Lee Corso of ESPN got it right by warning that Michigan may be upset by Wisconsin. Dah! That is not an upset pick. Michigan is probably the worst team in history with an 8 game winning streak. The talent level of the two teams are about equal and Mike Hart and Chad Henne are injured. The game was played in Wisconsin and Mich. is the favorite? If Appalacian State can beat Mich. in Ann Arbor, how can losing to Wisconsin on the road be an upset? The talking heads would be more impressive if they predicted that Illinois beats Ohio State.

I don't know what is an upset anymore. The Big Ten teams are the easiest to upset. Of course Mich. losing to Appalachian State was the worst but what about Mini-soda, which has no fiz on offense and no pop on defense. They have won one game. They lost to Florida Atlantic, or is it Florida Pacific? Afterall Florida is not very good in geography. South Florida is located closer to central or north Florida. Miami might as well move to Ohio and see if it can beat the other Miami. But I am going off subject here. The Big Ten teams would finish in the bottom of the Pac Ten. I mean who would beat USC except a power house like Stanford? And who would beat UCLA, except for Utah and the one win wonder Notre Dame? Having been sunk by Navy ( I waited 40 plus years to write that) and bombed by Air Force, will ND ever win another game? When is the last time ND, Mich. and Ohio State all lost on the same day? This sure is one crazy season in football. Can't wait till basketball to start to get some normalcy in the world.

What? Mich. State loses to Grand Valley State? Ohio State loses to Findlay? And Kentucky got raked over by a gardner named Webb? It is not even March Madness yet! You think maybe tennis players and NBA referrees have money on these games? The world is going crazy in sports. Pretty soon you are going to tell me that 250 million people in the world watched an NBA game because two Chinese guys are playing. I think I will watch more predictable sports like horse racing.

Couple of authors wrote into the LA Times supporting the idea that pharmacists should be able to prescribe medicines. They say that pharmacists know more about pharmacology than physician assistants and nurse practitioners who are allowed to prescribe. The flaw of this reasoning is that pharmacists don't examine the patient. Making the right diagnosis is the most important part of prescribing treatment. I don't know how you can make the right diagnosis without examining the patient. They point to the morning after pill which someone can purchase without a prescription just by talking to the pharmacist. According to them the next logical step would be to allow medicines for migraines and cholesterol to be sold behind the counter. This does not seem logical to me. If a woman comes in and say that she needs emergency birth control, there is no need to examine her to see if she really had sex last night. But over the years I have had many patients who come in and tell me that they have migraines but upon further questioning and examination, I found that the cause of their headache was not migraines. Treating cholesterol requires ordering and interpreting test results. This is not something pharmacists are trained to do.

It is legal for doctors to dispense medications. I choose not to do so for two reasons. First I believe that pharmacists play a very important role in assuring the safety of the patient. Just like any human being, I make mistakes. When I make a mistake on my prescription a pharmacist usually would point it out to me. If I dispense the medicine myself, this layer of protection is lost. So if a pharmacist prescribes and dispenses, wouldn't that layer of protection be lost? The second reason is that it gives an appearance that I may prescribe more to make a greater profit. Most of the doctors who dispense and most pharmacists who would prescribe are probably honest. But some would be dishonest. If the government and the patients think that one step shopping is the best way to go, then I guess I may have to dispense as well to keep up with the times. I hope it won't come to that.

The authors of the article are economists. While I understand that economics teach us that free market usually works the best, it is not the case here. When the person who provides the product is able to tell the buyer what and how much to buy, free market forces are not at work. More people prescribing and dispensing will lead to higher and not lowe healthcare costs. Believe me if you can walk into a pharmacy and get medicine without being examined, you will see more advertising by pharmaceutical companies to encourage people to do so. These companies will also pitch to the pharmacists who unlike most doctors who only prescribes will have more incentive to sell more. With more medicine taken, more complications will certainly follow and there will be more healthcare spending. So the economic calculations by these authors are totally wrong.

Now that Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize, there is more interest to the idea that he would run for president. I don't think that it is likely that he would jump in now. It would be difficult to build a campaign team strong enough to knock out front-runner Hilary Clinton. It would also be awkward to go against his former boss. Gore is more popular than ever now that he is not running for any office. Once he gets back into it he becomes a target more than an admired statesman. The only way I can see him getting the nomination is if Obama and Edwards can make a race out of this, to show that Hilary is vulnerable. That way as a compromised candidate who can unite the party, Gore may be drafted. I think he would beat the Republican candidate easily. Most people like him better now and many still think he got robbed last time so he will get sympathy votes from independents.

