The Quad — the NY Times’ excellent college sports blog that has been the subject of these previous posts — continues its excellent review of each of the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision ("FBS") football programs by profiling the two best football programs in this neck of the woods, the 8th-ranked University of Texas Longhorns and the defending BCS National Champion, the Louisiana State University Bengal Tigers.
After falling apart during the third fifth of the 2008 season, the Stros (64-64) made an unexpected rebound during the fourth fifth of the season, going 20-13 over that stretch.
Although the Stros’ recent play was more fulfilling to watch than if the club had mailed it for the rest of the season, the risk is that the good result from a small sample size of games deludes Stros management into thinking that the Stros are close to regaining true contender status in the National League. They are not and here’s is a simple reason whey they aren’t.
Despite their relatively good play of late, the Stros remain 14 games behind the NL Central-leading Cubs (77-49) and 9.5 games behind the NL Wildcard-leading Brewers (73-55). Inasmuch as that is even further behind than the Stros stood after their worst stretch of play of the season during the third fifth of the season, the Stros actually lost ground in the race for a playoff spot while playing their best stretch of baseball of the season.
Kevin Whited passes along this Bellaire Examiner article that reports on Metropolitan Transit Authority CEO Frank Wilson bragging to a couple of local Chambers of Commerce about the economic impact that Metro’s new light rail projects will have on Houston:
The Metropolitan Transit Authority’s construction of nearly $2 billion in light rail projects will be an economic boon to the entire Houston area, Metro Executive Director Frank Wilson said recently.
The light rail projects will create 10,000 jobs in the next four years, in addition to having a “secondary and tertiary economic impact,” Wilson told members of the Greater Southwest and Asian Chambers of Commerce on Wednesday.
When Metro spends that much, there is a ripple effect of about $300 million that he said will end up in the hands of small businesses.
“Our effort is to spend it sooner, rather than later,” Wilson said. “By this time next year, all five (rail) lines — $2 billion — is going to be in play,” Wilson said.
The economic benefit will happen as 10,000 people go to work on Metro’s rail projects, he said.
“When 10,000 people go to work, what else do they need? They are going to spend whatever money we give them to spend, and spend it again,” Wilson said. “If you’re an economist, and you look at that — the economic impact is going to be immense.”
Wilson is engaging in a common political sleight-of-hand in which transfers of wealth are promoted (distorted?) as wealth creation. For example, building a new highway creates economic wealth only to the extent that it enhances economic productivity, not because of the jobs that are involved in building it. Creating jobs to construct the highway is really no such thing — the state is simply transferring the jobs from other sectors of the economy.
Moreover, the government-created jobs aren’t even as good in terms of wealth creation as the jobs they replace. That’s because it costs taxpayers more when government agencies are spending the money. This Heritage Foundation report recently made this point in response to a recent Department of Transportation assertion regarding the alleged "job creation" benefit of highway spending.
Thus, when you hear bureaucrats such as Wilson talk about "secondary and tertiary economic impact," hold on to your wallet. Unless productivity enhancement is substantial, these types of government investments are generally boondoggles. Inasmuch as taxpayers have to pay $1.50 (or more) for the government agency to spend a dollar, it’s easy to understand why that is the case.
Reliant Stadium in Houston is a nice and comfortable place to watch sporting events, but this Wired Magazine article reports that the new Dallas Cowboys stadium in Arlington looks to take the stadium experience to an entirely new level.
"The Dallas Cowboys are moving house — Texas style. When the team’s new arena opens next year, it will be the largest, most tech-laden stadium in the NFL (and one of the biggest sports facilities of any kind on the planet). Its $1.1 billion price includes the most ginormous retractable roof ever built, massive end-zone doors, and the world’s biggest hi-def LED screens." Not to mention locker rooms that include "power outlets, data ports, and televisions at each locker, plus ceiling-recessed projectors in the center of the changing rooms for reviewing plays." Or that "the giant arches holding up the stadium will measure 1,225 feet from end to end – roughly the length of the Empire State Building.”
Damn!
