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March 31, 2004
O.K., but no golf bets
U.S. District Judge Sim Lake has released less than $225,000 of former Enron chief accountant Richard Causey's money that is subject to the court's previous order freezing substantially all of Mr. Causey's assets and $55 million of former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling's assets. Judge Lake released the funds to Mr. Causey on the condition that he not spend any of the funds on country club fees. Mr. Causey is a member of the exclusive Club at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, which contains a Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course, one of the best tracts in the Houston metropolitan area.
Posted by Tom at 4:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Southern District of Texas leads federal districts in percentage increase of personal bankruptcies
My old friend Judge Marvin Isgur handles the Harlingen, Texas courtroom as a part of his duties as a bankruptcy judge in the Southern District of Texas. I suspect that Judge Isgur already knows this, but this recently released Texas A&M University study reports that the Southern District of Texas leads all 94 United States federal judicial districts with the highest percentage increase in personal bankruptcy filings in 2003. Personal bankruptcy filings increased 5.3 percent in the United States, but they increased 23.2 in the Southern District of Texas.
Posted by Tom at 9:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The economics of oil and gasoline prices
During the political season, my demagogue antenna becomes more sensitive, and John Kerry's recent public remarks blaming the Bush Administration for high gasoline prices rattled my antenna. Arthur Kling provides this timely post on the economics of oil and the poorly-named "Strategic" Oil Reserve. Pay special attention to Fred Singer's piece on the ill-advised policies implemented during the Nixon and Carter Administrations in response to perceived shortages of oil.
Posted by Tom at 8:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
David Warren on the Arab League
David Warren's newest piece comments on the news this week that the Arab League summit has been called off because of the desire of several participants to discuss further realignment of Arab states with the United States. Mr. Warren is his usual insightful self, and discusses George Shultz's excellent op-ed from earlier this week. In concluding, Mr. Warren observes:
The issue is more fundamental than democracy, and glib rhetoric about democracy (from Bush and Blair, among others) has helped to obscure it. In the present circumstances of the world, where a suitcase nuclear bomb or vial of anthrax can open the gates of hell, we cannot afford to ignore breeding grounds for terrorists. Failed or rogue states -- states unable or unwilling to deal with international threats as they form within their own territories -- must be replaced with states that are able and willing. Hence regime change in e.g. Afghanistan and Iraq.
Posted by Tom at 7:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Seven companies apply for new nuke plant license
This NY Times article reports on a consortium of seven major nuclear energy-related companies applying for a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build a new nuclear power plant. The most recent nuclear power plant that was actually built received its license in 1973. Prospects for new reactor construction have recently become more encouraging because of persistently high natural gas prices stiff environmental requirements for coal power stations.
Posted by Tom at 7:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Holman Jenkins on the sad case of Jamie Olis
As noted on this blog before, Holman Jenkins is one of America's most insightful commentators on business issues. In his Wall Street Journal ($) column today, Mr. Jenkins addresses the injustice that occurred recently in the 24 year sentence given to former mid-level Dynegy executive, Jamie Olis, whose sad case was previously discussed here and here. Mr. Jenkins decries the sledgehammer approach that the Justice Department now takes in white collar criminal prosecutions:
Mr. Olis did wrong, but it's hard not to see his sentence as punishment for insisting on his right to a jury trial. He didn't loot the company for his own enrichment. The deal at the heart of the conspiracy may have involved deceptive accounting but it apparently yielded a real gain to the company in the form of $79 million in tax benefits. More to the point, whether or not the sentence was just, the metric that produced it was downright fishy.A year ago Mr. Olis would have done five-to-six, but in a post-Enron mood, Congress insisted on double-digit penalties in cases associated with large stock-market losses. Rolled forth during the trial, therefore, was a government expert witness who -- in exactly the kind of calculation that provokes eye-rolling when put forward by Wall Street analysts to "explain" stock prices -- determined that Mr. Olis had caused between $500 million and $1.4 billion in damage to Dynegy's 200,000 shareholders.
Mr. Jenkins' column contains a graph that shows how Mr. Olis' conduct had nothing to do with Dynegy's stock price, followed by an "unspeakable" observation:
The deal for which Mr. Olis was prosecuted had nothing to do with the run-up in Dynegy's stock price. Project Alpha wasn't born until March 2001, and was exposed only in April 2002, by which time investors had already given up the fantasy of riskless profits from trading energy on the Internet.Indeed, it's a fine judgment whether such frauds were actually occasioned by pressure to protect unrealistic valuations awarded in the bubble market. What's more, an unspeakable but unavoidable thought is that, somewhere, thousands of investors who picked the right moment to sell have no beef now with any of this scofflaw behavior -- they benefited from it, to the tune of millions of dollars in some cases.
Then, Mr. Jenkins concludes by pointing out the injustice of forcing businessmen to choose between defending themselves and a life sentence:
Certainly in a system so addicted to plea-bargaining, some sort of safeguard is needed against extorted guilty pleas. Forget about white-collar convicts: One of these days, when reformers are done springing death row inmates with DNA evidence, they'll start scouring the jails for people who pleaded guilty to crimes they didn't commit because they feared the death penalty.
At this point, the only protection from the government's sledgehammer approach to white collar criminal prosecutions is the judiciary. Unless the trial judges balance the playing field by forcing the government to drop duplicative charges and resist putting on far-fetched damage calculations, injustices such as the Olis case will continue.
Posted by Tom at 6:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Calvin Murphy P.R. campaign in full gear
As this Chronicle article reports, the public relations campaigns in the Calvin Murphy sexual molestation case are in full swing.
Murphy was interviewed live on Monday on KILT Radio's afternoon drive time sports talk show, in which he claimed that the charges are false and financially motivated. Meanwhile, Assistant Harris County District Attorney Lance Long weighed in with a public statement that the accusers were not attempting to shake Murphy down, and that many of Murphy's 14 children (from three different mothers) did not even know each other very well, confirming that Murphy's extended family will never be compared the Brady Bunch.
Finally, in this Chronicle piece, Murphy's attire while posting bond (a baggy, double-breasted white suit) is compared to the fashion displayed by other recent high-profile criminal defendants during their trials. Best line comes from long-time Houston defense attorney David Berg, who made the following comment on the clothes that Murphy wore while beeing booked:
"He looked like he was selling ice cream or more like an ice cream cone himself."
