Haven't had time to write lately. As a result I have missed talking about news such as the Republican debate, Weiner's weiner, and the Wal-mart case. If anyone have any interest in these and other old news, please write in.

Today Obama decided to open the oil reserve and flood the market with oil to bring down the prices. I don't understand this since the prices were already dropping and there is no shortage at this time. He is probably thinking that by lower the price of oil it would stimulate the economy indirectly by making the cost of doing business lower and keep more money in the pockets of consumers. It may also put a chill on futures traders who want to bid up the prices down the line as they maybe afraid Obama will do this again. But I don't like this move as the reserve should be used in emergencies only. I think this has only been done couple of times before. If we do this at $3.65 per gallon, what are we going to do when it goes over $4 next time? This seems like a desperate political move for the economy and I don't think will play well.

I also didn't like the troop withdrawal decision yesterday by Obama. I know withdrawal needs to be done as Obama had promised. But he should have listened to his military leaders who want to do it slower. With the cost of the war and the bad economy there is an urgency to leave Afghanistan. But as I have said before, I think we have an obligation to leave the country with a reasonable chance of surviving without the Taliban taking back over. I think Patreus's time line is better than Obama's. Many people on the Republican side who want quicker withdrawal are also the same people who advocated the invasion of Iraq. Of course we would have been able to get out of Afghanistan a lot quicker if we never went into Iraq in the first place. Now, I think we can get the rest of the soldiers out of Iraq quicker since I don't think we are doing anything there now anymore. Quicker out of Iraq, slower out of Afghanistan, that's what I advocate.

Last week Goodwn Liu took himself out of the nomination for an Appellate court position. This occurred after the Republicans filibuster his nomination. Of course they accuse him of being biased and unqualified. I am not familiar with all his writings and of course the Democrats say the opposite. But one thing is certain and that is both Kenneth Starr and John Yoo, two of the most well known conservative lawyers in the country, support Liu and think that he is well qualified. Certainly if Liu is an extremists like the Republicans claim, then Starr and Woo would not have supported him. Given that there have never been an Asian American Supreme court justice and only couple of Federal Appeals court Asian American judges active right now, I find this tactic by Republicans to be a travesty.

Last week the Democrats won a Congressional seat in upstate New York, in Republican territory. They attributed that to the Medicare plan by Paul Ryan. The Republicans attributed that to a third party candidate from the Tea party which siphoned votes from the Republican candidate. I think both of these contributed to the upset. But regardless I think you will see Republican candidates in close contests try to stay away from Ryan's plan while the Democrats will use it to their advantage. The Ryan plan was terrible but I think to cut into the deficits, social security and medicare have to be discussed. But it is obvious that people want to cut deficit but nobody likes to lose their entitlements. Politicians touch these entitlements at their peril. The Republicans are screaming unfair, saying that Democrats lied about the Ryan plan. But don't forget they lied more when they said that Obama's plan would have got rid of medicare and that there were death panels in his plan. What goes around comes around!

Last week Obama was criticized by Romney for throwing Israel under the bus by suggesting negotiation with the Palestinians begin with the 1967 boundary. Come on, I don't see anybody under a bus at this time! Netanyanhu then lectured Obama about the 1967 line being indefensible. It seems to me that Israel defended very well in 67 and again in 73. Since then the gap between the military strength of Israel and its neighbors have widened tremendously. There is never an issue of Israel defending itself against an army attack from the Arabs. No Arab army is going to invade Israel and be successful, no matter where the border is. The problem for Israel is going to be terrorist attacks and those can occur no matter where the border is. Netanyahu was playing to his audience back home by lecturing Obama which to me is arrogant given the U.S. is Israel's biggest supporter. I am also pessimistic that Israel and the Palestinians will ever make peace which have dragged the U.S. into a mess that we will never get out of. I am not sure that there is a strong enough partner for peace among the Palestinians right now but I think Israel will be getting more and more conservative in the future. I think liberal Jews are now less likely to immigrate to Israel from the U.S. and Europe. The people who want to move to Israel and live in the settlements are going to be hard liners. Israel has always been the democratic state in the Middle East that is a friend of the U.S. But I am afraid the demographics will be changing and with people like Netanyahu being elected, I don't see peace coming.

