Monthly Archives: November 2004

Political hack alert

Posted on by
Reply

This earlier post noted that the brewing controversy in Dallas over the Wright Amendment provides a ripe field for politicians to reap financial windfalls so long as they are willing to make bad policy decisions that favor certain private business interests.
It appears that their is an inexhaustible supply of issues in which politicians can parley the sale of their political soul into a nice financial return for their campaign war chests. This Wall Street Journal ($) article reports that telecom companies are lobbying elected officials around the country to rationalize support for legislation that restricts free or inexpensive WiFi service for their constituents:

Dozens of cities and towns across the country are rushing to provide low- or no-cost wireless Internet access to their residents, but the large phone and cable companies, fearful of losing a lucrative market, are fighting back by pushing states to pass legislation that could make it illegal for municipalities to offer the service.

Philadelphia announced during the summer that it would hook up the entire city with Wi-Fi. Its current Wi-Fi service is free, but it hasn’t decided whether that would continue with wider deployment; it may charge a small fee. “There are some very specific goals that the city has that are not met by the private sector: affordable, universal access and the digital divide,” says Dianah Neff, the city’s chief information officer. She says that less than 60% of the city’s neighborhoods have broadband access.
However, last week, after intensive lobbying by Verizon Communications Inc., the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed a bill with a deeply buried provision that would make it illegal for any “political subdivision” to provide to the public “for any compensation any telecommunications services, including advanced and broadband services within the service territory of a local exchange telecommunications company operating under a network-modernization plan.” Verizon is the local exchange telecommunications company for most of Pennsylvania, and it is planning to modernize the region using high-speed fiber-optic cable. The bill has 10 days for the governor to sign it or veto it.
The Pennsylvania bill follows similar legislative efforts earlier this year by telephone companies in Utah, Louisiana and Florida to prevent municipalities from offering telecommunications services, which could include fiber and Wi-Fi.

Rather than encouraging municipalities to provide free or inexpensive broadband internet access for its citizens, telecom companies argue that legislators should be more concerned with protecting the telecom companies from competing with local governments to provide WiFi service. Even such palpably superficial reasoning is resonating with Pennsylvania legislators, who apparently need to replenish their campaign war chests:

The Pennsylvania bill, first introduced in 2003, was passed by the state Senate late Thursday night and then passed for a second time by the state House of Representatives late Friday night by wide margins. Senate supporters agreed with Verizon’s view of the legislation. Don Houser, a spokesman for Senator Jake Corman, the Senate sponsor of the bill, said “the thinking was the telephone companies didn’t want to have local municipalities using tax dollars to compete with private dollars.”

Well, citizens are perfectly capable of replacing their elected officials if they do not want their local municipalities competing with private business in providing WiFi service. Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell has until November 30 to act on this legislation and has not yet declared which route he will choose. It’s not a close cal that he should reject the legislation, but money talks in politics and the telecome companies are willing to throw it around. Keep an eye on this one.
By the way, have you noticed that elected officials do not seem to mind having government compete with private financiers in connection with providing governmental financing for a new stadium?

James A. Baker, III gets results

Posted on by
1

This NY Times article reports on the agreement of The world’s leading industrial nations to cancel 80 percent of the nearly $40 billion of debt that Iraq owes them, which is a critical step in rebuilding the country’s devastated economy and an important precedent for placing pressure on Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq’s other Middle Eastern neighbors to forgive Iraq’s obligations owed to them.
Longtime Houstonian and former Secretary of both the State and Treasury Departments, James Baker III, who President Bush appointed last year as a special envoy to press Iraq’s creditors to write off money owed them, toured the world over the past year persuading various foreign governments to sign on to the debt forgiveness plan. Kudos to Mr. Baker for a job well done.

