The Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration's claim that the President can make the rules in an unconventional war. While this may not help any innocent prisoners get out earlier, it does at least slow down the ability of the administration to use 9/11 to increase the power of the executive branch. Guantanamo Bay, surveillance of phone calls and bank transactions may very well be necessary in the war against terrorism but the way the administration carried them out shows a disregard for laws and the separation of power between the branches of government.

The wiretaps could have been done legally by simply getting warrants. The warrants can be obtained retrospectively if the government had to act before there was time to reach a judge. By putting in new rules that allow the NSA to bypass the court at will doesn't help fight terrorism. It was just an act of arrogance. The same with the bank transactions. It would be easy to get approval from Congress and the courts to make everything legal. By not going through the legal channels, the administration is trying to make the executive branch much more powerful than the other two branches.

By not giving the prisoners at Guantanomo American justice or justice according to the Geneva convention, it will lead to more terrorism against us. It is a lot easier for the bad guys to recruit people when they can point to Muslims that America only believe in justice for their own people. There are bound to be many prisoners who were not guilty of terrorism who are still detained without trials after several years. The long length of their incarceration will be used as a recruiting tool against us. Even if they had some connection with Al Qaeda, their usefullness as an information source is nil by now. If this is "24" they would be released long time ago and followed to see if they go back to their organization. (I watch too much t.v.) I think the administration does not have enough evidence to convict most of these people and they don't want to lose in court so they want to just keep them in prison until the war on terrorism ends. Of course the war of terrorism has no ending. Eventually, I believe, most of these prisoners will be released and Guantanomo will be closed after a new president takes office. It will be a black eye in the history of America justice.

Yesterday, June 22nd, the LA Times had a article about different religious groups plotting the so-called exit strategy, hastening the end of the world. This means the arrival of the messiah for their particular religion. You have the Christian, Muslim and Jewish groups all believing the end of the world as we know it is near. Now I don't know who is right but I know they all can't be right. Obviously everybody can believe what he wants to believe, but some of the contradictory statements made by religious leaders strike me as being illogical.

The President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, hopes to welcome the messiah Mahdi to Tehran in 2 years. If he thinks the messiah is going to come so soon and convert everyone to Islam then why is he worrying about building nuclear weapons for the future? The Jews, meanwhile, are rebuilding the Holy Temple destroyed by the Romans, before the coming of their messiah. Gershon Solomon of the Jerusalem's Temple Institute remarked that when the temple is built "Islam is over." The Christians are helping Israel as they believe that they will be judged by how they treat the Jews. So the Christians are strong lobbyists for Israel. Of course they also believe that the Jews who do not convert to Christianity will be condemned to hell. This is a concept that shock the Jews. Gershon Solomon, when asked about the Christian belief, said "What kind of religion is it that expects another religion will be destroyed?" Of course that is exactly what he thought would happen to Islam. It is also what Muslims think will happen to Jews and Christians.

So they all think they are smart enough to know their religion is the right one. I guess I am not so smart. Read back to my blog on 9-26-05 and you will see that I have no idea who is the true God. All I know is that the true God will be more forgiving than us, not less. For example, if Mother Teresa believed in the wrong God, would the true God condemn her to hell? If your religion teaches you that good people from different religions than yours are going to hell, I don't think you have found the true religion.

The Republican majority passed resolutions in the Senate and House which defeated the call for a timetable for withdrawl from Iraq. The resolutions were just political ploys because they included a call for support of the troops. So if one votes for a timetable then the Republicans can use it against him in November by saying that he voted against the troops. Dennis Hastert even called this a vote for freedom. This is an insult to the intelligence of the American people. There are reasonable arguments for not having a timetable but if you believe that this is a vote to support freedom and the troops then you are a moron, the exact type of people the Republicans are trying to convince.

These symbolic votes show how inept our political leaders are. All they are doing to trying to figure out how best to win the next election. The Republicans know that the war is going badly but figure that by keep yelling "stay the course" they can still beat the democrats in November. The Democrats blame the Republicans but have no alternative policies of their own. Now that most congressmen voted to support our troops, what strategy do they have to bring them home?

