Legal Commentary
Houston's Clear Thinkers 
Wide-ranging observations on law, business, medicine, culture, sports, and other matters of general interest to members of the Houston business, professional, and academic communities.
Post Frequency: 2.2/day Last Entry: November 21, 2009 at 02:01:41 Recent Entries: 671
By Tom Kirkendall
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Gus Dies
Posted on November 21, 2009Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove is one of the best Texas novels of our time. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel was later made into a wonderful television mini-series, which starred Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones as the iconic former Texas...
The headline says it all
Posted on November 20, 2009The fundamental problem with the American health care finance system is that reliance on tax-deductible, employer-based health insurance and government subsidized insurance (such as Medicaid, Medicare) created a culture since WWII in which consumers of health care at the...
Pranav Mistry on SixthSense Technology
Posted on November 19, 2009The link to the video on the TED site is here....
Thinking about financial regulation
Posted on November 18, 2009Peter Wallison and Steve Randy Waldman have each written a thought-provoking and important analysis of the effect of regulation on the recent financial crisis. First Wallison: What caused the financial crisis? The widely accepted narrative, prominent in the media...
Fertitta gets squeezed this time
Posted on November 17, 2009Looks as if Tilman Fertitta is about to endure a bit of his own medicine. As this post from a couple of months ago explains in detail, Landry's Restaurants, Inc. shareholders have had a wild -- and mostly bad...
2009 Weekly local football review
Posted on November 16, 2009(AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez; previous weekly reviews for this season are here) Central Florida 37 Houston Cougars 32 As I've noted many times, Houston (10-2/4-2) games over the past several seasons are just different. The game against Central Florida (6-4/4-2)...
The easiest question for a lawyer to answer
Posted on November 13, 2009Should I talk to the police?...
Refusing to throw in the towel is not a crime
Posted on November 11, 2009Thank goodness. Despite the government's sordid expansion of crimes against business people over the past decade, at least it's not a crime to decline to throw in the towel on a business venture simply because there are signs that...
Too Big Even to Consider Failing
Posted on November 10, 2009As with many folks in the financial and legal world, I'm finishing up Andrew Ross Sorkin's entertaining new best-seller, Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System---and Themselves (Viking...
2009 Weekly local football review
Posted on November 09, 2009(AP Photo/Tom Stratton; previous weekly reviews for this season are here) Colts 20 Texans 17 The Texans (5-4) basically rolled over and playing dead against the Colts (8-0) for the first quarter and a half. By early in the...
Customer service
Posted on November 07, 2009Robert Duvall -- in his classic role of former Texas Ranger Gus McCrae in Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove -- reminds a bartender the importance of good customer service....
Dylan does Christmas
Posted on November 06, 2009Andrew Ferguson is not impressed with Bob Dylan or his new Christmas CD: The production and packaging are professional. The band is competent in a midnight-at-the-Nashville Hyatt sort of way--maybe a little heavy on the tremolo but still. And...
Muddled thinking
Posted on November 04, 2009Everyone who follows football around these parts is feeling bad for Texans' TE Owen Daniels, who blew out an ACL in this past Sunday's game against Buffalo. He is done for the remainder of the season. At the time...
Why is Timothy Geithner still employed?
Posted on November 03, 2009Last week, we learned that Timothy Geithner, while the head of the New York Fed, let Goldman Sachs and several other large investment banks fleece the Fed in connection with the AIG bailout. Then, over the weekend, we learn...
2009 Weekly local football review
Posted on November 02, 2009(AP Photo/Don Heupel; previous weekly reviews for this season are here) Texans 31 Bills 10 The Texans (5-3) dominated the game, but somehow found themselves trailing the Bills (3-5) after three quarters. Previous Texans teams probably would have folded,...
Secret Agent Man
Posted on November 01, 2009One of the most underappreciated rockers from the 60's, Johnny Rivers....
Jonathon Winters' Stick
Posted on October 31, 2009Before Robin Williams and Jim Carrey, there was Jonathon Winters. Enjoy....
John O'Quinn, R.I.P.
Posted on October 30, 2009The Houston legal community remains in shock over the death yesterday in a car accident of famed trial lawyer, John O'Quinn. He was 68 years old at the time of his death. O'Quinn was a remarkably talented plaintiff's lawyer...
Bluffing Geithner is profitable
Posted on October 29, 2009Say what? Timothy Geithner -- while heading up the New York Fed in 2008 -- left upwards of $13 billion of taxpayer money on the table to the likes of Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank during negotiations...
Ellen Podgor on the trial penalty
Posted on October 27, 2009Stetson College of Law Professor Ellen S. Podgor, who authors the popular White Collar Crime Prof Blog, has written an important law review article on a key issue that is confronting defense attorneys and courts in this age of...
2009 Weekly local football review
Posted on October 26, 2009(AP Photo/Dave Einsel; previous weekly reviews for this season are here) Texans 24 49ers 21 The Texans (4-3) inched above .500 for one of the rare times in their eight season history with the win over the 49ers (3-3),...
Inspiration for a football Saturday
Posted on October 24, 2009Still one of the finest endings in the history of cinema. Charles Dutton as Rudy's mentor Fortune, Jon Favreau as D-Bob and Ned Beatty as Rudy's father steal the scene....
Looping for Legends
Posted on October 23, 2009Mark over at the Kaddy's Korner provides this interesting post about his experience in filling in as Tom Watson's caddy during the Champions Tour's Administaff Open at the Tournament Course in The Woodlands last weekend. Mark concludes his post...
More thoughts on business "crimes"
Posted on October 22, 2009Clear Thinkers favorite Holman Jenkins has yet another excellent column this week entitled When Bad Luck is a Crime (or, stated another way, the new crime of violating the obligation to throw in the towel). Among other points, Jenkins...
An Enron Task Force-induced nightmare ends
Posted on October 21, 2009So, the Fifth Circuit followed the instructions of the U.S. Supreme Court and finally directed the U.S. District Court in Houston to dismiss all remaining charges against former Enron Broadband executive, Scott Yeager. The appellate court's order effectively ends...
Kramer's Entrances
Posted on October 20, 2009Every single Kramer entrance from Seinfeld, in chronological order, in a little over six minutes. Enjoy!...
2009 Weekly local football review
Posted on October 19, 2009(AP Photo/Donna McWilliam; previous weekly reviews for this season are here) Texas Longhorns 16 Oklahoma 13 In an entertaining but sloppily-played game, 3rd-ranked Texas (6-0/3-0) rode their hard-hitting defense to tense victory over the now-reeling Sooners (3-3/1-1), who have...
Colbert on the Stock Market
Posted on October 18, 2009Colbert was on fire this week. The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30cThe Money Shotwww.colbertnation.comColbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical HumorMichael Moore...
Colbert: Bend it Like Beck
Posted on October 17, 2009The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30cBend It Like Beckwww.colbertnation.comColbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical HumorMichael Moore...
"Why, those sorry bastards"
Posted on October 16, 2009During football season, two Clear Thinkers favorite subjects are the annual Texas-OU game and former Texas head coach Darrell Royal (here, here, here, here and here). So, this Barking Carnival post on the epic 1976 game -- Royal's last...
The Leader of the Mob reacts
Posted on October 15, 2009You know, it's not every day that a federal appellate court concludes that a newspaper's coverage of a particular event was a major factor in the creation of a presumption of community prejudice. But that's precisely what the Fifth...
The reeling prosecution in the Skilling case
Posted on October 14, 2009On the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision earlier this year to hear Conrad Black's appeal of his criminal conviction on honest services wire-fraud charges under 18 U.S.C. § 1346 ("Section 1346), the Court yesterday granted former Enron...
Gameday Saturday in Death Valley
Posted on October 13, 2009I went over to Baton Rouge this past Saturday with my friend John Stevenson and his family to visit my old friend Dan McCarney -- who is now the Assistant Head Coach of the Florida Gators -- and to...
2009 Weekly local football review
Posted on October 12, 2009(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin; previous weekly reviews for this season are here) Cardinals 28 Texans 21 The Texans 3rd loss in the fifth game of their eighth season (2-3) was actually four games in one: The first 28 minutes,...
My favorite rock video
Posted on October 10, 2009The legendary Roy Orbison, the Boss and James Burton collaborate on one of the best....
The mind of a true thief
Posted on October 08, 2009Disgraced New York City attorney Marc Dreier's letter to his sentencing judge was quite interesting. His recent 60 Minutes interview is just as fascinating. Dreier -- who unquestionably stole over $400 million -- received a lighter prison sentence than former...
Fat chance
Posted on October 07, 2009A couple of interesting health care-related items caught my eye today. First, I went by my internist's office for my annual physical and noticed that another group of doctors had leased a much larger office across the hall from...
2009 Weekly local football review
Posted on October 05, 2009(AP Photo/Dave J. Phillip; previous weekly reviews for this season are here) Texans 29 Raiders 6 So, what happens when the NFL's worst defense meets one of the NFL's worst offenses? Well, this time, Raiders (1-3) QB JaMarcus Russell...
What price for taking on this risk?
Posted on October 01, 2009I've never really understood the basis of the widespread criticism that professional football players are paid too much. In light of the pubic disclosure of the findings of a National Football League-sponsored study regarding the high rate of dementia...
Fearless Critic 2010 is here
Posted on September 30, 2009The best local restaurant evaluation guide -- Fearless Critic Houston Restaurant Guide 2010 -- is now available. The brutally honest restaurant guide is put together by a group of undercover local critics who "dine incognito, don't accept freebies, and...
Why pay even more?
Posted on September 29, 2009In addition to being quite frustrating from a purely football standpoint, attending Houston Texans games is incredibly expensive. And as ESPN.com's Lestor Munson points out, if the NFL has its way in the American Needle case currently pending before....
2009 Weekly local football review
Posted on September 28, 2009(AP Photo/Dave J. Phillip; previous weekly reviews for this season are here) Houston Cougars 29 Texas Tech 28 In one of the most entertaining games of the young season, the now 12th-ranked Cougars (3-0) pulled out the victory over...
Porta San Niccolò
Posted on September 25, 2009As seen from a patio of Museo Pietro Annigoni at Villa Bardini on Costa San Giorgio in Florence....
The Duomo from San Marco
Posted on September 22, 2009The dome of Florence?s Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore from inside the former Dominican convent, Museo di San Marco....
San Miniato
Posted on September 18, 2009The view of the San Miniato Church and Piazzale Michelangelo overlooking Florence, Italy from the Ponte alle Grazie Bridge....
Pizzeria I Tarocchi, Florence, Italy
Posted on September 17, 2009Prosciutto and Mushroom Pizza from one of Florence?s best pizzerias. Pure heaven for around ten bucks....
While you're at it, Judge Rakoff
Posted on September 16, 2009The legal and business communities are still buzzing over U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff's scathing refusal earlier in the week to approve the proposed $33 million "settlement" (i.e., sweep under the rug) between the SEC and Bank of America...
Does anyone take John McClain seriously?
Posted on September 15, 2009Please indulge me one last Texans-related post for the week. John McClain, the lead Chronicle sportswriter covering the Texans, condemned this past Sunday's Texans' loss as the worst in the team's history. Now that normally wouldn't be all that...
2009 Weekly local football review
Posted on September 14, 2009(AP Photo/Dave J. Phillip; previous weekly reviews for this season are here) Jets 24 Texans 7 Well, as one salty high school football coach used to put it, "That went over about as well as a fart in church!"...
Townes, Pancho & Lefty
Posted on September 12, 2009The late Townes Van Zandt tells how he met Pancho & Lefty in Brenham. And almost 10 years later, he delivers arguably his best television performance of his legendary song:...
Houston Texans, Year Eight
Posted on September 11, 2009Year Eight of the Houston Texans begins this Sunday with a home game against the Jets, so it's time for my sixth annual preview of the team (previous annual previews are here). Largely ignored amidst the inexplicable interest over...
The Landry's debacle
Posted on September 10, 2009There are bad stock plays and there are horrible stock plays. And then there is Houston-based Landry's Restaurants, Inc. This story began back in July of 2007 when the company announced that it was delinquent in its regulatory filings...
Innovative teaching
Posted on September 09, 2009Having been raised by one, I've always been drawn to great teachers wherever I find them. Jeff Ritter is a young golf teaching professional in the Phoenix area who combines excellent analytical ability with formidable communication skills to provide....
Understanding storytelling
Posted on September 08, 2009When young attorneys ask me how they can become more effective advocates in the courtroom, I usually tell them: "Become better at telling stories." Several years ago, Derek Sivers interviewed the late Kurt Vonnegut, who was no slouch as...
Love at the Five and Dime
Posted on September 07, 2009Born in Seguin and now of Austin, the great Texas singer-songwriter, Nanci Griffith....
Confession and Avoidance
Posted on September 06, 2009As our own country confronts the difficult issues involved in conducting war, it seems appropriate to recall the closing defense argument in one of the all-time great lawyer movies, Breaker Morant....
Crunchy excellence
Posted on September 05, 2009Continuing on the thread of creative advertising, check out this brilliant series of Cinnamon Toast Crunch commercials by McCann Erickson/Campbell Mithun. ...
A great interview
Posted on September 04, 2009Anything that happens in U.S. Open tennis over the Labor Day weekend is unlikely to match this hilarious post-match interview of Andy Roddick during the 2007 Australian Open after Roger Federer had defeated him in particularly dominating style....
An illusion of safety, but at what cost?
Posted on September 03, 2009The only two airline-security measures that really matter -- fortified cockpit doors and the awareness of the flying public as to what a hijacking can mean -- have been in place virtually since the attacks of September 11, 2001....
Tecumseh Valley
Posted on September 02, 2009The incomparable Nanci Griffith sings a classic song by the late, great Texas songwriter, Towne Van Zandt's classic....
County Fair, L.A. style
Posted on September 01, 2009Yet another example of how commercials (see earlier examples here) are providing some of the most creative product on television(H/T Glenn Reynolds ):...
Rationing health care in a disaster
Posted on August 31, 2009If you read one article health care-related this week, make it this extraordinary Sheri Fink/NY Times Magazine article on the impossible choices that the heroic doctors -- including Dr. Anna Pou -- faced at the former Memorial Medical Center...
Hitchens lays the wood to an apologist for Islamic jihad
Posted on August 30, 2009Christopher Hitchens at his best (H/T Reuben Moore)....
The Five Minute University
Posted on August 29, 2009Food for thought from Father Guido Sarducci to collegians starting the new school year....
A real head scratcher
Posted on August 28, 2009The Stanford Financial Group scandal has been anything but typical, but yesterday's developments may have been the most bizarre yet. The big news, other than the hospitalization of R. Allen Stanford, was the guilty plea that Stanford's right-hand man...
Ali and Arnie
Posted on August 27, 2009The Observer provides this entertaining compilation of quotes from Muhammad Ali, who just turned 67. My two favorites: On his Parkinson's disease: "It wasn't the boxing, it was the autographs." (2003) On his biggest battle: "My toughest fight was...
Re-tracing Graham Greene's journey across Mexico
Posted on August 26, 2009In the first of a series of upcoming blog posts that will interest most Texans, The Atlantic's Graeme Wood is re-tracing the journey across Mexico of Graham Greene of The Lawless Roads fame seventy years ago: Seventy years ago,...
Amazingly bad decision-making
Posted on August 25, 2009One fringe benefit of economic downturns is that local public officials generally defer their financial decisions, which tend to be uniformly bad even during good economic times. Except apparently in Houston. Over the past few days, Houstonians have been...
Stros 2009 Season Review, Part Three
Posted on August 22, 2009Given the inexplicable popularity of NFL football practice in these parts, who cares about Major League Baseball anymore, anyway? As expected, the Stros (59-62) faded into obscurity during the third quarter of the 2009 season, going 19-21 during that...
Scalding Scalia
Posted on August 21, 2009Never one to avoid a lively debate, Harvard law prof Alan S. Dershowitz (previous posts here) lays the wood to Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in this Daily Beast op-ed over the extent of their rationalizations...
A Texas original
Posted on August 20, 2009Given the achievement of covering his 200th major golf tournament at the U.S. Open this past June, Clear Thinkers favorite and fellow Texan Dan Jenkins has been making the interview rounds and it has been a rollicking good time....
Robert D. Novak, R.I.P.
Posted on August 19, 2009Longtime Washington political columnist and television political pundit Robert D. Novak died yesterday, ending a virtually unparalleled 60-year career of reporting on national politics from the nation's capitol. David Broder and Jack Shafer do a good job of putting...
Alain de Botton on the randomness of merit
Posted on August 18, 2009If you watch just one TED video this year, check out this 17 minute presentation by Alain de Botton on the cult of meritocracy and related issues. H/T Epicurean Dealmaker....
Where is the outrage?
Posted on August 17, 2009A couple of stories caught my eye over the weekend. The first was the one involving Bob Dylan being pulled over by a couple of young cops while taking a walk in a New Jersey neighborhood a few hours...
The Hubble Ultra Deep Field
Posted on August 16, 2009I watched this video enlarged on my 27-inch HD monitor. It is incredible. Enjoy....
