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September 30, 2008
This is leadership?
I've already said my piece on the proposed Treasury Bailout of Wall Street, so I won't belabor that view.
In the meantime, there are much better places to keep up with the minute-by-minute political developments on the proposed bailout -- for example, check out Clusterstock, DealBreaker and Felix Salmon for astute and up-to-the-minute analysis.
However, one point from my previous post deserves further review -- that is, circumstances such as this provide us with a revealing view of our political leaders. Do they inspire positive and collaborative action in difficult times for the better good of society? Or do they attempt to generate support for their political position through fear-mongering and demagoguery?
In my view, President Bush's handling of the negotiations over the proposed bailout has been abysmal. As Jeff Matthews points out:
The President’s unfortunate choice of words—"this sucker could go down"—carry the same deer-in-headlights quality as his televised speech to the American people last week, in which he used the word “panic,” as we recall. At a minimum, it makes you nervous; at a maximum, it makes you want to throw up first and sell everything second.
What happened to the heroic, forward-looking rhetoric great leaders are supposed to provide in times of crisis?
FDR gave us “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Churchill gave us “We shall fight on the beaches.”
George Bush cruises in with “This sucker could go down.”
We wonder: has a more irresponsible sentence been uttered, by anyone, during this entire crisis?
John Carney reports that President Bush wasn't any better today in responding to the House's rejection of the proposed bailout:
"We put forth a plan that was big because we got a big problem," Bush just said, sitting in a chair placed before a fireplace in the White House. He's meeting with advisers, he said. "I'm disappointed with the vote in Congress," the president said.
Was that his version of FDR's famous fireside chats? Bush looked annoyed he was being bothered with this stuff.
This from a President who failed to persuade more than a third of his own party members in the House for his position in response to a financial emergency?
Meanwhile, proving that dubious leadership is bipartisan, Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi provided us with a lesson on how not to win support for a position:
Finally, Tina Fey didn't even need to change any of Sarah Palin's words to drive home the point that John McCain certainly didn't bolster his lack of financial and economic acumen with his running mate selection:
Update: More "leadership."
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September 29, 2008
2008 Weekly local football review
(AP Photo/Phil Coale; previous weekly reviews are here).
Jaguars 30 Texans 27 (OT)
If it isn't one thing, it's another for the Texans (0-3).
After pretty much stinking it up in the Texans' first two games, QB Matt Schaub was outstanding in this one, leading the Texans to scores on their five consecutive possessions (three TD's and two FG's, including Kris Brown's 51 yarder with a second left that sent the game into overtime). Schaub was 29-40 for 307 yds with 3 TD's and no INT's. WR Kevin Walter had two TD's reception and rookie RB Steve Slaton caught 8 passes for 83 yds and a TD. Can't ask for much more than that.
On the other hand, after playing a decent first half, the Texans' defense was horrible in the second half and overtime. For the first three quarters of the game, the Texans' defense inexplicably allowed the Jags to complete slant passes at will. Then, when the Texans' defense finally took away the slant pass in the fourth quarter, they forgot to maintain containment on Jags' QB David Garrard, who proceeded to make three key runs out of the pocket on the final TD drive in regulation. The poor defensive performance was punctuated by poor tackling in OT, which allowed the Jags to set up a chip shot field goal to win the game.
About the only good thing that can be said about the defense is that it may have been better than the Texans' coverage teams, which were absolutely awful. They provided the Jags with good field position throughout the game.
Finally, how is it that the Texans' coaching staff and players were the only ones watching the game who did not realize that the Jags had kept their offense on the field in their initial punting situation of the game? The gift-wrapped TD that the Texans' punt-return team gave the Jags might have made a difference in the final score, don't you think?
The Texans finally return to Houston for their first home game of the season next week against the well-rested Colts (1-2) and QB Peyton Manning, who carved the Texans' defense up like a holiday turkey the last time the teams played. Ay, yi, yi.
Houston Cougars 41 East Carolina 24
The feel-good story of the weekend was the Cougars (2-3 overall/1-0 C-USA), who lost a couple of close games over the past two weeks after being jacked around by their own AD during Hurricane Ike and its aftermath. Although they were double-digit underdogs to 23rd-ranked East Carolina (3-2; 1-1), the Coogs manhandled the Pirates and would have won the game by an even larger margin but for four turnovers and two missed field goals. The Cougars offense rolled up 625 yds of total offense and literally had the ECU defense gasping for air by midway through the second half. Houston has a well-deserved day off this Saturday before hosting Alabama-Birmingham (1-4/0-1) on Oct. 9 in a Thursday night game.
Texas Longhorns 52 Arkansas 10
Back when the fifth-ranked Horns (4-0) scheduled Arkansas (2-2) several years ago, they figured that the game was going to be a competitive tune-up for Big 12 play. Alas, it was not, so the Longhorns remain largely untested as they prepare for their Big 12 opener next week at Boulder against Colorado (3-1). Nevertheless, QB Colt McCoy is playing at a consistently high-level and the Horns revamped defense appears to be flying around the field pretty well. They will need to be next week as Colorado is pretty good and it would be easy for the Horns to be peeping ahead a week for their big game against No. 1 Oklahoma.
The most amazing thing about this game is that there was no scoring in the fourth quarter! As I've been saying all season, Rice's (3-2 overall/2-0 C-USA) offense is the real deal and gives the Owls a legitimate chance to win in any game in which the Owls' defense can slow down the opposition. Rice now prepares for their annual Revenge Bowl next Saturday against their former one-year coach, Todd Graham and the Tulsa Hurricane (4-0/1-0). Here's hoping that the Marching Owl Band makes the road trip to Tulsa.
After the Aggies (2-2) were not able to generate 300 yds total offense at home against a very bad Army (0-4) team, a commentator on one of the Aggie message boards described the five stages of coming to terms with the Aggies' current status as a football doormat:
Denial: "Give Fran Time."
Anger: "Fire Fran!"
Bargaining: "A different coach will make the difference."
Depression: "Why even bother to post on TexAgs."
Acceptance: "We are terrible."
The Aggies might not win another game this season. Oklahoma State (4-0) is a decent bet to put 60 points on the Aggies next Saturday night in Stillwater.
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September 28, 2008
Paul Newman, R.I.P.
The NY Times' Manohla Dargis reviews Newman's film career.
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September 27, 2008
The Rothko Chapel
It was the 105th anniversary of Mark Rothko's birth earlier this week, so it's a good time to learn a bit more about the artist whose paintings hang in one of Houston's most remarkable places, the Rothko Chapel on the campus of the University of St. Thomas (earlier post here).
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September 26, 2008
Lord, help us!
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September 25, 2008
Tough day at the office
Clear Thinkers reader Charles Satterfield passes along these pictures of a trading office on the sixth floor of JP Morgan Chase Center, looking out toward the blown-out windows on the east side of JP Morgan Chase Tower (the tallest building in downtown Houston), taken shortly after Hurricane Ike blew out dozens of windows on the building's east side during the early morning of Saturday, Sept 13th. Going on two weeks after the storm, over half a million Houston area residents remain without power and about 250,000 have no running water.
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September 24, 2008
The Treasury Bailout is not rocket science
The debate over the proposed Treasury bailout of Wall Street firms is coming at a fortuitous time -- the election season. Be wary of any candidates who, after looking appropriately concerned about the dire predictions of the plan's promoters, throw up their hands and vote in favor of the bailout because "we just have to do something" even if they don't understand what they are doing.
The fear mongering that the promoters are using to sell the bailout is laughable. This is not rocket science.
