extreme environmentalists and the trial lawyers. I do believe that fossil fuels is a major cause of environmental damage. But to blame the automakers is like blaming McDonalds for causing you to get fat. Obviously, there are people who are actually suing McDonalds also. It is another example of people won't take responsibilities for their own actions but blame others. Nobody forces you to eat a hamburger and the automakers are not forcing anyone to buy a car. Certainly the popularity of gas guzzlers like suvs are what is driving Detroit to produce poor mileage autos. If we actully demand cars that get high mileage, those cars will be produced.

Automakers only produce the cars. If nobody drives them, the cars don't pollute. So it is not the automakers who foul up the environment but each 0f us. I think Lockyer does drive a car himself so he is also responsible for fouling the environment. It would make more sense to penalize the actual polluters, which is all of us, by increasing the taxes of gasoline as I have suggested before. (See blog dated 4/26/06) Of course that would be immensely unpopular and Lockyer would not be elected to office again. By trying to stick it to companies with deep pocket, Lockyer thinks that he will increase his popularity. Ultimately, it is us who pay for this foolishness. The state has already lost a nuisance suit against electric power plant operators but is appealing. All these nuisance lawsuits cause the taxpayers money and will result in no benefit to us. It will cause the automakers money to defend the suits and the expenses will be passed to consumers in higher prices for cars. If this lawsuit is somehow successful, I am going to sue the government for buying buses and actually run them.

Watched the show "Path to 9/11" on ABC last week. I guess a lot more people preferred to watch football instead of learning from the lessons of 9/11. The rating was way low compared to Sunday and Monday night football games. The show generated a lot of controversy because the Democrats felt that it was biased against them. Among the criticism was that it showed Sandy Berger and Madeline Albright making decisions that prevented the capture or killing of bin Laden before the Bush administration took over. I am maybe biased because I am a friend of the writer of the show but I thought it was fair for the most part. Whether Berger or Albright were the ones that made the mistakes or not, there is no question that mistakes were made during the Clinton administration. The film also showed people in the Bush administration in poor lights, including Condi Rice. If less mistakes were made by the Bush administration in this film, it was only because they were in power less time before 9/11 occurred. I don't think the film changed anyone's mind. As an independent I thought both administrations made mistakes that led to this tragedy. The film did not change my mind.

There are several lessons one can learn from this film:

1. It is not easy to play defense. You have to be right all the time while the terrorists only have to be right or lucky one time.

2. Fortunatly it is not that easy for the bad guys to pull off a big one. While they can commit a crime easy enough, to do something that will get world wide attention successfully is difficult. That is one reason there was 8 years between the 2 attacks on the WTC. The larger the project the more people are involved and the easier it is to be detected.

3. Of course while the bad guys are making mistakes we have to catch their mistakes. This was the main theme in the film. There were many times the terrorists left clues that should have been picked up. The most galling thing to me was that our law enforcement agencies would not pass information to each other and thus connecting the dots. The alarming thing is that even though this was stressed in the 9/11 commission report, a followup review at end of last year gave the government a D mark in fixing this area. This is incredible to me!

4. The film also showed the conditions of some third world country. The poverty of places like Pakistan, Yemen and Africa are breeding grounds for religious extremists and terrorism. It is a monumental if not impossible job but decreasing poverty will decrease terrorism.

5. The best defense against terrorism is not high technology or force. Terrorists were stopped by ordinary policeman or border agents because these heroes and heroines were alert and took their jobs seriously. The bomb maker Ramsi Yousef was captured because a courageous man in Pakistan, who despite hating the policies of the U.S., decided to come forward because he did not want innocent people die. So there are people out there who are willing to do the right thing but we must do our part and be sure our policies are fair and right.

These are some of the intersting points I got from the film. While one can argue that the film is biased against the Democrats, I don't think it portrayed the Democrats as badly as Michael Moore's film portrayed the Republicans. In any case, I don't think if the two administrations were reversed in order of controlling the White House, the result of 9/11 would have been much different. This is a wake up call to all of America, not just to any one party. I would suggest that if you have not watch it to rent it when it comes out on DVD. It is not great entertainment but it is a lot more educational than Monday Night Football.

Been away for awhile and have not been keeping up with what is happening in current events. While looking through Sports illustrated recently I came across a columan by Rick Reilly which I find interesting. Reilly wrote about a boy who had survived cancer and was playing on a little league baseball team. They were in the championship game with the tying and winning run on base in the last inning and the best hitter on the boy's team was up. The cancer survivor was the worst hitter on the team and he was to follow the best hitter. The manager on the other team decided to walk the best hitter. The boy then struck out to end the game. Reilly thought that was a lousy thing for the manager to do and that a strategy that is normally used in higher level of baseball should not be used here. He asked what the readers think and that they can vote on his website. I looked it up and the majority agreed with him and that it was a lousy thing for the manager to "pick on the poor kid". I couldn't disagree more.

If this league was meant to be non-competitve then they should not keep scores. They certainly should not have a championship game. When you have an outcome of winners and losers, 50% of the kids are going to be disappointed. If the manager had pitched to the best hitter and he knocks in two run then the manager would have failed his team. During that game, I am sure, many kids struck out or made an error and felt bad. This is part of playing the game and learning from adversity. The cancer survivor did cry after the game but a few days later he said he would practice harder so that the next time they would walk him and pitch to someone else. This is the spirit that would make our society better. We should not protect our kids from failures even if they are handicapped. When the boy signed up to play little league he must have wanted to be treated like everyone else. I don't think he would have liked to get intentional walks just so that he won't strike out. Compare to cancer winning a baseball championship doesn't seem all that important. Having survived cancer, I don't think this kid needs to be protected by the politically correct squad.

I feel bad for the manager who was villified for giving the intentional walk. The other manager said that he would not do the same thing in the same situation. But I find it curious that he would put his worst hitter after his best hitter. Did he make out his lineup card randomly or did he feel the other team would be too embarrassed to walk his best hitter with the cancer survivor up next? Anyways, life is never going to be fair and our society is better off if our children are taught to try to overcome their disadvantages rather than given a free pass. What do you think? Please write in a comment if you have an opinion.

Yesterday in the LA Times there was an article about Indian casinos in California. It talks about some tribes are prospering with revenues from casinos while other tribes are still poor because they are not allowed to open casinos. The rich tribes are trying to pass legislations with the endorsement of the governor to increase the number of casinos they can own and increase the number of slot machines in each casino. At the same time these rich tribes are paying off legislators to prevent the approval of new casinos being opened by poor tribes. So the tribes that were fortunate enough to be granted rights to casinos are now using their political clout to increase their empires while preventing poor tribes from getting the same opportunities they had.

First of all, there should not be more expansion of casinos in this state. Gambling has great addictive potential and we should discourage it. Of course, the government uses gambling for their own gain, regardless the possible harm to the public. Lotteries may enrich the coffers of the government but also lead to destruction of lives. The Indian casinos, like the reservations, are politically correct way for the government to address past wrongs that were done to Native Americans. I find it repulsive to allow a certain group to go into a business that is illegal for other people to operate. Are we going to let Blacks sell drugs and Latinoes run brothels? I think there should be better ways to help disadvantaged groups.

