I have not had much nice to say about McCain lately. So I am giving him credit for being a straight talker this week. He told the people in poor areas what he really thinks. As he had done in Mich. during the primaries he said that most of the blue-collar jobs that had left will not come back. He said that dismantling free trade agreements will not help to bring these jobs back either. This is unlike the Obama and Clinton who told people in the Midwest that they oppose NAFTA and that they can bring jobs back. I think McCain is more honest than the Democrats on this issue. If the wages in other countries is one tenth of the wages here, unskill work will never come back, free trade agreements or not. No president will be able to do anything about that. Displaced workers will have to learn new skills and young people will have to become better educated to compete in the global economy. Government can't do the learning for anyone. But the government can and should encourage changes in people's attitude about learning and make it easier for them to obtain higher levels of skills and education.

The problem I have with McCain is that while I agree with him that government is not always the answer, government is not always the problem either. If there is no government there will still be corruption and crime. If there are no rules or referees there will still be fouls but the cheaters will win. Rules and referees are there to make a level playing field. Laws and governments are there for the same reason. Government cannot change the economy by itself but it should make laws that are equitable. For example, McCain was against the Bush tax cut but now he is for it. As much as I like to lower my taxes, this tax cut was wrong. It helped wealthy people and has not and will not stimulate the economy. We are in a war that causes billions daily and we are cutting taxes? The deficit will just be passed on to future generations. McCain was right to be against it before but now in trying to get the conservative vote he has flip-flopped. So while I applaud him for his straight talk to the poor I think he is intimated by the wealthy people in his party.

It goes without saying that when we get news from a network or newspaper controlled by a communist country we should take it with a grain of salt. The coverage of the Tibet situation is obviously biased in the Chinese media. It showed the violence started by rioters but not the police violence against peaceful protestors. It showed Chinese being injured by Tibetans but not the real number of Tibetans that were killed or injured. But even the media here have shown bias. Chinese business that were trashed were not shown here. CNN has been accused by the Chinese of only showing the police against the protesters but not the damage caused by them. I have not seen CNN try to defend itself. The protest in Paris turned ugly when protesters attack a Chinese disabled athlete carrying the torch in a wheelchair. That did not get mention here until it caused a big storm in China. By not being even-handed the western media only causes nationalism in autocratic countries and hurt democratic movements.

I think I have mentioned in the past that when I was in Hong Kong last year, every time I saw a discussion of Hong Kong's 10 year under Chinese rule on tv it was predictable what was being said. On Chinese tv a western businessman would talk about how wonderful the last 10 years has been. On CNN or the BBC a Chinese dissident would say how awful China has been to Hong Kong in the last 10 years. The truth is of course in between. Hong Kong is still a great place to do business and the standard of living continues to go up. It is also true that local newspapers have to fear repurcussions if they are very critical of the government. But it is telling how each side of the media tries to manipulate opinions by the way they present the news.

The other day I was watching CNN broadcasting from U. of Penn. They brought in 3 students and asked them who they are voting for. The white male said Clinton, the white female said Obama and the black guy said McCain. If this is not manipulation by the media I don't know what is. Why can't they report reality instead of political correctness? My advice is: no matter where you get the news, just consider the source of the information before making any judgment.

Obama has caused more trouble for himself by his remarks about bitter Americans in small towns. Of course McCain and Clinton are jumping all over it by calling his remarks elitist. It was a mistake made by an inexperienced campaigner. Again I worry about his lack of experience. If someone wants to vote against him for this he can certainly do so. But who among politicians is really not an elitist? Most of the people in Congress are rich people. The Clintons have made millions of dollars in the past few years. They went to Yale law school. Obama went to Harvard. McCain went to Annapolis and was the son of an admiral. Even the most liberal of politicians like Kennedy are wealthy people. Do they really understand poor rural Americans? They may make better speeches about poor people than Obama did but do they really understand them better?