For example, when Enron tanked in late 2001, it was the seventh largest public company in the U.S. Enron traded derivatives and other financial instruments with counterparties that were among Wall Street's biggest commercial and investment banks, which were heavily exposed to its losses. To make matters worse, these investments were concentrated in the energy sector, which is at least as important to the nation's economy as the housing sector that is at the center of the current crisis.
In short, at the time of its bankruptcy, Enron was one of the nation's largest publicly-owned companies, a vitally-important market-maker in the natural gas trading industry and a leader in hedging corporate risk through structured finance transactions.
Despite the huge wealth destruction that would result from Enron's insolvency, not one government or Wall Street leader proposed a bailout of Enron in order to preserve the huge value to the public of the natural gas trading industry and the market for structured finance transactions.
Enron's bankruptcy proceeded to cause enormous tremors through various industries -- particularly the energy industry -- because valuable resources for hedging risk of loss had evaporated seemingly overnight. The natural gas trading industry nearly fell apart completely, costing companies and their customers untold billions of dollars that they otherwise could have saved through hedging risk of loss. Similarly, the market for many structured finance transactions dried up, also costing companies another valuable avenue for hedging risk.
However, the nation's financial system did not break down. Companies adjusted to the changed circumstances and endured their additional costs as best they could. Markets also adjusted. Slowly but surely, both the natural gas trading industry and the market for structured finance transactions rebounded so that both are again providing companies with valuable alternatives for hedging risk and saving money.
Now, the tables are turned on Wall Street. Rather than facing the consequences of their risk-taking decisions in chapter 11, Wall Street's politically well-connected leaders are weaving their tales of doom for the overall economy to compliant governmental leaders who are only too willing to do their bidding.
In reality, each of these Wall Street firms should be required to endure the same thing that Enron and its creditors did -- a chapter 11 reorganization where equity gets wiped out and creditors either take a haircut on payment of their debts or convert their debt to equity in a reorganized firm that emerges from bankruptcy with a cleaned-up balance sheet.
That process ensures that investors and creditors who undertook the risk of investing or dealing with the bankrupt firms share the losses of their risk-taking. Moreover, it allows the firms that really are worth saving (as opposed to simply liquidating) to emerge from bankruptcy with an improved financial condition that should provide the firm with an enhanced opportunity to create wealth again.
What the bailout plan proposes to do is insulate investors and creditors from risk of loss by having the government -- funded by taxpayers such as you and me -- undertake that risk. There is simply no moral justification for foisting that risk on taxpayers and the only possible practical justification is that sorting all of these firms' problems out in chapter 11 might take awhile.
But even if the government saw fit to accelerate the Wall Street reorganizations to hedge the risk of a prolonged economic downturn, there is simply no reason for the government to overpay for assets from financially-troubled firms. Rather, the government should simply propose a plan that implements the going-concern liquidation and debt-for-equity reorganization features of chapter 11 on an accelerated basis in return for some reasonable financial contribution to the process. And you can bet that contribution doesn't need to be close to $700 billion.
Luigi Zingales, the Robert C. Mc Cormack Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at the University of Chicago, has written the most cogent piece I've seen to date on why the bailout is a bad idea. Even though it was wrong for the government to contribute to the massive amounts of wealth destruction that resulted from the demonization of Enron, the government was right not to bail out Enron. The circumstances are different now, so perhaps a different approach is more prudent than simply allowing all of these Wall Street companies to be sorted out in chapter 11.
But throwing $700 billion at investors and creditors who should be sharing the losses of their risk-taking is not even close to the best way of doing it.
Update: I couldn't help but laugh out loud this morning as Warren Buffett and the promoters of the Treasury bailout plan point to Buffett's sweet $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs as an endorsement of the plan.
I prefer to look at what Buffett is doing rather than what he is saying.
What he is not doing is what Paulson and Bernanke want the U.S. Treasury to do -- buy investment banks' toxic assets. Rather, Buffett is buying preferred shares in Goldman with a big yield and warrants to buy Goldman stock at $115 (its trading at over $130) so that he can recover the profit his investment helps foster while Goldman transitions from an investment bank to a bank holding company over the next couple of years.
Meanwhile, Paulson and Bernanke keep promoting their plan to throw $700 billion at whatever trashy assets that Wall Street serves up to them.
It does not engender much confidence that Buffett can cut a far better deal with Wall Street's best-run investment bank than Paulson and Bernanke propose to cut with the worst-run ones.
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September 23, 2008
The "Rookies and Rednecks" come through
What with a hurricane hitting the upper Texas coast and a financial hurricane hammering Wall Street, the U.S. team's improbably stirring victory over the European team in last weekend's Ryder Cup matches has been somewhat overlooked.
As usual, Geoff Shackelford has chronicled all the reviews of the U.S. team's victory, including this interesting Mike Adamson article in which he notes the esprit de corps of the "Tigerless" U.S. team:
Woods's below-par record for the US team - combining the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup, he has lost more of his 50 matches than he has won - remains something of a mystery. He has won the WGC Match Play on three occasions, including this year, his competitive streak thriving in mano-a-mano combat. But pair him with another and he cannot stop losing.
Woods has had a remarkable 11 partners in the Ryder Cup, three of whom were in this US team. All three, Jim Furyk, Justin Leonard and particularly Phil Mickelson, have played with spirit, unburdened by the great man's presence. Likewise it is hard, albeit not impossible, to imagine the debutants Anthony Kim and Boo Weekley playing with such uninhibited personality were they in Woods's shadow. Although Azinger lost the world's best player, it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that his uplifting captaincy has also benefited from the absence of such an intimidating figure in the team room.
Also, don't miss this fine Doug Ferguson article on the tense third day match between the cocky U.S. rookie, Anthony Kim, and Euro Ryder Cup stalwart, Sergio Garcia. Kim stared Garcia down on the first green and then proceeded to whip him, 5 and 4.
The Ryder Cup is finally competitive again!
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September 22, 2008
2008 Weekly local football review
(AP Photo/John Russell)
After a week off in deference to Hurricane Ike, the weekly local football review is back (previous weekly reviews are here).
OK, it wasn't as bad as the Week One loss to the Steelers, but that's faint praise. The Texans (0-2) defense was actually better against the Titans (3-0), but the offense continues to hit on far fewer than all cylinders. Rookie RB Steve Slaton looked promising(18 car/115 yds/1 TD), but QB Matt Schaub (17-37/ 188 yds/ 3 INT's) and Pro Bowl WR Andre Johnson (2 receptions for 29 yds and two dropped passes in the end zone) looked awful. The road to a first 2008 victory doesn't get any easier for the Texans next week as they travel to Jacksonville to play the Jaguars (1-2), who handed the Colts (1-2) their second loss in three 2008 games on Sunday. And guess who the Texans get after the Jags? The Colts at Reliant Stadium. The Chron's Lance Zerlein sums up the state of the Texans after two games here.
Aggie RB Michael Goodson started the game off with an electrifying 62 yard TD catch and run, but then Miami tied the game four plays later and never looked back. The score was 41-10 by late in the third quarter, so this game was a blowout well before the Aggies scored two meaningless scores late. The Aggies (1-2) better get a win next Saturday at College Station against Army (0-3) because their next legitimate chance for a victory after that game is a month later against Big 12 doormat, Iowa State (2-2), and that's by no means a sure thing. My, how low can it go in Aggieland?
As the Owls (2-2) served up their annual sacrificial lamb offering to the Longhorns (3-0), does anyone else think the Horns' soft schedule may make them prime meat for an upset at Boulder by Colorado (3-0) two weeks from now? The Horns play a bad Arkansas (2-1) team next Saturday in Austin, while the Owls will have a scoreboard-burning free-for-all against North Texas (0-3) at Rice Stadium.
