It is unbelievable that so many Hollywood types come out in support of Roman Polanski. Debra Winger, Martin Scorsese and Woody Allen? If I am Polanski, I don't want Woody Allen to be on my side. Comments and petitions from these people only reinforce the perception to the rest of the country that the powerful in Hollywood don't live in reality. They believe that they are above the law.

In fact Polanski's treatment by the LA justice system 32 years ago make him almost above the law. How is it that the prosecution and the defense were making a deal for probation when someone rapes a 13 year old girl? If Polanski was poor he would have been in jail for more than 10 years. If the judge was changing his mind about the plea deal as both the prosecution and defense contend now, he had a perfect right to do so. The judge is not the one making the deal but he gets to approve or disapprove of it. Until he makes that decision he certainly can change his mind. Now everybody is blaming the judge because he is dead and cannot defend himself. The prosecution should be the one that the public be angry at for making such a sweet heart deal for a heinous crime.

Regardless of the conduct of the judge, the fact remains that Polanski skipped out of the country and would not return for trial. I can now understand why the celebrities are on his side because if Polanski is allowed to go free, then every time a rich person commits a crime, all he had to do is flee the country. Is this the message we are sending? If Polanski cannot be brought to justice because of the length of time and that he is not dangerous at his old age, then why do we drag 90 year old Nazi war criminals out of Argentina or other places to face trial?

Joe Wilson says that Obama lied about illegal immigrants not being covered in any healthcare reform package. I think that if Obama did not lie then he is wrong on this issue. As are most of Americans. All the Democrat's plans do not allow illegals to even buy their own insurance, never mind subsiding them if they are poor. As I have said before, most illegals are doing what you and I would have done, if we have the energy and drive, to risk their lives to work very hard to support their families. If our government don't want their services, deport them. I think it would be worse for our economy but it is a fair legal choice we can make. However, to say that someone who is working and paying taxes but cannot get pay for their own insurance, is morally wrong.

Besides being morally wrong I think it is also impractical. If an illegal has a heart attack or appendicitis e.g. he will go to ER where we have a policy not to turn away anyone. So without insurance or in this case the legal right to buy insurance, the bill will probably be paid by taxpayers or swallowed by the hospital which has to charge others more. Since illegals are younger and in better physical shape than Americans on the average (you don't sneak into the country and work in the fields 10 hours a day in my condition), we should want them to be part of the paid insurance pool. As I said before, if an illegal gets tuberculosis and do not get treated, he may die and also spread it to others. Tuberculosis does not know nationality. Do we want this?

I was quite happy with my football predictions on Saturday. Sure I was wrong about USC and OSU. But I had also predicted to my younger son that Michigan and UCLA were going to lose. Since my alma mater and his school won, it makes me 0-3 in predictions but very happy. The truth is that OSU should have won even though I was wrong about the abilities of the two qbs. Pryor doesn't seem to have improve much as far as passing goes from last year. And I expected him to scramble more which I think would cause more problems for USC and may have opened up the passing. Barkley did better at the end than I thought he possibly could. He didn't panic and certainly did not choke at the end as I predicted. I am not sold on him, however. It is obvious that the USC offense was way more conservative than in previous years. I think with Aaron Corps, who can scramble and throw, USC would have won easily. I hope that USC play this way against Cal in a few weeks.

In continuation on weekend sports: I think Serena Williams got off too easy. She should have been fined a lot more and suspended. But you know that would never happen. Not when they never supended McEnroe and Connors. Truth is tennis was at its most popular time when the two bad boys were playing. Tennis authorities know that controversial personalities sell tickets and bring high ratings. They were not about to have Connors and McEnroe miss tournaments and they are not going to have Serena Williams miss tournaments if they can help it.

McEnroe, by the way, predictably defended Williams. He said that foot fault should not be called in this situation, ie bring on match point. He said refs let fouls go in basketball all the time especially at end of games. I think that is absurd. Michael Jordan may get away with fouls because he is a superstar and because fouls are subjective. But stepping on a line is not subjective. If a ref sees Jordan step on the line with the ball near the end of the game, he is going to call it. In this case if the linesman sees a foot fault, he or she must call it, regardless where we are at the match. Anyways if it was not for linesmen and umpires who "can't be serious", McEnroe would not be making so much money after he retired!

I don't think Obama's speech is going to change any minds. He knows that he will not get any support from any Republicans and is just trying to get more public support and keep the liberal and conservative Democrats from fighting each other. He will improve his approval rating on healthcare as a result of the speech for a few days. This won't last and he will have to push quickly for the House and Senate to push bills through and then reconcile the difference between the more liberal House bill and the more conservative Senate bill in conference committee. This is why he refuses to come out totally for or against the public option. This gives him the flexibility to accept whatever comes out of the conference committee.

Personally I don't think healthcare reform is going to make much difference if there is no public option. Without it I think premiums will keep rising and we will have to revisit the problem in the near future. But I think at this point Obama will accept any bill and declare victory and move on. If there was any victory for Obama yesterday it was thanks to the Republicans. Their response speech was weak and the crazy guy who called Obama a liar probably helped the Democrats more than Obama's speech.

As a side note , I predict that Ohio State will beat USC on Saturday. I think USC is over confident, the game is in Columbus, and USC has a freshman qb who was not tested in the first game. I think OSU will stack the line to stop the run and hope that Barkley makes mistakes. On offense I think Pryor will give USC problems just as Vince Young did a few years ago.

It seems like we are getting bad news everyday out of Afghanistan. The apparent corruption of the central government in the election and the increase in casualties make this war appear unwinable. This is most unfortunate because if we had not gone into Iraq but focused on Afganistan I think we could have defeated the Taliban permanently and captured most of the leaders of al qaeda, if not bin laden himself. The question is what to do now.

When we went into Afghanistan, I felt our goal was not just to defeat al qaeda and the Taliban but to also rebuild Afghanistan. I felt that if we just bomb the whole place up and leave afterwards it will help the terrorist leaders elsewhere be able to recruit more people against us. But in order to rebuild Afghanistan, there has to be leadership within the country itself. Karzai does not appear to be able provide that leadership. Just like the economic crisis, Obama inherited this war from Bush and owns it now. I don't think he has any good choices here.

I think Obama has to increase his troops in Afghanistan as his generals are suggesting. The surge worked well in Iraq and is worth trying here. But even if we have some military success over the next couple of years it will not be enough. The bad guys can afford to wait it out in the mountains if we drive them back. We must be willing to stay for the long run. But if a surge works a little, at least Obama can then convince Congress and the public that it is worthwhile to keep going. We also need to win over the people outside of Kabul. This means that we have to find a way to bypass the corrupt central government and provide aids to the provinces. This will require more civilian aid workers as well. It will not be an easy task but our fight against terrorism depends on it.