Virtual Fret Noise

Latest example, Chris Dodd:

Senator Dodd’s career should provide a cautionary tale about the dark side of the seniority system and senatorial longevity. Though he was knee-deep in dubious doings, his influence was at its peak: As chairman of the banking committee, Senator Dodd was a key player in the bailouts and in shaping the major pieces of financial-reform legislation currently working their way through Congress. If Congress ends up reshaping the banking and credit-card industries, it will very likely to do so along lines drawn up by Senator Dodd. He was a key legislative architect of the impotent stimulus bill and an important influence on the Senate health-care legislation. The breadth and depth of his influence has been exceeded only by its destructiveness. No doubt a lucrative post-Senate lobbying career, performing essentially the same misdeeds for better money, awaits Senator Dodd, who embodies much of what is wrong with Washington. We’ll miss him on Election Day, but not a minute afterward. [From Exit Dodd -- By: The Editors]

Go read this. Now:

[H]ere we are, on the brink of economy crippling legislation to tackle a problem we don’t fully understand and the science is most certainly not settled on.

Bobby Knight. Whenever I see him, it always reminds me of that idiot football coach I had in high school that would hit me on the helmet with his whistle. The other day, the red sweatered jerk did drop his pants and open his mind:

Bob Knight said integrity is lacking in college basketball and cited Kentucky coach John Calipari as an example.

During a fundraiser for the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, Knight said he doesn't understand why Calipari is still coaching.

"We've gotten into this situation where integrity is really lacking and that's why I'm glad I'm not coaching," he said. "You see we've got a coach at Kentucky who put two schools on probation and he's still coaching. I really don't understand that.

[From Ex-Hoosiers coach Bob Knight speaks at the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame - ESPN]

His conclusions about coaching ethics may well be well-founded, but this a cheap shot. Calipari did not "put two schools on probation." The first incident, involving Marcus Camby, was one of those sadly typical incidents where a school is punished for actions of a player that it could not have prevented. The other case, involving Derrick Rose, was also not Calipari's fault. The NCAA certified Rose as eligible, then after Rose had played a season at Memphis, changed its mind and then punished Memphis for relying on its certification. It's the kind of police state, Alice in Wonderland - like action that makes fans of collegiate sports despise the NCAA.

Bobby Knight was a great basketball coach, but he has also been a bully, a buffoon and a jerk. In this case, he showed 3 of his 4 talents.

Lots of discussion over this the past few days:

For the first time in 20 years, a government panel is telling women in their 40s to stop getting routine mammograms and recommending that a host of other breast cancer screenings slow down. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force redefines mammogram needs. The United States Preventive Service Task Force announced Monday that it recommends against annual mammograms for women age 40 to 49 because, they say, the benefits of testing do not outweigh the "harms" and risks. [From New Mammogram Guidelines Spur Debate Over Early Detection - ABC News]

I'm very glad my wife's cancer was detected at its earliest possible stage by a routine mammogram at age 45, that these people are morons and that if you want them managing your health care, you're a moron, too.

"Harms?" "Risks?" They are apparently mean the imagined risk due to the tiny radiation dose and still believe in the stupid "no baseline" approach for estimating radiation risk. Like I said, they are morons.

But it's still an outrage and a disappointment:

