Israel has been bombing the Gaza strip for the past 3 days, killing over 300 Palestinians. The Israelis claimed that they are going after Hamas who are shelling Israel daily. But of course many of the dead are not militants but civilians. This will undoubtedly lead to more deadly violence as Israeli soldiers may go into Gaza. This remind me of the blog I wrote in summer of 06 when Israel went into Lebanon to try to destroy Hezbollah. I wrote then that if we learn anything from history is that violence will not solve this problem. A diplomatic solution must be sought. But the Bush administration has not done anything in the past 8 years and is just waiting to hand things off to Obama.

Speaking of Obama, when he went to Israel before the election, he commented that if someone is shelling his house, threatening his daughters, he would respond just like the Israelis. This comment is being used by Israel to justify their attack. I agree with Obama that if I am living in Israel, I would feel the same way as the Israelis and want to go after Hamas. But nobody is saying what he would do if he was a Palestinian and is getting bombed by the much more powerful Israel air force. Most likely he would hate Israel and would do almost anything to seek revenge. So if Obama is even handed he would say how he feels if he is a Palestinian as well as an Israeli.

So where do we go from here? If Israel wants to destroy Hamas, it would have to go in with lots of soldiers. This risks heavy casualities and attack from Hezbollah from Lebanon. I think it will be a quagmire for Israel. You know, the Palestinian territory is divided into Gaza which is run by Hamas and the West Bank which is run by Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas is much more moderate and he has condemn Hamas for attacking Israel. So Israel and the U.S. should try to build up the West Bank as quickly as possible. If the Palestinians in the West Bank actually can thrive economically, it will show the Arabs that by cooperating their lives can improve. Declare West Bank as the independent Palestinian state. Then let the Palestinians from the West Bank bring aid into Gaza. Maybe they will be considered traitors but maybe a majority in the Gaza will turn away from Hamas. It certainly is worth trying.

In April of last year after the VT killing by a deranged Korean student, I wrote that Asians were afraid that they would be stigmatized by the ethnicity of the killer. I wrote that Asians had nothing to be ashamed of since the killer is the only person responsible for the tragedy, his ethnicity has nothing to do with it. Now the newspapers are saying that the Jewish community is worried that they will be stigmatized by the Madoff Ponzi scheme. Again I say this is an act by a deranged person who abused the people who trusted him. His religion or ethnicity had nothing to do with it.

The newspapers are saying that blogs are written about Jews being cheaters or that they are greedy and so they lost money. Well, there will always be racists who say such thing. But I am confident that the majority of Americans are fair-minded and that like the VT tragedy, no group of people will become stigmatized as a result of this. The truth is Wall Street is full of people of any race or ethnicity who are willing to cheat. The SEC is totally incompetent in regulating and thus help lead to the current financial crisis. As for the victims, most of the lost money belonged to charity foundations so most of the victims were not greedy people. Paraphrasing an old Chinese saying: people tend to cheat those who are familiar to them. This is a classical case of Madoff using his familiar status among other Jewish people to take advantage of them. Shame on him and the SEC.

Obama asked evangelist Rick Warren to give the prayer at his inauguration. This has led to condemnation from both the right and the left. Gay activists complained because Warren is against gay marriages. The right is angry at Warren for accepting the invitation of a liberal. All Obama is doing is fulfilling his pledge that he will reach over to the other side. Obviously he does not agree with many things that Warren advocates but he knows that Warren has also come out for AIDS causes, the environment, and improving poverty. I would rather that he hangs out and have discussions with Warren than have any association with Blagoyevich! The Republicans had accused Obama of being the most liberal senator. But judging by his cabinet appointments and including Warren in his inauguration, it seems to me he is trying to govern from the center. I hope he continues to do this. Bush failed to deliver on "compassionate conservatism". I know that Obama is to the left of center on most issues, but I hope he will deliver on "pragmatic liberalism".

Obama probably will not get in trouble with this Blagojevich affair. But you have to wonder how clean one can be coming from a stinky political scene such as Illinois. Five out of last ten governor got indicted? That is a higher percentage than baseball players on steroid. I think Illinois will beat out Louisiana for the Super Bowl championship of corrupt politics.

Obama seems safe from this episode because Blagojevich complained on tape, in colorful language, that the Obama team will not pay. But that means he must have talked to someone from the Obama team. That in itself is not wrong because you would expect Obama to have an opinion as to whom should be appointed to his vacated seat. Obama's response so far has not been very strong. He needs to be more transparent. How long does it take to question everyone that may have talked to Blagojevich? I know he says that the prosecutor does not want him to say anything yet. But it seems to me that Obama should have nip this whole thing quicker. He needs to devote his full attention to all the other problem he will face next month.

I am ambivalent about whether the automakers should get the bailout. I tend to believe that nobody should get a bailout. Look at Chrysler which got a big loan, merged with Mercedes, a foreign company, and now is asking for loan again. Didn't they learn the lesson the first time? I think the so-called concession by the UAW is cosmetic only and will not help much. I don't know enough about the plans put up by the Big 3 in front of Congress. But if the government is a bank, would it think that the automakers' plans would make them a good lending risk? I think not. I think there is a good chance that if one or two of the companies declare bankruptcy, they can start all over, with new salary scales, and be stronger in the future than if we just bail them out.

But I will say that the government has not been as fair to the automakers as to the financial industry. I don't see any concession from the salaries of people in insurance or banking before they got the bailout money. AIG had a big party right afterward. There was no business plans from the banks as to how they will spend the money. It is not clear to anybody what has been done with the money so far. So it is totally unfair that the government is so easy on Wall Street and much harder on Detroit. And I find it absurd for one Congressman after another berating the automakers for their failure to be in the black. The one institution in this country running the biggest deficit is the Federal government. While the UAW has at least made some concessions, I don't see any government unions at any level is willing to renegotiate anything. You see, if anyone is too big to fail, it is the government and that is why it is so difficult to make government better.

So I don't know what is the best. And I don't think anyone else does either. Even the best economists argue about whether government interventions are good. They still argue about whether FDR's New Deal help or hurt the depression. Some argue that only WWII got the economy back, not all the government programs. I don't know whether the bailouts will prove to be the right thing to do. I do think that Obama's idea of stimulating the economy by rebuilding roads and bridges is good. Even if it does nothing for the economy at least we will have new roads and bridges which we sorely need. To show how little anyone really understands the economy, I heard Ben Stein, a conservative economist on CNN, said that unlike people, who must balance their expenses with income, government can go deep into debt without raising taxes because it can print money. That seems like the stupidest thing I ever heard. And he is a CONSERVATIVE ECONOMIST. I mean, if that is the case then no Africa country will be starving. They can print money as well as we can. I also heard another economist said that bailout money is just us loaning money to ourselves. If that is the case, how come we have to owe money to China and Saudi Arabia? If supposedly smart money people can come up with statements like that, you wonder how we are going to recover.

It appears that the terrorist attack in India was the work of Pakistani extremists. It also appears that there was local involvement given how well the terrorists knew about the targets. It is not surprising that there are radicals inside India. There are actually more Muslims in India than in Pakistan! The Muslims are also much poorer and less educated than the average Indians. I have heard that they are worse off than the so-called Untouchables in India. So it is not surprising that a number of them would turn against their country.

I have always said that the former Soviet countries are the most likely places where terrorists will get a nuclear weapon. But the most likely country to use the bomb next time will be Pakistan, will India following in retaliation. Iran and North Korea will not use the bomb in the near future because they know by doing they will be annihilated. But if Pakistan is taken over by Islamic fundamentalist and is losing a war against India, then the use of the bomb will be a strong possibility. So it is imperative that Obama try to defuse this situation and try to change the dynamic of this region.

It is easier said than done of course. There is a lot of mistrust on both side. Given the unhappiness of the Indian people regarding the government's handle of the attack, the Indians may want to put more blame on the Pakistan government to rally nationalism. Hopefully they won't do that but if they do our government should intervene to prevent escalation of tension. Pressure should be placed on Pakistan to find the organization involved. Instead of sending money to arm Pakistan which has not help in the war against terror, we should help finance schools in both countries which will be a counterweight against religious schools which foster extremism. All this will take time and a lot of effort, but nuclear wars and terrorism will not be stopped with force alone.

With the horrible state of the economy in the nation and here in California I find it absurd that everyday in the news here there is a story of protests regarding the passage of prop. 8 which bans same sex marriage. I voted against the ban because I don't think it is anybody's business what two people want to call each other. It will be a mute point in a few years anyway because prop. 8 passed with 52%, less than a similar prop. a few years ago. More and more young people don't have problems with same sex marriage and as more of them become adults and vote, same sex marriage will become a reality in the future. Why waste all the energy and money? Now that the prop. has passed, the gay right groups are out in force everyday. Where was the energy before the election? It seems to me that before the election the proponents of prop 8 were really working hard whereas the opponents were not getting their message out. Hey, accept defeat and try to do better next time.

Instead the gay activists are targeting people who supported prop. 8. The Mormon church is a big target because of huge donations from the members. I don't agree with their position but I think it is their right to do what they want. Even if the church had not come out and urge members to support prop. 8, the overwhelming majority of the members would have anyway because that is their religious belief. What I find absurd is that the Calif. Teachers union contributed money to defeat prop.8. Why is a teacher's union involved in this issue that has nothing to do with education and teachers? I am sure that a significant numbers of teacher members do not support gay marriage. Why is their money used against their will?