Posted by Tom at 6:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 30, 2004
The "no one told me I couldn't do it" defense
The Super Bowl streaker is relying on it.
Posted by Tom at 2:53 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Polarized political discourse
Richard Clarke's book "Against All Enemies" that criticizes the Bush Administration's role in the war on terror is already No. 1 on the Amazon.com bestseller list. Does that spell trouble for Mr. Bush's re-election? Maybe not, says Alan Murray in this Wall Street Journal ($) column today:
The Amazon Web site says the Clarke book is being bought by the same readers who've already purchased titles like "Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How it Distorts the Truth" by liberal journalist Joe Conason, and "The Lies of George W. Bush" by liberal journalist David Corn. Those books, in turn, are sold to folks who've already read Michael Moore's "Dude, Where's My Country?" and Al Franken's "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them." This is a group that already believes George W. Bush is the nation's prevaricator-in-chief, that he plundered working families to fatten the wallets of his CEO cronies, and that his major contribution to the war on terror was secretly shuttling bin Laden's relatives out of the country. In comparison, Mr. Clarke's charge -- that the president didn't pay enough attention to terrorism before Sept. 11 -- is almost quaint.
Mr. Murray goes on to point out a disturbing trend in American political discourse:
To Mr. Hannity, all Democrats are "appeasers" and "moral relativists" -- members of a political party that "has become unhinged." Mr. Savage goes further, tagging Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean as the "modern-day descendants of Benedict Arnold." Al Franken labels Republicans as "Chicken hawks" and racists, while Michael Moore blames President Bush himself -- as well as those of us who drive SUVs -- for fomenting terror.Why write such tirades? Because they sell. . .
The bipolar bestseller list is just one more symptom of the disease that now infects American politics. The nation is becoming increasingly polarized. The left and the right view each other with distrust and disdain -- even though their policy proposals often remain strikingly similar. Sane compromise in the center has become all but impossible.The media -- defined broadly -- plays a big role in this unfortunate trend. The problem is not the power of "big media" -- as some would have you believe. Rather, it is the unprecedented power of consumers to choose exactly what kind of media they wish to receive. Conservatives can get their news by watching Sean Hannity's television show at night, listening to Rush Limbaugh's radio show during the day, and creating a customized Internet newspaper that caters to all their biases -- "The Daily Me," as computer guru Nicholas Negroponte calls it. Liberals can do much the same -- even more so after tomorrow, when Mr. Franken and friends launch Air America, a liberal radio network. Both sides have their prejudices constantly reinforced; neither has to confront the challenge of opposing views.
That leaves little tolerance for the kind of balanced, bipartisan inquiry that former Rep. Lee Hamilton and former Gov. Thomas Kean were trying to conduct last week. More power to them; they are members of a dying breed.
Posted by Tom at 6:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Junk science in asbestos litigation
Professor David Bernstein has published this law review article on how to keep it out. Thanks to The Volokh Conspiracy for the link.
Posted by Tom at 6:24 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Lyondell announces major acquisition
Houston-based Lyondell Chemical Co. on Monday announced that it is acquiring Hunt Valley, Maryland-based Millennium Chemicals in a $1 billion all-stock deal that includes assumption of $1.3 billion in debt. The transaction will make Lyondell the third-largest publicly traded U.S. chemical production company.
The deal combines two struggling commodity chemical producers that have combined revenue of over $11 billion. The theory behind the deal is that the larger company is necessary to compete in the increasingly difficult chemicals industry. High prices of natural gas -- which producers use as a key raw material -- have rocked the chemicals industry at the same time as it has been dealing with the dual problems of overcapacity and large debt acquired during the better days of the 1990's. Although the industry has rebounded moderately, the consensus is that the industry will not return to the glory days of the mid-1990s anytime soon.
Lyondell reported a loss of $302 million last year while Millennium had a net loss of $184 million, and Lyondell expects the deal to save the combined company $50 million. The combined company will keep the Lyondell name, maintain its headquarters in Houston, and employ about 10,000 people world-wide. Lyondell Chief Executive and President Dan F. Smith will keep that role in the combined company, while William T. Butler will remain chairman.
Posted by Tom at 5:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 29, 2004
Calvin Murphy charged with sexually assaulting five daughters
In a stunning development on the local Houston scene, former Houston Rocket and Basketball Hall of Famer Calvin Murphy was charged today with sexually molesting five of his own children in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Murphy, who is 55 and has been the T.V. color commentator for the Rockets for many years, was charged with three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and three counts of indecency with a child. The charges involve five daughters of Murphy's (from three different women) who were under 17 at the time of the alleged assaults, but are now adults. Murphy has a total of 14 children!
Houston criminal defense attorney Rusty Hardin, who defended Arthur Anderson in the criminal trial arising from the Anderson's involvement in the Enron scandal, is Murphy's attorney and claims that the charges against Murphy are false. Murphy had no comment when he surrendered to authorities earlier today, where he posted a $90,000 bond and was released. The Rockets later granted his request for a leave of absence from his broadcasting duties.
Murphy was the subject of a criminal investigation several years ago in connection with allegations that he falsified payment records in connection with a position that he held with the City of Houston. The grand jury that investigated that matter elected not to issue an indictment against Murphy.
Posted by Tom at 9:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
The Uses of Failure
Lee Harris over at Tech Central Station has this interesting piece on Americans' distaste for failure. Mr. Harris notes as follows:
If Americans have one collective shortcoming, it is that we have no use for failure. Success alone is what counts for us; and though we are apt to applaud those who have given their best to come in at second or third place, we all tend to shrink back from complete and abject failure.That is why, whenever a President looks around for men to be by his side, to guide him and to give him counsel, he will look to those who have been successful at everything that they have put their hand to. It is one of our cherished mottos that success breeds success; and we are confident that if we appoint only successful men to positions of prominence, any project undertaken by these men is bound to be successful, too.
This is our form of paganism, since underlying the American myth of success is the primitive belief that some people are just plain lucky -- just as certain numbers are, or certain days, or certain arrangements of the planets.