It’s impossible, really, to caricature this White House; even Josiah Bartlett didn’t run through this many liberal stereotypes in his first season. Obama needs new writers. Blow up the World Trade Center and kill 3,000 Americans? Jail! Don’t buy health insurance? Jail! Win the Nobel Prize for doing jack squat. Travel to Copenhagen to beg and grovel unsuccessfully for the Olympics, and pledge to go visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but blow off traveling to Berlin to commemorate the victory of freedom over Communism (then give a tepid speech on the subject that refuses to acknowledge Ronald Reagan). Commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland by unilaterally abandoning missile defense installations in Poland. Insult and disdain one faithful ally after another - Britain, India, Israel, Poland, Columbia, you name it - and cozy up to our enemies, with nothing to show for it - nothing to show for anything he’s done in foreign affairs. All but ignore democratic protests in Iran while supporting an illegal effort by Honduras’ president to stay on beyond the end of his term. Suddenly complain about corruption and electoral fraud in Afghanistan, while seeking the favor of Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadenijad and Vladimir Putin - heck, Obama endorsed half a dozen people in Chicago more corrupt than Hamid Karzai. On and on and on we go, with President Apology constantly straining to run down his country’s record and talk up the propagandized view of history of its enemies. He’s taken more time to “evaluate” General McChrystal’s recommendations about Afghan policy than it took George W. Bush to invade Afghanistan and capture Kabul after September 11. It would be funny if it wasn’t tragically stupid and bound to get people killed. There is no mistake of our past that Obama is unwilling to remake.

So the presidential candidate that "palled around with terrorists" appointed an AG from a firm that defends terrorists. None of this should be a surprised. I'm really wondering whether Jimmy Carter's second term would have been this bad.

"Restore My Soul" by The Choir. Details here.

Moe Lane points out some things that should be obvious to everyone that has a clue:

One has to make a distinction between the people of the world, and the governments of the world. The people of the world generally like the USA/Americans/the concept of America for one or more of the following reasons:

• Because we are free;
• Because we are vulgar;
• Because we are loud;
• And because we visibly do not care if anybody likes that or not.

Meanwhile, most national governments do not like the USA/Americans/the concept of America for one or more of the following reasons:

• Because we are free;
• Because we are vulgar;
• Because we are loud;
• And because we visibly do not care if anybody likes that or not.
• 
  

Unfortunately, the current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. doesn't have a clue.

I expected this all along, because if the Left is willing to fight a war at all, it's not going to be the one you're in right now. This is a corollary to the only weapons systems libs will vote for (other than those produced in their own districts) are the versions that are not ready to be built yet.

If Obama thinks the war is unwinnable, it would have been nice for him to tell the American public during the campaign, instead of completely reversing himself on a key provision of his foreign-policy vision less than a year into his presidency. Why, if we didn't know any better, we might think that Obama was dovish and unwilling to defy his party's pacifist grassroots the whole time, and that all of his "this is a war that we have to win" talk during the campaign was empty window-dressing to hide an out-of-the-mainstream worldview. [From Obama's Afghanistan Policy Reaches Its Expiration Date - Jim Geraghty - The Campaign Spot on National Review Online]

My god, this is stupid:

The Showalter Plan realigns as follows, with four divisions of seven teams each, arranged geographically to keep all divisions as much within the same time zone as possible -- another simple, common-sense idea. Gee, how novel. Here it is:

Buck Showalter Realignment Plan
Babe Ruth Division	Jackie Robinson Division	Roberto Clemente Division	Hank Aaron Division
Yankees	Dodgers	Cubs	Royals
Mets	Angels	White Sox	Cardinals
Red Sox	Padres	Indians	Rangers
Blue Jays	Mariners	Reds	Astros
Orioles	Giants	Twins	Tigers
Nationals	Diamondbacks	Brewers	Braves
Phillies	Athletics	Pirates	Rockies

[From ESPN.com - Baseball needs to consider the Buck Showalter Relocation Plan ]

I saw Showalter selling this on Baseball Tonight. What a fool he made of himself. First, he kept talking about how his plan decreases travel because the divisions are regional. Hello? He wants a balanced schedule, so everyone travels everywhere.

Second, how do you say you're emphasizing regional rivalries and have the Cards & Cubs in separate divisions? And again, his plan has a balanced schedule. How does that emphasize rivalries? His plan also has the Yankees play the Mariners as often as they play the Red Sox. Good luck selling that MLB, Fox & your bosses at ESPN, Buck my boy.

He also suggested the Rays would be a good candidate for contraction the year after they were in the World Series? What is he smoking?

There's a good reason I usually fast forward through both the commercials and the talking heads on BT.