With no more elections for himself and no democrat needing to shy away from him in the next two years, Obama went on the offensive in the State of the Union Address. It was the type of the best defense is offense theory that I proposed at the midterm election.  As I mentioned before, it may not have changed any results but by shying away from Obama, the Democrats were essentially agreeing with the Republicans that Obama was a failure.  In reality, as Obama pointed out, by almost any measure he was way more successful than Bush.  So now he makes proposals that will have no chance of passing the Republican majority in both chambers.  But at least he makes his points.  For example, didn't Wall Street screw up the economy last time?  So now you are worried about regulations for Wall Street?  I think Obama's vision will cause the Republican nominee to lean to the right and will make he/she less likely to win moderates in 2016.

While I agree with Obama in most issues, I don't agree that community colleges should be free.  From my experience, when someone gets something free, he is less likely to appreciate it.  I think here in California, the cost of attending junior colleges is very affordable.  I know a lot of people who go to junior colleges and work to save money to transfer to a 4 year school.  If it is necessary to lower the cost of junior colleges, I think they should first have to get rid of the sports programs in these schools before asking for more tax money.  I don't think these schools should be a minor league for the pros or 4 year colleges.  I know of people who played two years and had no credit toward transferring to a 4 year school.  I can't think of any country whose technical schools or colleges spend millions for intercollegiate athletes.  If the goal is prepare kids for the real world, don't use these schools to be minor leagues in sports.

I got the feeling that the Patriots are going to throw a ballboy under the bus like USC did a few years ago when they did the same thing.  Belichick is the usual bad guy.  But I can't imagine he would tell someone to deflate the balls to below standard since he is not the one throwing the ball.  I hope Brady is not involved other than telling the ball boy to get it down to 12.5 psi, the lowest allowable level.  While the Patriots are not going to be thrown out of the Super Bowl no matter what happens, Brady's legacy could be in jeopardy if he instructed someone to cheat on his behalf.  The whole thing is stupid anyway.  Why do each team have different balls?  Baseball pitchers don't bring their own balls.  Why didn't the officials notice a difference of almost 20% among the balls before half time?  And if Brady cheated, why was he so stupid?  Sure, a softer and lighter ball is easier to grip.  But a lighter ball would also be more affected by air resistance.  So it would be more difficult to control in bad weather.  Think in extreme:  would you rather throw a baseball or a ping pong ball in the wind?  So why cheat?

Many people disagreed with the pope who said that freedom of speech has its limits.  While he says killing in the name of religion is wrong, it is also wrong to insult other people's religion.  I would not equate insulting with killing of course.  But the Pope gives an example that if someone calls his mother a bad name, he would have punched him.  I would agree with the Pope on this:  human beings can be provoked into doing something violent.  The Pope would be wrong to punch the guy but it would be an action that was not surprising.  In the case of the Paris terrorism, there is no question of the heinous crime. The cartoonists had the right to write what they want, but what purpose did it served?  Everyone has the right to walk in the worst areas of the city at 3 am, but why would you?

To paraphrase Tina Fey at the Golden Globe award:  thanks to North Korea, we are forced to watch a bad movie.  Same with the Charlie magazine which is selling like hot cakes.  People who thought that making fun of Muhammad for the action of extreme Muslims is like making fun of Jesus for Christian criminals, are now buying Charlie.  So it goes to show you, when you go extreme against something, it usually make that thing more popular.  Whenever the Catholics protest a movie, it would help increase its box office.  This is something to keep in mind when we try to solve problems with blinding force without thinking it through. 

Last week Barbara Boxer announced that she won't run for reelection to the senate.  So finally one of the 3 big elected office in California will be taken by fresh blood.  Dianne Feinstein will most likely not run the next time she is up for election and Jerry Brown will be term limited out in 4 years.  So will see an era of new leadership in California over the next few years.  Given the high percentage of Hispanics and Asians in the state, one would think that these positions can very well be filled by one or more minorities.  And given that the state is dominated by Democrats, you would think that minorities from the state would also be national leaders in the Democratic party.  But that does not appear to be the case.

