Obama lost my vote?

Related to Iraq that I have wrote about, the next election is all about Iraq. People can include other subjects into a debate, but all the nation cares about is to find a president to end the war. But the nation does not agree on how to end the war.

I respect Obama's stand against the war before it started. However, his plan does not mean much. There is nothing new and lack of specifics. If Bush's get the job done and then leave Iraq is not a plan, Obama's 5 point plan is not much better.

The following is Obama's 5 point plan:
(1) a reduction in the number of U.S. troops; (2) a time frame for a phased withdrawal; (3) the Iraqi government to make progress on forming a political solution; (4) improved reconstruction efforts to restore basic services in Iraq; and (5) engaging the international community, particularly key neighboring states and Arab nations, to become more involved in Iraq.

Problems with the plan:
* The goal of setting a time frame does not make sense when he also wants to engage international community. What if the Arab nations does not help to make a peaceful Iraq? A set time frame means if we cannot get the other nations to work together and help Iraq, we would leave Iraq anyway. In that case, how could we convince the other nations to stick around and help Iraq?
* The desire to get Iraqi government to develop an acceptable political solution is always there. Bush probably wants it more than anyone to see the Iraqi government successed. Obama failed to say how he would do differently than Bush in that aspect. Would tell them we will leave going to help convince them? I don't think so. Once a withdraw date is set, there is little chance true reconciliation can happen. If I was an Iraqi on one side of the negotiation, I would want to find peace also. But unless I have a very high hope that a reconciliation can happen and my side is not going to be screwed at the end, knowing a US withdraw date means I only have this much time to prepare for the worst, which is civil war. What should I do? Arm my political group and make sure we can fight back. Right now I doubt anyone can have high hope true reconciliation can happen in a year or so.

But to be fair, I have not heard any good plan from any presidential candidates.

Rebut Bin Ladin

I was thinking about writing something about the Bin Ladin video tape before even seeing it. Finally, I got sometime.

Bin Ladin bragged about how 9/11 changed the US politic, and as if he has achieved his goal. Well, let's look at it. He wants to destroy the US, which obviously did not happen. He wants to convert more people to Islam, which did not happen. Quite contrary, 9/11 only made things worse for Islam. Any Muslim trying to do anything remotely to harm the US will be scrutinized. Some Islamic charities were closed, which are justified when they are connected to terrorist organizations. All in all, 9/11 only made the western world less acceptable to Islam, no matter how people try to put the Koran or Islam into the main stream.

It is also pretty pathetic for Bin Ladin to even comment on global warming, which has nothing to do with what he was fighting for. As horrific as 9/11, Bin Ladin at least showed some level of competence in trying to inspire successful terrorist attacks. After a number of times from different terrorist leaders to call for attack on the US soil, they have failed to do so after 9/11. Outside of Iraq and Afghanistan, there is virtually no attack on the US interests. In fact, the attack in Bali Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia, all target fellow Muslims. I don't see that's a great persuasion for people to convert to Muslim. I don't want to compare religion here, because Christians has done its own share of killing fellow Christians, but at least that was the past. The only recent large violence between Christians is Northern Ireland.

Also, the Europeans are generally against Iraq war, yet they were the ones get attacked. The result is that Europeans are no longer tolerant towards Islamic fundamentalists. The imam that spreaded hatred against the western cultures for years in UK has been arrested and sent away. After the riot in France, French no longer want to deal with the extremist. If you look closely, all countries in the world pushed hard to drive out the fundamental Islamic groups, Thailand, Indonesia, Russia, India, etc. And many of these countries are traditional enemies, Russia is one and will still be competitive with the US in the future. But one thing Bin Ladin made clear to the world is that people cannot sit idle and think terrorism is other countries problems. So great job Bin Ladin.

The US may have a lot of troubles in Iraq, Al Quaeda has even more problems now. Locals are turning against them, and their animal behaviors is not even acceptable to American haters among Muslims.

Prediction

Time for another prediction post.

Thompson will win the presidential race in 2008.

Steve Job is in trouble now with the price cut. Apple is not in trouble, Steve is. Steve is a new product kid of person. His sales pitch works for a new product, but for iPod and iPhone upgrade, it needs a more honest and straight forward marketing. There is no more revolutionary ideas in Steve Jobs. Maybe after someone else comes up with a good new product, he can take that and make it cool and easy to use, much like Xerox's mouse and MP3 players.

Outsourcing

Just heard a news that an Indian company Wipro decided to open a development center in the US. It is an interesting change and should create some insights into the cost and gain on outsourcing.

But of all the reasons stayed by the report, they do not touch on one the, technical competence. There are a lot of smart people in India, China and other countries. However, software and the computng industry is relative new. There are a lot of expreienced engineer in the US has been in the industry for decades, while majority of peoples hired in India are junior engineers. That's why we see more successful electronic companies, because electronic fundamentals are well by all nations academic. Same is not true about software technologies, like OOP, Java, Internet, etc.

Innovative designs requires passion. I think lot of people in Asia got into engineering not because they love it, but because their parents think it is a good career for their future. Also in China, the pressure of the college entrance exam means the type of nerdy people good with programming often don't do well in exams. And the people can get high scores and get into the competitive program, do not real love writing codes. That is why we don't see a lot of free software developers in China and India. I do see a lot of passion in Chinese kids on internet and media related work, for example people making videos, cool Flash music videos, etc.