I was going to write about the Dodger fight anyway so it is interesting that it was brought up in the previous blog.  Please read the previous blog to see my comment on Benghazi attack.

It is a pet peeve of mine that baseball teams retaliate whenever one of their batters get hit.  Last week Dodger phenom Puig was hit by Arizona pitcher Kennedy.  I don't think it was intentional as Puig was killing outside fastballs but had missed a couple of inside ones.  So naturally Kennedy is going to throw inside.  The next inning Dodger Greinke hits an Arizona batter in the back.  There was no need to retaliate as the first one was not intentional.  The umpire gave both sides a warning.  The stupid thing for Greinke is that the score is tie.  There was no reason to retaliate and let the go ahead run to get on base.  The next inning Kennedy was even more stupid.  He hits Greinke on the head and rightly gets tossed and subsequently suspended.  Why do that when you know you are going to get tossed?   In a tie game, you are going to let a pitcher get on base to represent the go ahead run?  Is it more important to retaliate than to win a ball game?  To me this code of conduct in baseball is absolutely ridiculous.  You rather lose the game than not retaliate?  These people ought to have their heads examined.

The benches of course empty after Greinke gets hit.  McGwire, Mr. Steroid, acts like he is still on steroids, challenges Gibson and Matt Williams.  These old guys should grow up and try to stop the young guys from fighting, not add more fuel to fire.  Greinke already had been out several weeks after breaking his left collar bone when an idiot charged the mound.  Why are these people risking injuries for some stupid code for "protecting" your teammates? 

They should have automatic ejection whenever a pitcher hits a batter on the head.  In hockey a high stick causing bleeding in the head is a five minute major, regardless of intent.  I think you can control a fast ball better than a stick when the hockey player is jostling on the boards.  You can go inside with a pitch but not to the head.  A batter who rushes the mound after getting hit will get an automatic 10 game suspension.  Players leaving bench gets automatically rejected, like in basketball.  Coaches who rush out like McGwire will be put into a nursing home.  I think these rules will stop this nonsense.

The approval rating for Obama has gone down a little with all the so called scandals around him.  Frankly I don't see any faults with Obama in terms of Benghazi, the press, and the IRS.  His administration could have handled the aftermath of Benghazi better but I think most Americans would agree that it is a dangerous world for our diplomats and that we can protect them 100%.  The thing with the press again should be handled better but I don't think most Americans are very sympathetic with journalists, especially when it comes to national security.  There is so far nothing to suggest that the IRS situation came from the administration.  And it would be incredibly stupid if Obama actually had anything to do with it.  This may have some legs because everyone hates the IRS.  (Except for me, of course)!  So to me it would be unfair to blame Obama for these problems.

On the other hand, I have trouble with Obama's handling of Syria.  Unlike people like McCain, Obama really did not want to get involved.  But he made the mistake of saying if Syria uses chemical weapons, it would have crossed the line.  So when this occurred, Obama was painted into a corner.  Not only do the hawks call him a coward, internationally people expect him to do something.  He finally announced that he will arm the rebels.  I do not think we should get involved at all and certainly not get involved because we had draw a line in the sand.  I don't think arming the rebels will win the civil war.  Even if it did, sectarian violence will continue as there does not appear to be a reasonable group that will govern the country peacefully.  With all the troops we had in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have not stopped sectarian violence.  We should not get involved unless we have reasonable idea of what the end game will be.

The Republican conservatives are siding with Obama while liberal Democrats are attacking him?  Justice Breyer sides with the conservatives while Justice Saclia sides with the liberals?  What is going on in D.C.?  The first part is easy to understand.  With revelation of the intelligence program PRISM keeping track of vast amount of phone calls and internet communication, Obama being called "Big Brother" by liberals is easy to understand.  It is also obvious why Republicans come to Obama's defense.  This type of program was put in place by the Bush administration.  So while saying that Obama is hypocritical for embracing the program now after attacking Bush's policies, the Republicans have to say that Obama is right for continuing the program.