2004 Weekly local football review

Posted on by
2

Packers 16 Texans 13. On ESPN Sunday Night Football, the Pack handed the increasingly hapless Texans their third straight loss on a last second field goal despite the fact that they were down to their third string running back and could do nothing but pass. As usual, the Texans could not mount a pass rush, so Brett Favre methodically drove the Packers to 13 fourth quarter points to overcome a 10 point Texans’ lead. Meanwhile, the Texans’ offense continues to struggle as David Carr was only 5-for-11 for 49 yards in the second half and the Texans were so bad on offense against a mediocre Packers’ defense that the capacity Reliant Stadium crowd started booing. Although the Texans’ offensive line has not provided consistent protection over the past three games, Carr continues to fail to live up to his stature as the number one pick in the 2002 NFL Draft. In looking at the other 15 AFC teams, only five of them — Baltimore, Buffalo, Miami, Cleveland, and Oakland — would clearly trade their starting QB right now for Carr. For the first pick in the draft, Carr should be a better player than that, and his slow development is becoming a big problem for the Texans.
Baltimore 30 Dallas 10. Dallas actually led 3-0 after the first half, which was so bad that it almost placed the development of NFL offensive systems back several decades. The Cowboys next hope (maybe prayer?) at quarterback, Drew Henson, got some mop up duty in the fourth quarter, so maybe he will get the start against the Bears on Turkey Day. The Cowboys are simply a very bad football team right now, even worse than the Texans.
Louisville 63 Houston 27. The Coogs actually pulled to within eight points in this one just after the start of the fourth quarter, but then the Cardinals turned on the afterburners and left them in the dust (mud?) at Robertson Stadium. The Cougars finish 3-8 and, after two seasons of the Art Briles’ era, still show no signs of developing a decent defense. Add in the need to re-develop the offensive line and the Cougars have their work cut out for them in this upcoming off-season.
The Aggies and Longhorns were idle this past weekend as they prepare for Friday’s big game, and the Rice Owls were also off as they prepare for their last game of the season against Louisiana Tech that I believe is now scheduled for the Monday (?) after Thanksgiving at Reliant Stadium.
And, as usual, check out Kevin Whited’s always insightful Big 12 Wrapup over at PubliusTx.net.

“The triumph of an uncluttered mind”

Posted on by
Reply

This Dallas Morning News article catches up with former Dallas Cowboy quarterback and folk hero Clint Longley, who as a 22-year-old rookie out of Abilene Christian University replaced a woozy Roger Staubach early in the third quarter and led the Cowboys to a dramatic 24-23 comeback victory over George Allen‘s Redskins 30 years ago on Thanksgiving Day.
Longley was a live wire, so his remarkable performance generated more than the usual amount of interest throughout Texas and the NFL. One of the best comments on the game came from Cowboys offensive lineman, Blaine Nye, who described Longley’s performance (11-20 for 203 yards and 2 TD’s) as “the triumph of an uncluttered mind.”
Longley’s three year professional career was utterly undistinguished except for that one magic game and one other incident — when he sucker-punched Staubach during training camp in 1976, prompting the Cowboys to trade Longley to San Diego. By the end of that season, the Chargers waived Longley and he never played for another NFL team.
Charlie Waters, a former Cowboy teammate, noted that Longley’s unpredictable nature manifested itself in the Staubach sucker-punch:

Waters knew how unpredictable Longley could be. The season before, Waters had agreed to let Longley keep his new pony on three acres of land he’d purchased near the team’s practice facility.
“He pulls up in a 1957 Cadillac,” said Waters, “and the horse’s head was sticking out one of the back windows and its ass was hanging out the other side.”

Over the past 30 years, Longley has refused all interview requests and now lives quietly — albeit idiosyncratically — in Corpus Christi. He did not grant an interview for the story, but DMN reporter Matt Mosley did a good job in the article, anyway. Read the entire piece.

TV Azteca – Supporting the legal profession

Posted on by
Reply

One of the more interesting articles stories in today’s NY Sunday Times is this one regarding the travails of Ricardo B. Salinas Pliego, the chairman of TV Azteca, in trying to find an American law firm that would support his position that there is no duty to disclose to the market that he and a partner had turned a $218 million profit from discounting TV Azteca debt that they purchased from third parties and then selling it to the company at the full amount of the indebtedness:

The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating whether Mr. Salinas Pliego or TV Azteca properly disclosed his personal financial interest in a deal involving the company, where he serves as chairman. . .
The investigation stemmed from reports about a dispute over the need to disclose that Mr. Salinas Pliego and a partner had turned a $218 million profit from buying company debt at a deep discount and reselling it to the company for full price. [A] lawyer from a prominent firm, Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, took the unusual step of quitting as counsel to TV Azteca and reporting his dispute with management to the board of directors.

However, if one firm doesn’t agree with you, Mr. Salinas Pliego’s approach is “to try, try again”:

As it turns out, Mr. Salinas Pliego and his management team rejected the advice of two other American law firms on the same matter, according to a nearly final draft report of an internal investigation. The draft, which was provided to The Times, was compiled by Munger, Tolles & Olson, a law firm in Los Angeles that was hired early this year by a committee of independent directors of TV Azteca . . . Munger Tolles’s investigation found that the company’s managers withheld important information from their board, failed to correct a false public statement by Mr. Salinas Pliego and gave explanations for their actions that the law firm concluded were not credible.