This is not about self-reliance. If it is, as the Indian gaming commercials insist, then the profits should be shared among all Native Americans in the state. But the rich tribes just want to keep the money to themselves. Their political clouts are growing each day with their profit. Soon they will be like the government employee unions and big businesses that are buying our politicians. Along with all the poker championship on sports channels and all the lotteries run by the government, gambling will become mainstream in our society if they are not already. The toll on our future generations will be enormous.

p.s. I would like to thank everyone who has written comments on my blog. I find them very insightful except those from my family and friends. If you don't agree with my view, please say so. You won't hurt my feelings. Besides, I know who you are and I will find you. Periodically, I will comment on your comments. Today, I would like to answer leaderoftommorrow's question about what do I think the U.S. would do if we are attacked like Israel was.

The short answer is the U.S. would do exactly what Israel did. I don't blame Israel for fighting back. I am not Gandhi and I think an eye for an eye is fair. Going into Afghanistan after 9-11 was the right thing to do. If LA is being hit by rockets from Mexico, I would want my government to counter-attack. But look at it from a different point of view. If a group of crazy Americans fire rockets into Mexico and the Mexicans attack San Diego, you would understand it, right? But if the Mexicans start bombing LA because Canada was sending arms through LA to the crazies in San Diego and your building got hit, what would you think? If you are a young kid in LA and your home was destroyed by the Mexican bombs, wouldn't you hate them? So will the kid in Beirut whose house was destroyed grow up to hate Israel.

I look at this from the perspective of the boy in Beirut because of experiences I had growing up in Hong Kong. As a young boy I understood the communists in China were bad guys. I also knew there were communist sympathizers in Hong Kong who were causing trouble. Despite this understanding, I hated the British whenever they overreacted against civilians when the communists caused trouble. Looking back, if the British had destroyed the building I lived in because a few communists were hiding there, I would probably grew up to be an insurgent against British colonial rule. After my family left Hong Kong for the U.S., the British treated the people of Hong Kong much better. As a result, Hong Kong became prosperous and actually had a higher per capita income than their colonial masters by the late 1980's. Obviously, there was no chance of any insurgency against the British because they had acted in a civilized manner.

The point is the boy in Beirut and I are not evil people. We are just ordinary people who could be persuaded to become terrorists. As a much older and hopefully wiser person, I know becoming a terrorist is not the answer, but the bad guys are trying to recruit young and impressionable people. They also know that the more Israel and the U.S. overreact, the easier it is for them to recruit. I don't have any good answers, but I believe that if we are the good guys, we have to act like we are the good guys. Ultimately the good guys will prevail.

Again, thanks for the comments, keep them coming.

It has been awhile since I last written anything. I was waiting to see what happens to the cease fire. So far not much has happened. Hezbollah is taking advantage of the cease fire to regroup and do some rebuilding among the populace and thus gain more support in the future. As I have said when this started, all Hezbollah has to do is survive and they win. As it turned out things went worse than I expected for the Israelis. I thought they will at least crippled Hezbollah and may kill some of their leaders, possibly Nasrallah. Even then I thought Hezbollah could rebuild given the anger directed at the Israelis for the destructions. I thought Israel would win the battles but become less safe later as a result of this. This and the number of innocent lives that would be lost caused me to say a cease fire should have been imposed by the U.S. and the UN after that first week. Unfortunately the battle dragged on for more than 4 weeks with many lives lost and now the Israelis and the U.S. are no better off than 4 weeks ago. In fact the ability of Hezbollah to fight much better than expected along with the blunders of the Israelis military, it can be argued that things are worse off for the Israelis than if they had agreed to a cease fire 4 weeks ago. The Israeli military machine does not seem as invincible to the Arabs now as before. This can only encourage more confrontation attempts by Hezbollah, Hamas and possibly the Iranians in the future.

In terms of the peacekeeping force it will be interesting who will actually show up. The French are sending troops but not in great numbers. Some of the nations willing to send significant numbers include Bagadesh, Indonesia and Malaysia. These are Muslim nations which the Israelis don't want. Turkey is an acceptable Muslim nation but they will want some reward later, perhaps against the Kurds in Turkey who want to form an independent country. Also it will be ironic that the sons of the Ottoman empire which dominated this region will be back! The Lebanese troops will not be much use and won't disarm Hezbollah. So the peackeeping effort won't be sufficient. The only good thing is that Hezbollah wants to regroup as it already achieved most what it wanted. So I don't think there will be restart of the war in the near future. But given time, I predict Lebanon will be a battle ground again.

It is now over three weeks since the battle in Lebanon started. There is still no ending in sight. Even if the U.N. gets a resolution at the end of this week, it will be weeks before an U.N. force can be assembled to do the job of keeping peace. In the meanwhile, Israel is increasing her ground attack with the intention of destroying as much of Hezbollah's force before the truce come. I think Israel can achieve some of her military objective, but as I said before, whatever the outcome, it will not make Israel safer based on her actions in this conflict.

The bombing at Qana was a disaster. This was almost a repeat of what happened 10 years ago. This is exactly the type of situation that Israel was guaranteed to get into when she refused to have a cease fire shortly after retaliating against Hezbollah. As precise this type of bombing is supposed to be, mistakes are unavoidable. The bombing of Qana should have been avoided, however. When a decision is to bomb a target, one must consider the risk and benefit ratio of the attack. Israel claimed that Hezbollah was firing rockets from the target area. So the benefit, if the intelligence is correct, would be to wipe out couple of rocket launchers. The risk is that there are great civilian casualties in a very symbolic site from 10 years ago. If I am in charge of deciding where to bomb, I would not take Qana unless I see lots of enemies and weapons sitting in an open field. Israel says she regrets the incidence and will investigate how the mistake occured. This is of course what she always say when an unintended target is hit. Some ambulances and an U.N. building were hit the week before. There is still no explanation how such mistakes occured. If an ambulance with a large red cross and a building occupied by the U.N. for years can be mistakenly blown up, why would anyone think that air strikes are precise?

Even the U.S. were upset by the bombing at Qana and tried to pull Israel back by coercing Israel into stop bombing for 48 hours. Israel did not comply with the wishes of the U.S. Pundits have continue to make the point that Hezbollah is responsible for the civilian deaths by hiding among the populace. Mort Zuckerman said that if someone robs a bank and hold hostages, then if anyone dies in the stand off, the robber is responsible for murder according to our laws. Pat Buchanan responded by saying that in that case, he doesn't think the police will bomb the bank to catch the robbers. If Israel is really the good guy, then act like a good guy. I don't expect the Israelis to turn the other cheek, I couldn't do it if I am in their shoes. Eye for an eye is fair. But gouging the eyes of 10 innocents to revenge one eye is excessive even to me. Can you imagine what the Arabs think about that? If you are a Lebanese child and your home is lost and you are a refugee today, do you grow up hating Hezbollah, who started this, or do you hate Israel who bombed out your house? This Lebanese child maybe tommorrow's terrorist.