Mr. Harris goes on to discuss the Greek notion of hubris, which necessarily flows from success, and then recommends as follows:
Failure has lessons to teach us that are often far more valuable than those of success. Success all too often reassures us that we are right, and often with little reason. The man who sells everything he owes in order to buy lottery tickets, and who loses, becomes a little wiser. But the man who sells everything, and wins, will remain a fool forever.Which is why I am hereby proposing a new department for the United States -- the department of human failure, whose secretary should be appointed purely on the basis of his lack of worldly success. He will be required to attend every cabinet meeting, and at the end of each discussion, all the successful men around the table must listen in silence for the fiftieth time as the Secretary of Failure tells them how he lost his business, or how he gambled away a fortune, or how his summer vacation in Florida turned into the worst nightmare of his life.
True, it would not ascend to the lofty heights of Sophocles and Euripides; but it would help.
Thanks to my friend Bill Hesson for the link to Mr. Harris' piece.
Posted by Tom at 8:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
An Essential War
Former Secretary of State George Schultz, now a distinguished fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, is inarguably a great American. In this extraordinary Wall Street Journal ($) op-ed, Mr. Schultz uses his depth and experience to give us the big picture on why the decision to go to war in Iraq was the correct one. Mr. Schultz begins by pointing out the devastating effect that Islamic fascists have had on the state system, which is the bedrock of international relations:
Today, looking back on the past quarter century of terrorism, we can see that it is the method of choice of an extensive, internationally connected ideological movement dedicated to the destruction of our international system of cooperation and progress. We can see that the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the 2001 destruction of the Twin Towers, the bombs on the trains in Madrid, and scores of other terrorist attacks in between and in many countries, were carried out by one part or another of this movement. And the movement is connected to states that develop awesome weaponry, with some of it, or with expertise, for sale.What should we do? First and foremost, shore up the state system.
The world has worked for three centuries with the sovereign state as the basic operating entity, presumably accountable to its citizens and responsible for their well-being. In this system, states also interact with each other -- bilaterally or multilaterally -- to accomplish ends that transcend their borders. They create international organizations to serve their ends, not govern them.
Increasingly, the state system has been eroding. Terrorists have exploited this weakness by burrowing into the state system in order to attack it. While the state system weakens, no replacement is in sight that can perform the essential functions of establishing an orderly and lawful society, protecting essential freedoms, providing a framework for fruitful economic activity, contributing to effective international cooperation, and providing for the common defense.
Mr. Schultz goes on to provide a compelling background to the Bush Administration's decision to use force in Iraq, noting Saddam Hussein's violation of the 1991 cease-fire and 17 U.N. Resolutions, and the consistency of the Bush Administration's decision with prior actions that the U.S. government had taken during the Clinton Administration. Mr. Schultz notes the highlights:
Where do we stand now? These key points need to be understood:• There has never been a clearer case of a rogue state using its privileges of statehood to advance its dictator's interests in ways that defy and endanger the international state system.
• The international legal case against Saddam -- 17 resolutions -- was unprecedented.
• The intelligence services of all involved nations and the U.N. inspectors over more than a decade all agreed that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to international peace and security.
• Saddam had four undisturbed years [from 1998 when he threw out the weapons inspectors to 2002] to augment, conceal, disperse, or otherwise deal with his arsenal.
• He used every means to avoid cooperating or explaining what he has done with them. This refusal in itself was, under the U.N. resolutions, adequate grounds for resuming the military operation against him that had been put in abeyance in 1991 pending his compliance.
• President Bush, in ordering U.S. forces into action, stated that we were doing so under U.N. Security Council Resolutions 678 and 687, the original bases for military action against Saddam Hussein in 1991. Those who criticize the U.S. for unilateralism should recognize that no nation in the history of the United Nations has ever engaged in such a sustained and committed multilateral diplomatic effort to adhere to the principles of international law and international organization within the international system. In the end, it was the U.S. that upheld and acted in accordance with the U.N. resolutions on Iraq, not those on the Security Council who tried to stop us.
Finally, with the depth of insight of one who has lived and studied an earlier dark time in the world's past, Mr. Schultz concludes as follows:
Sept. 11 forced us to comprehend the extent and danger of the challenge. We began to act before our enemy was able to extend and consolidate his network.If we put this in terms of World War II, we are now sometime around 1937. In the 1930s, the world failed to do what it needed to do to head off a world war. Appeasement never works. Today we are in action. We must not flinch. With a powerful interplay of strength and diplomacy, we can win this war.
Posted by Tom at 6:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 28, 2004
Gordon Prather on Richard Clarke and the Vulcans
The always entertaining physicist Gordon Prather pens this piece on Richard Clarke and the "Vulcans" in the Bush Administration.
Posted by Tom at 1:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
American Hustlers
Gordon Wood is the Alva O. Way university professor at Brown University and one of America's foremost authorities on the history and philosophy of the American Revolution, reflected by his brilliant books "Radicalism of the American Revolution" and "Creation of the American Republic." Accordingly, when Professor Wood speaks about American history, we should listen closely.
In this NY Times Review of Books review, Professor Wood opines favorably on University of Pennsylvania professor Walter A. McDougall's new book -- ''Freedom Just Around the Corner'' -- that explains America's enormous progress during the period of 1528-1828 to be attributable largely to Americans' propensity to hustle. As Professor Wood observes:
This unusual book by Walter A. McDougall is the first of what will be a three-volume history of America. If this volume, which covers the period 1585 to 1828, is any indication of the promised whole, the trilogy may have a major impact on how we Americans understand ourselves.''The creation of the United States of America is the central event of the past 400 years.'' Imagine, he says, some ghostly ship, some Flying Dutchman transported in time from the year 1600 to the present. ''The crew would be amazed by our technology and the sheer numbers of people on the globe, but the array of civilizations would be recognizable.'' China, Japan, India, Russia, the vast Islamic crescent, South America and Europe are not all that different now from what they were in 1600. ''The only continent that would astound the Renaissance time-travelers would be North America, which was primitive and nearly vacant as late as 1607, but which today hosts the mightiest, richest, most dynamic civilization in history -- a civilization, moreover, that perturbs the trajectories of all other civilizations just by existing.''