Johnnie Walker "Walk"
Posted on August 15, 2009As noted earlier here, the most creative product being generated on television these days is commercials. The commercial below is the latest in that trend:...
The Stanford D&O Policy
Posted on August 13, 2009This earlier post noted that alleged Ponzi-schemer R. Allen Stanford has been denied use of proceeds of a director's and officer's insurance policy to pay his defense costs because of claims made on that policy by the receiver appointed...
Colbert does Julie & Julia
Posted on August 12, 2009The crack about "certainly there was something they haven't deep-fat fried yet" is an instant classic....
Enron, the play
Posted on August 11, 2009It was probably inevitable, although I would have guessed an opening Off Broadway rather than in London. But the play is actually getting decent reviews. And it almost has to be better than this trash. Where are Zero Mostel...
Reflecting on astonishing abuses of power
Posted on August 10, 2009As Congress contemplates an historic extension of governmental control in regard to health care finance, a couple of stories relating to the growth of unrestrained exercise of governmental power in another area grabbed my attention. First, former Dynegy executive...
A good sign
Posted on August 08, 2009One of the many fascinating aspects of golf is that you can learn much about a person by playing a round of golf with them. Based on this Time article (h/t Geoff Shackelford), President Obama sounds as if he...
The increasing cost of public equity
Posted on August 07, 2009Frank Quattrone, the former CSFB investment banker who has an interesting perspective, notes a dynamic of the now almost decade-long criminalization of business that I have been warning business owners and lawyers about for quite some time now --...
The health care finance wedge
Posted on August 06, 2009Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Arthur Laffer lucidly identifies one of the key obstructions to controlling costs in America's health care finance system: Consumers are receiving quality medical care at little direct cost to themselves. This creates runaway...
What's the purpose of the Madoff sentence?
Posted on August 05, 2009When Bernie Madoff was sentenced a few weeks ago, my reaction was that it is utterly absurd to imprison a 72 year-old white collar criminal to 150 years in prison. I mean, really -- what's the point? Herb Hoelter...
While we're on this whole police arrogance problem
Posted on August 01, 2009The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30cCurrent Events - Taserswww.colbertnation.comColbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical HumorTasers...
?Is it not like hiring a personal trainer who is morbidly obese??
Posted on July 31, 2009Has there ever been a Treasury Secretary who has been an easier target than Timothy Geithner? The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10cHome Crisis Investigationwww.thedailyshow.comDaily Show Full EpisodesPolitical HumorJoke of the Day...
The real message of the Gates affair
Posted on July 29, 2009Despite America's dubious legacy of exercising state power to oppress minorities, that legacy really was not the most important dynamic in play in regard to the improper arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates. Rather, the real issue here...
Why bother with a trial?
Posted on July 28, 2009This earlier post noted the troubling indications that R. Allen Stanford and that the federal judiciary to date is doing precious little to check the prosecutorial power of the executive branch as it applies to Stanford. This is not...
The incredible lightness of the Chron's pre-season Texans coverage
Posted on July 27, 2009This past Sunday's edition of the Chronicle marked the beginning of what is arguably the most mind-numbing portion of the sporting year -- the five-week period of media coverage of football practice prior to the start of the National...
Rationing and health care finance reform
Posted on July 22, 2009The video below (H/T Professor Bainbridge) of a Milton Friedman lecture on the health care finance system is as timely now as it was in 1978 when he gave it at the Mayo Clinic. I was reminded of the...
Is there a problem with the Airbus 330?
Posted on July 21, 2009When I travel to Europe, I normally fly on Air France, which is one of my favorite airlines. Professional, orderly, reasonably comfortable and clean. It's amazing how few airlines combine those characteristics these days. Air France's fleet includes a...
"Somebody gave him the steal sign"
Posted on July 20, 2009If you haven't already seen it, then don't miss Jon Stewart's classic destruction of the fawning treatment that former Phillies and Mets outfielder Lenny Dykstra received from several financial media outlets over the past several years in regard to his...
Can he do it?
Posted on July 19, 2009A year after 53 year-old Greg Norman flirted with winning the Open Championship, 59 year-old Tom Watson, just two months shy of his 60th birthday, is leading the Open going into the final round Sunday at Turnberry in Ayrshire...
Wish I Hadn't Stayed So Long
Posted on July 18, 2009Another gem from The Woodlands native, Hayes Carll....
Big Fan
Posted on July 16, 2009I suspect that the NFL would prefer that you watch something else going into this upcoming season, but Big Fan looks interesting....
The Money Pit
Posted on July 15, 2009Casey Mulligan's clever post below reminded me of the classic Onion News segment that follows: In 2008, we were told that each American taxpayer had to spend thousands on bank bailouts in order to avoid utter disaster. We were...
Checking in on MLB and the NL Central at the All-Star Break
Posted on July 14, 2009The Major League Baseball All-Star break is this week, so it's a good time to step back and review the key statistics to identify the most productive players and teams over the first half of the season. Following on...
A daunting jury verdict for deal lawyers
Posted on July 12, 2009Flying a bit under the radar this past weekend was the dreaded "we're sure as hell not coming back on Monday" verdict that the jury returned on Friday afternoon in the Refco, Inc-related criminal case against Mayer Brown partner,...
A Meeting with the Pope
Posted on July 11, 2009Richard Z. Chesnoff is one of America's foremost commentators on Middle Eastern affairs (see prior posts here). And he tells a pretty darn good joke, too. From the magnificent Old Jews Telling Jokes:...
Marc Dreier's letter to his sentencing judge
Posted on July 10, 2009It will take awhile before you will read a more interesting -- and really quite extraordinary -- letter from a defendant to a sentencing judge than the one below that disgraced New York lawyer Marc Dreier wrote. It's hard...
Is Allen Stanford being railroaded?
Posted on July 09, 2009I recognize that he is not the most popular fellow in Houston investment circles these days, but is anyone else but me a tad uncomfotable that the federal government is running roughshod over R. Allen Stanford? As everyone following...
Crossing Heaven's Border
Posted on July 08, 2009Over the past decade, tens of thousands defectors have crossed the dangerous waters of the Tumen and Yalu Rivers into northeast China to escape from North Korea, the world’s last closed Communist state. In the hour-long documentary Crossing Heaven’s Border,...
Stros 2009 Season Review, Part Two
Posted on July 07, 2009The Stros (40-41) reached the halfway point of the 2009 season in an incongruous position. Although they are performing only slightly better than predicted before the season and are in fifth place in the six team National League Central...
The Homeopathic ER
Posted on July 06, 2009An instant classic from That Mitchell and Webb Look (H/T Kevin, M.D.). Enjoy....
First, Henry VIII, then this
Posted on July 05, 2009A rather odd postlude from Trinity Wall Street Episcopal Church. H/T J.D. Walt from The Firstborn Son :...
The Yankee Doodle Boy
Posted on July 04, 2009The late Michael Jackson was inarguably one of the most talented entertainers of our time and certainly one of the most innovative dancers. But well before Jackson, there was James Cagney, who was every bit as talented an entertainer and...
Albert Collins
Posted on July 03, 2009I saw Albert Collins perform at a Houston jazz club back in the late 1970's when he opened for a well-known local jazz musician. Suffice it to say that Albert stole the show. The headliner decided to have Collins and...
The Chronicle's continuing Enron hypocrisy
Posted on July 02, 2009Being generally an optimistic sort, I keep thinking that the financial crisis of the past year or so will eventually prompt the Houston Chronicle to reconsider its generally biased coverage of the demise of Enron over the past seven...
The tough choices of health care finance reform
Posted on July 01, 2009Following on a point made in this recent post, this Avery Johnson/WSJ article addresses one of the tough issues that must be addressed if there is going to be any meaningful reform of the U.S. health care finance system:...
Classic Buddy Hackett
Posted on June 28, 2009The video of Ed McMahon and Johnny Carson posted earlier this week reminded me of this classic joke that the late Buddy Hackett told and acted out on the Tonight Show years ago. Enjoy....
Old Jews telling jokes is back
Posted on June 26, 2009After a short break, one of the best new websites of the year -- Old Jews Telling Jokes -- is back with a new round of jokes. Enjoy....
The swing that won the U.S. Open
Posted on June 24, 2009No wonder 2009 U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover is one of the leaders on the PGA Tour in the total driving statistic. At 6'2", he achieves amazing extension on his backswing and then delivers a powerful but controlled blow to...
Houston's connection to the new U.S. Open champion
Posted on June 23, 2009Houston is synonymous with golf, so it's appropriate that new U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover's former teacher and mentor was the late Dick Harmon (see also here), who was one of Houston's most respected golf instructors for decades before...
Jenkins @ the Open
Posted on June 22, 2009With the 2009 U.S. Open that is finishing today, Clear Thinkers favorite Dan Jenkins is covering his 200th major golf tournament. In one of the more remarkable developments of the tournament, the 79 year-old Jenkins has been reporting on developments...
The Defense of Freedom
Posted on June 20, 2009There is no question that President Obama is confronted with a delicate diplomatic situation in regard to the ongoing political unrest in Iran. But it is ironic that the same issue that is bubbling over on the streets of Tehran...
Final Argument
Posted on June 18, 2009The late Paul Newman in The Verdict playing a talented but alcoholic lawyer who gets a final opportunity to redeem a disappointing career in a difficult medical malpractice case. Enjoy....
A small Austin brokerage house schools the big banks
Posted on June 16, 2009Tongues were wagging in financial circles around the world last week regarding this Wall Street Journal article about Austin-based Amherst Holdings' amazing play in which they sold credit default swaps on mortgage bonds to a number of Wall Street...
Will Obama address this key health care finance issue?
Posted on June 15, 2009Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen penned this insightful NY times op-ed over the weekend that addresses the problem of the elephant in the parlor in regard to Obama's proposed reform of America's dysfunctional health care finance system: MEDICARE expenditures threaten to...
Lucy and Ethel in Iowa City
Posted on June 14, 2009While reminiscing about my late mother with family members and friends at her recent funeral, it occurred to me that her remarkable life would be a great subject for a Larry McMurtry novel. Along those lines, Sarah Swisher, an...
Not a good week for freedom
Posted on June 12, 2009First, in the face of a duplicitous government prosecution and a draconian trial penalty, Kevin Howard was forced to plead guilty to a crime that he did not commit. Then, the executive branch of the federal government, unchecked by...
The genius of Richard Pryor
Posted on June 11, 2009This fine Stephan Kanfer/City Journal piece on the late Richard Pryor reminded me of this old Saturday Night Live skit entitled "Word Association." Enjoy....
A continuing civic shame
Posted on June 10, 2009My first blog post on the chronically shameful condition of the Harris County Jail was four years ago. There have been quite a few others since then. Still, nothing has changed. Despite my libertarian leanings, it's way past time...
The thin line of business criminality
Posted on June 09, 2009In this earlier post regarding former Enron Broadband CFO Kevin Howard's recent plea deal, I predicted that the factual basis for the plea deal would barely describe wrongdoing, much less criminality. Turns out I was right. Check out paragraph...
A productive idea for the Dome
Posted on June 08, 2009Over the weekend, the Chronicle ran this story about Harris County officials considering an idea to convert the Astrodome into a planetarium and a medical and science education facility. It's actually a good idea and one that was suggested...
Bud Light's latest
Posted on June 07, 2009As noted earlier here and here, commercials continue to provide some of the most creative entertainment on television. Check out Bud Light's latest:...
Eye of the Tiger
Posted on June 05, 2009Ever since participating in a really good junior high school band, I've always been amazed at the way in which excellent music instructors can elicit outstanding musical performances from children. Another example here:...
A timely reminder
Posted on June 04, 2009As the heat of the summer months rises and thunderstorms become more frequent, this Bill Pennington/NY Times article passes along a helpful reminder to golfers regarding two commonly often overlooked hazards -- overexposure of skin to the sun and...
Nice job, Doc
Posted on June 03, 2009Check out this Lisa Sanders/NY Times article if you think that a trail of specialists is the surest way to figure out a knotty medical problem: How come not one of the dozens of doctors ? including an endocrinologist...
Chalk up another trial penalty deal
Posted on June 02, 2009With no valid case against former Enron Broadband CFO Kevin Howard, what was the Department of Justice to do? Rattle the saber of the trial penalty and cut a deal. On one hand, the deal appears to be an...
The golf shot of the year
Posted on June 01, 2009National championships don't happen all that often at Texas A&M. Consequently, this video is an instant Aggie classic in that it shows the remarkable wedge shot that The Woodands' Bronson Burgoon stiffed on the 18th hole of the final...
A Brit visits Texas
Posted on May 31, 2009A friend of mine from London, on his first visit to Houston, candidly admitted that he was surprised that there were so many trees and no sagebrush or sandstorms. One can only imagine the similar misperceptions that this BBC video...
Tea Party
Posted on May 30, 2009As noted in this earlier post, some of the most creative work on television these days is being done in commercials....
Remembering a special mother
Posted on May 29, 2009My mother, Margaret Allen Kirkendall, died yesterday evening at Finley Hospital in Dubuque, Iowa after a lengthy illness. She was 86 years old. The following is an obituary for Margaret that my brother Matt wrote with contributions from many...
"The Hospital"
Posted on May 28, 2009From one of the best new websites of the past year, Old Jews Telling Jokes....
The power of info visualization
Posted on May 27, 2009Check out this elegant example of information visualization focusing on the changes in life expectancy and wealth over the past 200 years....
There is no crying in baseball
Posted on May 26, 2009With the passing of Memorial Day, it's officially baseball season, even though the dang NBA Playoffs seem endless. Thus, it's time for Tom Hanks as exasperated Manager Jimmy Dugan to remind us of the best baseball tirade in cinematic history....
Stros 2009 Season Review, Part One
Posted on May 23, 2009While waiting in line to pick up a bottle of water at a Stros game earlier in the week, an old friend of mine and fellow longtime Stros season-ticket holder stopped by to say hello and chat. Eventually, the...
Brothers at War
Posted on May 22, 2009The trailer for the new documentary -- particularly appropriate for the Memorial Day weekend -- is below....
Advantage Cartwright
Posted on May 21, 2009Texas Monthly's Gary Cartwright caught my eye recently with this op-ed in which he bemoans the decline of sports writing in Texas. I mean really. Can anyone who regularly reads the sports pages of Texas newspapers make a good...
An amazing sporting feat
Posted on May 20, 2009Although it is flying under the radar screen outside of golfing circles, Lance Ten Broeck's performance at last weekend's Valero Texas Open in San Antonio is one of the most amazing sports stories of the year. In fact, it...
SCOTUS takes up the honest services issue
Posted on May 19, 2009Well now, that certainly did not take long, now did it? Just a week after former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling appealed his criminal conviction and monstrous 24-year prison sentence to the U.S. Supreme Court on an allegedly erroneous application...
Bad regulation vs. deregulation
Posted on May 18, 2009Clear Thinkers favorite Niall Ferguson provides this timely reminder to those who believe that the financial turmoil of the past couple of years is the result of lax regulation of financial markets: Human beings are as good at devising...
Kevin Spacey is very good at impersonations
Posted on May 17, 2009Inside the Actors Studio - Kevin Spacey...
Still the best rendition of Pancho & Lefty
Posted on May 16, 2009Emmylou Harris' version in 1977 of Townes Van Zandt's classic song....
More Collision
Posted on May 15, 2009This earlier post provided the trailer for Collision, the new Darren Doake-directed documentary about the series of debates and conversations last year between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson over the existence of God. Here is a longer sneak peak of...
Thinking about the Chrysler deal
Posted on May 14, 2009Unworkable credit situation, UAW ownership and Italian engineering. What could possibly go wrong? The blogosphere has really stepped up in analyzing the government-pushed and government-subsidized asset sale by Chrysler out of its only recently-filed chapter 11 case...
The state of the Skilling case
Posted on May 13, 2009The attorneys for former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday, which is quite interesting and is being widely reported in the mainstream media. However, as interesting as...
How did it come to this?
Posted on May 12, 2009That's the question I kept asking myself as I watched former U.S. District Judge Sam Kent be sentenced to 33 months in federal prison yesterday (previous posts here). I had an early-morning hearing in federal court yesterday and another...
Is the case against Sir Allen getting more complicated?
Posted on May 11, 2009On first blush, the criminal case against Sir Allen Stanford, the mercurial chairman of Stanford Financial Group, would appear to be pretty straightforward. On the other hand, why was the Securities and Exchange Commission apparently falling over itself for...
Cruising the Houston Ship Channel
Posted on May 09, 2009The oil and gas industry is synonymous with Houston, but many folks do not know that health care and the Port of Houston are huge economic drivers in the local economy, too. Check out this time lapse video by Lou...
Mostly for Trekkies
Posted on May 08, 2009With the latest Star Trek movie opening this weekend, you may want to pass the following video of an old William Shatner Saturday Night Life sketch along to your Trekkie friends. Be sure to watch through the end. SNL Get...
