I think Miami has become the most hated team in the NBA, replacing either the Celtics or the Lakers. That crass ESPN show by Lebron I think will hurt his legacy unless he win 3-4 championships in a row. Even then many people will feel that he couldn't have done it without Wade who already has a ring. If somehow they don't win, which is very possible (remember the Lakers with Chamberlain, West and Baylor?), then his commercial value will plummet. I think this move to Miami just made Kobe Bryant more popular!

Having said that, Cleveland's owner Dan Gilbert's open letter was way too much. James has a right to make a business decision, just as Gilbert can get rid of any player he doesn't think is doing the job. James made a lot of money for the Cavaliers and Gilbert in the past few years. So this rant just makes Gilbert look as bad as James. Yes, I feel for the fans of Cleveland, but I don't feel for the owner.

If controversy kept people focused on the NBA in the summer, controversies made the World Cup more interesting this year. But the final was a yawner. The Netherland and Spain are two of the most artistic teams in the world. But today's game was terrible. It seems that the finals are almost always bad, just like the Super Bowl. The third place game is always better. Maybe they should tell the finalists that they are actually playing the third place game and see if that makes the game better!

Spain has become the Miami of the sports world. They just won the most important trophy in sports, they are the second best to the U.S. in basketball, Pau Gasol won two titles after somehow ended up with the Lakers, Rafael Nadal is dominating tennis, a Spaniard may well win the Tour de France. It is time to root against Spain! Well, at least they don't have a guy like Rooney or James that people like root against.

Well, there goes my theory of South American soccer superiority over Europe. The only team left from S.A. is Uruguay. And they should have lost. Brazil and Argentina showed a lack of discipline once they got behind. Ultimately what I like about Brazil and Argentina is what cost them. They try to attack first and defend second. So on a given day with the attack stalled, they are vulnerable from counterattacks. The 3 European teams deserve to be in the semi-final but overall I still think South America outperformed Europe.

In an attempt to save face, I will predict the winners of the semi-final. The Netherlands have the best record in World Cup history without winning. And having beaten Brazil, I think they deserve to win this time. While I like the way Germany has played (except against Serbia), I will take Spain over them because I don't think the young German team can sustain 3 impressive games in a row. The Netherlands, I predict, will win the championship. Europe will get its first champion in a World Cup played outside of Europe!

Couple days ago I had a most interesting day watching sports. I am currently in Hawaii for a wedding. So on Wednesday morning when I tried to watch the U.S. soccer game, I had to get up at 4 a.m. I found that my two sons and brother in law were also up. We watched Landon Donovan scored the winning goal in stoppage time and then we jumped up, screaming in celebration. We are staying at this magnificent villa by the ocean ( the groom has a very rich friend), and we woke everybody up despite the vastness of this place.

After half hour of celebration, I went back to my room and turned on Wimbledon. I saw 4 sets of score and a score of 30-30. I figure then they are in the first game of the 5th set and are tied 30-30 in points. It took me awhile, seeing that after points were played that the score was still 30-30 that I realized that was the game score, not the point score. Thus continued a day of watch tennis till 59-59! So I was exhausted from watching sport while vacationing in paradise!

The group round of the world cup having been completed, I make the following observation. South Americans play the best soccer, by far. The European players are way overrated. They are way overpaid. Christian Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney? I think South America should get one of Europe's spots for the World Cup next time.

Have not had much time to write lately even though many things been going through my mind. Will restart with a brief commentary on the gulf oil spill. I understand that BP may have been negligent so that this disaster happened. But once it happened I don't think that there is any reason why they would not want to stop the oil flow ASAP. If they know how to do it quickly there is no advantage for them to hold back. So there is no reason to demand that BP fix this mess as the Obama administration and others are doing except to deflect any blame. And as for the government, it is liable for the lack of oversight but again once the spill started you can't blame it for not stopping the spill because I am sure that would the first thing the government wants to do.