I would have to agree with Obama and the Republicans.  (That is a weird sentence).  It is easy to attack the government for infringement of freedom as an outsider.  But once you are the government and responsible for security, you are going to try to get as much legal power as possible.  If Obama had stopped PRISM and an attack occurs, he would be fried.  Now he can say there is Congressional and court oversight of the program.  He is still hypocritical but he would rather be hypocritical than a failure at national security.  For all those people who cry about privacy, how many of you have facebook and other social media accounts?  How many of you buy things over the internet or use membership cards at a Costco?  You no longer have much privacy.  Companies all over the world know what you like or dislike and how best to sell you stuff already!  So at least for now the invasion of my privacy by private sources is more annoying to me than any government monitoring of my communications.  (You are welcome, Big Brother who is reading this).

Regarding Scalia and Breyer reversing roles, I don't understand how that happened.  This case was about whether the police can obtain DNA from anyone who was arrested as opposed to someone who was already convicted.  Breyer voted yes and Scalia voted no.  I agree with Breyer and the conservatives.  (Again, a weird sentence).   I don't see how this is anymore infringement than getting finger printed and a mug shot when you are arrested now.  Sure, DNA reveals more of you than the finger prints.  But this is hardly more intrusion to the privacy of someone arrested.  This law would increase the national data base to help solve crimes.  So I think the benefits outweigh the infringements here.

Saw a program on PBS last night about Detroit called Detropia.  Things still look very bleak even with the auto companies making good profit now.  It talked about mayor Dave Bing is trying to consolidate the city's population to a smaller area and try to use the rest of the land to start urban farming.  The program did not really talk about how these two things can be accomplished.  It seems to me people are not going to willingly move to another part of the city unless there is a benefit, like a tax rebate.  As Bing said, the city is broke so how is it going to pay people to move?  And how is this urban farming to going to work?  What do they do with the land in the winter when things don't grow with snow on the ground?  Are these programs still on the agenda?  All I know is that I don't want to be in Bing's shoes!

This program made me think about the fires in Bangladesh factories recently.  There has been a lot of calling by activists to stop manufacturing in Bangladesh and other countries where safety violations are rampant.  While that is well meaning, I am sure the people of Bangladesh and other countries don't want the manufacturing to stop.  People who are starving are willing to take whatever safety risks to feed their children.  The Mexicans are willing to risk dying to cross over to the U.S. to find a job.  So the people of Bangladesh are willing to work in unsafe factories.  We should demand that companies from the U.S. do a much better job of policing the factories that make their products.  But in reality we are not doing the impoverish people any favor by taking away their jobs.

The truth is there are more and more people competing for limited manufacturing jobs all over the world.  Detroit will not get significant number of jobs back.  The city will have reinvent itself.  But with the poor public education system, I am not sure how they are going to be able to train the next generation in other types of work.  This will not be limited to Detroit but to rest of America as well.  I can see where the gap between the rich and poor will widen.  If you are not educated enough to get a professional job, you will be stuck in the service economy.  The middle class will shrink.  Having said that, I am not a pessimist for America as a whole.  Most of America can avoid what happened to Detroit and other old cities. Will talk about that in the future.

I think for the first time there is no surprising finalists for DWTS.  All four finalists are deserving.  I think anyone of the four can win.  A lot will depend on the performances Monday.  Based on consistency and how I think the fan voting will go, I predict the order of finish:  1.  Pickler. 2.  Jones.  3.  Raisman. 4.  Zendeya.   I would not be surprised if it was backwards!

The action of the  IRS making it difficult for conservative groups such as the Tea Party to get tax exempt status is obviously wrong.  No particular group should be discriminated against when applying for something from the government.  An investigation is needed to see how high  the order came from or was it something that a group of bureaucrats decided to do it themselves. But beyond that, why do any group of people or institution get tax exempt status anyway?

I found 10 major ways to get tax exempt on the internet.  The most troubling to me is religious organizations.  I mean, if we have separation of church and state, then why do we give favor to churches.  I understand that the law does not favor a particular religion.  But then how do you decide what is a reasonable religion and not a dangerous cult?  It maybe reasonable for the money raised for charity work by a church to be exempt.  But what about the money raised to try to get more members?  I don't think the government should be helping any church to increase its membership.  Another way that is just troubling is exemption granted to labor unions for various activities such as "educating members".  This is basically a way of promoting unions which lead to increase membership.  In fact, using money for education purpose seem to be a popular way for an organization to get exempt status.  Again, it is not the business of the government to increase any organization's membership, in my opinion.

