His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, will be visiting Seattle for a weeklong "Seeds of Compassion" event.

On Monday, April 14, the "Children and Youth" day, the state of Washington will bus 14,500 children from all over the state to meet with the Dalai Lama. They will learn from the Dalai Lama what compassion is all about.

As I read news reports of the crackdowns in Tibet and the subsequent protests worldwide especially those in London and Paris in the last two days, I have the sickening feeling that I once had as this country was heading toward the Iraq war.

Many people in this community blamed the Iraq war on the Bush-Cheney regime. This is a denial of reality: The Iraq war was an American war. It was supported overwhelmingly by the American people (as seen by public opinions polls at the time and by their elected representatives' support of the Iraq war bill).

How could this happen?

I have to confess that I did not watch much of the Iraq War debate. I cannot stand it:  Enough of the stupidity and idiocies already. Here are my two simple observations:

2007 is the Year of the Pig in the Chinese zodiac. As Chinese people celebrate the Chinese New Year on February 18, there won’t be a lot of pigs paraded on state television programs as for the other eleven zodiacs. Since all television stations are state-owned, that means there won’t be a lot of images or references to pigs. You wonder why.

Former President Jimmy Carter has been taken a lot of heat since the publication of his lastest book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. He has been called all sort of names. Many, including President Carter himself, have complained about the unfair treatment of his book in the media.

There is currently a petition initiated by Henry Norr (see below).  

The new Q-poll should be a wakeup call for Ned. Any illusion that Joe will go away easily should be put to rest. Any talk of forcing Joe out is going to be futile. There are tough roads ahead. Nonetheless, when all is said and done, I believe Ned will come out on top, albeit by an even narrower margin (my prediction: Lamont (49)/Lieberman(48)/Others(3)).

Here are things that I think Ned should focus on:

There is no question that the Lamont team ran one of the most brilliant democratic primaries of all time.  Nonetheless, in my view, the Lamont campaign did make mistakes and become complacent during the last week of the campaign.  According to the CBS/NYT exit poll <http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/CBSNews_polls/ctexitpoll.pdf>
Voters who decided in

                               Lamont           Lieberman
Last 3 days:                    44        54
Last week:                      49              50
Last month or before:           53              46