I would vote for Gore is he declares. I don't like Hilary and Edwards. I think Obama is too inexperienced. I don't buy all the science that Gore puts out there but I applaud his effort. Even if things are not as bad as he paints it, there is no reason not to try to improve the environment. Anyone who sits in traffic behind a bus knows that fossil fuels are not good for us. Having been to China recently I am convinced that the energy policy of world is heading for a disaster, it is only a matter of when. So, yes, Gore gets too much credit and awards. But who else have any better ideas?

Of the declared candidates, I like Joe Biden the best. I think he is the most qualified and he is a moderate. Of course, he has no chance of winning. So if Gore doesn't run I don't know who to vote for yet. Biden is the most experienced, having been chairman of the judicial and foreign relations committees. He supported the war, as did just about everyone else. But he did try to delay the Bush administration from starting the war by joining with Republican Richard Lugar to try to use diplomacy first. While I don't agree with him totally, he does present a reasonable solution to the war by dividing the country into 3 parts with a weak central government. He got himself into trouble in 1988 when he ran against Michael Dukakis. He made a speech which was almost identical to one a British politician gave before. He had given credit to that person every time but he forgot once to do so. He was accused of plagerizing and lost all steam. I think he would have beaten Dukakis in 88 but probably would have lost to Bush I. He got himself into trouble right away this campaign with his remark about Obama which I think was way overblown. But he does not generate any enthusiasm which is too bad. I think he is more respected around world leaders than any of the other candidates. Maybe he will be secretary of state under a democratic administration.

Clarence Thomas is finally coming out of hibernation. He is speaking out for the first time since his confirmation hearings. Of course, he is doing so because he is promoting a book! I am not a fan of Thomas and I think he got out of trouble during the hearings by using the race card. Nevertheless I watched his interview of Sixty Minutes and I found that I agree with some of the things he said.

Thomas was brought up by his grandfather, a no nonsense guy who would not accept excuses for failures. Thomas graduated from Holy Cross near the top of his class. Then he was accepted at Yale Law. Thomas described himself not as a liberal but a radical in his early years. This gradually changed after he got into Yale. He thought the white liberal establishment believed that given the chance blacks can succeed as well as whites. What he found out was that he was treated as a token under the affirmative action program. Even though he believed that he got in based on merit, he felt that others believed that he was not qualified. He had trouble getting a job even with a Yale diploma. I believe that Thomas was right on this. When I went to college there was a strong push to recruit more blacks with the idea that leveling the playing field was the reason. But I got the sense that the powers in the universities were just trying to fill quotas so as to not make their institution seem racist. I don't think that they truly believe that blacks had the ability to compete academically on their own. I mean if they truly believe that they are just trying to even the playing field, then they should do it by economic standards. There is no reason why a black doctor's child should have preference over a poor white kid. By using race it makes people believe that all blacks at the school were not qualified. In reality some were excellent students and should be recognized just as that. There were others who did get in by affirmative action only and they would have been better off at a lowere level school. By admitting these students the school was reinforcing the stereotype of the unqualified black.

Thomas was also right in that his critics had no business saying he is an uncle Tom for being on the conservative side. When he couldn't get a job it was a Republican, Senator Danforth of Missouri, who helped him find one. Danforth was his mentor in Washington and introduced him to the powers of the Republican party. Thomas was also comfortable with the change because he was brought up by his grandfather to be self-reliant and not accept the victim's mentality. These certainly are values closer to the conservative side than the liberal side. So it is understandable that he switched parties. He should not be vilified for that. Afterall, Hilary Clinton swithced from Republican to Democrat.

While it is all right for Thomas to be against affirmative action, it is undeniable that he benefited from it. Sure he was a good student but it is unlikely that if he was white and graduated in the middle of his Yale class, he would have caught the eye of Danforth. He certainly would not have moved up in Washington so quickly. And there was no chance that a white man would have been nominated to the Supreme Court after one and half year of undistinguished service on the Appeals Court. To replace Thurgood Marshall at that. There were many more candidates that were more qualified and Bush was not being honest when he said that he picked the best man and it had nothing to do with his color.

