I have reached my monthly quota again; unable to upload any more photos until March.  I will have to complete the Downtown Shanghai album (showing a panoramic view of Shanghai from a unique vantage point, I will discuss when the album is done.  I also have some shots of fireworks on the last night of Chinese New year as well as the festival at Yu Garden I will add after that.  I was planning a trip to Osaka Japan to see the cherry blossoms in March/April but getting my wife a Japanese visa has become too problematic and seeing the atmosphere towards Americans there at this time, it is best to not go there.

 

Castro handed over the government to his brother, no big surprise there.  He is vowing to continue the revolution.  Forgive me for being a little off struck here, but how can a revolution last for 50 years, and with the past government overthrown and opponents executed... isn't the revolution over?

 

Ralph Nader is running for president, again.  Billary Clinton stated that is unfortunate and a waste for everyone.  Funny how the possibility of a third party is met with such cynicism and distain.  I though America was about choice and options, not just the mainstream flavors of the year.  Now yes, Nader did get 19k votes in Florida and Bush had only a 500 vote lead over Gore in 2000 so the Dems feel he cheated Gore from the White House for it but hey, that is water under the bridge and is it really fair to blame your lack of generating better votes for your party your candidate’s problem and not the third party candidate who is offering a different vision, not just the vanilla or chocolate we are told to chose from?  Nader will be negligible in this year’s election, but we the people need to decide who we vote for, not just the two ruling parties who want to control the political process and keep it out of our hands.

 

Congrats to the US Navy for not only striking, but demolishing the failed spy satellite last week.  We accepted the mission and executed it flawlessly.  The modified SM3 may cause the ‘deck apes’ problems as it scorched the paint job, but a large Bravo Zulu to GM’s and Weapons Department onboard the USS Erie!  While the mission was clouded in speculation as to why, it was done, done right, and proved the effectiveness of our anti-missile/satellite capability and again shows the world that we can do what we say we can.  Yes the Chinese did the same earlier, but now they know we can also do it too.

 

The torching of the embassy in Belgrade was unfortunate and while the country is going through the motions to look like they are trying to bring justice to those who did it, we all know this is just a dog and pony show.  Russia is now threatening to stir up trouble in Georgia in retaliation.  Let’s hope that we can put cold war policies aside and work this out diplomatically for once.

 

Over here there has been quite a deal of flack over Steven Spielberg’s decision to quite the Olympics.  First the Chinese are shocked, then offended, now they say he never signed the contract on time so he technically was never employed!  Which is it!  If he had not quite would it had been an issue if this document were not signed?  Frankly his decision to quite was his own and the Chinese people have to deal with it.  He can do what ever he likes, that is part of being a free and fair person.  He had an issue with his employer, the Chinese government runs everything here so they were employing him (not just the Olympic Committee), and he decided to quite.  My question to the Chinese people is this, why Stephen Spielberg?  As they are now getting a Chinese artistic director to design the opening and closing ceremonies, why not do this from the beginning?  So what if he is famous, he is a movie director, he is American, and he lives in the left wing Mecca of US, Hollywood.  Why not John Woo, Ang Lee, or Zhang Yimou just to name the most famous and well known outside of China?  One thing China needs to learn and learn quickly, if you are to be a super power (like the US or Russia) you will have all of your decisions, policies, and actions aired on public opinion platforms all over the world and most of it will be negative.  Remember all the criticism of US policies you have shouted out over the past 50 years, well now its your turn to receive it.  When you become an economic, political, and military powerhouse you invite criticism and denouncements on everything you do.  This is just the beginning, trust me.

 

Finally some inspiring news to record.  The ISS, International Space Station, has a new lab, the European Columbus module is installed, powered up, heated, and beginning operations soon.  Next up, the Japanese Kibo module (the largest) to be ferried up to by the Endeavour shuttle next month.  As the ISS grows, getting back to the moon accelerates, thanks to the Asian Space Race, and continued data from Mars rolls in we will have better things to do with our time then start conflicts over petty matters and quarrels better left to theologians and diplomats.  The ISS will hopefully allow us to overcome the long term space exposure issues so we can begin to take our first real steps beyond our current womb of Earth.

I posted 4 new albums, re-arranged some for better cronological order of events.  For those in Shanghai last night's abrupt fireworks at midnight were the ending of the traditional Chinese New Year lunar month, the whole next day will be fireworks all day and night.  Last year at this time the apartment above us caught on fire, hopefully none of that this year!  Obama and McCain won Wisconsin and Hawaii... now the media has to buy into the fact they were backing the wrong horses.  I hope people enjoy the photos and I still have 1 album left, photos from a mystery location, but one you can see all the famous downtown sights from, including the tallest 2 buildings in the world.

According to CNN International Cuban Communist leader and commander-in-chief has resigned and steped down.  Announced at 3AM local time on the state run web-site and hitting the international wires 30 min ago it is not too unexpected since he has not been seen in public for over a year after having intestinal surgery and giving his brother Raul.  He stated he would not stand in the way of young up and coming politicans so we will have to see if the rest of his government will follow suit or if his meaning is just a way for Raul to galvenize his interim position into a perminate one.