Professor Wood remarks further:
[Professor McDougall] unabashedly writes of Americans and assumes throughout that there is something called an American character. Only the character he describes may not be what many Americans would want to admit about themselves. Unlike other national narratives, which he says tend either to celebrate or to condemn America -- and in righteous seriousness -- his book aims to do neither. Instead, he wants to tell the truth about ''who and why we are what we are,'' and to tell it entertainingly. His is thus a ''candid'' history. Its major theme is ''the American people's penchant for hustling.'' We Americans, he claims, are a nation of people on the make.. . . But we have more con men and hucksters than other nations not because we have a different nature or are worse than other peoples. It is just that ''Americans have enjoyed more opportunity to pursue their ambitions, by foul means or fair, than any other people in history.''
Of course, he admits that there are many hustlers in a ''positive sense: builders, doers, go-getters, dreamers, hard workers, inventors, organizers, engineers and a people supremely generous.'' These qualities are what justify Americans' faith in themselves and their destiny in the world. But the negative connotations of hustling and swindling are very strong and dominate much of our literary and popular culture, and, indeed, our entire history. ''If the United States . . . is a permanent revolution, a society in constant flux,'' then, McDougall writes, we would expect all periods of American history at all levels of the society ''to be washed by turgid, overlapping waves of old and new forms'' of what he calls ''creative corruption.''
Because our high and noble ideals of freedom and individual rights contrast so vividly with the often grotesque realities of American life, every period of our history, McDougall says, is marked by disharmony. He then quotes Samuel P. Huntington to clinch his point: ''America is not a lie; it is a disappointment. But it can be a disappointment only because it is also a hope,'' a hope expressed in Bob Dylan's words as ''freedom just around the corner.''
The price of all this hustling was high, and McDougall does not flinch from describing the violence created by the dynamism of white Americans, including the elimination of hundreds of thousands of native people, mostly from disease, and the enslaving of hundreds of thousands of Africans. Other historians have graphically described the chicanery and greed of white Americans in their scramble for power and profit in early America. But these historians have usually written out of anger and righteous indignation. Not McDougall. He cynically, or he would say realistically (since cynicism suggests a moral judgment that human nature might be different), accepts, even celebrates, all the bribery, land-jobbing and double-dealing as the consequence of Americans' having so much freedom.
Professor McDougall's observations particularly resonate with me. Houston has been a wonderful and generous home for my family and me over the past 30 years, and this great city was developed largely by the unwieldly entrepreneurial spirit that Professor McDougall identifies in his book. The freedom that we Americans savor invariably involves risks, and one of those unfortunate risks is the risk of being cheated. But as Professor McDougall reminds us -- just as Sir Thomas More did in this earlier post -- man's attempts to eradicate such wrongdoing often harbors the greater risk of eradicating our freedom.
Posted by Tom at 12:26 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
The ten-year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide
A decade ago, fresh from a disastrous intervention in Somalia, the Clinton Administration and the United Nations failed to intervene in Rwanda, and the result was one of the worst episodes of genocide of the 20th century. In 1994, Rwanda's president was mysteriously assassinated, and an existing civil war between the two main ethnic groups -- the Hutu and the Tutsi -- turned into a campaign of genocide, which the rest of the world largely ignored. An estimated 800,000 people (mainly Tutsis) were murdered in 100 days.
In this interesting post, Daniel Drezner addresses the long-term implications of the world's tepid response to the Rwanda genocide. Given the ongoing genocide currently taking place in Sudan, and the potential for it in places such as Iraq, one is certainly justified in asking: When will the world learn?
Posted by Tom at 7:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Donald Trump: You're fired!
To those who know about his business affairs, Donald Trump has always been more successful as a self-promoter than as a businessman, particularly for those who invest in his projects. This NY Times article reports on the ongoing negotiations between Mr. Trump and the bondholders on his lagging Atlantic City casino properties. Unless Mr. Trump gives up control of the properties, it appears that they are headed for bankruptcy, which would almost assure that Mr. Trump would lose control.
Posted by Tom at 7:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 27, 2004
Scramjets?
This is a cool research project. Update: the test was a success!
Posted by Tom at 1:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The Richard Clarke Affair -- Where does the buck stop?
This NY Times article examines an American cultural phenomenon that several historians are noting -- that is, a national culture of shifting blame, which is reflected best in American politics.
Along those lines, several friends of this blog have asked why I have not commented on Richard C. Clarke's testimony earlier this week before the 9/11 Commission. Actually, there are several reasons. First and foremost, numerous other bloggers have already done an outstanding job in tracking the various issues raised by Mr. Clarke's testimony, notably Glenn Reynolds and Daniel Drezner. I could not improve on their efforts.
However, I must admit that I am somewhat frustrated by the way in which the issues that Mr. Clarke's testimony raised have played out in the mainstream media. I concede that much of the media storm is a byproduct of the 9/11 Commission hearings and the related television coverage. Regrettably, most folks do not take the time to research these issues on their own, so their impressions and views toward the issues are often formed through television viewing and commentary. That is unfortunate because television, for business reasons, tends to sensationalize news such as Mr. Clarke's testimony when, in reality, such testimony does not relate anything particularly new. Thus, people who evaluate such issues through the prism of television tend to believe Mr. Clarke is revealing something not previously known when, in fact, he is not.
The fact of the matter is that, long before Richard Clarke's testimony this week, the U.S. Government and intelligence community's failure to deal effectively with the actions and threats of Islamic fascists had been well-documented. Gerald Posner's excellent "Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11" relates how the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks was systematic and had its seeds for failure sown repeatedly in twenty years of fumbled intelligence investigations and misplaced priorities. Similarly, Laurie Mylroie's "The War Against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks: A Study of Revenge" and "Bush vs. the Beltway: How the CIA and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror" both describe in excrutiating detail how the U.S. government's approach to dealing with Islamic fascism has been compromised by restrictions placed on the intelligence agencies and political wrangling. Finally, former CIA agent Robert Baer's "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism" insightfully relates from the "ground floor" how each administration over the past 25 years allowed the intelligence agencies to become a political football, which directly led to the substandard intelligence that facilitated the 9/11 attackers' success. These are just a few of the recent books that have examined the same issues that were raised during this week's testimony before the 9/11 Commission.
Inasmuch as I have read the foregoing books and several others on these issues, Mr. Clarke's testimony was not particularly insightful or noteworthy to me. I will read his book eventually to compare his insights to those contained in the books mentioned above, and I will post about it when I am through.
