I didn’t watch the State of the Union Speech last night because according to my on-screen guide it was a rerun.  But there are those who felt they had to endure the torture of listening to another speech by Obama about Obama.  They must not be on the short list for an iPod full of them.

Here’s one of my favorite observations so far…

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“In the face of irrelevance, Obama buys attention with other people’s money”

(H/T:  Washington Examiner via Betsy’s Page) Alternate title: “State of the Union is taxes”

In other words, now that the election is passed, Obama is about to prove Romney’s 47% remark to be true.  Oh yes, just like the #WarOnWomen and the gender wage gap, the outrage at the time was faux, demagogued, and purely political.  The last couple of weeks have seen Obama say:

• “FREE community college for all!”
• “FREE paid sick leave for all!” (remember, Valerie Jarrett says it is a worker’s Right!)
• “FREE maternity / parental leave for all (here, here, here, and here)!
• FREE stuff for illegal aliens! (and here too)
• $500 Tax credit for married couples that work
• More credits for education and child care
• Expansion of Earned Income Tax Credit (more FREE money)

Estimates of between $320 and $442 BILLION more in taxes. This is FREE? 

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I mentioned this story on this Saturday’s GrokTALK! during our WTF time – this was the runner up: ‘We’d rather be fat on benefits than thin and working’

Mother and daughter weigh a total of 43 stone and get £34k a year handouts, but refuse to diet.

A mother and daughter who get £34,000 a year [around $60K] in handouts because they are too fat to work say they’d rather be happy and on benefits than depressed and thin.  Janice and Amber Manzur weigh a total of 43 stone [602 lbs] and are so overweight they have to use mobility scooters to get around.  But both women refuse to diet and mother-of-two Ms Manzur, 44, insists: “I’d rather my daughter live life on benefits being fat and happy than depressed and thin.” Ms Manzur lives in a three-bedroom house that has been customised by the council to accommodate her disability and drives a Fiat Quibo disability car worth around £15,000.  Ms Manzur said: “There’s no point in dieting, it doesn’t make a difference.”

Yeah, I’d love to live at someone else’s expense, too, but I actually have some level of earned self-esteem and self-worth.  And yes, you can’t lose weight if you’ve already given up.

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In U.S. academia, fields that cherish sheer genius shun women.: “The fields whose members said they most valued sheer intellectual brilliance such as philosophy, physics and math were the most likely to have fewer women in their ranks. The disciplines in which the ‘spark of genius’ was least emphasized such as education, psychology and anthropology had greater numbers of women.”

Choice vs “the Patriarchy Opression”.  I’m certainly not the brightest bulb in the box but amongst the REALLY Smart People (vs just the people who think they are Smart) that I have known, they could care nary a twit what someone’s gender was – they only cared about results.  What were the ideas and what insights were brought.  Yes, a meritocracy (as opposed to what we see in the Political Class / Crony Capitalism Cabal where “brilliance” is measured by your Rolodex – and who the others that have YOU in theirs).  Not this, IMHO:

When those in certain disciplines send the message that raw, inherent brilliance is required for success, such views combine with existing cultural stereotypes to suppress women’s participation in the field, Leslie added.

I haven’t read the report and I’m not going to either.  I’ve seen enough stuff like this over the past few years

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“It comes from the idea that Washington should fix everyone’s problems instead of freeing them to solve their own.”

With this, it skewers the idea that politicians should always be “Do Something!”; in fact, he (and all of us who belong to the Leave Us Alone Coalition) brings out the important insight that our Government was never meant to solve all ills and problems.  Frankly, when compared to the entirety of American Society, Government is both too slow, too blinkered, and too dumb to be able to keep up with the daily decisions, needs, and wants of 320 million citizens and residents.  It is impossible to do other than to force the usual Government “one size fits all” (as exemplified by the fiasco known as Michelle’s School Lunch fiat.

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The Blaze put together a quick list of 10 things that Obama demanded of Congress but failed to do the shoeleather to actually make happen.  OK, let’s be real – it was chockfull of Expanding Government With Other Peoples’ Money so pretty much these proposals died.  Now with the Republicans owning both the House and Senate, I see little of his spending plans gaining traction.  In fact, I think he’ll have as much success as The Youngest did yesterday during NH’s ice storm here in the northeast – he ended up in the ditch twice (once going down a slight hill and once when trying to go UP a hill and the road ice and Gravity combined to give him a 360 ride back down the hill (thankfully, no injuries to either him or his vehicle; yeah, a happy camper given he waited 2.5 hours the first time for a tow and another hour the second time).

The list:

1. Mixed on Minimum Wage

2. Equal Pay

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(The Ed Mosca Blog)  “”Judge (John) Lewis’ decision in the Duncan case (Duncan v State of New Hampshire) is a paradigmatic example of judicial activism, or political judging. Essentially, what political judging involves is reasoning backwards from a political result that the judge wants to achieve. Here, the political result was to prevent application of the education tax credit law, because those credits are used to defray tuition to private schools, and the Left opposes making it easier for low and middle-class children to attend private schools.

How do we know it was political judging?  Well, from reading the decision.

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When the Windham School Board voted to”ban” dodge-ball over concerns of bullying two years ago it made state-wide and national news.  When the Windham School board bullied a resident (and even called the police) to prevent objection to their rushed vote on a sketchy no-bid contract for $577,000.00 dollars, nothing?

New Hampshire’s Old-Man-Media-Mountain is not interested?

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As we all try come to grips with the tragedy of the recent attacks on in Paris, we once again ask ourselves the logical question of what is going on here. Such attacks seem almost inexplicable, so removed are they from our own day to day experience. We struggle to make sense of these assaults and look for patterns to help us understand the nature of what we are seeing. Equally as perplexing is the utter disregard of the attackers for their own safety. Indeed, many seek out their own “martyrdom” and the promise of paradise.

Nor can we understand the appeal of ISIS which is drawing in thousands of young men from around the world and which is launching them forward with such zeal that more traditional armies are melting before them. Even severe American air strikes have yet to fully stop them.

Some say that such incidents are reflective of the nature of Islam. Others say that they are the clash of civilizations as the great sociologist Samuel Huntington called it. Yet neither of these answers are terribly satisfying. We know that, the vast majority of Muslims around the world are peaceful, pious individuals just trying to live their lives. By the same token, most of the casualties in the waves of attacks are themselves Muslims. Indeed, Muslims have born the brunt of the suffering in the violence of the last fifteen years.  But it is increasingly clear that all of these attacks are almost always being perpetrated by highly marginalized individuals young men like the Tsarnaev brothers in Boston or the Kouachi brothers in Paris. Yes, militant Islam is a common pattern. But one senses that there is something deeper at work here.

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This week on GrokTALK!, apparently we had streaming problems yesterday – and I only found out AFTER the show so The Videos will show a mix of the streaming and our backup camera.  Also, Segment 4 and the Bonus Segment (after our normal show) will be in their own separate post just due to I think it makes more sense to treat them, dealing with the Windham School Board, as a pair.

Pre-Show

• Pre-Show – Obama’s State of the Union theme: #I’llGiveYouFreeStuff (Obamaphones!), NH Roll Calls, Pork Chops, Canned goods as self-defense weapons?
• Segment 1 – WTF Moment on Boston’s Southeastern Expressway, NH State Rep Abramson on Jucidial Legislative Update
• Segment 2 – Dr. Jason Fodeman, MD.  comes on from Heritage to talk about Obamacare Treatment Protocols
• Segment 3 – Ed Naile, Chair of CNHT (Coalition of NH Taxpayers) comes on for a Voter Fraud Update

Pre-Show:

Segment 1:

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