Apparently, the Munger Tolles reports provides an entertaining account of how Mr. Salinas Pliego traversed from law firm to law firm in trying to find someone who agreed with his position that his profit on the company’s debt need not be disclosed:

[The report] traces TV Azteca’s journey from corporate law firm to corporate law firm in a search for lawyers sympathetic to its position. After Akin Gump backed away, it says, TV Azteca sought a second opinion from lawyers at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton, a big New York firm. When Cleary Gottlieb also recommended disclosing Mr. Salinas Pliego’s financial interest in the transaction, the company turned to another firm, Hogan & Hartson. That firm advised disclosure, too.
But when lawyers from Munger Tolles, as part of their investigation, sought to speak to the lawyers from the three firms whose advice had been rejected, they were rebuffed.
(In a particularly absurd twist, the report said Akin Gump declined to make its lawyers available in part because TV Azteca had not yet paid its bills, but lawyers representing Akin Gump did tell the Munger Tolles investigators what the Akin Gump lawyers would have said if they had consented to interviews.)

And in a delicious twist, the Munger Tolles report has now required the company to hire yet another law firm to help it respond to the report:

After splitting with Akin Gump, TV Azteca hired yet another American law firm, Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, to recommend responses to the Munger Tolles report. A recent company filing said the recommendations included the creation of nominating and audit committees and the adoption of a rigorous code of ethics. But it was left to the regulators to decide whether to punish Mr. Salinas Pliego and his team.

My sense is that TV Azteca’s legal fees will continue to be a rather large budget item for the near future.

GOP Doublespeak

Posted on by
1

Professor Bainbridge continues to do a good job of criticizing the Republican Party for its rather shameless lack of leadership in its indulgence of House Minority Leader Tom DeLay that was the subject of this earlier post.
What is most curious about the GOP’s witch hunt allegations regarding Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle — whose office is prosecuting three former DeLay aides — is that Mr. Earle is a well-regarded prosecutor in the legal community who has traditionally been quite even-handed. In fact, 12 of 15 elected officials who Mr. Earle has prosecuted over the years have been fellow Democrats, including former Attorney General Jim Mattox, former Speaker Gib Lewis, former Treasurer Warren G. Harding and former Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock.
As an aside, a funny anecdote arose after Mr. Earle’s unsuccessful prosecution of the late Mr. Bullock, who became a somewhat beloved figure in his declining years and a confidant of GOP Governor George W. Bush. After Mr. Bullock’s death, Mr. Earle — who clearly enjoyed the colorful former Lieutenant Governor — disclosed that Mr. Bullock had subsequently confided to him that he was “guilty as hell.”

Basketball, NHL style

Posted on by
4

The Daily Recycler has the video of the hockey game that broke out last night at the Pacers-Pistons NBA game.
The typical reaction to the incident will be outrage and self-righteous indignation. However, I must admit that the riot made me somewhat nostalgic of the bygone days of the NBA when such fights were quite common.
Back in the 1970’s, my late father and I would often go over to The Summit (my folks’ house was nearby) at halftime of the Rockets’ game of the night and get in free to watch the second half of the game (I was a poverty-sticken law student; my father was just, might we say, parsimonious). Even back then, the first halves of NBA games didn’t make much difference.
On one particular evening, we went to the second half of a game between the Rockets of the Calvin Murphy, Rudy Tomjanovich, Mike Newlin era against the Celtics of the Sidney Wicks, Dave Cowens, and Charlie Scott era. It was a close game and by the 4th quarter, the players on both sides were getting a bit chippy. Finally, Wicks threw an elbow at Murphy, and all hell broke loose.
Unfortunately for Wicks, Murphy was a professional caliber fighter and never lost any of his half-dozen or so fights during his NBA career. Combining amazing quickness with a rapid fire delivery, Murphy was on top of Wicks within seconds, had him down on the floor, and was delivering a devastating series of punches to the bridge of Wicks’ nose, opening up a broad cut in the process. It took four players — each taking one of Murphy’s limbs — to extract Murphy from Wicks, who frankly didn’t know what had hit him.
After order was restored and Wicks was carted off to the dressing room for stitches, the game continued in a rather heated fashion. A few minutes later, after a rough exchange under the Rockets’ basket, a big, fat fan sitting in the courtside seats took offense to Cowens’ actions, walked out on to the court, and pushed Cowens. Cowens proceeded to place his right hand on this idiot’s neck and then started hammering him to the chops with a series of lefts that would have made Rocky Balboa proud. Just for good measure, Scott blazed in like a streak of light and did his best Murphy imitation, pummeling several adjacent fans with a deft series of combination blows.
About this time, Wicks returned to the court with a large bandage on the bridge of his nose. My father, a respected Professor of Medicine with a long career at both the University of Iowa and University of Texas Medical Schools, used all of his long years of medical research in analyzing the situation for me: “Murphy really kicked Wicks’ ass, didn’t he?”
After “order” (we’re talking generally here) was restored for the second time, the Rockets went on to score a satisfying victory over the Celtics. None of the combatants in the various brawls were even thrown out of the game as I recall, and certainly no arrests were made and no civil lawsuits were filed.
Ah, those were the days. ;^)

