Monthly Archives: December 2006

The penultimate Oddsmakers Top 25

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LVSC_logo234x100.gifPrevious posts here and here reported on the Oddsmakers Top 25 Football Poll, a poll developed by Las Vegas Sports Consultants based on the company’s profit motive-driven incentive to provide their sports betting customers the most accurate rating of college football teams. The following is LVSC’s final Oddsmaker’s Top 25, with the BCS ranking in parenthesis:
1. Ohio State (1)
2. Michigan (3)
3. Florida (2)
4. Southern Cal (5)
5. LSU (4)
6. Louisville (6)
7. Oklahoma (10)
8. Texas (19)
9. Notre Dame (11)
10. Wisconsin (7)
11t. West Virginia (13)
11t. California (18)
13. BYU (20)
14. Virginia Tech (15)
15. Arkansas (12)
16t. Boise State (8)
16t. South Carolina (NR)
18. Tennessee (17)
19t. Nebraska (23)
19t. UCLA (25)
21. TCU (NR)
22. Rutgers (16)
23t. Oregon (NR)
23t. Clemson (NR)
23t. Arizona State (NR)
Unranked by Vegas: Auburn (ninth in BCS), Wake Forest (14th), Texas A&M (21st), Oregon State (22nd), Boston College (24th)
In addition to picking Michigan rather than Florida as the proper opponent for Ohio State in the BCS National Championship Game, the Oddsmakers Top 25 raises a couple of interesting issues.
First, the credibility of the Vegas-based poll versus the BCS poll will have a lot riding on the Oklahoma-Boise State matchup in the Fiesta Bowl. The Oddsmakers Poll has Oklahoma 7th and Boise State 16th, while the BCS has Boise 8th and Oklahoma 10th. The initial line has the Sooners favored by a touchdown. My sense is that the Oddsmakers Poll has these two teams more accurtely aligned — Oklahoma and a bunch of other teams in the Top 25 would probably have gone unbeaten if they had played Boise’s schedule.
Despite LSU’s two early-season losses, the Oddsmakers Poll is looking prescient for not giving up on the Tigers. The first BCS Poll had LSU 18th while the Oddsmakers Poll had the Tigers fifth. This week, the Oddsmakers Poll still has LSU at fifth while the BCS has the Tigers fourth.
I say ditch the BCS rating system and let the purity of the profit-driven Oddsmakers Top 25 determine the rankings for the BCS bowl games. It’s all about the money anyway, isn’t it?

The Bobby Maxwell Lawsuit

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rig120606.jpgThis NY Sunday Times article reports on the lawsuit of former federal government oil and gas auditor Bobby L. Maxwell, who is suing Kerr-McGee Corporation in Denver federal court for underpayment of oil and gas royalties to the federal government on oil and gas wells producing on federal lands. Under an obscure federal statute that rewards private citizens who expose fraud against the government, Maxwell and his counsel stand to recover as much as $15 million if they ring the bell in the lawsuit, which is scheduled for trial on January 16.
Although I know nothing about the particulars of the Maxwell case other than what is reported in the article, underpayment of oil and gas royalties is not uncommon. Indeed, when I am retained by royalty owners in a reorganization case of an oil and gas company, my standard advice is for the royalty owners to hire an experienced oil and gas auditor to conduct at least a review of the debtor’s royalty payments. When an oil and gas company starts having financial problems, scrimping on royalty payments is not an unusual occurrence.

Controversial Justice

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William Wayne Justice.jpgLongtime Eastern District of Texas U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice has long been one of most controversial federal judges and, thus, one of the best-known in Texas. The 86-year old Judge Justice was recently back in the news as the first honoree of the Morris Dees Justice Award, named for the famed Alabama civil rights lawyer, which prompted this profile from the Chronicle’s Janet Elliott.
Judge Justice is the quintessential activist federal judge, so he is not the most popular fellow in all quarters. Maybe he should have been in the legislature, but it’s hard not to admire a judge who at 86-years of age still handles a full court docket and chooses to be activist in cases that promote desegregation in education, equal educational opportunity and prison reform. The legislature has never done a particularly good job of dealing with those issues, anyway.

Keep those buses handy

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Metrorail car120506-Houston.jpgWendell Cox reports on a little problem that occurred in St. Louis recently that ought (but probably won’t) give the Houston Metropolitan Transit Authority pause:

Buses Replace Light Rail in St. Louis
A large ice storm hit the St. Louis area last night and power is out to nearly one-half of the area. The areaís light rail line, Metrolink, has suspended service for much of its alignment and is providing substitute bus service.
Meanwhile, there appears to be no instance of light rail providing replacement for buses anywhere in the metropolitan area — for that matter probably never in history, anywhere. Another demonstration of the flexibility of urban rail.

