As expected Bush decides to escalate the war by sending more troops into Iraq. It is an escalation even if it is called a surge. As you know I was against going into Iraq and I wanted a pull out a long time ago so my opinion on this surge is biased. I do believe, however, that the surge is the only choice Bush can make politically. If he decides on a withdrawl now or in the near future it would be admitting defeat and his legacy is decided. This surge is the equivalent of a Hail Mary in football. It is very, very unlikely to work but what the heck, it is his only chance.

There is actually a chance that this would work for a short while. Overwhelming force targeting a small area can shut down the insurgents for a time. If it calms things down for a year or so then even if the violence increase again Bush can stall things until the next president is elected. If things get worse then and we have to leave Iraq, then Bush can claim that if we had stayed his course the result would be different. Again it is unlikely that Bush can stall that long effectively but this is a better chance than the one about actually winning with the surge.

The reason this can't work in the long term is because there are violence from all different directions. There is the Shiites militias, with the blessing of the Iraqui government, against the Sunnis; the Sunnis against the Shiites; the Sunnis against the U.S.; and the foreign al qaeda fighters against the U.S. It is like killing bacteria with antibiotics and allowing fungi and viruses to grow because they have less competition. Kill some Sunnis, the Shiites get bolder etc. The increase in economic aids would have been more helpful couple of years earlier. It would have decrease the ability of all the bad guys from recruiting. Now it is a little late but wouldn't hurt to do it anyways.

John McCain may benefit from this. It seemed like a dumb move to call for increase in troops a few weeks ago given the expression of the people in the recent election. But if there is some success in the beginning then McCain looks like a genius with guts as he called for this way before Bush did. This may make a difference in the Republican primaries and also force the Democratic candidates to stake out a position rather than just criticize what Bush had done in the last 3 years. If later on things go badly, McCain can claim that Bush increased troops too late and too little. Even if things go badly before the election, McCain would likely win the Republican nomination with Bush following his idea now.

Ultimately it is not the political consequences that we should worry about. It is the enormous expense in human lives and economic losses that this escalation of the war is going to bring that should worry us. As Americans most of us hope that somehow a miracle happens and that this plan actually works. But unfortunately even if it does it would not make us safer. Working for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, going after al qaeda in Afghanistan, and decreasing our reliance on foreign oil, all of which we have not paid much attention to as a result of this war, would have made us safer. So even if this "Hail Mary" is completed, we will lose this game which we should never have played in the first place.

The Democrats are pushing a legislation that would compel the government to negotiate prices of medications paid for by the Medicare prescripion program. The original law passed by the Republicans specifically prohibited the government from negotiating. This obviously benefits the drug companies rather than the taxpayers. It was totally irresponsible for a party that claims to be fiscally conservative. You would never buy a big item for your family without trying to negotiate the best price possible. By not negotiating, the government is negligent with our money.

There are those that defend the drug industry with the argument that if prices were controlled or negotiated, innovations will suffer and fewer new drugs will be invented. They point to the high cost in R&D that bring about new drugs. Well, most of the basic research are done in the wonderful universities that we have in this country. Sure it is still a lot of work to take a basic scientific finding and use it to manufacture a new class of drugs. But most of the drugs that brought to market each year are not of a new class. They are usually just slightly different from existing drugs. For example, there are many drugs in the class of statin drugs that are useful in lowering cholesterol. Certainly the first statin drug deserved a long patent period and its manufacturer should be able to charge a large sum for all its work to bring the medication to market. Now however, there are several drugs in the same class and the research that brought them about is not so creative or expensive. Yet these drugs are costing 5 to 6 dollars a pill to patients with no insurance. The drug companies figure that if they work on these so-called "me too" drugs, the profit margin will be much greater than to find a brand new drug for another disease.

Letting the drug companies charge whatever they want without negotiating is actually decreasing the number of truly innovative drugs from coming to the market. If you have the only drug for a particular disease, then even if there is negotiation, you will have the upper hand because there is no alternative. But if there are several drugs that are similar then prices should go down. This way the drug companies will have the incentive to invent truly new drugs and not just make small changes on old ones.