Almost another week has gone by and the Middle East looks the same except with more destructions in Lebanon and Israel. Don't forget Gaza and of course Iraq. The only good news for Bush is the conflict in Lebanon has pushed Iraq to the back page. Does anyone notice the disaster that is happening in Iraq? Each week it has been worse than the one before and more troops will be going there with more U.S. soldiers going out on the streets to try to stop the sectarian violence. Nobody seems to notice this as everyone is focused on Lebanon.

So what is the Bush administration doing about Lebanon? Rice made her rounds but says nothing except to decline to have a cease fire until some permanent solution can be found. In other words we'll let Israel beat up Hezbollah to her satifaction before we call a cease fire. In other words our diplomatic effort will depend on Israel's military effort. As I said before, Israel may win the war but will give birth to more terrorists each day she is destroying Lebanon. Also Israel painted herself into a corner by vowing to destroy Hezbollah. This looks like will take longer than expected. Hezbollah, on the other hand, can claim victory by simply surviving. So if Israel destroys 80% of Hezbollah and then call for a cease fire, we are no better off than if we had called for a cease fire right now. So it is not in the interests of the U.S. to let Israel keep on fighting. We should act in our best intersts just as Iran and Syria would rein in Hezbollah if it is in their best interests to do so.

This brings to what we should do in the future. With countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt all condeming Hezbollah and fearing the power of Iran, this gives the U.S. an opportunity to break up the radicals. Iran and Syria are the supporters of Hamas as well as Hezbollah. If we can break these two apart and leave the other one isolated we may have a chance for an Arab-Israel peace. As I have said, this peace is absolutely necessary if we are to defeat terrorism. This is what Bush should have concentrated on, not going into Iraq. He has a second chance now.

It won't be easy but I think it is possible to get Syria away from Iran. The Iranians are Persians and they tend to look down on Arabs. They are also Shiites and the Syrians are predominantly Sunnis as are the Jordanians who are U.S. allies. Israel and the U.S. also have a negotiating chip, the Golan Heights. The return of the Sinai to Egypt was the key for peace there. Israel eventually will give back the Golan Heights anyways and this is as good as any time to negotiate. The leader of Syria, Assad, is not a religious fanatic like the president of Iran. (can't spell his name) Assad is a British trained physician and I think he would like his country develop economically as King Abdullah is trying to do in Jordan. The only problem is that he is not the strong man his father was so he cannot make peace with Israel without risking his life. Also Israel cannot come out and say she will give up the Golan Heights, so the U.S. will have to use our diplomatic channels to convey the desire.

Of course some will say that Syria was the one to tell Hezbollah to attack so Syria can get back into Lebanon and Assad will not negotiate seriously with Israel. Also some will point out that after the Israelis left Gaza, Hamas attacked Israel. Sure all this maybe true but not trying to break the bad guys up will be an opportunity lost. Even if Israel had not left Gaza, Hamas would cause trouble anyways. And it would be obvious that if there is a possiblity of peace, the bad guys will try to stop the process. You just have to keep doing the right thing and maybe someday the goal will be achieved. If Syria decides to make peace, it will be automatic that Iran will cause big trouble. But if you don't try to make peace with Syria, you know that Iran will cause trouble anyways but will also be helped by Syria. Right now most of the Arab countries are condemning Hezbollah and they are afraid of Iran getting stronger. Now is the time to try to get the Syrians to join their Arab brothers.

As the war between Israel and Hezbollah keeps escalating, there seems to be no significant effort from the U.S. to stop the fighting. It seems that the only strategy Bush has is to curse the Syrians. I don't have any problem of the president cursing but I think he has not demonstrated any leadership or understanding in the Middle East. Maybe he didn't study history at Yale. So I am going to write what I understand about the history of this region. I am not a history buff and my understanding of this area may not be accurate but I think that in order to make good policies, a leader must have a good understanding of the past.

The region of Palestine was controlled by the Ottoman Empire prior to WWI. Unlike the assertion of pro-Palestinian groups, the Jews did not take away their country. They had no country to begin with as they were controlled by the Turks. Some Jews were in this area even in the early 1900's even though they were greatly outnumbered by the Arabs. During WWI, the Ottomans were on the sides of the Germans. Britain wanted the help of the Arabs to defeat the Ottomans so they promised that various Arab groups will get independent countries following the defeat of the Ottoman if the Arabs help Britain. At the same time through the Balfour Declaration, Britain expressed support for a Jewish homeland in the hope of getting support from Jews in Britain and the U.S. Needless to say these promises raised the expectations of the Arabs and Jews alike.

After WWI, with the Ottomans defeated, Britain had the mandate to create a Jewish state. Many Zionists started to immigrate to Palestine. But fearing Arab hostility, Britain sought to control Jewish immigration. During the Nazi attempt to exterminate Jews, the cry for a Jewish state increased. Britain continued to ignore the demand of the Jews and there were uprisings against the British by Jews in Palestine. Future Israeli leaders like Begin were considered terrorists by the British at that time. After WWII, the UN decided to divide Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. Jerusalem was to be under international control. The Jews accepted this plan but the Arabs did not. Fighting broke out immediately after the state of Israel came into existence. Israel won easily and gained a lot of land that was meant to be the new Arab state.

After this you have various wars starting in 1956 when Israel, England and France attacked Egypt for closing off the Suez Canal. In 1967 Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria in the 6 Day War. Egypt lost the Sinai peninsula and Syria lost the Golan Heights to Israel. After this war the PLO came into prominence. Since regular Arab armies couldn't defeat Israel, Arab support went to the PLO and their guerrilla tactics. The armies of Egypt and Syria tried again in 1973 in the Yom Kippur war. Again they failed miserably. But Israel did suffer losses during this war and she became more dependednt on the U.S. for arms and aids.

Jimmy Carter didn't accomplish much as president but one thing he did accomplish was bring together Sadat and Begin to Camp David. This eventually led to the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. Incredibly, this peace has held up. This did cost more credibility of the U.S. in the Arab world. In the 1980's and maybe even now, I am not so sure, the aids that the U.S. give to Egypt and Israel make up 50% of our total foreign aid. Everybody knows that Egypt did not get the aid because the U.S. likes Egypt. Even neutral countries would agree that the U.S. is not even handed in this conflict and that the aid to Egypt was for making peace with Israel.

How did Lebanon get into this mess? Location, location, location. When Lebanon was formed she was an example how Muslims and Christians can get along. Lebanon was about 60% Muslim and 40% Christians and they were doing all right. Then the Palestinians poured in and the PLO established itself among the refugees. The Lebanese Muslims came to support the PLO and the Christians opposed it. This led to internal conflicts and brought Syria into the picture. It also brought in western troops including the U.S. forces. Unfortunately that led to a suicide bombing killing over 200 U.S. troops in the 1980's. This was the beginning of Hezbollah. Foreigners were taken hostages so often that a comedian said that if you go to Beirut, instead of stamping your passport, they stamp "hostage" on your forehead. Ariel Sharon took the Israel army into Lebanon to destroy the PLO. Some say Sharon was responsible for the massacre of Muslim civilians by Christians. Israel ended up occupying southern Lebanon for many years with heavy losses and finally pulled out few years ago. The pull out of the Israelis was seen in the Arab world as a victory for Hezbollah. With this momentum and their organized social services, Hezbollah was able to get some posts in the mainstream Lebanese government. Their hatred for Israel, however, is still the main reason for its existence.

