The Iranian nuclear deal is praised as a historic deal by Obama and his supporters and is derided as a historic mistake by his critics.  It is neither of these but a baby step toward possible resolution that has miles to go.  For one thing it is just an interim agreement for 6 months with a hope of a permanent deal.  For another thing it is nowhere near approval by the U.S. Congress and it still can be vetoed by the Ayatollah of Iran.  Even if these hurdles are overcome, it will just slow down Iran's progress toward the bomb, assuming verification of its end of the bargain.  So this is not some historic agreement.  On the other hand, how is it a historic mistake to give Iran a few billion dollars in relief of the sanction to see if it is serious in negotiations?  The outcries by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Republican Congress are just absurd.

The truth is despite the tough sanctions, Iran has made progress toward making the bomb since the sanctions started.  The technology to make the bomb is not so sophisticated.  Iran certainly has the scientists capable of doing it.  Israel and the U.S. can slow the process by bombing Iran but they cannot stop it entirely without going to outright war. This certainly is against the interest of the U.S. and I believe would be against the interests of Israel.  So a diplomatic solution is the only possible way out.  Rouhani, the newly elected president of Iran, is a possible hope.  He maybe a wolf in sheepskin as his critics say.  But so what if he turned out to be that?  We would just tighten the sanctions again.  The alternative would be to continue what we are doing without give Rouhani a chance.  In that case I believe Iran will get the bomb in the near future.  And if sanctions cripple Iran into extreme poverty when they do have the bomb, its leader will be more likely to use the bomb as a means of keeping national unity.  When you push a rat into a corner, it will bite even if it knows it cannot win.

And if Iran uses the bomb, it would not be against the U.S.  That is not a realistic capability for Iran even if it develops the bomb.  And even if Iran can attack the U.S. with the bomb, it knows it would be extinguished as a nation if it does so.  But if the U.S. bombs Iran to prevent it from having the bomb, it would increase by many folds the numbers of terrorist recruits against the U.S.  A nuclear Iran does pose threats to Israel and Saudi Arabia.  But Israel has many nuclear bombs already and can destroy Iran.  Saudi Arabia has no nuclear weapons now and the danger is that they will respond to a nuclear Iran with a bomb of its own.  But given the importance of oil for western nations, any attack on Saudi Arabia will also mean the end of Iran.  In any case, Israel and Saudi Arabia should recognize that no amount of sanctions and air attack will stop Iran from becoming nuclear.  Diplomacy, while extremely difficult, is their only hope for peace.

Just a few comments about things that are of little importance to most people:

The Democrats decide to use the nuclear option to get rid of filibusters for nominations.  How come the Republicans couldn't filibuster the nuclear option?   I think they should keep the filibuster but make it true filibusters.  That is the senator actually has to stand there and talk non stop like Ted Cruz did.  This way the Republicans can't complain about the Democrats stopping a tradition.  It also allows the Democrats to filibuster when they are the minority.  But if someone wants to stop a nomination that badly, he should stand there and talk non stop otherwise it is not a true filibuster but is minority rules.

The Tigers trade Prince Fielder to the Rangers for Ian Kinsler.  I believe it is a good trade for the Tigers.  I think Fielder is on the downside of his career although in a smaller park he may hit more homeruns next year for the Rangers.  This will free up money for the Tigers to sign extensions to Scherzer and Cabrera.  Cabrera can also move back to first base and make it easier for his body. 

MSU played well in beating Kentucky.  MSU has an excellent team to make a Final Four run this season.  But Kentucky is very young and they have a higher ceiling they can possibly reach.  So I will pick Kentucky to win the championship.  But of course most teams don't reach their full potential so I will not bet any money on my own pick.

Speaking of MSU, they look to be winning their football division easily.  But I would not overlook Northwestern.  NW appears to be the unluckiest team in the world.  They could easily be 9-1 but instead they may not even be bowl eligible. 

Who is this old guy name Bill who is still alive on DWTS when people who are way better than him got voted out the last 3-4 weeks?  I know he is some kind of comedians but I had never heard of him before.  I can't believe that he is popular with people younger than me and people who are older probably can't figure out how to vote.  He is about my age and dance almost as bad.  I would like to know the demographic that vote for him!

Jeff Daniels won the Emmy as the star of "Newsroom" with his speech about America not being the greatest nation anymore.  Some people would say this is heresy.  Some would say Daniels is correct.  I say this is not a true or false question.  In fact it is the wrong question.  The greatest nation label implies that a country is better than all others.  This, however, does not mean a country is actually GREAT.  Certainly it does not mean that a country is even good at everything.  I mean, I can be the best dancer in town but if everybody in town has two left feet then I may not be such a good dancer.  So when one says that America is not the greatest ANYMORE, it may or may not be a true statement but it is not all that meaningful.