The person who broke the story is a woman name Mayhill Fowler. She writes for the Huffington Post which is a liberal website. She is getting threats which may be real or from people pretending to be Obama supporters. Obviously anyone who threatens her is crazy and should be arrested. I think that anything candidates say that is not specifically off the record is fair game and it is up to the people to decide if it is important or not. In this case a liberal site publish something potentially damaging to a Democratic candidate. This should be applauded. The only thing I have slight trouble with this is that Fowler went to this fund-raiser as a contributor to the Obama campaign. The event was close to the press. After the event she published the remarks in a site she works as a journalist. Since no press was allowed, how can she write about it as a journalist? If she had written it in a private blog then I don't have any trouble with it at all. But by writing it in the Huffington Post there may be an ethical issue. What do you think?

John McCain says that the Democrats are naive and misunderstand the history of U.S. involvement in foreign territories when they criticize him for saying that he is willing to keep troops in Iraq for a hundred years. He says that he would keep U.S. in Iraq as a peace-keeping force and that eventually no American troops will be harmed. He cites the use of American troops in Korea, Germany and Japan as examples of American troops in a post war territory for over 50 years already.

This is what I mean when I say that McCain is losing it. Does anyone believe that American troops will be a peace-keeping force and not be shot at in the future? How can Americans prevent Sunnis from fighting Shiites and various factions of Shiites fighting with each other? The fact is these religious battles have gone on for centuries and the fact that we are there only gives them an excuse to blame the Americans. There was no al Qaeda in the equation before the American invasion but there is now. Whichever side the U.S. helps will bring anger against Americans from the other side. American troops will be attacked as long as they are there. Remember our peace-keeping efforts in Lebanon in the 80's? If our forces can help bring peace in the middle east instead of adding gas to the fire, we would have put troops in Israel a long time ago. Nobody would suggest we do that.

Japan, Korea and Germany all have governments who are friendly to the U.S. They also did not have any choice when American troops first occupied there. Today German and Japanese bases are more important to Americans than the host countries. There are a lot of Germans who want the Americans out of there and the majority of Okinawans probably would want us gone. There is some sentiments among South Koreans that we should not be there even though they are facing danger from the north. But the situation is even more absurd for American troop presence in the middle east. It was the American bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that bin Laden used as one of the big excuses to recruit terrorists. Can you imagine the recruiting posters that bin Laden can post if McCain becomes president? It is not the Democrats who are naive, it is McCain who is senile and have a lack of understanding of history and the world.

Somebody beat me to the punch and was quoted on CNN about Al Gore stepping in. I missed the name of the person who said it. I had thought about the possibility that Al Gore can clean up this mess for the Democrats. With McCain gaining momentum while Clinton and Obama are hurting each other, Al Gore may be the savior. With the war and the economy there should be no way the Republicans can win this election. The Democrats can lose it, however. The same can be said for Clinton; there is no way she can win the nomination but she stays in just in case Obama loses it with a huge mistake or more pastorgate. If it turns out that McCain is shown to be beating both of them in the polls because neither can win the nomination, then Al Gore can come in and be the compromise candidate. He can name Obama as VP and groom him for down the road and that can satisfy the black voters. It is a long shot but that's what I am hoping for.

I don't know if Gore will be a great president but he would be better than the 3 choices we have right now. He is now well known all over the world. Even in China and India he is well-respected. This will bring some credibility back to us after the Bush years. Obama is too inexperienced even though I think he is the best of the 3. Clinton is too divisive and will probably lose to McCain given the likely defection of the black voters if the super delegates nominated her. McCain is getting senile. He gets confused about al qeda, Shiites and Sunnis. Now that the violence has increased again because of Shiites militias are fighting the Shiite army, the Republicans are blaming Iran. I can see another war brewing if McCain is elected. Plus the economy is in trouble and he claimed that he does not know much about the economy. If the Democrats can't win this year, I wonder if they ever will win again.

The protests and violence in Tibet was predictable. There has been relative quiet in the past 20 years but the oppression of freedom in Tibet continued during that time. With the Olympics this year and China's plan to take the torch up Mount Everest, it was predictable that the activists would try to cause trouble for Beijing. I guess the Chinese plan was simply to use overwhelming force (after it was caught short-handed in the beginning). There is no creative strategy to meet this expected situation.

