The terrorist attack in Russia shows that curtailing the rights of the people does not prevent terrorism. Since 9/11 Russia has been attacked several times by terrorists. It was only Nov. last year that a train was bombed between St. Petersburg and Moscow. What do you think the Russian government do after each attack? It takes away more democratic rights of the people for sure. You don't think they torture suspects to try to get information? Court order before wire-tapping? You got to be kidding. All these things and more that we argue about in this country are in full use in Russia. And in China too, I may add. But obviously it is not keeping the Russian people any safer. This is something we have to remember when the next time the government asks us to give up rights in order, as it says, to protect us from evil.

Some thoughts on the healthcare bill that was passed yesterday. It is not a very good bill, it will not make a big difference in our healthcare system in the next few years, and it certainly will not cut the deficit as predicted by the nonpartisan Congressional budget office. It is, however, the only bill that can be passed given the polarity of the country. I have some ideas about what our health system should be like, but my ideas will NEVER be adopted. Whatever you feel about Obama and Pelosi, you have to say they are tough politicians. Of course Pelosi will never lose in her district of San Francisco where a Republican candidate will often finish 3rd in a 2 persons race. Obama, as I have said all along, will be re-elected if the economy turns around by 2012. So his neck is not out at this time. For the Congressional Democrats in conservative districts, this will not be a good time to celebrate. For the Republicans, they may win some seats and may even become the majority in the House. But I have no respect for them. They are only interested in obstruction and putting out false information to scare people.

Good things about the bill: Eliminate preexisting condition exclusions, ends lifetime limits on benefits, and bans recission. These are unfair practices by insurance companies. Of course the insurance companies will charge more because now it is harder to deny coverage on people who are sick. Which brings to one of the bad point of the bill: it does not bring down cost. If my premium has gone by 70% in the past 3 years even though I have not been sick, can you imagine what the cost will be for someone with a pre-existing condition? These folks will still have to buy from private insurance companies who will claim that by taking on all comers they will have to increase the premium. Without a public option to compete with the private companies, how will the cost go down?

One of the things I find laughable is some people say that now that 30 million more people are going to have insurance, there will be problem with access because we don't have enough hospitals and doctors. Where did these 30 million people came from, Mars? The fact they do not have insurance does not mean they don't seek healthcare. It is just that they wait till they are very sick and end up in ERs. Then the outcome may be worse because they waited too long. With insurance coverage, maybe primary care physicians like me will be more busy. But maybe the ERs will be less overwhelm. Anyway, too many things to discuss about this topic. If anyone have any questions or want my view on a particular subject, please write in.

Berkeley law school associate dean Goodwin Liu has been nominated to the 9th circuit court of appeal. If confirmed, which is no easy thing given the Republican attempts to block Obama's nominations, Liu will become the first Asian American among the nation's 175 federal appellate judges. The first one? That is a travesty. I know that not as many Asians go into law as in medicine or science fields. But the first appellate judge with so many academically qualified Asian Americans? This is hard to believe.

I like most of Liu's views. He leans to the left as expected from a Democratic nominee. But he considers conservative positions as well. He has defended the No Child Left Behind policy put out by the Bush administration. He agrees with school vouchers. These are two positions that I also believe in. California's proposition 8 which outlawed gay marriages was challenged on constitutional grounds. While Liu probably supports gay marriages, he predicted that the proposition was on good constitutional grounds. I have written before that while I disagree with Berkeley law professor John Yoo's memos on torture, I do not feel that he should be fired from the school. Liu also supports Yoo despite his disagreement with Yoo's view. So, yes I think Liu is an excellent choice and a choice that is well overdue.

Another Chinese American that has been in the news lately is Harvard basketball player Jeremy Lin. I saw Lin a few years ago on tv when his high school team, Palo Alto High, won the state championship over national power Mater Dei which had several future d-1 players. Lin was the best player on the court that day and I wondered if he would be recruited by a big basketball school. The answer was no. Stanford is next door and it didn't recruit Lin. Nor did his other favorite, UCLA. The truth is that he would be the starting point guard for either of this team now if they had recruited him. So he ends up at Harvard which isn't too bad of a fall back. I am sure if Lin was black or even white the coaches would have felt he could have played at high d-1 level. I guess that is one reason there are more students name Lin at Harvard than there are d-1 Asian American players in the country!

Well, now that Lin has shown that he is an elite college player, he has been featured in Sports Illustrated, Time and ABC etc. Of course every article or show has to mention how underrated he is. But as the great Joe Dumars of the Detroit Pisitons once said: "I have been called underrated so often, I have become overrated." That maybe the case with Lin now. What has the world come to? An overrated Chinese basketball player? Almost as surprising as no Asian American appellate judge.

Last Sunday 6o Minutes ran a story about this Chinese American who spied for China and got some information about U.S. strategy in selling arms to Taiwan from a government worker. It is not the biggest secret info in the world. I don't think selling arms to Taiwan is anything top secret. But these two guys deserved to be punished. What I don't understand is that the guy who gave the info got 5 years while the Chinese guy got 15 years. It seems to me they are at least equally guilty and if anything the guy that was entrusted with the info is more of a traitor because he had to get clearance and pledge not to sell out.

This is similar to my complaint from 2005 when a FBI agent James Smith gave sensitive info to his lover katrina Leung. The government gave him immunity to testify against Leung. This is outrageous because he is the one who gave away the secrets and he got off totally except for losing his job, I think! As I said before, jailing Chinese or any foreign spy would not stop other countries from spying us. China would be more interested in their own people who would give away its secrets to other countries. By giving our own traitors shorter sentences or no sentence will not deter other people in the future from succumbing to greed.