The way I look at it, America was probably the greatest nation in the 1960s.  When I came to the U.S. the thing that struck me was how positive Americans think of their country.  Certainly Americans thought of their country as the greatest 50 years ago.  I would agree with them (I was not an American at that time).  Compare to other countries America was so much better, especially for someone who came from a British colony and whose ancestral home land is a communist country in deep poverty.

Today a lot more Americans seem to feel America is no longer at the top.  As Jeff Daniels pointed out, we are mediocre or worse in terms of education, life expectancy and infant mortality compared to other developed nations.  We no longer dominate in manufacturing.  We are frightened by terrorism.  Yet we kill tens of thousands of our own citizens each year.  We have a dysfunctional government that is deeply divided.  We have more people in prisons than any western country.  Daniels is correct with all these stats. 

So some countries do better than us in certain things.  It does not make any one of them greater than us.  We should try to improve on those areas that we are behind in.  But we have fallen behind not because we got worse but because other countries have improved faster.  Our life expectancy did not go down, for example, but it just has not gone up as fast as other countries.  Japan, for example, has improved a lot since the 60s.  It does many things better than us.  But I would not say that Japan is greater than us overall.  Same with China.  So the gap has closed but I think we are still at the top.  We just need to improve on many fronts.

So our world standing may not be as dominant as in the 60s.  But I think we are a better nation today.  Look at a show like "Mad Men" and see how people lived 50 years ago.  We smoke and drink less today and thus are much more healthy than before.  We live in bigger houses on average today and drive better cars.  We had two Kennedys assassinated along with MLK in less than one decade.  We were in a losing war in Vietnam with tens of thousands of Americans killed.  We had race riots in many cities.  Blacks could not drink out of the same fountains as whites. There was little diversity in the workplace.  Women were seldom seen in science or business.  So even if we were ranked the greatest 50 years ago because the rest of the world was more screwed up than us, it was meaningless.  I say we are better today and the world as a whole is better today.

So my fellow Americans:  Be as optimistic as the first generation of Americans I met.  A country that has gone from civil rights violations as being legal to electing a black president, a country that is no longer worried about a a nuclear attack from a communist adversary, a country that still produced way more Nobel prize winners than any other, and a country that immigrants still flock to; cannot be too bad.  Yes, we have a lot to improve on but I think we will meet the challenges.

The Supreme Court is taking a case of city council prayer from Greece, New York.  The question is can someone in a government meeting pray to a particular god or religion.  A Jewish person and an atheist brought suit against the town for invoking Jesus in the prayers.  There is a good chance that the Court will side with the city on this one.  I do not have a religious preference and I don't care how others pray.  But if the conservative majority on the Court say that a city does not have to be neutral in its prayers, I think it will be a blow to the separation of church and state.  I can see a day when the Muslim majority in a city like Dearborn, Michigan invoke Islamic prayers to open council meetings.  How about a town with Jewish majority or Buddhist majority?  I think keeping prayers neutral is less divisive in the future.

I read that Detroit maybe electing the first white mayor since the 1970s.  I don't know anything about this Mike Duggan who is well ahead in the polls.  I doubt that anyone can turn Detroit around in the near future but if someone can do it, I don't care if he is black, white or purple.

Lately I have some problems with Obama which I believe will hurt his legacy.  I understand that second terms are more difficult as scandals are more likely the longer you are in office.  There are also change of advisers.  Your supporters are no longer worrying about your reelection but more about their own future.  Having said that it still appears to me that Obama is not doing well in his second term.  I understand there would be glitches with the unveiling of Obamacare.  But given his campaigns ran so well with the help of technology geeks, how is is possible that the tech work is so poor with Obamacare.  This is his signature legislation, you would think he would personally be sure that any problems will be reported to him.  So he cannot plead ignorance.  He has to take responsibility for at least bad management and not lay all the blame on his secretary of health. 

The same with the international spying.  I understand every country spies on its enemies AND friends.  So it is a bit of hypocritical for all these countries to accuse the U.S. of spying on them.  But the White House cannot claim that nobody there knows that foreign leaders like Merkle has her cell phone tapped.  If this is the work of some stupid agent, put it out there.  But I cannot believe that Obama would not know this before Snowden did.  If we are not doing anything that our allies are not doing then Obama needs to say so himself.  I personally don't know the value of tapping the German chancellor's personal cell phone unless it is trying to get info why Germany is doing better than us economically!  In any case, with Obamcare and this spying problem, it is time for Obama is get better focus on his managing skills and say "the buck stops here!"