The truth is I am not a supporter of this Medicare drug program at all. There are many problems with it and I don't have the energy to write about all of them. It is basically an entitlement program and I thought the Republicans are against entitlements. Like various programs to help children and pregnant women, this program for seniors is a band-aid for a not so healthy healthcare system in this country. But seeing how there is not good ideas or support to overhaul the healthcare system and that the Medicare prescription program is here to stay, at least we should try to do the one thing that obviously should have been done in the beginning: try to get the best prices! The Democrat bill is no panacea but it deserves our support.

I read that Bob Nardelli, CEO of Home Depot resigned under pressure from frustrated stockholders. This would seem to be a victory for the little guy until we found out that the severance package was worth 210 million dollars. This is the reward for guiding the company to a decline of 12% in stock value during his tenure. This is an example of skyrocketing executive compensation that demonstrate the culture of corporate greed in America. Add to this the buying off of politicians from big business and big unions, it is a wonder that those of us who works in small businesses with no clout can survive.

If this country is to be a true meritocracy, then we cannot have people who are doing a poor job be compensated excessively. The compensation packages of these executives are set by the board of directors with the recommendation of so-called consultants. Of course these consultants benefits by driving up the prices of the executives. Afterall there is no point in hiring consultants to recommend a small salary. The board of directors are often made up of execuitves in other companies so it is of no benefit to them to drive down salaries of executives overall. One of the board member of Home Depot is the executive at Countrywide who, as was pointed out by a commentor from an earlier blog here, received 60 million dollars a year from his company. So surely he is not going to vote for a small package for Nardelli. Executives who lead his company to great profit should be paid well. But shouldn't someone who did a poor job also lose compensation as a result? When a company is doing poorly, workers are layed off and investors lose stock values. Shouldn't the person who makes the most also suffer along with everyone else?

I am not a fan of big union either. There will be a blog on them in the near futue. But the execessive compensation of CEOs makes it harder to complain about the performances of the little guys. If in a capitalist society there should be no limit of what one can make, then there should not be safe parachutes to stop one from falling hard. Excessive severance packages not only hurt the bottom line but it hurts the morale of the average workers. All of us who are stock holders should demand accountability from the executives and the board of directors. This is essential for the competitiveness of our country.

Saddam Hussein has been executed! It is an important footnote in history but it will not change anything in Iraq right now. Nobody is joyous about this except his Shiite enemies. There was not the brief euphoria on the American side that happened with his capture. On the other hand I don't think things will get much worse with his death. Well, it can't get much worse anyways. The Sunnis may step up their attack for a while, but they were going to attack anyway. The Shiites will go on taking revenge on the Sunnis. Al qaeda and everybody else don't need any more reason to attack Americans. So it will be business as usual. The only chance for dramatic change in the Middle East is to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict and we are far from accomplishing this.

We have to learn from our mistakes with the rise and fall of Hussein. Originally we supported the rise of his Baath party's rise to power in Iraq because the previous regime was pro-communist. The enemy of my enemy is my friend theory. After Hussein became a tyrant, we continued to support him because he was out to get the Shiites who were supported by Iran. Again the enemy of my enemy is my friend. We helped Hussein even when he used chemical and biological weapons against Iran and Shiites and Kurds in his country. This coziness with the dictator caused him to believe the U.S. will not stop him from taking parts of Kuwait. Of course now we are talking about the free flow of oil and so we stopped him. We should have finished him off during the first Gulf war but we didn't because the first Bush felt that we may need him still as a counterweight against Iran.

This theory of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" has not serve us well. From South Vietnam to Chile to the Talibans, the support of dictators ultimately cause us more problems. If we don't learn these lessions we will get into more mess in the future. In the name of fighting terrorism, will we support human right suppression by the Chinese government against Muslims in northwest China?

The California Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that Indian tribes can be sued for violating campaign disclosure rules. This is a minor victory in trying to keep Indian casinos from buying off politicians to help them continue to expand. This is not about self reliance but about letting a small group of people, not a large percentage of Native Americans, profit from a vice that is a danger to our society. I am also against state sponsored gambling such as lotteries which hurt poor people. Las Vegas? I am also against it but not to such an extent because there is a lot of entertainment besides gambling there and unless you live nearby it would take a lot of efforts to get there. The Indian casinos, however, are all over the state with more on the way.

