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August 31, 2004
The Enron noose tightens
The Government's noose around neck of Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay got a bit tighter today as Kevin P. Hannon, former chief operating officer of Enron Corp.'s heavily promoted telecommunications unit, became the latest former Enron executive to plead guilty to criminal charges.
Mr. Hannon, 44, pled in U.S. District Court in Houston to one count of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud, and agreed in the plea bargain to cooperate with the Enron Task Force's continuing criminal investigation and prosecution of other former Enron executives. One of those undoubtedly will be Mr. Skilling, who was heavily involved in the promotion of Enron's telecommunications unit. The deal also provides that Mr. Hannon faces up to five years in prison, the payment of $3.2 million in forfeitures and penalties, and the settlement of a related SEC civil suit.
In the late 1990s, Enron's top executives touted Enron Broadband as one of the company's best growth opportunities. Enthusiasm among investors for the broadband operation helped increase Enron's stock price despite the fact that the unit never came close to meeting either company or market expectations.
As part of his plea agreement, Mr. Hannon admitted that he overstated Enron Broadband's accomplishments. In particular, during a January 2001 conference with securities analysts, Mr. Hannon admitted in the plea bargain that he took part in a presentation that "was intentionally misleading and falsely portrayed the company as a commercial and business success. I conspired with other Enron employees to achieve this improper purpose."
Meanwhile, the beginning of the trial of the Nigerian Barge case is now less than three weeks away.
Posted by Tom at 10:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Don't pinch the Stros, they might wake up
Brandon Backe hurled six shutout innings in only his third start as a starting pitcher and JK pummeled to yaks as the red hot Stros blasted the Reds in Cincy at the Great American Ballpark, 8-0.
The win was the Stros' fifth straight and 13th in their last 17 games. Incredibly, the win brought the Stros within three games of the Cubs, who are currently in the lead for the National League Wild Card playoff spot. What a run!
Backe gave up only three hits in his six frames as he continues his unlikely journey from backend reliever to a potential fourth or fifth starter. Stros relievers Chad Qualls, Mike Gallo and Dan Wheeler allowed a combined three hits over the final three innings to secure the Stros' 11th shutout of the season.
In addition to JK's two crank jobs, Beltran, Bags and Berkman had some fun in the fifth when they hammered back-to-back-to-back taters. The Reds pitching is so bad that even that uprising did not prompt the removal of starter Aaron Harang.
The Stros have a good chance of keeping it going in tomorrow's Businessman's Special as Roy O goes for his 16th win against Paul Wilson (9-4), who is the Reds' best starter. After a well-deserved off day on Thursday, the Stros and the Rocket start a weekender with the Pirates at the Juice Box on Friday night.
Posted by Tom at 9:47 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Merck reels from Zocor study
This Wall Street Journal ($) article reports on the reaction of pharmaceuticals giant Merck & Co. to the disappointing study involving Zocor, its top-selling cholesterol drug.
The study found that high doses of the drug did not benefit patients at high risk of a heart attack compared with both placebo and less-aggressive Zocor treatment. Researchers presented the 4,500-patient Zocor study at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology in Munich, Germany, and it also was published online by the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Even before this news, Merck had been losing in the competition with Pfizer's Lipitor, which is the world's biggest-selling statin drug with sales of $9.2 billion in 2003. A clinical trial reported earlier this year that Lipitor was was much better than another statin -- Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s Pravachol -- at reducing the risk of death, heart attack or other serious complications within two years of treatment. Here is an earlier post on that study.
The 4,500-patient study tested an aggressive cholesterol-lowering strategy compared with a moderate approach for patients hospitalized with severe unstable chest pain. The aggressive treatment was 40 milligrams of Zocor for a month followed by 80 milligrams for the next 23 months. The moderate approach was four months of a placebo followed by 20 milligrams of Zocor.
In the earlier Lipitor/Pravachol study, Lipitor at a dose of 80 milligrams proved significantly more effective in reducing LDL and the risk of serious heart problems than Pravachol at 40 milligrams. The benefit for Lipitor was evident within 30 days of starting the drug and the study was an important reason why cardiology experts are now recommending that doctors consider aggressive therapy with statins to enable patients at very high risk of a heart attack to reduce their levels of LDL to below 70. Previously, the target for such patients was below 100.
Cardiologists expected aggressive treatment with Zocor to reflect the Lipitor findings, especially because the control group was treated with a placebo during the first four months of the two-year trial. But even though their LDL levels fell to 62, aggressively treated patients at the end of four months had no difference in heart attacks, death from heart attacks, or strokes for heart problems than patients on placebo whose LDL was twice as high. After two years, 14.4% patients on aggressive therapy had suffered negative outcomes compared with 16.7% on the moderate regimen, but the difference was not considered statistically significant.
Posted by Tom at 5:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 30, 2004
Red hot Stros dust off Reds
Lance Berkman cranked two yaks and a double and knocked in four RBI's as the red hot Stros crushed the reeling Reds on Monday night in Cincy, 11-3. The Stros have now won four straight and 12 out of their last 16 games as they continue their push to get back in the National League Wild Card playoff race. The Stros trail the Cubs by 4.5 games for the Wild Card playoff berth.
Berkman's hitting was contagious on Monday night as light-hitting Brad Ausmus even pounded a three run tater. The Stros continued hammering the ball, ringing up 11 hits, including 3 homers and 4 doubles. Pete Munro got the win by giving up 3 runs on 8 hits in five innings and led the Stros AAA relief corps, which included long lost Russ Springer, who reappeared as a Stro this week seven years after his initial tenure with the club.
Brandon Backe hopes the Stros hitters keep their hitting clothes on Tuesday night as he takes the hill for the Stros in the second game of the series on Tuesday. Based on Backe's most recent performance in Chicago, the Stros will likely need every run they can generate.
Posted by Tom at 9:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Judge Posner on the 9/11 Commission Report
Richard A. Posner is a highly-regarded judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, a prolific author, and should be one of the leading candidates to become the next Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (which probably means that he is not).
In this brilliant New York Times book review, Judge Posner reviews the 9/11 Commission's report and he is not particularly impressed, particularly with the Commission's recommendation for centralizing intelligence gathering:
[T]the commission's analysis and recommendations are unimpressive. . . Much more troublesome are the inclusion in the report of recommendations (rather than just investigative findings) and the commissioners' misplaced, though successful, quest for unanimity. Combining an investigation of the attacks with proposals for preventing future attacks is the same mistake as combining intelligence with policy. The way a problem is described is bound to influence the choice of how to solve it. The commission's contention that our intelligence structure is unsound predisposed it to blame the structure for the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks, whether it did or not. And pressure for unanimity encourages just the kind of herd thinking now being blamed for that other recent intelligence failure -- the belief that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.At least the commission was consistent. It believes in centralizing intelligence, and people who prefer centralized, pyramidal governance structures to diversity and competition deprecate dissent. But insistence on unanimity, like central planning, deprives decision makers of a full range of alternatives. For all one knows, the price of unanimity was adopting recommendations that were the second choice of many of the commission's members or were consequences of horse trading. The premium placed on unanimity undermines the commission's conclusion that everybody in sight was to blame for the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks. Given its political composition (and it is evident from the questioning of witnesses by the members that they had not forgotten which political party they belong to), the commission could not have achieved unanimity without apportioning equal blame to the Clinton and Bush administrations, whatever the members actually believe.