Colorado State 28 Houston Cougars 25
Given that UH players and coaches were inexplicably forced to play last week while many of their families were enduring peril from Hurricane Ike, and then spent most of last week trying to get back to a largely power-deprived city in the aftermath of the hurricane, I am almost inclined to give the Cougars (1-3) a pass on this loss. That is until I discovered that Colorado State (2-1) struggled to beat Sacramento State (!) two weeks ago. The Coogs better get their mojo back quickly because they travel next Saturday to Greenville, North Carolina to play East Carolina (3-1), which was the 15th-ranked team in the country before they were upset in overtime by North Carolina State on Saturday. A 1-4 start is not what new Cougar coach Kevin Sumlin had in mind as his introduction to the Houston sports community.
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September 21, 2008
This is too easy
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September 20, 2008
Youth coaching tips
This earlier post generated an email from a reader soliciting my thoughts on coaching youth sports, which I want to pass along to other readers who are coaching youth sports or considering doing so in the future.
When my children were younger, I coached youth baseball and basketball (both boys and girls) for eight years, so I developed some definite thoughts on that rewarding experience. The following points relate to coaching youth basketball (basically, 12 years of age and under), but the principles can be applied to any youth sport:
1. Get a whistle for practice. I could never understand how my fellow coaches could run an effective practice without a whistle. Most of them simply didn’t. It usually showed when my teams played them.
2. Never criticize physical mistakes by your players. I never understood why other many youth coaches did so. I always wanted my kids taking risks to try to make good plays. If the kids are worried about getting criticized for making physical mistakes, then they would be less inclined to take the physical risks necessary to make good plays.
3. Limit practice time to no more than an hour. The attention span of children is limited, so, after an hour, you reach the point of diminishing returns that make practices drudgery for the kids. I always emphasized making practices fun. It's always better to stop practice a bit too early than too late.
4. Organize your practices tightly. Kids actually enjoy the regimentation of a well-organized practice.
5. Emphasize playing the game during practices. I always emphasized playing the game over drills during practice. For example, the majority of time in my practices involved the kids running the 3-on-2-on-1 drill, which allows the kids to play the game while allowing me to teach all the kids after a specific good or bad play is made during the drill. The kids uniformly love this drill because it allows them to play the game.
6. When correcting a player’s physical mistake during the 3-on-2-on-1 drill, always start with a compliment of the player, then provide the instruction for correcting the mistake, and then follow it with another compliment. Pretty basic stuff, but it’s amazing how many youth coaches fail to follow it.
7. The only time that I would raise my voice with a youth player is when they were doing something dangerous or not listening during practice. There is a difference between not listening -- which a kid needs to be jolted out of -- and a failure of concentration, which is more common. The latter is really the same as a physical mistake and should be dealt with in the same manner.
8. Teach the kids a special under-the-basket in-bounds play. You would not believe how many easy points your team can score by having the players learn and execute a good in-bounds play under the basket. I used the stack play where the four players not in-bounding the ball line up on the side of the lane where the ball is being in-bounded. Upon the in-bounding player slapping the ball, the first two players in the stack take off for each corner of the court, the fourth player in the stack takes off backward, and the third player fakes a quick turn away from the basket and then simply turns around toward the basket and moves toward the player passing the ball in from out-of-bounds under the basket. The play almost always resulted in an easy layup.
9. I would teach the kids to run the in-bounds play under the chaos and pressure of game situations by periodically blowing my whistle during the 3-on-2-on-1 drill during practice and yelling “Run ItI The players were taught immediately to stop the drill and line up in the stack under the basket as if they were in a game situation. I would play the ref and hand the in-bounding player the ball promptly regardless of whether the other players were ready. This taught the kids to react quickly and get ready during a game by yelling “Run It” whenever there was an in-bounds play under our basket.
10. Finally, have fun yourself. The kids reflect the attitude of their coach. If you are having fun, then it’s likely they will, too.
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September 19, 2008
Interesting golf fact of the day
What with Hurricane Ike and the meltdown on Wall Street -- as well as my general pessimism about the U.S. team's chances -- I haven't blogged much about this weekend's Ryder Cup matches at Valhalla in Louisville. But Clear Thinkers favorite Dan Jenkins passes along the following interesting offshoot of Euro team member Padraig Harrington's recent victories in the 2008 British Open and the PGA Championship:
With his British Open title in July [and PGA Championship in August}, Harrington now becomes the first cross-handed putter to win two majors in one year.
If there is hope for us cross-handed putters, then perhaps there is also hope for the U.S. team, after all!
Just don't bet on it.
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September 18, 2008
Absolutely AIGesque
Do you recall what we were thinking about three and a half years ago?
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Progress in the aftermath of Ike
Wednesday was a good day. Large areas of Houston -- including the area that includes my family's home -- had power restored. Our land phone lines were also restored on Wednesday after they had survived Hurricane Ike only to be knocked out during the severe thunderstorms that swept through Houston the night after the hurricane hammered the area. So, we're celebrating a bit tonight.
There are still large parts of Houston that have not had power restored, but my sense is that most areas other than the devastated coastal communities will have power restored by the end of the weekend. That will go a long ways toward getting life back to a semblance of normalcy in this neck of the woods.
Which leads to a point about the difference between hurricanes in Houston, on one hand, and areas such as New Orleans and Galveston, on the other. Most of Houston is at least 50 miles inland from the coast, so except for the southeast side of Houston that is close to Galveston Bay, the main risk of damage from hurricanes for most of Houston is from the wind.
In contrast, communities such as New Orleans and Galveston have to deal not only with damage from hurricane winds, but the even more devastating effects of flooding from the hurricane's storm surge.
Believe me, it's not pleasant living without power for the better part of a week. But my family and I had a livable home, natural gas for cooking, cell phones for communication, plenty of food and water, and autos for mobility and powering laptops and other equipment. I was able to work with little disruption between my home office and my "car office" whenever I needed Web access (because of spotty cell network coverage, I couldn't get Web access on my laptop air card from my home office -- I had to travel to a nearby part of town where the cell network signal was strong).
In the big scheme of things, that's not much inconvenience. And it's nothing compared to what many residents of the Louisiana-Mississippi Gulf Coast are still facing after Hurricane Katrina or what residents of Galveston and the other Houston coastal communities are facing for the foreseeable future.
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September 17, 2008
A day in a life after Ike
Just jotting down a few observations throughout the day of living in an area that just experienced a major natural disaster.
FEMA, take note
Although The Woodlands did not suffer as much damage as many other parts of the Houston metropolitan area, it's interesting in my travels around town over the past several days that I have seen no evidence whatsoever of any federal relief.
For example, it seems to me that there are a couple of basic things that the federal government could do to facilitate recovery efforts. First, move as many portable generators to selected service stations throughout the region so that citizens can become somewhat mobile again. The primary problem at this point is not lack of gasoline. Rather, it's lack of power to operate the pumps to get the available gas into cars.
Even though large swaths of Houston remain without power, many areas are getting power back by the hour. Folks in areas without power can be much more productive if they can travel to areas that have it and work. Unfortunately, as it stands, there is no gas to get to those areas and then return home.
Another irritation is that no one in an official capacity attempts to do anything to facilitate communications for the citizens directly affected by a natural disaster such as Ike. Ever since the storm, cell phone usage has been spotty in most residential areas, and serviceable in only a few commercial areas. Perhaps damage to the cell network equipment is the cause of the poor service, but I haven't heard anyone contend that such is the case.
