Novak Djokovic is now officially out of the Australian Open and has left the country.  There was incompetence and confusion on the part of the Australian government but ultimately it was the right final decision.  Nobody is above the law, no matter the wealth or celebrity status of the person.

Serbia and all the anti-vaxxers are of course dismayed at the ruling.  They said it was unfair because if the provincial government had not accept Djokovic's application for exemption, he would not have gone to Australia in the first place.  But to me, there was something fishy about what Djokovic did.  He knew he was not vaccinated and so needed an exemption.  His request for exemption was that he had COVID already.  But he got a positive test on Dec. 16 or 17.  How did he know that he would get infected then or any time after?  At that late date, he would not have enough time to get two shots before going to Australia.  So the only way was to get infected to get an exemption.  So if he did not get infected, he would not have gone to Australia to defend his title?

Djokovic then was seen in public without masks at least couple of times right after the positive test result.  He is either extremely irresponsible, which should give Australia pause of admitting him in any case, or the test result was faked!  He was not going to get vaccinated because he is anti-vax.  So did he planned to get infected or get a fake medical result to get an exemption?

So to me the whole thing smell fishy and so I think Australia ultimately did the right thing by banning him.  You cannot ask the whole population to sacrifice and then let somebody from another country flaunt the rules.  

I do think that Djokovic should not be banned for 3 years because he was deported as some in Australia have suggested.  That would be unfair because Australia shared some responsibility for giving him an exemption initially.  If it didn't, then Djokovic would not have flied to Australia and thus would not be subject to deportation.  So the 3 year ban rule should not be enforced here.

 Shortly after Jan.6 last year, I thought that the power Trump over the Republican party was over.  When Republican members of Congress were scared stiff from the riot and leaders such as Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell said that Trump was responsible, you would think that the Trump era was over.  Now a year later, claims of election fraud continues, Republicans are saying that it was not a riot at all.  Nobody from the Republican side, except for a few people like Liz Cheney, mention that Trump is at fault for the insurrection.  Nothing from McCarthy and McConnell.

Only Liz Cheney and her father Dick Cheney among Republicans showed up to honor the Capitol police and remember the day.  Nothing from Mitt Romney.  Nothing from Mike Pence whom the rioters want to hang.  The prospect of elections not certified or riots post election are as real today or even more so compared to last year.  Our democracy is in big danger.  If we don't have peaceful transfer of power, do we really have a democracy?

 I was watching a Youtube video by a France television station on forced labor in Xinjiang, China.  I wanted to see what new evidence they came up with.  The presentation was so bad that I wondered if this is a parody on Western media.  But I don't think it is and I think that most people in France who watched this will think that forced labor is real.

During the entire presentation from this "journalist" based in Beijing had a video in the background showing cotton being picked in Xinjiang with large machines.  The only humans were the drivers of these machines.  So are the drivers forced to drive?  Are the machines being forced to work?  There was not one single person bending over to pick cotton.  If they don't have videos of forced labor, then don't run anything in the background.  This just boost China's claim that they bought lots of machines from Deere and this was much more efficient than forcing people to pick cotton by hand.

The "journalist" also said he had no first hand information about forced labor but that from "reliable, independent sources" he said that more people than in the past working in the fields are Uyghurs from Xinjiang as opposed to people from other provinces.  Well, if there are people in California who needs jobs, would you bring in people from New York to pick strawberries?

By the way, there was only one "reliable and independent source" he quoted.  That was the Global Center for Cooperative Security.  It is easy to look up this organization and see how "independent" it is.  According its own site, 95% of funding are from governments.  The dozen or so governments listed are all Western countries except for Japan.  Ironically, France is not one of the nations mentioned although the European Union is.  If an organization is 95% funded by China and Russia, would you believe it is independent in reporting forced labor in the U.S.?

Despite these shortcomings, I think most people in France and elsewhere in the Western world will believe that this video is strong evidence of force labor in Xinjiang.  I would not be surprised that like articles in other Western media on this subject, it will be quoted elsewhere in the future as evidence.  It is like Trump retweet something absurd and next thing you know, millions believe it is true.  That is how propaganda works.

 On the Stephen Colbert show last night, it made fun of the Chicago Bulls running out of players due to COVID and had to bring people from the stands to fill in.  This reminds me of a dream I had a few years ago.

