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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.
By Tom Kirkendall

Post Frequency: 4.2/day

Last Entry: July 20, 2010 at 03:01:00

On the Tiger Myth

Posted on December 22, 2009
I really didn't think that I would do more than one post on the Tiger Woods affair, but a couple of recent articles merit taking the topic up one last time. First, in this weekend op-ed piece, the NY...

2009 Weekly local football review

Posted on December 21, 2009
(AP Photo/Jeff Roberson photo; previous weekly reviews for this season are here). Texans 16 Rams 13 It is a reflection of the Texans (7-7) endearing mediocrity that they can out-gain the Rams (1-13) by almost 200 yards and struggle...

That wild Landry's ride continues

Posted on December 20, 2009
Owning shares of stock in Houston-based Landry's Restaurants, Inc. has never been for the faint-hearted. First, Landry's board of directors failed to obtain a standstill agreement from Landry's chairman and CEO, Tilman Fertitta, as his failed take-private offers over...

Unreliable eyewitness

Posted on December 19, 2009
This video demonstrates one of the reasons that eyewitness accounts are often unreliable....

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They got how much? For doing what?

Posted on December 18, 2009
Just when it looked as if progress was being made, the harsh reality of the severe trial penalty and the absurd severity of punishment parameters in white collar criminal cases reared its ugly head. This time its the harsh...

"Mr. Ruehle, you are a free man"

Posted on December 17, 2009
Larry Ribstein and the WSJ's Holman Jenkins -- both of whom exposed the vacuity of the federal government's backdating witch hunt from the very beginning -- provided their usual insightful perspective on U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney's decision earlier...

Criminalizing the neighborhood pharmacist

Posted on December 16, 2009
This blog has long addressed the enormous cost to American society of overcriminalization generally and particularly with regard to business and risk-taking. But lest we think that the problem is limited to such things as business and victimless crimes,...

How many felonies did you commit today?

Posted on December 15, 2009
Overcriminalization of daily life, particularly as it relates to punishing taking risks necessary to create jobs and wealth, are common topics on this blog. Longtime Boston attorney Harvey A. Silvergate is an expert on this troubling trend in American...

2009 Weekly local football review

Posted on December 14, 2009
(Bob Levey/Getty Image; previous weekly reviews for this season are here) Texans 34 Seahawks 7 Key tip of the day to Seahawk Defensive Coordinator Casey Bradley -- your cornerbacks need safety help in covering Texans WR Andre Johnson. After...

Beauty is nothing without brains

Posted on December 13, 2009
Below is another in the continuing series of commercials that represent some of the most creative product on television....

The Skilling Merits Brief

Posted on December 12, 2009
On the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court's hearing earlier this week in Conrad Black's appeal of his criminal conviction on honest services wire-fraud charges under 18 U.S.C. § 1346 ("Section 1346), former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling filed his...

Junior Brown

Posted on December 11, 2009
One of the best shows that I've attended during my almost 40 years in Texas is one by Austin's Junior Brown. In addition to being arguably Texas' most gifted guitarist, Junior performs an amazing breadth of material that spans...

Differing compensation under a corrupt -- but entertaining -- system

Posted on December 10, 2009
A frequent topic on this blog has been the NCAA and its member institutions' corrupt regulation of intercollegiate sports. It's an entertaining system of corruption, but corrupt nonetheless. Particularly appalling is the NCAA's restriction of compensation to football and...

The Real Tiger Tragedy

Posted on December 09, 2009
Watching the carnage unfold from the Tiger Woods affair is a bit like watching a train wreck in slow motion. A train wreck unfolding with hyper-speed commentary from modern social media, that is. The affair is a tragedy on...

Society's New Lepers

Posted on December 08, 2009
The increasingly draconian nature of child pornography laws in the U.S. has been a frequent topic on this blog over the years. In an effort to punish child predators, the laws have become so broadly interpreted and enforced that...

2009 Weekly local football review

Posted on December 07, 2009
(AP Photo/Stephen Morton; previous weekly reviews for this season are here) Texas Longhorns 13 Nebraska 12 Has any team ever gone through an undefeated season and been in position to win the national championship with a more unimpressive offensive...

"I hate rude behavior in a man. Won't tolerate it."

Posted on December 06, 2009
Below is the latest In the continuing series of excellent scenes (previous here and here) from the outstanding television mini-series of Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Lonesome Dove. In this one, Tommy Lee Jones as Capt. Woodrow F...

Opera Krispies

Posted on December 05, 2009
As noted several times over the years, some of the most creative product generated for television are commercials. And as this Rice Krispies commercial from the 1960's reflects, creativity in commercials is not a new phenomena....

Shelby Foote

Posted on December 04, 2009
I would enjoy listening to the late Shelby Foote reading a phone book....

"He's got enough cotton in his mouth to knit a sweater"

Posted on December 03, 2009
That's how Lee Trevino describes a golfer who is choking under pressure. But as noted in this outstanding Jaime Diaz/Golf Digest interview of the now 70 year-old Trevino, Merry Mex didn't choke much during his career on the PGA...

"But not me"

Posted on December 02, 2009
My favorite novel of the late Kurt Vonnegut is Slaughterhouse Five, the haunting, semi-biographical story of a U.S. prisoner-of-war who endured the Allied fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany near the end of World War II. I was reminded of Vonnegut...

Kay Bailey's health care finance confusion

Posted on December 01, 2009
What exactly is Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's political appeal? She has never seemed to me to have a particularly good grasp of even basic issues. But I never dreamed that she actually supported universal health insurance even while...

2009 Weekly local football review

Posted on November 30, 2009
(AP Photo/Bob Levey; previous weekly reviews for this season are here) Colts 35 Texans 27 As the Texans' eighth season fades into the sunset of playoff also-rans once again, a legitimate question exists as to whether fourth-year Texans Coach...

The Minstrel Boy

Posted on November 29, 2009
The masterful Danny Quinn. Enjoy....

Noticing injustice

Posted on November 28, 2009
Following on a point made in these earlier posts, the Chron's Mary Flood reports on the indefensible conditions that the federal government has imposed on R. Allen Stanford as he awaits trial on criminal fraud charges arising from the...

Ditching in the Hudson River

Posted on November 27, 2009
This is a pretty darn impressive computer reconstruction of US Airways 1549's emergency landing in the Hudson River earlier this year....

Turkey Day Carving

Posted on November 26, 2009
For all you turkey carvers, check out the instructions above, this interesting article and this great NY Times video to get the most meat out of your turkey. Carve away!...

"People get put in jail for importing lobsters"

Posted on November 25, 2009
The disturbing trend of an increasingly powerful federal government criminalizing all sorts of conduct that should not be criminalized has been a frequent topic (see also here) on this blog. Adam Liptak of the NY Times, who has written...

Who fears freeing whom?

Posted on November 24, 2009
In this lengthy NY Times Magazine piece from this past weekend, Andrew Meier decries the Russian government's unjust prosecution and treatment of former Yukos chairman, Mikhail Khodorkovsky: Many can’t quite embrace an oligarch as a prisoner of conscience...

2009 Weekly local football review

Posted on November 23, 2009
(AP Photo/Erich Schlegel; previous weekly reviews for this season are here) Texas Longhorns 51 Kansas 20 The 3rd-ranked Longhorns (11-0/7-0) continued their seemingly unstoppable roll to the BCS Championship Game with another laugher against a Big 12 North opponent,...

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