Galveston
Just as the deadly hurricane of 1900 changed the nature of Galveston, my sense is that Hurricane Ike has done the same thing in 2008.
Prior to the 1900 hurricane, Galveston was Texas' largest city, port and commercial center. The devastation from that storm put into the motion the changes in Texas' development that resulted in Houston becoming the major port and cities such as Houston and Dallas-Ft. Worth becoming the major commercial centers. As Houston grew into this region's major center of commerce, Galveston evolved into a tourist center and a weekend beach getaway for folks in Houston.
Despite that tourism development, the City of Galveston has been slowly dying for years. Jobs and commercial activity largely revolve around the tourism industry (even the port is now owned by the Port of Houston Authority). Most young people now move away from the city after high school, so older folks constitute an unusually high percentage of the "town folk."
My sense is that Galveston will come back as a weekender community and a modest tourist vista, but that commerce not related to the tourism industry will continue to decline at an accelerated rate. My sense is that what we might see in 20 years is a community comprised of a few high-rise condos and resorts along the seawall, the ubiquitous weekender homes on the West Beach and not much else.
It will certainly be easier to evacuate such a community.
Radio anchor people
As a general rule, I do not listen to much radio. Maybe an occasional traffic report or Charlie Pallilo's sports talk show in the rare event that I am driving somewhere during it.
But I've been shocked at how bad the radio anchor reporters have been on KTRH, the main station providing disaster information to the public. Although a number of the KTRH field reporters are OK, the anchors often sound as if they are blithering idiots. It seems as if they aren't asking inane and non-challenging questions to "experts" or public officials, they laughing and making bad jokes at inappropriate times or in regard to serious issues.
Walter Cronkite, where are you when we need you?
Houston sports teams
I noted in this earlier post in the run-up to Hurricane Ike that the high number of variables that become involved in reacting to hurricanes often generates some abysmal decisions in reaction to the storm. That observation was certainly validated by a couple of decisions that were made with regard to Houston sports teams.
From University of Houston Athletic Director Dave Maggard's absurd decision to have the University's football team play in Dallas while the storm was still hammering Houston (!) to Major League Commissioner Bud Selig's equally preposterous decision to haul the Houston Astros players and coaches away from their families (to Milwaukee of all places) the day after a terrible natural disaster left the players and coaches' families without power in a devastated city, it's hard to imagine the fractured thought process that went into either of those boneheaded decisions.
Sports competition at the major-college and professional level requires a high level of concentration. Given the circumstances under which these games were played, it is not surprising in the least that the Houston teams lost each one of them. How could the players and coaches be concentrating on a damn game?
It's only God's grace to both Maggard and Selig that no family member of either a UH or Stros player or coach was hurt or killed in the aftermath of the storm. Why do either of these fellows still have their respective jobs?
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (7) | TrackBack (0)
September 16, 2008
That other hurricane
So, while the Houston area was enduring a hurricane, the financial markets were enduring one, too.
As with Enron and Bear Stearns, the demise of Lehman Brothers reinforces the inherently fragile nature of a trust-based business (related posts here).
Larry Ribstein has been insightfully pointing out for years that more regulation of those businesses will not prevent the next meltdown, just as the more stringent regulations added after Enron's collapse did not prevent Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers from failing. More responsive forms of business ownership certainly are a hedge to the inherent risk of investment in a trust-based business. Better investor understanding of the wisdom of hedging that risk would help, too.
But as Warren Meyer eloquently wonders, what must Jeff Skilling be thinking about all this? Is Skilling's inhumane sentence -- as well as the barbaric handling of the criminal case against him and other Enron executives -- the sacrifice that American society needs to quench its blood thirst to do the same to the leaders of trust-based businesses that suffer the same fate as Enron? I hope not, but . . .
The truth is that Enron -- as with Bear and Lehman Brothers -- was simply a highly-leveraged, trust-based business with a relatively low credit rating and a booming trading operation that got caught in a liquidity crunch when the markets became spooked by revelations about Andrew Fastow embezzling millions in the volatile months after September 11, 2001.
Fastow's embezzlement is a crime, but Enron's demise is not, nor should it be. Beyond the shattered lives and families, the real tragedy here is that an angry mob convicted Skilling, trumping the rule of law and the dispassionate administration of justice along the way. None of us would be able to survive "in the winds that blow" from the exercise of the government's overwhelming prosecutorial power in response to the demands of the mob.
I continue to hope that Skilling's unjust conviction and sentence are reversed on appeal. Not only for his benefit, but for ours.
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
September 15, 2008
The aftermath of Ike
An estimated 5 million customers along the upper Texas Gulf Coast lost power as a resuit of Hurricane Ike. Only about 5% of those have been restored as I write this post. Current estimates are that it will be 2-3 weeks before even most of those customers will have their power restored.
To give you an idea of the enormity of this damage, the last hurricane to make a direct hit on the Houston metro area -- Hurricane Alicia in 1983 -- left 750,000 customers without power. Two-thirds of those customers had their power restored within five days, and it took between 2-4 weeks to restore the rest.
Although The Woodlands (where my family lives, 30 miles north of downtown Houston) did not suffer catastrophic damage from Ike, the part of the grid from which it receives power did. Entergy, the power company here, estimates that it will be between 2-3 weeks before The Woodlands power is restored. No one in The Woodlands currently has any power (I am writing this from my battery-powered laptop with an air card).
With that backdrop, i was curious to discover this notice from the local public school system:
Conroe Independent School District announced schools will be closed Monday and Tuesday and the Tuesday board meeting is cancelled. Residents are asked to check the Web site or call after 4 p.m. Monday for updates on the rest of the week.
Uh, one question there, school district: how are residents with no power supposed to check a Web site for updates?
Better re-think that approach, folks.
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 14, 2008
Surviving Ike
Yes, although you haven't heard from me for awhile, I'm still here.
My family and I survived Hurricane Ike just fine. Although not an intense hurricane (it came ashore as a category 2), the enormity of the storm was something to behold. In The Woodlands, which is about 30 miles north of downtown Houston, we were buffeted by hurricane and tropical storm winds and torrential rain for over 12 hours. Such a lengthy period of high winds and heavy rain is extremely unusual for even a strong hurricane.
The damage in The Woodlands is not as bad as most of the rest of the Houston area -- mostly just downed trees, some of which damaged houses. However, as many of you outside of the Houston area have seen on television (virtually no one in the Houston area has power, so no television here), the devastation around the Houston area -- particularly those areas close to the coast -- is devastating. My sense is that at least a quarter million people in the metro area do not have a livable home to return to.
Almost every area of Houston has no power. Cell phone networks are overloaded, so cell phone access via either telephone or computer is spotty, at best. No one has a clue of when power will be restored, but the initial estimates are not particularly encouraging.
Inasmuch as I have quite a few arrangements to make over the next several days for my family members and clients, blogging will probably be light or non-existent until some sense of normalcy returns. I very much appreciate everyone who has emailed and phoned to check in on me today. Please understand if it takes awhile for me to get back to you.
Houstonians reacted remarkably in the face of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina back in 2005. Now, it is time for a re-run of that effort. For all of you around country and the world who check in from time to time on this little corner of the blogosphere, any help and prayer that you can provide will be much appreciated.
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
September 13, 2008
The Galveston Seawall
You probably have heard much over the past couple of days about the Galveston Seawall. It was constructed in the early 20th century after Galveston was destroyed by the storm surge of the Hurricane of 1900. The purpose of the seawall is to protect the east side of Galveston Island from similar storm surges. Here is a picture of the seawall:
As you can see, the ocean usually laps up on the beach 75 yards or so away from the seawall. On most days, the ocean rarely gets close to the seawall, even during high tide.
