Monthly Archives: August 2007

What does the investment of a billion dollars in New Orleans generate?

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New%20Orleans%20map%20082007.gifAccording to this NY Times article, apparently not much:

Six inches.
After two years and more than a billion dollars spent by the Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild New Orleansís hurricane protection system, that is how much the water level is likely to be reduced if a big 1-in-100 flood hits Leah Pratcherís Gentilly neighborhood.
Looking over the maps that showed other possible water levels around the city, Ms. Pratcher grew increasingly furious. Her house got four feet of water after Hurricane Katrina, and still stands to get almost as much from a 1-in-100 flood. [ . . .]
New Orleans was swamped by Hurricane Katrina; now it is awash in data, studied obsessively in homes all over town. And the simple message conveyed by that data is that while parts of the city are substantially safer, others have changed little. New Orleans remains a very risky place to live.
The entire flood system still provides much less protection than New Orleans needs, and the pre-Katrina patchwork of levees, floodwalls and gates that a Corps of Engineers investigation called ìa system in name onlyî is still just that.
The corps has strengthened miles of floodwalls, but not always in places where people live. It has built up breached walls on the east side of one major canal, but left the west side, which stood up to Hurricane Katrina, lower and thus more vulnerable. It has not closed the canals that have often been described as funnels for floodwaters into the city. [. . .]
As a result, the city still lacks a system that can stand up to that 1-in-100 storm, let alone one like Hurricane Katrina, which the corps calls a 1-in-396 storm. The work that could build the more robust system ó originally estimated at $7 billion, and now at least twice that ó will not be completed until 2011 at the earliest, and experts agree that even that level of protection will be less than the city needs.
The corps is working on a two-year, $20 million study to find ways of providing even more protection, but it will not even be released until December.

Read the entire article. As noted in many posts over the past two years in the hurricane category of this blog, the performance of the various federal, state and local governmental entities in rebuilding New Orleans has been generally abysmal, at best.

A vexing question about women’s golf

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GolfWoman%20putting.jpgThe Scotsman.com’s John Huggan tackles a question about women professional golfers that has perplexed me for a long time:

. . . [W]omen, typically, own short games that simply do not bear close comparison with their male counterparts. Whether pitching, chipping, blasting from bunkers or putting, the ladies are markedly inferior.
Which is odd, when you think about it. In the areas of the game where innate touch and feel should have obvious advantages over pure strength, men still manage to make the women look inadequate.[ . . .]
Look at the stats. A 29 putts per round average barely gets you into the top 100 on the PGA Tour; on the LPGA Tour, that number has you in the top 30.

As Huggan notes, practice makes perfect and, for some reason, the women pros don’t like practicing the short game as much as other areas of the game. Who’d a thunk it?

The risk of demagoguery

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JohnEdwards%20082007.jpgDemocratic presidential candidate John Edwards’ demagoguery has been a frequent topic on this blog, so I read with interest this Larry Ribstein post that analyzes Edwards’ latest hypocrisy — lambasting the actions of subprime lenders on the campaign trail while profiting from a company that invests substantial amounts in subprime lenders.
Meanwhile, the Onion brilliantly captures the essence of Edwards’ vacuity in this article with the headline “John Edwards Vows To End All Bad Things By 2011.”

A job well done

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heart%20attack.jpgUniversity of Houston student-athlete and football player Jerrod Butler was stricken by sudden cardiac arrest on Monday during a weightlifting session at the University of Houston. Butler passed out and stopped breathing.
Members of the UH athletic training staff, led by Mike O’Shea and John Houston, immediately revived Butler, performing CPR and using an automatic external defibrillator. Butler was then rushed the short drive to the Methodist Hospital emergency room at the Texas Medical Center, where he was put on a ventilator and placed in the intensive care unit.
On Thursday, Butler was moved out of the ICU and into a regular room.
It’s easy in our busy lives to take professionals such as O’Shea and Houston for granted, but they are the type of dedicated people who make Houston such a special place to live. A tip of the hat to these two fine professionals on a job well done.