Hollywood is in a dilemma. There has been calls to sanction people who work in the industry and who had contributed money to prop.8. This seems to be like the McCarthy era where people in Hollywood were blacklisted for being possible communist sympathizers. The ACLU supports the free speech of hate groups so it seems to me they should come out and support people who voice their opinion against gay marriage. So it seems that liberals and conservative alike only want freedom for themselves but do not respect the rights of the other side. We should be spending time and energy on the economy, the war, healthcare and global warming. Instead we are wasting time on this nonsense.

News came out today that the bailout money for AIG is not enough. The tab is up to 150 billion and the government is now saying it would spend another 40 billion to buy a stake in the company. So the original 700 billion bailout for everybody is not going to be nearly enough. And we have started the process less than a month. Already the auto companies are calling for bailout money also. If this is not socialism, I don't know what is. Well, in socialism I don't think a company who gets a handout would immediately throw a big party as AIG did a month ago. If this is a communist bailout the executives of these companies would be in hard labor camp by now.

Speaking of communists, China is coming up with a stimulus plain of its own. I actually think the communists have a better idea here. They are investing mostly in infrastructure. So if the stimulus does not get the desired economic effect, at least they have new roads, bridges and hospitals. With companies like AIG and Fannie Mae still struggling even with the infusion of cash, you wonder if we are throwing good money after bad. I always thought that bailing out companies or have government take over parts of them was what communist countries do. But we are doing that now while China is investing in its infrastruture. Something is wrong here.

Obama has no choice but to call for the Bush administration to help out the auto companies. He owed the unions for their support. But he should make sure there are union concessions and strategy changes in the companies before the loans are approved. If the companies don't have a new strategy of making cars that are more energy efficient or use alternative fuels, they are not going to survive. They would just die in two or three years instead of next year even with the cash infusion. If there are no union concessions the big 3 will not be competitive, and again they will die off sooner or later. Didn't they learned the lessons of Chrysler years ago?

It is a difficult challenge for the new president to fill his cabinet posts. You have to have various races represented, at least one woman and a Republican. There is a rumor that Colin Powell may take the job of sec. of education. This will take care of the token Republican. Powell's background is from the Carribeans. This can count as a Hispanic as well. This gives me an idea to make things simple for the president-elect. He can just appoint a few light skin blacks who are usually of mixed races and thus give the cabinet the diversity it needs.

Sec. of defense: Tim Howard, U.S. national soccer team goalie. Plays excellent defense obviously. Played for Manchester United so is well known around the world. Plus he has Tourrette Syndrome which will scare the enemy when he is negotiating.

Sec. of agriculture: Tiger Woods. Takes care of the Asian plus American Indian quota. He plays golf which Karl Malone says is a waste of good farm land. Can also helps with the Treasury dept with his enormous earnings.

Sec. of transportation: Lewsis Hamilton, new world driving champion. Has to be naturalized first but maybe we can SPEED up the process.

Attorney General: Charles Barkley. Wants to run for governor but since he is always complaining about referrees he should be good at law-enforcement.

Sec. of Commerce: Halle Berry. Sex sells. Need we say more?

Sec. of State: Derek Jeter. Captain of the Yankees forever so must be able to be very diplomatic. Plus he went to Michigan, so must be smart.

Sec. of Treasury: Alex Rodriguez. This is the man with the richest contract in baseball so must be able to contribute to our economy. Also counts as Hispanic as family was from the Dominican Republic. Can get Madonna to sing at the inauguration.

Dept of energy: James Blake. You ever see those 5 set tennis matches? Must have a lot of energy for those. Plus he went to Harvard and thus is almost as smart as Jeter.

So no more bland old white guys. The cabinet composition will be as hip as the new president. All these people are well known worldwide. Obama will even be more popular around the world after these appointments. And I have saved him a lot of time.

Yes, the young black man has made history. He will inspire a generation of young people of color to become whatever they want to be. Yes, I am talking about Lewis Hamilton, the first black world F-1 driving champion. Ok, Barak Obama didn't do too bad either. It is great victory for him and the Democrats. But I think it is also a victory for America. It shows the world that this is still the land of opportunity, that the son of an African and a white American can grow up to be president. I think this will make America look greater than ever in the eyes of the world.

Now comes the hard part. He will now has to govern. His victory speech was rather subdued. This is partly due to his personality. While he is capable of arousing the crowd, he does not let the highs get too high or the lows get too low. I think this temperament is very good for a president. But I think he also understands the enormity of his challenges. He made a lot of promises during the campaign, as any candidate would. He knows that he can't possibly keep all or even most of them. I won't hold him to all the promises. I know that is impossible for any human being.

I do hope that he will reach across the aisle and work with the Republicans as he promised. He cannot let people like Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank run the government. He will have to shed the liberal label and become a president for all Americans. I have been a big fan of his since the beginning of the primaries. I think he has the potential to be a great president. But I will judge him by his actions. If he uses his intellect and his ability to bring people together, I will continue to be a fan. If he becomes a pawn for the left, I will be a critic.

Obama is having a prime time half hour advertisment over the major networks tommorrow night. I don't think this is a good idea. He is ahead in the polls and spending all these money and causing schedule changes on the networks may not sit well with some voters. Most people have already decided whom they are going to vote for. You are trying to reach the few percent who are undecided. These independents, I think, will not like this show of overwhelming money advantage Obama has over McCain. This is like a team with a touchdown lead and under two minutes to go. Just grind it out with the ground game and run out the clock. A long pass may result in a bigger win but risk a momentum turning interception.

Obama would be better off using his war chest on continuing to air commercials specially for the toss-up states. I think this will win more independent votes in the swing states than a national ad of half hour. I think Obama is still going to win but this may cost him couple of percents instead of putting the game out of reach.

First there was Joe Six Pack and now there is Joe the Plumber. Never mind that his first name is not really Joe and he is not a licensed plumber. The way McCain and Obama were using this Joe's name I think there may be more use of other Joes before the election.

McCain has used another Joe before: Joe Lieberman. He can rename him Joe Independent and take him along to rallies.

I know smoking is politically incorrect now a days but with the use of Joes by the Republicans, Obama may start smoking again and try to look cool and act like Joe Camel.

Bill Clinton claims that he will be out on the trail for Obama. With his history of womanizing and now living in New York, I would not be surprised if he claims to be Broadway Joe.

Obama will try to use his youth as an advantage against McCain by claiming that he is Joe Athlete.

McCain who cannot be an athlete himself at his age, will sing the Simon and Garfunkle song "Mrs. Robinson" which has the following lyric: Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, a country turns its lonely eyes to you. This may help with old people like me.

Both candidates will seek out Joe Montana to help with a certain state bordering Cannada.

Both candidates will pretend to be Average Joe even though they are not. That may backfire as we already have an Average Joe in the White House right now.

Starbuck will be going out of business and both candidates will say it is an outrage that we cannot afford a cup of Joe.

In an effort to get the Hispanic vote one of the candidate will use the following tactics:
1. Accuse the other being so blind to reality that he called him the Jose Feliciano of politics.
2. Exclaimed "no way Jose" when informed of the opponent's economic plans.
3. Claims that his opponent is so lost that he does not know the way to San Jose.

When finally the election is over, one of the candidate will be informed by someone that he had lost. The losing candidate will say sadly: Say it ain't so, Joe.

Paul Krugman wins the Nobel Prize. So since 2000 an American has won or share the Nobel Prize for economics every year. So with all these great minds, why is our economy in such trouble? Maybe economics is not a science at all. It certainly is not an exact science like chemistry and physics. Despite the smart people at places like MIT who build all these mathematical models to predict the direction of the financial world, we are still in the Dark Ages when it comes to economics.

To begin with I think the whole financial system is a reverse Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme depends on the confidence of the people at the bottom that someone else will come along and pay them eventually. Our financial system begins with the Central banks of each country printing out money, not backed by anything valuable like gold usually. The largest banks get the money and loans them out to the smaller banks who loans to other banks and businesses. This eventually trickles down to the peasants who work for a living. People are supposed to pay taxes which gets back to the Central banks. But if things breakdown along the way the Central banks have to intervene, like they are doing throughout the world right now. Of course the government will usually run a deficit under normal conditions. But in a situation we are in now the deficit is going to be much worse. It is only the confidence of the people at the middle and bottom that the government will solve problems that the whole system will work. I am not an economist but this seems like a reverse Ponzi scheme to me and eventually it will fall apart. It won't fall apart during this crisis but who knows in the future?

Another reason not to trust economics is because it is heavily influenced by politics. There are liberal and conservative economists whose views are tremendously different. Chemists and physicsts may be liberals or conservatives but when they run an experiement the results will be the same. In economics this is different. Krugman, for example, is very liberal and he attacks the Bush policy every chance he gets. But the liberals have not come out with anything that is impressive in trying to get us out of this crisis. Obama, for example, has the same idea as McCain of allowing people to take some money out of their pension or IRA without penalty. This does not seem like a good idea to me as this will weaken the stock market as more people will cash out. These people will have to sell more shares as the price of each share is much lower than before. This will hurt them in the long run. As I said before, the best the president can do is inspire more confidence. He will not have any great idesa. Whoever he is.