The picture below shows the seawall on Friday morning as Hurricane Ike was still over 100 miles from Galveston in the Gulf of Mexico:
(picture by David J. Phillip/Associated Press)
As you can see, the storm surge from Ike was beginning to breach the seawall over 12 hours before the eye of Ike was scheduled to make landfall.
Weather analysts estimate the the highest point of the surge will occur around midnight on Friday as the Ike's eye makes landfall just west of the seawall during high tide. By that time, the seawall will be little more than a concrete sandbar under the waters of the Gulf of Mexico that are inundating Galveston.
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 12, 2008
A developing disaster
The extreme storm surge of Hurricane Ike is causing a disaster in Galveston, Texas, which is about 50 miles southeast of Houston. The Coast Guard announced earlier today that the authorities believe that Galveston Island will be completely submerged for at least 12 hours.
The Galveston City Manager and Mayor were just interviewed on local television at 3 p.m. They estimated that between 25-40% of Galveston's residents (10-20,000 people) did not heed the mandatory evacuation order and have remained on the now-almost completely flooded island. It is now too late to evacuate the island.
Ball High School and the San Luis high-rise resort facility on Seawall Blvd have been opened as relief centers for Galveston residents who stayed. However, widespread flooding on the island makes getting to the centers risky, to say the least.
It is currently estimated that over 1 million residents of the Houston metropolitan area near the coast evacuated over the past several days. Many of those residents will likely have neither a livable home nor power when they return.
This is looking very, very bad.
Posted by Tom at 3:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Waiting on Ike
When I started this blog back in early 2004, it never occurred to me that hurricanes would end up being a frequent topic.
Then, on August 27, 2005, many folks discovered this little corner of the blogosphere when this post was one of the first to predict the potential for disaster in New Orleans from an approaching Hurricane Katrina. The extraordinary exodus of Gulf Coast residents to Houston followed, along with the impact of that hurricane and others on the U.S. oil and gas industry, and -- presto! -- before you could blink, hurricane-related issues had become the subject of over 90 posts on this blog.
A few more hurricane-related posts may be on their way over the next several days as Hurricane Ike bears down on the Houston metropolitan area late today and through the morning tomorrow. Houston has not taken a direct hit from a hurricane since Hurricane Alicia ravaged the area in 1983 (the eye of that storm went over my house at the time), so many current residents of the city have not experienced a hurricane. That lack of experience, along with the large number of variables that are in play with regard to any hurricane, leads inevitably to some very poor decision-making.
The reality is that the best course of action for the vast majority of Houstonians is to stay put and ride out a storm of the size and intensity of Hurricane Ike (probably a category 2, maybe a 3). Most of the Houston area is different from New Orleans in that it is farther from the coast and of higher elevation so that the threat of flooding is not as big an issue. Thus, outside of the areas of Houston that are close to the coast and are subject to flooding from the storm surge (primarily Galveston Island, the coastal area of Brazoria County and the areas adjacent to the Houston Ship Channel and Galveston Bay), Houston is mainly subject to damage from the wind during hurricanes.
Although hurricane-force winds over a prolonged period are certainly disconcerting, most reasonably-well constructed houses will endure those winds just fine without much damage. Yes, power may be lost for awhile (some parts of Houston were without power for over a month after Alicia) and there is always the risk of tornadoes cropping up as the hurricane passes through. But staying put allows homeowners to take immediate action to mitigate damage to their homes if damage occurs and avoids the not insubstantial risk of injury involved in getting on the road with hundreds of thousands of mandatory evacuees making their way through Houston to a place where they can ride out the storm.
One thing that everyone should do regardless of whether they stay or evacuate is to make sure that, before the storm hits, all loose items on the outside of the house are secured or placed in a secure location inside the garage or house. In hurricane-force winds, those loose items can become projectiles that can break windows and cause other property damage. That -- along with downed trees -- is among the most common cause of property damage and injury during hurricanes outside the areas that are subject to coastal flooding.
As noted earlier here, the best information source for hurricanes these days is the Web and the blogosphere. Most of the local TV weather analysts are quite good (I prefer Frank Billingsley at KPRC), although the local television and radio coverage overall is often atrocious. The anchor people and news reporters often do not have enough to talk about and, thus, end up saying and doing absurd things just to generate attention. It is rather entertaining watching some of these folks make fools of themselves.
By the way, speaking of poor decisions, what on earth is the University of Houston doing playing Air Force in Dallas on Saturday afternoon (they were scheduled to play Saturday afternoon on the UH campus)? Not only is it irresponsible for UH officials to suggest that students and other supporters of the program clog one of the main evacuation routes out of Houston to attend the game, the game itself is likely to be played in driving rain and tropical storm-force winds as Ike passes through the Dallas area on Saturday afternoon. I know this is Texas and all, but Is it really that important to play a non-conference football game?
As long as I have access to power, I will be providing Twitter updates from the north suburban side of Houston during the storm. So, feel free to follow my updates by clicking on the hyperlink on the right side of this page.
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 11, 2008
Hank's Thank-You Note
Mr. Juggles over at Long or Short Capital passes along this fictional thank-you note from Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to American taxpayers after this week's seemingly inevitable federal bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (prior posts here):
Dear US Taxpayer,
I would like to congratulate you on your recent purchase. I am glad I was able to convince you that now is the ideal time to offer an uncapped backstop on a $5.2 trillion book of mortgages. We here at the Treasury Dept (along with our sisters over at the Fed), appreciate your repeat business. I am confident that this acquisition will be a profitable one; perhaps even more profitable than your recent purchase of JPMorgan’s Bear Stearns’ liabilities!
Please know that we are actively seeking more deals on which we can work together. I am confident we will find more interesting opportunities before the end of the year.
Yours Truly,
Hank Paulson
Herbert Spencer got it right long ago (H/T Bryan Caplan):
"The ultimate effect of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools."
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 10, 2008
Movies in five words each
What with Hurricane Ike scheduled to bear down on the upper Texas Gulf coast over the weekend and the Texans looking as pathetic as ever, we could use a bit of levity around here.
So, check out The AFI Top 100 Movies... In 5 Words Each (H/T Craig Newmark). Several good ones include:
2) Casablanca (1942): Great love story. Plus: Nazis!
32) The Godfather Part II (1974): Advice: stop after this one.
42) Rear Window (1954): Watch a guy watch guys.
Following on the movies theme, if you have a spare ten minutes, check out this incredible YouTube video entitled "100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers."
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 9, 2008
Not a good start
The Chronicle's Mary Flood reports that visiting U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson of Pensacola, Florida is not off to an auspicious start in handling the criminal prosecution of U.S. District Judge Sam Kent:
The Florida judge who will oversee the criminal trial of U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent issued a gag order in the case to prevent public discussion by parties or court personnel that could interfere with the trial.
Senior U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson of Pensacola late Friday issued the order that also allows him to hold arguments and hearings in chambers and outside of the presence of the public and forbids courthouse personnel from relating information from those hearings to the public.
Vinson said he found it necessary to gag the attorneys and courthouse personnel on his own, without a request from prosecutors or Kent, "to preserve a fair trial by an impartial jury by shielding jurors and potential jurors from prejudicial statements." He said he found a "substantial likelihood" that comments made outside court would "taint the jury pool and will undermine a fair trial to which both the accused and the public are entitled." [. . .]
The order specifically forbids "divulgence of information concerning arguments and hearings held in chambers or otherwise outside the presence of the public."