However, in the meantime, to the extent that Mr. Clarke's position is that the Bush Administration is more culpable for the 9/11 attacks than any one of the previous five (three Republican, two Democrat) administrations, his position is fundamentally flawed. America's intelligence failures over the past generation have been the result of a litany of bipartisan mistakes. If Mr. Clarke is suggesting that the Bush Administration's failures in this area are any more egregious than those of its predecessors, then he is doing his country a grave disservice and, in fact, is engaging in precisely the type of political posturing that has been so damaging to the intelligence community over the past 25 years.
Courtesy of Phil Carter and Mark Kleiman, the most insightful commentary that I have reviewed on the 9/11 Commission hearings to date comes from UCLA School of Public Policy professor Amy Zegart, author of "Flawed by Design" that deals with the national security process. Professor Zegart -- who had Condi Rice as her thesis adviser -- makes the following observations about the national security process, and what happens when government fails to establish clear priorities for the intelligence community:
. . . The [9/11] Commission asked the wrong question. Was terrorism a priority? Of course it was. The real question is how many other priorities both administrations were confronting. I'll tell you: too many.Clinton wrote a Presidential Decision Directive in 1995 that sought to establish clear priorities for the intelligence community. There were so many in the top tier, they actually divided them into Tier 1A and Tier 1B. But it gets better (or worse). There was also a Tier 0, apparently for the very very very top priorities. Note to self: when you can't list priorities with regular numbers, you haven't really made priorities.
As time passed, priorities were added to the list but old ones were never removed. By 9/11, the National Security Agency had roughly 1,500 formal requirements, and developed 200,000 "Essential Elements of Information." I'm not making this up. See the Congressional Intelligence Committees' Joint Inquiry Report, December 2002, p.49. Intelligence officials told Congressional investigators that the prioritization process was "so broad as to be meaningless."
This is not new. For the past 50 years, there have been more than 40 major studies about the intelligence community. A common theme among them has been the spotty and fleeting attention policy makers have given to setting intelligence priorities. One former senior intelligence official told me that during the Cold War, he was asked about the state of the Soviet economy exactly once, when the Secretary of Defense wanted to convert rubles to dollars for a budget presentation to Congress.
Professor Zegar hits the nail on the head. Rather than finger pointing, the 9/11 Commission needs to recommend a basic procedure by which the government establishes clear priorities for the intelligence community. As Mr. Carter points out, if you prioritize everything, you effectively prioritize nothing. Hopefully, the Committee will rise above the usual political posturing and focus its recommendations on revamping and reinvigorating an intelligence community that we have allowed our political leaders to eviscerate. The success of the war against the radical Islamic fascists depends on it.
Posted by Tom at 1:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
SEC bears down on El Paso
Things have not been going well lately for Houston-based El Paso Corp., as noted earlier here, here and here. Accordingly, yesterday's announcement that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has launched an investigation into El Paso's downward restatement in natural gas reserves earlier this year comes as no surprise.
El Paso's share price has slumped 23 percent since the company last month slashed its proven natural gas reserves by 41% and announced that a financial restatement going back to 2001 was likely. El Paso has already taken a $1 billion write-down with the possibility of an additional $1.5 billion looming. The audit committee of the company's board has launched an investigation by an outside law firm into the reserves cutback, and the outside investigation prompted El Paso two weeks ago to delay indefinitely the release of its fourth quarter results and annual report.
Posted by Tom at 10:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Dr. Bart Smith on the Houston economy
The leading expert on the regional economics of the Houston metropolitan area is Dr. Barton Smith, University of Houston professor of economics and director of the UH Institute for Regional Forecasting. This Chronicle article reports on Dr. Smith's latest report, whose seasonal adjustment model of the Houston economy which predicts an annualized rate of job growth of 2.6 % that, if sustained for the next six months, would translate into about 50,000 jobs. That is the best job growth rate in Houston since 2000.
Twice a year, Dr. Smith gives an oral presentation over lunch regarding the state of the Houston economy at one of the Reliant Park hotel ballrooms. If you are interested in Houston economics or business, and you have not attended one of Dr. Smith's talks, you should make a point to attend one soon. Dr. Smith is a special talent, one of the many professionals who make Houston an enjoyable place to live.
Posted by Tom at 10:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 26, 2004
VDH: We are Finishing the War
Victor Davis Hanson's latest at NRO is here.
Posted by Tom at 6:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Who's to blame for 9/11?
This Daniel Pipes post nails the answer.
Posted by Tom at 4:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Latest Astros acquisition
The Astros announced a deal yesterday to pick up utility infielder, Mike Lamb. As usual, the Chronicle article portrays the deal as another key move by Astros' general manager Gerry Hunsicker to bring in a strong left-handed hitter that will shore up the depth of the team. On the other hand, the incomparable Baseball Prospectus 2004 has this to say about the newly-acquired Mr. Lamb:
Mike Lamb 3b/1B Bats:L Throws: R Born: 09-Aug-75 Age 28 [statistics deleted] The organization (the Texas Rangers) continued to sour on Lamb in 2003. You've heard the story hundreds of times before: A pretty good hitter who can't quite stay far enough right on the defensive spectrum to justify a major league spot. Players like this are drawn by force of nature to the Sacramento River Cats.
Posted by Tom at 3:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Royal/Dutch Shell announces first deal with Libya
Royal/Dutch Shell finally was able to enjoy some good news yesterday with this announcement of a breakthrough deal with Libya's state oil company to explore for oil and natural gas that could give Shell access to as much as $1 billion worth of oil and gas in North Africa. The deal establishes guidelines for oil and gas exploration projects, including onshore exploration and the export of liquefied natural gas. It was the first time in 30 years that Shell had been invited to operate in Libya.
Libya, which is a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, has production capacity of about 1.6 million barrels a day. However, Libya's reserve potential is far larger. Those reserves have been largely untapped because Libya's infrastructure suffered from a chronic lack of investment over the past decade after economic sanctions were imposed in 1992 as a result of the Libya's role in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.
Posted by Tom at 6:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Dr. Bill Fields dies
One of Houston's elite group of doctors who were integral to the development of the Texas Medical Center as one of the world's finest medical institutions has died.
