Obama all but clinched the nomination today whent the Democratic Rules Committee voted to give Florida and Michigan half of the votes. Even if the committee had voted to give everything Clinton wanted, Clinton would not have been able to overtake Obama in pledge delegates and as I said before there was no way that the superdelegates would have overturn the pledge delegates because that would mean losing the black vote in November. As is now, after the last primaries on Tuesday, Obama would need only about 30 of the remaining 220 or so superdelegates to win the nomination. There may even be enough of them declaring their support of Obama in the next couple of days to make the last two primaries irrelevant.

If Clinton does not bow out after Tuesday and take the fight to the Credentials Committee as Harold Ickes threatened today, her legacy in the party as well as that of her husband will be severely damaged. In the interest of unity the neutral people in the party has refrained from criticizing her. But for her to drag this out when it is mathmatically impossible for her to win is dispicable. She had agreed with the party when it decided that Florida and Michigan were not going to count. That's because she had expected to win the nomination easily. When she started losing then she wanted to count those votes even though there was no campaigning and Obama was not even on the ballot in Michigan. If there was no campaigning Obama would not have won Iowa since Clinton was much more well-known before the campaign. And for her to suggest that Obams do not get any vote in Michigan since nobody voted for him is absurd. Does anyone in his right mind would believe that a strong black candidate like Obama would not do well in Michigan if his name was on the ballot and he campaigned? Changing the rules after the fact is like calling the games exhibitions but after they were played, with one team not even showing up, declared them to count in the standings.

The Clintons are ultimately politicians. I expect her to drop out next week to save her power within the party. Afterall, Obama may lose in November and she will be the odds of favor in 2012 then. Even if Obama wins and stays 8 years, Clinton will still be only 68 years old in 2016, younger than McCain today. So I expect Clinton to act gracefully and not burn all her bridges. She will live to fight another day.

Gas price is over $4 now where I live. Unfortunately the freeways are still crowded here in Southern California. I did notice that there are not quite as many SUVs on the road. I guess we are using cars that get 20 miles per gallon instead of 10. Our government is not doing much either to change the stituation. Bush went to Saudi Arabia to beg for more production of oil. The Saudis said no and Bush had no rebuttal. Back home Congress decided to sue OPEC for holding down oil production. To this announcement OPEC said--nothing. As I wrote in the comment section of the previous blog the U.S. is becoming more irrelevent. Who cares what Bush and Congress say. They will just ignore us. I mean they must think we are bunch of morons. Sue other people for not selling to us? Only in lawsuit happy America would someone believe that filing a lawsuit would solve everything. It just makes me angry that we have such incompetent and pandering people in our government.

It is interesting to note that we sent milliom of dollars to Saudi Arabia everyday for oil. And from which country did most of the 9/11 hijackers came from? Not Iraq or Iran. Yet did we use any leverage against Saudi Arabia? No, because we don't have any. We need their oil not the other way around. So we don't express our displeasure for their citizens attacking us but we only show displeasure when they don't produce as much oil as we would like. How is it that we complain that China don't use its leverage against Sudan?

The earthquake in China is an act of nature but the tragedy is compounded by the work of humans. Obviously China is not as advance as the U.S., Japan and Europe and so the ability to react to disaster is not expected to be world class. Come to think of it, our response to Katrina was also less than world class. But some of the deaths in China certainly could and should have been avoided. The total collapse of some of the schools are inexcusable. These were buildings erected not that long ago and should have been built much better. The race to build more and to make more profits have been costly as businesses and the government cut corners. It is not just foreigners who have lack of confidence in goods made in China, even the Chinese suspect poor quality due to greed. China is like America during the Industrial Revolution where anything goes as long as profits are made. The Olympics venues will be world class but the average Chinese are still being treated as second class citizens

Add to the misery of the death of all of those children is the fact that most of them are an only child. Due to the one child policy in China most parents only have one child. Can you imagine the pain of losing a child, the only one you have? I understand the need to control the population of China but there are just too many negatives with this policy. Killing or abandoning of female infants is obviously a tragic consequence. The only child, especially a boy, becomes a child emperor. The spoiling of the only child will weaken the Chinese adults in the future. Also with greater number of boys than girls, many men will not be able to find a mate. This will possibly lead to increase in depression and alcohol and drug abuse among future men. With less children and lack of a social safety net, who will take care of the elderly in the future. These are all potential disasters as a result of the one child policy.

