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.