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.