Congress passed a worse bailout bill one week after rejecting the original. It passed after another $100 billion of pork was added. I am not a supporter of this bailout but I can understand why it was proposed--try to inject confidence by doing something. But if you voted against it in the first place why would you vote for it when the additions made it a worse bill? Some citizens may have changed their mind when they realized the effect of the crisis on their investments. Some people may have been faked out by the change of the word bailout to rescue. But isn't it the role of the Congressman to sort out the right or wrong of a bill regardless of political pressure at home? Some may have been persuaded by the pork going to his district and some may have been persuaded by the change in pressure from his constituents. But in any case, anyone who changed from a no to a yes vote should not have been a Congressman in the first place.

I thought the vp debate was poor. Gwen Iffle didn't do a good job because she was afraid that people are going to say she is biased toward Obama. She didn't ask any follow-up questions. This made it easy for Palin to say whatever she wanted without answering the question in the first place. With 3 days to prepare and no follow-ups to trip her, it is no wonder that Palin did all right. I don't think the Joe 6 pack comment helped her as most people are tired of the current Joe 6 pack in the White House. There was no change in the dynamic of the race as a result of this debate.

I had suggested couple of blogs ago that Obama and McCain should act like FDR and reassure the American people even though they had no good ideas to solve the crisis. FDR did not endorse Hoover's desperate program toward the end of Hoover's term. He knew that the people had no confidence in Hoover's programs. So he created his own program. With Obama in the lead I can see why he would not propose anything new on his own but keep on blaming Bush, just to try to run out the clock. McCain, however, should have tried FDR's approach which is to denounce the bailout and offer something radical of his own. By voting the same as Obama McCain has not distinguished himself. Instead of bailout he should call for creating a jobs program to repair the infrastructure as FDR did. So money would go to the states to create jobs instead of to the banks. This may not pass but it would at least show that McCain is a mavrick like he claims. Now he is no different than Obama but is tied to the Bush administration.

It looked for a moment McCain took my advice and declared that he was going back to D.C. to help with the bailout plan. I had suggested that either McCain or Obama should show leadership by trying to work on the plan and inspire confidence. But I did not advise McCain to announce that he is suspending his campaign, skip out on Letterman but did not go to D.C. till the next day. By doing these things he made the trip back to D.C. look like a political ploy, which obviously it was. Once he got back he just sat there and said almost nothing, inspiring no confidence at all.

The debate went as I expected. Obama did better in economics and I think it was a draw on foreign policy. I am bias toward Obama but I thought he looked more presidential and won overall by a small margin. But there was no knockout blows from either side.

Obama is ahead again in the polls because of the economy trumping the supposedly strength of McCain in foreign policies. I am happy to see Obama ahead but to me he is better in foreign policies than McCain but does not have any better ideas for the economy than McCain. I think the economy will eventually turn around with either one as president. But I think with Obama there is a chance to repair America's image abroad and have more allies in the future. McCain still thinks Iraq was a good idea. In fact he believes still that Vietnam was a right war to fight! "Bomb, bomb Iran" may have been a joke but the greater chance of McCain getting us into another unncesssary war is no laughing matter.

Go away for less than 1 week and the whole financial market is in meltdown! Henry Paulson wants to take over and is asking the nation to give total authority and $7oo billion to start with. Some people are saying that it is going to take over $1 trillion. If I make $100 per second, it will take me over 300 years to make a trillion. Of course the deficit is now over 12 trillion so what is another trillion? Of course both McCain and Obama are promising tax cuts and more programs which along with two wars at the same time and our children and grandchildren will be burdened with debt before they are born.

As I wrote before, didn't we learned from the S@L scandal? That was only 220 billion, chump change compare with what we have now. McCain of all people should have known better, being part of the Keating 5. But he continued to want deregulation until this meltdown. Ronald Regan liked to say that "Government is not the solution, it is the problem". I guess to the Republicans, government is not the solution when it comes to welfare but it is the solution when it comes to corporate welfare. Well, I like to say "Capitalism without regulation is just chaos". I don't think Obama has any great ideas but I certainly don't think that after all these years, McCain has learned anything.

Henry Paulson is a smart guy. An Ivy Leaguer who was a big CEO before he became Sec. of Treasury. But he also had been saying that fundamentally the economy is strong for the past year while things are collapsing. I think McCain copied his saying about the fundamental of the economy. This certainly does not give people confidence. (Bush, by hiding most of the time in this crisis shows what a coward he is). I am no economist but I don't think it is the amount or how the bailout is done that is the most important. The most important thing is for a leader to come forward and inspire confidence. I don't think Paulson or Bernake can do this no matter how high IQ they have. Paulson cannot be the one running this bailout program unchallenged. We need an FDR. If Obama or McCain can bring Paulson, Bernake, Pelosi and Reed together and put up a plan and sound convincing on t.v., it may work. It will also win the presidency for the man who can do this. I don't believe there is a good solution, there is only a workable solution if there is leadership.

Sarah Palin's first interview with Charles Gibson went as expected. She was aggressive, stayed with her messages and avoided controversies. One minor stumble was not knowing the Bush Doctrine. I don't fault her much on that since I don't think the term is widely adopted. I don't think Bush knows the term himself! Unless an independent previously had not known her position on social issues such as abortion and her flip-flops on earmarks, I don't think the interview changed many minds.

The one thing that bothers me the most is the answer to Russia's aggression into Georgia. I think most Americans are weary of Russia and thus may not be bothered by her answer that if Georgia is in NATO, then perhaps we may have to fight the Russians. Other than the fact that an all out of war with Russia may mean the end of civilization, her response to the situation show a lack of understanding of the world and history. Unfortunately her understanding and view are not that different from most of our politicians, including McCain. Even Obama and Biden's stand on this is unclear but I think they would have given a more thoughtful answer than Palin did.

Palin said definitively that Georgia should be admitted into NATO. It seems that anyone in the Warsaw Pact wanting to get into NATO is welcomed by the U.S. This is a dangerous and stupid policy for us. What would adding countries like Georgia do for us? Bush likes it because Georgia and Poland sent troops to Iraq. But they are doing that just to get us to like them. They are weak countries that won't contribute anything to the defense of Europe but will need aid from western countries. Their admission in NATO will make Russia angry and harder to deal with. Can you imagine Russia forming alliances with Mexico and other Central American countries right at the doorsteps of the U.S.?

But the biggest problem is what Palin alluded to. Once Georgia and others are in NATO, we would be obligated to fight with them if they are attacked. Everyone remembers that WWI started with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinad, the heir of the Austrian throne. What people tend to forget is that it was all the alliances that made the war spread to all of Europe. Austria asked German support to crush Serbia. Serbia asked Slavic brother Russia to help. But France and Britain who really don't care much about Serbia had entered alliances with Russia. So all the dynamites were in place, only the spark of assassination was needed. At least Russia was a big country and the French thought that Russia can be of help if Germany became too powerful. In our case here, Georgia, Poland and all other former Eastern bloc countries are of no help to us. Unless we want to restart the Cold War there is no reason to add them to NATO.

As I wrote last month I think this move into Georgia is Russia's way of flexing its muscles in response to our approval of Kosovo breaking away from Serbia. Russia is feeling stronger these days because they are making a lot of money from oil. Other than that their basic economy and technology are behind the West. They know that they can't occupy Georgia without losing a lot so they won't stay there for long. Thus there is no need for us to keep poking their eye by inviting countries to join NATO. We should tell these countries that we will support their change to democracy but we will not support stupid acts such as going into South Ossetia. Our main concern should be the Georgia in our country.

Unemployment is rising, the government has to bail out Fannie and Freddy, commanders in Afghanistan are saying that we are not able to hold back the insurgency there. All these are the big news in the last few days. Yet the media and the Republicans are talking about lipsticks on a pig as if this expression have not been used by McCain and Cheney before. People are admiring Tina Fey, I mean Sarah Palin, while ignoring what is really important for our country and the world. Hey, what happened to country first?

The government has now bailed out Bear Stearns, Indymac, and Fannie and Freddie. There are proposals in the works to give auto companies low interest loans. I won't call that a bailout but it will cost the taxpayers. Every time the government and Wall Street tell us that this institution is too important to let fail completely you can be sure they are reaching into our wallets. Well, as I said before with the S@L debacle people never learned from their mistakes if the government is willing to bail them out. They learned that if you get big enough the country will guarantee that you won't die.

Economists point out that investors, many of them foreign, believe that F and F are government enterprises and are backed by the credit of the U.S. So if we let them fail, the confidence in the U.S. will deteriorate and lead to disaster in the financial market. As I wrote in my previous blog, this U.S. deficit is a matter of national security. We are at a point where we have to worry about the sophistication of the foreign investor. Actually I believe overwhelming number of them know that F and F are private companies but they also know that the U.S. will not let them fail. So that's why they invest in them. But the problem is that if the U.S. abandon F and F, the fear is that the foreigners will pull out of the T-bills and T-bond markets leaving us broke. So despite the incompetence of F and F executives, greedy mortgage brokers and home buyers, the taxpayers are the ones left holding the bag.

F and F should never have been government agencies. Their existence have enabled more people to buy houses, sure. But the result is that prices of homes are artificially high as more credits are available because the government is guarnteeing mortgages which private companies will not. They also provide more capitals to banks to loan out, keeping mortgage rate artifically low. It puts people who are not financially stable into homes that are higher prices than they should be. It also help speculators flip more houses. Thus this create hotter markets than possible by true capitalism. Now they are going to decrease the power of F and F when the market stablizes, (who knows when that will be?) Some people are already complaining about this loss of power, particularly Democrat lawmakers like Barney Frank. Well, to me, good riddance, let the market find the right prices and the right numbers of homes purchase without this artifical help from the government.

