When is it going to be enough?  How many more innocent lives have to be lost before we ban all assault weapons and magazines that carry more than 10 bullets at a time.  What are these weapons for except to attack other people?  This is a national security issue.  This is domestic terrorism.  I don't think the freedom to own these assault weapons trumps our freedom from being wire-tapped.  Yet after 9/11 the government can wire-tap citizens.  We kill 4 times more of our fellow citizen each year than 9/11 but we can't give up the freedom of owning assault weapons?

The argument that if good guys can't buy weapons then they can't protect themselves from bad guys is absurd.  It is much more likely that guns owned by ordinary citizen will kill someone innocent, kill someone during an argument, or kill someone accidentally than to have stopped a criminal.  Certainly the guy in Florida who shot the black kid in a struggle would not have even approached the kid if he did not have a gun.  He would have simply called and waited for the police to show up. 

I think we should ban all manufacturing of assault weapons except for those to be purchased by the military and law enforcement.  It is not a right to make these weapons.  After all, I am sure one cannot legally build an atomic bomb.   The line has to be drawn now.

It is time for my yearly Big Ten bowl predictions.  There are 7 teams from the Big Ten in bowl games this year.  It would have been 9 if Penn State and Ohio State were eligible.  Since those two beat Wisconsin, the Big Ten champs, this means everyone plays a higher bowl than they would have otherwise.  So it is not likely the Big Ten will do very well.  This explains why Big Ten teams are all underdogs in their games.  I am going to predict that Michigan State, Michigan and Northwestern are going to win, for a total of 3 victories for the conference.  These three are from 2-4 points underdogs but I think they can come through.  The others have no chance at all will possibly exception of Wisconsin which showed some life against Nebraska.  Still I don't think they can beat Stanford.

Four weeks to go before the fiscal cliff occurs.  I believe that a last second deal will be made to avoid the cliff because both sides are scared of the consequences.  Frankly I don't know why people are afraid of this so called cliff.  I say bring it on.  I think we will survive it and will gain some knowledge of how the economy really works.

The predictions are that if the tax increases and spending cuts occur as scheduled on Jan. 2, 2013, we will lose about 4% of GDP, putting us back into recession.  I am no economist so I don't have any idea if these calculations are accurate.  But this law was passed so that if the so called super committee can't find a way to reduce the deficit then the tax increases and spending cut to be implemented will reduce our deficit by 1.2 trillion dollars.  Now throughout the last few years all I have heard is that we have to reduce the deficit as if not doing so will be the death of our economy.  So now with less than a month we are saying that by reducing the deficit we are going to kill our economy?  So I say let us go over the cliff.  If we go into recession, then I guess reducing the deficit is not the cure all that we heard about in recent years.  But if we don't go into recession then may be we will be more brave about cutting more of our deficit in the future.

The extreme right wants to reduce the deficit by cutting spending only.  The extreme left wants to cut the deficit by raising taxes only.  But most people think that both need to be done.  This cliff forces us to do both just as most people want.  I think initially the stock market will be spooked.  There will also be less spending by consumers.  But after a while maybe we will see that we don't need to spend more money on our military as the next ten nations combined.  Maybe we see that a little cut on medicare do not lead to deaths to our seniors.  Maybe our millionaires will see that losing a few thousand dollars a year in tax should not change their strategy in expanding their businesses.  But if the recession lasts longer than I think it will, well, then maybe we won't be so vocal about drastically reducing the deficits next time.

It is time for Obama to name John Kerry the next secretary of state.  The Susan Rice situation is too distracting.  With the fiscal cliff negotiation going on, Obama should not waste energy on this.  Maybe he feels that Rice got a raw deal and that he should stand by his long time friend.  But I think most people would agree that Kerry is a more qualified choice to begin with.  Kerry would also sail through the confirmation hearings whereas Rice will be dragged through the mud and keep the disaster in Libya on the front page.  I also understand that the Republicans are hypocritical by saying that she gave false info to the nation.  Remember another Rice gave false info about WMD in Iraq.  She became secretary of state.  But this is a fight not worth fighting for Obama.