The PLO under Arafat actually had became more moderate over the years and had signed a peace agreement with Rabin. Unfortunately Rabin was killed by an Israeli extremist. Arafat had opportunity to make a lasting peace during the Clinton administration with Barak. He ultimately chicken out believing he would be assassinated just as Rabin was. His so-called government was also very corrupt and did not serve the Palestinian people well, wasting international aid. This led to the rise of Hamas, a much more radical group bend on destroying Israel. Hamas became popular among the people with its organized social services. Arafat would not have gotten any international sympathy, except the Israelis were dumb enough to listen to extremists on their side and built settlements that were considered illegal in the eyes of the international community. The harsh treatment of the Palestinians led to intifadas and ultimately more and more suicide bombings.

So why do I go through this exercise of writing about what I feel as some of the important parts of Arab-Israel history? I figure I will be writing about this topics in the next few weeks and I will be referring to some of this history as I go. For example, I see pundits are calling for Israel to go into Lebanon and destroy Hezbollah once for all. As you can see from history, winning wars has not been a problem for Israel. They have won all the wars decisively and yet no security has been achieved. Israel maybe able to kill the leaders of Hezbollah and most of its foot soldiers in the coming weeks. But will that help her security? History says no. The bombing in Lebanon is making more future suicide bombers and terrorists everyday. Diplomatic solutions are hard because the bad guys are going to try their best to destroy any peace gesture. But diplomatic solutions are the only ones that can possibly bring lasting peace in this region. So has Bush make any diplomatic effort? Condi Rice hasn't even gone to the region yet and we are almost two weeks into the conflict. Apparantly Bush did not learn anything from history.

Newt Gringich was on t.v. today saying the Middle East conflict may lead to World War III. What irresponsible hyperbole! Even if we are to attack Iran and Syria the conflict will only be Middle East in nature. Is North Korea going to join in? Will Russia and China help Iran? Don't politicians have any understanding of the world?

Of course this does not mean the situation in the Middle East isn't dangerous. The Israel -Arab conflict should have been the first thing we addressed after invading Afghanistan. Our effort in this area is much more important than Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The so-called Axis of Evil have nothing to do with 9/11 but the Israel-Arab conflict has great impact. As our best ally in the area, Israel deserves our support. But not unconditional support. It is our unconditional support that makes it easy for the bad guys to recruit terrorists. There will always be evil people. But the most evil people who want to disrupt the world for their own gain do not want to sacrifice themselves. The Israel-Arab conflict, with the U.S. painted as anti-Arab, provides a perfect opportunity for the evil-doers to recruit for them.

Israel had made a meaningful step in moving out of Gaza. It is understandable for the Israelis to be frustrated by Hamas' attacks on Israel after the withdrawl. Most of us would want strong retaliation in response to the attacks. It is also no surprise, however, that Hamas and Hezbollah would attack. They don't want any peace plan to succeed. If the aftermath of withdrawl by Israel is peaceful then moderate Arab may proceed to peace agreement with Israel. So Hamas and Hezbollah have to act and then wait for Israel to react. The overwhelming reaction by Israel will sure upset more Arabs, particularly the young, and hope for peace will be destroyed. Terrorism against the west will increase.

So what do we do? Certainly by saying things like "all countries have the right to defend itself" is of no use. It actually give countries like North Korea an excuse to pursue missles and nuclear weapons to "defend itself". Israel must show restrain. Anger is understandable and in reality an eye for an eye is understandable also. But gouging the eyes of innocent civilians will not bring security to Israel. Instead of standing on the sideline, the U.S. must use diplomacy to bring about a cease fire. What good is it for Israel to keep bombing the infrastructures of Lebanon? And forget about sending troops into Lebanon, Israel just left there not long ago after a disastrous occupation. Stop the fighting now, send in UN peackeepers with humanitarian aid. Over the long haul if Israel and the U.S. can provide more social service to the Palestinians and Lebanese than Hamas and Hezbollah, then eventually the influence of these evil groups will diminish and peace will have a chance.

As you can see I offer no quick solutions. Nobody has quick solutions. Certainly military might will not do it otherwise Israel and we would have won a long time ago. Ariel Sharon's plan of withdrawl from the settlements is still the right decision. It is easy to predict that evildoers will try to derail the plan. It takes men of courage to continue a peace process despite obstacles and sometimes threats on their lives. Sadat and Rabin paid for peace with their lives. It will take courageous men in Palestine to challenge Hamas and courageous men in Israel to continue the plan started by Sharon. The U.S. must go between the two sides and encourage moderates from both sides to emerge. That should have been priority #1 after invading Afghanistan. It maybe an impossible task but if we were ever successful then Iran, Syria, al Qaeda and others will diminish drastically. But we continue stand on the sidelines on the Israel-Arab conflict then we will never defeat terrorism. If won't be World War III but we would not feel secure.

Soccer was my favorite sport when I was growing up. Of course for most of the world it is the only sport so people love it no matter what. Having just finished watching the World Cup, I feel that despite the popularity of the game world over, it needs some changes. The defense is so good that players with enormous dribbling and shooting skills can rarely get a shot off. Not only is the scoring too low but the acrobatic skills of the goalies are rarely on display. And a penalty shootout is not a way to determine the world champion. So I make the following suggestions. It is unlikely that significant changes will be made but I can hope. Several years ago I said to myself that they should get rid of passing back to the goalie to decrease offensive pressure, and lo and behold, they actually put that rule in. So maybe there is hope for other changes.

1. Change the no offside rule from mid-field to about the 35 yard area. This will lead to more fast breaks and help the fast players.
2. Shrink the penalty area by one-third. This will leave less area that the goalie can handle the ball. It will decrease the number of penalty kicks but that's o.k. because the penalty kick is deciding way too many games which means that the referee is deciding way too many games. If a foul is really close to the goal the pk is a reasonable penalty. But a foul 17 yards away generally do not deserve a pk. A free kick by someone like Beckham with a wall blocking him is much more interesting than a pk.
3. For the world championship no shootouts with sudden death goal wins. Have unlimited substitution in OT if you are worried about player exhaution. You have 23 players on the roster why are you using a maximum of 14? The team with the better depth should have a better chance to win.
4. Anyone who has received a yellow card, cannot stand in the defensive penalty area during a free kick or a corner kick.
5. Two referees, each monitoring half of the field. The game is too fast and often the referee, trailing the play cannot see fouls correctly and also cannot see what's happening behind him.

If you have other suggestions, write in. I have ideas for rule changes in other sports also if anyone is interested.

Horray for Bob and Mike Bryan of Camarillo for winning Wimbledon doubles championship and thus achieving a career grand slam!