Thomas also would have more trouble getting confirmed if he was not black. While the whole Anita Hill situation probably was leaked illegally, once it was leaked, the Senate had no choice but to investigate. By using the word lynching, Thomas was using the race card that many liberals have used. By using the word lynching, Thomas insulted all those blacks who suffered that fate. It was not a lynching. If a white man was accused of the same thing, the senate would have acted the same way. Well, except once Thomas used the word, all the liberal senators, in particulary Ted Kennedy, shut up right away. White guilt or liberal doctrination had made little boys out of these supposedly powerful men.

So I agree with Thomas on somethings and disagree with him on others. Usually I do that with liberals also. I think it is good to listen to all side and make judgment on each issue based on its merit. That's why I think dangerous and crazy men like Ahmandinejad should be listened to. I probably won't change my mind but usually I learn something. I don't think I would learn much if I only listen to people I agree with. Someday maybe America will even listen to dangerous and crazy men like Lawrence Summers! What do you think, liberals?

Columbia University is under fire for inviting Iranian president Ahmadinejad to speak. Many people and organizations are protesting the appearance of the leader of a country Bush has called part of the axis of evil. Ahmadinejad is accused of building nuclear weapons, aiding terrorists, sending weapons of Iraq and denying the reality of the Holocaust. Despite the protest, President Lee Bollinger of Columbia is keeping the invitation.

At the University of California former Harvard President Lawrence Summers was supposed to speak at a Reagents' meeting. Summers lost his job because of his comments that there maybe biological difference that explain the lack of women in physical sciences. As a result of some protests, particularly from the UC Davis campus, that invitation was rescinded.

In my view both should be allowed to speak. I don't think that students or faculty learn much if they just listen to people with the same views as them. Let Ahmadinejad stand up there and take questions about his views. I doubt that he will act like a neo-nazi and start shouting death to America and Israel. And if he does it will only make him look like an idiot to the whole world. By not allowing him to speak you just make a ideological martyr of him. By listening to your enemy you may learn something that will be helpful later. We should not be afraid of showing the freedoms we have in this country. Hurray to Bollinger for taking his stand.

A big boo to the UC Regents. They caved in to political pressure. The whole Summers incidence at Harvard shows that there is only academic freedom for the politically correct. Summers offered a theory which has NEVER been proven right or wrong. But the liberal nazis would not engage in rational discussion. This is like the ancient times where people thought that the sun revolved around the earth. Even though it was never proven, anyone who disagrees with that was attacked. Summers may well be wrong but he can't even bring that up for discussion? How many times in history have someone bring up a theory that was wrong? He was not going to the UC to discuss this topic anyway. The UC Regents are bunch of wimps to cave in.

It is interesting that the liberals would be more likely to back Columbia than conservatives. As a result Columbia can use academic freedom to allow Ahmadinejad to speak. But since liberals run the UC any politically incorrect views are scorned. In this case a person who had a politically incorrect view is not even allowed to speak on another topic! So to the liberals the former President of Harvard is a more controversal and dangerous speaker than someone who had called for the destruction of Israel and may very well have helped terrorists against the U.S. You have to wonder what are they teaching on our campuses today. Or what is it that they are smoking!

Watched parts of the Emmys the other night. I was wondering why Ray Romano and Sally Field got censored. Still don't know what Romano said but Sally Field apparently made a short speech against the war and included the words "goddamn war". It doesn't seem that outrageous compared to past political speeches at award shows. It does not seem to warren censorship in a supposedly free country. Now most of the time people who make these types of speeches really don't help their causes. I mean it usually is a big ramble that would not convince anyone that is not on your side to change his mind. Field, for example, sounded confuse and said that if women ran the countries there would be no wars. That is nonsense. Didn't Golda Meir fought the Arabs? I am sure Margaret Thacher would not hesitate to fight a war. Sometimes wars are necessary. We just should not fight those that are not necessary.

Also read in Time magazine that Kathy Griffin was censored when she accepted a creative-arts Emmy, telecasted on E!. Of course nobody watched that. I didn't even know there was such a channel! She said "a lot of people come up here and thank Jesus for this award but no one had less to do with this award than Jesus". The Catholic League condemned the remarks and got it edited out of the broadcast. It is absurd that people thank God when they win an award or score a touchdown. The true God would careless about who won an Emmy or the Super Bowl. Now I am sure Kathy Griffin would not have gone to Tehran and told the Iranian basketball team, which had recently won the Asian championship that "Allah really has nothing to do with this unless He told China not to send Yao Ming and the rest of the "A" team to the tournament". If she had said that in Tehran she would probably be beheaded. We didn't go that far here but by censoring her, we are moving a little closer to Iran.

