Here we are again in the best time of the year. No not Christmas. It's college basketball time!

I can wake up on a Saturday, drag myself to the kitchen for a hot cup of coffee and then drag myself to the couch and behold some terrific basketball on television. It does not get any better than that.

Except for Dick.

If I died today and never had to hear the phrase "diaper dandy" again, it might be worth it. Every year I wish for the same thing for Christmas - Dickie V to retire. Not yet it seems. Another year of those annoying phrases, stupid pizza commercials and hearing him plug his charity when the other commentator asks him about Michigan State.

Dick Cheney. Dick Clark. Dick Vitale. Do not name your child Dick.

A few weeks back I got to watch UNC dismantle my Spartans fairly easily, although not was completely as the championship last year. Finally Tyler Hansborough is gone so I can at least root for UNC when they are not playing MSU.

Like today when they played Texas. In past years Texas has been ranked highly and MSU has gone down to Texas to beat them. This year that seems unlikely. Texas is a monster and they made UNC look easy today. Not good for MSU next week.

After that great game, CBS is showing Duke against Gonzaga. Two observations:

1) The HD camera's on CBS seem different this year. The picture quality is different. The picture seems closer and more intimate, more like a hand-held than the traditional TV-camera-from-afar look Im used to. Could be a good thing.

2) Duke continues to recruit the best playing, worst looking basketball players in the nation. What is up with that?

For the first time ever, MSU was ranked #2 for 3 weeks. Before they started loosing.

It is just not normal for MSU to be ranked highly. They are never the best team in America and they are never consistent. I think that is part of what I enjoy about them. They are always emotional and you never know what they will do. It makes March Madness even more fun and they almost always deliver in the tournament. Having them in the championship last year was a bracket buster for my office pool competition.

I really thought they would not be very good this year after losing Suton so I was surprised by the high ranking but its over already. Top 20 is ok but top 10 is a distraction for the boys in green.

The other notable difference about this year is that we dont have cable TV and havent for months. Thanks to free over the air HD broadcasts and free games online with ESPN360, I am seeing all the sports I normally would. ESPN360 is not great picture quality, about comparable to analog cable, but the price is right.

Next month I will have to decide how much the Big10 channel and HD content matter to me and whether it trumps my dislike for cable TV companies.

Now that you have been fired, CNN will have a chance to restore their reputation as a reputable news source instead of the MTV of news.

And you will have lots of time to find Obama's birth certificate.

It's a win-win situation.

Lou Dobbs Leaves CNN

By SAM SCHECHNER

Wall Street Journal

NOVEMBER 12, 2009

Lou Dobbs, a CNN anchor known for his strong views on immigration, said his show Wednesday was his last for the cable-news network.

"With characteristic forthrightness, Lou has now decided to carry the banner of advocacy journalism elsewhere," CNN/US President Jon Klein said in a statement, adding the network will miss his "megawatt smile and larger than life presence."

This week I listened to part of Obama's acceptance speech for the Nobel peace prize.

I thought it was very strange when he won the award. Listening to his speech, largely defending the use of force, I wondered if any of those judges now regret their vote.

At the time, it was said they they gave him the award as a recognition of change from President Bush/Cheney. As in, "thank God America has a new president". As in, "the biggest accomplishment for world peace is getting rid of Bush/Cheney."

But whatever change Obama has made in military terms has been, shall we say, subtle. I am not very knowledgeable in this area but as a casual observer, like most American's, I dont see much change.

We are still spending a fortune (of borrowed money) on military action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We still talk about "surges" and armored vehicles, and bombs, and the burden on our troops of being deployed for almost a decade now.

We still describe our desire to meddle in those two countries (as well as Israel, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and India) as a national security priority.

We still talk about terrorism as a military problem and not a police problem.

Eight years. It is really rather amazing how long this thing has dragged on and how little we seem to have learned from 9/11.

We have a new president but American policy and thinking about international relations still seems like the same old, same old.

Years ago, I heard the idea that some conservatives believed the only way to end the so-called "welfare state" was to bankrupt the state. Bush/Cheney made a lot of progress on that financial goal and our banking bailouts continue the progress.

Lately I wonder if the same argument can be made about our military spending. The only way to really change our dependence on using military force for all problems is to bankrupt the government. I wonder how long it will take to find out.

You remember those Visa commercials? The ones with the punchline "Priceless"?

