Well, better late than never.  Four years after I implored Jim Harbaugh to come home, he is finally coming back to Ann Arbor.  Brady Hoke is a good man and a good coach but he was over matched at the highest level of college football.  If there is anyone out there who can revive the storied Michigan program, it is Harbaugh.  It would have been great if Harbaugh had accepted the job four years ago, but in a way it is a blessing in disguise.  For one thing, having coached in the NFL gives him more experience and more credential in recruiting.  If he had taken the job four years ago, he may be restless at Michigan now, wondering about the challenge of the NFL.  Having gotten that out of his system, he may be staying at Michigan for a long time as opposed to jumping to the pros after a few years. So I look forward to a long reign for Harbaugh at Michigan.

Of course fans should not get their hopes up too high in the next few years.  The cupboard is relatively bare as Hoke has not recruited well and the records in the past two years is not going to help.  Add to the great job of MSU in recruiting in the state of Michigan and OSU dominating the state of Ohio, it is going to take at least a couple of years to stockpile enough stars to compete with those two programs.  I see 7-5 next season and 8-4 after that.  Michigan can be competitive for the Big Ten championship in 3 years and maybe win it by the time Harbaugh's first recruiting class are seniors.  I think anything more than that is unrealistic and anything less than that and he would not be worth 8 million per year!

I am not trying to get out of my own predicament or elicit sympathy for being an old man but I made some stupid mistakes in my predictions.  I found the first newspaper where I circled the Big Ten winners that led to a 5-4 prediction.  I has PSU winning originally but had not noticed Illinois playing!  So when I go write my blog I used a different newspaper and I missed the PSU game and couldn't figure out how I came up with 5-4 the first time.  After a while I just decided I must have predicted Illinois winning instead of losing to make it 5-4.  When LBOAYM pointed out that the PSU game was missing, I figured the Big Ten can't possibly win 6 games so I decided to make PSU a loser.  So I should be 4-0 at this point but instead I am 2-2!  Nobody's fault but my own so I will stick with the bad result.  But obviously I am getting old:  not able to count to ten and can't remember what predictions I made in the first place!

Despite complaints from older Cuban Americans and certain Republican politicians, I think Obama is correct in engaging Cuba.  It reminds me of Nixon opening up China.  I think very few people today think that was a mistake.  China is still communist today and Cuba may be communist in the foreseeable future.  But I think it is better for the U.S. and the world that China is prosperous today.  The same thing if Cuba's economical condition improves and Cubans and Americans have a lot more exchanges.  Let's put it this way, 50 plus years of sanctions and isolation have not worked.  It is time for a new approach.

The good thing about the Sony hacking scandal is that it wakes us up about how vulnerable we are in this age of the internet.  The smallest and weakest country can potentially hurt us with a cyber attack.  I don't think that Iran and North Korea will ever launch a nuclear attack against us, knowing that a retaliation by us will mean the end of them.  But cyber attacks are real.  Why spend money on training physicists, obtaining uranium and finding ways to launch a nuclear bomb when you can train bunch of hackers and cause great damage?

Here are my predictions for Big Ten bowl games:
Illinois, Rutgers, MSU, Minnesota, Iowa winners.  Maryland, Nebraska, OSU, Wisconsin losers.  So that makes 5-4.  LA Times have Big Ten at 2-5.  The odds makers have even less faith.  All nine teams are underdogs!  So I think I am really going out on the limb here.

Some people are saying that the report criticizing the CIA for torturing will lead to more attacks against us.  I don't think so.  The people who hate us are going to try to attack us anyway.  The people who are on our side understand that intelligence work is difficult and most other countries will have spies who do the same things in the same situations.  Being a democratic and free country does not guarantee that we or anyone else do not do the wrong things sometimes.  Being a democracy does mean that we can be up front about our errors and try to correct them.  I think airing our dirty laundry make us look better in eyes of most of the world.  Look at countries like Russia and China.  They don't tell the world about their human rights abuses.  Do they look good in the eyes of the world?

This is why people like John McCain should be respected.  Unlike other Republicans who criticize the report, he endorses it and call for reforms.  Contrast that to Dick Cheney, who would never admit to any mistakes.  I think by not admitting the Iraq war was wrong, we already know what kind of person Cheney is.  His criticism of the CIA report just cement what most people of the world think of him.

I did see Jeremy Lin wear the "I can't breath" shirt.  I think anyone should be able to voice his opinion.  I think it is great if that is what he feels.  I just hope he didn't feel obligated because all of his teammates are black.

The Ferguson and choke hold cases have brought on protests all over the country.  They also brought on demonstrations and comments by athletes.  So far no repercussions for these athletes such as the Rams players or Charles Barkley.  Nor should there be any.  Athletes, like celebrities, have a forum to make their views of known that the rest of us don't have.  It does not mean that people should agree with or follow what they say.  They are no smarter than us.  But they certainly have rights to their opinions.  The Rams players sided with the protesters and the NFL did not punish them.  Barkley sided with the police and TNT allowed him and Kenny Smith argued on the air.  All those are right calls.

My own opinion is that there should have been indictments in the two cases.  I am not saying that the cops were guilty but as I said before, grand jury indictments are usually easily obtained as compared to convictions.  I think that if prosecutors wanted indictments, they certainly could have presented the evidence in such a way that the grand jury would agree that there were probable causes.  I think if civilians and not cops were involved, there would be no question that the two cases would have gone to trial.  And here is a conflict that I see:  Prosecutors usually work with the police to get the bad guys.  Are there conflict of interests then when it comes to prosecuting cops?  I think in controversial cases they should move outside the area or at least bring in federal prosecutors who do not work with the local police on a regular basis.

Whether the officers were guilty or not in these two cases, there is no denial of the fact that blacks are arrested more frequently, killed more often by police and sentenced to longer jail time.  This is true even if you factor in the higher rates of crime committed by blacks than whites.  A lot of that is due to economic difference.  Rich people do get away with more.  Charles Barkley got community service and fine for throwing someone through a bar window!  A poor black guy would have been punished much more harshly.  Of course, Barkley is recognized by the police and the judges.  He also can afford the best legal representation.  Beyond economics, however, racism I think still involved in a lot of situations.  I do think we are way better as a country in race relations, but we still need to do better.

Alabama, Oregon, FSU and OSU are in!  I have no problem with these selections.  I think that the committee made the right final choices.  The controversy comes with the TCU and Baylor situation.  I think having TCU dropping 3 spots after winning the last game and Baylor got jumped over by OSU are controversial, although not really surprising.  So if they had not release weekly standings all along and just gave the names today, I think there would be little argument.  So let us just have the final standing next season!

Congrats to Landon Donovan for going out as a champion!  A great career playing for the Galaxy and the U.S.  Soccer fans will miss him.  To bad for Lee Nguyen for getting injured during the game.  It would have been great to see Nguyen and Donovan involved in a Finals PK shootout!