Author Archives: Tom

Now even deer hunting regulations are running amok

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deerhunting.jpgAs deer hunting season approaches, check out what regulations you have to follow simply to bag a deer in Texas these days:

When state game wardens hit the woods and fields in the wake of Texas’ Nov. 3 opening of the general deer season, those 500 or so officers can pretty much predict the violations they’re most likely to encounter.
“Tagging is the No. 1 (deer hunting-related) violation we see,” said Maj. David Sinclair of TPWD’s law enforcement division. [. . .]
In most cases, a hunter taking a deer in Texas must, immediately upon taking possession of the animal, attach to it the appropriate tag from the hunter’s license. [. . .]
Deciding which tag to use isn’t all that daunting. Five detachable tags valid for tagging whitetails are attached to the perimeter of a Texas hunting license. . . . Three of those whitetail tags are valid for tagging a buck or an antlerless deer, and two are valid only for tagging an antlerless deer.
It’s a simple thing to detach the correct tag ó a buck tag for a buck whitetail and antlerless tag for a doe.
But then some people drop the ball.
To legally tag a deer, the hunter must fill out, in ink, the requested information on the back of the tag ó the name of the ranch or lease on which the deer was taken and the county in which that hunting area is located.
Also, the month and date the deer was taken has to be cut out of the tag. Cut out. Not marked with a pen. Cut out. [. . .]
But the most common deer-related violation was failure to complete the white-tailed deer log on the back of the hunting license.
The deer log was created this decade when the state seemed to be moving away from requiring tags be attached to deer. The log, printed on the back of the license, was seen as a way to keep track of how many deer, buck and doe, a hunter had taken, where they were taken and when.
The move to do away with deer tags has lost momentum. But the deer log remains. And it’s surprising how many deer hunters don’t know about the log requirement, forget to complete it or ignore it.
This past year, TPWD game wardens issued more than 500 citations for failing to complete the deer log.
As with the other tagging-related violations, hunters charged with not completing the deer log face a Class C misdemeanor. Conviction brings a fine of as much as $500.

Sheesh! Let’s hope the regulators don’t start piling on similar rules for hunting these.

The 15 Greatest Catches

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Dwight%20Clark%20catch.jpgAs you settle in for an afternoon of watching NFL football games, check out this entertaining post providing videos of the 15 greatest football catches of all-time. Some of the comments are pretty clever, too, such as the one relating to the catch of Oklahoma State wide receiver Adarius Bowman that made the list:

“[The catch] was even more impressive because that catch was made under the enormous pressure that comes with playing in the Independence Bowl.”

The benefits of going batshit

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mike%20gundy.jpgAs noted in the review of the Texas-Iowa State game earlier this week, big-time college football coaching is a wacky way to make a living.
Take, for example, Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy. When he went famously batshit during a post-game press conference earlier this season, I figured that it was just a matter of time before Boone Pickens and the university athletic director carted Coach Gundy off to a padded cell and replaced him with another coach. I mean, it’s not as if Okie State (4-3, 2-1) is having all that great a season this year.
But now, according to this New York Times article, Coach Gundy’s decision to go nuclear may have saved his job:

The incident was one of YouTubeís most-watched videos last month and has been spoofed by a Norman, Okla., car dealership in a television commercial.
It led to a Web site called mikegundyismadatyou.com, which features e-cards from his tirade, prompted an Australian magazine to call it ìAmerican football brain explosionî and inspired wildly popular ìIím a man! Iím 40!î T-shirts. [. . .]
Gundy has seemingly benefited on and off the field. Since the incident, Oklahoma State (4-3, 2-1 Big 12) is 2-1, including the Cowboysí first victory at Nebraska since 1960.
Gundy . . . is now more recognizable nationally, according to marketing experts, and recruits say his defense of Reid makes them more interested in playing for him. Gundy said he was surprised at the attention that the incident sparked, but he insisted he had no regrets.
ìOver a period of time, it should make an impact on our program in a positive way,î he said in an e-mail message sent through a university spokesman.
Jordan Bazant, a partner of The Agency Sports Management, said Gundyís response was already paying off for him from a marketing perspective.
ìItís ultimately going to come down to performance on the field, but people that saw that saw an honest person,î Bazant said in a telephone interview.
He added: ìIt was really an honest outburst. Thatís what people are attracted to. They want to be associated with someone that they view has the same values.î
Bazant said he could not estimate the value in advertising dollars that Gundy received.
ìItís millions upon millions of dollars,î he said. ìIt would be impossible to get that. You couldnít even buy that much. You really couldnít even from a practical standpoint.î
Cyrus Gray, a senior at DeSoto High School and the top uncommitted tailback in Texas, said Gundyís response to Carlson made Oklahoma State more appealing. [. . .]
ìI like that in a coach,î he said in a telephone interview. ìHe stood up for his players. He cares for them and not just himself.î [. . .]
Kevin Klintworth, the Oklahoma State director of athletic media relations, said that less than 5 percent of the 3,000 e-mail messages the athletic department received about Gundy were negative.
ìIt was just so overwhelming,î Klintworth said in a telephone interview. ìI think some of the people werenít so much supportive of Mike as they were in support of someone standing up to the media a little bit.î