On  lighter note, I am surprised that neither Apolo Anton Ohno or Emmitt Smith made it to the DWTS final.  But I think Melissa Rycroft was the right champion even though I thought another athlete, Shawn Johnson would win due to her popularity.

With the fiscal cliff looming and the economy is still weak, it would seem that domestic issues will be most dangerous for Obama's second term.  However, I believe that there will be more difficult challenges from foreign affairs in the next 4 years.  I am cautiously optimistic that the economy will be better in the next 2-3 years.  But as the conflict between Israel and Hamas over the last few days show, the outside world will produce predictable and unpredictable headaches.  Besides the middle east, another area of likely conflict is in Asia between China and Japan over some small islands.  In both middle east and Asia, Obama should try to stay as low as possible unless there is a chance to help broker a long lasting peace.

There is really nothing much the U.S. can do about Israel and Hamas other than pressure Egypt to broker a cease fire.  This conflict has been going on for decades and rhetoric about supporting Israel, spoken by Obama and Hilary Clinton, does nothing except for political consumption back home.  I think everybody understands that if one lives in Israel and rockets are attacking them from Hamas, it is human nature to retaliate.  But that would never lead to peace.  As Gandhi said "an eye for an eye only leads to the whole world being blind."  Since there has not been any attacks from PLO controlled West Bank, the U.S. should convince Israel to recognize the government of West Bank as a legitimate state.  The U.S. and Israel should help the new Palestine state to thrive economically.  Eventually support for Hamas in Gaza will drop when the people see that a thriving Palestinian state is possible.  If Obama is bold, that is what he should try to do.  Sending a war ship to the area to show support for Israel will only anger the Arabs, it does nothing to help Israel.

As far as the situation between China and Japan, it can escalate if the U.S. interfere.  I am sure they will not go to war over these islands but the bad blood between them already have an economic impact in Asia.  Again by sending a war ship over there only gets China angry.  The government will use that to rev up nationalism against both Japan and the U.S.  The economic impact will then even be worse.  I say stay low and hope things cool down on their own.  It is really none of our business.  Interesting enough, Taiwan agrees with China about the history of these islands.  This is because China claimed that historically the islands are part of the Taiwan province, which is part of China.  Taiwan, which is closer to these islands than mainland China and Japan, also claims them for itself.  So Taiwan agrees that the islands are part of Taiwan, only that Taiwan is NOT part of China!

Mitt Romney said that Obama won because he gave gifts to Hispanics, college students, gays, and single women.  Of course that would be like saying that the incumbent should always win because he is always able to use policies to buy votes.  In this case Obama was doing what he had promised.  If one believes that college students should not get financial aid or be covered under their parents' health insurance, they can vote against him.  It is like the Republicans promise tax breaks.  Every time the government gives a tax exemption to a corporation, it is just like writing a welfare check. Is that a gift to buy votes?  Why do you think the wealthy are willing to back the Republicans?  It is why defense contractors back the Congressmen on defense budget committee.  I don't think that Romney really understands the country and that is the main reason he and the Republicans lost.

With the economy not recovering fast enough, Romney and the Republicans should have won big.  But instead of focusing on the slowness of the recovery, they blamed immigrants and unions etc. for the problems of the country.  They also focused on social issues such as abortion and gay rights, issues that they cannot win overall.  Regardless of whether you believe that illegal immigrants are a net gain or net loss to the economy, you cannot say that they had ANYTHING to do do with the financial market collapse. But Romney moved way to the right on immigration during the primary and even though he tried to come back to the middle, it was too late.  It also seems insincere.  With the demographic changing, if Romney and the Republicans don't learn from this, it would be difficult for them to win in the future.