As an appellate jurist, Judge Posner is well-prepared to identify the flaw in the 9/11 Commission's presentation -- a fundamentally flawed premise:
The tale of how we were surprised by the 9/11 attacks is a product of hindsight; it could not be otherwise. And with the aid of hindsight it is easy to identify missed opportunities (though fewer than had been suspected) to have prevented the attacks, and tempting to leap from that observation to the conclusion that the failure to prevent them was the result not of bad luck, the enemy's skill and ingenuity or the difficulty of defending against suicide attacks or protecting an almost infinite array of potential targets, but of systemic failures in the nation's intelligence and security apparatus that can be corrected by changing the apparatus.
That is the leap the commission makes, and it is not sustained by the report's narrative. The narrative points to something different, banal and deeply disturbing: that it is almost impossible to take effective action to prevent something that hasn't occurred previously. Once the 9/11 attacks did occur, measures were taken that have reduced the likelihood of a recurrence. But before the attacks, it was psychologically and politically impossible to take those measures. The government knew that Al Qaeda had attacked United States facilities and would do so again. But the idea that it would do so by infiltrating operatives into this country to learn to fly commercial aircraft and then crash such aircraft into buildings was so grotesque that anyone who had proposed that we take costly measures to prevent such an event would have been considered a candidate for commitment.
The problem isn't just that people find it extraordinarily difficult to take novel risks seriously; it is also that there is no way the government can survey the entire range of possible disasters and act to prevent each and every one of them. As the commission observes, ''Historically, decisive security action took place only after a disaster had occurred or a specific plot had been discovered.'' It has always been thus, and probably always will be. For example, as the report explains, the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center led to extensive safety improvements that markedly reduced the toll from the 9/11 attacks; in other words, only to the slight extent that the 9/11 attacks had a precedent were significant defensive steps taken in advance.
Based on the 9/11 Commission's proposals, Judge Posner is skeptical that the foregoing pattern will change:
Anyone who thinks this pattern can be changed should read those 90 pages of analysis and recommendations that conclude the commission's report; they come to very little. Even the prose sags, as the reader is treated to a barrage of bromides: ''the American people are entitled to expect their government to do its very best,'' or ''we should reach out, listen to and work with other countries that can help'' and ''be generous and caring to our neighbors,'' or we should supply the Middle East with ''programs to bridge the digital divide and increase Internet access'' -- the last an ironic suggestion, given that encrypted e-mail is an effective medium of clandestine communication. The ''hearts and minds'' campaign urged by the commission is no more likely to succeed in the vast Muslim world today than its prototype was in South Vietnam in the 1960's.The commission wants criteria to be developed for picking out which American cities are at greatest risk of terrorist attack, and defensive resources allocated accordingly -- this to prevent every city from claiming a proportional share of those resources when it is apparent that New York and Washington are most at risk. Not only do we lack the information needed to establish such criteria, but to make Washington and New York impregnable so that terrorists can blow up Los Angeles or, for that matter, Kalamazoo with impunity wouldn't do us any good.
The report states that the focus of our antiterrorist strategy should not be ''just 'terrorism,' some generic evil. This vagueness blurs the strategy. The catastrophic threat at this moment in history is more specific. It is the threat posed by Islamist terrorism.'' Is it? Who knows? The menace of bin Laden was not widely recognized until just a few years before the 9/11 attacks. For all anyone knows, a terrorist threat unrelated to Islam is brewing somewhere (maybe right here at home -- remember the Oklahoma City bombers and the Unabomber and the anthrax attack of October 2001) that, given the breathtakingly rapid advances in the technology of destruction, will a few years hence pose a greater danger than Islamic extremism. But if we listen to the 9/11 commission, we won't be looking out for it because we've been told that Islamist terrorism is the thing to concentrate on.
Illustrating the psychological and political difficulty of taking novel threats seriously, the commission's recommendations are implicitly concerned with preventing a more or less exact replay of 9/11. Apart from a few sentences on the possibility of nuclear terrorism, and of threats to other modes of transportation besides airplanes, the broader range of potential threats, notably those of bioterrorism and cyberterrorism, is ignored.
And Judge Posner is singularly unimpressed with the Commission's foremost recommendation -- the appointment of a new intelligence agency "czar:"
The report's main proposal -- the one that has received the most emphasis from the commissioners and has already been endorsed in some version by both presidential candidates -- is for the appointment of a national intelligence director who would knock heads together in an effort to overcome the reluctance of the various intelligence agencies to share information.
The commission thinks the reason the bits of information that might have been assembled into a mosaic spelling 9/11 never came together in one place is that no one person was in charge of intelligence. That is not the reason. The reason or, rather, the reasons are, first, that the volume of information is so vast that even with the continued rapid advances in data processing it cannot be collected, stored, retrieved and analyzed in a single database or even network of linked databases. Second, legitimate security concerns limit the degree to which confidential information can safely be shared, especially given the ever-present threat of moles like the infamous Aldrich Ames. And third, the different intelligence services and the subunits of each service tend, because information is power, to hoard it. Efforts to centralize the intelligence function are likely to lengthen the time it takes for intelligence analyses to reach the president, reduce diversity and competition in the gathering and analysis of intelligence data, limit the number of threats given serious consideration and deprive the president of a range of alternative interpretations of ambiguous and incomplete data -- and intelligence data will usually be ambiguous and incomplete.
What is true is that 15 agencies engaged in intelligence activities require coordination, notably in budgetary allocations, to make sure that all bases are covered. Since the Defense Department accounts for more than 80 percent of the nation's overall intelligence budget, the C.I.A., with its relatively small budget (12 percent of the total), cannot be expected to control the entire national intelligence budget. But to layer another official on top of the director of central intelligence, one who would be in a constant turf war with the secretary of defense, is not an appealing solution. Since all executive power emanates from the White House, the national security adviser and his or her staff should be able to do the necessary coordinating of the intelligence agencies. That is the traditional pattern, and it is unlikely to be bettered by a radically new table of organization.