The truth is that these people who make political statements at awards make themselves look silly. But at the same time, people who censor them look silly also and even help spread their messages. Everybody wondered what Sally Field had said and looked for it in the papers the next day. If they had heard it on t.v. they would have not paid any attention at all. Kathy Griffin's comments would not have been heard by anyone since nobody watches E! anyway. But by getting censored, her message is in Time and other media. It is like protesting a book or movie, it just helps the sales.

A new tape of bin Laden came out yesterday. For a man who doesn't like the U.S. he appears to have gone Hollywood. What is with the dark beard? I am no expert but I don't think once you have almost totally grey hair that you can miracously turn back to dark hair. He must have seen the Walt Frazier and Keith Hernandez commercials. I wonder what he thinks of corporations that sell hair dyes.

One thing that is interesting to me about the speech is that he mentioned that Americans should read the book by Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA's bin Laden unit. I have not read the book myself but I have heard that Scheuer denounces the U.S. leaders being untruthful in the war on terrorism. It is not hard to figure out what is probably said in the book. The U.S. leaders, not just Bush but most of the Congress as well, consistently framed the war as terrorists against democracy, freedom, and our way of living. This may arouse nationalism but does not help us to fight terrorism in the long run. If people like bin Laden were to ask for jihad against democracy and freedom, do you think that they would get many people to sign up? Who is going to blow himself up because other people's women are wearing bikinis? Evil people are able to recruit others to do their dirty work only if our policies are truly or perceived to be evil.

So how does Bush respond to the video? He says that proves Iraq is part of the war against al qaeda! Nevermind that al Qaeda was not in Iraq before the war! It is always just rhetoric and no real understanding of the world. Bin Laden is not sincere when he says the policies of the U.S. is main the reason behind the attacks. He is just using rhetoric. But so is our president not being truthful when he links Iraq with bin Laden. Bush does not understand that while there are evil people who are against us, he makes it easier for these people to fill their ranks by the poor policies that he has initiated.

The stock market is in a slump with no end in sight. The Federal Reserve is trying to improve the situation by decreasing the interest rate. It appears to work at least a little as there was a rally in the market on Friday. I doubt the rebound will continue. I think there will be more downward spiral into next year at least. Which brings me to something I never really understood. Why is it that the chairman of the Feds is so revered? Greesnspan attained rock star status in the economic world with his so-called deft handling of the economy for many years. I understand that anyone who becomes chairman of the Feds is a really smart guy. But what do they do anyway? They can only increase the interest rate when there appears to be inflation. If there is a depression looming they can decrease the interest rate. So basically they choose one of 3 alternatives: increase, decrease or do nothing. It seems like anyone who is good at multiple choice questions can do this job. I mean the SAT questions have 5 choices and lots of people get perfect scores. This economic business doesn't seem to be rocket science.

I tell you what is also not rocket science. Lending money to people to buy houses. It does not take a genius to figure out that you don't give risky loans to people with poor credit and without adequate income. Yet large institutions who can hire lots of accountants and actuaries were doing all these subprime loans. These idiotic deals are the main reason the stock market is going downhill right now. Some of these institutions which have made billions in the last few years are now in danger of going bankrupt. Angelo Mozilo is the president of Countrywide Financial, the largest mortgage lender. Mozilo was paid $48.1 million last year! He and others will argue that they deserve what they make because under a capitalist system a person who is most responsible for the profit should be best compensated. It is not surprising that Mozilo arrogantly said that other people in his industry were not as smart as he was because they were giving out risky loans. Yet now Countrywide is in the same situation as others, ie, in deep financial trouble from giving out too many risky loans. But Mozilo has not come out and take responsibilty. He has refuse to be interviewed. He did manage to cash out his stock options before the price went down. If he deserved to be paid that enormous sum when the company was prospering, shouldn't he has to give some of the money back for leading the company toward possible bankruptcy? It is likely that it will be the low level employees who will suffer the most by losing their jobs.

There will be those in the financial and business world who clamor for the government to bail out the mortgage lenders. This is something the government in China would do for their banks, not something our government should do here. Anyone who truly believes in the capitalist system knows that bailouts will only encourage businesses and individuals to make risky decisions. I guess we have not learned from the savings and loan debacle not long ago. Bailouts will make our economy less efficient in the long run. Basically it will be welfare for greedy rich people at taxpayers' expense.