I think the only thing that Obama could have done in the beginning, other than going to the Gulf more frequently for photo-ops, was to convene the top engineers in the country to come up with ideas how to stop the spill and clean up the mess. If he had called on brainiacs from MIT, Cal Tech, and U. of Texas (I assume there would be a petroleum engineering program there) from day 1, then I don't think you can ask for more. If those guys can't come up with the answer then why do you expect that Obama can come up with the answer?

By they way, why can't they just land a submarine on top of the gush and stop the flow until the relief well is drilled?

While the investigation of Goldman Sachs is all over front page of newspapers, in one of the back pages of LA Times today is an article about CalPERS, the California government employees pension fund, making a new deal with one of its management firm. This is hailed by lawyers as a 125 million dollar savings for the pension fund over the next 5 years. Of course the management firm was found to be paying middlemen about 125 million in recent years which of course came out of the pension fund's money. And if they saved 125 million, how much are they paying them in the first place? I think you can put all the money in a mutual fund that matches the SP500 and forget about any of these investment expenses of hundreds of millions and you would have made more money in the long run.

The SEC is, of course, trying to get some reputation back by going after Goldman Sachs after they failed to catch anyone, including Bernie Madoff. The truth is hedge funds, futures and options all should be outlawed. They are just same as gambling. They do not create value. The only people who always make money are the brokers and those with inside information or can manipulate the market. Unlike stocks which help companies expand and thus eventually enlarge the economy, hedge funds and options are zero sum games. One side makes a bet and the other side accepts the bet, and if a stock or commodity goes up, one side wins and the other sides loses. In order for hedge fund managers to make money they have to find someone who will bet with them and can afford to lose. Who are these people? Well, pension fund managers come to to mind. These people get a base percentage of assets to manage them and then gets a percentage of returns also. So since if they lose their shirts they still get a base percentage, they may as well gamble and hope to hit a homerun and get a percentage of higher profit as well. That's not managing. That is gambling with other people's money. At the end of the day, no value in the economy is added, just money exchanging hands. But in many cases the hedge funds make money and a public pension fund (ie taxpayers' money) loses money.

Tiger Woods is coming back to golf competition tomorrow at the Masters. I don't know what kind of shape he is in but I think he will be in contention. I won't be rooting for him due to his poor behavior but I won't bet against him either. Obviously he is not likely to win since even at his best he "only" wins about 20% of the time. But the pressure from the media will not affect him. If anything he is under less pressure now since he does not have to hide everything like before. In fact I think the energy drink that abandoned him made a big mistake. I mean what better advertisement than to say that due to the energy drink, he is able to run around outside the golf course and still play great inside it?

The terrorist attack in Russia shows that curtailing the rights of the people does not prevent terrorism. Since 9/11 Russia has been attacked several times by terrorists. It was only Nov. last year that a train was bombed between St. Petersburg and Moscow. What do you think the Russian government do after each attack? It takes away more democratic rights of the people for sure. You don't think they torture suspects to try to get information? Court order before wire-tapping? You got to be kidding. All these things and more that we argue about in this country are in full use in Russia. And in China too, I may add. But obviously it is not keeping the Russian people any safer. This is something we have to remember when the next time the government asks us to give up rights in order, as it says, to protect us from evil.

Some thoughts on the healthcare bill that was passed yesterday. It is not a very good bill, it will not make a big difference in our healthcare system in the next few years, and it certainly will not cut the deficit as predicted by the nonpartisan Congressional budget office. It is, however, the only bill that can be passed given the polarity of the country. I have some ideas about what our health system should be like, but my ideas will NEVER be adopted. Whatever you feel about Obama and Pelosi, you have to say they are tough politicians. Of course Pelosi will never lose in her district of San Francisco where a Republican candidate will often finish 3rd in a 2 persons race. Obama, as I have said all along, will be re-elected if the economy turns around by 2012. So his neck is not out at this time. For the Congressional Democrats in conservative districts, this will not be a good time to celebrate. For the Republicans, they may win some seats and may even become the majority in the House. But I have no respect for them. They are only interested in obstruction and putting out false information to scare people.