I was watching CNN last night and one of the so called experts says that the launching of missiles by the North Koreans means there is more danger than when we were in the Cold War. This is ridiculous. The North Koreans were not even successful with the launch of their long range missile and even if they were successful, they are no threat to us. It will be years before they can fire these missles with any accuracy and put a nuclear warhead on them. And we can always blow up the missles before they are launched if we want to. Kim Jong Il also knows that if he ever use nuclear weapons he will be destroyed. Like any dictator, his first priority is staying in power and he cannot do that if his country is destroyed.

So why does Kim shoots his missiles? He does it to get attention. By creating a crisis, he hopes to improve his image at home and get concessions from the U.S. He was tired of Iran getting the attention when she does not even have nuclear weapons yet. Kim has gotten concessions before by causing a crisis and even if he does not get anything this time, he enjoys being in the limelight.

So how do we respond? We are paying way too much attention to Kim. As I said, this is no threat to us. We should just ignore him. Our government should not even mention this event and certainly should not say that this has grave consequences for North Korea. We are not going to attack him and diplomatically there is very little we can do. Just like treating a child, negative reinforcement seldom works. So we should ignore bad behavior and reward good behavior, if any ever occurs. Say nothing except perhaps give a computer generated scenario of what would happen to another country if we ever counterstrike against a nuclear attack. Just to give Kim a reminder!

The so-called Axis of Evil are all paper tigers. We should have never invaded Iraq. Having seen Iraq destroyed despite not having WMDs just make Iran and North Korea more anxious to have nuclear weapons as a deterrent. Iran and North Korea are still not great threats yet. Nuclear bombs will not fly across the sky at us. If any nuclear weapon is to hit here, it would be most likely be carried across the ocean on cargo ships or delivered as a dirty bomb. None of these countries we are worried about has the technology or the willingness to help terrorist groups secure nuclear weapons. They don't want their own country obliterated for helping terrorists. The most likely source of help for the terrorists, in my opinion, will be former Soviet states. They have the weapons and the skilled scientists who are not paid well. These scientists can be bought off and help secure nuclear material. If say a scientist in Lithuania helps Al Qaeda, we can't bomb the whole country of Lithuania for revenge. So this is a much bigger potential threat. Instead of worrying about North Korea and Iran, we should spend more money and effort to safeguard the nuclear materials and scientists in the former Soviet Union.

So ignore North Korea's antics. South Korea is much more threatened than us by North Korea. If the South doesn't want sanctions against the North, we shouldn't demand international sanctions. Sanctions would not be effecitve anyways and China and Russia may veto it. China is not helpful to us because she likes to see North Korea being a headache to us. China enjoys getting the attention from us as the only with possible influence on Kim. China does not want to see North Korea collapses and milllions of refugees charge into China. The only situation where China will be putting pressure on Kim is if Japan starts building up her military in response to North Korea threats. This may happen soon and China will not be happy. Obviously we don't want big military build-ups in Asia but the threat of a build up in Japan would be the only strong reason for China to put great pressure on North Korea. So let South Korea and Japan take the intiative in dealing with North Korea, they have a lot more at stake than us.

The Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration's claim that the President can make the rules in an unconventional war. While this may not help any innocent prisoners get out earlier, it does at least slow down the ability of the administration to use 9/11 to increase the power of the executive branch. Guantanamo Bay, surveillance of phone calls and bank transactions may very well be necessary in the war against terrorism but the way the administration carried them out shows a disregard for laws and the separation of power between the branches of government.

The wiretaps could have been done legally by simply getting warrants. The warrants can be obtained retrospectively if the government had to act before there was time to reach a judge. By putting in new rules that allow the NSA to bypass the court at will doesn't help fight terrorism. It was just an act of arrogance. The same with the bank transactions. It would be easy to get approval from Congress and the courts to make everything legal. By not going through the legal channels, the administration is trying to make the executive branch much more powerful than the other two branches.

By not giving the prisoners at Guantanomo American justice or justice according to the Geneva convention, it will lead to more terrorism against us. It is a lot easier for the bad guys to recruit people when they can point to Muslims that America only believe in justice for their own people. There are bound to be many prisoners who were not guilty of terrorism who are still detained without trials after several years. The long length of their incarceration will be used as a recruiting tool against us. Even if they had some connection with Al Qaeda, their usefullness as an information source is nil by now. If this is "24" they would be released long time ago and followed to see if they go back to their organization. (I watch too much t.v.) I think the administration does not have enough evidence to convict most of these people and they don't want to lose in court so they want to just keep them in prison until the war on terrorism ends. Of course the war of terrorism has no ending. Eventually, I believe, most of these prisoners will be released and Guantanomo will be closed after a new president takes office. It will be a black eye in the history of America justice.

Yesterday, June 22nd, the LA Times had a article about different religious groups plotting the so-called exit strategy, hastening the end of the world. This means the arrival of the messiah for their particular religion. You have the Christian, Muslim and Jewish groups all believing the end of the world as we know it is near. Now I don't know who is right but I know they all can't be right. Obviously everybody can believe what he wants to believe, but some of the contradictory statements made by religious leaders strike me as being illogical.

The President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, hopes to welcome the messiah Mahdi to Tehran in 2 years. If he thinks the messiah is going to come so soon and convert everyone to Islam then why is he worrying about building nuclear weapons for the future? The Jews, meanwhile, are rebuilding the Holy Temple destroyed by the Romans, before the coming of their messiah. Gershon Solomon of the Jerusalem's Temple Institute remarked that when the temple is built "Islam is over." The Christians are helping Israel as they believe that they will be judged by how they treat the Jews. So the Christians are strong lobbyists for Israel. Of course they also believe that the Jews who do not convert to Christianity will be condemned to hell. This is a concept that shock the Jews. Gershon Solomon, when asked about the Christian belief, said "What kind of religion is it that expects another religion will be destroyed?" Of course that is exactly what he thought would happen to Islam. It is also what Muslims think will happen to Jews and Christians.

So they all think they are smart enough to know their religion is the right one. I guess I am not so smart. Read back to my blog on 9-26-05 and you will see that I have no idea who is the true God. All I know is that the true God will be more forgiving than us, not less. For example, if Mother Teresa believed in the wrong God, would the true God condemn her to hell? If your religion teaches you that good people from different religions than yours are going to hell, I don't think you have found the true religion.

The Republican majority passed resolutions in the Senate and House which defeated the call for a timetable for withdrawl from Iraq. The resolutions were just political ploys because they included a call for support of the troops. So if one votes for a timetable then the Republicans can use it against him in November by saying that he voted against the troops. Dennis Hastert even called this a vote for freedom. This is an insult to the intelligence of the American people. There are reasonable arguments for not having a timetable but if you believe that this is a vote to support freedom and the troops then you are a moron, the exact type of people the Republicans are trying to convince.

These symbolic votes show how inept our political leaders are. All they are doing to trying to figure out how best to win the next election. The Republicans know that the war is going badly but figure that by keep yelling "stay the course" they can still beat the democrats in November. The Democrats blame the Republicans but have no alternative policies of their own. Now that most congressmen voted to support our troops, what strategy do they have to bring them home?