Judge Posner concludes by noting the normal American reaction to an attack, and notes that wide-ranging reforms in response to such reactions are ill-advised:
So the report ends on a flat note. But one can sympathize with the commission's problem. To conclude after a protracted, expensive and much ballyhooed investigation that there is really rather little that can be done to reduce the likelihood of future terrorist attacks beyond what is being done already, at least if the focus is on the sort of terrorist attacks that have occurred in the past rather than on the newer threats of bioterrorism and cyberterrorism, would be a real downer -- even a tad un-American. Americans are not fatalists. When a person dies at the age of 95, his family is apt to ascribe his death to a medical failure. When the nation experiences a surprise attack, our instinctive reaction is not that we were surprised by a clever adversary but that we had the wrong strategies or structure and let's change them and then we'll be safe. Actually, the strategies and structure weren't so bad; they've been improved; further improvements are likely to have only a marginal effect; and greater dangers may be gathering of which we are unaware and haven't a clue as to how to prevent.
Read the entire review. Judge Posner is an unusally clear thinker, and his analysis of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations is far more insightful than the recommendations themselves.
By the way, Judge Posner is guest blogging over at Larry Lessig's blog, and here is his blog post on his NY Times review of the 9/11 Commission.
Posted by Tom at 6:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
August 29, 2004
Thank you, Michael Barrett
What a difference a week makes.
Last Sunday, Roy O nailed Michael Barrett and the Cubs pounded the Stros so badly that I wrote off the Stros playoff chances completely. Just to make sure, the Cubs pounded a listless Stros team again this past Thursday. The Stros appeared washed up.
Then, the Cubs' Barrett confronted Oswalt in the batters' box in the second inning of Friday's game and, almost magically, the fortunes of these two clubs changed. The Stros were galvanized, and started cranking against any Cubs pitcher who took the mound. On the other hand, the Cubs began pitching and playing tentatively, and before you know it, the Stros had scored 32 runs in the final three game of the series, won them all, and now find themselves four games out of the Wild Card playoff spot with 32 games to go.
I don't think the Stros can win the Wild Card, but I did underestimate the pluckiness of this club. They will not go down meekly. They have now won 11 of their last 14 games.
Lance Berkman homered and Carlos Hernandez earned his first major league win in almost two years in leading the Stros to a 10-3 win over the Cuts at Wrigley on Sunday afternoon in the final meeting of the two clubs' chippy season series. Jeff Bagwell capped a big weekend with three hits for the Stros as he went 10-for-18 with seven RBI in the four game series.
As was typical of the last five games between the clubs, getting hit by pitches was a big part of the game. Carlos Beltran left with a bruised knee after he was hit by a pitch in the eighth inning and is day-to-day. Later in the inning, Berkman was plunked in the helmet by Cubs' reliever Mike Remlinger. Berkman went to the ground and stayed down for several minutes.
Incredibly, Remlinger and some of the idiot Cubs believe Berkman was pulling a stunt. Accordingly, in one of the more classless displays that I have seen in quite some time, a good part of the Cubs crowd actually booed Berkman when he came to the plate again in the ninth!
The Stros proceeded to score five times in the eighth inning to add to its 5-3 lead and put this one away for Hernandez, who was making his fourth start after coming up from AAA New Orleans, Hernandez allowed three runs and six hits in 5 2/3 innings.
The benches emptied for the second time in the four-game series and the third time in a week when new Stros reliever Dan Wheeler (just acquired from the Mets) hit Derrek Lee in the back with a pitch in the ninth (what did the Cubs expect after the Beltran and Berkman beanings?). Wheeler and Garner were ejected and Remlinger and JK jawed with each other colorfully, but no punches were thrown.
The Stros are now off to Cincy to face the Reds, who have the worst pitching staff in Major League Baseball. So, it is time for the Stros to pad their hitting statistics, particularly given that Pete Munro and Brandon Backe are doubtful to keep the hard-hitting Reds' lineup from scoring quite a few runs in the first two games of the series. After three games in Cincy and an off day on Thursday, the Stros return to the Juice Box for a weekend series with the Pirates and three more next week with the Reds.
Posted by Tom at 8:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Rice University -- excellent but underachieving?
University of Texas Law Professor Brian Leiter posts this excellent summary analysis of Houston's Rice University, in which he notes Rice's relative excellence in comparison to its even greater potential. Based on Professor Leiter's insight, new Rice president David Leebron would be smart to retain him as a consultant.
My late father, who was an esteemed professor of medicine for years at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston's famed Texas Medical Center, thought that Rice -- which is located adjacent to the Medical Center -- had always underdeveloped the research opportunities and resources that the Rice faculty could tap within the Medical Center. He observed that Rice's failure to seize this opportunity allowed the University of Texas to step into the breach in the late 1960's and establish the second research institution (to Baylor College of Medicine) in the Medical Center. Even with UT's success in the Medical Center (particularly with the phenomenal M.D. Anderson Cancer Center), the Medical Center has now grown to such an extent that Rice could harvest much greater research opportunities there and become as integral a force in Medical Center research as UT and Baylor.
Posted by Tom at 2:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Taps for the Corps?
This Sunday Chronicle op-ed by Houstonian James A. Reynolds, III examines an important facet of Texas' indelible culture -- the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets -- and laments the high risk that the Corps will soon wither away at A&M:
The Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University is dying.This venerable organization, a prominent component of our state's first publicly funded institute of higher learning, is withering away. I believe it will be gone within 10 years, perhaps even less.
While our state's population and Texas A&M's enrollment are straining upward, accordingly propagating bringing across-the-board expansion for all academic programs, clubs, sports and other activities, the Corps as a whole simply is not following suit. The Corps is, rapidly and inevitably, perishing.
Mr. Reynolds then zeros in on why Corps enrollment is declining:
Compulsory military service after graduation is not a factor. A substantial number of Corps members have no military ambitions at all, and participate as drills and ceremonies cadets, with no armed forces obligation whatever. They merely want to be in the Corps.The fundamental problem with attracting and retaining Corps members is the difficulty of one's freshman year in the Corps, the relatively harsh experience of being a "fish." First-year cadets begin as identical, powerless tiles in a self-contained societal mosaic composed of myriad artificial and onerous rules, requirements and traditions. . .
From the instant you step into the Corps, you relinquish your former self and become fish Jones or fish Reynolds or, as our own governor knows, fish Perry -- lacking even the privilege of capitalizing your first name.
Challenging enough when Texas A&M was a small, isolated cow college, the burdens of being a fish today are magnified among a student population dominated by non-regs, ordinary college kids dwelling in a carefree state of parent-funded utopia. The non-regs sleep and eat when the want, they stroll leisurely to classes, they wear shorts and sandals, they shave or don't, their lives are their own.
Not so for a Corps fish.
Last year at A&M with my old boss, watching cadets prepare to march on Kyle Field before a football game, we saw a dozen struggling, sweating Aggie Band fish double-timing by, each hauling two huge silver sousaphones to the assembly area.