The date 8-8-08 was chosen as the date the Olympics open because of the number 8 is supposed to be good luck in Chinese. So on 8-8-07 the news media all across the nation have articles about China. I have read articles in the LA Times, Time Magazine, and Sports Illustrated. It is like when a book came out about Billy Graham and all of a sudden every newspaper and network talked about Graham and his relationships with presidents. As I wrote in one of the blogs about the trip from China, you have to take the information you get from the media, whether Chinese or Western, with a grain of salt.

One of the common complaints from western journalists is that while China promised to open things up for the press during the Olympics, they still run into obstacles in trying to get interviews from athletes and go to rural areas. This is not surprising. Even coaches in this country have tried to control their athletes. Try interviewing Bob Knight's players without his permission. While Xiang Liu is not allowed to grant interview in China, he is allowed to travel abroad for meets and as SI pointed out he does give interviews in the U.S. Only in the U.S. he is not of any importance to the media while in China he would a symbol of China controlling their elite athletes. As far as traveling to rural area to report the vast difference in conditions between the rich cities and poor villages, these are trite stories that are well-known to anyone who have taken an interest in China. It would be like covering the LA Olympics and try to compare Beverly Hills with towns in Alabama.

There was a picture of a policeman questioning a journalist in LA Times. The article says that the police often intimidated the journalists. Now the picture showed a skinny cop with no weapons talking to a westerner. It didn't look very intimidating. There was a protest about freedom of the press held by westerners in Bejing and the police broke it up. But there was no injury or violence by the police. Contrast that with the LAPD's action on an immigrant march a few months ago where journalists as well as children were injured by the police. Yes, journalists should have the freedom of the press but they should also be fair in their reporting.

There was the obligatory mention of the human rights issues in Tibet and the Northwestern region of China which is populated by Muslims minorities. If I am the president of China I would grant independence to all these areas. The country would be smaller and population less. But so what? These areas are a drain to the country. It costs more to rule them than what they return. While China do abuse the human rights of these areas especially in terms of freedom of religion, it does provide an improvement of the economies of these regions. When there was a one child policy for the majority, the ethnic minorities were exempted from the policy. There was also affirmative action for things like college admission. (The Republicans would be shocked at this.) Holding these regions is just an ego thing and it is bad international public relations. So I would get rid of them. Of course if I am the president of the U.S. I would do the same and get rid of Puerto Rico and American Samoa for economic reasons. Journalists always write about the deculturalization of Tibet by China. The truth is Tibet is extremely poor. If China was to leave, Tibet will have to bring in business to survive. It will be westerners who will come in to exploit the area. McDonalds and other western icons will dominate the place. The deculturalization will go on anyways. Even now monks are skipping prayers to watch World Cup Soccer on t.v. So the purity of these regions has been long gone.

So forget about all the call for the boycott of the Olympics. As you know I am no fan of mainland China but it is not South Africa before apartheid was abolished. It is maybe similar to the U.S. in the fifties where the paranoia about Communism was similar to China's paranoia about Western democracy today. Remember McCarthy calling everyone a communist and Hoover spying on Martin Luther King? It will be many years before China will be free. In the meanwhile if the western press were to bring in democratic activists to complain about China, they should also mention about the history of colonialism by the western nations. This would be what a true free press would do. So my feeling is still the same: China is not as good as the state run media portrays it to be and is not as bad as the western press portrays it to be.

It is hard for me to say it but I actually feel bad for Michael Vick. It is not that I think torturing animals is ok, but I have a lot of problems with people who were protesting against him. He has not been convicted yet but people were already demanding the Falcons get rid of him. Sure if he is found guilty he should be sent to jail. But athletes have committed crimes against PEOPLE and not get that type of protests. Domestic violence and even murders have been committed by athletes and yet nobody protests at their hearings or at their team headquarters. Some of these people bring dogs to the protests. They put clothers on the dogs with signs on them. I never understand people who clothed dogs, esp. in the summer. That seems to be cruelty to me!

Animal rights activists have bombed or burned laboratories doing research with animals. Never mind that these research may someday cure diseases, people cound have been killed during these crimes. A judge recently agreed with animal right groups and put an injunction against the navy from practicing with sonar technology in the ocean. I don't know enough about the science of this to say if the sonar is as a disaster for whales as it is alleged in the lawsuit. But I did not see many people from the U.S. coming to the defense of the Puerto Ricans a few years ago when the navy wanted to use live ammunitions on their islands. I am very leery of people who thinks that animals are more important than people. It is sad that more people worry about what Michael Vick did than what is happening in Sudan.