There seems to be very little celebration with the death of Zarqawi. Even President Bush cautions that a lot more fighting is ahead. There was none of the claims of victory as after Hussein was captured. This is because we have learned that the insurgency is very resilent and that the loss of one leader will not mean its end. There is question of whether Zarqawi is all that important or even competent as a leader. However, this is an opportunity to use his death to our advantage, although given Bush's reaction he does not seem to see the opportunity.

This is the time now to save face and get the hell out of Iraq. Bush keeps saying that we will stay course until the work is completed. But what is the end point? Does anyone believe that any government can stablize the country in less than 10 years? Certainly not any government that is supported by the U.S. Somewhere down the line the country will be either split into Shiite and Sunni and Kurdish regions via civil war or the Shiites become dominant with the help of Iran and overwhelm the others. I believe one of these scenarios will play out no matter how long we stay in Iraq. If there is any chance for it to turn out differently, it would require us to get out as soon as possible. It is easier for insurgents to recruit as long as there are Americans occupying the country. Sunnis can point to Americans as helping the Shiites to kill them. Shiites can say that if not for American interference, they would have put down the Sunnis already. There maybe a slim chance that without Americans to blame, some moderate leaders can unite the country. Well, at least after several moderate leaders are assassinated first.

What about the argument that we did not finish the job and that would look bad for us in the future. Well, we already lost lot of credibility by invading Iraq in the first place. But everybody still knows that we can kill them. We just can't occupy them. But who else do we want to occupy? Iran and North Korea know that we can't occupy them but so what? They know that we can destroy them. If we leave Iraq they will make fun of us for awhile, but so what? We can claim victory now by saying that the head of the insurgency is dead. The enemy is headless. The Sunni leadership of Hussein and now Zarqawi are gone. The Shiites can run the country with a democratically elected government. It is all up to the leaders of Iraq now. This is what we set out to do. Of course, everybody in the world know that is a lie. But so what? This is the way to save face on the international stage. At least no more soldiers will be killed for no reason and we can spend money on other things that will improve our lives and keep us safer. Bring the troops home now.

The Supreme Court ruling denying whistle-blower rights for government employees is a wrong decision. Generally I like laws that limit lawsuits because I believe there are way too many frivolous lawsuits in our country. But to say that if you work for the government you have no right to reveal official misconduct is absurd. This sounds more like the laws of China or Iran. If the Chinese government was to fire one of its official for exposing international violations in the government, wouldn't western countries cry foul?

Whistle-blower rights are even more important for government employees than private employees. If a company do something illegal or unethical, it is likely that eventually this will catch up to it. Whistle-blowers are important in cases like Enron but even if there was no whistle-blowers I think sooner or later the fraud would have been exposed and the company would have gone down. But with frauds in government this can go on much longer without a whistle-blower from the inside. For example, who on the outside can monitor a crooked police department? As it is with the so-called code of silence, it is difficult to get rid of bad cops. We cannot get rid of a police department by dumping its stocks as we can do to a bad company. Many more lives are at stake when a government agency can operate with impugnity. With this ruling by the Supreme Court, who will be brave enough to say "the emperor has no clothes"?

It is nice that the Democrats and Republicans in the House are agreeing on something. Unfortunately, the thing they agree on is that the Justice department acted illegally in confiscating records from the office of Congressman William Jefferson. I am no Constitution scholar but I assume the judge who ordered the warrant knows something about the law. I don't see how this has anything to do with the separation of powers between the branches of government. By using this technicality it appears that the Congress want to be treated differently than ordinary Americans when they are accused of a crime. This is amazingly insensitve and stupid in view of the recent allegation of bribery scandals involving Congressmen.