Dr. William Fields, a long-time professor of neurology at both Baylor Medical School and the University of Texas Medical School in the Medical Center, died Sunday at his Houston home at the age of 90. Dr. Fields was a pioneer in medical research and testing of the role of aspirin in the treatment and prevention of strokes. In the late 1970's, Dr. Fields directed a major research project at 10 medical centers that established that aspirin may reduce minor stroke symptoms and also the likelihood of catastrophic strokes. Dr. Fields also was the first to assess the clinical value of carotid endarterectomy, which is the surgical removal of the lining of diseased or blocked arteries.
Dr. Fields was a colleague and dear friend of my late father, Dr. Walter Kirkendall, with whom he collaborated on many research projects. Through this friendship with my father, I had the privilege of knowing Dr. Fields, who was a wonderful and engaging man. Dr. Fields and my father were members of a generation of American doctors who revolutionized the purpose of medicine and health care in our society, and we all should pause and contemplate the magnificent contributions that this generation of doctors has given to each of us.
Posted by Tom at 6:34 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
March 25, 2004
Update on the Jamie Olis sentencing
Following up on this earlier post on the sad case of Jamie Olis, the sentence is in -- 24 years. Here is the NY Times article on the sentencing.
Posted by Tom at 7:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
D&O insurers cannot unilaterally rescind
In the wake of recent corporate scandals, several directors-and-officers ("D&O") insurance carriers have sought to rescind policies that were allegedly purchased on the basis of misrepresentations. This WSJ article ($) reports on a recent decision out the Eastern District of Pennsylvania holding that Aegis Bermuda Insurance Co. must pay the defense costs for several directors and officers involved in litigation over the collapse of Adelphia Communications. Although Adelphia's bankruptcy temporarily prevents Aegis Bermuda from taking legal action to rescind the policy, the court nevertheless held that the insurer was required to continue paying legal fees until a judgment permitting recission was obtained:
"'Insurance carriers do not function as courts of law,' U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson wrote. 'If a carrier wants the unilateral right to refuse a payment called for in the policy, the policy should clearly state that right. This policy does not do so.'"
Thanks to the 10b-5 Daily for the link to the WSJ article.
Posted by Tom at 10:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The Players Championship
Here is an excellent preview of this weekend's Players Championship golf tournament.
Posted by Tom at 9:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The favored religion of the IRS -- Scientology
This Logos post entitled "The chosen people of the IRS?" points to this New York Times article that reports on a California case that has uncovered a rather remarkable preference that the Internal Revenue Service has granted to the Church of Scientology.
Apparently, Scientology parents are allowed to deduct the cost of religious education as a charitable donation under an officially secret 1993 IRS agreement despite a 1989 Supreme Court decision prohibiting such a deduction. In the original case, the Ninth Circuit ruled against the plaintiff's request for a deduction for the cost of Jewish religious education, but when it did so, one of the judges suggested an alternative approach:
"Why is Scientology training different from all other religious training?" Judge Barry D. Silverman wrote in his opinion, adding that the question would not be answered just then because the court was not faced with the question of whether "members of the Church of Scientology have become the I.R.S.'s chosen people." Judge Silverman then recommended litigation to address whether the government is improperly favoring one religion."If the I.R.S. does in fact give preferential treatment to members of the Church of Scientology - allowing them a special right to claim deductions that are contrary to law and disallowed to everybody else - then the proper course of action is a lawsuit to put a stop to that policy," Judge Silverman wrote.
So, the plaintiffs filed another lawsuit, and during the course of discovery in that case, a subpoena was issued for a copy of the "secret agreement", but both the IRS and the Church of Scientology resisted producing it. Stay tuned.
As an aside, actor and director Steve Martin hilariously spoofed the Church of Scientology and its heavily Southern California clientele in his underrated comedy from several years ago, "Bowfinger."
Posted by Tom at 9:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Calpers: Seperate audit from other services
When it blew up in late 2001, Enron was paying Arthur Andersen at a rate of about $1 million per week for various professional services, including audit services. Although the final chapter is yet to be written, a good case can currently be made that one of the primary reasons for the demise of Andersen in the wake of the Enron scandal was the firm's compromising of its auditing integrity for the benefit of Enron as a key customer of Andersen's other professional services.
Now, this interesting CFO Magazine story relates how the California Public Employees' Retirement System (Calpers) is opposing Freddie Mac's reappointment of auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers because the company has used PwC for non-audit services. This is a result of a new Calpers policy of withholding votes from audit committee members at companies that allow auditors to perform non-audit work.
The pension fund is also withholding its votes from director Michelle Engler, wife of former Michigan governor John Engler. The former Governor Engler is an executive at Electronic Data Systems Corp., which is a large vendor of Freddie Mac. The pension fund asserts that this business relationship between Freddie Mac and EDS could impair Mrs. Engler's objectivity.
In the small world department, I hired Mrs. Engler in her first job as an attorney out of law school when I was running a downtown Houston law firm back in the 1980's. Michelle was a fine lawyer and is a great person, and Calpers would be well-advised to adopt a more flexible position to keep conscientious and bright people such as Michelle on the boards of companies in which Calpers invests. Knowing Michelle, she would recuse herself from any action that the Freddie Mac board might take in regard to EDS, anyway.
Thanks to the BusinessPundit for the link to this article.
Posted by Tom at 8:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Imports are good
This David Wessel column in the Wall Street Journal ($) makes some good points on the value of imports. Inasmuch as that value is often misrepresented during a political season, Wessel observes:
Let us now praise the virtues of imports.Consider the clothes Americans buy for the four million babies born each year in the U.S. The typical family with a young child spends about $500 a year on those cute T-shirts, blue jeans and tiny socks. That's $2 billion a year.
Not so long ago, the U.S. had a ceiling on imports of baby clothes. That limit was lifted for most countries in 1998, and for China at the beginning of 2003. Imports of baby clothes more than doubled between 1997 and 2003, notes Ed Gresser, who labors to make the case for free trade for the centrist Democrats' Progressive Policy Institute. Wholesale prices at the ports dropped 28%.
Consumers saved. In the same years, the consumer-price index for all items rose 15%. But the retail price of infant and toddler apparel of all sorts fell 5.2%. Had the price of baby clothes increased as much as the price of everything else, parents would have had to spend about $400 million more to buy as many baby T-shirts, blue jeans and socks as they did last year.