Jenkins returns to Sawgrass
Posted on May 07, 2009Clear Thinkers favorites Dan Jenkins, the dean of American golf writers, is making his first trek to TPC Sawgrass in a decade this week to cover my favorite tournament, The Players (which includes the always fun video of the...
A big risk of health care finance reform
Posted on May 06, 2009In addressing issues relating to health care and health care finance reform over the years, I've tried to be careful to differentiate America's Byzantine and inefficient health care finance system from the quality of America's health care, which remains very...
The Butcher vs. The Oilman
Posted on May 03, 2009Daniel Day-Lewis as Bill the Butcher from Streets of New York has a discussion with Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview of There Will Be Blood....
Heineken's Walk-in Cooler
Posted on May 02, 2009Following up on this earlier post, isn't it interesting that some of the most creative product on television these days is in commercials?...
McClain keeps mailing it in
Posted on April 30, 2009This really was not meant to be my "bash the Chronicle" week. I mean, really -- the local newspaper already has enough problems. But what else can one do when confronted with this blather from the Chronicle's lead NFL columnist,...
Permanent Enron myopia
Posted on April 29, 2009Inasmuch as what took place with regard to Enron earlier in the decade has now happened to much of Wall Street, the vacuity of the Houston Chronicle's coverage of Enron-related matters has become clear. Nevertheless, Chronicle business columnist Loren...
NBA Playoffs Win Probability
Posted on April 28, 2009This is very cool. Brian Burke, who authors the Advanced NFL Stats webpage, has developed a model for win probability for the NBA playoffs. So, as you watch the Rockets/Blazers playoff game tonight, you can also watch a chart that...
Barcelona 1908
Posted on April 27, 2009This 36 Hours in Barcelona column in Sunday's New York Times reminded me of this fascinating video of Barcelona in 1908 shot from a streetcar. Enjoy....
Sisters Morales "You Wanna Love Me"
Posted on April 25, 2009Another talented group that came of age in the Houston club scene, the Sisters Morales....
Remember Ken Lay?
Posted on April 24, 2009Joe Weisenthal and Henry Blodget over at Clusterstock have been all over the breaking story yesterday that, as many of us suspected, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and perhaps other governmental officials threatened Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis...
Checking in on J.R. Richard
Posted on April 23, 2009According to this interesting Bugs and Cranks interview of former Stros fireballer J.R. Richard, the 6' 8" righthander is still holding some grudges against the local ballclub: Five Astros pitchers have had their numbers retired, including two, Nolan Ryan and...
The importance of good timing
Posted on April 21, 2009As noted earlier here, the Shell Houston Open had its best field in decades earlier this month when it was played the week before the Masters. Based on the World Golf Rankings, 15 of the top 20 players, and...
Clear Thinking to begin the week
Posted on April 20, 2009Former Cardinals and Pirates outfielder Andy Van Slyke from this recent interview ($) in Baseball Prospectus: "Well, [former Astros pitcher] Mike Scott, to me, is the best pitcher to ever pitch in the big leagues. I went 1-for-38 against...
A Houston Original
Posted on April 16, 2009One of Houston's many treasures is Jack Burke (earlier posts here), the 86 year-old co-founder and owner of Champions Golf Club. The energetic Burke was recently slowed by a "mild" stroke (my late father used to say that the...
Defining Health Insurance
Posted on April 15, 2009All sorts of interesting debates regarding reform of the American health care finance are breaking out across the blogosphere, which is a good thing. Those discussions prompted one of the best thinkers on health care finance reform -- Clear...
The Chronicle's Enron myopia
Posted on April 14, 2009Even when it is on the right side of an issue, the Chronicle reminds us of its failings. As noted earlier here, it has become fashionable among the Old Media to support the recent decision of the Justice Department...
Colbert defends Christ
Posted on April 12, 2009The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30cBart Ehrmancolbertnation.comColbert Report Full EpisodesPolitical HumorNASA Name Contest...
Dylan on Politics
Posted on April 10, 2009From Bill Flanagan's recent interview with Bob Dylan: What's your take on politics? Politics is entertainment. It's a sport. It's for the well groomed and well heeled. The impeccably dressed. Party animals. Politicians are interchangeable. Don't you believe in...
Not a bad way to start the day
Posted on April 09, 2009"I can only tell you that eggs, country ham, biscuits, a pot of coffee, a morning paper, a table by the window overlooking the veranda and putting green, listening to the idle chitchat of competitors, authors, wits and philosophers,...
Rationing health care
Posted on April 08, 2009One of the common complaints heard regarding government-controlled, single payor health care finance systems is that they ration care in a manner that often results in long delays for even routine procedures. However, as this MedPage blog post points...
Is this really the best that the Chronicle can do for its lead sports columnist?
Posted on April 07, 2009Remember awhile back when Chronicle lead sports columnist Richard Justice defamed Stephanie Stradley, a very good local blogger on the Texans and the NFL who now blogs at the Chronicle? Well, ol' Richard is at it again. This time...
Batter up! Stros 2009 Season Preview
Posted on April 06, 2009Today is Opening Day for the Major League Baseball season and Houston, so it's time for HCT's annual preview of the Stros' upcoming season (previous annual previews since 2004 are here). The Stros opening day roster is here over...
Observations from the SHO
Posted on April 05, 2009The following are a few observations from my annual trek to the Shell Houston Open at the Tournament Course at Redstone Golf Club: As I've noted on a number of occasions, the Tournament Course has a reasonable number of interesting...
The Tyranny of the Busybodies
Posted on April 03, 2009"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his...
The Postrel Health Care Finance Articles
Posted on April 01, 2009Clear Thinkers favorite Virginia Postrel (previous posts here) is well-known in health care finance circles for her authorship of a reasoned critique of one-payor, centralized health care plans back in the 1990's. She now writes for The Atlantic. Over...
The Wavering Rule of Law
Posted on April 01, 2009So, because of prosecutorial misconduct, the Justice Department decides to move for dismissal of the political corruption case against former Alaska senator Ted Stevens (previous posts here and here). Meanwhile, Jeff Skilling, who created billions of dollars in wealth...
Henderson on the Nature of Government
Posted on March 30, 2009David Henderson makes an insightful point about the Ryan Moats/Robert Powell run-in in Dallas last week in which Powell (the policeman) exhibited an utter lack of common sense, much less prosecutorial discretion: So what is the essence? The issue...
It's 2009 Shell Houston Open Week
Posted on March 29, 2009The Shell Houston Open has finally arrived as a big-time PGA Tour event. After an ugly divorce from The Woodlands, and a difficult transition period in which most of the best PGA Tour players avoided the event, the 2009...
Our Congress at work
Posted on March 28, 2009I swear, you can't make this stuff up. As regular readers of this blog know, I thought the federal bailout of AIG and various other Wall Street firms was a bad idea from the start because it prevented our...
Collision
Posted on March 27, 2009Here is the trailer for Collision, the new Darren Doake-directed documentary about the series of debates and conversations between Christopher Hitchens and Douglas Wilson over the existence of God. Interestingly, Hitchens and Wilson became quite good friends during their travels...
Losing the grip on AIG
Posted on March 26, 2009The business blogosphere was abuzz yesterday over publication of AIG executive Jake DeSantis' remarkable resignation letter to AIG CEO, Ed Liddy. But what was even more remarkable was the reaction of some commentators that makes abundantly clear that common...
Say what, Richard Justice?
Posted on March 25, 2009The Chronicle's primary sports page columnist, Richard Justice, is gushing over the Houston Rockets' management now that the local club has seized first place in the NBA's Southwest Division going into the last ten games of the regular season:...
Getting a grip on AIG
Posted on March 23, 2009Geez. I leave the country for ten days on a European trip and, upon my return, the entire U.S. body politic appears to be going batshit over a couple hundred million dollars of performance bonuses that the now-thoroughly Enronized...
Houston golf is a bargain
Posted on March 23, 2009As I've noted several times over the years, the value of Houston-area golf courses is often under-appreciated by golfers in other parts of the country. In this Golf.com Press Tent blog post , Gary VanSickle indirectly highlights one of...
Piazza della Repubblica on a Sunday in Spring
Posted on March 16, 2009This is the site of the original Roman forum in Florence. It is now a large plaza surrounded by chic cafes. The people watching on a beautiful March Sunday is extraordinary....
Morning in Pisa
Posted on March 13, 2009I am in Italy for a few days with my son Andy helping him get set up in his apartment while he lives in Florence. We flew into Pisa last night and slept there before driving to Florence this morning....
The real March Madness
Posted on March 12, 2009As I've noted many times, big-time college sports in the U.S. is structured in a corrupt manner, but it's an entertaining form of corruption that makes reform difficult (how would reform affect my team?). That reality rears its rather...
Trampling Stanford
Posted on March 11, 2009As most folks following the upfolding Stanford Financial Group scandal know by now, Laura Pendergest-Holt was the first Stanford executive arrested in connection with the scandal. If only a few of the allegations contained in the motion below are...
The Goldman Sachs bailout
Posted on March 10, 2009Why do most pundits continue to characterize the billions of dollars that the federal government has loaned to AIG over the past six months as "the AIG bailout?" As this WSJ weekend article and this subsequent Bloomberg article note, the...
The real reason why the Texans re-signed David Anderson
Posted on March 09, 2009I don't keep up on the market in the NFL for back-up wide receivers, but I was still surprised last week when the Texans matched Denver's $4.5 million offer (including a cool $1 million up front) to restricted free agent...
Conan O'Brien's Greatest Guest Moments
Posted on March 07, 2009Conan O'Brien - Great Guest moments - watch more funny videos...
The Making of the Godfather
Posted on February 26, 2009Don't miss Mark Seal's wonderful Vanity Fair piece on the making -- and particularly the war over casting -- of The Godfather: With The Godfather, the era of the $100 million blockbuster had begun, and its creator was the...
Greed in perspective
Posted on February 25, 2009In market economies, people who create jobs and wealth often generate great wealth personally. During periods of market unrest, those wealthy folks are often demonized as being greedy. During a period of economic malaise in1979, the late Milton Friedman counsels...
Judge Kent cops a plea
Posted on February 24, 2009As most local lawyers expected, U.S. District Judge Sam Kent entered into a plea bargain on the courthouse steps today that derailed what would have been an extremely ugly trial on sexual abuse and obstruction of justice charges and...
The Journal's curious case of myopia
Posted on February 23, 2009Bully for the Wall Street Journal for running this editorial last week decrying the prosecutorial misconduct of the Justice Department in obtaining the conviction of former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens on ethics charges. However, where was the nation's leading...
A civilized routine
Posted on February 22, 2009Check out Winston Churchill's entirely wonderful daily routine from the quite interesting blog, Daily Routines: Despite all this activity Churchill’s daily routine changed little during these years. He awoke about 7:30 a.m. and remained in bed for a substantial...
Quotes of the Week
Posted on February 21, 2009Emanuel Derman: "The market wants Churchill and they keep tossing it Chamberlains." John Nash (via David Henderson) on his progress out of mental illness in the late 1980's: "Then gradually I began to intellectually reject some of the delusionally influenced...
IMG's bad week
Posted on February 20, 2009The late Mark McCormack must be spinning in his grave. His baby has had a very bad week. McCormack was the attorney who parleyed his friendship with PGA Tour star Arnold Palmer to create the world's leading management firm...
Stanford blows up
Posted on February 18, 2009Well, that certainly didn't take long, now did it? As noted here this past Sunday, Stanford Financial Group has been well-known around Houston as a smoke-and-mirrors investment outfit for quite awhile. Joe Weisenthal over at Clusterstock has the best...
It's tough following sports in Houston
Posted on February 17, 2009As noted earlier here, given all of the incredible disappointments over the years, there must be a special place in Heaven for folks who continue to follow Houston sports teams. The latest example The Stros haven't even held their...
What are Leach and IMG thinking?
Posted on February 16, 2009This earlier post noted the fascinating contract dispute that has arisen between Texas Tech University and the most successful coach in the school's history, Mike Leach. Now, with the university and Leach at loggerheads, and a university-imposed February 17th deadline...
Houston's Madoff?
Posted on February 15, 2009The mainstream media has finally begun to notice the unusual circumstances surrounding the Houston-based investment firm, Stanford Financial Group (the latest Chronicle story is here). Although the firm characterized the various investigations as "routine" in news reports, believe me...
An unintended consequence of drug prohibition
Posted on February 14, 2009While this post from earlier in the week highlighted the historical backdrop to the United States' failed drug prohibition policy, this Telegraph.co.uk article passes along an unintended consequence of that policy that should put to rest any concerns about...
What Not to Wear, PGA Tour-style
Posted on February 12, 2009Golf Digest fashion director Marty Hackel takes Phil Mickelson to task for wearing a white belt with his otherwise all-black oufit at the PGA Tour stop last weekend at Torrey Pines in San Diego: OK, I have had a...
Interesting historical perspectives
Posted on February 11, 2009Cato Unbound points us to a couple of articles that provide insightful observations on two of the crises that are swirling around us these days. First, William Niskanen cautions us regarding the fear-mongering that supporters of the Obama Administration's fiscal...
The real A-Rod tragedy
Posted on February 10, 2009As predicted here last year, the names of the MLB players who tested positive for steroids or other performance-enhancing drug use in MLB's 2003 survey test of 240 players are finally being leaked to the media (previous posts on...
A couple of questions regarding the proposed soccer stadium
Posted on February 09, 2009The always-entertaining Houston real estate blog, Swamplot, provided this post last week with typically pretty pictures from a KHOU-TV video of the long-proposed soccer stadium for the Houston Dynamo MLS soccer team. Have we really been talking about this...
Is Leach worth it for Tech?
Posted on February 08, 2009A fascinating dispute between Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach and Texas Tech University highlights the tension in the relationship between the business of big-time college football and academia. According to this Examiner.com article, Leach and Tech have agreed...
What the Tour players really think
Posted on February 06, 2009Golf Digest is running in this month's issue the results of an interesting survey that the magazine recently took of 25 of the top PGA Tour players. Clear Thinkers favorite and longtime Houstonian Steve Elkington scores highly in one...
Thinking about Cheney's remarks
Posted on February 05, 2009Many Americans were repulsed by the methods former Vice-President Dick Cheney used to consolidate and exercise war powers in the Executive Branch during the administration of George W. Bush. Unfortunately, that controversy clouds many people's judgment on Cheney's many...
Blogging NASA
Posted on February 04, 2009One of my favorite new blogs is Wayne Hale's blog in which he discusses working at NASA generally and on the Space Shuttle program specifically. Despite being a political football from time-to-time, NASA remains a fascinating place. Every one...
The Rockets at mid-season
Posted on February 03, 2009The Rockets narrative-- i.e., "Tracy McGrady is a superstar and the Rockets can't win in the playoffs without him, but he's not the type of clutch superstar who can win in the playoffs, blah, blah blah." -- continues to...
Sound thoughts to start the week
Posted on February 02, 2009Felix Salmon: It may or may not be true that we would have avoided much of this crisis had credit default swaps never been invented. I suspect it's not true, and that the CDS market, in allowing people to short...
Vitals
Posted on January 31, 2009Vitals is an ambitious project -- providing free information and patient ratings on doctors throughout the U.S. I've checked on a number of my doctor friends and every one of them is included in the database, so it appears to...
Considering the whole man
Posted on January 30, 2009Over the years, I've written quite a bit (for example, here, here and here) on the questionable nature of the prosecutions of the executives who were involved in the AIG/General Re finite risk transaction that prompted Eliot Spitzer to...
Updike on Golf
Posted on January 29, 2009The late author John Updike loved to write about and play golf, and his death this week reminded me of a fine speech that he gave about the game during the United States Golf Association's Centennial Dinner in New...
Evaluating the NFL QB's and RB's
Posted on January 28, 2009As Super Sunday approaches, check out this Dave Berri post on his final quarterback and running back ratings for the 2008 season. A few observations: The Texans' QB Matt Schaub had the 10th best season among QB's and rookie RB...
The potential consequences of being tricky
Posted on January 27, 2009It's rarely pleasant for a businessman to have his personal affairs splashed across the front page of the New York Times business section. But it has to be particularly unsettling for the businessman when he is already the target...
Making bad policy
Posted on January 26, 2009It sure is getting hard to keep up with all the rules involved in determining whether an important person gets prosecuted for an alleged business crime. First, there was the Apple Rule, which was quickly followed by the Dell...
Can Mayor White pull off another "win-win" deal
Posted on January 25, 2009Although the developers of the proposed Ashby high-rise condominium project didn't know it at the time, Houston Mayor Bill White did the developers a huge favor by putting up roadblocks to that project. Can you imagine trying to peddle...
Oral history of the Bush White House
Posted on January 24, 2009When you have a spare hour or so, check out this "Oral History of the Bush White House" by Cullen Murphy, Todd Purdum and Philippe Sands in the current issue of Vanity Fair. The format of the article is...