So the apocalypse did not come! It is incredible how many people actually believed what that crazy guy predicted. Many were actually intelligent people, supposedly. Now you can see why people can be brain-washed into believing anything. This is why you have people committing massive suicide for whatever they believe. It is why people can be convinced into being a suicide bomber. Now I do have to believe that a miracle has happened as the two comments that were missing from my post before the last one have reappeared! This obviously cannot be explained scientifically and thus maybe I have proven there is a God! Or else it is the work of Big Brother.

On DWTS tonight, I believe that Hines Ward did out dance Chelsea Kane and deserve the championship tomorrow. Even though they got the same scores I think Ward had more difficult routines. In particular in the free style, Mark Ballas lifted Kane several times. While that made Ballas look good, he IS the pro. Those lifts cut into the time that Kane is dancing herself. Ward, meanwhile did a great job of dancing and did his lifts well. And as I said before, I think Ward will get more audience votes so the tie score among the judges is all right for him.

A strange thing happened in the past few days. On Thursday I was trying to get on the blog and write more comments about the previous post. The whole thing was shut down for the day. When I checked back yesterday, I realized that comment #4, written by me, and comment #5, written by LBOAYM, were deleted. I waited another day and the comments are still gone. So I am writing a new post which are based on the last two comments with additional info that have come out the last couple of days. If this post do not get published, then I will have to think that maybe I am being watched by some Big Brother who doesn't not like my blog!

I wrote before that bin Laden's pictures were released by Obama to show the world that he had been converted to our side. He was shown lying on the couch in his pajamas and blanket, using a remote to channel surf. He does not do anything all day except play with his computer and plan war games. He was living a typical American male's life. His advantage is that he has many wives, tons of money and people who bring food and play things from the outside. The last couple of days revealed that they had bought him pornography! So now he is more American male than we realized even couple of days ago! It is also shown that he dies his hair which again is typical of middle aged males in this country! His followers should take note as their leader had clearly defected before he died.

The other story that I commented on was just beginning three days ago. I did not get the story of the Wall Street trader right. His name is Raj Rajaratnam. He was not arrested as I wrote but was already convicted. He is not Indian but of Sri Lanka descent. I thought the whole thing looked suspicious as most of the big time traders are white and yet only this South Asian guy is going to jail. I stand by this opinion because the prosecutor in the case is of Indian descent. It is typical that when prosecutors don't want to look prejudice to use people of the same race or ethnicity as the defender to prosecute the case. Think Chris Darden vs O.J. or the Jewish prosecutors and judge in the Rosenberg spy case. I know Sri Lankan is not the same as Indian but I am sure they have to go out of their way to find any South Asian to take this case. LBOAYM made a good point about Raj may look like a terrorist so it is a good target for the government. Well, I looked it up and Raj was known to be a donor to the Tamil Tigers, a rebel group against the government of Sri Lanka. The Tamil Tigers are considered a terrorist group by the U.S. government. Hmm, again this looks suspicious. Now if they next prosecute a guy from Dearborn who supports the Detroit Tigers, then we will have seen a pattern for sure.

Recently I watched a documentary called "Inside Job" which detailed the collapse of the financial market that led to our current depression. I think it is a film everybody who is concerned about the financial future of this country should watch. Wall Street and the government will not want us to watch it because it shows who really control our country.

As I asked before, why nobody has gone to jail for what happened with subprime loans and derivatives that caused the financial meltdown? Somebody like Angelo Mazzillo, head of Countrywide, used subprime loans to inflate the profits of his company and then when he realized that the whole thing was going to collapsed, sold his stocks before they fell. Now if Martha Stewart can be jailed for getting inside information to sell her stocks in a company she does not own, how is that Mazzillo is not guilty? The film also showed how academics were paid by corporations or foreign government to tell how well the economic conditions of these entities were. For example one economics professor wrote that Iceland was in great shape in an article when he was a consultant for Iceland banks. This was just before Iceland collapsed. And he did not have to disclose his financial ties to Iceland. How is this different situation than a doctor who is paid by a pharmaceutical company have to reveal that relationship when he writes or talks about a drug from that company?