Just as dangerous, if not more so than the types of gambling mentioned above, is poker on the internet. Now people do not have to get up and go to a casino but can gamble in his pajamas. Poker is growing rapidly as demonstrated by the numbers of times it is on ESPN, FSN, Travel channel and the old Outdoor Living Network. What poker has to do with outdoor living is beyond me. But since the "sport" is popular among the young, various channels are broacasting it. In the past the game is played by ugly old men in dark glasses and long beard, the type you would run away from in a dark alley. Recently I surfed through one of the sport channels and noticed all the poker players in a tournament were young men. Several of them were Asians. Some of these young guys had quit their job to go on the poker tour full time. One Asian kid had dropped out of U. of Florida where he was a pre-med student with a 4.0 GPA. Even if these young men are successful on the tour, we are wasting a lot of talent in this gambling business that could have been used elsewhere.

Few years ago I wrote something tongue in cheek that said that UCLA should get rid of their football and basketball programs because they were hiring blacks who normally would not get into school to play for them. With the large number of Asians at the school, they should have scholarships for sports like ping pong, gymnastics, and field hockey so that the Wongs and the Patels can play. If enough Asians actually concentrate on sports, they will do less well and will actually lead to more opportunities for other ethnic groups to get into UCLA. Although it was tongue in cheek, I truly believe that having role models in sports and entertainment business actually hurt blacks in the long run. Very few blacks actually make it in sports and entertainment and they would be better off understanding that and try to make it in academics. If the sports opportunites existed for Asians, then less of them will do well in academics. This may become prophetic from what I see on the poker tour. If more Asian kids believe they can play poker for a living, whether on tour or on the internet, they will care less about school. Asian females already outnumber their male counterparts in colleges and the gap will only widen if poker and other forms of gambling become even more popular. On the other hand, I did see couple of Asian women the other day on the professional billiard tour.......

The Iraq Study Group came out with its long-awaited recommendations. There were no surprises, from the bleak outlook currently, to the need to withdraw combat troops by early 2008, and the call for the Iraqi government to do better. This is a repudiation of the Bush policies and I think with the results of the mid-term elections combining with this report, the Bush administration may finally be less arrogant in insisting we are going to win. Neverthless, I see Bush only making minor changes. He will announce some shift in strategies but I don't see us out of Iraq by 2008. Bush will finish his term with troops in Iraq and then it will be the new president's mess. Eventually we will leave Iraq and then Bush will claim that if we had stayed we would have prevailed. Of course history will not buy this and future historians will regard Bush as one of the worst president, if not the worst.

This report by the ISG has no influence at all on my opinion. While it recommends the troops be out by 2008, I believe we should just get out now. When Al Zarqawi was killed, I said we should get out now and save face. (June 10, 2006) People said back then that if get out now a civil war would break out. Well, civil war is here now, whether you admit it or not. Right now the Americans are caught in the middle and Shiites, Sunnis, Iran, and Syria all blame the U.S. for the instablity. Once we leave, there will be no "occupier" to blame and nobody who will keep the violence down for either the Sunnis or Shiites. Well, we should just leave and then all the clerics that are inciting the violence will have to figure what to do along with the Iranians and Syrians. The timetable for withdraw should be negative 3 years, in my humble opinion.

This brings to one of the more interesting recommendations by the ISG. This is the diplomacy with Iran and Syria. During the Hezbollah-Israel battles during the summer, I recommended that we talk to Syria. I still believe that Syria will more likely come around than Iran. But in any case, neither one wants to have instablity in Iraq without the Americans there. Right now they are friends because they have a common enemy in the Americans. Once we leave, Syria will have to support the Sunnis and Iran will support the Shiites and the conflict may spill into their territories. There will also be conflict between Shiite Arabs in Iraq versus Shiite Persians in Iran. So threaten them with American withdrawl now. They may not be helpful, as the Bush administration insists, but what have we got to lose? For decades we negotiated with the USSR and it was much more dangerous than Iran or Syria. This is not appeasement to our enemies like Chamberlain did with Hitler. If one decides to negotiate with us, the other will have to also or risk being isolated. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is too stubborn and refuses to talk to the Iranians and Syrians.