Imports are the consumer's best friend.
You wouldn't know that to listen to public debate: Exports equal jobs. Exports are good. Imports kill jobs. Imports are bad. We must accept imports because only then will others take our exports. Imports are a necessary evil.
* * *
Politicians don't find the appeal to consumers a winner, though. As one Bush administration official confides, it's like telling a textile worker whose job has moved abroad: "Imports allow you to stretch your unemployment check further at Wal-Mart."* * *
The case for free trade is flimsy without remembering that Americans are consumers as well as workers. It is as consumers that Americans benefit the most. Paying lower prices because of imports is as much of a benefit to American families as getting a raise, even though it never feels as good.
During this political campaign, your "demagogue antenna" should turn on anytime you hear a politician arguing against free trade. In the vast majority of circumstances, such drivel is directed at persuading a narrow interest group for political gain. As Mr. Wessel points out above, everyone else loses.
Posted by Tom at 7:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Professor Balkin on Supreme Court review of Pledge of Allegiance case
Professor Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale University, posts this interesting overview and analysis on the issues involved in the U.S. Supreme Court case -- Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow -- in which Dr. Newdow, an atheist, argues that government officials' use of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance violates the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. Professor Balkin predicts that the Supreme Court will figure out a way to leave the words in the Pledge for primarily political reasons. Although Professor Balkin is much more knowledgeable on these issues than me, I still am not sure about that. With Justice Scalia's recusal, I think there is a real chance of a 4-4 deadlock on the Court, which would leave in place the Ninth Circuit opinion that government officials' use of the phrase in the Pledge violates the Establishment Clause.
On a related note, this transcript is now available of a very interesting and informative disucssion that the Pew Forum hosted last week on the Newdow case, featuring Doug Laycock and Jay Sekulow.
Posted by Tom at 6:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
David Warren on the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
This typically insightful David Warren piece puts the recent Israeli assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin into perspective within the Byzantine political landscape of the Middle East. Here are a few excerpts, beginning with the moral question:
On the moral question, whether it was right for the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, to order the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, there is no difference from the question whether it would be right to assassinate Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden co-founded Al Qaeda, Yassin founded Hamas. These are organizations which exist for the express purpose of killing people; Qaeda being committed to killing "Crusaders and Zionists" plus bystanders; Hamas more specifically Jews plus bystanders. The question is not whether one should do it, but how.The Israelis calculate Sheikh Yassin cost them 377 dead and 2,076 maimed -- including only a handful in military uniform. He was known to personally order the hits, and he ordered hundreds of them, both through Hamas and affiliates; culminating in last week's attack on the Israeli port of Ashdod, in which terrorists very nearly succeeded in blowing up large stores of toxic industrial chemicals. That was also the first successful "vengeance operation" (I use Al Jazeera's terminology) mounted from inside Gaza, since the Israelis succeeded in fencing the territory -- a "heritage moment" in Hamas propaganda. Yassin is the reciprocal Israeli heritage moment.
And then the pragmatic issue:
The Israelis are calculating that the advantages of disrupting the management of Hamas, which actually delivers the terrorism, outweigh the disadvantage of providing them with a recruitment tool. Most seasoned observers of the Middle East would guess they got it right. It is certainly the calculation the Bush administration has made, in going after Qaeda's senior management; and it appears to be working -- preventing more terrorist hits than it inspires.
And finally the political analysis:
Strange to say (and I can hear the guffaws of my numerous if inattentive leftwing readers) the assassination was a typically moderate act. Note [Ariel Sharon] killed Sheikh Yassin, and not Yasser Arafat, though the latter is also up to his ears in innocent Israeli blood, and the IDF know where to find him.The unbelievable truth is that Mr. Sharon is trying to advance the "peace process", by giving Arafat's Palestinian Administration a leg up on Hamas, before their inevitable civil war. For despite all its butchery, even Arafat 's Fatah is the slightly more accommodating party. The only thing that keeps Fatah and Hamas together is their common target of Israel; with Israel removed, they become two scorpions in a bottle. There are big risks in weighing in so decisively, but even bigger ones if Hamas succeeds in its ambition of ruling Gaza after the Israeli departure.
Posted by Tom at 6:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The Green Machine
It was noted in this earlier post that it is allergy season in Houston. As this Chronicle story relates, that means everything outside is covered with the green film of pollen. For some, though, there is a silver lining:
For Bill Lawrence, the green film on your hood is the color of money."We like to be people-friendly," said the president and chief executive of Bubbles Car Wash. "But I'll be honest. We love pollen. Nothing makes your car look worse than being covered in green and yellow dust."
Posted by Tom at 4:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
March 24, 2004
Supreme Court takes up important Texas managed care case
The Health Care Blog reminds that oral argument occurred yesterday in the U.S. Supreme Court in an appeal of this Fifth Circuit decision, which involves tort claims against HMO's under the Texas health care liability statute and the HMOs' contention that claims under the state statute are preempted by the federal ERISA statute. The Fifth Circuit previously rejected the HMOs' attempt to use ERISA preemption to remove the tort cases to federal court and upheld the plaintiffs' right to litigate their claims in Texas state courts, which are rarely as corporate-defendant friendly as federal courts. The Supreme Court's decision in this case will address a festering issue in ERISA law -- that is, whether an HMO's medical-necessity determinations are really benefits determinations that are completely preempted by ERISA.
As you might expect, the battered health care finance industry is closely eyeing the outcome of this case. The applicable ERISA provision provides a narrow basis for recovery against plans that withhold a requested level of care and a conservative measure of damages for successful plaintiffs. On the other hand, as is Texas' tradition, Texas tort law provides injured plaintiffs with a more liberal basis for recovery and thus, exposes health plans to far greater economic risk.
So long as HMOs and other managed care units are forced to make mixed coverage and treatment decisions against a backdrop of potential tort liability, opponents of managed care believe that the managed care units would be far less willing to risk limiting or denying care that physicians and patients request. On the other hand, HMO's and managed-care plans view an adverse result in the case as a threat to the financial security of employee benefit plans that extend health coverage to millions of workers and retirees.
Tom Mayo, the health care lawyer who is the author of the Health Care Blog, seems to think that the Supreme Court is leaning in favor of the managed care plans and federal preemption. However, the Supremes are notoriously difficult to read in cases such as this, so follow this one closely.