A copy of the order is here.
The Fifth Circuit Judicial Council's confidential investigation and resulting sanction of Judge Kent has already been the subject of substantial criticism. Now, in his first action in the case, Judge Vinson enters a dubious gag order and raises the specter that he will conduct frequent non-public hearings. This is not the way to instill confidence that Judge Kent's case will be handled in a manner similar to other criminal cases of prominent defendants. Like these.
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 8, 2008
2008 Weekly local football review
(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar; previous weekly review is here).
Geez, that Texans' performance certainly didn't make this preview look very good.
Getting one's ass kicked in the first game of the season is never pleasant, but the most troubling thing about this debacle is its similarity to the season opener from the Texans' disastrous Year Four in which the team lost 14 of 16 games. This Texans team appears to have much better personnel than that Texans team, but it's still not clear that this one is any better coached, particularly on defense where that unit appears incapable of stopping a hard-chargin' marching band. Lance Zerlein breaks down what went wrong.
The Texans face another dominating defense next Sunday at Reliant Stadium against the Ravens (1-0), so Kubiak & Co. have their work cut out for them. Rookie OLT Duane Brown better grow up fast or QB Matt Schaub will find himself on the injured list this season even quicker than last season.
The plucky Owls (2-0/2-0) were dominated by the Tigers for a half, but QB Chase Clement got warmed up in the 2nd half as Rice closed with 29 4th quarter points to pull out the victory (Memphis went from 15-up with 8:33 left to 7-down at the end -- Ouch!). The game winner was a thrilling 66 yard interception return for a TD by Rice DB Chris Jammer with 11 seconds left.
After starting the season with two C-USA games, the Owls now have three straight non-conference road games, next week against Vanderbilt (2-0/1-0) in Nashville, then against the Longhorns (2-0) in Austin and then against North Texas (0-2) at Denton. The Owls' offense is so potent that, if they can avoid injuries to key players such as Clement, WR Jarett Dilliard and RB-WR James Casey, Rice has a chance to be one of the surprise teams of the season.
The Cougars (1-1) actually led this one 16-14 at halftime, but then the Cowboys (2-0) took advantage of several Houston mistakes to roll up 28 points in the 3rd quarter and turn the game into a rout. Houston QB Case Keenum continues to shine (35-61, 397 yds, 4 TD, 0 INT, 81 yds rushing), but there is not much to say complimentary about a defensive unit that gave up almost 700 yards of total offense. And it sounds as if there might be some competition in the Cougar camp this week for the long snapping job. The Cougars play a couple of Colorado opponents over the next two weeks -- first against Air Force (2-0) at Robertson Stadium and then against Colorado State (1-1) at Fort Collings -- before opening C-USA play against nationally-ranked East Carolina (2-0) in Greenville, N.C.
The Longhorn caravan rolled into El Paso for the first time in 75 years and pounded the hometown Miners (0-2) in what amounted to a controlled scrimmage for Texas (2-0). The Horns now return to Austin next Saturday afternoon to face Arkansas (2-0), which has struggled to beat Western Illinois and Louisiana-Monroe in its first two games under new coach Bobby Petrino. By the way, over the next month, the Razorbacks face Texas, Alabama, Florida and Auburn in succession. Welcome back to big-time college football, Coach Petrino.
First, the good news -- Texas A&M (1-1) won its first game under new coach Mike Sherman.
But now, the bad news -- the woeful Lobos (0-2) out-gained the Aggies by 371 total yards to 235, had more first downs and a better 3rd-down conversion rate. In fact, about the only statistical category in which the Aggies out-performed the Lobos was turnovers -- the Lobos shot themselves in the foot with four, including an interception that Aggie DB Jordan Peterson returned for the first TD of the game. If A&M's performance in its first two games of the season is any indication, It appears that it's going to be a long season in Aggieland.
The Aggies have a week off before taking on Miami (1-1) in College Station in a nationally-televised Saturday night game on September 20th. Having watched Miami's formidable defense do a pretty good job of containing Florida's very-good offense yesterday, the punchless Aggie offense will have difficulty generating 200 yards of total offense against the extremely quick and talented Hurricanes.
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 7, 2008
Here comes Ike
Looks like we're going to be dealing with another powerful hurricane (Ike) in the Gulf of Mexico late next week. Ay, yi, yi, yi, yi!
This earlier post in regard to Hurricane Gustav noted a number of excellent sources of Gulf hurricane-related information. Here is another one -- Stormpulse. Check out the very well-done site.
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 6, 2008
The difficulty of making it in the NFL
Although I normally eschew the NFL pre-season, this year's pre-season has captured my interest more than usual because of a friend's effort to make the roster of one of the NFL's best teams. Monitoring his efforts has reminded me of just how incredibly talented the athletes are in the NFL.
Danny Amendola, a former star receiver at The Woodlands High School and for the Texas Tech Red Raiders, has been a rookie free-agent trying to make the Dallas Cowboys 53-man roster during this pre-season. He has had a good camp (including making a nice reception in the pre-season game against the Texans), but he was released this past week in the Cowboys' final cut down to 53 players.
However, after cutting Amendola, the Cowboys re-signed him a day later to their practice squad after no other NFL team elected to assume his free-agent contract. Inasmuch as a couple of the Cowboys' receivers who made the final roster are dealing with minor injuries, Amendola has a good chance of being activated off of the practice squad for the Cowboys opener this week against this Browns at Cleveland.
For several years, I coached Amendola in both youth baseball and basketball here in The Woodlands. I used to kid Danny's father, who is a long-time Houston area high school football coach, that at least I didn't screw up his son's football career.
Amendola was the best athlete that I coached in youth sports -- strong, fast, quick, graceful, relentless and extremely coachable. There is no doubt in my mind that he could have also played both baseball and basketball at the major college level if he had chosen to develop his skills in those sports, and I believe that he could have played baseball professionally, too.
Yet, this extraordinary athlete is not yet good enough to make a final 53-man NFL roster. Frankly, it's mind-boggling to me that there are roughly 120 or so WR's in the NFL who are better than Danny Amendola.
Amendola's story in attempting to make the Cowboys this pre-season has been a big part of the HBO series Hard Knocks, so he has become somewhat of a television star in addition to being a local sports celebrity. Here is the part of the final segment in which Amendola elects to accept the Cowboys' offer to play on their practice squad. His good fortune couldn't happen to a nicer fellow.
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
September 5, 2008
Houston Texans, Year Seven
Year Seven of the Houston Texans begins this Sunday with a road game against the Steelers, so it's time for my fifth annual preview of the team (previous annual previews are here).
Largely ignored amidst the ubiquitous mainstream media optimism about the Texans is the harsh reality that the local franchise has the worst record of any expansion franchise in the modern history of the National Football League. As with most things in football, there are many reasons for the poor record, not all of which are even the fault of the Texans' management and players. Nevertheless, Texans' management bears a substantial responsibility for the relative futility of the team over its first six years, so it's helpful to review the team's journey over that time span in evaluating whether the Texans are ready to improve.
The Texans were the toast of Houston for their first three seasons during which Texans management and the local mainstream media trumpeted the party line that Texans were building a playoff contender "the right way" -- that is through prudent drafting and development of young players while eschewing the temptation of short-term rewards provided by over-priced veterans who were on the downside of their careers. The progressively better won-loss records in the first three seasons (4-12, 5-11, and 7-9) -- plus the drafting of young stars such as WR Andre Johnson, RB Dominack Davis and CB Dunta Robinson -- seemed to indicate that the Texans' plan was working.