One recommendation that is lost in the report is the Israel-Palestinian issue. People are so focused on the Iraq war and terrorism that they forget that the Israel-Palestinian conflict is what begat all these mess in the first place. The report mentioned that we need to work more on this conflict. This actually is the most important thing in the long run. There is no chance for victory in the war on terrorism without first ending this conflict. Of course, this have been ignored by the Bush administration from the beginning and will continued to be ignored while it tries to salvage Iraq before the next election.

The LA Times had an article recently talking about the increase in political officeholders among Asian Americans after this election. There are 20 statewide elected officials that are Asian Americans versus 16 before this election. I don't know if that translates into a high percentage as I don't know how many elected positions there are in the state government and the Times did not give any info regarding that in the article. An increase from 16 to 20 does translate into a 25% increase so that is not bad. There are not many Asians in high profile positions though. And no, Tan Nguyen, did not win his Congressional race.

The article talked about there may be a mistrust of Asians after the scandal involving money from China being donated to Al Gore a few years back. The Democrats refunded that money and most donations from legitimate Asian American sources. It was as if all Asians were considered same as people from communist China trying to buy influence. This in turn soured many Asian Americans from participating in politics. I don't know if this is all true like the Times said but I do think there is a reluctance of Asians to enter politics and there is a general reluctance of Americans to vote for an Asian American. How big are these two reluctances are subject to debate. Also Asian Americans are divided almost equally between Republicans and Democrats so an Asian candidate may not even get much more than 50% of the Asian votes even if he or she is well qualified.

One area that Californians seem to like see Asians in office is related to finances. In California we have three separate departments to waste, er, control our taxes. There is the treasurer, the controller, and the Board of Equalization. It is not clear to me the exact role of each of these and I don't know why we need all three. Even the federal government just has the dept. of the Treasury. Anyway John Chiang won the election for controller this year. As controller he will also serve on the Board of Equalization. There are 4 other spots of the Board and three of these were won by Asian American women. It seems to me Californians are reluctant to elect Asians in most positions except when it comes to controlling the money. Could it be that stereotype of Asians being good at math and saving money be a factor here?

I was wrong about the Democrats coming up short of gaining control of the Senate. But then again I didn't think that Joe Lieberman still counts as a Democrat. It will be kind of awkward at the party conferences! I noticed that Lynn Swan lost his governor's race and Jim Ryun lost his seat in Congress. Both are Republicans. Heath Shuler was smart enough to run as a Democrat even though he was a Republican before and won with the momentum of the Democrats. This got me thinking about athletes as politicians. Here are some of my ranking of athlete politicians.

The three I like the best:
1. Bill Bradly. The ex-senator was All-American basketball player and played in the NBA. He was also a Rhodes Scholar. He was on a New York Knicks team that had such smart people as Dave DeBusherre, Jerry Lucas, Willis Reed and Walt the Clyde Frazier that the current Zen Master of basketball coaches, Phil Jackson, had to come off the bench not only during the game but during quiz contests as well.

2. Tom McMillen. The basketball star at Maryland was a pre-med student and valedictorian. But he was smart enough to forget about medicine and became a Rhodes Scholar. He played decently in the NBA and then became a Congressman. He is now a venture capitalist.

3. Gerald Ford. Of course I have to pick someone from U. of Michigan. Some would argue that President Ford was not too coordinated, having tripped getting off Air Force One and almost killed people with his golf shots . He was a great center at Michigan and graduated from Yale Law school. He only got 4 A's though at Michigan. This either means that athletic ability counts a lot at Yale Law or grades meant differently back then.

Three terrible politicians.
1. Jim Bunning. A Hall of Fame pitcher who threw no-hitters in both major leagues strikes out as a politician. Named one of the five worst people in Congress by Time magazine, Bunning is a confused old man. He squeaked out his last election win only because his original opponent was involved in a sex scandal and the replacement only had 600,000 to spent. Nevertheless, Bunning demanded that he conduct the debate by video feed with the questions given to him ahead of time. Then it was discovered he read the answers from a teleprompter. Despite his mental incapacity, Kentucky relected him.