As I have pointed out before, I don't know why China wants to hang on to this piece of land. It is a money loser. There are no natural resources worth stationing lots of soldiers there. It just causes bad international publicity. China keeps pointing their fingers at the Dalai Lama as the voice of the independence movement. In reality the Dalai Lama is a voice of reason, advocating nonviolence and is willing to compromise. Most of the problem is with the young who wants more economic improvement. They see many parts of China getting richer and they feel that they are being exploited. Of course, Tibet was backward economically before China took over and without China it would be more difficult for it to improve economically. Nevertheless it is true that China denies Tibetan religious rights and is an oppressive presence.

China is counting on the rest of the world not to boycott the Olympics. They are right about this since China is an economic power and nobody wants to anger it. But if violence lingers it would hurt China's prestige enormously. If I run the Chinese government, I would invite the Dalai Lama back to visit this homeland and discuss Tibet's future. No treaty needs to be signed. Just this gesture would ensure the Games will go on and make China look good. Of course a communist government will never think of a creative solution like that.

Five years of war, the country is in a recession, gas prices approaching $4 a gallon and all we are talking about is some crazy preacher's words? If we let something like this influence our selection of a president then we deserve to have poor leaders. Obama's speech was right on. I had my doubts about his inexperience before but I feel more strongly about him with the way he handled this Wright episode. There is not much one can do except tell it like it is. It is absurd that this prevent us from concentrating on what the real important issues are.

I don't see how this whole thing is worse than McCain embracing Pat Robertson who had said that 9/11 was God's punishment against us for embracing abortion and homosexuals. To me both Wright and Robertson are religious lunatics. The only difference for Christian right is that they think Robertson is more patriotic because he has conservative views. But according their understanding of the Bible's teaching since both Wright and Robertson accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior, they will both go to Heaven. So there is really no difference between them in the eyes of their God. On the other hand if a Muslim American soldiers dies fighting in Iraq, he will go to hell even though he is patriotic. So I ask you what does patriotism has to do with anything?

The news that Bear Stearns needs bail out and may be bought out is not all that shocking. There will probably be more companies that will go under over the next year. Tax payers will be saddled with more debt as a result of the risks that these companies took. This points out that we are not in a true capitalist system where you are rewarded for your victories but punished for your defeats. The punishment for the Bear-Stearns executives for sinking the ship? No bonuses! They should be fined for the outcome since they were richly rewarded when the market was doing well. When companies get so big they can take risks that people in retrospect would condemn. But since the government doesn't want the economy to go into a depression, they will always bail big companies out. If you know that someone will always give you money if you fail but you can keep everything your investment brings in, wouldn't you go for the investments with the biggest reward and don't care about the risks? This is like the Chinese banks which loan money as fast they can to help the economy grow without worrying about defaults because they believe that the Chinese government will always bail them out. This is the communist system and yet we are doing pretty much the same thing. In fact it is worse in some respects because wall street executives will not go to jail for making dumb investments, only if they committed fraud. With the Chinese executives they would lose more than bonus money if they failed. So perhaps the Chinese executive would be more careful about risks than his American counterpart.

Ultimately unless we can figure out how to not accumulate debt, all the bailouts in the world will not save our economy. From individuals who have more debts than savings to our government which is running record deficits, we all have to do our part. I don't agree with candidates when they say that trade agreements hurt our economy. Just because the products are cheap it does not mean we have to buy them. We all should live within our means. The conservatives are right about personal responsibility when it comes to one's finances. Yet Bush's idea of helping the economy is to make the tax cuts permanent. I like lower taxes as much as anyone else but I don't see the logic that prosecuting a war that is costing us billions and creating a greater deficit everyday is a good idea. At best all this is going to be passed on to our children. At worst it is a national security risks. China and other countries are controlling our treasury bills. The dollar is sinking fast in value. If a company like Bear Stearns is up for sale, who do you think may bid for it? It will either be another investment bank with the help of the government (nobody would or could do it on their own since everybody is losing money right now) or it will be an Arab country or China. How is that for national security risk?

I am sticking with my prediction from a few weeks ago that unless Obama makes a huge mistake, he will win the nomination. My math was a little off last time but the conclusion is still the same. Even with her victory in Ohio and Texas, Clinton cannot win the nomination even if she wins Pennsylvania as expected. Even if she wins all the remaining states by 10% point each she will be behind on pledge delegates. And there is no way she will win them all, certainly not by 10% point each. As I said before if the super delegates throw the nomination to her with Obama ahead in pledge delegates, then the Democrats will lose the black vote and the election. I think all the Democratic leaders understand this point.