Stros 2007 Season Review, Part Six

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burke%20dugout.jpgAs the Stros (54-67) close in on the three-quarters pole of the season, I can’t decide whether it’s more of a reflection of the sad state of baseball analysis in local mainstream media outlets, or simply the remarkably mediocre nature of the other National League Central Division teams, that some media pundits believe that the Stros are still in the race for a playoff spot after posting a 10-10 record over their sixth 20 game segment of the season (prior periodic reports are here).
The reality is that the Stros’ playoff goose was cooked for this season long ago when club management decided to indulge Craig Biggio’s (-11 RCAA) quest for 3,000 hits and to continue playing as regulars such unproductive players as Brad Ausmus (-14 RCAA), Adam Everett (-12 RCAA) and recently Mark Loretta (-7 RCAA). Although it’s fun to try and make it more complicated than it is, baseball is a simple game in which successful teams have hitters who create more runs than opposing hitters and pitchers who save more runs than the opposition’s pitchers. Thus, by adding a club’s runs created against average (“RCAA“) and runs saved against average (“RSAA“), you can quite quickly determine which team is most likely to prevail in a pennant race.
Taking the NL Central as an example, the top four teams all have major deficiencies. The Brewers (62-59) hit well (61 RCAA), but their pitching has fallen off badly (-31 RSAA), so their net 30 RCAA/RSAA score has allowed the other teams in the division to stay close despite playing even worse than the Brew Crew (a precisely average National League team would have an RCAA/RSAA score of 0). The Cubs (61-59) cannot hit a lick (-39 RCAA), but have one of the better pitching staffs in the National League (64 RSAA) for a 25 RCAA/RSAA. The third place Cardinals (58-60) and the fourth place Stros (54-67) are almost precisely the same, average hitting teams (Stros: -3 RCAA; Cards: 5 RCAA) and simply dreadful pitching overall (Stros: -73 RSAA; Cards -76 RSAA) for RCAA/RSAA scores of -76 and -71. That the Cards have won a few more games than the Stros is attributable mainly to luck and the generally poor game management skills of Stros skipper, Phil Garner.
So, what does this all mean? At this point, the Brewers and the Cubs continue to be the favorites to win the NL Central, with the Cubs having the edge because of their superior pitching. Unless the Cardinals’ pitching improves dramatically, their hot streak of late will probably cool off quickly, while the Stros have shown no dramatic improvement in either hitting or pitching performance that would indicate that they are capable of vaulting into contention for the NL Central lead. If Soriano can come back off his injury and nudge the Cubs hitting back toward NL average and the Cubs’ pitching remains strong, my sense is that they will win the playoff spot from the NL Central. If the Cubs don’t win it, the Brewers blend of hard hitting and below-average pitching almost certainly will.
Alas, what the foregoing analysis shows with regard to the Stros is that they have become a far below-average National League club overall. With a minor league system almost devoid of position player prospects at the upper levels, and for a club that is not doing a particularly good job of drafting and signing minor league prospects, the Stros are going to have to look to the free agent market to attempt to salvage another few title runs out of the Berkman-Oswalt-Carlos Lee era. And attempting to rebuild through free agent acquisitions is an expensive and highly risky proposition.
Will Drayton McLane let General Manager Tim Purpura open the pocketbook over this coming offseason and buy the free agent pitching talent that the Stros need to compete for a playoff spot next season? No one but McLane knows the answer to that question. Thankfully, the Stros are no longer burdened with huge financial obligations to Bagwell, Clemens and Pettitte, so McLane is in a financial position to make some moves. But whether he has the confidence to do so is another question entirely. And if he does not, the Stros are going to waste another season or more of Berkman, Oswalt and Lee’s most productive years without having any meaningful shot at playing in the post-season.
As an aside, in the “do you have confidence in Purpura’s transactions” category, former Stros 3B Morgan Ensberg (3 RCAA/.314 OBA/.636 SLG/.951 OPS) and new Stros 3B Ty Wigginton (3 RCAA/.407 OBA/.489 SLG/.896 OPS) have produced at almost precisely the same level since the Stros made the trade for Wigginton and cut Ensberg loose to the Padres? What was the reason for that trade again?
After a weekend in San Diego (64-55), the Stros return home for a ten game homestand against the Nationals (55-66), the Pirates (50-69) and the Cardinals (58-60). With school beginning next week and the football season beginning shortly thereafter, Stros management is about ready to see the smallest crowds of the season as the Stros play out the string. There are simply not enough retirement ceremonies on the horizon to maintain the public’s interest in this edition of the Stros.
The season statistics for the Stros to date are below, courtesy of Lee Sinins‘ sabermetric Complete Baseball Encyclopedia. The abbreviations for the hitting stats are defined here and the same for the pitching stats are here. The Stros active roster is here with links to each individual player’s statistics:

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Threatening where it hurts

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Golf%20time%20slips.gifWhen managing my former law firm, I never resorted to the tactic depicted in the cartoon on the left. But I wish I had thought of it. ;^)
The delightful Stuart M. Rees of Stu’s Views nails it again.

The UT brand prevails again

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UT%20brand%20081706.jpgFor the second straight year, the University of Texas finished no. 1 in an all-important rating — collections on royalties from the sale of merchandise.
Maybe image is everything?

Slam dunk?

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wholefoods081707.jpgSo, sanity prevails and U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman of the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C. ruled in favor of the proposed Whole Foods Markets acquisition of Wild Oats Markets and against the Federal Trade Commission’s complaint to enjoin the merger (previous posts here).
But in the NY Times article on the court ruling, William J. Baer, a Washington antitrust lawyer and a former director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, observed the following:
ìThis obviously has got to be a setback for the F.T.C. I think they thought this was a slam-dunk.î
If Baer is correct in his assessment of how the FTC viewed the case, then that is even better proof that the agency is utterly devoid of adult supervision than this.

The Shark duck hooks his divorce

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Greg%20and%20Laura%20Norman.jpgIt looks as if the final stages of the Great White Shark’s divorce are not going swimmingly:

What months ago was characterized as a nearly resolved divorce settlement between golf great Greg Norman and his wife, Laura, has now turned into the most contentious aspect of their split to date – one that has Laura Norman accusing Greg of changing the locks to the couple’s Jupiter Island home and cutting off her credit cards. [. . .]
Laura says Greg, who in the golf world in nicknamed “The Great White Shark,” has . . . refused to pay her attorneys’ fees and “is attempting to starve (her) out so she has no choice but to surrender to his positions,” Laura’s attorneys Jack Scarola and Russell J. Ferraro wrote.
Greg’s lawyers, in a letter to Scarola, said he has already paid them about $725,000 to fund the litigation, including a half-million dollar payout in April. The money, according to Laura’s lawyers, has been used to pay attorneys’ fees and hire a number of expert witnesses who pored over the couple’s finances to come up with the settlement.
Attempts by Laura’s lawyers to get more money was met earlier this month with a refusal from New York attorney Howard Sharfstein, part of Greg’s legal team. In addition, according to Laura’s lawyers, Greg fired the couple’s housekeeper and changed the locks on their $21 million Jupiter Island estate.

Changing locks and cutting off credit cards? Well, at least Norman still has a ways to go in the divorce department before he catches Nick Faldo.

Biased referees and umpires

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Tim%20Donaghy.jpgSo, former NBA referee Tim Donaghy finally pleaded guilty to two felonies during a hearing at the United States District Court in Brooklyn yesterday in connection with the NBA gambling scandal that appears to have mostly blown over. As noted earlier here, that NBA insiders engage in gambling is about as surprising as gambling taking place in Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca.
At the same time, Skip Sauer passes along this post about research that indicates that baseball umpires are not as pristine as the driven snow, either:

Calling strikes & discrimination in baseball
Here is the main finding from a working paper by Parsons, Sulaeman, Yates and Hamermesh:
What are the main results of the study?
There are three. First, umpires are more likely to call strikes for pitchers who share their race/ethnicity. The second result is an extension of the first: Umpires are more likely to express a preference for their own race/ethnicity only when their behavior is less closely scrutinized: 1) in parks where QuesTec (a computerized system set up to monitor and review an umpireís ball and strike calls) is not installed, 2) in poorly attended games, and 3) on pitches where the umpireís call cannot determine the outcome of the at-bat. Finally, game outcomes are influenced by the race/ethnicity match between starting pitchers and home-plate umpires. Home teams are more (less) likely to win a game when their starting pitcher and home plate umpire have the same (a different) race/ethnicity.

Skip’s post has links to the study and various related information.