There maybe public good that come out of exempting certain organizations.  But I think in most cases the benefits are questionable at best.  Since both the Republicans and Democrats claim that they are for simplifying the tax code, getting rid of the tax exempt status laws would be a good first step.  Why do we let the IRS make judgment calls of what groups of citizens get such a big tax advanatage?

I have just finished reading Jason Collin's article in SI.  I applaud him for coming out but I don't agree with some people who compare him with Jackie Robinson.  When Robinson came to the Majors there was not much movement in the areas of civil rights.  Even some of his teammates were against him.  I think the gay right movement is much further along now and judging by the response Collins have received, I don't think he will face challenges anywhere near what Robinson faced during his time.  That is not to say that he won't be heckled by fans.  Jeremy Lin was heckled even during Ivy League games and those fans are affiliated with some of the greatest institutions of higher education in this country.  But Collins will not be bothered in the locker room or by opponents.  Ironically everyone who has come out against him (and there are very few), has been attacked themselves in the court of public opinion.  Take Chris Broussard of ESPN.  He gave his opinion that as a religious person, he is against gay life style.  He was immediately attacked.  While I don't agree with him, he has the right to what he believes.  If you only have to listen to opinions that is agreeable to you, then you are not living in a democratic society.

Even though Collins is technically an active player in the NBA, he is at or near the end of his career.  In fact, if this article did not come out, the chances of him of getting a contract next year is slim.  So I don't think he will be hurt in terms of staying in the league by coming out.  I don't think you can accuse any team of prejudice for not signing Collins for next season.  It will be more interesting when a player near the peak of his career come out and is a free agent.  Then we will know what teams think.  I bet that most team will act depending more of that player's ability than sexual orientation.

It is interesting that Jason's identical twin Jarron is not gay.  Obviously having identical DNA does not mean same personality.  On the other hand environment do not determine personality either as both Jason and Jarron grew up in the same household, went to the same high school and college.  So who knows what really make up who we are.  Interesting enough of the 4 sets of identical twins I know of in NBA, the skills of 3 sets of twins are about the same.  Tom and Dick Van Arsdale, the Morris twins of Phoenix Suns and Jason and Jarron Collins are all about same in style and skill as each person's twin.  Only Brooke and Robin Lopez are somewhat different with Brooke being a better offensive and overall player whereas Robin is better on defense.  But given that Brooke and Robin have big difference in hairstyle whereas the other 3 sets of twins look exactly the same, I conclude that hairstyle is the ultimate determining factor in skills of NBA twins.

We got the two bombers but why they did this is still unclear.  All I know is that the Russian government is happy that Chechens are involved.  This will make it easier in the future for the Russians to go in and claimed that they are going after terrorists.  In the past, the U.S. may have considered Chechens freedom fighters.  I guess terrorists are the ones against your cause, while freedom fighters are those for your cause.  From indications so far the bombers did not do this for political reasons.  It seems likely that the older brother was radicalized because of feeling of alienation in this country.  That certainly was a reason in terrorist activities in the U.K.  But in this case, I think this is not a valid excuse for these brothers.  For all account they were doing well financially and the young one was in school and had many friends.  They had lived what most immigrants think of as the American dream.  To turn against the country that gave them asylum is just evil.  If they did not like it here, they could have gone back like their parents.  In fact one went back for 6 months, he could have just stayed there if he thought America was evil.

So are they going to ban pressure cookers now?  If shoe bombs and liquid bombs have failed and still we have to take off our shoes and give up our water before boarding, why allow pressure cookers which have succeeded, to be sold?   Oh, I forgot.  Being a successful weapon now, pressure cookers will be protected under the Second Amendment as arms.

After following the Masters this weekend, I am convince more than ever that it is the most annoying sport.  I rarely watch golf except when Tiger is in contention or when Jack Nicklaus was in contention in the old days.  These two were so much better than their contemporaries that you just have to watch to see if they can come up with the heroics.  Sure, once in a while somebody like Lee Trevino, Seve Ballesteros or Tom Watson might go on a good run and you may watch.  But otherwise if Tiger or Jack were not in contention, I do not watch.