2. Fidel Castro. It is unclear how good Castro is actually at baseball. Some have suggested that he tried out for the majors but I don't think that has been proven. But I guess he may have more influence on more people than any other former athlete. Unfortunately it is bad influence as his policies have hurt the lives of many cubans.

3. Fang Fengdi. Better known as Yao Ming's mother. You would not know it judging by the mild manners of Mrs. Yao today. This is a woman beloved by Yao Ming's teammates and some rivals such as Shaq. But at one time this 6 foot 2 former top notch player on the Chinese national team was a Red Guard official. She was responsible for chastising and sending many Chinese peasants into hard labor camps. Obviously, reflecting on what she did today, she would not repeat those actions. But an impressionable young person, even one with intelligence, can be manipulated into doing the unthinkable.

Three tough and weird guys.
1. Jesse "the body" Ventura. Comes from the fake sport of pro wrestling to the office of the governor of Minnesota. Actually had some good ideas but never really learned to compromise and could not stomach a re-election bid.

2. Our own Arnold Schwarzennegger. Shows the nation that a moderate Republican in a blue state can win in 2006. Of course he didn't have much competition. He stumbled quite a bit last year but has made a nice recovery. Unlike Ventura, Arnold learned how to compromise. Still, given how much money he is worth, I would hope he stops taking money from special interests as he had promised. Since he can't run for president, is he through after the next 4 years? I look for him to go against Barbara Boxer for her senate seat next.

3. Ben Nighthorse Campbell. Former Judo Olympian is the only pony-tailed, Native American senator from Colorado who can probably outlift Arnold and Ventura. Instead of war, we should sent these three to arm wrestle the leaders of other countries!

Three future politicians.
1. David Beckham. The British soccer star is on the down side of his career. He is wildly popular still in England and in the rest of the soccer-mad world. With his wife Victoria (Posh Spice) at his side, who would not vote for him?

2. Gary Kasparov. The former world chess champion is considered the greatest player ever so his intellect is not questioned. He is very critical of the government of Russia and is trying to find backing to go up against Putin. He has also spoken out against organized crime in Russia. He would make a great leader but his chances of success is nil because he is going up against communists and the Russian mafia. Plus he is Jewish!

3. Yao Ming. It will be 20 years from now but I think Yao can make atone for his mother's past. Despite not having received much formal education as he was trained to play basketball by the time he learned to walk; Yao is an intelligent, funny and thoughtful man. Having spend the last 4 years in the U.S. has enabled him to take an interest in the AIDs epidemic and various environmental issues. Obviously he has learned a lot about western capitalism. With his popularity in China it would hard for the communist party to deny him a spot in the government if he chooses to go into politics after he retires.

Last week on Nightline there was a story about the admission process at elite universities. In particular it focused on Duke where Keith Brodie, a former president of the university, said that there are three ways a student may be admitted. One is through pure merit, a second way is through legacy where family members had graduated from Duke and have contributed to it, and a third way is what he called "development admit" where a rich and or famous person's son or daughter is admitted with the good possiblity that a donation will be forthcoming. In the past I have heard that legacy is very important, seeing how Bush got into Yale that way as did Gore's children got into Harvard, for example. This so called development admit, which I had not heard of, is even more odious as this is simply buying a spot. Several years ago, in response to protest from Asian Americans regarding their need to have higher grades and SAT scores than whites to get in, Harvard actually came out and said legacy admits and the lack of athletes among Asians were the reason for the higher scores and grades of admitted Asian students than white students. I guess Harvard and other schools feel that is a fair way of doing admission because several years later the policies have not changed. I wonder if develeopment admits are also present at Ivy League schools?