How are we going to do all these bailouts and still give tax cuts as both candidates claim? Our deficit is 10 trillion. It seems everyone is still wanting to get a tax cut. Remember the rebate we had this summer? That's essentially a tax cut. Did it do anything for the economy? So to believe that a tax cut will solve our problem is nonsense. We may get out of this depression eventually but this deficit is going hurt our long term economy, it will be passed on to our children and grandchildren, and it will hurt our national security. Still not too late for all you "country first" folks to sign on my plan to reduce our deficit. (See previous blog)

I have a proposition to make to those waving signs of "country first" at the Republican convention. Unless you or a member of your family is seving in the military, how exactly are you putting your country first? Or is it just empty rhetoric? I propose all of us, Democrats, Republicans and independents who have assets of over 1 million dollars (this includes yours truly), put up 10% of this year's gross income for our country. So if you make $100,000 this year give $10,000 in addition to your taxes. If you make 10 million, you give 1 million. If you or your son or daughter is on active duty in the military, you are exempt. Ten percent is a lot. But many of you are tithing to your church. If you don't match that, you are essentially saying your religion comes before your country!

You may say that the government is wasting our tax dollars and that's why you want to lower the taxes. This extra 10% will be used in non-controversial areas such as getting rid of the deficit and increase funding for veterans care. Regardless of your political position, you must agree that having a huge deficit which means countries like China and Saudi Arabia are owning large sums of our treasury bills and bonds are dangerous to our national security. So let's get rid of it. This is what you can do for your country if you truly believe in country first. I am not that much over the one million level so most of you who qualify will be a lot richer than me. Your standard of living certainly will not be affected. So if you are not willing to help your country in this small way, then whatever patriotic slogans you shout will be just empty rhetoric.

Observations from the GOP convention with one more day left:

Tina Fey, I mean Sarah Palin, did a very good job of delivering her speech tonight. She was poised and I don't think it will be easy for Biden to make her look bad. Despite her lack of experience she won't make a mistake like Gerald Ford did in his debate when he said that Poland was not under the control of the USSR. You can't underestimate her. Also, if you attack her, the GOP will cry sexism even though Palin herself once said Hillary Clinton should stop whinning about sexism.

With her daughter pregnant and her membership in the NRA, are we going to have a shotgun wedding in the White House? Will we have a vp shooting contest between Cheney and Palin? The Republicans are saying the pregnancy is a private matter and denounce the media for bringing it up. But they themselves announced it on Monday. Now the girl's fiancee is on the stage with the family, how much privacy are they trying to have? As a person who advocate abstinence only to prevent teen pregancy, I guess Palin has a first hand look at how well that works. Jon Stewart showed Bill O'Reilly saying how this is a private family matter, then Stewart showed a clip of O'Reilly torching Britney Spears' parents for being unresponsible parents because of their younger daughter's pregnancy. Talk about double standards.

Speaking of family value, convention speakers Fred Thompson and Rudy Guiliani both got rid of older wives for younger versions. Of course that is the case of John McCain himself.

I have no problem with Joe Lieberman endorsing McCain. He should go with whomever he thinks is the best candidate. Even speaking at the GOP convention is fine. But trashing Obama is uncalled for especially since Obama campaigned for him in the past. In fact Lieberman praised Obama in the past of being a great rising star. But worst of all is that the praise he lavished on Palin. I am sure he had no idea who she was before last week. There was no way he could have known her well enough to say all those things about her. It just makes all the good things he said about McCain less believable.

Last night's theme was "country first". It reminds me of Mao's call for sacrificing for the motherland. Turn in your neighbors if you don't think he is patriotic. If you don't believe in the Cultural Revolution, you are unpatriotic. It is sort of like the liberals accusing you of being politically incorrect. In this case the conservatives are saying if you don't believe like we do, you are unpatriotic. Recently there was a poll that about 38% of the people think that Obama is unpatriotic. Since I am sure the blacks in the sample do not think Obama is unpatriotic, it means near 50% of whites think that about him. Obama is born in this country and has done nothing unpatriotic. If there is that many people think that about him, racism is got to be alive and well. Imagine an immigrant like me running for office, I would not want to think what percentage of people think that I am unpatriotic.

On June 10, 2008 on this blog I wrote about entertainers who may end up being politicians. Well, I turned out the tv today and saw John McCain picked Tina Fey, one of my 10 choices, to be his running mate. Turned out she was not Tina Fey but Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska. I must admit I don't know anything about her. The only thing I know is that she is less experienced and younger than Obama so I don't know how McCain can claim that Obama is not ready to be president and then name a running mate who is even less ready. I saw a Republican on tv tried to turn the question around by saying Obama is inexperienced so Democrats can't challenge Palin's inexperience. That is perverse logic because it was McCain who claimed Obama is not ready first, so he is the one who has to answer to this experience business.

Anyway, I don't think the vp choice is going to make a big difference. Geraldine Ferraro didn't help Mondale at all with women voters. The inexperience bit won't make a difference either. Dan Quayle was as inexperience and incompetent as there was in a vp and he didn't cost George Bush the election. I just don't see how an extreme conservative is going to help McCain with the independent voters.

Well, my man Joe Biden got the vp nomination. I did not think Obama would pick him even though he was the most qualified candidate for president in my opinion. He had not generated much electricity in his presidential campaign. He does have a lot of experience, especially in foreign relations, so will be a help to Obama. It also forces McCain to go with someone of experience so that Pawlenty from Minnesota is less likely to be picked. I think McCain will go with Romney even though they don't like each other. Romney may help McCain win Mich. as it is a close call right now. McCain would win Utah anyway and Mass. will go to Obama even if Romney is selected. Biden may help Obama clinch Pennsylvania. Delaware was Democrat's anyway.

I was in Springfield by chance on Sat. so we went to the Obama announcement. It was not organized well. There was no water sold and no porta-johns. Everyone was getting dehydrated. You would think that since Obama has drawn large crowds everywhere he has gone, they would have at least water available. Most of the crowd was white with less than 20% black and almost no Latinos or Asians. That seemed strange to me unless the demographic of Illinois is a lot different than I expected. I would think that a lot of blacks would have come down from Chicago. But the crowd was very enthusiastic given the energy sapping weather.

I missed the convention today and did not see Biden talk. Yesterday I saw Clinton and thought she was great. She and Bill are the ultimate politicians and they know that to preserve their legacies they had to come out strong for Obama. If Obama loses, Hillary will be the front runner in 2012 again. Even if Obama wins and goes 8 years, Hillary still can run then because Biden will be 73 by then and unlikely be able to run and win. Her great speech Tue. is going help her in the future.

Did China cheated by using underage female gymnasts? I think the answer is a definite "yes". Some of those girls look a lot younger than 16. China has changed the age of athlete frequently in the past. But usually it is to decrease the age of men basketball players so they can play in junior world championships. International governing bodies tend to look the other way so as to not offend China and not spend a lot resources policing something that is difficult to police. Of course nobody cares about the junior world championship of basketball because the U.S. doesn't care about it. But the U.S. cares about Olympic gymnastics and so the IOC is under pressure to investigate. The thing is some of the rules of sports that have been put in is a way for western nations to cheat in the first place. More on that later.

This rule about 16 years old being the minimal was put in supposedly for 2 reasons. The first is that younger bodies tend to get injured more. This is nonsense. If competing at 14 leads to more injury, then why do they still have national and world junior championships? They are doing the same exercise in the juniors as they do at the Olympics. Wouldn't the younger girl get injured at the junior competition the same way as in the seniors? Usually the older you get the greater chance for injury. But they don't have an upper age limit, do they?

The second argument for the rule is that younger girls have an advantage because they are more flexible and have less fear. Again this is a stupid argument. Wouldn't an older girl have more strength to compensate for the difference in flexibility? And in what other sport is it a psychological advantage to have less experience. Sure an older person may not jump off a roof because of fear but if you are a world class gymnast why would you have more fear about your exercises the longer you have practiced it?

Is there anyone who would argue that Shawn Johnson was a better gymnast when she was 14 than she is now? If you answer yes, then why don't we just crown the junior national champion the national champion. Same with the junior world champion. It is a nonsense arguement that the younger girls won because they are younger. Shawn Johnson today would beat Shawn Johnson at 14. Same with Nastia Liukin.

The real reason this rule and the rule for women figure skating is that the western countries know that Asians tend to reach full maturity at a younger age. That is why Asians dominate the Little League World Series but not in the major leagues. The figure skating rule was put in place after the Asian girls started arriving on the scene. It prevented the Japanese champion from competing in the last winter Olympics.

As mentioned above there are more rules that are aimed at decreasing the success of Asians. Table tennis still awards 4 gold medals but instead of men and women doubles as in the past, there are instead men and women teams competition. China can possibly sweep the doubles but in team competiton it can only send one male and one female team. In weight lifting each country is now only allowed 4 competitors for each sex. In the women competition all four Chinese women won gold. But at home they have world champions who can win in the other weight class but can't come due to the 4 competitors rule. The men won 3 gold and 1 silver and certainly could have won couple more medals. This rule was never considered when the Europeans dominated the sport. Would they ever tell the U.S. that it can only enter in say 6 swimming events?