"Look at these kids," he said. "This is miserable work, but they do it. Most college kids these days just aren't interested in doing this sort of thing. They look down on it. It's beneath them. Fact is, it's just too hard. They can do it, but they don't like difficult stuff, they hate discipline. They all want point-and-click, immediate gratification. They all want everything to be easy and effortless."
Which means fewer and fewer incoming Texas A&M University students want to be in the Corps.
Mr. Reynolds then describes the rigidly structured life of a "fish" in the Corps:
The fish must attend all Corps formations and functions. Their dorm rooms are austere, their uniforms plain but perfectly maintained, their privileges nonexistent. The fish must learn the names of all the upperclassmen in their dorms, employing an age-old introductory process, and greet them by name thereafter -- causing all shyness to vanish. Freshmen perform numerous duties in their units, from keeping the hallways clean to sounding whistle calls announcing meals and events.They are constantly supervised by upperclassmen, especially dominated by sophomores who only recently were fish themselves -- and whose vigor for enforcing the rules is judiciously tempered by juniors and seniors. The relaxed lifestyle attained after completion of one's sophomore year allows unalloyed love for the Corps to blossom, along with deep appreciation for the fish experience. But the sophomores are relentless, intent upon ensuring that freshmen toe the line in all respects.
Like it or not, this is a form of hazing. It's not the horrendous sort of fraternity pranks and initiation rites that yield injurious humiliation -- though A&M, like every college, has known isolated occurrences of such -- but the infliction is systematic and constant.
For a fish, the Corps is a total-immersion endeavor -- every waking moment dictated by regimen, responsibilities and demands of the uniform. Everyone in the Corps, from the newest fish to the eldest senior, scoffs at the "hell week" concept used by fraternities, sororities and other college organizations. One little week of collegiate hell is literally laughable, compared to your fish year in the Corps.
So, what is the purpose? What is the value? Mr. Reynolds answers:
I have met numerous A&M former students who were not in the Corps, but declare they wish they had been. I have yet to encounter a single Corps graduate, male or female, who regretted the experience, who would have attended A&M as a non-reg.An old boss of mine, a band member Class of '63, insisted the Corps literally saved his college career, with its upperclassman-enforced nightly study time on Sunday through Thursday. Overall, Corps grades are higher than the general student average.
Several years ago, a friend worried terribly about his son's decision to join the Corps. My friend fretted that his child -- on his own for the first time -- would be hazed miserably, tormented into scholastic failure, personal injury and permanent psychological scarring.
My friend was a normal parent: He feared sending his son to college without any sort of supervision. He was afraid of letting go.
A week after his son became a Corps fish, however, my friend was a changed man. His son had been taken into a family, a strict one to be certain, but this young new Aggie was anything but unsupervised.
Frank and his wife subsequently became enthusiastic Corps parents, dedicated Old Army supporters. Both wept proudly upon seeing their son wear senior boots, and they hoped their young daughter, too, would attend A&M and join the Corps.
I hope Mr. Reynolds is wrong, but I share his concern about the future of the Corps. It is a difficult to sell the long term benefits of sacrifice and hard work within a culture that worships instant gratification. If we Texans lose the Corps, then we will lose an important part of what defines our culture, and I submit that what replaces it to define our culture in the future is unlikely to have the salutary attributes of the Corps.
Posted by Tom at 12:59 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Sound advice on investing
This Washington Post (free online registration required) article profiles John Keeley, a former FDIC bank examiner who is now the manager of the $155 million Keeley Small Cap Value Fund, which is generating above-average returns by buying shares of U.S. companies that are emerging from bankruptcy or being restructured.
Keely's fund is up 8.5 percent this year, ranking it second of 146 small-cap value funds tracked by Bloomberg. Only the FBR Small Cap Value Fund recorded a bigger gain. Mr. Keeley, who opened his fund in 1993, holds shares of more than 110 companies and devotes no more than 2 percent of assets to any one stock. His family is the fund's largest shareholder, with about an 11 percent stake on June 30, including money invested for the college educations of Mr. Keeley's grandchildren.
While discussing his educational background in evaluating investments, Mr. Keeley passes along this sage advice:
"[T]the greatest education you can get is to get through a bear market."
Posted by Tom at 7:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 28, 2004
Stros continue hot streak
The Stros won their 10th game in their last 13 as they edged the Cubs on a windy Saturday afternoon at Wrigley, 7-6.
You know things are going well when you score three runs on an infield grounder, and that's exactly what the Stros did in the second inning of this game. Bags nailed a bases loaded grounder to first in the second, Cubs pitcher Zambrano dropped the throw from Cubs first baseman Lee as one run scored and then Bidg sought to score another in the confusion. Cubs catcher Barrett dropped the throw from Zambrano allowing Bidg to score, and Beltran alertly came home with the third run when the ball got away from Barrett. Just like we used to do it in T-ball.
The Rocket got his 14th win as he battled in giving up 8 hits and 5 runs over his six innings. Lidge again was solid in securing the win, throwing 37 pitches over the last 1 2/3rd's innings. Bags had three hits and two RBI's, as he appears to have his game face on for the Cubs after becoming quite irritated with Barrett's behavior yesterday with Roy O over the Beanball Chronicles.
Carlos Hernandez tries to keep it going for the Stros tomorrow against Matt Clement. The Cubbies will be leaking some serious oil if the Stros take three out of four from them at Wrigley.
Posted by Tom at 10:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
VDH on John Kerry's military service
This interesting Victor Davis Hanson column on John Kerry's military service is respectful and insightful, and Professor Hanson's conclusion is absolutely brilliant:
So I conclude with empathy for John Kerry, whom I appreciate as a veteran who served his country — even if I would not now vote for him. He should have been aware of the god Nemesis. Still, in a spirit of magnanimity and appreciation for his months on a boat in a very inhospitable landscape, Americans perhaps should remember the words of Pericles, as recorded by Thucydides shortly after the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War: "For there is justice in the claim that steadfastness in his country's battles should be as a cloak to cover a man's other imperfections; since the good action has blotted out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than outweighed his demerits as an individual."
Posted by Tom at 12:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The silent supporter of the Texas GOP
This Austin American-Statesman (free online subscription required) article provides a profile on Bob Perry, the Houston-based homebuilder who has become the largest contributor to Texas Republican political candidates.
On one hand, Mr. Perry is reported to be an unassuming contributor:
At the state level, several office-holders said Perry never asks anything of them.Patterson was the state senator for Perry's district before becoming land commissioner.
"In 20 years, he's never asked me for anything," Patterson said. "When I was in the Senate, there were issues he was interested in, but he never called up and said, 'Can you help me on this?' "
Agriculture Commissioner Susan Combs agrees.
"He doesn't lobby me," she said. "I lobby him. I know he has contacts."