There seems to be very little celebration with the death of Zarqawi. Even President Bush cautions that a lot more fighting is ahead. There was none of the claims of victory as after Hussein was captured. This is because we have learned that the insurgency is very resilent and that the loss of one leader will not mean its end. There is question of whether Zarqawi is all that important or even competent as a leader. However, this is an opportunity to use his death to our advantage, although given Bush's reaction he does not seem to see the opportunity.

This is the time now to save face and get the hell out of Iraq. Bush keeps saying that we will stay course until the work is completed. But what is the end point? Does anyone believe that any government can stablize the country in less than 10 years? Certainly not any government that is supported by the U.S. Somewhere down the line the country will be either split into Shiite and Sunni and Kurdish regions via civil war or the Shiites become dominant with the help of Iran and overwhelm the others. I believe one of these scenarios will play out no matter how long we stay in Iraq. If there is any chance for it to turn out differently, it would require us to get out as soon as possible. It is easier for insurgents to recruit as long as there are Americans occupying the country. Sunnis can point to Americans as helping the Shiites to kill them. Shiites can say that if not for American interference, they would have put down the Sunnis already. There maybe a slim chance that without Americans to blame, some moderate leaders can unite the country. Well, at least after several moderate leaders are assassinated first.

What about the argument that we did not finish the job and that would look bad for us in the future. Well, we already lost lot of credibility by invading Iraq in the first place. But everybody still knows that we can kill them. We just can't occupy them. But who else do we want to occupy? Iran and North Korea know that we can't occupy them but so what? They know that we can destroy them. If we leave Iraq they will make fun of us for awhile, but so what? We can claim victory now by saying that the head of the insurgency is dead. The enemy is headless. The Sunni leadership of Hussein and now Zarqawi are gone. The Shiites can run the country with a democratically elected government. It is all up to the leaders of Iraq now. This is what we set out to do. Of course, everybody in the world know that is a lie. But so what? This is the way to save face on the international stage. At least no more soldiers will be killed for no reason and we can spend money on other things that will improve our lives and keep us safer. Bring the troops home now.

The Supreme Court ruling denying whistle-blower rights for government employees is a wrong decision. Generally I like laws that limit lawsuits because I believe there are way too many frivolous lawsuits in our country. But to say that if you work for the government you have no right to reveal official misconduct is absurd. This sounds more like the laws of China or Iran. If the Chinese government was to fire one of its official for exposing international violations in the government, wouldn't western countries cry foul?

Whistle-blower rights are even more important for government employees than private employees. If a company do something illegal or unethical, it is likely that eventually this will catch up to it. Whistle-blowers are important in cases like Enron but even if there was no whistle-blowers I think sooner or later the fraud would have been exposed and the company would have gone down. But with frauds in government this can go on much longer without a whistle-blower from the inside. For example, who on the outside can monitor a crooked police department? As it is with the so-called code of silence, it is difficult to get rid of bad cops. We cannot get rid of a police department by dumping its stocks as we can do to a bad company. Many more lives are at stake when a government agency can operate with impugnity. With this ruling by the Supreme Court, who will be brave enough to say "the emperor has no clothes"?

It is nice that the Democrats and Republicans in the House are agreeing on something. Unfortunately, the thing they agree on is that the Justice department acted illegally in confiscating records from the office of Congressman William Jefferson. I am no Constitution scholar but I assume the judge who ordered the warrant knows something about the law. I don't see how this has anything to do with the separation of powers between the branches of government. By using this technicality it appears that the Congress want to be treated differently than ordinary Americans when they are accused of a crime. This is amazingly insensitve and stupid in view of the recent allegation of bribery scandals involving Congressmen.

Now Bush is getting himself involve by sealing the documents seized while the Justice department and Congress negotiate. The Attorney General and FBI directors are hinting that they may resign if the President forces them to return the documents. I will give the Republicans some credit for not making this a partisan issue. Nevertheless, for a party that takes pride in their law and order agenda, I would expect that they treat government officials at least as harsh as the average citizen accused of crimes. Having monitored people's phone conversations without warrants, now Bush is worried that a document seizure backed by a warrant is against the law? My conclusion? There are more people in our government who are worried that their documents will be subpoenaed soon and they are afraid that if they don't answer the subpoena quick enough, their documents will also be seized. This may not be the right conclusion but I believe it is closer to the truth than the theory that Hastert and Pelosi are doing this for principle. Who knows where Abramhoff will lead us to?

A judge in California placed an injunction against the California High School Exit Exam. The judge cited the unequal education system leading to a higher proportion of minority and poor students failing the exam. While economics and the school one attends would have a significant impact on one's performance on standardized tests, there is really no excuse for failing this exam. The standards of this exam is extremely low. The math portion is at 8th grade level and the English part tests at 10th grade level. You only need a 55% to pass the math section and 60% to pass the English part. Starting from 10th grade a student has two chances to pass the test each year. So essentially one has 6 chances to pass with a D- or F+ on tests that are two to four year levels below what a graduating senior should know. Not only that, the test was suppose to have been implented for the class of 2004 but was pushed back to this year for political reasons. There was plenty of time for the schools and students to prepare for this and yet over 10% of the senior students in the state have yet to pass the exam. Somehow these students have been passed by the school to the 12th grade despite not really having learned at the high school level. No wonder the high school diploma is becoming worthless.

It is true that some of the students do not pass the exam are disadvantaged by the fact that they are immigrants and thus are behind in English. From previous blogs you know that I am for immigrant rights. I am, however, a firm believer that you need to play the cards that you were dealt. Immigrants, of all people, should understand this. Just because you are disadvantaged it doesn't give you an excuse not to succeed. Non-English speaking immigrants from various countries in our history have overcame disadvantages and became successful. I believe that the immigrants today have the same ability to succeed and will not make our country poorer as some conservatives claim. However, if there is one thing that will make immigrants unsuccessful, it would be because liberals making excuses on behalf of immigrants. This lawsuit is an example of this. The liberals supported two Hispanic students from Richmond, claiming being disadvantaged on this test. The students should have been held accountable for their failure to learn the material. Over the long run this type of excuses will make immigrants less competitve.

Our public school systems are graduating students who cannot function in society. Recently a business employer wrote to our local newspaper complaining about the quality of high school graduates in the area. Not surprisingly, several teachers and school administrators wrote in to protest. My experience has been the same as the employer writer. The majority of high school graduates who apply for a job in my office cannot convert inches to feet or ounces to pounds. Do you think that would be true of high school graduates in China and India? We need to hold students, parents and schools accountable for such failures. This exit exam is just a minimum standard which they should meet.

President Bush is trying to ease the pressure on gas prices by halting the purchase of oil for the strategic petroleum reserve. This has been done by his predecessors with almost no effect. The problem right at this moment is not the amount of oil inventory, which is at a 6 year high, but is the production of gasoline not meeting the demand of consumers. The investigation of price gouging is not likely to be fruitful because the oil company can legitimely make huge profits by just letting the law of supply and demand work. The only fault I see of the oil companies is that they have been negligent in increasing the number of refineries which would increase production. This is like OPEC which controls the supply to drum up higer prices. The only way you can fight that would be to decrease demand ourselves.

