Will be going on vacation in a couple of days.  But I will answer any comment tomorrow.  Today is a quick note on couple of disappointing developments here in California.

The census result came out yesterday and California will be losing a Congressional seat for the next decade.  This will also mean a loss of one electoral vote.  Overall, the states that voted for Biden loses three seats and those who voted for Trump gained three seats.  With the next presidential election expected to be a lot closer, this maybe important.  Also the Democrats hold a slim lead in the House and this can make a difference.  But who knows?  I mean North Carolina and Florida can flip blue and Michigan, Pennsylvania and Colorado can flip red.  In the long run the greatest hope for Democrats and the greatest fear for Republicans is if Texas ever flips.  Texas gained two seats this time and will probably continue to get people moving from California unless we cut way down on use of fossil fuel.

Another blow is that Newsome is being recalled.  The opposition has enough signatures for a recall election to occur.  Newsome will most likely survive as he and the Democrats will bill this as a Trump supporters attack.  But he will have to fight hard and that may mean loss of concentration for his job.  Worse, he may lean a little more to the right and cut back on COVID mandates even if there is another surge in the next few months.  There will be expenses for the state due to the special election.  There will also a big circus as all kinds of people, mostly unqualified, decide to jump into the race.  This includes Caitlin Jenner who somehow is a Republican even though that party is not exactly a friend of transgender people.  There is also a porn star in the race along with bunch of has beens.  So if Newsome loses the recall, one of these people may be our next governor!

 Finally, justice is done.  Three guilty verdicts on the Floyd case brought celebration in the streets rather than protests.  To me, it is more relief than celebration.  Relief that the jury got it right, but no celebration because it took such overwhelming evidence to get justice.  Relief that we maybe improving in our understanding of the fear and pain that Black people go through.  No celebration yet as we still have a long way to go.   Relief that there won't be violence in the streets tonight over a verdict.  No celebration because I see many potential fire in the streets over verdicts in the near future.

Another concern is that Maxine Waters may have given the defense a pathway to appeal.  Her not so subtle message for violence if the verdict was not guilty was not smart at all.  The judge, while saying the Waters' rhetoric should not affect the jury, did say it may give the defense a chance to appeal.  Well, I don't see how her words would affect the jury at this point.  I am sure that everyone on the jury has heard of all kinds of rhetoric before Waters.  They are also well aware of the probability of violence if they return a not guilty verdict.  After all there have been many post verdict protests before.  Still, Waters was not helping here.

Also the GOP saying Waters is inciting violence is hypocritical.  Did the same people called out Trump, Cruz and others for inciting the violence on the Capitol?  

 The CDC release the stats of causes of death in 2020.  COVID deaths was third most cause of death behind cardiovascular diseases and cancer.  These top two causes together was more than 3 and half times the number of deaths due to COVID.  So now some people are saying that CVD and cancer are caused mostly by people eating bad food and smoking cigarettes.   Yet we don't stop people from doing these things but we force people to wear masks and shut down the economy because of COVID.  People should be free to choose what they want to do with their health, not dictated by government or the CDC.

What these people do not recognize is that if you make bad choices, you still may live years before you get CVD or cancer.  If you don't wear your mask and you catch COVID, you may die tomorrow.  If you make wrong choices and you get CVD or cancer, only you will die.  You can't give other people these diseases.  But if you get COVID, you can pass it to someone else and kill them.  No doctor or nurse ever died of treating patients with CVD or cancer but many have died treating COVID patients.  You do not have the right to cause someone else to get sick or die.

And it is not just a choice of minimizing death or save the economy.  China shut down it economy early and not only saved lives but also had positive GDP growth last year.  We do half way effort at shut downs and rarely enforced wearing masks.   As a result, not only our deaths skyrocketed, our economy also tanked.  So for those who believe that freedom to do what you want is more important than public health,  well, you are dead wrong.

 What is happening to this country?  While the trial of the killing George Floyd is still going on, a Minnesota policewoman shoots and kills a black man at a traffic stop.  She supposedly mistook her gun for a taser!  How is that possible?  I understand that the gun and taser are supposed to be worn on different sides of the body.  Do they look and feel the same?  Is it true that cops have trouble differentiating other objects from guns?  They have shot people and then claim that they thought the person was holding a gun when in fact that person was holding something else.  So cops have trouble identifying their own guns now?

Then you have the cop who sprayed maze on an army lieutenant wearing his uniform at another traffic stop.  The soldier was in a car without a license plate but had a temporary paper license in the back windshield.  The cops couldn't recognize the temporary license?  There must be many of those on the road everyday and once the car is stopped, they should have seen the license.  People have said that black men should not wear hoodies or gang clothing to make cops more suspicious of them.  This guy was in an army uniform!  What else can he wear to make him more of a good guy?  Yet he still was treated like a criminal!

Couple weeks ago the big stories were attacks and killings of Asians.  I am sure the attacks are still going on.   But there is no attention to that now as mass shootings and cops attacking blacks are once again taking over the news.  So many things are wrong now that the school shooting in Tennessee today will hardly be noticed among the national news tomorrow.

 Biden is calling for a two trillion dollars investment in infrastructure.  The GOP is calling this unnecessary expensive.  Of course, they are not complaining about the expensive tax cuts.  I found out recently that the cost of the new F35 fighter jets, including their lifetime operating cost is about two trillion dollars.  I think THAT is unnecessary expensive.  Our older fighter jets are still the best in the world.  The jets, while giving us superiority in the sky, will not be effective in the wars we are fighting today.  We bombed the hell out of Vietnam and the Middle East and what have we got for it?   Lots of death and destruction without achieving our goals.  More jets will not make us more competitive in the world economy either.  Infrastructure upgrade is what we need the most to be competitive.

While China is building bullet trains and railroads to accommodate them, we can't build a single one here connecting SF and LA.   While China is building bridges and highways, our roads and bridges are falling apart.  China is building new airports and LaGuardia and LAX are shameful examples we have.  So yes, I agree with Biden that we need to improve our infrastructure now as fast as we can.  

The GOP does have a point in that we have not been transparent about the cost and timing of our projects in the past.  That is on both GOP and Democrat administrations.  It cost billions to add couple of miles on an existing subway and to add three stops in New York and took many years.  Why is it so expensive and take so long?  GOP also want to have bipartisan participation in deciding what to build.  Projects should not be doled out as pork to influential Congressmen or Senators.  Of course, when the GOP want to have bipartisan involvement in deciding the projects, it is another way of them saying: we want some of the pork too!