Unfortunately, those progressively better won-loss records distracted Texans management and the mainstream media from recognizing the fact that the Texans were not close to contending for an NFL playoff spot. The best evidence of that was that the Texans entered each of their first four seasons with the same two core problems -- the Texans' offensive line could not protect the quarterback and the Texans' defensive front could not pressure the opposing team's QB.
Former Texans GM Charlie Casserly never could solve the offensive line (remember LT's Tony Boselli and then Orlando Pace?) and defensive line (remember Jason Babin?) problems. Similarly, former Texans head coach Dom Capers' changes to the offensive and defensive systems between Years Three and Four proved disastrous as the Texans limped home with a desultory 2-14 record in Year Four.
After dispensing with Casserly and Capers, Texans owner Bob McNair blew up his original Texans management model and surprisingly hired Kubiak, who promptly made (acquiesced to?) a whopper of a blunder in his first major personnel decision as Texans' coach -- retaining QB David Carr even though it was reasonably clear as early as before Year Three that Carr was unlikely to develop into an above-average NFL QB.
Kubiak -- who is a quick study in evaluating talent -- promptly soured on Carr during the early stages of Year Five, which was part of the reason why the Texans had one of the worst offenses in the NFL that season. As a result of enduring that Year Five offense, Kubiak arguably overpaid for QB Matt Schaub and clearly overpaid for over-the-hill running back Ahman Green before Year Six. 
Not much had improved through 12 games of Year Six as the Texans' performance had been so inconsistent that even the local mainstream media cheerleaders were questioning whether Kubiak was the proper captain to right the Texans ship.
Then, the Texans showed some pluck and won three of their last four games (the loss was a real stinker to the Colts) to finish with an 8-8 record, the first non-losing record in franchise history. The Texans' offense -- even without Schaub and star WR Andre Johnson for five and seven games respectively -- improved to 12th in the NFL in yards gained and 14th in points scored, by far the best finish of any Texans offense. That was enough to give the starving local mainstream media and long-suffering Texans' fan base hope that things might finally turn around for the franchise in Year Seven.
But is that optimism truly warranted? My sense is that it finally is.
Although I'm still not completely sold that Kubiak is the coach to take the Texans to the playoffs, I am impressed by his willingness to recognize mistakes, cut losses and make changes. In so doing, he does not seem to be burdened with the stubbornness that often undermines NFL head coaches.
Moreover, continuity in coaching staffs and personnel are the most common elements of successful NFL teams, so my sense is that Kubiak has shown enough coaching acumen over his first two seasons that the eternally patient McNair will endure blunders such as the Green deal in the hope that maintaining coaching staff stability will ultimately reward him with a winner. McNair certainly deserves it given the excellent support that he has always provided to the Texans football operation.
Interestingly, despite the Texans continuing problems at running back, I expect the Texans offense to improve again this season. Part of the reason for this is that the nature of running the football has changed in the NFL. The old saw that a team "has to establish the run" to win in the NFL has been pretty well demolished by the success of the Patriots and the Colts, both of which use prolific passing attacks to build leads and then just run the ball well enough to work time off the clock in the latter stages of the game to preserve victory. Moreover, running backs in the NFL are so injury-prone that virtually every team in the league is now manning the position with a "running back by committee" approach.
Thus, the fact that the Texans do not have a dominant running back isn't as big a concern as the mainstream media makes it out to be, particularly given the improvement of the Texans' offensive line and the potential explosiveness of the Texans' passing game. Besides, rookie RB Steve Slaton played in a blocking scheme in college at West Virginia that is based upon the one that the Texans are using, so I would not be surprised if he is a productive back for the Texans right out of the chute.
Meanwhile, the bigger question mark revolves around the Texans' defensive unit, which is the key to the Texans becoming a bona fide playoff contender.
Somewhat frustratingly, the Texans have used a large number of high draft picks on defensive players over the past several NFL Drafts and have precious little to show for it. Football Prospectus has rated the Texans' defense 32nd, 31st and 30th in the NFL over the past three seasons.
Nevertheless, the Texans have accumulated a nucleus of talented young players -- DE Mario Williams, CB Dunta Robinson (currently injured), CB Fred Bennett, MLB DeMeco Ryans, and DT Amobi Okoye -- that points toward an improved defensive unit. Getting enough consistent pressure on the opposing team's passer to relieve a somewhat undermanned secondary (at least until Robinson's probable return at mid-season) is the biggest challenge that this defense still needs to overcome.
Inasmuch as improvement in NFL defensive units generally gestates over several seasons as young players gain needed experience, I expect the defense to make major improvement this season so that it becomes a unit capable of making Texans a viable playoff contender in the 2009 season. If that improvement does not occur this season, then Kubiak will likely replace defensive coordinator Richard Smith or, at very least, bring in an experienced assistant head coach to coordinate the defensive unit.
So, are the Texans ready to contend for a playoff spot this season? Probably not, given that the division-rivals Colts and Jaguars are still better teams on paper and the first third of the schedule is brutal. My sense is that the over/under on Texans wins this season is eight, which will not be enough to make the playoffs. A playoff push in 2009 is a better bet.
But given the high number of variables that play into a successful NFL season, picking NFL playoff teams is an extremely speculative endeavor. Almost all NFL playoff contenders are just a couple of key injuries away from the scrap heap. For the first time, it appears that the Texans have accumulated enough talented football players that they are in a position to seize the playoff opportunity if the variables tilt in their favor. Given where the Texans have been, that's real progress.
As the blogosphere continues to develop, there really is little reason to rely any longer on the mainstream media for Texans news and analysis. The Chronicle's coverage of the Texans is extensive but lacking in meaningful insight outside of Lance Zerlein's blog, which is updated only once or twice a week.
I will be providing the 2008 Weekly local football review again this season, but the following blogs also provide superior analysis of the Texans over what the Chronicle offers:
Stephanie Stradley's blog on the Texans over at AOL Fanhouse;
DGDB&D (for "Da Good, Da Bad & DeMeco");
Battle Red Blog of the SB Nation family of blogs;
Keith Weiland's In the Bullseye.com;
Texans Tail Gate; and
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
September 4, 2008
Election 2008
Inasmuch as the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign resembles a high school student council race in terms of sophistication, it appears that Jon Stewart and Comedy Central are going to have a field day between now and Election Day. Below are a recent segments on the "substance" of Obama's campaign and McCain's VP selection:
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
September 3, 2008
Assessing priorities at TSU
This Jeannie Kever/Chronicle article follows up on new Texas Southern University President John Rudley's efforts to find a place for the institution within Houston's changing marketplace for university education (prior posts on TSU are here).
Beyond academic programs that remain on probation and terrible financial problems, TSU's core problem is that its former role as Houston's open admissions university has been superseded by the University of Houston-Downtown, which is a far superior to TSU at this point in time. Rudley has brought over a team of administrators from the University of Houston to straighten out TSU's thorny administrative and financial issues. But the even greater problem is that Houston may simply not need two open admissions universities, particularly in light of the growth of Houston Community College and various suburban community college systems over the past decade or so.
Although Rudley appears to be the type of administrator that TSU needs if it is going to survive, the following portion of this Ronnie Turner Chronicle blog interview with new TSU Athletic Director Charles McClelland reflects the entrenched mindset that Rudley will have to overcome if he is going to redefine TSU's place in the local education marketplace:
RT: At what stage are you in negotiations with the Dynamo on a partnership for a football stadium?