Thinking about Ted Kennedy's health care
Posted on January 23, 2009As the Obama Adminstration begins exploring how to reform America's broken health care finance system, Kevin Pho makes an insightful observation regarding the current medical treatment of one of the leading reformers: As we know, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy has...
Skilling fires back
Posted on January 21, 2009As noted earlier here, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel decision in former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's appeal of his criminal conviction was unusual in several respects. For example, even though the three-judge panel reversed Skilling's sentence and...
Reality Bites
Posted on January 20, 2009This earlier post made the following point about folks who lost their entire nest egg by investing it with Bernard Madoff: Although nothing is wrong with compassion for folks who lose money in an investment fraud, it's important to remember...
An entertaining upcoming week in Houston
Posted on January 19, 2009No one in Houston this week can complain about lack of opportunity for intellectual stimulation. First, well-known legal blogger and Clear Thinkers favorite Larry Ribstein will be lecturing on Thursday afternoon from noon to 2 p.m. at the University....
The Hardest Job in Football
Posted on January 18, 2009As you settle in to watch today's two NFL conference championship games, be sure to check out Mark Bowden's excellent article in this month's Atlantic on the enormous human and technological resources that to into the television production of...
Hayes Carll on the Battle of Crystal Beach
Posted on January 17, 2009Clear Thinkers favorite Hayes Carll sings "I Got a Gig" and tells the humorous story about about his first gigs in Crystal Beach, Texas....
Marathon madness
Posted on January 16, 2009The annual running of the Houston Marathon is this weekend, so the Houston Chronicle is running its typical series of supposedly inspiring stories about various participants. A couple of days ago, the story was about a couple of folks...
Fertitta calls off bid to take Landry's private, but takes it private, anyway
Posted on January 15, 2009Suffice it to say that it's been an interesting past year and a half for Houston-based Landry's Restaurants Inc., which owns restaurants such as Landry's, Rainforest Cafe, Charley's Crab, The Chart House, and Saltgrass Steak House, as well as...
Fascinating trend
Posted on January 14, 2009Following on this earlier post, isn't it interesting that beer companies are funding some of the most creative product on television?...
The criminalization-of-business lottery
Posted on January 13, 2009The owners of Long Term Capital Management may have been the earliest winners in the most recent era of what Larry Ribstein has coined the criminalization-of-business lottery. On the other hand, Jamie Olis may have been the earliest big...
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on January 12, 2009(previous weekly reviews are here) Texas Longhorns 24 Ohio State 21 In a not particularly well-played, but nevertheless highly-entertaining Fiesta Bowl last Monday night, the Longhorns (12-1) used some more QB Colt McCoy magic with 16 seconds left to...
Dan Jenkins' 2009 Golf Season Pop Quiz
Posted on January 10, 2009Clear Thinkers favorite Dan Jenkins is already in mid-season form with this hilarious pop quiz (H/T Geoff Shackelford) for the start of the 2009 PGA Tour season. Some of the questions to get you started: 7. Camilo Villegas is:...
Can Judge Kent receive a fair trial in Houston?
Posted on January 09, 2009By now, most folks have heard that the government has filed a superceding indictment against U.S. District Judge Sam Kent alleging sexual abuse against a second federal employee and also obstruction of justice in connection with the Fifth Circuit's...
Another Angry Mob
Posted on January 08, 2009The Fifth Circuit's decision yesterday reminded us of the angry mob that lynched Jeff Skilling. Now, as this timely Roger Parloff/Fortune article notes, an even larger mob is gathering to lynch the businesspeople who were attempting to save their...
The Fifth Circuit rules in the Skilling appeal
Posted on January 07, 2009In this current anti-business climate, not many folks were expecting that the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals would set aside former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's conviction. On the other hand, not many folks expected this decision, either. In the...
As the Rockets' World Turns
Posted on January 06, 2009With the football season winding down in these parts, folks are finally noticing that the Houston Rockets are approaching the halfway point of the NBA seasons and again look like an also-ran in the playoff race. It's now been...
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on January 05, 2009(WRMSOX photo; previous weekly reviews are here) Rice 38 Western Michigan 14 As expected, the Owls (10-3) rolled to an easy win in the Texas Bowl last Tuesday as star QB Chase Clement (30-44/307 yds/3 TD's/12 carries for 72...
How much did you say he made?
Posted on January 04, 2009Except for the incredibly large amounts, there are no surprises at the top of Golf Digest's annual list (H/T Geoff Shackelford) of professional golf's top 50 money earners from both prize money and endorsement income. Tiger Woods ($117 mil...
Football or P.R. Genius?
Posted on January 03, 2009Richard Justice has already deemed him a genius. Earlier this month, he visited President Bush in the White House and, on Sunday night, he will be profiled on CBS-TV's 60 Minutes. Even Michael Lewis has bought in to the...
Summing up the New Year's Day Bowls
Posted on January 02, 2009Says TigerHawk: "Until I witnessed Brent Musburger's love of USC, I did not think it was possible for a journalist to love a subject more than Chris Matthews loves Barack Obama. Now I am not so sure."...
Check out A&M's new indoor track facility
Posted on December 31, 2008Track and Field Videos on Flotrack...
Those pesky unexpected consequences
Posted on December 30, 2008On the heels of this post from a couple of days ago that addressed Tyler Cowen's recent NY Times op-ed that speculated that expectations generated from the 1998 government bailout of Long Term Capital Management hedge fund were not...
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on December 29, 2008(AP Photo/Dave Einsel; previous weekly reviews are here) Texans 31 Bears 24 Well, at least this time, the Texans (8-8) beat the Bears' (9-7) first-string rather than the Jags' junior varsity to achieve only the franchise's second non-losing season...
Lessons of LTCM
Posted on December 28, 2008Marginal Revolution's Tyler Cowen makes a similar point in this NY Times op-ed about the 1998 federal bailout of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund that this earlier post made about Enron and the current Treasury bailout: At the...
Are you ready for some football?
Posted on December 27, 2008The football rivalry between the Texas Longhorns and Oklahoma Sooners is one of the most passionate in college football. The intensity of that rivalry has led to some highly competitive recruiting battles between the two schools for the best...
Hayes Carll is back
Posted on December 26, 2008The Woodlands native Hayes Carll (earlier post here) is back in town for the holiday season, playing tonight in downtown Houston at Warehouse Live and on Tuesday the 30th at Dosey Doe in The Woodlands. If you have not had the...
Merry Christmas from the Family
Posted on December 25, 2008Back by popular demand is Texas singer-songwriter and Houston native Robert Earl Keen's classic Texas Christmas carol and video, Merry Christmas from the Family. Happy holidays and thanks for reading HCT!...
Playing fair
Posted on December 24, 2008So, now Alaska Senator Ted Stevens is finding out that some federal prosecutors do not play fair (H/T Doug Berman). Of course, we've known that for quite some time down here in Houston. Oh well, at least the mainstream...
Enduring Gladwell?
Posted on December 23, 2008Charlie Rose interviews Malcolm Gladwell in the video below in regard to his new book Outliers, but it does not appear that the Financial Times' Clive Cook will be watching: Since the first chapter of #8220;Tipping Point#8221; I have been...
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on December 22, 2008(AP Photo/George Nikitin; previous weekly reviews are here) Raiders 27 Texans 16 Amidst the Chronicle cheerleaders becoming enraptured again during the Texans' (7-8) first four-game winning streak, the local team reminded us today against the Raiders (4-11) why they...
The Big Picture -- 2008
Posted on December 21, 2008Don't miss Boston.com's Big Picture's collection of the best photos of 2008 here, here and here....
Any connection?
Posted on December 20, 2008As Bill Henderson notes, many big law firms are going to have trouble surviving in these turbulent financial markets. Financial markets aside, though, I wonder whether this type of news is an even larger part of big law's problem?...
Wallstrip does Cramer on Wall Street
Posted on December 19, 2008Watch Cramer Weekend on Wallstrip in Funny Videos | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com...
Making sense of Madoff
Posted on December 18, 2008Loren Steffy, the Houston Chronicle's business columnist, has been having a hard time lately. You will recall that Steffy was one of the leaders of the mainstream media lynch mob that embraced the myth of the Greed Narrative in...
A tuna wins a small lottery prize
Posted on December 17, 2008As a result of the Buffet Rule, the federal government decided to land a bunch of tuna rather than the barracuda in regard to an AIG-General Re finite risk insurance transaction that was not clearly illegal, much less criminal....
Blago blogging
Posted on December 16, 2008The criminal troubles of an Illinois governor would not normally be one of this blog's topics, but this Michael Barone op-ed on the Rod Blagojevich affair is just too good not to pass along. Barone is well-versed in the...
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on December 15, 2008(AP Photo/David J. Phillip; previous weekly reviews are here) Texans 13 Titans 12 The Texans (7-7), who most everyone in these parts had left for dead a month ago, won their fourth straight game for the first time in...
Project Barkley
Posted on December 14, 2008Hank Haney has done some really good work in helping Tiger Woods modify his swing plane over the past several years. But what he has done in helping Charles Barkley fix his golf swing is nothing short of miraculous....
That's a solution?
Posted on December 13, 2008As Congress and the mainstream media continue their muddle over the current downturn in financial markets, one of the ubiquitous "solutions" that Washington and the MSM have already decided is needed to prevent another such disruption is more and...
Would you buy a car from Congress?
Posted on December 11, 2008The W$J's Holman Jenkins continues what should be Pulitzer Prize-winning commentary on the problems of the U.S. auto industry: None of [Congress' complicity in the auto industry's problem] was mentioned at four days of congressional bailout hearings, because Detroit...
From waiting tables to the Tour
Posted on December 10, 2008There really is nothing quite like the PGA Qualifying Tournament (commonly know as "the Q School") for sheer sporting drama. After six nerve-wracking rounds (108 holes), the 25 low scorers get the treasured fully-exempt status to play in PGA...
225 Miles High
Posted on December 09, 2008Check out these magnificent Mail Online photos of the Endeavour astronauts completing the recent repairs on the International Space Station....
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on December 08, 2008(AP Photo/Morry Gash; previous weekly reviews are here) Texans 24 Packers 21 Could the Texans actually be turning into a reasonably dangerous team so long as they hang on to the ball? Despite four turnovers, the Texans (6-7) rallied...
What is this blithering 90-degree rule?
Posted on December 07, 2008When it comes to playing golf, I'm decidedly old school. Weather permitting, I prefer to walk while playing, which puts me in a decided minority among American golfers, most of whom prefer to ride in a motorized cart. Golfweek's British...
But what about that case in which the threat worked?
Posted on December 05, 2008This Wall Street Journal editorial from earlier in the week rightly notes that the "Department of Justice finally got something right" by electing not to appeal the Second Circuit's decision earlier this year upholding U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan's dismissal...
Reflections on Mumbai
Posted on December 04, 2008Jonathan Ehrlich is a Vancouver businessman who was in one of the hotels that was attacked last week in Mumbai. Take a few minutes to listen to his harrowing story and to read the email (under the fold below) that...
"That's just not us"
Posted on December 03, 2008While General Motors is making its case in Congress for a $12 billion bailout, it's trying to cut corners in other areas, such as its endorsement deal with Tiger Woods that paid Woods $7 million annually over the past...
Checking in on the NBA
Posted on December 02, 2008Did you realize that 20% of the 2008-09 NBA season is already completed? Most of the local mainstream media is locked into the Rockets narrative -- i.e., "Tracy McGrady is a superstar and the Rockets can't win in the...
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on December 01, 2008(AP Photo/Harry Cabluck; previous weekly reviews are here) Texas Longhorns 49 Texas Aggies 9 As predicted in the previous weekly review, the Longhorns (11-1/7-1 Big 12) hammered the Aggies (4-8/2-6 Big 12), but still ended up behind Oklahoma (11-1/7-1...
Deep Impact Video
Posted on November 30, 2008Check out NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft's video of the Moon transiting the Earth from 31 million miles away!...
Thoughts on the attacks in Mumbai
Posted on November 28, 2008Remember -- overcoming fascists of all stripes takes a fighting spirit....
Turkey lessons
Posted on November 27, 2008One of the most popular videos that I posted on this blog last year was the one of New York butcher Ray Venezia giving instructions on how to carve a turkey. All you fellow turkey carvers will find it...
He should know
Posted on November 25, 2008You just never know what those former Enron Task Force prosecutors are going to say. Last week, one of them was incongruously advocating limitation of corporate criminal liability. This week, David Westheimer points out that former Task Force prosecutor...
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on November 24, 2008(AP Photo/Tony Dejak; previous weekly reviews are here) Texans 16 Browns 6 A win is a win, right? Well, maybe. But the reality is that the Texans (4-7) finally found a team in the Browns (4-7) that is more...
Do as I say, not as I do
Posted on November 22, 2008Andrew Weissmann is a rather odd advocate (see here and here) for limiting corporate criminal liability, don't you think? Let's take a look back on Weissmann's business prosecution scorecard. A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court overturned Weissmann's dubious prosecution of Arthur...
Talking football in Texas
Posted on November 20, 2008Football is an integral part of Texas culture. So, when a big game is around the corner, it seems as if everyone around here is talking about it. And some of the talk can get pretty entertaining. The big...
Progress on the bailout front?
Posted on November 19, 2008So, less than two months after this previous post noted that chapter 11 reorganizations with possible government financing of reorganization plans were the best tools to shake out the current financial crisis, even the NY Times (here and here)...
Thinking about markets
Posted on November 18, 2008Now that folks have had at least a bit of time to reflect on the financial crisis on Wall Street, some good historical perspectives are starting to pop up, such as this Niall Ferguson Vanity Fair piece (previous posts...
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on November 17, 2008(AP Photo/Michael Conroy; previous weekly reviews are here) Colts 33 Texans 27 Texans (3-7) backup QB Sage Rosenfels (13-18/192 yds/0 TD/1 INT) had another "Sage moment" (i.e., "what the hell was that?") when he threw his only interception of...
PGA Tour by the numbers
Posted on November 16, 2008PGA Tour.com's Kin Lo posts this first-rate statistical breakdown for the 2008 PGA Tour season (H/T Geoff Shackelford). Although the entire statistical analysis is interesting (scroll down the intro page to the hyperlinks at the bottom), the following chart provides...
The Obama choices
Posted on November 15, 2008Jan Greenburg sizes up the most likely chances that Obama will have to nominate justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. The bottom line -- despite the advanced age of several of the justices, perhaps not as many as one would...
Ghosts of Enron
Posted on November 14, 2008Ken Lay was prosecuted to death for promoting Enron even though he had a reasonable basis for believing that what he was saying about his company was true. Fast forward a couple of years. Yesterday, the W$J reported that...
Can you spare $350 million?
Posted on November 13, 2008And you think the Texans' season is going badly? Get a load of what Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is facing, and I'm not talking about whether to fire head coach Wade Phillips (H/T Brad Humphreys): Industry watches as...
Watch out for the Bears
Posted on November 12, 2008As noted here earlier, years of mediocre football at Texas A&M has mellowed the formerly hard-knuckled 12th Man a bit. This week, A&M football team is a decided underdog to the fearsome the Baylor Bears (H/T Jay Christensen): Meanwhile, watch...
How do you change a bad system?
Posted on November 11, 2008So, now that the Democrats have swept in a slate of judges to replace many longstanding GOP state district judges in Houston, the Chronicle runs an article about how some Republicans are calling for an alternative system for appointing...
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on November 10, 2008(AP Photo/David Einsel; previous weekly reviews are here) Ravens 41 Texans 13 Oh my. It's going to be a long week for Houston sports talk show hosts in this week. The Ravens (6-3) manhandled the Texans (3-6) in the...
Checking up on Krispy Kreme
Posted on November 09, 2008The folks over at WallStrip update us on the mercurial Krispy Kreme....
Video fun
Posted on November 08, 2008The unedited Saturday Night Live Economic Bailout News Conference Skit. Absolutely brutal, but quite funny. The Onion News Network reports on the impact of Obama's victory on his obsessive supporters: Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their...
The NatWest Three are finally going home
Posted on November 07, 2008The NatWest Three -- the three U.K. bankers who were dragged through the Enron mud for the past five years -- are finally going home after serving a about six months of their sentences in U.S. prisons. After a hearing...
Remember that hotel deal you invested in?
Posted on November 06, 2008This post from over a year ago reviewed the absurdly highly-leveraged deal that Blackstone Group LP was proposing to make for Hilton Hotels. That deal was a head-scratcher even during the heady days of easy money. As this W$J article...
A prayer for the new administration
Posted on November 05, 2008Heather Headly and Andrea Bocelli sing an stirring rendition of The Prayer. Enjoy....
Tom Alexander, R.I.P.
Posted on November 04, 2008I lost an old friend and Houston lost one of its most colorful characters on this past Sunday morning -- legendary trial attorney Tom Alexander died of a heart attack at the age of 78. The Chronicle story on...
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on November 03, 2008(AP Photo/LM Otero; previous weekly reviews are here) Texas Tech 39 Texas Longhorns 33 As predicted, the top-ranked Horns (8-1/4-1 Big 12) were not able to run the table through four straight games against top-10 ranked teams. The loss...