JP Morgan Chase is going to pay $13 billion to the U.S. government.  It is a bit of good news to recoup some money lost during the financial crisis from dangerous investments.  But in the long run this does nothing to deter financial meltdown as a result of risky moves by Wall Street.  A big bank like Morgan Chase can absorb such a fine and eventually pass the losses to customers and investors.  The executives will still make a lot of money.   Its chairman Jaime Dimon still made millions even after cutting his own bonus by half.  To understand that fines are of no deterrence, just witness Morgan Chase lost tons of money last year because of derivatives.  That supposedly was the work of one bad employee but you have to wonder why nobody at this big institution catch this before it got out of hand.  I bet if all executives had to pay every fine or loss out of their own pockets and that there is a great chance for criminal charges, the risky behaviors would be much less.

There is still possibility of criminal charges with this case.   But don't hold your breath.  How many people have gone to jail for the financial crisis?   You cannot tell me that practically nobody did anything illegal that led to the crisis.  So unless the government pass laws that have teeth in stopping such risky behavior and the government is willing to prosecute those responsible for endangering our economy, we will have another crisis in the near future. 

On a lighter note, I turned off the Lions football game when they turned over on downs with less than 2 minutes remaining in the game.  Then I found out they came back to win by one point!  I cannot remember the Lions ever getting a win like this before.  I wonder how Jerry Jones look after the game!

Both of my picks for the World Series lost 4 games to 2 in the league championship series.  Apparently having the best starting pitching is not enough now a days.  In the case of the Dodgers they could not hit and their ace lost twice.  In the case of the Tigers, they also could not hit and their bullpen lost the series for them.  I still think both teams are set up for the postseason for next few years and given any luck and some work on their rosters, they can win the World Series soon.

The Dodgers don't need much change.  If Puig continues to improve and Kemp, Ramirez and Ethier come back healthy next season, they will be the top contenders.  Their top 3 starters: Kershaw, Grienke and Ryu are the best in the league.  If they get Billingsly and Beckect back next season they are set with the rotation.  They also have Carlos Marmol in case.  They have a good bullpen if Kenley Jensen is not a one year wonder.  They may lose Brian Wilson as the set up man as he has proved that he can be a closer again.

Speaking of Wilson, the Tigers should try to sign him.  I think he can be an elite closer again but the Dodgers don't want to pay him top closer salary since they have a younger Jensen.  But the Tigers need to bolster the bullpen badly and should try to outbid multiple teams for him.  The question I have is Prince Fielder still usable?  He hit what, 20 some homeruns this season, way below his average.  He was a no show in the postseason.  He is a terrible base runner and not just because of his lack of speed.  I understand he has a long contract so I don't know what the Tigers can do about him.  If Cabrera comes back healthy and Martinez continues to hit, the Tigers still have enough hitting the win the division.  Like the Dodgers their top 3 starters are the best in the league so they will be strong contenders again.  But they need more bats or speed to help the starting pitchers in the postseason.

Finally the government shutdown and debt ceiling problem is over--for about three months.  We have managed to kick the can down the road again.   Of course none of this charade should have happened in the first place.  The GOP got nothing for their effort to stop Obamacare except angering most of the nation and the world financial markets.  The bill passed tonight could and should have been passed 2 weeks ago.  It was a pain that we should not have had to go through.  I blame the Tea Party which accomplished nothing and Boehner who could have called for a vote much earlier instead of trying to appease the Tea Party people.

Having lost on Obamacare the conservatives are trying to blame the deficit on Obama.  Steve King of Iowa said that if conservative policies would have been put in five years ago we would not have this deficit now.  Yes, we would all have been bankrupt by now instead.  Did they forget conservative policies were in place before Obama took over.  They had the Bush tax cut.  There was actually a surplus when Bush took over.  The banks failed during his term.  As I have said in the past, I don't blame the severe recession on Bush because the main culprits were Wall Street and the banks.  But Bush started the bailout policy that Obama took over.  So how is it that somehow conservative policies would have been better five years ago.  It just defy logic.

As I said before, Obamacare would not cause any disaster.  Afterall, Romneycare did not kill Massachusetts and socialize medicine have not kill France, Britain, Canada etc.  The deficit is not an immediate problem but I understand that we should tackle it, if for no reason than to give confidence to the conservatives that the world is not falling.  While the shutdown was going on, the GOP tried to pass various bills to fund certain things they like.  Let's do the reverse.  How about go item by item and vote to cut things that the majority want to get rid of.  This way every politician will have to vote up or down on each item.  If both the House and Senate vote against certain item or decrease its funding and the president does not veto, that item is out.  No item can stand behind something else, so no bridge in Alaska can be tied to funding for troops for example.  So all pork will be out.  So let see what do we actually want to get rid of instead of saying we need to trim 10 trillion.  Also for every 2 dollars cut, add 1 dollar of tax until the deficit is resolved.  This is an honest way to cut the deficit but I am not holding my breath that either side would accept this method.