Of course, after Gundy’s outburst, it was just a matter of time before the following spoof Bud Light beer commercial turned up, but it’s still pretty clever:

And the recent Saturday Night Live spoof NBC commercial for Notre Dame football isn’t bad, either:

Hat tip to Jay Christensen for both of the above videos.

The Futility Bowls

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alfred_e_neuman.jpgOh, how far the mighty have fallen!
In Lincoln, Nebraska tomorrow, the Texas A&M Aggies take on the Nebraska Cornhuskers in what has been dubbed “the Buyout Bowl,” because of the tenuous hold that Aggie coach Dennis Franchione and NU coach Bill Callahan currently have on their jobs. In trying to handicap the game, Wann Smith can’t figure out who to favor:

Texas A&M at Nebraska (-2). This game is a real poser. Since someone has to win, we’ll pick Nebraska at home. But waitÖNebraska’s home field advantage has been a joke this season hasn’t it? So, I guess we’ll take the Aggies and the points. Just a minuteÖhold the busÖFranchione has somehow managed to blow both of his road games this season, and by a ton of points each time. Hang on a secÖ I’d better consult the Magic 8 Ball. The 8 Ball, when asked if Nebraska would win repliedÖ ‘Hazy Now, Ask Again Later.’ When asked whether Texas A&M would win, it replied ‘Ask VIP Connection.’ We tried that but our link was directed instead to firedennisfranchione.com.
Aggies by 3

Meanwhile, over in Florida, nostalgic thoughts about when the annual game between Florida State and Miami actually meant something on the national stage prompted Mike Bianchi of the Orlando Sentinel to observe the following about this year’s FSU-Miami game, the first in which both foes are unranked since 1977:

This is like showing up at your 25-year reunion and finding out that the couple voted ìBest Lookingî in the high school yearbook has somehow turned into Paul Shaffer and Yoko Ono.

Do as the NY Times says, but not as it does?

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nytimes_logo101907.gifLarry Ribstein notes the sweet irony of the New York Times management not being quite, as the Times business columnists might say, adequately responsive to its own shareholders.
I’m sure that Gretchen and Ben will be right on top of this development.

The risk of witch doctors

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snakeoil.gifIt never fails to amaze me that seemingly rational people continue to seek out witch doctor treatments for anything more complicated than a massage:

On the same shift I saw two very sick patients, both of whom were under the care of chiropractors before they decided to pay us a visit in the Emergency Department. The first was an old woman with a one week history of dyspnea, chest pain, and a cough. Her chiropractor had diagnosed her with a ìdisplaced rib,î and had been dilligently popping it back into place every day for the previous week. After a simple set of vital signs revealing low blood pressure, a slow heart rate, and a slightly low temperature, not to mention a chest x-ray which showed a huge unilateral pleural effusion, it was not hard to come up with the diagnosis of pneumonia with sepsis.
ìHe [the chiropractor] said she didnít have a fever and she wasnít coughing anything up,î said the sister. [. . .]
The second patient was a 70-year-old man who finally came in after a week of ineffectual adjustments for ìmuscle achesî and general malaise which had evolved, by the time we saw him, into a vague intermittant chest pain related to exertion but which the chiropractor insisted, apparently, was some kind of subluxation. The EKG told the true story, an evolving myocardial infarction. My patient would have probably died if his son hadnít raised the alarm and insisted his father see some real doctors.