Worse than that above sample is companies like Standard and Poor who rates companies, governments etc. S & P recently wrote that they may have to downgrade the U.S. government in the future. Why should we listen to firms like that when they were paid by investment banks to tout how financially sound these banks are? Just right before Lehman Brothers collapsed, S&P had double AA ratings or them. Bottom line we can trust them. We also cannot trust people like Greenspan who refused to regulate the industry as the government should. If people like him didn't understand the dangers of derivatives, who can?

People on the right accuses Obama being a socialist. I always said that presidents have very little control of the economy and I think he is doing as well if not better than Reagan did after he took over the disaster from Carter. But if I fault Obama, it would be that he really did not change anything from Bush. Bernanke is still here as Fed chairman, Geithner is a protege of Hank Paulson and Larry Summers has been around presidents for many years. They are not socialists and they are not for increasing regulations on Wall Street. It is the same policies that have gone on since Regan deregulated. By the way, that led to the savings and loan debacle which we never learned from. Obama is not a socialist. He just does not have great ideas about economics. But then neither did any of the people I mentioned in this paragraph.

Couple blogs ago I complained about public unions. I stand by that. I will admit that after watching this film which just confirm what I had believed all along, I find the people in the financial sector more despicable than the union people. I can understand somebody making average money trying to get more, even if they buy off politicians to do that. What I don't understand is that people making millions already is trying to rip people off. How much is enough?

Well, Jack Bauer did it. I am convinced that it took someone like Bauer to finally kill bin Laden. His identity will only be known to Obama and a few others. I have doubts that Pakistan was let in on the operation until it is over or at least underway. With the likelihood that the Pakistani intelligence force having been infiltrated by terrorist groups, I would be shocked that if the U.S. had informed them of the operation being planned. I think it is just good PR for Obama to thank Pakistan for its help. This way it is a face saving thing for the Pakistani government as it always insisted that bin Laden was not in Pakistan. By giving them credit, Obama is hoping that they will give more cooperation in the future. Anyways, it is a great victory for the country and the fight against terrorism.

Having said that we can't let our guards down. Having been killed by the U.S., bin Laden is not only a hero but also now a martyr to the extremists. While bin Laden is the face of al Qaeda, there are many other who do the planning still at large. It is likely they will plan an attack in the near future for revenge and to show that they are still relevant. So I like Obama not gloating in his speech. It is a great victory but we the war is far from over.

A new example of why public unions should be illegal came up in the LA Times yesterday. Jerry Brown is giving the prison guard unions improved benefits. The reason: the union gave $2 million to his campaign. Many people have complained about the wages and benefits of the prison guards for many years. I can understand that it may not be legally possible to break contracts but to give more when the state is practically bankrupt? Brown has been trying to put on ballots propositions to increase tax to decrease the deficit. How is he going to get voters to agree to that with his giving to the union? If Brown has any integrity, he would do the right thing and stiff the union. What are they going to do to him? He is not likely to run again given his age and so if I were him, I would do the right thing and the hell with the people who tried to buy me off. Democrats like Brown say that without increasing taxes, programs for the poor will have to cut. But isn't each dollar you give to your political contributors is one less dollar for those programs?

Of course those Republicans who want more tax cut are no better. The McCourts who own the Dodgers, pending take over of the team by MLB, paid no income tax in 2009! There are rich people who use loopholes and off shore accounts to pay nothing. They are always saying that cutting taxes will create jobs. Then why were jobs lost after the Bush tax cut? Did a tax increase caused the recession? Most corporations are making big profits this past year and their tax have not increased. So why are they not hiring?

The truth is both sides will only complain about the wrongdoings of the other side. A candidate I am looking would be a Democrat who wants to get rid of public unions and decrease the size of government or a Republican who would repudiate Wall Street and get rid of loopholes and tax breaks for the wealthy. I am not holing my breath.