Posted by Tom at 8:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Bill James is making the rounds
On top of this prior interview and article, the American Enterprise Institute interviews the baseball sabermetrician Bill James. A few excerpts:
TAE: Is Barry Bonds the best player of our era?JAMES: By far.
TAE: Was Babe Ruth the finest player in the history of the majors?
JAMES: Yes. Mays may have been as good, Honus Wagner may have been as good, Bonds may be as good. But Ruth had more impact.
And another:
TAE: More American kids now play soccer than baseball. And on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of June you can, as I found last summer, go looking for baseball on TV and find everything but, from NFL Europe to women's golf. What, if anything, can be done to halt baseball's slide in popularity?JAMES: I advocate a Constitutional amendment against playing soccer.
Seriously, the problem is that baseball is not a television game, and the television era has not been particularly good to baseball. To be fair, professional baseball tolerates an unconscionable amount of standing around and posturing, and this makes it less exciting than it ought to be and therefore less attractive to young people. I think there's a growing recognition of this, but the problem is that even when one recognizes the problem it's very hard to fix. People in baseball are working on it, however.
And on the issue of "team chemistry":
TAE: Should a team's racial composition ever be a factor when building a club, in terms of "chemistry"? The Florida Marlins reportedly signed Latin players quite consciously because they have a large Latin fan base.JAMES: It's hard enough to make judgments about baseball players when you make them on the basis of: How fast does he run? How well does he throw? What's he like in the clubhouse? If you start building in irrelevant factors it makes the process not difficult but impossible.
Stated simply, Bill James is a national treasure.
Posted by Tom at 7:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Floyd Norris on Microsoft
In my view, Floyd Norris is the best business writer for the NY Times. Today, Mr. Norris has this column in which he analyzes the dilemma confronting anti-trust regulators in dealing with Microsoft's bundling policies. Mr. Norris notes:
For antitrust regulators, the heart of the problem is the changing nature of the personal computer market. Consumers do want new features, as Microsoft says, and they do want them bundled in. Any nonexpert who has ever tried to download and install a program would much rather have it done by someone else.But Microsoft's pattern has been to wait for others to pioneer a computer application and then to put out its own program. If that program is eventually bundled as part of the operating system in all new Windows computers, the first arrival screams foul, but in the end Microsoft wins.
Netscape pioneered Internet browsers but was left in the dust. RealNetworks, which led the way in music software, could face a similar fate. It is not easy to make money off a product that consumers must install themselves when the consumers already own Microsoft's version, which comes already installed.
In short, the issue is between simplicity and innovation. The public demands simplicity, which Microsoft provides for a generally reasonable price. But in doing so, Microsoft may deter innovation through its policy of bundling every concept into Windows and then, might we say gently, throttling threats to its dominant position.
Microsoft and others are pursuing the market for the "Multimedia PC" that integrates television, DVD player, stereo system, and other entertainment equipment. Microsoft is huge, so it's obviously a serious player in this competition. But proper application of antitrust law should neither prejudice Microsoft's development of the technology nor allow Microsoft to undermine its competitors, as it has shown that it is willing to do. Striking the right balance in that application is a formidable challenge.
Mr. Norris also makes another interesting observation:
. . . the risk is that Microsoft is becoming the functional equivalent of an old-style utility, with extensive government regulation that could even extend into determining what products it sells and at what prices.There are worse fates than running a regulated monopoly. But such stocks are not the type that appeal to traditional technology investors, and the prospect of such an outcome may be one thing that has been weighing on Microsoft's share price, which has underperformed the market badly over the last 18 months.
Thanks to The Sports Economist for the link to Mr. Norris' article.
Posted by Tom at 6:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Mike Price, litigation machine
Because of NCAA sanctions, the University of Alabama football team cannot go to a post-season bowl game for awhile. However, that sanction sure does not stop former UA coach Mike Price from getting it on with the current UA president. Priceless.
Posted by Tom at 5:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
UTEP Coach Gillispie accepts A&M basketball job
Billy Gillispie, coach at the University of Texas-El Paso, will be introduced as the new Texas A&M basketball coach this afternoon. Gillispie, 44, is a native Texan who coached at four high schools and a junior college in Texas before becoming a college assistant coach at Baylor, Tulsa and Illinois. He took over the head coaching job at UTEP shortly before the start of the 2002-03 season, and the Miners went 6-24. This season, UTEP was 24-8 and advanced to the NCAA Tournament, which was the biggest turnaround in the nation. The Miners lost their first-round game to Maryland last week in a close game.
Gillispie takes over at A&M from Melvin Watkins, who resigned under pressure after a 7-21 season. In six years under Watkins, the Aggies were 60-112. The Aggies have not been to the NCAA Basketball Tournament since 1987.
Given A&M's alumni support and its proximity to the Houston metropolitan area, it is puzzling that the Ags have not been able to establish a decent basketball program. My sense is that Gillispie is a good hire for the reason that he has deep Texas recruiting roots and the Ags desperately need to establish sound Texas recruiting pipelines. However, Gillispie has his work cut out -- A&M basketball has become a coaching graveyard, and that reputation is very hard to change.
Posted by Tom at 2:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Like a good neighbor
This Chronicle article from yesterday reports on the deplorable grade the Port of Houston was given recently in a review released by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nationwide environmental advocacy group. It was the lowest grade given to any of the nation's 10 largest ports. Here is a copy of the full report.
For as long as I can remember, the Port of Houston has had a lousy relationship with its neighbors in the eastern part of Harris County, and this report reflects one of the reasons why. "We are up against an opponent that not only has a bad local reputation but at this point also a bad national reputation," said Nancy Edmonson, mayor of Shoreacres. Public officials in Galena Park, another suburban community near the Port, have made similar public statements over the years.
Here's hoping that elected officials take notice of the mess that the Port of Houston has become and do something about it, like appointing some real reformers to the Port's Board. However, I will not hold my breath waiting for that to occur. As we have seen recently with several compliant corporate boards that have overseen disastrous judgment by management, it's easier to appoint friends and political hacks to these boards than people who will really roll up their sleeves and perform the hard work that is the duty of a board member.
Posted by Tom at 6:39 AM | Comments (0)<