It is NBA preseason time so Asian Americans are looking to see how Jeremy Lin is going to do this season.  Already many of his fans are up at arms because his coach Kevin McHale is planning to rotate the starting point guard spot between Lin and Pat Beverley.  They say that McHale never has confidence in Lin and eventually he will demote Lin and then trade him.  They say this is another example of Lin always being slighted, from high school all the way to the NBA.  I say let's wait and see how this plays out.  The bottom line is I don't think McHale is prejudice against Lin and the judgment should be whether his decision will help Houston win or not.

The truth is the offense of the Rockets run through James Harden, no matter who the starting point guard is.  Lin's stats were not as good as expected last year because he often times stand to the side and Harden runs the offense.  Harden is the best one on one player on the team and is one of the best in the league.  But last season when he is off, the Rockets offense stalled.  With Dwight Howard this season, Lin can play pick and roll with Howard and be another weapon for which the other teams have to worry about.  So being in the starting line up this season should increase Lin's assist average.  But the scoring may decrease even though he has improved his shots this summer as evidenced by his shooting percentage in the first 3 preseason games.

There may be some benefits for Lin and the Rockets if he comes off the bench.  Remember Harden made his fame as the 6th man for the Thunder.  McHale himself was an all star even though he came off the bench for a good part of his career.  So he knows the importance of a great 6th man.  Beverley's strength is defense so he may complement Harden better than Lin to start the game.  The key, I think, is to give Lin plenty of time to run the offense when Harden is resting.  Witness the 38 points he scored against the Spurs last season when Harden was out.  By going against the second units of other teams, Lin also would not have to guard people like Tony Parker and Russell Westbrook all night.  I would bet his scoring and assists average per possession will increase dramatically in this role.

With Lin running the second unit, the Rockets will have possibly the strongest second unit in the NBA.   In fact it will be an international unit similar to the type of team that helped the Spurs do so well.  They will have Donnatas Mutujiunas of Lithuania (spellings are going to be bad here), Omer Asik of Turkey, Omri Casspi of Israel and Francisco Garcia of the Dominican Republic playing along side Lin who is Chinese American.  Asik and Lin would a starter for most of the teams in the league and the other 3 are solid players who would be in the rotation of any NBA team.  I think they would give the starting 5 of Houston a good game most nights.  The key is that besides Asik who is there for rebounding, the other 3 are great shooters.  They just can't get shots themselves.  Lin would be a great facilitator for this group.

So I don't think it is all bad for Lin to come off the bench if he is used correctly and the team benefits.  But I think he deserves to play during crunch time because that is when teams stiffen their defense and Harden will be bottled up by good teams.  The key here is that Lin needs to be in the game then and create chances for Howard and Parsons.  I think he can do that better than Beverley.  If McHale uses him this way and the Rockets are successful then I don't think Lin's fans, including myself, would have any legitimate complaints. 

So one week into the shutdown and no sign of resolution.  Now the GOP want negotiation over spending cuts before raising the debt ceiling.  I am very tired of these tactics to put the nation onto brink of financial catastrophe just because a small minority believe that Obamacare and taxes are the most evil things in the country.  I can guarantee that if Obamacare continues without obstruction and our deficits continue at the current rate, the world will not end.  On the other hand, if we default on our debts, I will bet that we would have a world crisis right away.

Attaching demands to the budget and debt ceiling is like putting earmarks (pork) into bills--something that would not pass on its own merit.  If the GOP want to get rid of Obamacare, pass a bill to get rid of it.  If the GOP want to cut certain expenses to balance the budget, pass a bill to do so.  Do not try to attach these things to something else because you can't pass these things on their own merit.  It would be like the Democrats refusing to pass the budget unless guns are banned.  Would the GOP negotiate over that?

After the last debt ceiling crisis, we had the super committee to try to cut the deficit. If failed as expected.  So there is no chance that we can come up with something now in less than two weeks.  I think if we are serious about the deficit, we should put out a national referendum as to what things to cut and what taxes to raise, if any.  Each side will propose cuts and/or tax reform.  The people will vote on each proposal.  Maybe this will work or maybe it won't.  We may find that people don't want to cut anything and don't want to raise taxes.  But at least this is a true democracy where all people can have a voice.  Right now our so called representative democracy is not working as a small minority is holding the majority hostage.