CM: Well, we're still in the same stage with the Dynamo. We have all of our talking points. We've brought in a consultant to help us close the deal with the Dynamo to ensure that we have all of our t's crossed and i's dotted. Once that's done, we'll have to get it to our board for approval. My understanding is that the Dynamo have moved forward on their end to help get the funding that's needed, and we're still extremely optimistic that the stadium will generate the type of notoriety, revenue and resources (needed) for us to take our football program to the next level. We're extremely excited about the opportunity with the Dynamo.
As noted earlier here, unless the terms of TSU's proposed deal for use of the soccer stadium are changed radically in TSU's favor, no responsible TSU administrator or trustee would ever approve the deal. However, rather than pursuing such a dubious deal, shouldn't TSU administrators and trustees really be asking themselves why a financially-strapped institution such as TSU is continuing to support notoriously unprofitable intercollegiate athletic programs at all?
Good luck, President Rudley. You're going to need it.
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 2, 2008
Richard Justice crosses the line
As regular readers of this blog know, I have often wondered why Chronicle sports columnist Richard Justice is writing about sports. He is highly subjective in his views, does not back them up with objective facts and doesn't reason well. Beyond that, he does just fine.
As a result of the foregoing, Justice is a controversial fellow among Houston sports fans. His blog is a rollicking place where mostly anonymous readers who comment on Justice's blog posts regularly engage in competing insults with Justice. Not my cup of tea, but different strokes for different folks.
At any rate, after the Texans' meaningless pre-season loss against Dallas a couple of weeks ago, Justice published this post in which he harshly criticized Texans offensive line coach Alex Gibbs -- who is widely-regarded as one of the best offensive line coaches in the NFL -- for yelling at his players. The post was odd, but nothing out of the ordinary for Justice, who had applauded the hiring of Gibbs this past January. Inasmuch as Justice noted that Gibbs has a policy of not talking to the media, many readers commenting on the post speculated that Justice's criticism of Gibbs was simply sour grapes for Gibbs' refusal to talk with Justice.
However, one particular reader who commented on Justice's post was not interested in engaging in the usual name-calling that is common on Justice's blog. Stephanie Stradley, who previously blogged on the Texans for the Chronicle and who now blogs on the Texans over at AOL Sports Fanhouse, posted a comment to Justice's post in which she challenged the factual basis of Justice's assertion that Gibbs' players were tuning him out because of his yelling. Stradley is a first-class blogger who analyzes the Texans much more objectively and effectively than Justice does.
In response to Stradley's comment, Justice responded with shrill comment (since deleted) in which he reiterated his point about yelling and then insulted Stradley. Despite Justice's insult, Stradley inquired in a subsequent comment about the basis of Justice's contention that Gibbs' players did not respond to him, to which Justice responded with another condescending comment. Tasteless, but again nothing out of the ordinary for the often childish nature of Justice's blog.
But what Justice did next may very well have crossed the line. Inasmuch as Justice's criticism of Gibbs was so poorly-reasoned, readers continued to mock Justice in the comments to his blog post, prompting Justice to post a follow-up post to defend his position. But in so doing, Justice made the following comment (scroll down to comment at 9:49 AM) in response to a reader who suggested that he owed Stradley an apology for his earlier tasteless comment:
I don't know what Stephanie's real name is, but she creeps me out. She writes a little too often, wants to discuss and debate. She has her own blog, so why is she so interested in mine? Ask yourself that question. Maybe I've watched Fatal Attraction too many times. If something happens to one of my rabbits, she's going to be in big trouble.--Richard
Incredibly, if that weren't bad enough, Justice followed up that libelous comment with this one in responding to another reader's comment (scroll down to comment at 10:13 PM):
Oh so you only use English when you feel like it? Be sure and put that on your resume. Listen, Cronkite, don't get into an insult contest with me. You'll end up in a fetal position whimpering and begging me to ease up. Find something you're good at and dedicate yourself to that. I don't know what that would be, but this ain't it. Go hang out with that Glenn Close woman. She'd probably find you fascinating. Speaking of Stephanie Stradley, I woke up this morning and saw our rabbit cage was empty. ''Stephanie!'' I screamed. Turns out, the little feller was sleeping beneath a chair.--Richard
In a patient and classy manner, Stradley recounts the entire bizarre episode here.
But beyond their utter tastelessness, both of Justice's comments associating Stradley with a homicidal maniac appear to meet the requirements of defamation per se. As a result, Stradley has viable damage claims against both Justice personally and the Chronicle.
Ironically, Justice's Monday blog post asserts that many Stros fans owe GM Ed Wade an apology. Absent the Chronicle and Justice heeding his advice and issuing an immediate public apology to Stradley, I hope she tees off on both of them.
The Chronicle has some very good reporters. But in these challenging times for newspapers, can the Chronicle survive the likes of Richard Justice?
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
September 1, 2008
2008 Weekly local football review
(Previous weekly reviews from the 2004-2007 seasons are here).
As noted earlier here, I think the Owls (1-0/1-0 CUSA) are a good bet to surprise this season. They have an excellent and experienced QB in Chase Clement and an All-American caliber senior WR Jarrett Dillard. The Owls' offense is explosive and difficult to defend. As usual, the defense is undermanned, but they executed reasonably well in defending SMU's new Run 'N Shoot-type offense and really just need to play well enough to give the Owls' offense an opportunity to outscore the opposition. The Owls travel next Saturday to play another CUSA opponent, Memphis (0-1). Don't be surprised if the Owls start out 2-0.
New Houston (1-0) coach Kevin Sumlin unleashed the Cougars' new spread offense on undermanned Div I-AA Southern and the result was over 600 yards of total offense and a convincing win. The Coogs have an experienced and talented QB in redshirt sophomore QB Chase Keenum (33-43/390 yds; 5 TD's) as well as a deep receiving corps (11 different receivers caught passes during the game). The Cougars defense also has some playmakers, to this team has the potential to contend for the CUSA title if it continues to develop. The price of poker goes up next week, though, as the Cougars travel to Stillwater to take on a talented Oklahoma State (1-0) team that dusted off Washington State in Seattle over the weekend.
Texas Longhorns 52 Florida Atlantic 10
Key tip to Florida Atlantic coach Howard Schnellenberger -- if you really think that the Horns are soft and can be intimidated if hit hard, keep it between you and your team. The Texas Longhorns (1-0) perfectly-named QB Colt McCoy completed his first 13 straight passes and finished 24-29 for 222 yds and 3 TD's, as well as 102 yds on 12 carries, in leading the Horns to an easy win over overmatched FA. The Horns soft spot -- a young and inexperienced defensive secondary -- gave up 226 yds passing in the first half, but settled down as the game wore on, giving up only 27 yds in the second half. The Horns have another scrimmage next Saturday in El Paso against UTEP (0-1) before returning home on September 13th for a widely-awaited game against former Southwest Conference rival, the Arkansas Razobacks and their new coach, Bobby Petrino.
Arkansas State 18 Texas Aggies 14
Oh my. I don't think think an opening loss to a mid-level Sun Belt Conference team is what the Aggies (0-1) had in mind as the start of the Mike Sherman era. However, the reality is that the Aggies have a young and inexperience offensive line, one of the worst QB's in the Big 12 conference, few proven receivers, an undermanned defense and an inconsistent placekicker. Beyond that, everything is just peachy in Aggieland. The Aggies travel to Albuquerque next Saturday to take on New Mexico (0-1) before facing Miami (1-0) on September 20. Inasmuch as the Hurricanes warm up for A&M by taking on Florida, the Aggies better get every win they can before taking on the likes of Miami and their Big 12 opponents. Five wins may be the best this Aggie team can do.
Posted by Tom at 12:01 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)