Phillip G. Hoffman, R.I.P.
Posted on November 02, 2008Phil Hoffman, inarguably one of the most important university presidents in the history of the University of Houston, died Wednesday at the age of 93. The Chron's Lynwood Abram penned a nice article on Dr. Hoffman here. When Dr. Hoffman...
Lacking appreciation for capitalism
Posted on November 01, 2008Comedian Louis CK sums it pretty well:...
The Prince of Regulation
Posted on October 31, 2008Get a load of the letter that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the new Prince of Regulation, sent to about ten Wall Street firms the other day: We believe that the Board of Directors is most appropriately positioned...
A good idea, but . . .
Posted on October 30, 2008The Chron's top-notch Medical Center reporter Todd Ackerman reported yesterday that two venerable Houston academic -- Baylor College of Medicine and Rice University -- are in preliminary discussions regarding a possible merger. This makes sense on many levels...
What's worse?
Posted on October 29, 2008Although not many people care much, the 2008 World Series has turned into a first rate mess. Game Five is currently suspended while the Phillies and Rays players sit around Philadelphia waiting for the inclement weather to end. This...
Placebo Nation
Posted on October 28, 2008In light of this NY Times article reporting that half of American doctors responding to a nationwide survey regularly prescribe placebos to their patients, I pass along the following business opportunity, courtesy of the ever-clever Dr. Boli:...
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on October 27, 2008(AP Photo/Dave Einsel; previous weekly reviews are here) Texans 35 Bengals 6 The Texans (3-4) won their third game in a row for the first time in franchise history by drubbing the Bengals (0-8), who are truly dreadful. The...
Moneyball for American health care finance
Posted on October 26, 2008Billy Beane, Newt Gingrich and John Kerry ask why not?...
Different directions
Posted on October 25, 2008Newspapers are under siege. This Henry Blodget post reports on the continuing financial deterioration of the New York Times, which looks to be in real trouble. Meanwhile, the blogosphere continues to thrive. For example, this Stephanie Stradley post about...
My Beijing Birthday
Posted on October 24, 2008Take a couple of minutes to watch the trailer for what may be one of the most important movies of our time, My Beijing Birthday (H/T James Fallows)....
Stossel's Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics
Posted on October 23, 2008If you didn't have the opportunity to watch or record it last Friday, then watch the following six YouTube segments of John Stossel's Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics when you have the time (the other five segments are below the...
The Rays' Houston connection
Posted on October 22, 2008In 2005, Forbes named the Tampa Bay Rays as the "most horrific" sports franchise of the modern era and the "worst-managed organization" in Major League Baseball. A little over three years later, the Rays are in the World Series,...
Security theater
Posted on October 21, 2008While considering the abject vacuity of the presidential candidates' positions on the major issues this election season, I started thinking about some minor issues that might make a difference in my vote. For example, if either major candidate came...
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on October 20, 2008(AP Photo/Dave Einsel; previous weekly reviews are here) Texans 28 Lions 21 Texans (2-4) continue to be a work-in-progress. They hammered the atrocious Lions (0-6) for three quarters and looked to be on their way to an easy win....
The shame!
Posted on October 18, 2008You know things are really getting bad in the financial markets when FT.com's always-lively Dear Lucy column (previous post here) receives the following letter from an investment banker: "At a dinner party last Saturday I was asked by a fellow...
The maturation of A&M football
Posted on October 17, 2008One of the many endearing cultural characteristics of Texas is the devotion of most Texas A&M University alumni to the A&M football program. Although the intensity of that interest has generated some rather awkward moments over the years, the A&M...
Playing the Jimmy Carter card
Posted on October 16, 2008You know it's desperation time for McCain when Victor Davis Hanson plays the Jimmy Carter card against Obama: A great many moderates and conservatives are worn out and tired of Bush and Bush hatred, the European furor, serial charges...
Hedging the Enron trial penalty
Posted on October 15, 2008Given the mainstream media's ubiquitous characterization of Enron as the harbinger of the current Wall Street financial crisis, it's really not surprising that former Enron Broadband co-CEO Joe Hirko opted to cop a plea on Tuesday rather than face...
Refracting Enron myopia
Posted on October 14, 2008One of the more entertaining aspects of the current Wall Street financial crisis has been reading how some of the business columnists have been interpreting it. Take, for example, Houston Chronicle business columnist, Loren Steffy. You may remember him...
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on October 13, 2008(Previous weekly reviews are here) Texas Longhorns 45 Oklahoma 35 In the most entertaining college football game of the season to date, the Longhorns (6-0/2-0 Big !2) vaulted to No. 1 in the AP, Harris and Coaches Top 25...
Stone and the capitalist roaders
Posted on October 12, 2008Don't miss Larry Ribstein's post on Oliver Stone's financing philosophy in regard to his new movie about George W. Bush -- W -- the trailer of which is below:...
230 years?
Posted on October 11, 2008So, the Justice Department is seeking a sentence of 230 years for former General Re senior counsel Robert Graham, a 60-year old man who has never been involved in any wrongdoing in his life. Mercifully, the pre-sentencing report recommends...
Almost a month after Hurricane Ike
Posted on October 10, 2008A friend of mine who is a homebuilder in The Woodlands passes along the following regarding his experience in overseeing a crew rebuilding the neighborhood of his weekend home in Hurricane Ike-ravaged Galveston: Just back from Galveston after 3...
Say what?
Posted on October 09, 2008As noted earlier here and here, the lack of leadership involved in the current credit crisis really really has been appalling. You don't think so? Check this out:...
Campaigning in 2008
Posted on October 08, 2008Although things aren't going so well for the McCain-Palin campaign, it looks as if they have at least locked up The Villages, the golf-course retirement community in Florida that runs those cheesy commercials during PGA Tour golf tournament telecasts:...
Stros 2008 Season Review, Part Five: Season Recap and Report Card
Posted on October 07, 2008The Stros 2008 season has been over for over a week now, so it's time for my final review of the 2008 season (prior 2008 season reviews are here) and my grading of the Stros players for the 2008...
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on October 06, 2008(AP Photo/David J. Phillip; previous weekly reviews are here). Colts 31 Texans 27 The following was a conversation that I had with another long-suffering fan of Houston sports teams after the Texans' (0-4) crushing 4th quarter meltdown against the...
Therapy, Jack Donagy-style
Posted on October 04, 2008Whew! After that business week, we all could use a little levity. The creator and star of NBC's clever sitcom 30 Rock -- Tina Fey -- has been getting quite a bit of publicity lately because of her spot-on impersonation...
Following up on my concierge health care experience
Posted on October 03, 2008This post from about a year ago explored the reasons why my friend and personal physician -- internist Bill Lent, MD -- decided to convert his internal medicine practice to a concierge practice in which he limited his practice to...
Another cost of the bailout
Posted on October 02, 2008As reconsideration of the proposed Treasury Bailout of Wall Street takes center stage in Washington, other pressing and arguably more important problems continue to be ignored. Take the chronically dysfunctional American health care finance system. This Boston Globe article...
This is leadership?
Posted on September 30, 2008I've already said my piece on the proposed Treasury Bailout of Wall Street, so I won't belabor that view. In the meantime, there are much better places to keep up with the minute-by-minute political developments on the proposed bailout...
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on September 29, 2008(AP Photo/Phil Coalel; previous weekly reviews are here). Jaguars 30 Texans 27 (OT) If it isn't one thing, it's another for the Texans (0-3). After pretty much stinking it up in the Texans' first two games, QB Matt Schaub...
The Rothko Chapel
Posted on September 27, 2008It was the 105th anniversary of Mark Rothko's birth earlier this week, so it's a good time to learn a bit more about the artist whose paintings hang in one of Houston's most remarkable places, the Rothko Chapel on...
Tough day at the office
Posted on September 25, 2008Clear Thinkers reader Charles Satterfield passes along these pictures of a trading office on the sixth floor of Chase Tower -- the tallest building in downtown Houston -- taken shortly after Hurricane Ike blew out dozens of windows on the...
The Treasury Bailout is not rocket science
Posted on September 24, 2008The debate over the proposed Treasury bailout of Wall Street firms is coming at a fortuitous time -- the election season. Be wary of any candidate who, after looking appropriately concerned about the dire predictions of the plan's promoters,...
The "Rookies and Rednecks" come through
Posted on September 23, 2008What with a hurricane hitting the upper Texas coast and a financial hurricane hammering Wall Street, the U.S. team's improbably stirring victory over the European team in last weekend's Ryder Cup matches has been somewhat overlooked. As usual, Geoff....
2008 Weekly local football review
Posted on September 22, 2008(AP Photo/John Russell) After a week off in deference to Hurricane Ike, the weekly local football review is back (previous weekly reviews are here). Titans 31 Texans 12 OK, it wasn't as bad as the Week One loss to...
Youth coaching tips
Posted on September 20, 2008This earlier post generated an email from a reader soliciting my thoughts on coaching youth sports, which I want to pass along to other readers who are coaching youth sports or considering doing so in the future. When my children...
Interesting golf fact of the day
Posted on September 19, 2008What with Hurricane Ike and the meltdown on Wall Street -- as well as my general pessimism about the U.S. team's chances -- I haven't blogged much about this weekend's Ryder Cup matches at Valhalla in Louisville. But Clear...
Absolutely AIGesque
Posted on September 18, 2008Do you recall what we were thinking about three and a half years ago?...
Progress in the aftermath of Ike
Posted on September 18, 2008Wednesday was a good day. Large areas of Houston -- including the area that includes my family's home -- had power restored. Our land phone lines were also restored on Wednesday after they had survived Hurricane Ike only to be...
A day in a life after Ike
Posted on September 17, 2008Just jotting down a few observations throughout the day of living in an area that just experienced a major natural disaster. FEMA, take note Although The Woodlands did not suffer as much damage as many other parts of the...
That other hurricane
Posted on September 16, 2008So, while the Houston area was enduring a hurricane, the financial markets were enduring one, too. As with Enron and Bear Stearns, the demise of Lehman Brothers reinforces the inherently fragile nature of a trust-based business (related posts here). ...
The aftermath of Ike
Posted on September 15, 2008An estimated 5 million customers along the upper Texas Gulf Coast lost power as a resuit of Hurricane Ike. Only about 5% of those have been restored as I write this post. Current estimates are that it will be 2-3...
Surviving Ike
Posted on September 14, 2008Yes, although you haven't heard from me for awhile, I'm still here. My family and I survived Hurricane Ike just fine. Although not an intense hurricane (it came ashore as a category 2), the enormity of the storm was...
The Galveston Seawall
Posted on September 13, 2008You probably have heard much over the past couple of days about the Galveston Seawall. It was constructed in the early 20th century after Galveston was destroyed by the storm surge of the Hurricane of 1900. The purpose of the...
A developing disaster
Posted on September 12, 2008The extreme storm surge of Hurricane Ike is causing a disaster in Galveston, Texas, which is about 50 miles southeast of Houston. The Coast Guard announced earlier today that the authorities believe that Galveston Island will be completely submerged....
Waiting on Ike
Posted on September 12, 2008When I started this blog back in early 2004, it never occurred to me that hurricanes would end up being a frequent topic. Then, on August 27, 2005, many folks discovered this little corner of the blogosphere when this...
Hank's Thank-You Note
Posted on September 11, 2008Mr. Juggles over at Long or Short Capital passes along this fictional thank-you note from Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to American taxpayers after this week's seemingly inevitable federal bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (prior posts here): Dear...
Justice fumbles again
Posted on August 28, 2008Even when chronically-wrong Chronicle sports columnist Richard Justice gets something right, he immediately follows it with more poorly-reasoned blather. In this blog post, Justice pays a nice tribute to former Texas Tech football coach Spike Dykes, who is truly...
The genesis of a mortgage fraud hotspot
Posted on August 27, 2008Dealbreaker's essential Opening Bell yesterday included the following note about the connection between the state of Florida and mortgage fraud: Florida tops 1Q mortgage fraud list (AP) This is not surprising... Florida is already a key location of the...
Glass houses
Posted on August 26, 2008Dan Slater of the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog notes the Kremlin's recent refusal to grant parole to former OAO Yukos CEO Michael Khodorkovsky, who is serving an eight-year prison sentence in Siberia for tax evasion and fraud. Khodorkovsky's...
Joe Cocker, captioned for the clear-headed
Posted on August 25, 2008Come to think of it, I always have wondered what lyrics Joe Cocker was singing during his famous rendition of "With a Little Help from My Friends" at Woodstock in 1969 (H/T Craig Newmark)....
The Quad reviews UT and LSU
Posted on August 24, 2008The Quad -- the NY Times' excellent college sports blog that has been the subject of these previous posts -- continues its excellent review of each of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision ("FBS") football programs by profiling...
Stros 2008 Season Review, Part Four
Posted on August 23, 2008After falling apart during the third fifth of the 2008 season, the Stros (64-64) made an unexpected rebound during the fourth fifth of the season, going 20-13 over that stretch. Although the Stros' recent play was more fulfilling to...
Metro's sleight-of-hand
Posted on August 22, 2008Kevin Whited passes along this Bellaire Examiner article that reports on Metropolitan Transit Authority CEO Frank Wilson bragging to a couple of local Chambers of Commerce about the economic impact that Metro's new light rail projects will have on...
The NFL's next flagship stadium
Posted on August 21, 2008Reliant Stadium in Houston is a nice and comfortable place to watch sporting events, but this Wired Magazine article reports that the new Dallas Cowboys stadium in Arlington looks to take the stadium experience to an entirely new level. "The...
Martin Wolf on Capitalism
Posted on August 20, 2008The new Creative Capitalism blog created by Bill Gates, Michael Kinsley and Conor Clarke is quickly making an interesting corner of the blogosphere. Today, Martin Wolf, the associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, pens this...
Say what, Doc?
Posted on August 19, 2008Inasmuch as my family and social groups include a large number of medical doctors, I've noticed that the slang that the docs use when they are talking shop can be incomprehensible at times. That's why this comprehensive list of...
Richard Justice's Kumbaya Weekend
Posted on August 18, 2008Allow me to ask the following question again: Why is Richard Justice allowed to write about sports for a major metropolitan newspaper? This weekend's Justice missives were particularly banal, which is saying something when it comes to his writings....
Fashion trends
Posted on August 17, 2008Check out Esquire's slideshow (on the left below) illustrating the evolution of men's fashion over the past 75 years. Then, take a look at this Time Magazine slideshow (on the right below) exhibiting the worst of golf fashion over the...
Dr. Ralph Feigen, R.I.P.
Posted on August 16, 2008In this recent post on the death of Michael DeBakey, I noted that a substantial part of Dr. DeBakey's legacy was his involvement in the massive importation of talented medical professionals to Houston over the past 60 years. That...
Mapping Olympic Medals
Posted on August 15, 2008The New York Times has the best Olympics online coverage page that I've seen. Particularly well-done are the daily schedule and the Olympic Medals page, the latter of which maps the medals as they are won and provides a map...
Cowboy business
Posted on August 14, 2008The Texans are the toast of their local cheerleading team, but the unquestioned NFL team of Texas remains the Dallas Cowboys. This Glenn Hunter/D Magazine interview of Cowboys owner Jerry Jones confirms that the Cowboys business model is performing...
Beijing = "People's Republic of Houston"?
Posted on July 17, 2008"Beijing is flat and sprawling and smoggy and jammed with traffic and nearly all new, which is why an American friend who’s been working there for the last couple of years calls it 'the People’s Republic of Houston.'" That's...
Southwest Airlines' legacy of good news
Posted on July 16, 2008Gosh, it's such a drag reading about business and the economy lately. So, what the heck, let's take a quick look at a perennial source of good news, Clear Thinkers favorite Southwest Airlines. Southwest's discount model of operation has...
Stros 2008 Season Review, Part Three
Posted on July 15, 2008Inasmuch as Major League Baseball is taking a break for the All-Star break, I decided to post the third part of five periodic reviews of the Stros' 2008 season a game or so early (previous parts for the 2008...
Be careful, Mr. Wagoner
Posted on July 14, 2008General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner made some interesting public comments this past week in Dallas regarding the besieged automaker's bankruptcy prospects: "Under any scenario we can imagine, our financial position, or cash position, will remain robust through the rest...
Dr. Michael DeBakey, R.I.P.
Posted on July 13, 2008Dr. Michael DeBakey (previous posts here), who was one of the most influential men in Houston's history, died late Friday at the age of 99. Two of the Chronicle's finest reporters -- Science reporter Eric Berger and Texas Medical...
Incompetence masquerading as demagoguery
Posted on July 12, 2008University of Houston finance professor Craig Pirrong (blog here) does a nice job in this Wall $treet Journal op-ed on Friday of explaining how speculation in oil and gas markets helps all of us deal with rising energy prices:...
An Enron "hero" is looking for work?
Posted on July 11, 2008This JoAnn Greco/Portfolio.com article bemoans that "famed Enron whistleblower" Sherron Watkins is having a hard time finding a job. Those dastardly employers just don't trust honest employees such as Watkins, now do they? On the other hand, perhaps the reason...