The enormous cost relative to usage and inflexibility of most rail systems reminds me of something that Peter Gordon observed awhile back about the political forces that support these boondoggles. Some are disingenous promoters seeking to profit from the rail lines, some pose as high-minded environmentalists and many are simply ignorant of the inefficiency and inflexibility of such systems. As Professor Gordon wryly points out:

“It adds up to a winning coalition.”

By the way, Anne Linehan over at blogHouston.net continues to follow another cost of the Houston light rail system that Metro doesn’t much like talking about.

What’s going on at Ford?

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Ford logo.jpgWhile most of the auto industry news of late has been the hubbub over Kirk Kerkorkian bailing out on his investment in General Motors, my sense is that the more interesting (or pathetic) snippet is this one reporting that Ford Motor Company fell in November to fourth place in vehicle sales for the first time in history. Ford sold 10% fewer vehicles last month than it did a year earlier.
Meanwhile, Ford management is pursuing a restructuring plan in which the company is raising $18 billion secured by essentially all of the company’s assets in order to spend about $17 billion in an effort to stem Ford’s current annual revenue loss of close to $10 billion a year. About 38,000 employees — over 10% of the company’s work force — have resigned and accepted a buyout offer from the company. Thus, the new creditors are placing a rather large bet that Ford will be able to service the new mountain of new debt with expected profits from new products generated by a knockoff strategy similar to the one that the Japanese automakers used to make inroads in the US market during the 1970’s (Ford’s new products are expected to emulate the Lexus brand).
My impression of all this is to question what these people are smoking.

The BCS muddle

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BCS_LogoFOX.jpgThe Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins is the daughter of my all-time favorite sportswriter, Dan Jenkins, and an insightful sportswriter in her own right. In this column, she eviscerates the Bowl Championship Series and everything it stands for in classic Jenkins family style:

Try to find some legitimacy in the Bowl Championship Series. Go ahead, try. Exert all of your ability, industry and intelligence toward the task. You can’t do it. The fact of the matter is that the treasure called the college football postseason has become buried beneath corporate scams. All you need to know is that the Fiesta Bowl has a CEO. His name is John Junker, and when he testified before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce last year in defense of the BCS, he actually called the bowl games “independent business units” and referred to universities as “customers.”
When a sports organization is more concerned with revenue distribution than with fair competition, it is asking for problems.

The BCS system is the natural outgrowth of corrupt big-time college athletics, a subject examined in previous posts here, here, here, here and here. The good news is that the market forces of big-time college athletics are pushing the system toward change as the relative few universities that make money off of their football and basketball programs likely will likely gravitate in a few years into a collection of “super conferences” similar to the divisions of the National Football League and the National Basketball Association. The bad news is that many of the traditional rivalries of college football and basketball will be lost in the process.
Is the money worth that?

2006 Weekly local football review

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Aldrige Leading the Band.jpg
Houston Cougars 34 Southern Miss 20

The Cougars (10-3, 8-1) won their first Conference USA football championship in ten years with a Friday night win over Southern Miss (8-5, 7-3) before a raucous crowd of 32,000 at Robertson Stadium on the UH campus (that’s star RB/WR Anthony Alridge conducting the UH band during the post-game celebration). After a seesaw first half, the Coogs blew a chance of taking the halftime lead when time expired with UH at the Southern Miss two-yard line. But the Cougars regrouped and dominated the second half to pull out the win. The offensive stars were QB Kevin Kolb and WR Vincent Marshall, but the unsung heroes of the game were the UH defensive players, who limited Southern Miss to 122 yards total offense in the 2nd half. The Cougars will play Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina (7-5,3-5) from the Southeastern Conference in the Liberty Bowl on Friday, December 29th at 3:30 pm on ESPN HD.

Texans 23 Raiders 14

In a game that set back offensive football to before the invention of the forward pass, the Texans (4-9) defense played well and forced five turnovers to pull out a win despite the fact that the Texans’ offense managed only 122 yards total offense. The Raiders offense was horrifying, scoring just one TD while fumbling three times, missing three field goals, and allowing five sacks to go with two interceptions. Except for the turnovers, the Texans were worse as overwhelmed Texans QB David Carr finished 7-of-14 for 32 yards and did not complete a pass in the final 32 minutes. Inasmuch as Carr was sacked five times for 37 yards, the Texans finished the game -5 yards passing, which is not going to do much for Carr’s QB rating.

Despite Carr’s abysmal showing, the primary problem with passing game continues to be the complete breakdown of the Texans’ pass protection. Neither of the Texans offensive tackles were even slowing down the Raiders’ defensive ends as they rushed Carr, so the Texans QBr barely had time to drop back, much less survey the field and throw a competent pass. The Texans play the suddenly hot Titans (5-7) next Sunday at Reliant Stadium in Vince Young Bowl II, and then visit New England the next weekend before ending the season at home against the Colts (10-2) and the Browns (4-8). Getting one win in those final four games is possible, but certainly not likely for a team as bad as the Texans. So, my pre-season prediction of six wins for the Texans is looking like a loser.