The new Creative Capitalism blog created by Bill Gates, Michael Kinsley and Conor Clarke is quickly making an interesting corner of the blogosphere. Today, Martin Wolf, the associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times, pens this remarkable blog post about what a company is, and what it is not, under different political systems. In so doing, Wolf provides a an engaging overview of the underlying forces that drive market economies. Read the entire post, but here here is a taste:
First, one has to distinguish the goal of the firm from its role. The role of companies is to provide valuable goods and services – that is to say, outputs worth more than their inputs. The great insight of market economics is that they will do this job best if they are subject to competition. Profit-maximization (or shareholder value maximization, its more sophisticated modern equivalent) is NOT the role of the firm. It is its goal. The goal of profit-maximization drives the firm to fulfill its role.
Second, by creating a competitive market for corporate control, we more or less force companies to maximize shareholder value, or at least behave in ways that the market believes will lead them to do so. . .
Inasmuch as my family and social groups include a large number of medical doctors, I’ve noticed that the slang that the docs use when they are talking shop can be incomprehensible at times. That’s why this comprehensive list of Doctor’s Slang, Medical Slang and Medical Acronyms will come in handy. A few good ones:
"Blade" — Surgeon: dashing, bold, arrogant and often wrong, but never in doubt (very much appreciated by the primary care doctors);
"Captain Kangaroo" — chairman of the pediatrics department;
"DTMA" — Stands for "Don’t Transfer to Me Again";
"Fonzie" — Unflappable medic;
"Improving His Claim" — Victim of minor accident, needs no treatment but wants something to support his insurance/legal claim;
"Masochist" — Trauma surgeon;
"Sadomasochist" – Neurosurgeon
"NOCTOR"– A nurse who has done a 6 week training course and acts like she or he is a Doctor;
"Two beers" — the number of beers every patient involved in an alcohol-related automobile accident claims to have drunk before the accident.
Check out the entire list. Those docs are a tough bunch.
Allow me to ask the following question again: Why is Richard Justice allowed to write about sports for a major metropolitan newspaper?
This weekend’s Justice missives were particularly banal, which is saying something when it comes to his writings.
First, he led with this fawning blog post about Vince Young and the University of Texas. I guess one has to have attended UT to understand.
That one was followed by this one about Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps being some sort of cultural unifier. Yes, he’s a really good swimmer, but . . .
Finally, Justice finished the weekend by heaping more hero worship on former Stros star, Craig Biggio, who is deserving of praise, but come on.
Frankly, it does not reflect well on the Chronicle that it dedicates more resources to accommodating Justice’s blather than it provides in informing the public about one of Houston’s true heroes of the past 30 years.
Check out Esquire’s slideshow (on the left below) illustrating the evolution of men’s fashion over the past 75 years. Then, take a look at this Time Magazine slideshow (on the right below) exhibiting the worst of golf fashion over the past century.
My sense is that there is a connection.
In this recent post on the death of Michael DeBakey, I noted that a substantial part of Dr. DeBakey’s legacy was his involvement in the massive importation of talented medical professionals to Houston over the past 60 years. That talent transformed the Texas Medical Center from a sleepy regional medical center into one of the largest and most dynamic medical centers in the world.
Dr. Ralph Feigen, who died at the age of 70 on Thursday,epitomizes the doctors who have been at the center of that transformation.
Drawn to Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine at the age of 40 in 1977, Dr. Feigen spent the rest of his life in Houston cultivating a culture of excellence in research and patient care that turned Texas Children’s into one of the largest and best pediatric hospitals in the world. Dr. Feigen was an excellent teacher, superb clinician and a highly-regarded researcher, but his personal warmth for his patients is what thousands of parents and their children will remember most about this fine man. A large part of Dr. Feigen’s legacy is that Texas Children’s — despite its enormous growth over the past 30 years — still reflects the comfortable warmth of its long-time leader.
Todd Ackerman, the Chronicle’s fine medical reporter, summarizes Dr. Feigen’s enormous impact well (the NY Times obituary is here):
The New York Times has the best Olympics online coverage page that I’ve seen. Particularly well-done are the daily schedule and the Olympic Medals page, the latter of which maps the medals as they are won and provides a map of medals for each Olympiad since 1896. Check it out.