Which Starbucks stores are closing?
Posted on July 10, 2008When Starbucks announced last week that it is closing 600 stores and laying off 12,000 employees, the company did not disclose which stores would be shuttered (got to get those lease buyouts finalized). However, that hasn't stopped word from...
The NFL confronts the Mismatch Problem
Posted on July 09, 2008The pathological way in which National Football League teams annually evaluate college football players has been a common topic on this blog. So, I thoroughly enjoyed this New Yorker video (H/T Guy Kawasaki) of a recent talk by Clear...
The latest Enron book
Posted on July 08, 2008Harvard Business School issued this press release and interview yesterday of Malcolm S. Salter, the Harvard professor who has written the latest book -- Innovation Corrupted: The Origins and Legacy of Enron's Collapse (Harvard University Press) -- in what...
American ingenuity
Posted on July 07, 2008It's not all bad news out there on the business front. Over this past holiday weekend, Cirrus Design Corporation successfully completed the first 45-minute flight of the company's innovative "The-Jet" (H/T James Fallows), which is a five-plus-two seat aircraft that...
An excellent primer for the political season
Posted on July 06, 2008The Heritage Foundation provides this outstanding series of charts (example to the left) reflecting various issues relating to federal revenue and spending. Recommended reading before listening to any candidate during the upcoming political campaigns...
CNET visits the JSC
Posted on July 05, 2008CNET's Road Trip 2008 blog visits the Johnson Space Center in the Clear Lake area of Houston (photos here). The article and accompanying photos are a good primer for the always interesting visit to the JSC....
Nice job, but what about that other case?
Posted on July 04, 2008This Wall Street Journal editorial pats itself on the back justifiably for swimming against the mainstream media tide in opposing from the outset former New York Attorney General Eliot's Spitzer's popular but dubious litigation and propaganda campaign against former New...
Public financing of a private boondoggle
Posted on July 03, 2008The WSJ's Holman Jenkins splashes some cold water on the suggestion that General Motors' Volt automobile will have much of a positive impact either environmentally or on GM's bottom line: At best, the Volt will be an affluent family's...
Tiger's tournament enters the Tiger Chasm
Posted on July 02, 2008The Tiger Chasm -- the widening netherworld of golf tournaments that don't attract much attention because Tiger Woods doesn't play in them -- has now swallowed even Tiger's own tournament, this weekend's AT&T National at Congressional Country Club in...
Tyson who?
Posted on July 01, 2008I swear, you can't make this stuff up. The American Family Association apparently has a policy over at its new outlet, OneNewsNow, never to use the word "gay" in an article. Instead, the AFA always replaces "gay" with the...
Continuing to suspend reality on financing the soccer stadium
Posted on June 30, 2008This earlier post addressed the economic absurdity of having financially-strapped Texas Southern University make an investment in the long-proposed Houston Dynamo downtown soccer stadium. However, why is it that common sense seems to evaporate into thin air whenever either...
The Quad previews the Coogs
Posted on June 29, 2008In its countdown of the 120 Division I-A football programs, The Quad previews the 2008 Houston Cougar football team at no. 64....
On the driving range in The Woodlands
Posted on June 29, 2008Several years ago, during the early part of the final round of the U.S. Women's Open, I was hitting balls at the driving range of the Player Course here in The Woodlands. I figured that I would hit balls...
The stress of selling snake oil
Posted on June 27, 2008In my annual preview of the Stros' season, I made the following observation about the then newly-acquired Stros pitcher, Shawn Chacon: "Chacon was an inconsistent starter for six seasons before washing out with the Yankees and Pirates in 2006...
Colbert on Hannity
Posted on June 26, 2008Stephen Colbert channels Jessica Hagy in analyzing conservative talk-show host Sean Hannity....
The Future of Law Firm Advertising?
Posted on June 25, 2008Clear Lake-area plaintiff's lawyers Ron and Scott Krist use the YouTube video below to explain why helicopter crash victims should hire their firm. Not exactly To Kill A Mockingbird, but pretty darn effective nonetheless. By the way, I wonder what...
Browse while finding a pickup game
Posted on June 24, 2008Proving that there is a market in almost everything, Infinite Hoops allows you to find or schedule pickup basketball games. About 15 years and a blown out Achilles' Tendon late for me, though. Meanwhile, Zoomii is a slick virtual...
Clear thinking to begin the week
Posted on June 23, 2008In three and a half minutes, Richard St. John explains the keys to success. The late Milton Friedman explains the folly of the prohibition policy against drugs....
Expanding DKR Memorial
Posted on June 22, 2008A couple of years ago, while attending the Texas-Iowa State football game (blog post here), I took the photo on the left of the horseshoe section on the north end of the University of Texas' Darrell K. Royal Memorial...
Comparing boondoggles
Posted on June 21, 2008Warren Meyer has some fun commenting on the latest Phoenix-area urban boondoggle -- a three-quarter of a billion dollar state subsidy for an amusement park in the Arizona desert! Of course, that subsidy is peanuts in comparison to the...
The obligation to throw in the towel
Posted on June 20, 2008So, the shoe finally dropped on the two Bear Stearns executives who managed the two Bear hedge funds that imploded in mid-2007. A copy of the indictment is here. As I read the indictment, the government is contending that...
Tiger's bittersweet victory
Posted on June 19, 2008Just off one of the most remarkable performances of his amazing career, Tiger Woods is going on the shelf for the rest of this golf season and probably for a good chunk of next season rehabilitating from surgery to...
Futures trading 101
Posted on June 18, 2008As noted many times over the years on this blog (recently here and here), the instinct of most politicians and much of the mainstream media is to embrace simple "villain and victim" morality plays when attempting to explain investment...
Criminalizing Failure
Posted on June 17, 2008As Larry Ribstein reports, the Enron prosecutorial veterans are already picking up the usual suspects in regard to the Bear Stearns meltdown. As John Carney observes , do any investors really feel safer as a result of these criminal...
Bill King's story
Posted on June 16, 2008As Republican presidential nominee John McCain is doing his best to stoke public prejudice against job-creators and wealth builders, longtime Houston lawyer and businessman Bill King is promoting his new book, Saving Face (Somerset 2008), which is King's personal...
The Refco Question
Posted on June 15, 2008Ellen Podgor has the sentencing memos in regard to former Refco CEO Phil Bennett's plea deal. They are interesting reading, but what they do not answer is the most intriguing question that remains unanswered from the entire Refco affair: Why...
Cool Graph Friday
Posted on June 13, 2008H/T Craig Depken H/T W$J/Josee Valcourt H/T Russell Roberts ...
An odd spokesman for limiting corporate criminal liability
Posted on June 12, 2008The always-alert Ellen Podgor notes that former Enron Task Force chief Andrew Weissmann (see also here and here) recently wrote an amicus brief on behalf of various business and defense-oriented organizations in the United States v. Ionia Management, S...
Gearing up for the U.S. Open
Posted on June 11, 2008Golf course author and blogger Geoff Shackelford is blogging the U.S. Open this week at Torrey Pines in San Diego in the same manner as he blogged The Masters earlier this year, and he kicks off the U.S. Open...
Stros 2008 Season Review, Part Two
Posted on June 10, 2008Through 40% of the season, the Stros' record is precisely what you would expect from a club that struggles to maintain National League average performance -- 32-32, including 15-16 in the second fifth of the season. That's about the...
Aging well
Posted on June 09, 2008Steve Winwood sounded good back in the 1960's and 70's during his days with the Spencer Davis Group and Traffic. I'll be darned if he doesn't sound even better now....
Colbert v. Will
Posted on June 08, 2008Clear Thinkers favorite Stephen Colbert finally meets his match -- syndicated columnist George Will:...
Take a ride on Google Earth
Posted on June 07, 2008Check the following out on Google Earth. Go to "Tools" in the top navigation bar, click "Options" and then the "Touring" tab. Down below, you will see "Driving Directions Tour Options. " Input the following settings: Camera Title: 80...
Hillary's flaw
Posted on June 06, 2008The strangely obsolescent presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton is one of the most intriguing stories of this political season. The Financial Times' Clive Cook provides a spot on foreigner's perspective: [Clinton's] performance last night was stunningly ill-judged, and speaks...
Counting down with the Quad
Posted on June 05, 2008It's less than three months until the kick-off of the 2008 college football season, so in anticipation of the upcoming season, the New York Times' quite good college sports blog -- the Quad -- is providing an excellent summary...
Slugging Metro?
Posted on June 04, 2008I'd bet that a program such as this (H/T Craig Newmark) would rival (if not exceed) the ridership on Houston Metro's light rail line. Slugging is a term used to describe a unique form of commuting found in the...
So, what's the difference?
Posted on June 03, 2008Mel Weiss was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison yesterday for making undisclosed payments to class representatives in class action lawsuits that his firm handled. As noted here about a year ago, Weiss didn't have much of a choice given...
Ron Paul, we hardly knew ye
Posted on June 02, 2008This post from last June noted Houston-area Congressman Ron Paul's deft media touch on Comedy Central's Daily Show. Now, a year later, Jim Henley sums up the utter failure that Paul's presidential campaign became: This fellow can’t spell "candidate," but...
The price of soccer keeps going up
Posted on June 01, 2008Based on what's going on in Washington, D.C., my prediction on the eventual public subsidy of the proposed Dynamo soccer stadium in Houston may be a tad low. With D.C.'s proposed $150 million public subsidy for about 25,000 seats,...
I would have never guessed
Posted on May 31, 2008That, according to this handy database, this person would have given the most commencement speeches during this current season of university graduation ceremonies. Similarly, I would not have guessed the city in the world that is home to the...
The Bear Stearns lesson
Posted on May 30, 2008Today brought the final installment of Kate Kelly's extraordinary three-part W$J series on the fall of Bear Stearns. My goodness, was Kelly a fly on the wall over at Bear's office during all of this? Although all three installments...
The instinct against the money-makers
Posted on May 29, 2008I swear, you can't make this stuff up. As Larry Ribstein cogently explains, Southwest Airlines has taken advantage of futures markets over the past several years to hedge its fuel costs (previous posts on Southwest's hedging program are here)....
Hope on the horizon
Posted on May 28, 2008Following up on this post from awhile back, don't tell the folks at MIT that the prospects for mankind are gloomy. Check out this MIT News article that resulted from the institute's news office asking a collection of MIT...
Checking out Houston on the tour bus
Posted on May 27, 2008Randal O'Toole went on a bus tours of different parts of Houston while he was in town for the Preserving the American Dream Conference a couple of weeks ago and he chronicles his impressions with observations here (neighborhoods between...
Dragged into the mud
Posted on May 26, 2008The collateral damage of Roger Clemens' questionable approach to disputing his use of performance-enhancing drugs is already extensive. It now appears that the best player in Stros history may get pulled into the public fray. As this post from...
Opting out with meaning
Posted on May 24, 2008Earlier this week, the owners of the National Football League elected to opt out of the final two years of the league's Collective Bargaining Agreement with its Players Association. The Mile High Report and Stacey Brook do good jobs...
Reflecting on the raid
Posted on May 23, 2008The Third Court of Appeals' decision yesterday ruling that the State of Texas had illegally seized over 450 children from their homes at a polygamist West Texas ranch threw a large monkey wrench into the largest custody case in...
Houston's solid housing market
Posted on May 22, 2008One of the under-appreciated benefits of living in the Houston metropolitan area is its varied and reasonably priced housing market, which is the subject of this Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas report. The report notes that Houston's housing market...
Overrated
Posted on May 21, 2008While this Golf.com article surveys the most overrated professional golfers, this Dave Berri post analyzes the most overpaid NBA players. Guess who made the latter list?...
And you thought the Mitchell Report was ugly?
Posted on May 20, 2008So, the controversy over the Mitchell Commission Report has pretty much died down, right? Well, it looks as if another potential public relations nightmare is brewing for Major League Baseball: Tucked away inside the United States attorney’s office in...
The cost of Spitzerism
Posted on May 19, 2008On Friday, February 11, 2005, shares of American International Group closed at $73.12 per share. Last Friday, after Eliot Spitzer and the meltdown in the subprime mortgage markets, AIG's shares closed at $39.34 per share. James Freeman of the Wall...
Nice comeback
Posted on May 18, 2008Legendary defense lawyer Gerry Spence is defending Geoffrey Fieger on campaign finance charges in Detroit. Former Spence student Norm Pattis flew into the Motor City and took in a day of the trial last week. He passes along the...
Look at what Mary Flood has been reading
Posted on May 17, 2008Chronicle legal reporter Mary Flood covered many of the Enron-related criminal trials, so it was only natural for her to pick up a copy of former Enron Task Force prosecutor, law professor and current Oregon attorney general candidate John...
Friday Musings
Posted on May 16, 2008So, did you know that Taxi Driver is the greatest wealth-creating movie of all-time? Speaking of movies, actor Mickey Rourke has been down on his luck for the past several years, but he sure had a good run of...
Houston's best 19th hole
Posted on May 15, 2008Although Jack Burke's venerable Champions Cypress Creek Golf Course may arguably be a bit overrated, this Ron Kapriske/Golf Digest article rates the Champions Men's Locker Room Bar as one of the 50 best 19th holes in the country: Sit...
The Chron's continuing soccer stadium drumbeat
Posted on May 14, 2008In this post from last week on the proposed downtown soccer stadium, I observed that the Chronicle should simply declare that it supports the public financing of the stadium and quit attempting to rationalize that such financing makes economic...
Ignoring the noise from next door
Posted on May 13, 2008The problems that the obsolescent U.S. drug prohibition policy exacerbate along the Texas-Mexico border are a frequent topic on this blog, so this Mary Anastasia O'Grady/W$J article on the latest developments in the drug war just south of the...
The Players trumps the Masters
Posted on May 12, 2008Well, he didn't do it with a belly putter, but Sergio Garcia fulfilled my prediction after last year's British Open that it was just a matter of time before he won a big-time tournament. On Sunday afternoon, the 28...
Nixonland
Posted on May 11, 2008George Will gives Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland (Scribner 2008), a history lesson....
Worth a watch
Posted on May 10, 2008For those of you interested in the vexing issues involved in application of the death penalty and child predator laws, the scene below from Boston Legal is worth ten minutes of your time (H/T David Feige). I don't agree with...
Suspending reality on financing the soccer stadium
Posted on May 09, 2008Look, I realize that the reasoning for public financing for the proposed Houston Dynamo soccer stadium not been particularly rational. But this Chronicle article takes the cake in terms of suspending reality. Reporters Bernando Fallas and Bill Murphy breathlessly...
My favorite tournament
Posted on May 08, 2008It's not one of the four majors (despite the PGA Tour's constant drumbeat to make it the fifth), but The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach just south of Jacksonville, Florida is my favorite golf tournament...
Stros 2008 Season Review, Part One
Posted on May 07, 2008Despite a weekend sweep of the division-rival Brewers (16-16) and another stirring comeback victory over the Nationals (14-19), the Stros' record (17-16) reflects their performance through the first fifth of the 2008 season -- an average National League ballclub...
The subprime mortgage criminal lottery
Posted on May 06, 2008Well, well, well. Look who is resurfacing in connection with the creation of the Justice Department's latest criminal Task Force to investigate whether crimes were committed when the subprime-mortgage market collapsed (just what we need -- another corporate crime...
Chron: Sacrifice the local economy for the polar bears
Posted on May 05, 2008Given the editorial slant of the Houston Chronicle over the past several years, it's not particularly surprising that the editors ran this editorial calling for polar bears to be declared an endangered species under the federal Endangered Species Act...
"Because you're not that guy. . ."
Posted on May 04, 2008Beyond occasional gems such as John Adams or NBC's 30 Rock, I don't watch much television, so I'm pretty clueless on the latest TV ad campaigns. However, my wife and I laughed heartily last night when we saw this Helzberg...
The stench of injustice
Posted on May 03, 2008Scott Henson reports on the 17th exoneration (see also here) of a citizen in Dallas who had previously been wrongly convicted. This time prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence from the defendant's lawyers and police failed to investigate it. New Dallas...
The Rockets Narrative
Posted on May 02, 2008As the Houston Rockets face the beginning of their straight decade of failing to get out of the first round of the NBA playoffs, the familiar mainstream media narrative regarding the team's probable playoff loss to Utah is all...
Neuroscience and the Law
Posted on May 01, 2008I am always on the lookout for creative and interesting Continuing Legal Education seminars. This one clearly fits the bill: Baylor College of Medicine’s Initiative on Neuroscience and Law is proud to announce its 2008 Conference. This conference showcases...
Looking at stadium subsidies
Posted on April 30, 2008As if on cue for the soccer stadium financing issues currently being discussed on the local scene, Dennis Coates provides this excellent op-ed in The American on the dubious nature of municipal stadium subsidies: Clearly, stadiums built with public...