When India and Pakistan dominated field hockey, the Europeans and Australia got together and changed the playing surface to artificial turf, knowing full well that India and Pakistan did not have artificial turf. The rules for citizenships are liberal because they know that few people would go from Europe and North America to compete for an African or Asian country. That's why Chris Kaman can play for Germany, Bernad Lagat can run for the U.S. even though he had run for Kenya in the past. And how about the former athletes from Jamaica and the Bahamas participating under the British flag. One of the nice story from gymnastic was this 33 year old woman representing Germany who won a silver in the vault. She had represented the USSR a couple of times before. Shouldn't we have a maximum age limit or a change of country rule that would have prevented her from winning that silver? I bet if Kobe Bryant gets a Chinese passport and plays for China, the rule for changing countries would be changed immediately.

So yes, China cheats. But the western nations cheat by changing the rules to their advantage. They can do it because of money and they run most of the different sports organizations.

Russia and Georgia are now at war. It is a sticky situation for the U.S. because Georgia has 2,ooo troops in Iraq and the U.S. has troops in Georgia training its army. The U.S. certainly do not want to get into a fight with the Russians. So we can only call for peace. But who will listen?

The problem is that the the Russians are supporting the South Ossetians, a minority group that wants to break away from Georgia. The Russians are upset at Georgia, a republic that broke away from the USSR, because of its leanings to the west. Georgia has applied to join NATO. The Russians don't want the U.S. have more influence in the region. The U.S. argues for the integrity of the Georgian territory. But the problem is that the U.S. supported the breakaway of Kosovo from Russian-backed Serbia last year. The Russians said at that time that we will see other minority groups breakaway from countries and cause all sort of chaos. I would not be surprised if the Russians encouraged the South Ossetians to prove their point. They do have a point, however. The majority of Kosovo were ethnic Albanians. I had said that to allow them to breakaway from Serbia would be like allowing California to breakaway from the U.S. someday when ethnic Mexicans are the majority of our state. Well, how do the U.S. argue not allowing the South Ossetians breakaway from Georgia? Georgia, afterall, left the USSR.

The only hope is that the Russians won't get involve too deeply. I don't think they want an Afghanistan or a Chechynia in Georgia. It would be a quagmire like Iraq is for the U.S. I hope they learned that to conquer and hold a mountainous country with people who hate you is a difficult task.

The FBI is claiming that they have solved the anthrax case from 2001 with the apparent suicide of Bruce Ivins. Somehow I don't think this is the whole truth of the story. I am waiting to see the evidence that the FBI promise will be coming. Given the history of various foul-up investigation such as the Atlanta Olympic bombing and the payment to the first suspect of this case, Stephen Hatfill, unless the evidence is overwhelming, it would be difficult for most people to believe that Ivins is the only criminal here.

The events leading to Ivin's suicide produce more questions than answers. Today in the LA Times Jean Carol Dulcey, a psychotherapist, claimed that during a group session Ivins said that he bought a bulletproof vest and gun and was set to kill many people. Dulcey contacted the police and Ivins was admitted to a mental hospital. A few days later he was released. How does someone who said that he bought a gun to kill people and is under investigation by the FBI for multiple murders be released from a mental hospital? Not only that, the FBI then told Ivins that soon he will be indicted for the antrax case. I think if I know someone who is threatening to kill people and I have evidence that he had killed people with biological weapons, I would not tell him ahead of time that I am going to arrest him, giving him time to kill himself and/or others. It almost seems like that the FBI want Ivins to have a chance to commit suicide. Afterall, it is much more difficult for a dead man to defend himself.

I have been an advocate for immigrants for a long time. I don't think that illegal immigrants should be treated as criminals because I think everyone of us who are ambitious would do the same if we are put in the same situation. So I am more with the liberals on this one. But sometimes I think the liberals have no common sense. The situation in San Francisco is a case in point. SF has called itself a santuary city as it does not cooperate with the Feds in catching illegals. It also would not turn over juveniles who have committed crimes to be deported. Instead it has sheltered them is places like San Bernadino, which is in southern California. This was not known to San Bernardion authorities! Of course nobody was watching these juveniles and they escaped! I am sure this will help mayor Newsom run for governor someday!

Now another story out of SF. An illegal who had been convicted of crimes twice shot and killed 3 people in what appears to be road rage. I have stated many times that factoring in economic status, I believe that immigrants, legal and illegal, commit less crimes than Americans in general. I will stand by that claim. But it makes no sense to excuse people who do commit crimes, whatever their status. Illegals who committed crime should serve their sentences and/or deported. There is no reason to be more lenient to them than Americans. They ARE criminals in these cases. What are the leaders in SF thinking?

It is election year and the economy is in the tank. So the government is putting out economic stimulus checks, bailouts to financial firms and now the mortgage bailout. Both McCain and Obama are for this latest bailout. Only a few Republicans who are in safe districts have come out against the bill. As I said before, didn't we learned from the S@L of the 80's? It is unfair for taxpayers to bailout irresponsible people. If the government is tied to Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae, then why are they private companies with CEOs making money like private CEOs? They even have lobbyists like private companies. So taxpayer money is used to lobby the government to spend more taxypayer's money? Are we still a capitalist society?

Obama is now on his trip to show that he will be a capable president on foreign policies. It can help him because of the extensive coverage he is getting. It also helps him now that Maliki is agreeing with his plan for withdrawl from Iraq. Of course, a trip of this length means there is a great chance of making a major mistake. So I think he will be very cautious and not make any big announcements and just talk in general terms. For example while in Afghanistan yesterday he just say he wants to add couple of brigades to Afghanistan but no real strategy. McCain says that he will add 3 brigades before realizing that to do that he would have to take troops out of Iraq which is what Obama wants to do. But neither one has any great strategy at this point.

Of course the problem with Afghanistan was that all momentum was lost when we switched the focus to Iraq. Now the Taliban and al qeada have regrouped and with the help of Pakistan are causing big problems. Additional troops will help a little but force alone won't do it and besides our troops are exhasted. In fact if we put in a large force it will seem like we are invading again. The Afghans may understand the attack the first time but now they will ask why we abandoned them and now come back again? They may believe the Talibans who say that we are like the Soviets who attacked them over 20 years ago. The large Soviet army got into a big mess and we don't want to do that now. We have to regain the trust of the people because we had left them holding the bag 5 years ago.

We have to help rebuild the economy and infrastructure in Afghanistan as fast as possible. While Kabul is doing ok, the rural areas are in big trouble. Most of the income is from opium. With any drug trade there is corruption and lawlessness. But what do you expect poor peple to do? If opium is the only way to make money you can't blame them for growing it. Unless you can help people make money from something else, you can never have stability. In Iraq it was not just the surge that calm violence. American troops started paying the locals to help them. The troops also listened to the people's problems and tried to help them. Eventually the locals find that the foreign insurgents were the troublemakes. People who used to shoot Americans are now helping them because they trust our troops more than they trust foreign insurgents. We need to establish that trust in various provinces of Afghanistan as soon as possible. Building roads, bridges, schools and hospitals will be more cost effective than bringing in large number of troops. I like to see what ideas that the two candidates can come up with other than putting more troops in.

When things are going well, everybody wants the capitalist system to run with as little regulation as possible. Now that things are falling apart, some people are demanding regulations. I am not an economist but shouldn't government have been regulating the mortgage business before all this collapsed? Now the government is boosting Freddy Mac and Fannie Mae to keep them out of trouble. My question is: Are they private or government companies? They are traded as a private companies on the stock exchange but yet the government (and thus taxpayers) are responsible for their financial health? When these two companies control half of the mortgage in the country, wouldn't the backing of the government cause brokers and buyers to be less careful?

The capitalist system is the best system in the history of the world's economy. But it cannot work without regulation. The law of supply and demand is not enough. Without regulations and their enforcement, it would be chaos as people will try to cheat which will lead to the collapse of the system. The SEC is now trying to regulate the shorting of stocks. This is where someone who believe that a stock will fall would then borrow shares from a brokerage firm, sell the shares, betting that he can buy them back at a lower price later. Some people bypass the borrowing part and sell shares that they don't control. This is important because if many people do that then many people can be selling the large numbers of stocks at a lower price and thus drive the price dramatically lower, even though no shares really changed hands. Not only that, large firms who short a certain stock may produce false rumors and thus drive the prices lower. This is obviously illegal but the SEC had not crack down on it. They are now trying to crack down on shorting of financial stocks but is far from able to regulate this market.

Basically it is the same argument I make about the speculation of the oil market. Many people are still not convinced of this and say it is all supply and demand. Well, the demand for oil world wide increased one percent in the last year but prices doubled. As I mentioned before there are other factors such as the decline of the dollar. But there is manipulation for sure. Commodity futures are a zero sum game. Yet time after time certain large "investors" come out ahead. This is basically gambling with certain players always winning. The game is not played with an even deck. The big players can and do spread rumors which drive up or down the prices. Sure, in the long run prices of oil will go up but it should not be at such a steep curve. Now the last few days the prices have gone down because of the announcement that the fed is going to tighten interest rate to combat inflation. This move from the Fed can lead to decrease consumption. The consumption decrease had not occur yet but the price already dropped because the large "investors" already knew of the announcement ahead of time and can sell their "calls" before the ordinary investors can. Whether the prices go up or down in the near future will depend more on news and rumors than on supply and demand.