So this weekend with Quan Tianlang being the youngest player ever to make the cut and Tiger being in contention, I tuned in.  So what happens?  They penalize the poor 14 year old for slow play.  Now, I see players agonizing over two foot putts, changing clubs and even going to the porta-john during golf tournament and they are going to penalize this kid for slow play?  The LA Times wrote that since 1997 there were 22 penalties for slow play in the European Tour.  There were none in the U.S. PGA tour during this time.  The official that penalized Quan is European.  He is also the guy that penalized Ballesteros twice and Harrington once in a major.  It seems to me that is not uniform officiating.  Maybe this guy is one of the few who is enforcing the rules correctly.  Or maybe he just like to get on tv.  They said that Quan's group was 22 minutes behind by the 17th hole.  Well, the kid maybe the reason for this but I would think that Ben Crenshaw shooting an 84 during that round may have slowed things up.  If they want to speed up the game, have the players run the course instead of walking.  This way the 14 year old will have an advantage for sure!

Tiger then got penalized 2 strokes for dropping the ball 2 yards from where he was supposed to.  I mean what is 2 yards when you are 200 yards from the hole.  If he move the ball near the green, yes, he should be penalized or even disqualified.  I know Tiger should know the rules.  But he obviously did not otherwise he would not have incriminated himself by saying he dropped it 2 yards from his previous shot while being interviewed.  In fact, the rule committee had watched the tape after a view called in about the violation and decided there was not enough evidence to penalize Tiger.  It is only with his own incrimination that they made the ruling.  Can you imagine someone calling in and say Lebron had stepped out of bounds and the replay was not conclusive and they ruled only after Lebron admitted he stepped out, after the game.  If golf has all these anal rules and they insist they be followed, then have officials everywhere on the course to observe every shot and ball drops and make rulings right there.  It is a rich sport that can afford the number of officials needed.  It is not fair for the players to know every rule and then say that not knowing the rule is not an excuse on not calling a penalty on himself. 

Given all my displeasure with the game, obviously I don't think it should be in the Olympics.  We don't need to add another rich man's sport to a menu that already include sailing and equestrian.  It is a game even someone like Tiger or Jack win less than 20% of the time, so it is relatively meaningless to be called an Olympic champion.  Also can you imagine the controversy if an European official call a penalty on a Chinese golfer who is in contention for a medal?  It will be USA/USSR basketball 1972 all over again!

I am not too bummed about M losing to Louisville.  I think the better team won although M could have won that game.  Burke is going to the NBA as expected and Hardaway will probably also even though I think he will be drafted higher if he stayed another year.  I think Spike proved that he can be the point guard and the other freshmen will be much better next year.  I am already surprise how much McGary has improved already.  So I think they will be in contention again next year in the very tough Big Ten.

After I had said that North Korea did not post much of a threat, Kim Jong Un started to cause problems by putting North Korea in a state of war preparation.  That would seem counter to my claim that secular dictators are not irrational and their first priority is to survive and keep power.  Kim's action does appear irrational, trying to pick a fight with the most powerful country in the world.  It is possible that he is crazy and thus throw out all of my theory.  But it is not likely the case.  His father also had seem to be crazy at times.  But each time he threatened, he was just trying to get concession from the U.S.  Kim Jong Il also had at least 3 sons so if Jong Un is really crazy, I don't think he would have been picked as the successor. 

I think that being so young and being the third generation dictator, there is a lot of pressure to show that he is tough enough for the job.  There may even be some possibility of someone planning a coup.  If Kim knew about such threat, the best way to prevent it is to rev up nationalism and making himself look tough and capable of leading.  Certainly having been educated in Europe, he can't possibly think that he can win a war.  But if, like his father before him, he is able to get some concession, then his hold on power will be stronger.

The U.S. should act calmly.  We should put more military power into the region but do not sound threatened.  I think eventually China will get through to Kim behind close doors.  China has great interest in keeping the peace because a war would destabilize the region.  War would also likely destroy North Korea.  Even though North Korea is an unreliable ally, China gains leverage with the U.S. by being North Korea's main benefactor.  China also does not want war refugees coming over the border.  Most importantly a war would mean greater U.S. involvement in the region.  This will increase American influence in Asia and make China's goal of becoming the dominant power in Asia much more difficult to achieve. So China will make some assurance to Kim about his survival and convince him to pull back.