Those commercials were designed to make you feel better about an industry that has been reviled as far back as the Bible (and rightly so), but they did have a good message.

Want to know what I think is priceless about living in the USA? The rule of law.

I regularly hear people, generally conservative folks, whine and complain about paying taxes and it just gets me mad. How ignorant! How selfish! Some people have no idea how good we have it here. I know it is natural to take something for granted until you lose it but still.

How can folks be so ungrateful for the quality of life we have here at a time when we pay all this attention on Iraq and Afghanistan? What do people think we are trying to do over there? We are trying to create the rule of law. Look how hard that is and then think about how much we take for granted here and shouldnt.

We have the big stuff here.

• I am 40 years old and I have never been in fear of my life from my government or my police.
• No one I know of has ever been visited in the middle of the night and "disappeared" by a policeman or government official.
• I dont see military grade weapons on the street or soldiers in the neighborhood and neither do my children.
• The only time military jets fly overhead is for Fleet Week and air shows and they never drop bombs.
• Bombings are almost unheard of.
• I have never had to shoot at anyone or known anyone that has been shot.
• I can walk around my neighborhood day or night without fear of being murdered or kidnapped.
• When I go to the office, I do not have to worry that my wife and daughter will be alive when I get home.

Those are the big things and they are priceless. They are also things that happen because of the rule of law.

In this country, we solve our disputes with lawyers. Life is not perfect but we do not solve our problems with an AK47 or explosives nor do we have to resort to bribes and kidnapping to make a living.

And we also have the little stuff.

• All homes have sanitation and most have sewers, running water, heat and 24/7 electricity.
• The roads are all passable and most have curbs and sidewalks.
• The streets arent littered with dead animals or trash.
• And if you have a problem, you can pick up the phone and get help.

Because we have the basic rule of law here, we can use our tax money to provide these other niceties of life which are also priceless.

The irony is that we get to sit around and complain about paying taxes simply because we have it so damn good. We are rich because there is almost no fear in our lives. We live with a level of luxury and peace that billions of people want for themselves. And we barely appreciate it.

Yesterday morning I woke up to the news that 4 police had been murdered.

Today I woke up to the news that the suspected shooter had been found and shot dead.

First off, I hoped that they got the right person.

Second, I asked myself why. Why would that guy have murdered these 4 policemen he did not even know?

And that seems to be the theme of recent news. Why? Why did he/they do it?

Israel wants to prosecute some 900 year old guy from Ohio for alleged crimes in a Nazi concentration camp during WW2. Why did we murder so many families in those camps?

Cambodia is prosecuting some guy there for similar war crimes by the Khymer Rouge. Why did Cambodians turn on each other and murder half their countrymen?

A while back, a 16 year old girl in Richmond, CA was brutally raped by a group of men outside her high school - and no one called the police or stopped it. This morning there was a radio story on Richmond, CA as a former resident asked how this had happened in his hometown. I actually lived and worked in Richmond for a time and when I first heard the story all I could think about is why this happened and what those men were thinking.

Why are human beings so inhuman to each other?

From acts of individual violence to systemic violence and genocide, why do we do it? I dont have any answers. I just find myself shaking my head and asking why.

This weekend tragedy hit the Seattle area. A person walked into a coffee shop early in the morning, took out a gun, and murdered 4 policemen.

As the local TV stations ran updates on the story all day long, I kept waiting for the usual response from the NRA and gun lovers. You know, the one where they assure us that guns save lives. The one where they say this tragedy would have been stopped if the victims had been armed with guns.

Well these victims were police and they were armed with guns. They even had bullet-proof vests on! It sounds like the shooter was wounded but that did not stop him from killing his intended victims.

No, we dont need more guns we need less. Guns increase killings they dont discourage them. Look at Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Mexico and the USA.

This tragedy would not have happened if we were more concerned with safety and less concerned with making money by selling weapons. Maybe we cannot stop the movies and video games that glorify killing people with guns or the delusional folks that need a gun to feel important but we can stop the guns by making them illegal. There are no gun killings without gun factories.

If you want to keep single-shot hunting rifles and bird-shot shotgun ammunition, fine. Every other handgun, high-powered rifle, automatic weapon and ammunition should be banned and the factories strictly controlled. It is time to make our country and the rest of the world a safer place by ending the weapon industry. It is time to grow up and say that making money is less important than saving lives.