Another sign of the economy going down the hill: U.S. seizes assets of Pasadena's IndyMac bank. It is estimated that it will cost the FDIC between 4 to 8 billion dollars to takeover the bank. It is likely also that other banks are going to be in the same situation in the near future. Now there is even fear that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are going to be in trouble. So it may be that the taxpayer will be left holding the bag just as it was during the Savings and Loan crisis in the 80's. That debacle cost the taxpayers over 100 billion dollars.

The S@L crisis brings to mind McCain's involvement as part of the Keating Five. He was one of the five senators who was accused of trying to influence regulators in their dealings of Keating involved in a S@L failure. While McCain just got a reprimand, it was certainly not a good period in his political life.

Given that disaster it is strange to see McCain has Phil Gramm as one of his economic advisors. Gramm just said that we are a country of whinners when it comes to the economy. He does not think the economy is that bad. Gramm, as a senator, helped pass a bill that deregulated energy trading in 2000. This helped lead to the Enron debacle. Not only that, his wife Wendy was on the board on Enron! She had to pay a settlement for a lawsuit filed by Berkeley against Enron board members. So given McCain's experience with the S@L crisis, why would he still uses Gramm as an economic advisor?

I don't think that Obama and the Democrats have any good ideas about how to get out of this economic mess. But I am sure that McCain really have no ideas of his own at all. The Democrats are over protective of unions while the Republicans are too protective of big business. People like Gramm are always complaining about over- regulation. But it has been the lack of regulation or the enforcement of regulations that led to the S@L and Enron disasters. It appears that this lack of oversight will lead to another financial crisis. I am sure Obama will use this against McCain over the next 4 months.

Last week Chuck Hagel, a Republican senator from Nebraska, refused to endore McCain. He hinted that he would be willing to work in the Obama administration. Hagel and McCain were good friends. Hagel was also a Vietnam war hero. He was, however, strongly against the Iraq war. For him to come out against McCain must mean that he does not believe McCain has what it takes to be a good president. I don't think Hagel is a vp choice for Obama as some have suggested. But he would be willing to accept a national security post which would boost Obama's credential in that area not to mention showing bipartianship.

Some Republicans are upset at Hagel and some Democrats are upset at Lieberman for supporting McCain. I don't have problems with either one of them. This is not a matter of loyalty to a party. One should be loyal to the country and support whomever one believes is the best candidate. I won't hold it against Lieberman even though Obama had supported Lieberman in the past. I do think that Lieberman is wrong about McCain especially since he had to correct McCain a couple of times while they were on a Middle East trip together. Lieberman must know that McCain is not very knowlegible about foreign affairs. Is he trying to be the first vp candidate for both parties?

In what uncivilize place can a person shoot two people in the back without being tried? In Texas. A man name Joe Horn saw 2 people apparently robbing his neighbor, called 911 and told the operator that he was going out to shoot them. The operator repeatly told him not to go out there. Horn, citing a new law in Texas that allows a person who is being threatened to attack without first retreating, said he will shoot them because he has a right to protect himself. This is bunch of bull. If he stayed in the house the robbers wouldn't have attacked him. In fact even when he went out there they had no weapon to attack him. But as they ran away from him he shot them in the back. No civilize person would think this is self-defense. A Texas grand jury refused to indict him. Usually it does not take much to indict someone. Certainly it does not have to be beyond reasonable doubt as in convicting someone. So basically the grand jury does not even believe there is a possibility of a crime here. To me Horn is a criminal and a murderer. He was intentionally ignoring the advice of the 911 operator and he premeditated what he would do when he went outside of his house. This should have been first degree murder.

This was a racial case. On television all the protestors against Horn were black and all the supporters of Horn were white. There was at least one Confederate flag among the supporters. If people believe that people can shoot before being threatened, then all the gang killings can be called self-defense because the gang member can say that an approaching person maybe a gang member trying to kill him. So it would be justified to fire first. Does anyone believe that Horn would not be prosecuted if he was black or Latino?

I am beginning to believe that there is a cowboy culture still in Texas. Kill the Indians before they can attack you becomes kill anyone that may threaten you. Frontier justice prevails here. You can be the police, judge and jury as long as you have a gun. Combat violence with violence. Maybe that's why Texas produces a president who combats terrorism with force without strategy. Just like the Texas law does not make Texas safer, the cowboy mentality of our president does not make us safer.

I have always believe that the dramatic increase in the price of oil is not just due to supply and demand. I mean the price has almost double in one year and the demand certainly has not gone up that much. As I mentioned before a lot has to do with speculation in the futures market. Some has to do with the weakness of the dollar. But I had no way of figuring exactly how much each factor was worth. Today on ABC news some expert quantify this for me. I don't know how accurate these figures are and I am sure even the best economists can't be sure. The current price is over $135 per barrel. According to their calculation, if it is just a matter of supply and demand the price should be about $75 per barrel. This would be about 7% increase from a year ago which is reasonable given the increase in demand. But this report said that specualtion adds $30 to a barrel and the weakness of the dollar adds $20. This still leaves $10 due to various causes. I think this is a reasonable calculation. One news item that show that speculation had an impact was that last week China announced that it would decrease subsidy to gasoline and thus increase retail price. This would eventually decrease demand. But the demand obviously did not decrease overnight as the price increase had not gone into effect yet. Nevetheless the next day the price went down more than $4 per barrel, indicating that the speculators are anticipating the decrease in demand and thus lower the bids. A true supply demand market would not have changed the price that quickly.

In a related item, three law school professors wrote in the LA Times that we should sue OPEC for fixing prices. I already wrote before condemning Congress for suggesting we should sue OPEC. Of course, Congress is made up mostly of lawyers and so we should not be surprise. Think about it, what right do you have to demand that someone sell something they have for a price that you like? If we have the oil reserve like they do, would we sell it to other countries at a price they want, as much as they want? Eventually the oil will run out and countries like Saudi Arabia are trying to maximize their profit just like anyone else would. They have an interest of not letting price go so far up that other countries would turn to alternative energy sooner. What makes anyone think that they would pay even if they lose in court? They would just ignore us and make more deals with China and India. We have three ways to drive down OPEC prices: make quick progress in alternative energy, decrease usage, or use military force. You decide.

I don't think the allegations from former referee Tim Donaghy that referees purposely made call that ensure a 7th game in the 2002 playoffs are credible. The NBA always have a reputation that the game is not called fairly and thus can be fixed. I think everyone would agree that the stars get the call 90% of the time when going up against a mediocre player. In a game where a lot of the fouls can be called either way, it is a big advantage for the stars. Most of the time it is not a directive from the league to help a player but referees are human beings who give the better player the benefit of the doubt. So I don't buy that there is a conspiracy theory. If there was, I would think the Knicks would be doing much better.

But I do have trouble with the way Yao Ming had been treated since coming to the NBA. Before Yao the European players who came to the league always seem to get the worst calls. Maybe it is because they play the game differently than the American players and the referees are not use to seeing their moves. When Yao started in the league, I thought he was getting favorable treatments. This is in contrast to other foreign players before him. I always suspected that since China is a big market that the league is trying to get into, they want Yao to succeed badly. While he was adjusting to the pace of the NBA some of the awkward moves that can be called fouls or travels were ignored. Was there a directive? Who knows. But when Yao got to superstar level, he did not get the calls that would be expected for a superstar. Certainly the things that Shaq got away with, Yao did not get away with in the last couple of years. Could there be a directive to let him be good, but not too good?

Well, maybe this is all speculation and nonsense. Let's get back to watching the NBA finals between the Kevin McHale Celtics and the Jerry West Lakers!

p.s. since last night when I wrote this and could not get it publish for some reason, the Celtics have won the finals. Paul Pierce is named the MVP but we all know that Kevin McHale is the real MVP!

Finishing up on the vp situation from the last blog before moving on to a lighter topic today. While I agree with LBOAYM about Obama not picking someone from the midwest, one should consider Ohio governor Ted Strickland. Ohio is an important swing state and Strickland was a Clinton supporter. Plus a senator-governor combination is generally better than a ticket with both being in the same type of office. In McCain's case I think he will strongly consider Romney because he would be helpful in Mich. and Mass. Romney also has lots of money. But I think they don't like each other much and the conservatives are not sold on Romney. Huckabee will help with the south but if McCain can't win the south himself, he is not going to win anyway. Huckabee would be a liability outside of the south. I don't see Rice as a viable candidate because that would validate Obama's claim that McCain would be Bush's third term. I see Charlie Crist, the governor of Florida and the governor of Minnesota, whose name escapes me now, as the likely candidates for McCain. By the way, Anthony Zinni got mentioned today by David Gergen on CNN as a possible candidate, the first I have heard of that in the media.

In my Nov. 9, 2006 blog I talked about athletes in politics. Al Franken's endorsement by the Democrats to run for senator from Minn. got me thinking about entertainers that may be interesting politicians. So here are 10 that I thought about, in no particular order. None of them will likely or should win offices. People who are actually serious about running such as Fred Thompson or Warren Beatty are not considered here. Arnold and Ventura were already mentioned as athletes in 2006 blog and are not eligible here.

1. Oprah. Anyone can come up with this one. The most powerful woman in America already, she easily wins the female and black vote anytime she wants.

2. Jackie Chan. Ability to get out of trouble and avoiding attacks is a big asset in Hong Kong politics.

3. Carlos Mencias. This totally political incorrect Hispanic believes in equal opportunit-- He trashes all ethnic groups alike. He is a little too vulgar for me but he is hilarious. His Bud light commercial is great.