Texas Childrens Hospital Heart Unit celebrates 50th year

Posted on by
Reply

One of many benefits of living in Houston is the extraordinary Texas Children’s Hospital located in Houston’s famed Texas Medical Center. Texas Children’s — as Houstonians call it — is truly one of the most remarkable medical facilities for children in the world.
This Chronicle article reports on a reception that Texas Childrens held on Friday to celebrate the 50th year of service by the hospital’s pediatric heart unit, which reflects Texas Childrens’ overall excellence:

Texas Children’s Hospital . . . opened in February 1954. Pediatric cardiology was the hospital’s first subspecialty. Today, as many as 12,000 patients are treated and 700 surgeries performed annually at the heart center.
More than 35,000 children a year are born with congenital heart defects, a primary cause of first-year death of infants. Since the 1960s, . . . survival rates in such cases have increased to nearly 95 percent from 70 percent.
Dr. Ralph Feigin, the hospital’s physician-in-chief, said the hospital’s heart center has been a “cradle of innovations since its inception.”

“The center has pioneered numerous pediatric cardiology procedures and maintains one of the nation’s highest success rates in treating patients with congenital heart abnormalities,” he said.

Increasingly, the hospital has moved into high-tech medicine. About 550 fetal echocardiograms are performed each year to identify heart problems before birth. Such early detection can ensure that babies receive immediate care, including surgery, for their problems.
In another high-tech development, heart center surgeons have performed 158 pediatric heart transplants ? 17 of them this year ? since the program began 20 years ago.

Texas Children’s Hospital is a treasure of the Houston community.
Meanwhile, in other Medical Center news, Methodist Hospital announced on Friday the Methodist Board’s approval of an initial $30 million endowment to launch the creation of the Southwest’s first neurological institute to advance the discovery of the origins of neurological disease and to provide comprehensive care for patients with disorders and injuries of the brain and spinal cord.
The creation of the institute is the latest step in Methodist’s plan to become an academic institution in the aftermath of this year’s acrimonious split with Baylor College of Medicine, its partner and supplier of physician-scientists and residents for the past 50 years.

Prosecution rests in Calvin Murphy trial

Posted on by
1

The prosecution rested on Friday in the sexual assault trial of former Houston Rocket and Basketball Hall of Famer Calvin Murphy in which five of his daughters have testified that Murphy sexually molested them years ago. Here are earlier posts on the indictment and trial of Murphy in this matter.
Although I have not sat in on any of this trial and Murphy is ably represented by Houston criminal defense attorney Rusty Hardin, my sense is that the case has not gone particularly well for Murphy to date. Press accounts have described the jury members as being visibly affected by the searing testimony of Murphy’s daughters, and the jury will almost certainly hold Murphy’s prodigious promiscuity (14 children by nine different women) against him.
Nevertheless, Mr. Hardin has plugged away at creating reasonable doubt by highlighting the daughters’ ulterior motives and inconsistencies in their stories. His defense strategy apparently will center around testimony from Murphy’s other children and Murphy’s testimony. This may be a case in which Murphy’s performance on the stand will ultimately determine whether the jury decides to convict or acquit. I expect the trial to last another week or so.
One thing is for sure — this trial has been bloody for Murphy, who is finished in his career as a media personality in Houston regardless of the outcome of the trial.

Apollo to buy Goodman Global

Posted on by
Reply

New York-based investment firm Apollo Management LP announced on Friday that it has agreed to acquire Houston-based Goodman Global Holdings Inc. for $1.43 billion. Goodman Global is a maker of air conditioners and heating equipment and one of Houston’s largest privately-owned businesses.
Goodman Global manufactures brands such as Amana, Janitrol, GmC and QuietFlex, and it has factories in Houston, Fayetteville, Tennessee and Dayton, Tennessee. It employs about 4,000 employees, of which about 2,500 are in Houston.
Apollo has received debt commitments from J.P. Morgan Securities Inc., UBS Securities LLC and Credit Suisse First Boston to finance the deal, which will leave in place the senior management of Goodman Global. Moreover, the Goodman family will retain an unspecified “significant” investment in the company. Goodman Global President and Chief Executive Charles A. Carroll will retain his positions, and Goodman Global principal John B. Goodman will remain chairman.
The deal is expected to close the deal in the first quarter, subject to customary regulatory approvals.