Just watched a documentary on Vietnam called "Hearts and Minds".  It reminds me of the rhetoric of the presidential candidates who are saying they will destroy ISIS.  In particular, Ted Cruz, who said that he will "carpet bomb them".  This shows how little Cruz and others like him have a grasp of history.  The last time we carpet bombed somebody was in Vietnam.  That was totally unsuccessful.  Never mind that carpet bombing is borderline war crime.  The aim is to destroy an entire area, whatever or whoever is there.  In Vietnam, it was not military targets but an entire city like Hanoi.  That did not destroy the North Vietnamese army or the Viet Cong.  This will work even less against ISIS since they have no country and they are not even the majority in a city.  So if you carpet bomb  a city you won't destroy ISIS but will get more resentment and more recruits.

All these rhetoric of shouting I will destroy the enemy or make American great again are just rhetoric.  There are no reasonable strategy in this.  In fact there is a lack of understanding of the world outside America.  This remind me of General William Westmoreland, who commanded the troops in Vietnam.   He claimed that his counterpart in North Vietnam is fighting a war of attrition by sacrificing thousands of men at each battle.  He said that "The Oriental doesn't put the same high price on life as does a Westerner...We value life and human dignity.  They don't care about human life and dignity."  I find this view racist.  Beyond that, this lack of understanding of other people led to our defeat in Vietnam.  I think some of these candidates will lead us into the same disaster if one of them is elected.

I would not go as far as Michael Moore who called it a racial crime and ethnic cleansing.  But I am shocked and appalled at what happened in Flint with its water.  I would agree that if this was happening in a rich suburb of Michigan or the state capitol, Lansing, this would have been resolved a long time ago.

There are a lot of blame to go around from what I can see.  First, you would think that if you are switching to a different source of water, the new source must be tested way before to be sure it is safe.  In this case there was lots of chloride in the Flint river water and it is corrosive to pipes.  That was not difficult science to understand.  When the residents complained of bad smell and color in the water, it was ignored.  Can't see that happening in Bloomfield Hills.  Then GM would not use the water because it was corroding engine parts.  If it is bad for engines, wouldn't someone figure that it was bad for pipes and people?  Then when finally the city council voted to go back to Lake Huron water, the emergency manager appointed by the governor vetoed the move.  Given the evidence at that point, how can he morally do that?  And at that point, nobody in the governor's office see the problem already?

There are probably more blame to go around but I only recently read about this.  I hope someone from Michigan can give more insight to this.

It looks like the sanctions against Iran will start to be lifted.  Iran has been fulfilling its obligations so far to dismantle its nuclear arms program.  There is no guarantee that it will not start the program in the future but this agreement has delayed Iran from getting a nuclear bomb for at least more than one year.  There are still skeptics, of course.  But if there was no agreement, Iran would have gotten the bomb by now and Israel may have attacked. So we have avoided that and if Iran goes back on its word, then attacking is still an option.

One plus as the result of the agreement is that at least there is a dialogue between the U.S. and Iran.  This led to release of four or five hostages today.  There was also the quick release of American sailors who wandered into Iran waters.  Somebody made a big mistake here and gave Iran an opportunity for propaganda.  But with sanctions about to be lifted Iran acted better than they would have otherwise and released the sailors by the next day.  The GOP candidates were screaming for Obama to act tough.  But what do they want to do?  Start a war over the capture of 2 boats and 10 sailors?  Obama and Kerry did the right thing by not escalating things and quietly negotiated for the release of the sailors.  Apparently some people mistake talking tough as being competent or smart.

It seems like everyday now I read that a Sikh is being attacked because some idiot thinks he is a Muslim.  Of course those idiots have no reason to attack a Muslim either since overwhelming majority of Muslims are not terrorists.  A Sikh bus driver in California was beat up recently.  Somehow he was able to prevent the bus from crashing.  Somehow the perpetrator has not been charged with a hate crime.  He was calling the driver a terrorist before attacking.  If that isn't a hate crime, I don't know what is.

More than a year ago I wrote about Cliven Bundy who owed the government a million dollars in fees and fines for grazing on federal land.  Now his son Ammon is the leader of a group that is taking over a federal building in a remote area of Oregon.  Previously I said that the government should approach the Cliven Bundy situation cautiously.  There is no need to turn this into another Waco.  But more than a year later that situation has not resolved.  Bundy still owes the money.  Now his son has seized this building and is not clear what his ultimate goal is.  Again, armed men are involved and are threatening law enforcement with violence if they try to getting them out of there.

I have no good solution to peacefully end this.  Apparently law enforcement has none either since  they still have not gotten the money from Bundy after all this time.  I am quite sure that anyone who owes the IRS a million but has no guns will be in jail already.  So is this going to lead to others who will just use threats of violence to ward off the government?  Is that what the Second Amendment is about?  I also wonder what the response would be if a group of armed black men take over a federal building?

Well, the Big Ten was mediocre, winning half of their games.  That is still better than my 4-6 record in my predictions.  Even with that in mind, I will ring in the new year with my predictions for 2016.  Do not take these predictions to bet in Las Vegas!

I predict that Clinton will become the first woman president of the U.S.  I have this feeling that Ted Cruz may actually be the GOP nominee.  But regardless who it is, Trump have done enough damage for it to be unlikely that the GOP will beat Clinton.  I don't think Trump will run as a third party candidate but he will still be a thorn on the side of the nominee. 

The stock market will have several wild gyrations but will end up within 3% of today's level.  China will have even slower growth rate this year than last but the Chinese government will still be able to stimulate it out of deep trouble.  Otherwise the world economy will tank.  The slow economy in China is going to affect commodity prices and will affect countries like Australia and Brazil which depend on Chinese purchases.  The U.S. will not be affected as much and with oil prices continue to be low will actually see the dollar gaining in value.

There will be 3 major terrorist attacks in the world but the overall strength of ISIS will decrease.  They will hold less territory than this past year.  With oil prices dropping and being mired in Syria, Putin will be less aggressive but will still be a pain in the butt for the world.

I don't think there will be a terrorist attack at the Olympics.  But there will be a lot of problems like transportation, venues not up to par, protests and crime.  The U.S. will win the medal count over China.

Odds against it happening are quite high, but I predict that NE will beat Seattle again in the Super Bowl since I am not convinced any other team out there, including the Panthers, are likely to win.  I take Cleveland over GS in the NBA because I think that Curry may not be healthy for the finals and Lebron will have Kevin Love and Irving back this year.  Don't know anything about the NHL anymore so I will just take Montreal since they haven't won in a while.  I like Dave Roberts and I think Ryu will come back to help Kershaw carry the Dodgers to a World Series title over the Tigers.