Meanwhile, this article reports that researchers have determined that acupuncture works. But the same research study concluded that fake acupuncture, where the needles are inserted shallowly and in the wrong places, also works:

The results suggest that both acupuncture and sham acupuncture act as powerful versions of the placebo effect, providing relief from symptoms as a result of the convictions that they engender in patients.

My conclusion: On one hand, if you stick pins in people who are complaining about something, then some of them will eventually quit complaining. On the other hand, if you take pins out of some people who were previously complaining, then some of them will also stop complaining.

The end of socialized medicine

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ronald-reagan-socialized-medicine-lp2.jpgPeter Huber is a Manhattan Institute senior fellow, an MIT-trained engineer and a lawyer who has authored several books, including Hard Green: Saving the Environment from the Environmentalists and Galileoís Revenge: Junk Science in the Courtroom. In this provocative City Journal article, Huber observes that the complexity of modern diseases virtually assures that a “one-size-fits-all” socialized medical system will fail:

That is the real crisis in health careónot medicine thatís too expensive for the poor but medicine thatís too expensive for the rich, too expensive ever to get to market at all. Human-ity is still waiting for countless more Lipitors to treat incurable cancers, Alzheimerís, arthritis, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, Parkinsonís, and a heartbreakingly long list of other dreadful but less common afflictions. Each new billion-dollar Lipitor will be deliveredóif at allóby the lure of a multibillion-dollar patent. The only way to get three-cent pills to the poor is first to sell three-dollar pills to the rich.
With almost $30 trillion under management, Wall Street could easily double the couple of trillion it currently has invested in molecular medicine. The fastest way for Washington to deliver more health, more cheaply, to more people would be to unleash that capital by reaffirming patents and stepping out of the way.
On the other side of the pill, molecular medicine can only be propelled by the informed, disciplined consumer. Any scheme to weaken his role will end up doing more harm than good. Foggy promises of one-size, universal care maintain the illusion that the authorities will take good care of everyone. They reaffirm the obsolete and false view that health care begins somewhere out there, not somewhere in here.
Neither Pfizer nor Washington can ever stuff health itself into a one-price uniform, One America boxónot when health is as personal as ice cream, genes, and pregnancy, not when every mother controls her personal consumption of carbs, cholesterol, Flintstones, and Lipitor. But the thought that government authority can get more bodies in better chemical balance than free markets and free people is more preposterous than anything found in Das Kapital. Freedom is now pursuing a pharmacopoeia as varied, ingenious, complex, flexible, fecund, and personal as life itself, and the pursuit will continue for as long as lifestyles change and marriages mix and match. Given time, efficient markets will deliver a glut of cheap Lipitor for every glut of cheap cholesterol. And given time, free people will find their way to a better mix.

Read the entire article here.

The insecurity of big-time college coaches

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big-money.jpgThe Dallas Morning News’ Kevin Sherrington observes that the NCAA’s the absurdly-high salaries of big-time college football coaches has a high price:

Football coaches at most Top 25 programs draw salaries equivalent to Fortune 500 CEOs, but they don’t generate similar revenues.
How do they rate their paydays then? Coaches simply benefit from an arms-race mentality in college sports. You can’t compete without an indoor practice facility, luxury suites, a weight room the size of a football field or a head coach drawing less than seven figures.

As noted in previous posts here, here and here, big-time college coaches benefit from the NCAA’s regulation of compensation for players. Inasmuch as the NCAA does not allow direct compensation of the players for the money being generated, the money has to go somewhere — i.e., into the wallets of the coaches. However, if the players were paid market compensation for the income that they generate, then the money paid to the players would not be available for the coaches. In all likelihood, the compensation of coaches would decrease.
As I’ve noted on several occasions, big-time college sports is an entertaining form of corruption. But if the institutions want to continue competing at that level, treating big-time college sports as a true business and compensating the players for the income they generate sure seems like a more honest way to approach it.

