The downing of a Malaysian Airline plane over Ukraine will mean a cold relation between Russia and the U.S. for years to come.  I think it is obvious that Ukraine rebels fired the missile, mistaking the plane for an Ukrainian air force jet.  But the sophisticated weapon can only be supplied by Russia.  Putin will lie and try to cover this up but nobody from the western world will believe him.  The U.S. had announced tougher sanctions days before this and will tighten the grip on Russia more now.  More importantly, the Europeans, who had not been as tough on Russia because of their larger trades with Russia, is now much more outraged.  So I believe the Russian economy, which had been slowed lately, may well going into a recession.

While we can use Russian help in Syria, Iran and North Korea, they have not been much help anyway.  Putin will hang on power because of propaganda about Ukraine have increased nationalism in his favor.  But eventually the economic blows will make it hard for him to stay in power.  This may take a few years but we must be patient.  After all there is no military solution to this.

I see that Dick Cheney is calling Obama the worst president in history.  I will call out Cheney and others with the same view their credential as historians.  Are they such experts in our presidents that they know how good Fillmore. Pierce, and Garfield were?  I believe such claims have racist overtones.  There were 43 white president and they think that Obama is worse than all of them?  I don't think Obama is the best president ever but he is way better than George Bush for sure.

Let say Obama was elected before Bush.  Let say  during Obama administration 9/11 happens, the economy collapses, we invade Iraq and thus taking our eye off Afghanistan and allowing bin Laden to escape and the war causes a trillion dollars and thousands of American lives.   Let say during the Bush administration bin Laden is killed, the economy revives and the wars are over.  If all of the above are true, would any of these Obama haters call Bush the worst president in history?  I think we should ask Dick Cheney this question and see what lies he comes up with.

Due to too much time spent on monitoring the NBA free agent deals and watching the end of the World Cup, I have not looked into Hobby Lobby case carefully as promised.  So let me just make two quick points and see if there are specific questions out there.  It appears from what I read that there are other ways for woman to obtain contraceptives other than directly from employer health plan.  But again I don't see how corporations can be same as people.  Isn't a major reason an owner incorporates his business is to separate his personal liability from the liability of the business?  So for example, if a business is sued and loses, the owner is liable only for his investment in the business if it is incorporated.  So that same owner is claiming that the corporation is same as him now?   If a corporation is owned by someone whose religion forbids treatment by medical doctors, can it then refuse health coverage altogether?

Great news out of the NBA is that Jeremy Lin is coming to LA!  So now I can follow my favorite player all season!  Also it is great for him to get out of Houston where he is basically told to stand in the corner while James Harden run the offense.  I only wish that D'Antonio had not resigned so that he and Lin could have reunited.  D'Antonio's offense system work best with a point guard in charge and is best for Lin.  The new coach may very well let Kobe Bryant run the offense.  But at his age and coming off two major injuries, Bryant cannot carry a team anymore and I think he would welcome someone who can lighten the load for him.  Plus there is no guarantee that he and Nash will last the whole season.  Finally, the chance to learn from Nash will be of great value for Lin.  So I think this will work out much better for Lin than the last two seasons in Houston.

This is the last blog regarding the World Cup 2014 unless something extremely crazy happens.  At this point, any one of the final four winning the Cup would not be shocking.  I will still go with Brazil to win it all even though they won't have Neymar and Thiago Silva.  On paper Germany is now a slight favorite but I think this may actually be advantage to Brazil.  There is still great pressure but instead of being heavy favorite they are a slight underdog.  They may play with a chip on their shoulder instead of a heavy burden.  And teams like Colombia, Costa Rica and France have lost top players and have played well.  Given the depth of the Brazilian team, they should be able to weathered the losses better than those teams.  So I will go with Brazil but as I said before, all four remaining teams can win it all.

There seems to be a lot more parity in this World Cup with the CONCACAF and African teams doing better than expected.  But I don't agree with those who think that the U.S. are close to winning the cup.  The U.S. has the best goalie in the world and we always produce great goalies.  We have speed and athleticism.  But our skill level are nowhere near the top teams.  We lost in possession in every game and the discrepancy in possession and shots in the Belgium game only points to our lack of world class skills.  The gap will not be closed completely in 4 or even 8 years.  Only Bradley and Dempsey can start on most teams in the world.  We have 5 Germans on the team and except for Green, Germany have no interest in them.  So unless we get athletes like Lebron James and Kobe Bryant to play soccer and we get a grass root system like they have in European countries, we have a long way to go before we can win the cup.  Sure, we can beat one of final four team on a given day, but to win four knockout round against the best teams, we can't do it in the near future.

My prediction of Roger Federer winiing Wimbledon almost came true.  He played a great tournament but unfortunately father time wins again.  I think this is his last chance to win another major.  I expect that Nadal will pass him in major titles.  Is he the greatest ever?  Given that he has a losing record against Nadal, even though Nadal was rising as Federer started to decline, it is hard to say that Federer is better than Nadal.  But I think Federer is still the best all around player, being in the top 3 of all time on clay, grass and hard courts.  This is something I don't think any other player can claim.