She said she asked his advice on how to encourage home construction in rural areas. He also organized a meeting of Houston ministers in minority communities when she wanted to talk about schoolchildren's diets.
When Bob Deuell was running against a Democratic incumbent for a Dallas-area Senate seat, he got help from Perry before ever meeting him.
"I just started getting these checks from him," Deuell recalls. When Deuell phoned to thank Perry and ask for a meeting, Perry said there was no need. "I know who you are," Deuell remembers Perry telling him.
By Election Day, the checks totaled more than $250,000.
On the other hand, Mr. Perry has received some valuable business consideration for his hefty political contributions:
Perry got plenty for the $3.8 million he spent on the 2002 elections.In 2003, a Republican-controlled Legislature curbed the ability of consumers to file lawsuits against businesses.
Krugh, the lawyer for Perry Homes, also helped write legislation that created the Texas Residential Construction Commission, a new state agency to create rules for dispute resolution between home builders and consumers. The governor then appointed Krugh to the nine-member commission.
Opponents see the new agency as a hurdle to consumers suing home builders; the builders defend it as a quicker, fairer way to resolve disputes.
"Bob Perry was highly rewarded with his own state agency," said Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston. "In Texas you can buy your own state agency, then regulate yourself."
Doesn't Governor Perry and the Texas Republican Party stand for less governmental regulation? Or is it that they stand for less governmental regulation except in those cases where more regulation will benefit their largest contributor?
Posted by Tom at 8:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 27, 2004
kenlayinfo.com
Posted by Tom at 9:21 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
This is the way it was supposed to be
For one afternoon, the Stros shook off the weight of a disappointing season and hammered the cocky Cubs with five yaks in winning easily at Wrigley on Friday afternoon, 15-7.
Things got a little chippy again between the Cubs' Michael Barrett and Roy Oswalt just five days after Oswalt was ejected for beaning Barrett with a pitch in the back following a Cubs' homer. Both benches emptied after Barrett confronted Oswalt as he stepped into the batter's box in the second. After the umpires clearly warned Barrett to knock it off, he continued baiting Oswalt as he ran back to the dugout after grounding out. Later the Cubs' Kent Mercher intentionally hit Oswalt with a pitch, but the umpiring crew again did not eject anyone.
Inasmuch as Oswalt was ejected a week earlier without even a warning, the umpires need to get their criteria together for throwing players out of games. Sheesh!
At any rate, Oswalt (15-9) allowed six runs in eight innings for the win on a hot and muggy afternoon at Wrigley, but he retired 13 batters in a row from the fourth inning until giving up a single and a two-run homer to Nomar Garciaparra with two outs in the eighth.
The Stros jumped on the Cubs' Kerry Wood for four runs in the first and never looked back, whacking him for eight runs on eight hits in 4 1/3 innings, including four of the taters. Beltran led the way with two yaks and four RBI, and since coming to the National League in June, he is 11-for-21 with seven homers and 11 RBI in five games at Wrigley Field.
I think the Cubs need to pitch around that guy.
Bags and Berkman hit back-to-back solo shots off Wood, and JK added another yak as the Stros cranked out 17 hits for a gaudy 37 total bases. The win was the ninth for the Stros in their last 12 games.
In a personnel note, the Stros mercifully released David Weathers after the game, who came over from the Mets in the Hidalgo salary dump. Weathers looks washed up, although his runs saved against average is not as bad as some of the Stros' bullpen. However, Weathers is earning over $3 million, and the Stros are not interested in retaining him at anywhere near that compensation level. So, it was time for a divorce.
The Rocket takes the hill on Saturday as the Stros try to maintain the momentum of their best play since their great start in April.
Posted by Tom at 9:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The latest twist in the wild world of Equatorial Guinea
As noted in this earlier post, Equatorial Guinea is one fascinating place. Now, this NY Times article reports on the latest bizarre development in the affairs of this little African oil enclave. Here are all earlier posts on Equatorial Guinea.
With true stories like these, who needs novels?
Posted by Tom at 6:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
John O'Neill defends the Swift Boat Vets
In case you have tuning out the world over the past month or so, you already know that prominent Houston attorney John O'Neill is the author of the best-selling book "Unfit for Command" and has been at the forefront of the group known as the Swift Boat Veterans that has been waging a public campaign against John Kerry's candidacy for President. In this Wall Street Journal ($) op-ed today in which he defends the SWV's right to campaign against Mr. Kerry. First Mr. O'Neill debunks the notion that the SBV's are a mouthpiece for the Bush-Cheney campaign:
Are we controlled by the Bush-Cheney campaign? Absolutely not. The Swift boat veterans who joined our group come in all political flavors: independents, Republicans, Democrats, and other more subtle variations. Had another person been the presidential candidate of the Democrats, our group never would have formed. Had Mr. Kerry been the Republican candidate, each of us would still be here.We do not take direction from the White House or the president's re-election committee, and our efforts would continue even if President Bush were to ask us directly to stop.
Then, Mr. O'Neill explains simply why the SBV's have come forward:
Why have we come forward? As explained in "Unfit For Command," Mr. Kerry grossly exaggerated and lied about his abbreviated four-month tour in Vietnam. He disgraced all legitimate Vietnam War heroes when he falsely testified to Congress that we were war criminals, daily engaged in atrocities that had the full approval of all levels in the chain of command. So, once Mr. Kerry decided to apply for the commander in chief's job with a war-hero resumé, we felt compelled to come forward to explain why he is "unfit for command."
And, in this related WSJ op-ed, the WSJ's Daniel Henninger shakes his head at the way Mr. Kerry is responding to the SBV's:
How can this be happening? Why didn't John Kerry months back -- if not years -- find some gracious way to make peace with the John O'Neills of the world? Why didn't one wise head among the Democrats point out the obvious difficulties of the Kerry candidacy once past the party's primary voters? This is a man who would be running as both a hero of Vietnam and a famous accuser of the war's heroes. This is an election, not a Shakespearean tragedy. How come John Kerry never worked out, before the final leg of his long odyssey, a let-bygones statement, admitting the hyperbole (at the least) of his accusations of atrocity before Congress in 1971, honoring the service of colleagues who never felt obliged to apologize for Vietnam, but reserving his right to oppose that troubled war?
As I noted in this earlier blog post on Mr. O'Neill from several months ago, John is a highly regarded attorney in Houston legal circles and independent politically. The Kerry campaign's attempts to discredit him as a Republican shill are doomed to failure.
John Kerry has recently admitted that he used poor judgment and engaged in youthful indiscretion in condemning many of his co-Vietnam veterans publicly during the early 1970's. Was that earlier criticism truly a product of youthful indiscretion? Or is Mr. Kerry's response to serious critics such as John O'Neill prove that he simply has poor judgment and that he has not really changed from his earlier indiscretion?