Now Bush is getting himself involve by sealing the documents seized while the Justice department and Congress negotiate. The Attorney General and FBI directors are hinting that they may resign if the President forces them to return the documents. I will give the Republicans some credit for not making this a partisan issue. Nevertheless, for a party that takes pride in their law and order agenda, I would expect that they treat government officials at least as harsh as the average citizen accused of crimes. Having monitored people's phone conversations without warrants, now Bush is worried that a document seizure backed by a warrant is against the law? My conclusion? There are more people in our government who are worried that their documents will be subpoenaed soon and they are afraid that if they don't answer the subpoena quick enough, their documents will also be seized. This may not be the right conclusion but I believe it is closer to the truth than the theory that Hastert and Pelosi are doing this for principle. Who knows where Abramhoff will lead us to?

A judge in California placed an injunction against the California High School Exit Exam. The judge cited the unequal education system leading to a higher proportion of minority and poor students failing the exam. While economics and the school one attends would have a significant impact on one's performance on standardized tests, there is really no excuse for failing this exam. The standards of this exam is extremely low. The math portion is at 8th grade level and the English part tests at 10th grade level. You only need a 55% to pass the math section and 60% to pass the English part. Starting from 10th grade a student has two chances to pass the test each year. So essentially one has 6 chances to pass with a D- or F+ on tests that are two to four year levels below what a graduating senior should know. Not only that, the test was suppose to have been implented for the class of 2004 but was pushed back to this year for political reasons. There was plenty of time for the schools and students to prepare for this and yet over 10% of the senior students in the state have yet to pass the exam. Somehow these students have been passed by the school to the 12th grade despite not really having learned at the high school level. No wonder the high school diploma is becoming worthless.

It is true that some of the students do not pass the exam are disadvantaged by the fact that they are immigrants and thus are behind in English. From previous blogs you know that I am for immigrant rights. I am, however, a firm believer that you need to play the cards that you were dealt. Immigrants, of all people, should understand this. Just because you are disadvantaged it doesn't give you an excuse not to succeed. Non-English speaking immigrants from various countries in our history have overcame disadvantages and became successful. I believe that the immigrants today have the same ability to succeed and will not make our country poorer as some conservatives claim. However, if there is one thing that will make immigrants unsuccessful, it would be because liberals making excuses on behalf of immigrants. This lawsuit is an example of this. The liberals supported two Hispanic students from Richmond, claiming being disadvantaged on this test. The students should have been held accountable for their failure to learn the material. Over the long run this type of excuses will make immigrants less competitve.

Our public school systems are graduating students who cannot function in society. Recently a business employer wrote to our local newspaper complaining about the quality of high school graduates in the area. Not surprisingly, several teachers and school administrators wrote in to protest. My experience has been the same as the employer writer. The majority of high school graduates who apply for a job in my office cannot convert inches to feet or ounces to pounds. Do you think that would be true of high school graduates in China and India? We need to hold students, parents and schools accountable for such failures. This exit exam is just a minimum standard which they should meet.

President Bush is trying to ease the pressure on gas prices by halting the purchase of oil for the strategic petroleum reserve. This has been done by his predecessors with almost no effect. The problem right at this moment is not the amount of oil inventory, which is at a 6 year high, but is the production of gasoline not meeting the demand of consumers. The investigation of price gouging is not likely to be fruitful because the oil company can legitimely make huge profits by just letting the law of supply and demand work. The only fault I see of the oil companies is that they have been negligent in increasing the number of refineries which would increase production. This is like OPEC which controls the supply to drum up higer prices. The only way you can fight that would be to decrease demand ourselves.

Yes, we are to blame for our energy problem. In the short term the Bush administration is partly responsible for this run up. The disastrous policy of invading Iraq and the fighting stance we take against Iran (more on that in another blog), have cause a big rise in the futures market for oil and gas which affect the current prices. In the long term it is the poor energy policy of our government, including previous democratic administration, and our own appetite as consumers for fossil fuel that bring about unstable energy prices. Sure, India and China are increasing their comsumption at record paces. But we still use way more energy per capita than anyone else. We drive Hummers that get maybe 5 miles per gallon when park on the 405 "freeway". We heat swimming pools and jacuzzis in warm southern California. We live in 5000 square feet houses that we need to heat and air condition even though there may be 2 people in the house. I always say: don't blame the Colombians for our drug problems. Now I say: don't blame the Saudis for our energy problems.