4. Bono. A serious man when not performing, Bono does a lot of humanitarian work. Bush met him about his work but was confused because he wanted to see Cher.

5. Stephen Colbert. A liberal pretending to be a conservative. I still don't know why Bush invited him to speak at a dinner. Didn't he realized that Colbert was a fake Republican?

6. Charles Barkley. Always wanted to be governor of Alabama. Can't afford to take a pay cut from TNT though. Has compelling story if he keeps gambling: from rags to riches back to rags.

7. Tina Fey. A very funny woman who looks dorky enough to be an intellectual while wearing those glasses.

8. Darrell Hammond. Does a great Bill Clinton. But he also does Al Gore. Can package himself as a recycled Gore and get the environmental vote.

9. Conan O'Brien. Being tall and an alumnus of Harvard help. Maybe a target of the Mafia for replacing an Italian-Jay Leno.

10. Martin Sheen. Already played a president on tv. More intellectual than people realiz, he is studying at either Oxford or Cambridge now. Has to try to keep his son Charlie out of trouble. Has to explain why he changed his name. He is short. Ok, too many negatives, back to acting!

Who should Obama pick as vp? Pros and cons of Clinton as vp has been dissected over tv and newspaper ad nauseum already. I am against it but if other people have the opposite opinion I can certainly understand it. Frankly I don't know who would be of any help to Obama in the election. I think it will be up to him to win the voters over in the swing states. At best a vp candidate from one of the swing states may help him at that particular state. He will win or lose the election on his own merit.

But having said that, who would I like to be vp? Joe Biden was my favorite to be president in the beginning so obviously I would like him to be vp. But since he got only about 0.5% of the votes while he was running he does not seem likely to be picked.

Anthony Zinni is a retired 4 star marine general who has diplomatic experience especially in the Middle East where he served as envoy to Israel and Palestine. He has written books and taught in colleges such as Duke (where he is now), VMI and Berkeley. He was a Republican at one time and voted for Bush in 2000. He called that one of the biggest mistakes in his life. He was a strong critic of going to war in Iraq from the beginning. This is from a man who had warned about terrorism especially the harboring of bin Laden by the Talibans before 2000. He understood the war would not make us safer. He warned about trusting Chalabi and other Iraqi expatriots who were leading us into the "Bay of Goats", a reference to the Bay of Pigs in the 60's. As a result of the Bush administration going to war in Iraq instead of finishing the job in Afghanistan, he left the party and has been an advisor to Obama in foreign affairs. I have seen him on tv and he is an excellent speaker who sounds very intelligent. His drawback is that he has never run for public office so there is no way to judge his ability on the campaign trail. He was born in Pennsylvania, a swing state, for what that is worth.

Jim Webb is a first term senator from Virgina so he has at least won political office before. Virginia is also a state that Obama would like to take from the Republicans and can possibly do it as he did great in the primary there. Webb is also a retired marine general who was a hero in Vietnam. He speaks fluent Vietnamese and is married to a Vietnamese woman who went to U. of Michigan law school. Like Zinni he has a son in the military. Webb's son returned from Iraq last year. Despite the loyalty he has for the military, Webb is totally against the war. He has teamed up with Obama to try to pass legislation to improve benefits for veterans.

Webb and Zinni are American military heroes who may help Obama with the people who question his "strength". Biden would help Obama with people who question his experience. Biden has never gotten much national support despite his experience. So who knows if any of these guys would do anything for Obama. I am just throwing out these 3 names because I believe these people are men of integrity and intelligence. They would never be elected president on their own but I rather that one of them be one heart beat to the presidency than the multitudes of politicians.

Obama all but clinched the nomination today whent the Democratic Rules Committee voted to give Florida and Michigan half of the votes. Even if the committee had voted to give everything Clinton wanted, Clinton would not have been able to overtake Obama in pledge delegates and as I said before there was no way that the superdelegates would have overturn the pledge delegates because that would mean losing the black vote in November. As is now, after the last primaries on Tuesday, Obama would need only about 30 of the remaining 220 or so superdelegates to win the nomination. There may even be enough of them declaring their support of Obama in the next couple of days to make the last two primaries irrelevant.

If Clinton does not bow out after Tuesday and take the fight to the Credentials Committee as Harold Ickes threatened today, her legacy in the party as well as that of her husband will be severely damaged. In the interest of unity the neutral people in the party has refrained from criticizing her. But for her to drag this out when it is mathmatically impossible for her to win is dispicable. She had agreed with the party when it decided that Florida and Michigan were not going to count. That's because she had expected to win the nomination easily. When she started losing then she wanted to count those votes even though there was no campaigning and Obama was not even on the ballot in Michigan. If there was no campaigning Obama would not have won Iowa since Clinton was much more well-known before the campaign. And for her to suggest that Obams do not get any vote in Michigan since nobody voted for him is absurd. Does anyone in his right mind would believe that a strong black candidate like Obama would not do well in Michigan if his name was on the ballot and he campaigned? Changing the rules after the fact is like calling the games exhibitions but after they were played, with one team not even showing up, declared them to count in the standings.

The Clintons are ultimately politicians. I expect her to drop out next week to save her power within the party. Afterall, Obama may lose in November and she will be the odds of favor in 2012 then. Even if Obama wins and stays 8 years, Clinton will still be only 68 years old in 2016, younger than McCain today. So I expect Clinton to act gracefully and not burn all her bridges. She will live to fight another day.

Gas price is over $4 now where I live. Unfortunately the freeways are still crowded here in Southern California. I did notice that there are not quite as many SUVs on the road. I guess we are using cars that get 20 miles per gallon instead of 10. Our government is not doing much either to change the stituation. Bush went to Saudi Arabia to beg for more production of oil. The Saudis said no and Bush had no rebuttal. Back home Congress decided to sue OPEC for holding down oil production. To this announcement OPEC said--nothing. As I wrote in the comment section of the previous blog the U.S. is becoming more irrelevent. Who cares what Bush and Congress say. They will just ignore us. I mean they must think we are bunch of morons. Sue other people for not selling to us? Only in lawsuit happy America would someone believe that filing a lawsuit would solve everything. It just makes me angry that we have such incompetent and pandering people in our government.

It is interesting to note that we sent milliom of dollars to Saudi Arabia everyday for oil. And from which country did most of the 9/11 hijackers came from? Not Iraq or Iran. Yet did we use any leverage against Saudi Arabia? No, because we don't have any. We need their oil not the other way around. So we don't express our displeasure for their citizens attacking us but we only show displeasure when they don't produce as much oil as we would like. How is it that we complain that China don't use its leverage against Sudan?

The earthquake in China is an act of nature but the tragedy is compounded by the work of humans. Obviously China is not as advance as the U.S., Japan and Europe and so the ability to react to disaster is not expected to be world class. Come to think of it, our response to Katrina was also less than world class. But some of the deaths in China certainly could and should have been avoided. The total collapse of some of the schools are inexcusable. These were buildings erected not that long ago and should have been built much better. The race to build more and to make more profits have been costly as businesses and the government cut corners. It is not just foreigners who have lack of confidence in goods made in China, even the Chinese suspect poor quality due to greed. China is like America during the Industrial Revolution where anything goes as long as profits are made. The Olympics venues will be world class but the average Chinese are still being treated as second class citizens

Add to the misery of the death of all of those children is the fact that most of them are an only child. Due to the one child policy in China most parents only have one child. Can you imagine the pain of losing a child, the only one you have? I understand the need to control the population of China but there are just too many negatives with this policy. Killing or abandoning of female infants is obviously a tragic consequence. The only child, especially a boy, becomes a child emperor. The spoiling of the only child will weaken the Chinese adults in the future. Also with greater number of boys than girls, many men will not be able to find a mate. This will possibly lead to increase in depression and alcohol and drug abuse among future men. With less children and lack of a social safety net, who will take care of the elderly in the future. These are all potential disasters as a result of the one child policy.

With my advocating for increase in gas tax, one may think that I am a tax-spend liberal. I don't think I am. I favor a flat income tax with no loopholes. Generally I vote against bonds unless I am very sure that it is of great benefit. I especially hate those bonds that are for "public safety". See, people are more likely to vote for increase police, fire and prison fundings because they feel that these are essential. But since they are essential they should come out of the general tax only. But if politicians increase the general tax they get people upset. But by using bonds or special taxes to fund things like police or roads, then they have more for other things which the taxpayers may not want to support.

Another problem I have with revenue enhancement by the government is the hidden taxes they put in things such as phone bills, both landlines and cellular. There are 911 state tax, funding to support Public Utilities Commission, Federal Universal Service fee, etc. Why do I have to support the public utilities commission with a charge on my phone bill? Who voted for that? Certainly not taxpayers. And what service did the federal governmen provided on my phone? By putting stuff like that without our knowledge politicians get away with increasing our tax without telling us.

Now there are some taxes that I am usually for. Cigarette taxes and alcohol taxes can increase for all I care. These are things that cause a lot of human misery but banning them in the past had not work. Maybe taxing them won't change behavior but so what have we got to lose? We should also increase tax on luxury items. Double the tax on gas guzzlers. Close the loophole we have in Calif. where yach buyers can dock it somewhere outside of the state for a few months and then bring the yacht back and do not have to pay sales tax here. If you can afford the million dollar yacht, you can afford the sales tax. So with my various stand on taxes and fees I am sure neither the Democrats or Republicans will ask me to run for office in their parties anytime soon.