Fueling food riots
Posted on April 29, 2008Peter Gordon observed the other day that "politicians are better at creating problems than addressing them. Schools, housing, health care, transportation and others suffer from too much political attention." Echoing that idea, Clear Thinkers favorite James Hamilton writes about...
What to do about airline service?
Posted on April 28, 2008Putting aside for the moment airline industry's seemingly intractable financial problems, lousy airline service has become such an issue that even Judge Posner and Gary Becker are trying to figure out what to do about it. At least painful airline...
Thoughts for a Sunday
Posted on April 27, 2008The NY Times' Adam Liptak has penned a couple of interesting articles recently (here and here) on a frequent topic of this blog (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) -- the troubling incarceration rate...
Conited Airlines, finally?
Posted on April 26, 2008The NY Times is reporting that the on-again, off-again merger negotiations between Houston-based Continental Airlines and Chicago-based United Airlines are coming to a conclusion and that a definitive merger deal is likely to be announced by the end of next...
How the mighty have fallen
Posted on April 25, 2008Some folks thought I was too hard (see also here) on the Stros and Craig Biggio for turning the Stros' 2007 season into a death march to Bidg's 3,000th hit. However, my criticism of the Stros and Bidg was...
UH Law Center gets it right
Posted on April 24, 2008Ray Nimmer is truly one of Houston's treasures. The Leonard Childs Professor of Law at the University of Houston Law Center, Ray is one of the nation's leading authorities on business and bankruptcy law, computer information licensing, e-commerce, and...
Getting to 120/80
Posted on April 23, 2008Jane Brody, the NY Times' excellent reporter on health and fitness issues, provides this good overview of the current treatment options for high blood pressure, including this summary of the current drugs that are most commonly prescribed. My late...
Mayor White's management
Posted on April 22, 2008Help me out here. I'm really trying to understand the basis of the perception among a large number of Houstonians that Mayor Bill White is an effective manager. For example, this earlier post summarized Mayor White's dubious decision-making in...
Remember Refco?
Posted on April 21, 2008Amidst the current turmoil in the financial markets, the recent conviction on criminal fraud charges of a former Refco Inc executive barely registered on the radar screen. The details from the meltdowns from years past are just old news...
The latest big oil discovery
Posted on April 20, 2008As oil futures hit $115 per barrel late this past week, The Economist ran this article on the questions surrounding the recent announcement regarding the discovery of Brazil's Carioca-Sugar Loaf Field, which could be one of the largest oil...
Valuing the Stros
Posted on April 19, 2008The Stros are not worth squat on the playing field this season, but the club continues to be among the dozen most valuable franchises in Major League Baseball. Forbes' annual valuation of MLB franchises is out and the Stros come...
Providing good doughnuts in health care
Posted on April 18, 2008A frequent topic on this blog over the years has been the increasingly dysfunctional nature of the third-party payor health care finance system in the United States. This post from last year examined how my primary care physician changed...
What is Tiger thinking and has The Masters become a bore?
Posted on April 17, 2008So, Tiger Woods is being forced to take a month off from the PGA Tour as he rehabs from knee surgery. I know that Woods' workout routine is considered cutting edge, particularly for a professional golfer, but what on...
Ripples of the Delta-Northwest deal
Posted on April 16, 2008The merger agreement between Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airlines (they were meant for each other) announced yesterday not only would create the world’s largest carrier if approved, but it has renewed talk (see this W$J article, too) in...
An eternal optimist
Posted on April 15, 2008Don't tell Ray Kurzweil that we ought to be all gloomy about the prospects for mankind. This WaPo op-ed reflects that he is downright bullish: MIT was so advanced in 1965 (the year I entered as a freshman) that...
Another one-planer wins The Masters
Posted on April 14, 2008Last year it was Zach Johnson (see also here). This year, it's Trevor Immelman. What's the deal with all these one-plane swingers dominating the Masters Tournament? Could it have something to do with the fact that neither Johnson last...
The block of the chip passes away
Posted on April 13, 2008Arnold Kling of EconLog has long been a Clear Thinkers favorite, particularly in the area of health care finance. That was the subject of this recent post regarding Arnold's coordination of health care for his elderly father, Merle Kling,...
America's slipping grip on golf
Posted on April 12, 2008First, PGA Tour events had to worry about the Tiger Chasm. Now, this W$J article reports that they also need to worry about competition from tournaments in foreign venues: The U.S. has, for decades, held sway over the international...
Remember Kelo?
Posted on April 11, 2008Check out this recent Second Circuit decision (H/T to Robert Loblaw) as an example of how the appellate courts are applying the U.S. Supreme Court's controversial 2006 decision in Kelo v. New London. Kelo allows the state to seize...
It's time for The Masters
Posted on April 10, 2008It's the week of The Masters golf tournament, so I'm passing along a copy of the Augusta National scorecard that my late father used when he shot a cool 99 at the course back in the mid-1970's. The weather...
Good Travis Street Eats
Posted on April 09, 2008Look at what street is number two in Good Magazine's seven Tastiest American Streets for good restaurants....
Enjoying John Adams
Posted on April 08, 2008My son Cody and I have been thoroughly enjoying each Sunday night episode of the HBO mini-series John Adams, which is based upon David McCullough's brilliant biography of Adams. Given the extraordinary talents, troubling contradictions and fascinating relationships among...
Acupuncture or fake acupuncture?
Posted on April 07, 2008This Respectful Insolence blog post reports on yet another in an increasingly long line of medical studies that demonstrate that acupuncture is nothing more than an elaborate and fancy placebo. In this particular study involving patients in "true" acupuncture and...
A brief encounter at the SHO driving range
Posted on April 06, 2008After spending a delightful Friday morning watching Phil Mickelson navigate the back nine during the second round of the Shell Houston Open, my entourage and I grabbed a quick lunch and then headed out to the Redstone Golf Club...
Catching up with Bill James
Posted on April 03, 2008The beginning of the Major League Baseball season is a good time to check in with Clear Thinkers favorite, Bill James, the father of sabermetric analysis of baseball. Steve Dubner over at the Freakonomics blog recently provided James with...
It's 2008 Shell Houston Open Week
Posted on April 02, 2008Following on this post from a couple of weeks ago, this week's Shell Houston Open at Redstone Golf Club has its best field in years (previous posts here), which includes the following top 25 players in the World Golf...
The Wall Street Journal's Enron embarrassment
Posted on April 01, 2008In anticipation of the oral argument on Wednesday in New Orleans on former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's appeal of his criminal conviction, don't miss this Larry Ribstein post on Wall Street Journal Enron reporter John Emshwiller's tardy realization that...
Batter up! Stros 2008 Season Preview
Posted on March 31, 2008The Stros are on the road for the first week of the 2008 Major League Baseball season, but that's not a bad thing considering that the optimism usually associated with Opening Day during the Biggio-Bagwell era of the Stros...
Icahn on settling Pennzoil-Texaco with Jamail
Posted on March 30, 2008This blog is mostly about business and law, so Carl Icahn's activities have been a frequent topic. Likewise, this blog also centers on Houston, where the Pennzoil v. Texaco case from the mid-1980's is a part of the city's storied...
Thoughts about basketball at Reliant
Posted on March 29, 2008My friend John Stevenson graciously hosted a couple of friends and me at last night's NCAA South Regional semi-final basketball games at Reliant Stadium. Although the company and conversation was a solid A+, my grade for Reliant Stadium's performance...
Thinking about Bear Stearns
Posted on March 27, 2008Michael Lewis -- author of Moneyball and The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game (previous post here) provides this particularly lucid Bloomberg.com op-ed regarding the implications of the Bear Stearns affair to investors generally: All of this raises an...
Throes of Democracy
Posted on March 26, 2008One of the best books that I have read over the past several years is Walter A. McDougall's Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History 1585-1828 (HarperCollins 2004), the first book in McDougall's planned trilogy on American history....
Reliant Stadium, South Regional-style
Posted on March 25, 2008Check out the Chronicle's nifty rendering of the new basketball configuration that will be used this weekend at Houston's Reliant Stadium for the NCAA Basketball Tournament South Regional. This configuration provides about 40,000 seats for this weekend's tournament...
The Enron Task Force laid bare
Posted on March 24, 2008In this previous post on former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's Supplemental Brief regarding prosecutorial misconduct in connection with covering up exculpatory evidence contained former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow's interview notes, I noted that the Skilling brief would likely have...
Is this the key year for the SHO?
Posted on March 21, 2008The Shell Houston Open has been a frequent topic on this blog, particularly the tournament's troubled recent history (see here, here and here). This year's tournament is coming up during the week of March 31-April 6 and, for the...
The ignorance of costs
Posted on March 20, 2008I don't particularly like the distraction of talking on a cell phone while driving, so I avoid it as much as possible. It's also not enjoyable avoiding other drivers who are not paying full attention while chatting on the...
T-Mac for MVP?
Posted on March 19, 2008The incongruity of Chronicle sportswriter Richard Justice writing about sports has been a frequent topic on this blog, so I don't much bother anymore keeping up with his often baseless observations about the local sporting scene. However, on the...
The Economist gets it
Posted on March 18, 2008Following on recent posts here and here, The Economist produces the best mainstream media article that I've seen to date placing the prosecutorial misconduct of the Enron Task Force toward former Enron executives Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay in...
"America’s booming opportunity city"
Posted on March 17, 2008Each time local politicians in Houston engage in bad policy initiatives such as the ones noted here, my wish is that they would be required to read this fine Joel Kotkin/The American op-ed entitled Lone Star Rising -- How...
The Nacchio debacle
Posted on March 17, 2008I'm shocked, absolutely shocked, that a former Enron Task Force member would have ever been involved in improperly suppressing exculpatory testimony at trial that would ultimately lead to the Tenth Circuit's reversal of the conviction of former Qwest CEO,...
That pesky trust-based business model
Posted on March 16, 2008Over the weekend, we learned that the Fed had bailed out New York-based investment bank Bear Stearns during this unsettled time in the financial markets. Almost seven years ago, a much larger company that shared many characteristics with Bear...
The stench of prosecutorial abuse
Posted on March 14, 2008The stench of prosecutorial abuse has long hung over the Enron-related criminal cases. But the extent of that abuse became crystal clear this afternoon when the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granted former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's motion to...
More rumblings in the Skilling appeal
Posted on March 12, 2008This post from last week noted some interesting docket entries in former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's Fifth Circuit appeal of his conviction on criminal charges in connection with the demise of Enron. Now, it looks as if the mainstream media...
The Spitzer Lesson
Posted on March 11, 2008The mainstream media and the blogosphere have been buzzing over the past 24 hours regarding the fall from grace of New York's governor and former Lord of Regulation, Eliot Spitzer. As noted in this previous post, there is an...
What's going on in the Skilling appeal?
Posted on March 07, 2008First, thank you to all of the many readers who have communicated their concerns and prayers for the family crisis that is precluding me from daily blogging for now. Your kind thoughts and words are comforting and much appreciated....
Landry's is worth more because of what?
Posted on March 02, 2008Did I read right what Steve Scheinthal, Landry's Seafood Co. general counsel, said in this Chronicle article?: Landry's is . . . facing a handful of shareholder suits seeking class-action status in the wake of CEO Tilman Fertitta's bid to...
A change in blogging seasons
Posted on March 02, 2008When I started this little blog a bit over four years ago, the blogosphere was a different place. The pioneers of blogs were well-established and had created a viable vehicle to enhance communication of information and ideas, but the...
Sanctionable softball parents
Posted on March 01, 2008Robert Loblaw explains why parents of high school softball players who are upset with their daughters' coach should not vent their criticism in a federal civil rights lawsuit. At least not in the Seventh Circuit....
The "leadership" of Bill White
Posted on February 29, 2008Let me see if I've got this straight. On one hand, private businessmen invest a millions in buying a run-down property and following the city's existing laws and regulations in preparing to build the Ashby high-rise, a large-scale residential...
They just don't make football players like that anymore
Posted on February 29, 2008The Johnny Carson interview below of former Baltimore Colts defensive tackle Art Donovan had my late father and me (as well as Carson himself) in stitches when we first saw it together back in 1990. Donovan's description of his on-the-field...
Indexed
Posted on February 29, 2008Jessica Hagy has had a smart blog for awhile. Now, she has a smart book. Barry Ritholtz provides a taste of her work. She is a very insightful lady. Enjoy...
I'm shocked, shocked! There is academic cheating in big-time college football!
Posted on February 28, 2008The entertaining hypocrisy of big-time college athletics continues at Florida State University. (H/T Jay Christensen). Just like Rick's Cafe, everybody knows what's going on, too. So, what level of embarrassment in regard to "academic integrity" is it going to...
Baseball Prospectus 2008 is here
Posted on February 28, 2008Baseball Prospectus 2008 is now shipping, so it's time to order your copy in plenty of time for the beginning of the MLB season. In terms of improving your understanding of baseball, it's the best $14 you can spend....
Justice for Perverted Justice?
Posted on February 28, 2008Earlier posts here, here and here addressed NBC's To Catch a Predator series, in which a television crew cooperates with police and a vigilante justice group to create child predator crimes. Then, the television crew follows the police as...
Dick Armey on immigration
Posted on February 27, 2008I must admit, I never thought that former House Majority Leader Dick Armey would sound like a statesman to me. I was wrong. Watch the video to find out why....
The Hollywood Dome?
Posted on February 27, 2008It is a reflection of how low my expectations have sunk for rational decisions from Harris County officials. I actually felt a sense of relief that officials do not appear to be taking this seriously: Lights, camera, action: Dome...
The diversity of Texas
Posted on February 27, 2008Yes, Texas is a diverse place. It's a part of its charm. But following on this post from yesterday, that diversity does not make it an easy place to get one's arms around....
The importance of running a Presidential campaign
Posted on February 26, 2008On the heels of the Frank Rich/NY Times column castigating the Hillary Clinton campaign team, one of the best business law professors in the U.S. explains why the ability to run a large political campaign is an important qualification...
"Re"-examination?
Posted on February 26, 2008Kevin Whited over at BlogHouston.net notices a little news you can use from Houston's leading news source: The Chronicle ran a correction that was notable for its length today: An article in Feb. 18 editions repeated charges made by...
Going for 13 in a row
Posted on February 26, 2008It's quite rare that one of my predictions about the Rockets actually comes true. But after disposing of the Chicago Bulls on Sunday night, the hometown team is going for its 13th win in a row tonight (and their...
Thinking about schizophrenia
Posted on February 25, 2008Two recent NY Times article regarding the vexing nature of schizophrenia, one sad, one hopeful. Let's all hope for more of the latter....
Re-defining TSU
Posted on February 25, 2008Leave it to new Texas Southern University President, John Rudley. He's not wasting any time before trying to shake things up at the chronically-troubled public university (previous posts here): Texas Southern University's new president wants to end the school's long-standing...
Rate Congress on free trade
Posted on February 25, 2008Check out this excellent Cato Institute website that allows you to evaluate the voting record of each member of the past six sessions of Congress on free trade issues....
"The sand trap from hell"
Posted on February 24, 2008Don't miss this entertaining José de Córdoba/W$J article on the dour legacy of golf in Communist Cuba and the attempt to revive the game to attract more tourism. Turns out that the game flagged in Cuba after Che' Guevara kicked...
Thoughts on Rusty and Pettitte
Posted on February 23, 2008This earlier post was one of the first to express reservations regarding Rusty Hardin's handling of Roger Clemens' defense to the allegations contained in the Mitchell Commission Report (previous posts here) and aftermath, but my reservations are nothing compared to...
Hillary's redemption?
Posted on February 22, 2008It's rare that I post on politics two days in a row (or even two times in a week, for that matter), but the meltdown of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has been one of those fascinating political developments that simply...
Compensation through resort privileges
Posted on February 22, 2008Check out the renovated digs for the University of Texas baseball team at UFCU Disch-Falk Field in Austin. Even the most defensible big-time intercollegiate sport is now funneling compensation to its players through "resort privileges." The renovated locker room...
The oversupply of golf
Posted on February 22, 2008The numbers of Americans playing tennis regularly has dwindled dramatically over the past two decades. Now, golf is showing signs of suffering a similar fate: Over the past decade, the leisure activity most closely associated with corporate success in America...
Bashing the capitalist roaders
Posted on February 21, 2008Does it appear to anyone else that Hillary Clinton is getting a bit desperate in attempting to salvage her campaign for the Democratic nomination? Get a load of this: Sen. Hillary Clinton took a swipe at [investment bankers], suggesting wealthy...
Hope for a hog solution?
Posted on February 21, 2008Texas' feral hog problem has stymied many a smart scientist over the years, but it appears that the Aggies may have discovered a possible solution(H/T: Craig Malisow) If you're a land owner and animals such as coyotes or wild pigs...
Looking for other lines of work
Posted on February 21, 2008So Professor Buser, what did you plan on doing as a side occupation after your expert witness career? Judge Posner wants to know: Buser?s initial report proposed that if permitted by Allmerica to continue its market-timing trading, Emerald would have...