The 3 a.m. ad was credited with helping Clinton win Texas and Ohio. If it did then we have more morons in the Democratic party than I thought. I can understand that some people think that Clinton is more experienced but if someone had not thought of that before the ad, why would he think that after the ad? Just because someone says that she is more capable of handling a crisis, it does not make it true. If experience alone gives you better judgment, then McCain would be better than Clinton by that logic. This would come back to haunt her if she wins the nomination. I always said that Obama is a little green and going against the war from the beginning does not mean that he will be great in foreign policies. But the truth is that one positive record is better than a negative for Clinton. And it is much better than the poor judgment McCain has shown in this war. So I would be dismayed if this ad actually hurt Obama significantly.

I think a legitimate reason to vote against Obama last week was the story of an adviser talking to the Canadian officials about NAFTA. I think that both Clinton and Obama are wrong to speak out against NAFTA. I don't think either one would do much to it if elected. They were just saying what people in Ohio want to hear. But it is a huge mistake for Obama if he had sent a representative to the Canadians. He is not the president and had no reason to talk to foreigners about policies that he is not enacting now. He did not have to placate Canada. If he did not send the consultant, then he is guilty of not controlling his staff well. That is not a major minus but a minus nevertheless. Unlike the 3 am ad which was a negative tactic by Clinton, the Canadian episode was Obama campaign's own doing. This was not fatal but if he makes a worse mistake then it gives the Democratic establishment a cover to give the nomination to Clinton by saying that Obama is just too inexperienced for the general election.

A good thing for Obama is that if he comes out of this and play mistake free ball for the rest of the primary season he will win the nomination and be toughened up for the general election. People believe that this long fight for the nomination will hurt the Democrats. I think if Obama turns out to be the nominee, this long fight would actually help him against McCain. The Clintons are formidable politicians and they will hit hard. Obama needs to be tested against the best and if he survives it, he can handle on what the Republicans will throw at him. If Clinton wins with the super delegates and negative ads, then I think she will lose the general election. Even before this long fight Clinton was loved by 50% and hated by 50% of the people. Losing the black vote will doom her. And forget about the dream ticket. It is difficult enough to elect a black or a woman. To have both on the ticket may sound interesting but the country is not ready for that.

One more blog about guns and race. There is a law in Texas that allows homeowners to shoot any intruders on their property. The idea is that under the old English laws the home is a man's castle. Now a man has taken this law to the extreme and there is actually a lot of people supporting him. This man saw two guys robbing his neighbor's house. He called 911 and reported the crime and then he repeatly asked the dispatcher if he can stop the thieves. The dispatcher repeatly told him to stay in his house and wait for the police. Finally he said that he had a right to protect himself in his house and went outside. There he killed the two men leaving, shooting them in the back. How is that self-defense? He is using this law as his defense. This law didn't give anyone the right to be a vigilante. Even the police would have to warn a suspect before firing. How can an ordinary citizen be allowed to ambush someone from the back? If the gun lobby does not condemn this act it would show that there only care about their so called rights and not true justice.

The dead men were illegals from Colombia. The looked black in the pictures. Whether the man would have shot them if they were white, we would never know. On 20/20 last night there was a segment where 3 white teenagers were destroying a car in a public park. This was a white suburb and many people passed by but only 1 person called 911. In the same park two black teenagers were sleeping in a car and several people called 911 reporting suspicious people in the car. Later 3 black teenagers destroyed a car and many people called 911. These people all said that they would have called 911 if the teens were white. Yet earlier only 1 person had done so when the destroyers were white. Also there is no law against sleeping in the car in a park during daytime so why all the calls for the blacks sleeping?

I still stand by my statement from the last blog that I think there is less prejudice now than forty years ago. But we still stereotype big time. A person who called 911 when he saw two blacks sleeping in the car may welcome a black friend of his children into his house. But deep in his mind unknown blacks are still dangerous. We incarcerate more people than all western nations. Most of them black or Hispanic. We even incarcerate more people per capita than China, a nation with a poor human rights record. Yet we are less safe in our streets than in any western nation. I am not saying that gun control is the answer but arming everbody and passing so called self-defense laws like the one in Texas, are certainly not the right answers.