Good things about the bill: Eliminate preexisting condition exclusions, ends lifetime limits on benefits, and bans recission. These are unfair practices by insurance companies. Of course the insurance companies will charge more because now it is harder to deny coverage on people who are sick. Which brings to one of the bad point of the bill: it does not bring down cost. If my premium has gone by 70% in the past 3 years even though I have not been sick, can you imagine what the cost will be for someone with a pre-existing condition? These folks will still have to buy from private insurance companies who will claim that by taking on all comers they will have to increase the premium. Without a public option to compete with the private companies, how will the cost go down?

One of the things I find laughable is some people say that now that 30 million more people are going to have insurance, there will be problem with access because we don't have enough hospitals and doctors. Where did these 30 million people came from, Mars? The fact they do not have insurance does not mean they don't seek healthcare. It is just that they wait till they are very sick and end up in ERs. Then the outcome may be worse because they waited too long. With insurance coverage, maybe primary care physicians like me will be more busy. But maybe the ERs will be less overwhelm. Anyway, too many things to discuss about this topic. If anyone have any questions or want my view on a particular subject, please write in.

Berkeley law school associate dean Goodwin Liu has been nominated to the 9th circuit court of appeal. If confirmed, which is no easy thing given the Republican attempts to block Obama's nominations, Liu will become the first Asian American among the nation's 175 federal appellate judges. The first one? That is a travesty. I know that not as many Asians go into law as in medicine or science fields. But the first appellate judge with so many academically qualified Asian Americans? This is hard to believe.

I like most of Liu's views. He leans to the left as expected from a Democratic nominee. But he considers conservative positions as well. He has defended the No Child Left Behind policy put out by the Bush administration. He agrees with school vouchers. These are two positions that I also believe in. California's proposition 8 which outlawed gay marriages was challenged on constitutional grounds. While Liu probably supports gay marriages, he predicted that the proposition was on good constitutional grounds. I have written before that while I disagree with Berkeley law professor John Yoo's memos on torture, I do not feel that he should be fired from the school. Liu also supports Yoo despite his disagreement with Yoo's view. So, yes I think Liu is an excellent choice and a choice that is well overdue.

Another Chinese American that has been in the news lately is Harvard basketball player Jeremy Lin. I saw Lin a few years ago on tv when his high school team, Palo Alto High, won the state championship over national power Mater Dei which had several future d-1 players. Lin was the best player on the court that day and I wondered if he would be recruited by a big basketball school. The answer was no. Stanford is next door and it didn't recruit Lin. Nor did his other favorite, UCLA. The truth is that he would be the starting point guard for either of this team now if they had recruited him. So he ends up at Harvard which isn't too bad of a fall back. I am sure if Lin was black or even white the coaches would have felt he could have played at high d-1 level. I guess that is one reason there are more students name Lin at Harvard than there are d-1 Asian American players in the country!

Well, now that Lin has shown that he is an elite college player, he has been featured in Sports Illustrated, Time and ABC etc. Of course every article or show has to mention how underrated he is. But as the great Joe Dumars of the Detroit Pisitons once said: "I have been called underrated so often, I have become overrated." That maybe the case with Lin now. What has the world come to? An overrated Chinese basketball player? Almost as surprising as no Asian American appellate judge.

Last Sunday 6o Minutes ran a story about this Chinese American who spied for China and got some information about U.S. strategy in selling arms to Taiwan from a government worker. It is not the biggest secret info in the world. I don't think selling arms to Taiwan is anything top secret. But these two guys deserved to be punished. What I don't understand is that the guy who gave the info got 5 years while the Chinese guy got 15 years. It seems to me they are at least equally guilty and if anything the guy that was entrusted with the info is more of a traitor because he had to get clearance and pledge not to sell out.

This is similar to my complaint from 2005 when a FBI agent James Smith gave sensitive info to his lover katrina Leung. The government gave him immunity to testify against Leung. This is outrageous because he is the one who gave away the secrets and he got off totally except for losing his job, I think! As I said before, jailing Chinese or any foreign spy would not stop other countries from spying us. China would be more interested in their own people who would give away its secrets to other countries. By giving our own traitors shorter sentences or no sentence will not deter other people in the future from succumbing to greed.