Rice is bowl bound

Finally, congratulations to the Rice Owls (7-5,5-2) as they accepted an invitation to play in their first bowl game since 1961, the R&L Carriers New Orleans Bowl at the Louisiana Superdome on Friday, Dec. 22 at 7 p.m. The Owls opponent will be Sunbelt Conference champ Troy (7-5, 6-1), which was blown out only once this season (56-0 at Nebraska) and played tough (losing 24-17) at Florida State early in the season (the Seminoles beat the Owls 55-7 two weeks later). The bowl game will be televised on ESPN2 HD.

By the way, most Houstonians (and most of the nation, for that matter) will not be able to watch Rutgers play Kansas State in the Texas Bowl at Reliant Stadium on the evening of December 28th or Texas Tech play Minnesota in the Insight Bowl on the evening of December 29th. Both games are being televised by the NFL Network, which — as noted in these prior posts — the NFL owners are withholding from most viewers who receive their television through cable companies. What holiday spirit those NFL owners have!

Why don’t you tell us what you really think?

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baker120306.jpgThe NRO Corner‘s John Podhoretz in this NY Daily News op-ed makes clear that he is not buying into that whole “elder statesman” thing that the NY Times reported last week regarding James Baker, III’s co-chairmanship of the Iraq Study Group:

As Dana Milbank reports in The Washington Post, on Monday the [Iraq Study Group’s] “co-chairmen, James Baker and Lee Hamilton, found time . . . to pose for an Annie Leibovitz photo shoot for Men’s Vogue.”[. . .]
Baker, Hamilton and their crew of old Washington hands (and I mean old, like Metheuselah-level old) are recommending a “gradual pullback” of American troops but without a timetable. That basically translates into a nice, long, slow defeat – the “graceful exit” of which the president spoke so harshly.[. . .]
This is the consensus view of the Iraq Study Group, which is very proud that it reached consensus.

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Divided over powerful government

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smithgoestowashington.jpgThe late Milton Friedman commented recently that he had concluded that the best political make-up for the federal government was one that had the greatest likelihood to develop gridlock because of the damaging policies that the government enacts when one party or the other controls both the legislative and executive branches. In this TCS Daily op-ed, Arnold Kling of EconLog channels that thought:

The conventional wisdom is that we would be better off if politically powerful leaders were less mediocre. Instead, my view is that we would be better off if mediocre political leaders were less powerful. [. . .]
We have to expect mediocrity from political leaders. They are selected by a very unreliable process. In general, I try to avoid contact with narcissists who spend their time pleading for money. Those are hardly the intellectual and emotional characteristics that make someone admirable, yet they are the traits of people who go into politics. [. . .]
The libertarian view is that private institutions, both for-profit and non-profit, are better at problem-solving than government institutions. Regardless of whether political leadership is wise or mediocre, our goal should be to limit the damage that public officials can do. Do not demand that they “solve” health care, “fix” education, or launch a “Manhattan project” for energy independence. Even for experts, those are impossible tasks. The harder we press our existing leaders to address these issues, the more trouble they are going to cause.
The belief that the problem with government is the particular individuals in power is dangerous. The myth is that somewhere out there we could find great leaders who could use government to solve all of our problems. Instead, we need to be vigilant against the enlargement of government, by either mediocre or expert leaders.
Do not look upon the electoral process as a search for great leaders. At best, it gives us an opportunity for damage control.

Benny Hinn has a deal for you

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benny-hinn-website.jpgThe last time we checked in on televangelist Benny Hinn, he was having a snit with the Nigerian hosts for one of his crusades and fighting with the IRS. Recently, Hinn has been in the news again as the subject of this NBC Dateline piece regarding Hinn’s rather lavish lifestyle and tastes that are, might we say, a tad alien to Christ’s message of sacrificial atonement upon which his business, . . uh, I mean, “ministry” is based.
A $10-million, 7,000 sq. ft. home, $112,000 per month for a private jet, a couple of $80,000 cars, luxury hotel rooms that are 5,400 sq. ft. at $10,800 per night for a “layover.” At least Hinn is generous with his tips, which totaled over $4,500 during a recent three-day period. A salary of half a million to a million dollars per year–plus book royalties. Business, . . . er, I mean the ministry is good, eh?
At any rate, Hinn has now decided that the lease payments for his corporate jet are a tad steep, so he wants to acquire a corporate jet, which he has already named “Dove One.” Hinn is ramping up his money-raising machinery to pay for his new toy, and for a mere $1,000 “donation,” here’s what Hinn promises:

You will receive a beautiful art-quality model of Dove One for your desk or mantle as a constant reminder that you are a vital part of this last-days harvest for souls.
Your name will be placed prominently in a special area of Dove One where I study and pray during my travels, where I will also pray for you and your family as I go around the world preaching the Gospel. Everywhere I fly, your name will travel with me, millions of miles and for years to come, reminding me that you have made it possible for me to go and preach as God has called me to do.

What a deal! ;^)