In fact the most likely minority candidate for Boxer's job is Kamala Harris, the black state attorney general.  There are no Latino or Asian candidate that is likely to win this state wide election at this time.  Among Asians only John Chiang, the former controller and present state treasurer, is even a viable candidate.  And since he just won election for treasurer in November, I think he is a few years away.  I also think that voters have less trouble voting for an Asian to a position involving math than voting for him to be a chief executive or national office.  Part of the problem for minorities is that the Big Three have been there so long that nobody has any experience running in competitive state offices.

But interesting enough, while California and the Democrats are not producing any viable minority national politicians, the Republicans are actually doing a better job of this.  Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Bobby Jindhal come to mind.  I think this is due to Republicans are trying to look not so white.  So any minority who claims to be a conservative Republican is going to get support from the party in races that are winnable.  The Democrats can wheel out any white liberal in a state like California and win anyway.  So while demographic changes in the future would seem to favor Democrats, if they take minorities for granted, they can lose their advantage.  I think as Hispanics and Asian move up the economic ladder, the Republicans will gain a higher percentage of them.  So will see if the Democrats notice this and try to consolidate the minority base by promoting more minority candidates in California over the next few years.

Wow, congrats to MSU for the thrilling victory today!  It could not be a better day for the Big Ten.  (Unless Minnesota also had won).  But I think Big Ten fans would have taken 3 out of 4 before the day started.  Jim Harbaugh has not been on the job for 2 days and he is going to have nightmares already seeing how MSU and OSU came up with big victories.  It is going to be that much more difficult for Harbaugh to beat out those teams now.  The Big Ten east has actually outplayed the SEC west!  So instead of Big Ten east trying to be SEC north as Urban Meyer suggested, maybe SEC west should try to become Big Ten south!

With the 3 victories today, the Big Ten is guaranteed 5 wins with Iowa still to play Tennessee.  So I claim victory over the Las Vegas oddsmakers, the LA Times and LBOAYM since they all predicted smaller number of victories for the Big Ten.  So what if my predictions are not 100% accurate in terms of individual games.  It is the number of victories that count as in all sports.

Despite my allegiance to the Big Ten, I will take Oregon over OSU.  Their victory over FSU was amazing and I think they are the best team over the whole season.  Plus I don't want Harbaugh to have worse nightmares.

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!

After Ole Miss. got clobbered by Arkansas yesterday, I am thinking that if Alabama, which is in first place in the playoff poll, deserves to be there since they lost to Ole Miss.  Alabama can claim first because they beat Miss. State which was first before last week.  But Miss. State's claim to first place was mostly based on beating Auburn which has proven to be not so tough lately.  Is FSU the best team then since it is undefeated?  I don't know.   They have been doing the great escape every week.  But until someone can beat them, they deserve to be in the playoff for sure.  I am thinking they should just make it an 8 team playoff.  The champion of each of the big 5 conferences are in and then 3 wild cards are given, with no more than 3 teams from any conference.  The top 6 bowls would host the quarterfinals and semifinals.  There will still be controversies but if you win one of the big 5 conferences, you deserve to be in.  Otherwise there is no basis for complaint.

DWTS is very close.  So I won't make my final judgment until after seeing their last dances tomorrow.

I am amazed by the power of this blog.  Last week I commented that Lee Nguyen is an MVP candidate for the New England Revolution of MLS.  I also wondered why he has not been selected to the U.S. national team.  Immediately, Jurgen Klinnsmann called up Nguyen and played him toward the end of the game against Colombia.  Nguyen came close to scoring, only a great save by the Colombia goalie stopped him from putting the U.S. ahead.  I think Nguyen and his teammate Jermaine Jones will be a great midfield duo for the U.S.  Hopefully he will get a chance to prove that in the future.

In DWTS Tommy Chong has to go tomorrow.  Despite my sympathy for his advanced age, he is by far the worse dancer left and it would be a travesty if he makes the finals.