Apple refuses to help the FBI to hack into the phone of the San Bernardino terrorists.  Is Apple the protector of our privacy?  Well, I can understand their protests of government invasion of our privacy.  But I am not so sure their sincerity.   Eventually, Apple is going to lose in the courts even though it may go all the way to the Supreme court.  Personally, I don't see the difference between a phone or any place that you may hold something private.  The government can get an order to search your house, you work place, your safety deposit box, your mail etc.  So I don't see a criminal can keep anything private.  Apple has cooperated with China in the past under the notion of national security so I don't see why they wouldn't cooperate with our own government.  I think Apple is going to play their hand to the end because it gives them good publicity.  It is more self serving than being savior of our privacy.

I can't believe that Trump claimed that he doesn't know who David Duke is or anything about the white supremist movement.  He is either lying or he is too ignorant to be president.  If his opponents cannot make him pay for these remarks, he will become the GOP nominee.

My next blog was going to  be about officer Peter Liang.  But since LBOAYM brought it up, I decide to write about it now.  It deserves a separate blog and not just a comment from me.  In my opinion, if we never give a police officer the benefit of the doubt in a dangerous situation in the past, then Liang deserves to be tried and convicted.  But as has happened so often in the past, police officers have done much worse than Liang and got off free, then I find it hard to believe that Liang was charged and convicted of manslaughter. 

This shooting occurred in a dark staircase with no witnesses and video.  The bullet had bounced off a wall and hit the victim.  Yes, it was negligence but also bad luck.  Certainly, Liang had no intention of shooting the victim.  Compared that to recent cases where a cop can be seen on video shooting or choking somebody intentionally in broad day light.  I think there is no doubt that the prosecution tried to make this case as an example that they are no longer trying to help the cops.  If this is a true turning of the page for the justice system then the sacrifice of Liang maybe a good thing in the long run.  But since this happened in 2014 and since then I can't think of one white cop being convicted in 2015 for uncalled for shooting, I doubt this is a turning of the page.

I have said it before:  If these unjustified shootings or beatings are occurring in this age of widespread use of cell phone cameras, then can you imagine how often the cops were beating or shooting people in the past?  Well, in this case, there was no video and no witness.  So I would have to ask:  If Liang was white, would he have been prosecuted.  I think not.  Most likely the police would have said that the cop felt danger in the dark and shot a warning shot which bounced off the wall and killed the victim.  That would seem more acceptable to the white community than some of the other shootings.  So I don't think a white cop would have been even prosecuted.

I compare this to the collapse of Wall Street in 2008.  The only big shot from Wall Street who went to jail was a South Asian guy.  Well, unless you count Bernie Madoff.  But even then I say Madoff had to go to jail because he ripped off rich white people only.  Interesting enough the prosecutors in the South Asian's case were South Asians.  This way they claim that he was not tried because of his ethnicity.  Similar to the Rosenberg spy case where the judge was Jewish, Liang's fate is going to be decided by an Asian judge.  I see a pattern here.

I think the Asian community in NY did not start the protest early enough.  The big protests should have occurred way before the trial.  Asians also should have shown more support for Black Lives Matter.  Asians also should show more sympathy to the victim of this case.  One possible consequences of this is that it may decrease the number of Asians wanting to join the police.  Asians are way underrepresented in most police forces and this case will not help the recruitment of Asians into law enforcement.

So now we are down to Kasich vs Rubio in the establishment division of the Republican conference with the winner going up against Cruz of the Evangelical division and Trump of the anti-establishment division.  On the Democratic conference, Clinton is opening a solid lead over Sanders although that conference race is not over by any means.  Bush dropped out after another poor showing in SC.  I think now that his whipping boy Bush is out, Trump will attack Rubio because he doesn't think Kasich will be much of a threat.  Rubio is Trump's biggest threat since Cruz cannot even carry the evangelical heavy SC.

Trump actually backed down a little in his verbal fight with the pope.  I guess he doesn't want to lose the Catholic vote.  I agree with what the pope said about Trump.  But I am wondering if the pope is saying building a wall is not christian like, what about the wall around the Vatican.  Is the Vatican taking in any refugees from the middle east now or in the near future?  Isn't the church's policy against birth control help increase the population in third world countries and thus increase poverty and migration?  But overall, I like pope Francis and I think will make changes that will benefit the church and its followers.

The death of Justice Antonin Scalia must send shock wave to the GOP.  Scalia and Thomas are the two most reliable conservative votes in the Supreme Court.  If Obama is able to get someone through the Senate to replace Scalia, the liberals will be the majority in the Supreme Court.  So the GOP has to do everything to prevent Obama's nominee from getting confirmed.

The GOP does control the senate and so can prevent an Obama's nominee from getting confirmed.  But there is a big risk in this.  Most likely, Obama will nominate someone who had been confirmed with GOP votes in the past for appellate court.  This will force the GOP to renounce someone they had voted for in the past.  If there is no action from the GOP then the court will operate with just 8 justices for the year.  If there is a 4-4 vote then the decision from the lower court will stand.  This means that cases that would have been reversed if Scalia was still alive will not be reversed.  So the conservatives will lose some cases they would have won even if there was no new justice. 

The Democrats will denounce inaction on the part of GOP not to confirm.  GOP voters will be on the side of no action so that would seem to be a wash.  But I think the majority of independents will see the GOP as obstructionists here.  To go a whole year without taking action is just wrong to neutral observers.  Even if the GOP does not lose independent votes, the big fight over this is sure to get heavier voter turnouts in the election.  Since heavy turnouts usually favors Democrats as demonstrated in big turnouts in 2008, this will be problematic for the GOP.  With more GOP senators up for election than Democrats, a heavy turnout can possibly throw the senate to the Democrats.  I am sure Obama and his party is not counting the chickens before they hatch, but the possibility of losses in all 3 branches must be frightening to the GOP today.

Nice for Peyton Manning to probably end his illustrious career on top with a Super Bowl championship.  He must give thanks to his defense and to the Panthers for making all kinds of mistakes. 

The race for the presidency is like football playoffs.  In order to get to the finals, you have to win your conference.  And in order to win your conference, you have to win your division.  So basically Christie, Bush, and Kasich have to beat out Rubio to win the division of the establishment in order to have a chance to beat our Trump and Cruz for the Republican conference.  So with Rubio ahead, the other three are attacking him rather than Trump and Cruz right now.  So will see if that makes a difference in the NH primary this week.  Sanders and Clinton are in the Democratic conference finals already.

I am no fan of Fiorina but I think she should have been allowed to be in the last debate.  She would have been in the JV debate if not for Huckabee and Santorum dropping out.  I mean, if a JV team doesn't have enough players, it stands to reason that the one left over player should be moved up to the varsity.  It does not seem fair that we had 10 debaters before in the main event and now they can't accommodate a seventh debater.

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.