I think most of us would agree that we should have a total meritocracy. Legacy and development admits are bad words to me in the process of admissions. We should have more outcry to get rid of them. There is also the so-called "holistic" approach to admission among the elite universities today. Of course everybody knows that is just euphemism for trying get underrepresented minorities into the schools. And the real reason why these schools try so hard to recruit these minority students is just to make the numbers look better so that the university is not charged with racism. (as they have been at UCLA and Berkeley) Many Asian Americans, despite being well-represented at elite universities, feel that they are being discriminated against as a result of "legacy"and "holistic" admissions. Daniel Golden, who wrote "Price of Admission" was also on the Nightline story. He agrees with these Asian Americans that if merit was the only consideration, Asian Americans would be even more represented in the elite schools.

While I personally would agree that legacy, development, sports and holistic are all bad words and ideas that should be rid of in the admission process, I feel that Asians should not feel too bad about this. The Jews were discriminated at the universities in the past and yet they came to dominate at every elite university. Many Jews who were denied admissions to certain schools in the past have became tremendously successful after going to some lesser known school. The truth is you can do quite well by going to a less prestigious school. This is particularly true if you plan on going to graduate or professional schools. A cousin of my wife went to Boston University after not getting into Ivy League schools. Upon graduating with a chemistry degree she was overwhelmed with offers to prestigious graduate programs. So it is not so much where you go to school but how you use the opportunities that were given to you. In the long run those who have to run uphill will be stronger than those who can coast downhill.

Couple of observation about the blood sport we call election campaigning. Here in California we are inundated by the large number of proposals on the ballot. I thought we have a representative democracy where the people we elected are suppose to make tough decisions on our behalf. Ideas that cannot pass through the legislature and the governor are put on these ballots by people often with narrow agenda. One type of proposals that gets support of the politicians frequently is the ones that raise money for a specific purpose by selling bonds. In this election there are 5 bond proposals on the ballot. They are all endorsed by the legislature and the governor. The reason is that they can raise money without telling the public they are raising taxes. In fact the supporters of all the proposals claim that no new taxes are needed. Of course by selling bonds we have to repay the principle plus interests. I have calculated the total payment of these 5 bond proposals each year to be 2.8 billion. This is per year for 30 years. Somewhere down the line, unless our economy expand to such a degree that tax revenue will cover this cost, or we will have to increase our taxes. Supporters of bonds say that this is like a mortgage where you pay gradually while enjoying the house you need right now. This is true but would you buy 5 houses at a time if you have not pay off your previous houses and you don't have the income to cover the new mortgage payments? So vote for only the bonds that you feel passionate about otherwise think about what it will cause your children over the next 30 years.

The whole thing with the John Kerry debacle is making me more angry against the Bush administration, even though I have been angry ever since the invasion of Iraq. It is obvious to me that Kerry was attempting humor at the expense of Bush. He failed but that in no way make him someone who disrespects the troops. It is despicable that Bush would try to make a big deal out of this. Remeber the time Bush said "Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country"? I am sure nobody believed that Bush think OB-GYN doctors are perverts. I would have more respect for him if he took the high road and say something like: "I guess there are people who speak English worse than me!" (should be "worse than I do, not worse than me") Before anyone says that Kerry is the typical elitist liberal who always attack Bush as being unintelligent, I would remind them Bush used his history as a poor student in many of his own jokes. The truth is even most conservative Republican friends of mine have expressed the feeling that Bush is a lightweight when it comes to intellectual pursuits. I think his lack of understanding of history and the world have really hurt his leadership of this country.

I claim to be an independent but I admit I will vote for Democrats almost exclusively this year. The Republicans with their support for Bush (unless one is in a close election then he would criticize Bush) and numerous scandals have turn me off completely. The one big exception is the California governor's race where Phil Angelides is so bad that I will stick with Arnold. Does this mean that I think the Democrats are better? NO! I do believe that power breeds corruption and arrogance. When the Democrats were in control of Congress, there were numerous scandals. Remember the powerful Dan Rostankowski? He got a pardon from Clinton. So don't tell me the Democrats are for the poor. They like to get rich just like the Republicans. And don't tell me the Republicans are for family value. I would not want Foley anywhere near my family. The Republicans are suppose to be against big government but they have increased the size of the government and increased pork since they came to power. So we need a balance of power and until a centrist party comes along, I will hope that the Democrats can win at least one house back this year. Even if this means Nancy Pelosi becomes Speaker.