I dreamed that I was watching the Pistons play the Boston Celtics at the old Boston Garden.  Due to injuries and foul disqualifications, the Pistons were down to 4 players.  So this announcement was made:   Anyone from Detroit in the stands?  I rushed onto the court and was given an uniform.  

I realized that I could not possibly defend against any of the Celtics players.  So I would just wander on the periphery with my hands up.  As the shot went up, I didn't think about boxing out for the rebound, I just took off down court.  To my surprise, Bill Lambeer would frequently get the rebound and fired it down court where I was all alone.  I made several layups that way to keep the game close.

Then with a few seconds to go and the Pistons down by one, I got the pass and sprinted down the court with the ball.  As I drove to put up the layup that would win the game, I felt a severe cramp on one of my calf.  As a result of the pain, I was not able to jump and the shot came up short off the front of the rim.  I yelled in frustration.  Then I woke up.

As I woke up screaming, I realized that I actually did have a bad cramp on my calf.  It took several minutes for the cramp to ease for me to go back to sleep.  I vowed that I would start practicing so that I would be in better shape the next time I face Larry Bird and company.

So the parody on the Colbert Show last night confirms that dreams can come true.  I am going to start getting into shape, just in case the Pistons need me again!

 So the U.S.,  as expected, declared a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games.   The athletes will go but no politician will represent the U.S.  The main purpose of this boycott is to cement in the minds of Americans that China is evil.  So if we declare sanctions, blockades or even war against China in the future, it will seem justified to most Americans.  After all, most Americans will believe what the government and the media tell them and do not look to see what the truth is.  

Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang are the three areas the U.S. point to human rights abuses to such a degree that warrant the boycott.  I know the most about Hong Kong as I am from there.  I think there is at least as much if not more democracy in Hong Kong now than under British rule.  There was no democratic election for leader of Hong Kong under British rule.  There was no killing by the police during the recent riot.  China did not send in troops.  Contrast that with the riots in the 1960s when the police killed many Hong Kong people, the anti-British newspaper were shut down, and the British army was used in controlling the riots.  Why didn't the U.S. boycott the World Cup in 1966 when England hosted it?

Tibet has not been on the radar until now because it has been calm there.  The Dali Lama has said that he does not favor independence.   How many Americans know that he said that?  Most think that Tibet is still fighting China.  Well, the only time this was serious was in the 60s when the U.S. was training Tibet fighters in the U.S.  There may very well still be some who want to fight China but I don't think outside of the U.S., anybody believe that this is a serious topic.

Xinjiang is the new area of propaganda for the U.S.  But where is the evidence of genocide that the U.S. is claiming?  There are satellites showing 100,000 Russian troops on the border with Ukraine right away.  But there is no satellite showing a million Uyghurs are in interment camps.  If there is genocide, wouldn't there be refugees streaming out of Xinjiang?  Xinjiang borders 8 countries, 5 of them are Muslim majority.  Yet none of these countries report a single refugee all these years.  No Muslim country has agreed with the Western countries that there is genocide in Xinjiang.

China can careless about the U.S. and other Western countries not sending any politicians to the Games.  They don't need people coming from countries with high incident of COVID.  I think Biden should send Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley to represent the U.S.  After all, they were the ones who went to Hong Kong to cheer on the protesters.  Will see if they are brave enough to go to China.  If they are, Biden will get rid of them for three weeks at least due to the quarantine in China.

But seriously, if politicians in both parties are going with the narrative that China is evil in an attempt to get people behind them, it will be dangerous for Asian Americans in this country.  Remember what happened to the Japanese in WWII and during the auto war in 1970s and 80s?  Racism,  scapegoating and extreme nationalism are all alive and well in this country today.

 Finally justice prevailed as the murderers of Ahmaoud Arbery are found guilty today.  If there was no conviction in this case, I think there would have been riots again in American cities.  At least this will keep things quiet for this Thanksgiving and give hope that racial vigilantism will not be tolerated in the future.

Of course, this case had overwhelming evidence including videotape from one of the perpetrators.  So this may not stop this type of killings in the future.  Still, it is a victory because in the past even a videotape was not enough, starting with the Rodney King case.  It is also a good sign that an eleven White and one Black jury in the South convicted three White men in this case.  It will be a better sign in the future if this type of conviction is not news.  It will be the best sign if this type of crime does not occur in our country.  We can hope, can't we?