The House passed the Ryan bill even though there is no chance that it will become law because of the Democrats have the majority in the Senate and Obama is sure to veto any bill that resembles this one. The budget is very complicated so today I will only talk about the part regarding healthcare as proposed by Ryan. The good thing about this bill is that it forces a debate on the things that are most difficult to cut, ie, entitlements. Due to the power of the senior citizens at the poll, both parties have been reluctant to even talk about cutting Medicare and social security. Certainly, without the challenge from Ryan, Obama would not be so quick talk about how to save money from Medicare. But at the end of the day Ryan's proposals will not work to decrease healthcare cost and will not reduce the deficit. This is the analysis of the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The central point of the Ryan proposal is to dismantle Medicare as we know it today and instead give vouchers for seniors to buy their private insurance. This shows a lack of understanding about health insurance in this country. The administrative cost of private insurance companies is higher than Medicare. The insurance companies also have to make a profit for their investors. If they have been effective in holding down cost then we would not have so many people uninsured and premiums like mine would not have more than double in the past 3-4 years. I would say that Medicare have been too generous in providing this entitlement. For example, it covers a motor scooter for people who can't walk. So now we have many seniors who can walk calling their doctors to authorize a scooter for them. Companies are calling up patients to entice them to bug their doctor about all kinds of free equipment. Many doctors do not want to anger their patients and thus approve things that are really not needed. This obviously drive up cost.

Maybe some of these things would stop if the coverage that seniors are able to buy with their vouchers would not cover them. But it is obvious to everybody, including the CBO, that the amount of the voucher will leave seniors way short. So I am sure by then the seniors, insurance companies, equipment firms, and pharmaceuticals will all lobby Congress to raise the voucher amount. This is what happened when the drug companies and senior groups lobby for the prescription drug coverage. To me that was a waste. Medicare had to use private insurance companies to run the program under the law. This added a middleman to negotiate with the drug companies who now can sell more of the brand products with more seniors who can afford them. Under the law, Medicare with its powerful influence, cannot negotiate directly with the drug companies. Whose idea was that? So now we have more deficit as a result of this program. Who passed and signed this bill? The Republican Congress and George Bush!

The Republicans attacked Obamacare with a scare tactic that say it was cutting Medicare and there would be death panels. These were false charges for political gain only. Ryan's bill is in fact cutting Medicare and will have negative effects on the health of seniors and the handicap. I think the Democrats will use this against the Republicans in 2012. While I welcome a debate to change aspects of Medicare and Medicaid, this proposal is too radical and will not improve the spiraling cost of healthcare. I am afraid as the details are eventually heard by the voters the reaction will be so negative that the Republicans will back off. This will mean the legitimate debate about entitlements will be put off further.

As a Giant fan lies in a coma, the result of a beating outside of Dodger stadium, I am thinking about how uncivilized many sports fans are all over the world. I have not been to many sports events lately but the papers are talking about fights breaking out in the stands being not uncommon now a days. This still do not compare with the soccer hooligans throughout the world but it is alarming for the U.S. I think, just like the rowdy behaviors in English soccer games, much of the problems here in the U.S. can be attributed to heavy alcohol usage before and during the games. Of course there is no chance that the teams will decrease selling of alcohol at stadiums as this is big revenue for them. So I have a feeling that in the future there will be less and less of families with small children attending games.

Sports can be compared to religion in certain locals only. So if sports rivalry can cause violence, can you see why religion can cause extreme violence? Recently after that crazy preacher in Florida burned a koran, a mob killed several UN workers in Afghanistan. This reaction is predictable but of course the preacher was trying to call attention to himself without regard for the safety of other people. The press actually did a good job by not giving him much coverage when he burned the koran. Unfortunately Karzai decided to bring that to the attention of his people which gave the extremists an opportunity to arouse the anger of the people. Since anyone can predict that this would happen, I am sure Karsai knew what his own action would have caused. While the preacher deserve blame, why isn't anyone pointing their fingers to the president of Afghanistan? I think the idea that he is a reasonable partner for the U.S. and NATO has been proven to be completely false.