Maintaining Enron myths
Posted on February 20, 2008Ever wonder how the mainstream media maintains Enron-related myths? In reporting on the sentencing hearing later this week in the Enron-related case of the three former UK bankers dubbed "the NatWest Three" (prior posts here), the Chronicle's Kristen Hays observes...
Born Standing Up
Posted on February 20, 2008Don't miss this Smithsonian.com excerpt from comedian Steve Martin's new autobiographical book, Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life (Scribner 2007). Take, for example, Martin's hilarious description of the implementation of his novel theory of comedy in one of his initial...
The faux-analyst
Posted on February 20, 2008One of the funniest things I read from this past weekend was this W$J article about the earnings conferences calls being crashed by a faux-analyst named Joe Herrick: At least seven times just the past three weeks, a mystery caller...
Importantitis
Posted on February 19, 2008Theater critic Terry Teachout made an interesting point the other day in this W$J op-ed about one of the hazards of great youthful achievement: Leonard Bernstein set Broadway on fire in 1957 with "West Side Story," a jazzed-up version of...
An emerging risk of youth sports
Posted on February 19, 2008As youth sports become increasingly specialized, a family from The Woodlands is the subject of this Gina Kolata/NY Times article on one of the big risks to children of that trend -- increased torn anterior cruciate ligaments ("ACL"), the main...
Alltop, all the time
Posted on February 19, 2008Have you checked out Guy Kawasaki's new venture, Alltop? If not, you should. Guy is adding categories and new links frequently, so Alltop is turning into a great launching pad for finding informative blogs on a wide range of topics....
An interesting headline choice
Posted on February 18, 2008Kevin Whited and Cory Crow continue to express amazement at the delusional nature of county officials and the Houston Chronicle over the proposed Astrodome hotel project that is now in its fourth year of being bandied about. The latest Chronicle...
BP's PECOTA projection for the 2008 Stros
Posted on February 18, 2008The sabermetricians over at Baseball Prospectus have developed a statistical system for projecting baseball player performance called PECOTA, which is short for "Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm." PECOTA player performance based on comparison with thousands of historical player-seasons...
Local college hoops update
Posted on February 18, 2008Normally, when a team shoots 4-12 from the field on two-point goals in a college basketball game, that's a pretty good indication that they were thoroughly throttled by the other team. Unless, that is, the team shoots 18-43 on three-point...
Letterman on body painting
Posted on February 17, 2008David Letterman discusses body painting with Sports Illustrated cover girl Marisa Miller, who is a good sport about it all....
A lingering question about Refco
Posted on February 16, 2008So, Refco's former CEO and chairman Phillip Bennett pled guilty late Friday in a Manhattan federal court to fraud and other charges stemming from the 2005 collapse of the company (previous posts here). Peter Henning analyzes the plea here. Bennett's....
A solid endorsement
Posted on February 15, 2008I've been enjoying the new local blog Life at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center, which, along with Mark Bennett's blog, provides an interesting daily glimpse of life around the Harris County criminal courthouse. Given the twists and turns of....
Cooling heads over the Ashby high-rise
Posted on February 15, 2008So, Mayor White has figured out that his ostentatious initial position and statements regarding the proposed Ashby high-rise project weren't such a good idea, after all: The city risks exposing itself to a "takings lawsuit" if it passes a new...
The Southwest Airlines culture
Posted on February 15, 2008While Continental Airlines continues its speculative merger dance with United Airlines, Southwest Airlines continues to be the most profitable company in the U.S. airline industry. This Jeff Bailey/NY Times article reports on the unique culture of Southwest that makes it...
The DOJ loses another Enron criminal case
Posted on February 14, 2008As expected, the Fifth Circuit denied the government's appeal yesterday of U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore's decision to vacate the final count of the government's odious five count conviction against former Enron Broadband CFO Kevin Howard. The Fifth Circuit's decision...
The aftermath of the Clemens hearing
Posted on February 14, 2008Many folks have been asking me about my thoughts on the Roger Clemens saga, but I am so disappointed with the abysmal level of discourse regarding the issues involved with the use of PED's in sports and society that I...
The charming Bobby Knight
Posted on February 14, 2008And Larry the Cable Guy's crack on Coach Knight is pretty good, too....
Criminalizing Capitalism
Posted on February 13, 2008If I didn't know better, I'd say that Nicole Gelinas has been reading (H/T Professor Bainbridge) my blog over the past several years: [I]n the end, Sarbanes-Oxley has just made it easier for ambitious government attorneys to criminalize bad business....
On the DeGeurin-DeGuerin brothers and Houston's G-man
Posted on February 13, 2008A couple of interesting stories have popped up over the past several days regarding Houston lawyers. First, there was Mary Flood's profile of the DeGuerin (or was that DeGeurin?) brothers, Mike and Dick, two of the best in Houston's formidable...
The psychotherapist-patient privilege
Posted on February 13, 2008Gosh, as if Paul the psychotherapist, Gabe Byrne's character in the new HBO series, In Treatment, didn't have enough to worry about. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has just issued this interesting opinion on the psychotherapist-patient privilege in the...
Lerach's sentence
Posted on February 12, 2008Former plaintiff's class action securities lawyer Bill Lerach was sentenced yesterday to two years in prison, fined $250,000 and ordered to complete 1,000 hours of community service (Peter Lattman's W$J interview of Lerach is here). Lerach pled guilty last September...
Bill King's "Let'em ride free plan"
Posted on February 12, 2008Longtime Houstonian Bill King is a common sense fellow who serves on the Transportation Council, a group of elected officials and agency staffers that sets priorities for transportation spending in the 13-county Gulf Coast region. In this Chronicle op-ed from...
Guilty verdict in the latest natural gas trader case
Posted on February 12, 2008We in Houston have become so jaded by dubious prosecutions of businesspeople that the guilty verdict in the latest natural gas trader case passed almost unnoticed late last week. The Department of Justice's press release on the verdict is here,...
The winds of prosecutorial power
Posted on February 11, 2008When the Department of Justice decided to prosecute Arthur Andersen out of business despite a manifestly weak case, that confirmed that the creation of enormous wealth for thousands of employees and an impeccable reputation built over decades of fine work...
Comparing Tiger's swing with Hogan's
Posted on February 11, 2008In comparing the swing of Tiger Woods with that of Ben Hogan in this Links Magazine article, long-time golf teacher Bob Toski makes the following observation about how changes in the nature of golf have prompted swing changes: One year...
Vetting the Trans-Texas Corridor
Posted on February 11, 2008This Ralph Blumenthal/NY Times article does a good job of summarizing the massive scale that is the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor project: . . . the Trans-Texas Corridor, a public-private partnership unrivaled in the state?s ? or probably any state?s ?...
Pictures from Houston's neighborhoods
Posted on February 10, 2008Robert Boyd is a Houston-based blogger who regularly tours Houston neighborhoods and posts interesting pictures and comments on his adventures. His latest tour is the neighborhood just north of downtown, and his dozen or so other tours are here. Check...
Elevating form over substance
Posted on February 09, 2008The McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill was not John McCain's finest hour. John Lott makes a good point about the utter hypocrisy of it all in connection with the Clintons' recent loan to Hillary's cash-strapped campaign: Former President Clinton stands to...
Another Enron Task Force alum rings the bell
Posted on February 08, 2008Fresh off his victory in the Joseph Naccio trial, former Enron Task Force prosecutor Cliff Stricklin is the latest former Enron Task Force prosecutor to land a cush job at a big firm. Sean Berkowitz and Andrew Weissmann, among other...
The Dear Abby of business
Posted on February 08, 2008Lucy Kellaway, Financial Times columnist and associate editor, pens an entertaining blog called Dear Lucy in which she solicits letters from businesspeople about various business problems. Sometimes she comments on them, but all the time she opens them up to...
Warning labels?
Posted on February 07, 2008Remember when the various credit-rating agencies contended that their relatively sanguine ratings of Enron's debt up until the company went belly-up were the result of the company's misrepresentations? One of the more ludicrous allegations was that the rating agencies didn't...
Are they finally getting serious?
Posted on February 07, 2008The Wall Street Journal ($) reported yesterday afternoon that Houston-based Continental Airlines seemingly perpetual merger negotiations (see also here) with Chicago-based United Airlines are accelerating for a variety of reasons. A Continental-United deal is contingent on Northwest Airlines' ongoing merger...
The importance of recruiting classes
Posted on February 07, 2008The institutionalized fanaticism that is college football recruiting reached its annual zenith yesterday as hundreds of the nation's best high school senior football players signed National Letters of Intent with various big-time college football programs...
A nice reward
Posted on February 06, 2008So, what's the reward for inducing Microsoft to overpay for Yahoo!? Answer: Playing in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am (scroll down to the bottom of the list). Perhaps Bear Stearns' board should have thought of such a reward? ;^)...
The First and Last 100 Days?
Posted on February 06, 2008Over at the University of Houston, the university is celebrating the arrival of its impressive new Chancellor and President, Renu Khator. As a part of that celebration, the university has posted this interesting website entitled Building Our Future: The First...
Waxing philosophic on bad announcing
Posted on February 06, 2008My standards for announcers of football games are not high, but it seemed to me that the Fox Sports announcing team of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman in last weekend's Super Bowl LXII game were unusually bad. For example, neither...
The human cost of questionable prosecutions
Posted on February 05, 2008One of the more discouraging aspects of the societal tide of resentment and scapegoating that has permeated the Enron related criminal prosecutions has been the utter lack of perspective or compassion regarding the horrendous human cost of those prosecutions...
Pro Dome? Or just anti-Emmett?
Posted on February 05, 2008I understand that Ed Emmett is not the Chronicle's favored candidate for Harris County Judge. But isn't it a bit odd for the Chron to be fanning criticism of Emmett for showing rare leadership over the pie-in-the-sky Astrodome hotel redevelopment...
What was so super about that?
Posted on February 05, 2008While most Americans who watched Sunday's Super Bowl XLII were thrilled with a close game that wasn't decided until the final seconds, Financial Times ($) Simon Kuper examines why American football does not translate well to other cultures: . ....
A birthday wish
Posted on February 04, 2008Don't miss Greg Mankiw's birthday wish: My birthday wish is for all of us to stop asking what the government can do for us today. Instead, we should focus on what we can do together to prepare the economy for...
An uncomfortable issue for John McCain
Posted on February 04, 2008The hypocritical and unproductive nature of government policy regarding illegal drugs has been a frequent subject on this blog (see here, here, here and here), so this Radley Balko post about Cindy McCain, John McCain's wife, caught my eye: ....
Can Schiller and Del Grande save Cafe Express?
Posted on February 04, 2008At one time earlier this decade, the Cafe Express restaurants were among the best "upscale" fast food restaurants in Houston, perhaps anywhere. Then, in 2004, Wendy's International purchased a majority stake in Cafe Express from the original owners, Lonnie Schiller...
WinkingSkull.com
Posted on February 03, 2008Check out WinkingSkull.com, a worthy counterpart to the Visual Medical Dictionary (noted earlier here) in better understanding anatomy and medical conditions. Along those lines, did you know that "the bacteria count in the plaque on human teeth approaches the bacteria...
Piling on Rosenthal
Posted on February 02, 2008It's become fashionable around Houston to be critical of outgoing Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal. Frankly, much of the criticism is deserved. But given what Rosenthal has been going through over in federal court over the past couple of...
Jérôme Kerviel channels Tom Cruise
Posted on February 01, 2008In this clever Financial Times op-ed, John Gapper lucidly explains why the business world will always be dealing with risk-takers such as Jérôme Kerviel, the alleged ?rogue trader? at Société Générale whose trades are responsible for the $7 billion plus...
The never-ending City of Houston corruption probe
Posted on February 01, 2008It's been a couple of years since I last blogged on it, and it's been over two and a half years since the new defendants were first mentioned as potential targets in the probe, but the feds finally got around...
Protesting the absolute priority rule while wintering in Houston
Posted on February 01, 2008This Tom Fowler/Chronicle article reports on a retired commercial painter from Ohio is engaging in a rather novel protest of the absolute priority rule, the bankruptcy principle that prevents shareholders from receiving any value under a bankruptcy plan unless creditors...
The stadium ruse
Posted on January 31, 2008Something to think about in regard to the City of Houston's latest stadium boondoggle. Skip Sauer over at The Sports Economist notes this Rick Eckstein op-ed on the myth of economic benefits from the public financing of sports stadiums: ....
The wisdom of U.S. Presidential campaigns
Posted on January 31, 2008Much is wrong with U.S. Presidential campaigns. They last much too long, are far too expensive and the rhetoric is mostly mind-numbing. However, for all its faults, the messy process does have a way of eliminating the candidates that need...
What time is it over there?
Posted on January 31, 2008When I'm going to be involved in telephone conferences with folks overseas, I am constantly wondering what time of the day it is for them. This website helps me....
Arnold Kling's Medicare experience
Posted on January 30, 2008As I've noted many times, EconLog's Arnold Kling is doing some of the best writing and thinking about health care and health care finance issues in the U.S. right now. In his latest TCS op-ed, Kling describes the care received...
NASCAR golf?
Posted on January 30, 2008This earlier post suggested a creative approach to create interest for a PGA Tour golf tournament caught in the Tiger Chasm -- i.e., the neverland of golf tournaments that draw nowhere near the interest or publicity as the 15-18 golf...
The products of an entertaining form of corruption
Posted on January 30, 2008Inasmuch as the corrupt sponsorship of big-time football and basketball by academic institutions is a common topic on this blog, the following articles caught my eye: The Chronicle's Richard Justice surveys several of the ugly recent incidents in big-time college...
The worst in Major League Baseball?
Posted on January 29, 2008Sabermetrics Godfather Bill James coined the "Law of Competitive Balance" to explain the trend that teams that win in professional sports tend to slack off in the following year because team management doesn't work as hard, resists taking risks to...
What's Fertitta's real plan for Landry's?
Posted on January 29, 2008Given this experience, Landry's Restaurants CEO Tilman Fertitta's offer to take Landry's private in a deal valued at $1.3 billion is not particularly surprising. But the question is this: Would Fertitta, who owns just under 40% of Landry's, actually prefer...
The power of myths
Posted on January 28, 2008A common topic on this blog has been the power of anti-business myths within American society. Take Enron, for example. We all know how the myth played out. Enron, which was one of the largest publicly-owned companies in the U.S.,...
The bus to Houston
Posted on January 28, 2008Check out this interesting story of how a young woman's bus ride to Houston in the 1960's led to a better life. A redeeming quality of Houston is that it attracts folks who are looking to improve their lot in...
The costs of prohibition
Posted on January 28, 2008The nature of the problems that confront Texans and law enforcement officers who live near the Texas-Mexico border have been a frequent topic on this blog (see here, here, and here). Those problems are exacerbated by the archaic nature of...
A truly frightening thought
Posted on January 27, 2008It's been comforting that John Edwards' demagoguery has not generated the type of buzz and political support that would make him a top contender for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. However, this Robert Novak/Rasmussen blurb ended my sense of comfort:...
Subprime sense
Posted on January 26, 2008Cato Institute's Alan Reynolds passes along some interesting observations regarding his review of subprime mortgages (see previous posts here). Among them are the following: Most current foreclosures are on prime mortgages, not subprime. Half of subprime mortgages are fixed, not...
The Fastow notes
Posted on January 25, 2008The big Enron-related news this week was the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear the appeal of the Fifth Circuit's decision to dismiss securities fraud claims against several of Enron's banks (Ted Frank explains the decision). In light of the...
The vanishing primary care physicians
Posted on January 25, 2008This earlier post on my internist's decision to adopt a concierge health care model for his practice noted that the economic crisis faced by most primary care physicians was one of the primary reasons for the change in his practice....
Oh great!
Posted on January 25, 2008The chronically-troubled airline industry is a common topic on this blog, as is the generally abysmal state of air travel. For good measure, this post by a former air traffic controller explains how air travel isn't particularly safe, either. Just...
The latest boondoggle?
Posted on January 24, 2008Anne Linehan, Kevin Whited and Cory Crow note this week's "are you kidding me?" moment from City Hall -- two Nancy Sarnoff/Chronicle articles reporting on the trial balloon that Mayor White floated about building a second large convention hotel in...
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Can I be held responsible for paying child support if I signed a birth certificate of a child that was not mine (am not the biological father)?
Get yourself some legal counsil straigth away. Explain you situation to him/her ...
What can I say without libeling?
You moral nazi. Are you kidding me? It is her personal choice, leave her alone. ...
Hi. If a woman is pregnant and the father requests she abort (because he doesnt want to be a father) and the woman refuses, can he still be made to pay child support if: 1. he IS the father 2. he IS the father but his na
Yes if he is teh father he can be made to pay.
It doesn't matter if h...
My father is aging. We both agree we need to secure property that has been in the family well over sixty years. The problem is my uncle name was previously on the property who is now deceased and also took out two loa
buy the house from him . that would pay the old loan and title the property to y...
How to prevent an arrest from appearing in the local newspaper?
Dont know the law in Minnesota but in most jurisdictions an arrest is a matter o...
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