Yes, we are to blame for our energy problem. In the short term the Bush administration is partly responsible for this run up. The disastrous policy of invading Iraq and the fighting stance we take against Iran (more on that in another blog), have cause a big rise in the futures market for oil and gas which affect the current prices. In the long term it is the poor energy policy of our government, including previous democratic administration, and our own appetite as consumers for fossil fuel that bring about unstable energy prices. Sure, India and China are increasing their comsumption at record paces. But we still use way more energy per capita than anyone else. We drive Hummers that get maybe 5 miles per gallon when park on the 405 "freeway". We heat swimming pools and jacuzzis in warm southern California. We live in 5000 square feet houses that we need to heat and air condition even though there may be 2 people in the house. I always say: don't blame the Colombians for our drug problems. Now I say: don't blame the Saudis for our energy problems.

What is the energy policy of the Bush administration consists of? Drilling the Alaska Wildlife Refuge is their first priority. I am no card carrying liberal environmentalist. Nobody reading this or anyone I know has ever gone to the Alaska Artic area. So if nobody ever goes there, what difference does it make how pristine it is? The only thing is, drilling this whole area is not an energy policy. Even if every drop of oil is taken out of there, it will only be enough for couple of years of usage by us. It will benefit the oil companies more than anyone of us. The Bush administration, as everyone else, advocates alternative fuels. But advocating doesn't mean help bring it about and the government is doing very little to bring it about.

What are my suggestions? I don't pretend that my solutions will work perfectly nor that anyone will vote me into political office if they see what I am suggesting. They are more likely to assassinate me first. But here it is: First I would increase the price of gasoline to level of what the Europeans and Japanesed pay. That means increase the tax so that the total cost is over $5 per gallon! Everybody says that alternate energy is important but unless there is an extreme urgency such that buying gas may actually be more expensive than buying an alternate fuel, nobody will be serious about it. Our greatest successes in science as a nation were beating the Germans to the atomic bomb and beating the Russians to the moon. If the challenges of the Germans and the Russians were not there, we would not have accomplished these goals in such a short time. We need a real shock and awe to our country to get this done.

After we see what happens with $5 dollar per gallon prices for maybe 6 months, I would cut the tax so that the price would go back to market value. The reason is that a high price of gas hurt the poor people much more than rich people. Some people would not make it to work because of the price of gas. High energy price leads to inflation which will hurt low-income people much more. So then I would put in a flat income tax with no loopholes. There would be a decrease in capital gain tax. There would be no deduction for mortgage interests nor for home property tax paid. There would be a luxury tax on cars with low mileage and high price tags. There will be taxes on heated swimming pools, jacuzzis, private planes and boats. What I am saying is that if you make lots of money, you can save some income tax, and the money you earn by investing in the businesses of this country will be taxed at a lower rate. You have the freedom to buy anything you want but anything frivolous and high energy costing will set you back a l0t more.

I would use the money from all these taxes to subsidize energy research. We can't count on the energy companies to plow money into research for alternate fuels. The best company in this area is British Petroleum which claims that BP stands for Beyond Petroeum. But upon being pressed on the Charlie Rose show, the president of BP admits that alternate fuel research budget of the company is still very low. As an overall education program (more on another blog), we must increase the number of physics, chemistry and engineering students in this country. A subsidized education in these fields for American citizens is a must. I know that India and China are working very hard in these areas. While losing this race will not be as disastrous as losing the atomic bomb race with Germany, it will have far more economic repurcussion than the increase of price of gas today.

Needless to say the medicine I prescribe is hard to swallow. But we must know that energy policy is not just about our pocket book. It is about a reliance on a geographical area that is totally unstable and this affects our foreign policies. It also affects the foreign policies of China and India. Without stable energy supplies, China will be more and more friendly with countries like Iran, Venezuela and Sudan. Even we are reluctant to put pressure on Saudia Arabia for human rights violations and for indirectly helping terrorists. The $3.15 per gallon we are paying today is not a crisis. It is just a mild cold. But if we don't do more prevention for the future, eventually no medicine will be effective. We may not be around to see the real disasters but we would have left a poorer world for our children and grandchildren.

The president of China, Hu Jintao, completed his visit to the U.S. this week. I must say that I am disappointed with Hu's performance since becoming president. Hu is supposed to be the first of a new generation of Chinese leaders. Hu and many of his deputies were trained as scientists in the most prestigious universities in China. With this background I would expect that they will be less ideologues than the previous generation of leaders who came to power as revolutionaries. Surely they would understand that just having a capitalistic economic system will not be enough. Social reforms will be necessary before China catches up with the West. At first Hu showed a lot of promise. He showed compassion for victims of HIV right after he took office. His government's handling of the avian flu epidemic was better than previous administrations' handling of other health crisis. I thought that having a scientist in charge will bring about more meaningful changes in society. Unfortunately this appears to be a false hope.

I can understand that democracy cannot occur overnight. China is afraid of what happened to Russia. A whole scale attempt to change from communism to democracy quickly was not successful in Russia. The collapse of the Russian economy with increase in crime have led to a backlash and Putin's government is reverting to totalitarianism. But having changed from a state controlled economy to a market based economy over the past twenty years or so, China should be in position to make more social changes. Improvement in human rights will not only make life better for the people but will lead to more creativity and thus move China forward. Some, like Andrew Grove of Intel believes that China can catch up to the U.S. in the next 25 years. I don't think that is possible. China has a lot of problems. Seventy-five percent of the people still in rural areas and are extremely poor. There is no way China can sustain this 9% annual growth rate. Social reforms that can unlock the potential of its huge population is the only way that can take China to the next level. If this generation of leaders do not allow this to happen it will not only be bad for China but will lead to deterioration of the world economy and threaten world peace.

A recent article in the LA Times bolstered my point about illegal immigrants. (Of course, I wouldn't mention it if it didn't help my arguments.) The article was about the use of immigrants, most of them illegal, to work on the reconstruction of New Orleans. Some of them work for contstruction companies contracted by FEMA. So indirectly our government is the employer of these workers. More about that later. These immigrants came from all over the U.S. or directly from Mexico when they heard there were high paying jobs available in this reconstruction effort. Why didn't the Americans who left after Katrina come back to rebuild their own city? I am sure the companies would not discriminate against Americans. And if they did discrminate against Americans then a lawsuit or complaint to the government would take care of that. Some people have argued that if wages were higher then Americans would do the jobs that illegals are doing today. The situation in New Orleans refutes this argument. Some of these construction jobs are paying $16 an hour. All you need is muscles. Yet few Americans want the jobs. Some say that there is not enough housing so few Americans can come back to work in New Orleans. Yet the immigrants are willing to sleep on floors or even outdoors without plumbing to work on these jobs. So you are going to tell me we can deport 11 million people and take over the jobs they are doing?

As I have said before, building a fence on the Mexico border will not stop the flow the illegal immigrants. It will just be a big expenditure that makes us look xenophobic. By the way, it is a 700 mile fence to be built in hot desert conditions. Who are we going to hire to build this fence? I don't think it will be Americans. Few Americans wanted to work to build the railroads at a time when we had much less luxury in the country. Remember much of the railroads were built by Chinese immigrants, most of them illegals. Unless you are going to double or triple the estimated cost of the fence, you are going to have to hire illegals to build the fence to keep out illegals.