By the way, before commenting, please know that I am also independent politically.
Posted by Tom at 5:27 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
August 26, 2004
Cubs continue treating Stros like the Stros treat the Phils
Brandon Backe came crashing back down to earth after his winning firt starting performance of last week as the Cubs cruised past the Stros 8-3 in the clubs' first game of a four game weekend series in Chitown.
Backe gave up seven runs and nine hits in three innings, which is more like he pitched when he was a reliever. Beltran did whack his fourth yak in four games and Bags nailed one, too. But the Stros left 12 men stranded, most of them while Mark Prior was pitching. Prior was primed to be beat today, but the Stros could not put together the big inning necessary to chase him.
Roy O and Kerry Wood renew their beanball rivalry in an another afternoon game tomorrow. The over-under on batters beaned tomorrow is 3.
Posted by Tom at 11:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Grocer's Supply to buy Fiesta
A couple of independent Houston grocery institutions decide to merge.
Posted by Tom at 8:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Father of HSA's condemns Kerrycare
John C. Goodman is a health care finance expert who was one of the leading advocates of Health Savings Accounts (explained here), which is one of the only positive pieces of health care finance legislation that has been enacted in years.
In this Wall Street Journal op-ed, Mr. Goodman reviews the Kerry Campaign's health care plan, and he is singulalry unimpressed with what he sees:
Mr. Kerry is seeking to completely transform the health-care system. The changes are far more radical than even he has let on. If he is successful, millions of middle-income families will enroll in Medicaid, the federal-state health program for the poor. Millions more will get their insurance through a system of managed competition, similar to what Hillary Clinton proposed more than a decade ago. Most people would be unable to remain in the private health plan they have today.
Mr. Goodman then reviews the goals of Kerrycare and how it proposes to achieve them:
The ostensible purpose of the proposal is to insure the uninsured. By some estimates, as many as 44 million people lack health insurance at any one time. The Kerry goal is to insure about two-thirds of them.How well will all of this work? More than half the money in this plan will be spent expanding Medicaid and the S-CHIP program (for low-income children). Emory University professor Kenneth Thorpe, Mr. Kerry's health adviser, estimates that as many as 26 million new people will be enrolled. However, as the public sector expands, the private sector will surely contract.
Even Mr. Kerry assumes that for every 10 people who sign up, three people will lose private insurance from an employer; and it could be much worse. Studies in the 1990s found that every additional dollar spent on Medicaid led to a reduction in private insurance of 50 to 75 cents. More recent evidence suggests that private sector crowd-out is approaching one-to-one: Each new Medicaid enrollee is offset by one less person with private insurance. Moreover, most of the private sector subsidies will go to people who are already insured; and employers get their subsidies even if they fail to insure a single additional employee. Bottom line: It is entirely possible to spend $1 trillion and achieve no reduction in the number of uninsured!
And Mr. Goodman is not sanguine about the quality of care that would result from Kerrycare:
Quality of care will suffer under the Kerry proposal. People who go from employer plans to Medicaid will have fewer choices of doctors, longer waits for care, and inevitable health-care rationing. Those who join the system of managed competition will experience a different problem: Health plans will face perverse incentives to overprovide to the healthy and underprovide to the sick.
Which leads to the $64,000 question: How much will Kerrycare cost? Mr. Goodman comments:
In order to keep spending down in the latest 10-year projection, the Kerry team delays implementation for one year, so the first year's costs can be zero. They also claim phantom savings that basically amount to the perennial promise to eliminate waste and inefficiency.Counting the first full 10 years in operation and only savings that seem likely to be real, I put the actual cost in excess of $1 trillion, almost $1,000 per year for every household in America. Versus the budget Mr. Kerry has promised to balance, this cost is more than three times the new revenue Mr. Kerry hopes to get from high-income earners.
This estimate may be low. The reason: People will face perverse incentives to overinsure and overconsume. For example, faced with virtually no out-of-pocket costs, the 26 million new enrollees in Medicaid will have no reason to show restraint. The bills all go to someone else. Premium caps mean that a poverty enrollee under managed competition will pay no more than $600 or $700 a year, with the remainder paid by Uncle Sam. If they insure at all, they will tend to pick the most expensive plan. Why choose a Volkswagen when you can have an Aston Martin at no extra cost?
Whatever the cost, the plan will almost certainly lead to a new round of health-care inflation. Federal spending alone will increase by more than $100 billion a year. But since there will be no increase in supply, the bulk of this new spending will buy higher prices rather than more health care.
Mr. Goodman then asks the following common sense questions regarding Kerrycare:
A major problem with the current system is that tax subsidies for health insurance are arbitrary and unfair. But rather than move to a fairer system that treats equals equally, Mr. Kerry would create a slew of new subsidies that would make the system even more arbitrary.The structure of the Kerry health plans raises a number of intriguing questions:
• Why spend billions on subsidies to small businesses if they join an insurance system that doesn't even exist yet, while denying them those same subsidies if they buy insurance that is readily available in the marketplace?• Why pay the cost of premium caps and other subsidies to individuals if they buy insurance that doesn't yet exist, while denying them any relief if they buy insurance that is already available?• And why spend billions enrolling middle-income families in Medicaid instead of using those same dollars to help them enroll in employer plans and individually-owned policies which they would probably much prefer?
Mr. Goodman concludes that there is only one logical answer to these questions:
The real purpose of this plan is not to insure the uninsured. The real purpose is to radically change our health- care system.
Posted by Tom at 6:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Bank of NY tees off on Citigroup over Enron-related instruments
This Wall Street Journal ($) article reports that Bank of New York Co. sued Citigroup Inc. earlier this week over the sale of financial instruments related to Enron Corp. The lawsuit could involve as much as $2.5 billion in liability for Citigroup.
The lawsuit is particularly interesting because it involves credit insurance, which has become one of the trendiest new financial products over recent years. Such insurance provides investors a hedge against the risk of insolvency for their investment, and the Bank of New York - Citigroup dispute focuses on whether banks involved in the market may have superior knowledge to other participants.
The suit alleges Citigroup knew (or presumably "should have known") Enron's debts were far greater than the numbers presented in its public financial statements between 1999 and when Enron went into bankruptcy in early December, 2001. The suit alleges that Citigroup just could not get enough of Enron's business and that by 1999, Citigroup's exposure to Enron totaled a staggering $1.7 billion, which was four times Citigroup's internal limit on exposure to Enron. Bank of New York alleges that Citigroup's exposure increased over the next two years as Enron entered a series of financial deals with Citigroup that enabled Enron to mask debt as cash flow on its financial statements.
In short, Bank of New York alleges that Enron was a Ponzi scheme and that Citigroup knew it. The lawsuit alleges that the only reason Citigroup did not cut Enron off from new financing was because Citigroup knew that Enron would collapse before Enron could pay it back.