 So this is American justice.  Just as in the Trevon Martin case, a vigilante can kill without consequences.  Rittenhouse is found not guilty on all three charges.  I can understand to a certain degree about the three homicide charges.  But the two regarding endangering safety?  You take a machine gun, crosses state lines, confront protesters who are unarmed, you kill two people and wounded a third, and you are not guilty of endangering safety?  If Rittenhouse had killed in hand to hand combat, maybe he was innocent.  But people like him would not go into a possible dangerous situation without weapons to kill, would they?

Although the victims in this case were white, race, I believe play a part in this verdict.  If a Black guy shows up at a KKK rally with an AK47, argues with the people at the rally and then shoots a few of them, would a jury believe this all self defense.  Certainly a Black man among racists can claim he is fearful for his safety.  But would a white jury clear him in that case?  I don’t think so.  Vigilante privilege is only for certain people in this country.

 Now that the democrats have lost the governor’s race in Virginia, it looks like a big hill to climb for the midterm next year and even 2024.  I am not sure how the democrats are going to reverse this.  I can understand that the country is not happy with Biden’s performance so far.  But the idea that you vote for someone who doesn’t denounce Trump strikes me as crazy.  You can’t do a worse job than letting 700,000 Americans die under your watch when most of them could have been avoided.  How can you vote for a party that endorse attacking our Capitol?

The exit poll on Tuesday show that a big majority of republicans believe that the election that night will have fraud and that the results may not be accurate.  Now that they have won, will the GOP call for investigation into the fraud that they believed would occur?

 Colin Powell has died.  I think he is an example of a man who had done some great things but had also made big mistakes.  He had risen to the top of American military and political hierarchy.  He could have been the first Black American president.  There were polls that showed he would have beaten Clinton in 1992 if he had run.  But think he was too loyal to challenge his boss, George H W Bush.

But his loyalty probably caused him more than the presidency.  It caused him his reputation.  He is ultimately a soldier and a company man.  That is why, despite reservations, he became the point man in selling the Iraq war with his fake vial of WMD at the UN.  I give him a pass because I think he is way less guilty than warmongers and draft dodgers like Cheney and Bolton.

But this one mistake caused him standing among the left even though plenty of them supported the Iraq war themselves.  He lost support on the right with his moderate stances and his endorsement of Obama.  So at the end he was not popular on both sides.  This is too bad because we all make mistakes and overall I think he was a good man.

 Watched a program by Lisa Ling on CNN Sunday night about hate crimes against Asian Americans.  The Vincent Chin case was reviewed along with some of the more recent hate crimes against mostly the elderly during the pandemic.  It was a good program.  Interestingly, it also talked about the Chinese company BYD opening up a factory in Lancaster California.  

The main business of BYD is electrical vehicles.  In Lancaster, BYD is making electric buses.  The buses are well made and price is very competitive.  It also brings in many good paying jobs to an area of California that is suffering economically.  By making buses here, BYD is expanding its market.  Seems like a win win for everybody.

But the U.S. government is making rules against companies that are part of the Chinese government.  So BYD may not be able to sell their buses to U.S. cities and states soon.  That would mean the factory in Lancaster probably has to close and jobs lost.  The thing is, the company is listed in the Hong Kong stock exchange and 60% of the stocks is owned by American investors.  So I don't know why the U.S. thinks that it is Chinese government owned.  

Some Congressmen also said that the buses may be used to spy on people.  Who the heck is going to spy on people riding on a metro bus?  I don't think any Congressmen ride the D.C. Metro to work.  BYD also makes batteries for EV.  Tesla may buy from them in the future because its batteries are innovative.  Even now, Tesla buys its batteries from CATL, a Chinese company, for the EV Tesla makes in China.  So are we going to ban Tesla vehicles in the future because there are parts made in China so it maybe used to spy on us?

Vincent Chin was killed because Asians were scapegoated in the 1980s.  Scapegoating is also the reason that many of the elderly and women of Asian descent were killed or injured recently.  Sure, individual criminals did the harming of innocents.  But it is the demonizing of Asians by those with power that increase the scope of the hate.  In Vincent's case, it was the UAW and the Automakers who set the tone.  During the pandemic it was the politicians like Donald Trump who made hating Asians easy.  I don't really care if BYD is excluded from the American market.  But by banning a Chinese company which is competing fairly and is actually helping Americans send a message that all thing Chinese are bad.  This type of propaganda is dangerous for all Asian Americans.