Now, about the govenment hiring illegals indirectly. There was a report on the CBS evening news tonight about government contractors hiring illegal to work on construction at military bases. Now if the government is worried about security with illegals, it should look in its own backyard. You tell me that all these military and government officials who work at these bases couldn't see that all the construction workers were Hispanic and that either all the blacks and whites are too lazy to work there or the company is trying to save money by hiring immigrants? As I said, if there is a demand there will be a supply.

I think ultimately nothing significant will come out of this. The House and the Senate probably won't agree to a compromise. Things will drag out with rhetoric coming out of everywhere. Eventually the mid-term election will pass and this will be forgotten. I know there is no great solution at this time. The guest work program, even if it passes, will only help some in slowing down the illegal flow. Don't worry though, after Regan gave amnesty to illegals some thought that illegal immigration would stop while others thought the world will end. Neither proved to be true. Yet economically I think we are stronger than the 80's despite all our complaints. You know, if all the people in the world would come and live in Texas, the population density of Texas will only be slightly greater than New York city. Hard to believe, eh? We are far from being an economic and population disaster. Every immigration group that have come to this country have contributed to the success of this nation. If there is going to be a downfall to America in the future, it would not be because of immigrants, legal or illegal.

Recently Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles announced that the Catholic Church here will ignore any law that would prohibit the helping of illegal immigrants. There is a law pending in the House that would not only make illegal immigration a felony but also punish those that help these people. I have not been a fan of the Cardinal since the sex abuse scandals and the cover ups that have been revealed. I do agree with him on this issue, however. Many people who are against illegal immigrants are conservative Christians. I would ask them to consider whether God would declare immoral someone who crosses a man-made border to take up jobs that nobody else want in order to feed his children. I think God would want us to be compassionate about others who are not as fortunate as us living in this wealthy land. There is no way that God would be against someone helping another human being, no matter what country they are in.

I understand that America has the right to enforce her borders. I also understand that certain areas of the country like California are overcrowded. I also understand that many poor, non-English speaking people moving into certain towns or cities can cause many problems for those areas. I also understand that it is unfair for those legal immigrants who may have to wait longer to get into the U.S. because the country is trying to hold down the total number of immigrants per year. I do understand why some people who are not racists would want to stop illegal immigration. I would like to point out why these people's anger are misdirected at the immigrants and that we really have only ourselves to blame. I would also like to point out unless human nature change dramatically, the solution to this problem will be hard to obtain.

Everyday driving to work, I pass vast agricultural areas here in southern California. I do not believe I have ever seen a black or white person working in these fields. In my practice I treat many people who are farm workers, some of them illegal, I am sure. I have never treated a white or black person who works in the fields. Everyday new hotels are built here in California. I estimate that 95% of the maids that work in these hotels are Hispanic. New houses go up all around me and the gardners who work the yards are almost 100% Hispanic. If somehow all illegal immigration are stopped, we would have to bring in more legal immigrants in to replace them. I don't think you can ever find enough blacks and whites, even those on welfare, to do these work. Nobody who is against illegal immigrants has send his sons to work in the fields or his daughters to clean hotel rooms. So over crowding in California is not the fault of illegal immigrants. Unless we don't want to farm our land or if nobody want to live in California or come here for vacation, the population of California will increase at the same rate. When there is a demand there will be a supply. You can bomb Colombia out of existence, but if we want drugs, somebody will supply it to us. If we don't want to do the work ourselves, somebody will supply the labor.

Is there a difference between legal immigrants or illegal ones? My parents were legal immigrants. It took them more than 10 years to get into the country. My parents are honorable people. They would not do anything that you would consider illegal. Yet if China was attached to the U.S., they would not have waited 10 years to get official approval before coming here. They would have crossed the border like the Mexicans are doing today to make a better living for their children. If they had crossed illegally, they would have done the same jobs, brought up the family the same way and my siblings and I would have become productive citizens as we are today. When you are trying to survive you would not think of crossing a border as an illegal thing to do. Did you see all those people in New Orleans breaking into stores to get food and water after Katrina? You can call them looters but if you are hungry and thirsty, wouldn"t you do the same? How about the old people who buy medication illegally from Mexico or Canada, are they bad people? All of you, unless you are a pure bred native American, have ancestors who are from another country. If your ancestors were desperate they would come in illegally if their country of origin was attached to the U.S. You think if Ireland was connected to the U.S., the Irish wouldn't charge into America during the potato femine? Interesting enough, I read an article that up until recently many Irish came over here illegally by coming on visitors visa and simply stayed in cities like New York or Boston. Some of the Irish-American cops actually would turn a blind eye to this. This trend has come to a halt, not because people feel guilty about it but because the economy in Ireland has improved tremendously so there is actually a reverse migration of the Irish going back to Ireland. So you see, illegal immigration is not something bad people would do but something all of us would do given the same circumstance.

Some people want to put a fence around our Mexican border. They say it can help stop terrorists as well as illegal immigrants. Well, I think terrorists will find it easier to get into Canada instead of Mexico and then cross over a much longer Candadian border with practically no patrol. As far as illegal immigrants are concern, it would slow it down some but won't be effective. People from Cuba and Haiti risk their lives on the rough sea to reach Florida. Chinese people are smuggled in shipping containers across the Pacific. Where there is a will, there is a way. When people are desperate, they will do anything.

The only way to stop this is if demand disappear or if the source of supply dries up. The supply would only be gone if Mexico becomes economically comparable to the U.S. Fat chance that is going to happen any time soon. We can help Mexico with investments but ultimately it will be up to the Mexican government and its business people to improve. One way to cut demand would be to punish the employers harshly so that it would not be worthwhile for them to hire illegals. This can be done but the government has no interest to do so. Like I said, the whole agricultural industry will be destroyed. The consumers will be paying much more for food. You think that the government have the guts to put big business people like officers of Wal-Mart in jail for hiring illegals? I would bet that many politicians from California have or had illegals working for them directly or indirectly. If people like the minutemen are serious about stopping illegal immigration and they are not racists, then they should picket the employers and expose politicians who have hired illegals instead of intimidating poor immigrants.

One possible way to cut demand would be a guest worker program. It would be fair to allow workers to come in to work legally without permanent resident status. Employers can hire these guest workers, pay them fair wages without legal problems. They would be punished if they hire workers without guest permits or try to pay someone below a fair wage. This won't get rid of all the illegals because you can't catch all small businesses and there is always someone who would hire people off the street to work on his yard. The large farms and businesses who violate the rules would be easy to catch if the government is willing. So unless you are ready to shut down all of our farms and close the hotels, a guest worker program must be started soon.

As for the law that would prohibit anyone from aiding an illega immigrant, I would defy it if it passes. As a physician I will treat anyone regardless of where he is from. If someone catches an infectious disease, he can pass it to anyone else regardless of that person's citizenship. Not only would it be inhumane to not treat someone but it would be a health hazard for the whole population. I agree with the Catholic Church that we should help our fellow man and not demonize him for doing something we would do if we were in the same situation.