Well, it is 2 days left.  Time for my forecast.  It is no secret that there are only a few states that are up for grabs.  They are:  Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Iowa.  Out of these I will say that Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are going to go to Obama.  This will leave Obama with 247 votes needing 23 more.  I will give Florida and Virginia to Romney giving him 248.  So this leaves Ohio with 18, Colorado with 9 Nevada and Iowa with 6 each and New Hampshire with 4.  I predict that Obama will sweep these states and finish with 290.  So it is possible for Obama to win without winning Florida or Ohio (although not very likely).  But Romney must sweep these two and add New Hampshire to his column to win. Does my math look correct?  What is your prediction?

I think Obama again defeated Romney in today's debate.  I think this was Romney's weakest debate of the three.  He basically agreed with Obama on most of his foreign policies.  In an attempt to move more to the middle he now tries to paint himself as a peace maker!  He now agrees with the sanction on Iran, with military action only a last resort.  He agrees that we should be out of Afghanistan by 2014.  One commentator actually said that McGovern has come back to life in the form of Romney.  Obama rightly points out that Romney kept changing his mind.  I think the Republican conservative base must be shocked by what Romney said tonight.

I don't like to use one issue to decide on a candidate but Romney said something that show how much understanding he lacks on foreign affairs.  He said that Iran is our greatest national security threat. This is totally absurd.  If and when Iran actually gets nuclear weapons, it will still has lot less bombs than about 8 other countries in the world.  In truth no nation will attack the U.S. because it know it will be destroyed.  Russia is the only one that can destroy us but even they will die as a result.  So no nation will try to use nuclear weapons against us.  Even if you are trying to pander to Israel, it is still irresponsible to say Iran is our greatest risk.  I am surprised that no commentator on CNN called him out on it.  Obama said terrorism is our biggest threat.  It is a much better answer but still not right in my opinion.  I think cyber attack is the greatest unless you consider that a type of terrorism.  Cyber attack does not require a strong nation or lots of people.  Cyber attack can stop our traffic, communications, electric grid, financial system, even our water supply.  So I think greater resources need to be spent on preventing this.

Overall grades for the 3 debates:  Romney:  B+ B C+   Obama:  C- A- A-

Tomorrow is the big debate.  Due to the closeness of the race, it can have an effect on the outcome of the election.  But I don't think there will be a big swing like it did with first debate.  The first one established Romney as a solid candidate and unless he really bombs in the second, he will still be in better shape than 3 weeks ago.  Obama must stop the bleeding but I doubt he can regain the lead he had even if he beats Romney this time.  Obama already has 4 years of record so most people have already made up their mind about him.  So I think this debate can move the polls only 1 or 2 points either way, not 5or 6 points like last time.  Given the closeness of the race though, 1 or 2 points maybe significant come November.

Romney is obviously trying to be more centrist as the election gets near.  But one thing Obama can point out is that there are several advisers from the Bush era that Romney is using in foreign policies.  Among them are neocons that advised Bush in nation building and spreading "democracy".  While I don't think Romney is agreeing with these people and would get us into war like in Iraq, the fact that he is listening to them is dangerous enough.  This should be pointed out by Obama.  One can argue about which economic policy is better, but the bottom line is Iraq cost us thousands of lives and one trillion dollars.  These neocons are the people we certainly should not listen to.

I have not been writing because I have been away, not because of the Obama debate debacle.  So today we have the vp debate.  I think it was a draw.  Both Biden and Ryan did what they were supposed to do:  Biden attacking and Ryan showing that he is much more capable than Palin four years ago.  The vp debates rarely have any significance on the election and given the draw today, this one certainly would not make any difference.  How Obama responds in the next two debates will go a long way in determining who wins this close race.

I think it is easier to be the challenger in these debates because one can always attack the policies of the incumbent.  Like the Middle East policies.  The region is a mess and nobody can possibly make things look good out there.  The challenger can say things like being tougher on Iran.  But there is nothing tougher that can be done short of waging war.  When pressed about what would be his criteria to go to war, Ryan says only if the security risks of the country is a stake.  Well, I don't see how Iran having nuclear weapons is of security risks to the U.S.  Anyone who thinks that Iran will wage nuclear war against the U.S. is crazy.  I think that if Romney/Ryan are elected, there will be a greater chance that we will preemptively attack Iran and I think that will be a grave error.