With gas nearing $4 per gallon Clinton and McCain are calling for a suspension of the gas tax for the summer. Obama is calling this pandering and that this policy will not help the consumers. Obama is right on this as practically all economists say suspending the gas tax has no effect. Of course Obama has not put out any energy ideas either. The truth is no politician has the vison to really change our energy policy. And if one has the vison he or she will probably be defeated at the polls.

Couple of years ago when gas approached $3 and there was the call to lower the gas tax and drill in Alaska, I said that those are not policies that would do any good. I said that we should RAISE the tax so that gas is $5 per gallon and thus shocked the nation into really look for alternative energy and stop wasting. Well, I was wrong because now we are almost at $5 without increasing taxes and we have not been shocked into doing things differently. Alaska and lowering the gas tax are still the things on the table. We are still driving huge SUVs.

To see how inept our politicians are look at how they can't even do the things that are obvious. If you want people to decrease gas usage and increase the use of alternative energy, then it would be obvious that you raise the tax on gasoline and give tax credit for using alternative energy. Instead the oil companies continue to get tax subsidies of billions of dollars. At the same time the tax credits for buying hybrids and investment stimulus for wind and solar energy are allowed to expired. In Europe and Japan the gas prices are much higher and they invest more than us in alternative energy. But don't just blame our politicians. Remember when I said that we should raise the gas tax instead of lowering it, I also said that I would never get elected to office if I advocated that. American people expect pandering from the politicans. We would never accept bitter medicine until we are at deathbed. We get the politicians that we deserve.

I watched Jeremiah Wright on CNN on Sunday. For the most part I was impressed. He was charismatic and I can see why he had so many followers including Obama. He spoke in different accents. He sang and danced. I agreed with some of the things he said. Only two things I had trouble with. One is that he quoted a Wayne State professor's findings that whites and blacks learn differently. Whites use the left brain and thus more logical whereas blacks use the right brain and thus more creative. I have never seen such a scientific conclusion. But let's say the research show this to be true, would a white person come out and say this without getting into trouble? When people comment that blacks and whites are different physiologically and thus explain blacks superiority in running and jumping, that was considered to be racist because critics say that would imply that blacks are not as smart. I never understood why that is the case. But now a black professor say that blacks and whites think differently, there is no implications of the races not being equal? Wouldn't racists use that excuse and segregate blacks and whites into different classrooms if not schools? Differences in learning have been used as a reason for female only schools. But of course when one proposes possibility that male and female are different in science and math, that would be sexist.

The other problem with Wright on Sunday was that he was throwing Obama under the bus by keep talking about changes, which was Obama's campaign theme. This cause more people to associate the two of them even more. Then he said that Obama's denunciation of him was political. This after Obama showed loyality toward him by not denouncing him but only his words.

I did not hear all of Wright's speech at the National Press Club. I understand from the excerpts that it was much worse than Sunday. This led Obama to severe all ties with him which is the right thing to do but may be late. It seems to me Wright is purposely trying to take Obama down. If Obama is elected then the highest glass ceiling in the land would have been shattered. No longer can people like Wright or Sharpton use victimhood for their causes. It would still be an unfair world but Obama would have shown that even a black man who once used drugs can become president. It really would not matter if he got this far using his right or left brain!

I have not had much nice to say about McCain lately. So I am giving him credit for being a straight talker this week. He told the people in poor areas what he really thinks. As he had done in Mich. during the primaries he said that most of the blue-collar jobs that had left will not come back. He said that dismantling free trade agreements will not help to bring these jobs back either. This is unlike the Obama and Clinton who told people in the Midwest that they oppose NAFTA and that they can bring jobs back. I think McCain is more honest than the Democrats on this issue. If the wages in other countries is one tenth of the wages here, unskill work will never come back, free trade agreements or not. No president will be able to do anything about that. Displaced workers will have to learn new skills and young people will have to become better educated to compete in the global economy. Government can't do the learning for anyone. But the government can and should encourage changes in people's attitude about learning and make it easier for them to obtain higher levels of skills and education.

The problem I have with McCain is that while I agree with him that government is not always the answer, government is not always the problem either. If there is no government there will still be corruption and crime. If there are no rules or referees there will still be fouls but the cheaters will win. Rules and referees are there to make a level playing field. Laws and governments are there for the same reason. Government cannot change the economy by itself but it should make laws that are equitable. For example, McCain was against the Bush tax cut but now he is for it. As much as I like to lower my taxes, this tax cut was wrong. It helped wealthy people and has not and will not stimulate the economy. We are in a war that causes billions daily and we are cutting taxes? The deficit will just be passed on to future generations. McCain was right to be against it before but now in trying to get the conservative vote he has flip-flopped. So while I applaud him for his straight talk to the poor I think he is intimated by the wealthy people in his party.

It goes without saying that when we get news from a network or newspaper controlled by a communist country we should take it with a grain of salt. The coverage of the Tibet situation is obviously biased in the Chinese media. It showed the violence started by rioters but not the police violence against peaceful protestors. It showed Chinese being injured by Tibetans but not the real number of Tibetans that were killed or injured. But even the media here have shown bias. Chinese business that were trashed were not shown here. CNN has been accused by the Chinese of only showing the police against the protesters but not the damage caused by them. I have not seen CNN try to defend itself. The protest in Paris turned ugly when protesters attack a Chinese disabled athlete carrying the torch in a wheelchair. That did not get mention here until it caused a big storm in China. By not being even-handed the western media only causes nationalism in autocratic countries and hurt democratic movements.

I think I have mentioned in the past that when I was in Hong Kong last year, every time I saw a discussion of Hong Kong's 10 year under Chinese rule on tv it was predictable what was being said. On Chinese tv a western businessman would talk about how wonderful the last 10 years has been. On CNN or the BBC a Chinese dissident would say how awful China has been to Hong Kong in the last 10 years. The truth is of course in between. Hong Kong is still a great place to do business and the standard of living continues to go up. It is also true that local newspapers have to fear repurcussions if they are very critical of the government. But it is telling how each side of the media tries to manipulate opinions by the way they present the news.

The other day I was watching CNN broadcasting from U. of Penn. They brought in 3 students and asked them who they are voting for. The white male said Clinton, the white female said Obama and the black guy said McCain. If this is not manipulation by the media I don't know what is. Why can't they report reality instead of political correctness? My advice is: no matter where you get the news, just consider the source of the information before making any judgment.

Obama has caused more trouble for himself by his remarks about bitter Americans in small towns. Of course McCain and Clinton are jumping all over it by calling his remarks elitist. It was a mistake made by an inexperienced campaigner. Again I worry about his lack of experience. If someone wants to vote against him for this he can certainly do so. But who among politicians is really not an elitist? Most of the people in Congress are rich people. The Clintons have made millions of dollars in the past few years. They went to Yale law school. Obama went to Harvard. McCain went to Annapolis and was the son of an admiral. Even the most liberal of politicians like Kennedy are wealthy people. Do they really understand poor rural Americans? They may make better speeches about poor people than Obama did but do they really understand them better?

The person who broke the story is a woman name Mayhill Fowler. She writes for the Huffington Post which is a liberal website. She is getting threats which may be real or from people pretending to be Obama supporters. Obviously anyone who threatens her is crazy and should be arrested. I think that anything candidates say that is not specifically off the record is fair game and it is up to the people to decide if it is important or not. In this case a liberal site publish something potentially damaging to a Democratic candidate. This should be applauded. The only thing I have slight trouble with this is that Fowler went to this fund-raiser as a contributor to the Obama campaign. The event was close to the press. After the event she published the remarks in a site she works as a journalist. Since no press was allowed, how can she write about it as a journalist? If she had written it in a private blog then I don't have any trouble with it at all. But by writing it in the Huffington Post there may be an ethical issue. What do you think?

John McCain says that the Democrats are naive and misunderstand the history of U.S. involvement in foreign territories when they criticize him for saying that he is willing to keep troops in Iraq for a hundred years. He says that he would keep U.S. in Iraq as a peace-keeping force and that eventually no American troops will be harmed. He cites the use of American troops in Korea, Germany and Japan as examples of American troops in a post war territory for over 50 years already.

This is what I mean when I say that McCain is losing it. Does anyone believe that American troops will be a peace-keeping force and not be shot at in the future? How can Americans prevent Sunnis from fighting Shiites and various factions of Shiites fighting with each other? The fact is these religious battles have gone on for centuries and the fact that we are there only gives them an excuse to blame the Americans. There was no al Qaeda in the equation before the American invasion but there is now. Whichever side the U.S. helps will bring anger against Americans from the other side. American troops will be attacked as long as they are there. Remember our peace-keeping efforts in Lebanon in the 80's? If our forces can help bring peace in the middle east instead of adding gas to the fire, we would have put troops in Israel a long time ago. Nobody would suggest we do that.

Japan, Korea and Germany all have governments who are friendly to the U.S. They also did not have any choice when American troops first occupied there. Today German and Japanese bases are more important to Americans than the host countries. There are a lot of Germans who want the Americans out of there and the majority of Okinawans probably would want us gone. There is some sentiments among South Koreans that we should not be there even though they are facing danger from the north. But the situation is even more absurd for American troop presence in the middle east. It was the American bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that bin Laden used as one of the big excuses to recruit terrorists. Can you imagine the recruiting posters that bin Laden can post if McCain becomes president? It is not the Democrats who are naive, it is McCain who is senile and have a lack of understanding of history and the world.