With my advocating for increase in gas tax, one may think that I am a tax-spend liberal. I don't think I am. I favor a flat income tax with no loopholes. Generally I vote against bonds unless I am very sure that it is of great benefit. I especially hate those bonds that are for "public safety". See, people are more likely to vote for increase police, fire and prison fundings because they feel that these are essential. But since they are essential they should come out of the general tax only. But if politicians increase the general tax they get people upset. But by using bonds or special taxes to fund things like police or roads, then they have more for other things which the taxpayers may not want to support.

Another problem I have with revenue enhancement by the government is the hidden taxes they put in things such as phone bills, both landlines and cellular. There are 911 state tax, funding to support Public Utilities Commission, Federal Universal Service fee, etc. Why do I have to support the public utilities commission with a charge on my phone bill? Who voted for that? Certainly not taxpayers. And what service did the federal governmen provided on my phone? By putting stuff like that without our knowledge politicians get away with increasing our tax without telling us.

Now there are some taxes that I am usually for. Cigarette taxes and alcohol taxes can increase for all I care. These are things that cause a lot of human misery but banning them in the past had not work. Maybe taxing them won't change behavior but so what have we got to lose? We should also increase tax on luxury items. Double the tax on gas guzzlers. Close the loophole we have in Calif. where yach buyers can dock it somewhere outside of the state for a few months and then bring the yacht back and do not have to pay sales tax here. If you can afford the million dollar yacht, you can afford the sales tax. So with my various stand on taxes and fees I am sure neither the Democrats or Republicans will ask me to run for office in their parties anytime soon.

With gas nearing $4 per gallon Clinton and McCain are calling for a suspension of the gas tax for the summer. Obama is calling this pandering and that this policy will not help the consumers. Obama is right on this as practically all economists say suspending the gas tax has no effect. Of course Obama has not put out any energy ideas either. The truth is no politician has the vison to really change our energy policy. And if one has the vison he or she will probably be defeated at the polls.

Couple of years ago when gas approached $3 and there was the call to lower the gas tax and drill in Alaska, I said that those are not policies that would do any good. I said that we should RAISE the tax so that gas is $5 per gallon and thus shocked the nation into really look for alternative energy and stop wasting. Well, I was wrong because now we are almost at $5 without increasing taxes and we have not been shocked into doing things differently. Alaska and lowering the gas tax are still the things on the table. We are still driving huge SUVs.

To see how inept our politicians are look at how they can't even do the things that are obvious. If you want people to decrease gas usage and increase the use of alternative energy, then it would be obvious that you raise the tax on gasoline and give tax credit for using alternative energy. Instead the oil companies continue to get tax subsidies of billions of dollars. At the same time the tax credits for buying hybrids and investment stimulus for wind and solar energy are allowed to expired. In Europe and Japan the gas prices are much higher and they invest more than us in alternative energy. But don't just blame our politicians. Remember when I said that we should raise the gas tax instead of lowering it, I also said that I would never get elected to office if I advocated that. American people expect pandering from the politicans. We would never accept bitter medicine until we are at deathbed. We get the politicians that we deserve.

I watched Jeremiah Wright on CNN on Sunday. For the most part I was impressed. He was charismatic and I can see why he had so many followers including Obama. He spoke in different accents. He sang and danced. I agreed with some of the things he said. Only two things I had trouble with. One is that he quoted a Wayne State professor's findings that whites and blacks learn differently. Whites use the left brain and thus more logical whereas blacks use the right brain and thus more creative. I have never seen such a scientific conclusion. But let's say the research show this to be true, would a white person come out and say this without getting into trouble? When people comment that blacks and whites are different physiologically and thus explain blacks superiority in running and jumping, that was considered to be racist because critics say that would imply that blacks are not as smart. I never understood why that is the case. But now a black professor say that blacks and whites think differently, there is no implications of the races not being equal? Wouldn't racists use that excuse and segregate blacks and whites into different classrooms if not schools? Differences in learning have been used as a reason for female only schools. But of course when one proposes possibility that male and female are different in science and math, that would be sexist.

The other problem with Wright on Sunday was that he was throwing Obama under the bus by keep talking about changes, which was Obama's campaign theme. This cause more people to associate the two of them even more. Then he said that Obama's denunciation of him was political. This after Obama showed loyality toward him by not denouncing him but only his words.

I did not hear all of Wright's speech at the National Press Club. I understand from the excerpts that it was much worse than Sunday. This led Obama to severe all ties with him which is the right thing to do but may be late. It seems to me Wright is purposely trying to take Obama down. If Obama is elected then the highest glass ceiling in the land would have been shattered. No longer can people like Wright or Sharpton use victimhood for their causes. It would still be an unfair world but Obama would have shown that even a black man who once used drugs can become president. It really would not matter if he got this far using his right or left brain!

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.