So, the lawsuit alleges that Citigroup approached major institutional investors to reduce its Enron exposure by promoting an investment in "Yosemite" securities, a series of notes with a total face value of $2.4 billion that were linked to the creditworthiness of Enron. So long as Enron remained financially viable, the investors in the Yosemites would receive interest payments that were more attractive than the interest rate on Enron bonds. If Enron defaulted on any debt obligations or filed for bankruptcy protection, the lawsuit alleges that Citigroup was supposed to replace the Yosemites with Enron bonds that would likely be worth far less than 100 cents on the dollar to investors, but which would rank relatively high in claim priority in an Enron bankruptcy.
As sad stories go, this dispute was triggered because Enron and its other creditors are asserting that the investors ought should be subordinate to other creditors in Enron's claim priority ranking because of Citigroup's involvement in the deception that helped cause Enron's bankruptcy. If Enron's position is sustained and the claims of the Yosemite securities holders go to the bottom of the Enron claim totem pole, then those investors will likely get nothing on their claims.
Such a result will not make the holders of those claims happy. Most of those Yosemite securities claims are now held by distressed-debt investors -- a notoriously hard-knuckled group in insolvency cases -- who bought the securities from the original holders at discounted prices between 10 to 50 cents on the dollar.
Just another $2.5 billion aftershock of the Enron financial earthquake. This one should be interesting.
Posted by Tom at 5:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 25, 2004
How about those Stros?
JK whacked an eighth inning three run yak -- his second tater of the game -- as the Stros swept their season series from the utterly befuddled Phillies, 7-4 this afternoon at the Juice Box.
This looked like a game that the Stros were destined to lose as they lagged behind the entire game and could not put a big inning together against Phils' starter Eric Milton. However, Pete Munro kept the Stros in the game, and then AAA relievers Gallo, Harville and Qualls did not allow the game to get out of hand before Kent's fireworks in the eighth. Carlos Beltran and Morgan Ensberg also tagged solo bombs for the Stros, who crept two games over the .500 mark with the win.
So now it's off to Wrigley for four games with the Cubbies over the weekend followed by a trip to Cincy for batting practice with the Reds early next week. With their playoff hopes toasted to a crisp, the Stros appear to be playing as loose as a goose and could give the contenders some well-deserved headaches down the stretch.
Posted by Tom at 9:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Another Enron plea deal
Mark Koenig, the former head of Enron's investor relations section, agreed to a plea bargain today with the Enron Task Force in regard to newly-filed criminal charges against him, and agreed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to pay civil penalties of $1.49 million to settle related civil fraud charges against him.
Mr. Koenig worked for Enron from 1985 through 2002. He is charged with participating in a scheme to mislead investors about the financial affairs of a couple of Enron units for the purpose of making those units appear to be more valuable than they really were so that their alleged true, lower worth would not dilute the value of Enron stock. The incidents set forth in Koenig's plea deal are also included in the indictment of Enron's remaining "big three" unconvicted executives -- Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Richard Causey. Mr. Koenig appeared this morning before U.S. Magistrate Judge Frances Stacy and was released on bond.
Paula Rieker, who worked under Mr. Koenig, pled guilty earlier this year to an insider trading charge and is cooperating with the Enron Task Force.
Posted by Tom at 12:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Contrasting views on the Google IPO
I have been meaning to comment on the contrasting views that James Surowiecki of Marginal Revolution and Holman Jenkins, Jr of the Wall Street Journal ($) have regarding the recent Google IPO. However, Professor Ribstein beat me to the punch and does a better job of analyzing the respective positions than I could have done, anyway.
By the way, is the Professor really recommending that we short Google? ;^)
Posted by Tom at 9:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
A lawyer acting badly
Don Hawbaker, a fine Dallas area litigator who runs the Construction Law Blog, had an interesting adventure in court the other day after which he asks the question: Should I report this guy to the local grievance committee?
Posted by Tom at 8:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Fifth Circuit on proving attorneys' fees
In this recent decision in a duty to defend case, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the trial court's admission of an attorney's expert testimony on the reasonableness of attorney's fees despite the fact that the witness had failed to provide the opposition with a report regarding his anticipated testimony.
Interesting decision, but I recommend highly that you simply have the lawyer/expert prepare a report, which need not be lengthy. Hat tip to Blog 702 for the link to this decision.
Posted by Tom at 8:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The folly of campaign finance "reform"
Washington Post columnist George Will's column today is an outstanding analysis of the inane implications of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance "reform" legislation. Mr. Will relates the absurd suppression of free speech -- the suppression of a dealership's car ads that use the dealership's name, which happens to be the same as a Republican candidate for senator -- and observes the following:
A core principle of an open society is that, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, liberties "depend on the silence of the law" -- what is not forbidden is permitted. However, because of the com- plexities and vagaries of McCain-Feingold and the rest of the government's metastasizing regulations of political activity, prudent participants in poli- tics must assume that everything is forbidden until the government gives permission.
The Supreme Court's affirmation of McCain-Feingold was a watershed in the nation's constitutional experience. The First Amendment will be forever open to statutory dilution, at least as it pertains to political speech. (The court has placed pornography essentially beyond the reach of regulation.) Henceforth, the guarantee of freedom of political speech is being steadily circum- scribed in the name of political hygiene. The right of free expression can be trumped by the supposed imperative of combating "corruption" or "the appearance" thereof, which is to say, where probably no actual corruption exists.Common Cause's desire to regulate car ads has no conceivable connection to preventing corruption. But the "corruption" rationale merely disguises the reformers' real agenda, which is to extend government supervision of speech whenever they think extension serves their partisan advantage.
And in deriding President Bush's late criticism yesterday of the use of section "527" organization funding for political ads, this Wall Street Journal ($) editorial reminds us that McCain-Feingold is a product of bipartisan misjudgments:
One reason 527s are so prominent now is because Mr. Bush made the mistake of signing the McCain-Feingold campaign finance "reform" that barred big donations to political parties. So 527s have become the new alternative vehicle that Americans passionate about politics are using to exercise their First Amendment rights to free speech. The difference is that now the campaigns can't control how that money is spent.If Mr. Bush wanted the two major parties to better control their campaign messages, he could have vetoed McCain-Feingold. Some of us urged him to do so, but his political advisers whispered not to worry, the Supreme Court will take care of it. Well, Sandra Day O'Connor failed too, but in any event since when are Presidents supposed to pass the buck to judges?
In our view, this was among the worst moments of Mr. Bush's term. Having helped to midwife the current campaign-finance system, it ill behooves him to blame others for the way this world works.
Posted by Tom at 7:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Survey of corporate governance practices
New York based Shearman & Sterling LLP has published this well done and informative survey of corporate governance practices at the 100 largest publicly-owned U.S. companies. Hat tip to the always attentive Professor Bainbridge for the link to the survey.