What is the energy policy of the Bush administration consists of? Drilling the Alaska Wildlife Refuge is their first priority. I am no card carrying liberal environmentalist. Nobody reading this or anyone I know has ever gone to the Alaska Artic area. So if nobody ever goes there, what difference does it make how pristine it is? The only thing is, drilling this whole area is not an energy policy. Even if every drop of oil is taken out of there, it will only be enough for couple of years of usage by us. It will benefit the oil companies more than anyone of us. The Bush administration, as everyone else, advocates alternative fuels. But advocating doesn't mean help bring it about and the government is doing very little to bring it about.

What are my suggestions? I don't pretend that my solutions will work perfectly nor that anyone will vote me into political office if they see what I am suggesting. They are more likely to assassinate me first. But here it is: First I would increase the price of gasoline to level of what the Europeans and Japanesed pay. That means increase the tax so that the total cost is over $5 per gallon! Everybody says that alternate energy is important but unless there is an extreme urgency such that buying gas may actually be more expensive than buying an alternate fuel, nobody will be serious about it. Our greatest successes in science as a nation were beating the Germans to the atomic bomb and beating the Russians to the moon. If the challenges of the Germans and the Russians were not there, we would not have accomplished these goals in such a short time. We need a real shock and awe to our country to get this done.

After we see what happens with $5 dollar per gallon prices for maybe 6 months, I would cut the tax so that the price would go back to market value. The reason is that a high price of gas hurt the poor people much more than rich people. Some people would not make it to work because of the price of gas. High energy price leads to inflation which will hurt low-income people much more. So then I would put in a flat income tax with no loopholes. There would be a decrease in capital gain tax. There would be no deduction for mortgage interests nor for home property tax paid. There would be a luxury tax on cars with low mileage and high price tags. There will be taxes on heated swimming pools, jacuzzis, private planes and boats. What I am saying is that if you make lots of money, you can save some income tax, and the money you earn by investing in the businesses of this country will be taxed at a lower rate. You have the freedom to buy anything you want but anything frivolous and high energy costing will set you back a l0t more.

I would use the money from all these taxes to subsidize energy research. We can't count on the energy companies to plow money into research for alternate fuels. The best company in this area is British Petroleum which claims that BP stands for Beyond Petroeum. But upon being pressed on the Charlie Rose show, the president of BP admits that alternate fuel research budget of the company is still very low. As an overall education program (more on another blog), we must increase the number of physics, chemistry and engineering students in this country. A subsidized education in these fields for American citizens is a must. I know that India and China are working very hard in these areas. While losing this race will not be as disastrous as losing the atomic bomb race with Germany, it will have far more economic repurcussion than the increase of price of gas today.

Needless to say the medicine I prescribe is hard to swallow. But we must know that energy policy is not just about our pocket book. It is about a reliance on a geographical area that is totally unstable and this affects our foreign policies. It also affects the foreign policies of China and India. Without stable energy supplies, China will be more and more friendly with countries like Iran, Venezuela and Sudan. Even we are reluctant to put pressure on Saudia Arabia for human rights violations and for indirectly helping terrorists. The $3.15 per gallon we are paying today is not a crisis. It is just a mild cold. But if we don't do more prevention for the future, eventually no medicine will be effective. We may not be around to see the real disasters but we would have left a poorer world for our children and grandchildren.

The president of China, Hu Jintao, completed his visit to the U.S. this week. I must say that I am disappointed with Hu's performance since becoming president. Hu is supposed to be the first of a new generation of Chinese leaders. Hu and many of his deputies were trained as scientists in the most prestigious universities in China. With this background I would expect that they will be less ideologues than the previous generation of leaders who came to power as revolutionaries. Surely they would understand that just having a capitalistic economic system will not be enough. Social reforms will be necessary before China catches up with the West. At first Hu showed a lot of promise. He showed compassion for victims of HIV right after he took office. His government's handling of the avian flu epidemic was better than previous administrations' handling of other health crisis. I thought that having a scientist in charge will bring about more meaningful changes in society. Unfortunately this appears to be a false hope.