 

More interesting will be Washington's reaction as sanctions were placed on Cuba until Castro was gone, now he is gone, what about the sanctions?  Will Chavez try a political back door move to help keep socialism strong in the region, my bet is yes.  This is a huge oppertunity to finally get one of the last cold war chapters put to bed if the cards are played right and we can all put our egos on the back burner.  Stay tuned to your favorite news outlet for the impending flood of Flordia celebrations, historical perspectives from all the 'experts' who the national media will give air play to and will come crawling out of the wood work.  Coming during the election season will give it extra coverage, at least the vote in Flordia is done. 

 

I have no thoughts on the topic at this time.  Cuba was a huge mistake from the Bay of Pigs to the U-2 mission and the missile crisis to the refugee and boat people of the 80's and even Alberto Gonzales and Janet Reno.  It has inspired our enemies, communists backers, and nut jobs on how to deal with the US.  Castro stayed in power and watched 9 US presidents go by (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush), all unable to do anything with him.  Maybe now, despite Michael Moore, we can get some more realistic dialogue going with our southern island neighbor, unless the eventual sucessor turns out to be a Chavez clone or puppet.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed, as I bet Cubans are too this morning!

Today, Tuesday the 19th of February, marks 2 local elections and the presidental primary.  While most of my readers are not living in Wisconsin or West Allis for that matter, the last US residence I had, this is still an important and interesting election day.  For local races there were 2 primary elections, one for the Mayor of West Allis, the other for County Board Supervisor, Dist 16.  The mayoral race is interesting because the present County Board Supervisor is running for mayor.  Major issues revolve around taxes, Wisconsin is a very high property tax state and as Mark Belling puts it, 'in a state of tax hell' and the other issue is crime.  West Allis has the highest home turnover rate in the state.  I will not go into the reasons but people move in, then move out at an average of 19 months... this is not really a good thing.  Second, Milwaukee city is trying its best to stamp out a rash of violent and gang/drug related crimes, murder rate is stable for the first time in 5 years so far this year.  Crime in neighboring West Allis is beginning to climb, strong arm robbery and assults, and 2 of the candidates are running on the platform of reigning in crime.  Unfortunately the only candidate with a multiple platform is the former County Board member and his record is ok, the rest just seem not genuine enough to be a mayor.

 

Onto the County Board primary, we have an ex-member (who was recalled over an unpopular street widening issue) who is running on a change platform, 2 new comers with little to no government experience, except 1 is a former police detective and has a good record, and the other a new resident upset about the cut in local services, and lastly a business man who hates high taxes and pledges to bring in job.  I have mailed in my absentee ballot to narrow down the field when the general election is held in a few months.  Seeing the lack of real platforms and the speeches and data available I am depressed at the lack of passion and forethought used for these races.  Only the politicans and former politicians have realistic platforms that could work, if all the planets and stars aligned when the winds are perfect.  The others seem to be 1 trick ponies which lead to a missmanaged and diasterous local government.

 

Why would I bring up the local elections of such a place as West Allis?  The similarities we are seeing in the presidential primaries is why.  Wisconsin has turned into a huge battle ground with low blows and hard shots coming from all sides.  Clinton is blaming Obama with stealing a few lines from past political speeches, Huckabee is the posterchild for 'never give up', and their front runner opponents are polor opposites of each other, just as the two underdogs are.  Obama is the liberal breath of fresh air who give really good speeches but I am not finding much meat behind the words.  Clinton is the career politican who will stop at nothing to win re-election into the White House.  McCain is the elder party maverick who is desperate to gain core GOP support without offending the moderate independents who he has championed for the past 12 years while Huckabee is the 'gee-wizz' Arkansas governor who is part Goober from Mayberry, part Rober Schuler from the Crystal Cathedral, part mystery man as coverage of him has revolved around his preacher in politics angle.  McCain has not 100% locked up the nomination but barring a major campaign implossion unseen in modern politics, Huckabee is just keeping the party split.  Obama needs to gain more then 20% of the popular vote to keep Hillary and her bag of dirty tricks from stealing the nomination as every single deligate and those damn super-deligates count and Wisconsin is not a big state but is could swing final momentum leading up to Texas and Ohio, remember Wisconsin and Ohio are midwestern states with many similar issues and concerns.

 

I voted.  Now the absentee voting process is a little odd.  The ballot looks the same, the process is the same, take a #2 pencil or black felt tip pen, complete the line next to the name of the candidate you like, and that is that.  Hope you don't make a mistake because the ballot is signed by the elections board and it takes 5 days to get a replacement.  Now here is the odd part.  I have to fill in my ballot in front of a US citizen, place it in the envelope, fill in the back pannel, add my birthday because I am overseas, have the witness who is a citizen sign and fill in his address too and then mail it on the same day.  Talk about hoops to jump through.  I am the only American in my office, I don't socialize with fellow ex-pats, and how in the hell could the state of Wisconsin verify the signature and address of the witness anyway?  In our modern world, with all our modern capibilities, we are still using paper ballots (needing to be collected, counted, validated, and hopefully not lost, misplaced, or duplicated).  In the last election the GOP filed suit against the Wisconsin Democratic Party because of absentee ballot drives at nursing homes, prisons, mental hospitals, and places where people were placed into districts where they were not susposed to be, were not legible or allowed to vote, or were not able to vote for health reasons and the part the got the party really into trouble is that party members were signing the witness forms, which they are specifically instructed not to do because they have party affiliations.  At least I know the process for the rest of the 2008 elections and I will have the ballots sent to my home for the whole year.  Can't wait for November.