Posted by Tom at 7:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Citigroup expands Texas presence
In the latest deal reflecting that financial services companies are increasingly pursuing consumer lending, Citigroup Inc. announced that would expand its retail-branch presence into Texas by acquiring closely-held, Bryan-based First American Bank SSB. Terms of the cash deal were not disclosed.
With this deal, Citigroup continues its strategy of increasing its domestic banking business, particularly in fast-growing areas. Inasmuch as Citigroup already owns the Mexican bank Grupo Financiero Banamex SA, the First American deal will also facilitate Citigroup's goal of becoming the key bank for the large Mexican-American community in Texas.
First American has 102 full-service banking facilities across Texas and has been expanding in such key Texas metropolitan areas of Houston, Dallas, and Austin. With $3.5 billion in assets, First American will not have much of a financial impact on Citigroup, which has $1.19 trillion in assets. Nevertheless, the deal may set the stage for other Citigroup acquisitions in Texas. Stayed tuned.
Posted by Tom at 6:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
A good man's worthy cause
When you find yourself becoming cynical while reading the next inevitable article about an obnoxious professional athlete, remember the Stros' Craig Biggio.
Yesterday, for the 13th straight year, Bidg and his wife Patty hosted their 13th annual party and baseball game at the Juice Box for the Sunshine Kids, the local Houston charity that works closely with the Texas Medical Center's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Texas Children's Hospital to provide recreation and support for children diagnosed with cancer.
This Chronicle article relates how important Bidg and his wife's efforts are on behalf of the Sunshine Kids:
Suzie James said her family returned from vacation just in time to make it to the stadium so her 7-year-old son, Cameron, could participate. When Cameron was diagnosed in February, his mother said, a social worker at Texas Children's Hospital told them about the Sunshine Kids."This is our third activity," she said, just before Cameron took his turn at bat.
He has undergone surgery, radiation treatments and chemotherapy, his mother said.
"The activities help us get our minds off it for a while."
Cameron connected for a solid grounder on his fourth swing. Sunshine Kids don't strike out if Biggio can help it.
While other local charities have seen a downturn in charitable donations over the past several years, Bidg's efforts on behalf of the Sunshine Kids have increased their charitable donations over that same period. Bidg's annual charity golf tournament on behalf of the Sunshine Kids -- which he puts on during the distraction of the baseball season -- has turned into a huge fund-raising affair.
Craig Biggio is not only a Hall of Fame quality baseball player, he is a Hall of Fame quality citizen of Houston. During his long tenure with the Stros, Bidg and his family have settled comfortably in the West University area of Houston and have become integral members of their church and community. As a father of two young men who have literally grown up admiring Bidg during his unusually long career with the Stros, I appreciate the classy example of manhood that he has always displayed. He is part of what makes Houston a special place.
Posted by Tom at 5:40 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Stros continue mastery over Phils
The Stros continued their somewhat baffling dominance of the Phillies this season as they beat the Phils for the fifth straight time 4-2 on Tuesday night at the Juice Box.
Carlos Hernandez gave his most encouraging performance since returning from shoulder surgery, giving up two runs on six hits and four walks in seven innings. Roy O made a rare relief performance in pitching a perfect eighth after his abbreviated appearance in Sunday's beanball fest with the Cubs and got unexpectedly got his 14th win when the Stros rallied in the eighth to break a 2-2 tie. Lidge nailed down his 16th save with a scoreless ninth.
Phils' starter Brett Myers pretty well stymied the Stros over the first seven innings, giving up only two runs on two hits (one of which was Beltran's solo yak), but ex-Stro closer Todd Jones came through for the Stros in the eighth by giving up two runs on Lance Berkman and Mike Lamb's consecutive two-out singles.
By the way, I used the Stros' new service yesterday that allows season ticket holders to email their tickets to someone else to use. All you have to do is call the Stros' ticket services at (800-278-7672) and obtain your account's PIN number to gain access to the service, I emailed mine to an old friend, and the service worked without a hitch. The service cannot yet email parking passes or club level passes, which do not have the bar code that allows the tickets to be easily recreated.
Based on recent history, the Stros' chances of sustaining success plummet in today's afternoon Businessman's Special as Pete Munro (2-5) takes the hill against the Phils' Eric Milton, who has a 13-2 record this season. In one of those statistical anamolies that helps make baseball fascinating, Munro (4.79) and Milton (4.71) have about the same ERA this season. The anamoly is best explained by the probability that Munro's ERA would be much higher if he had pitched the 90 more innings that Milton has pitched this season.
Posted by Tom at 5:06 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 24, 2004
Durst finally granted reasonable bail
The Texas 14th Court of Appeals finally lowered Robert Durst's bail to $450,000 from the absurd $3 billion amount that Galveston State District Judge Susan Criss had set earlier this year. Here are earlier posts on the Durst murder case.
Posted by Tom at 1:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The claimed results of Bush and Kerry's health care finance plans
Ceci Connolly of the Washington Post is one of the best reporters on health care finance issues. This article in yesterday's edition reviews the dubious financial projections behind the Bush Administration's health care finance proposals:
If the Republican-controlled Congress enacted President Bush's entire health care agenda, as many as 10 million people who lack health insurance would be covered at a cost of $102 billion over the next decade, according to his campaign aides.But when the Bush-Cheney team was asked to provide documentation, the hard data fell far short of the claims, a gap supported by several independent analyses.
Projections by the Congressional Budget Office, the Treasury Department, academics and the campaign's Web site suggest that under the best circumstances, Bush's plans for health care would extend coverage to no more than 6 million people over the next decade and possibly as few as 2 million.
"There's little reason to expect that there would be any reduction in the overall numbers of Americans without health insurance," Brookings Institution health policy expert Henry J. Aaron said. "We're swimming against a rather swift current in our efforts to reduce the number of uninsured, and the power of President Bush's proposals to move against that current is, it seems to me, very, very limited."
On the other hand, the article notes that the credibility of the Kerry campaign's health care finance projections is not particularly compelling, either:
Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), has released a health care agenda that is more ambitious and more expensive, with plans to expand government health programs, offer tax credits similar to Bush's and reimburse businesses for some of their most costly catastrophic cases.Forecasting the cost and impact of policy proposals is always complicated, and both presidential campaigns try to spin the numbers to their advantage. Kerry, for example, estimates his health care proposals would cover 27 million people at a 10-year cost of $653 billion. But that assumes $300 billion in "savings" that the Bush team says might prove elusive. Without the savings, the cost of the Kerry package jumps to nearly $1 trillion.
Sigh.
Posted by Tom at 7:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
The right way to pick a Supreme Court Justice
Bill James would enjoy this method in evaluating potential candidates for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Hat tip to Craig Newmark for the link.
Posted by Tom at 6:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)