I can understand that democracy cannot occur overnight. China is afraid of what happened to Russia. A whole scale attempt to change from communism to democracy quickly was not successful in Russia. The collapse of the Russian economy with increase in crime have led to a backlash and Putin's government is reverting to totalitarianism. But having changed from a state controlled economy to a market based economy over the past twenty years or so, China should be in position to make more social changes. Improvement in human rights will not only make life better for the people but will lead to more creativity and thus move China forward. Some, like Andrew Grove of Intel believes that China can catch up to the U.S. in the next 25 years. I don't think that is possible. China has a lot of problems. Seventy-five percent of the people still in rural areas and are extremely poor. There is no way China can sustain this 9% annual growth rate. Social reforms that can unlock the potential of its huge population is the only way that can take China to the next level. If this generation of leaders do not allow this to happen it will not only be bad for China but will lead to deterioration of the world economy and threaten world peace.

A recent article in the LA Times bolstered my point about illegal immigrants. (Of course, I wouldn't mention it if it didn't help my arguments.) The article was about the use of immigrants, most of them illegal, to work on the reconstruction of New Orleans. Some of them work for contstruction companies contracted by FEMA. So indirectly our government is the employer of these workers. More about that later. These immigrants came from all over the U.S. or directly from Mexico when they heard there were high paying jobs available in this reconstruction effort. Why didn't the Americans who left after Katrina come back to rebuild their own city? I am sure the companies would not discriminate against Americans. And if they did discrminate against Americans then a lawsuit or complaint to the government would take care of that. Some people have argued that if wages were higher then Americans would do the jobs that illegals are doing today. The situation in New Orleans refutes this argument. Some of these construction jobs are paying $16 an hour. All you need is muscles. Yet few Americans want the jobs. Some say that there is not enough housing so few Americans can come back to work in New Orleans. Yet the immigrants are willing to sleep on floors or even outdoors without plumbing to work on these jobs. So you are going to tell me we can deport 11 million people and take over the jobs they are doing?

As I have said before, building a fence on the Mexico border will not stop the flow the illegal immigrants. It will just be a big expenditure that makes us look xenophobic. By the way, it is a 700 mile fence to be built in hot desert conditions. Who are we going to hire to build this fence? I don't think it will be Americans. Few Americans wanted to work to build the railroads at a time when we had much less luxury in the country. Remember much of the railroads were built by Chinese immigrants, most of them illegals. Unless you are going to double or triple the estimated cost of the fence, you are going to have to hire illegals to build the fence to keep out illegals.

Now, about the govenment hiring illegals indirectly. There was a report on the CBS evening news tonight about government contractors hiring illegal to work on construction at military bases. Now if the government is worried about security with illegals, it should look in its own backyard. You tell me that all these military and government officials who work at these bases couldn't see that all the construction workers were Hispanic and that either all the blacks and whites are too lazy to work there or the company is trying to save money by hiring immigrants? As I said, if there is a demand there will be a supply.

I think ultimately nothing significant will come out of this. The House and the Senate probably won't agree to a compromise. Things will drag out with rhetoric coming out of everywhere. Eventually the mid-term election will pass and this will be forgotten. I know there is no great solution at this time. The guest work program, even if it passes, will only help some in slowing down the illegal flow. Don't worry though, after Regan gave amnesty to illegals some thought that illegal immigration would stop while others thought the world will end. Neither proved to be true. Yet economically I think we are stronger than the 80's despite all our complaints. You know, if all the people in the world would come and live in Texas, the population density of Texas will only be slightly greater than New York city. Hard to believe, eh? We are far from being an economic and population disaster. Every immigration group that have come to this country have contributed to the success of this nation. If there is going to be a downfall to America in the future, it would not be because of immigrants, legal or illegal.