Kling on GMU Economics

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GMU_PLogo_RGB.jpgArnold Kling provides this interesting TCS Daily op-ed on the innovative George Mason University Economics Department, whose members have done a remarkable job over the past several years promoting the understanding of economics issues through the blogosphere. As Kling noted earlier here:

I like to put it his way: at [the University of] Chicago, they say “Markets work well. Let’s use markets.” At MIT, they say “Markets fail. Let’s use government.” At GMU, they say “Markets fail. Let’s use markets.”

The Chronicle’s vacuum of baseball analysis

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Chronicle logo.jpgIt may be football season, but that doesn’t stop Chronicle sports columnists from continuing to bludgeon us with their seemingly insatiable capacity to analyze the Stros and matters relating to Major League Baseball badly.
First, there is this blog post from the inimitable Jose de Jesus Ortiz, who already has quite a legacy of poor analysis of the sport that he covers for the Chroicle:

Willy Taveras, who holds the Astros franchise record for consecutive games with a hit, has been a difference maker for the Colorado Rockies heading into the third game of the National League Championship Series.
The Rockies obviously valued his speed and defense, which is why he was added to the NLCS roster even though he hadn’t played in three weeks because of an injury.
In Game 2, he was the player of the game after making an awesome game-saving catch in the seventh inning and then driving in the game-winning run with an RBI walk. Oh, he also had doubled and scored a run in a game that was 2-2 heading into extra innings. [. . .]
General manager Tim Purpura and Phil Garner weren’t fired until August, but they hurt the franchise tremendously by never understanding the true value of Willy Taveras. They valued Chris Burke out of position over Taveras at his natural position. Because of this mistake, the Astros’ pitching staff suffered.
It’s pathetic to see Taveras starring elsewhere when he should have been playing here. Cecil Cooper and Jose Cruz saw something special in Taveras and kept working with him in 2006. Unfortunately, Cooper wasn’t the manager then.
Do you miss Taveras?

In this prior post, I explained why Ortiz is simply wrong about Taveras’ value as a Major League player. But in his latest blog post, how can Ortiz overlook that Taveras had a pathetic .250 on-base average and an even worse .222 slugging percentage during the National League Championship Series? Or that the Rockies won 17 out of their last 18 games to get into the NLCS without any contribution from Taveras, who sat out those games with a hamstring injury?
What Ortiz simply does not understand is that anecdotal flashy plays do not prove that a player is a good Major Leaguer. It only proves that the player is capable of making a good play every once in awhile. To be a good Major Leaguer, a player has to be able to generate more runs consistently for his team than what the team’s alternatives would likely generate using the same number of outs as the player. Not only is it far from clear that Taveras did that this season for the Rockies (and the Rockies’ late season streak without him suggests that he did not), the fact of the matter is that the Stros’ CF-RF combination of Hunter Pence and Luke Scott was far more productive this past season than a Taveras-Pence tandem would have been.
Meanwhile, the equally foggy Chronicle columnist Richard Justice chimes in with this recent column in which he bemoans the Stros’ poor evaluation and development of minor league players (for a far more insightful analysis of how the Rockies developed their World Series team, see this Alan Schwarz NY Times article). This revelation comes from the same columnist who contends that the Stros blew this season because the club elected not to re-sign aged free agent pitchers Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, and who continues to beat the drum that Stros owner Drayton McLane made a terrible mistake in allowing former Stros General Manager Gerry Hunsicker to resign after the 2004 season. Of course, Hunsicker’s tenure as Stros GM coincided with most of the period from 1997 to date during which the Stros’ minor league system has been in decline. Apparently, in Justice’s odd world, the man in charge of the Stros’ player drafts during those years had nothing to do with the failure of those drafts to produce enough good Major League-quality players for the Stros.
My purpose is not to be overly critical of either Taveras or Hunsicker. Taveras is still a young player who, although a below-average National League player so far in his career, could develop into an above-average player. Similarly, despite his deficiencies in overseeing the Stros’ drafts during the period from 1997 to 2004, Hunsicker is still the best GM that the Stros have ever had. My point is simply this: Why do Ortiz and Justice refuse to provide a balanced analysis of them?
It’s not all that important in the big scheme of things, but are Ortiz and Justice really the best the Chronicle can do for baseball analysis?