George Will gives Rick Perlstein, author of Nixonland (Scribner 2008), a history lesson.
Nixonland
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Monthly Archives: May 2008
Worth a watch
For those of you interested in the vexing issues involved in application of the death penalty and child predator laws, the scene below from Boston Legal is worth ten minutes of your time (H/T David Feige). I don’t agree with everything that Alan Shore says in his argument to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the scene is certainly far-fetched, but it’s a thought-provoking performance nonetheless:
Suspending reality on financing the soccer stadium
Look, I realize that the reasoning in support of public financing for the proposed Houston Dynamo soccer stadium has not been particularly rational. But this Chronicle article takes the cake in terms of suspending reality. Chron reporters Bernando Fallas and Bill Murphy breathlessly suggest that financially-troubled Texas Southern University — which is currently seeking $40 million in emergency legislative funding simply to keep the lights on — is a serious player to make up at least a portion of the gap between the private and public financing on the deal:
Forget soccer-specific. The Dynamo would be thrilled to call their proposed stadium football-specific or even fútbol-specific.
Either way would be accurate — soccer is known as football almost everywhere else in the world — if the Dynamo can get Texas Southern University to join negotiations with the city of Houston toward the construction of a $105 million facility just east of downtown that would be home to the two-time defending MLS champions and TSU athletics, primarily the Tigers’ football team.
By the looks of things, TSU is prepared to do just that.
Two weeks after he first expressed interest in the project and a couple of meetings and phone conversations later, newly appointed TSU athletic director Charles McClelland said the school is willing to invest in the construction of the 22,000-capacity stadium in exchange for the rights to use it. [. . .]
Of course, the article is utterly devoid of details, such as how TSU is going to find any money to throw at this deal, much less make a multi-million dollar investment in it. Heck, the TSU athletic director and the Dynamo’s president haven’t even met yet, so it doesn’t even appear that Dynamo management takes TSU’s involvement seriously. Why don’t the Chronicle editors just come out and say that they really want the city to finance the downtown soccer stadium and spare us such vapid articles as this one? Gosh, it’s gotten so bad that even normally common sense bloggers are giving in to this silliness.
Meanwhile, J.R. Taylor over at PoliSci@UST runs circles around the Chronicle’s reporting on the soccer stadium financing with this well-reasoned post that actually addresses facts regarding public financing of stadiums. Yet another example of how the blogosphere is trumping the mainstream media in terms of providing coherent analysis of important issues.
My favorite tournament
It’s not one of the four majors (despite the PGA Tour’s constant drumbeat to make it the fifth), but The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach just south of Jacksonville, Florida is my favorite golf tournament of the year. This year’s edition starts today.
This is the 35th Players Championship, which bounced around for its first eight years before settling at Pete Dye’s legendary Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in 1982. Not only is the Stadium Course a great modern layout (Jay Flemma’s excellent review is here), the Tour has continually renovated and improved the course over the years so that it has matured into one of the best courses that the Tour plays each year. Adding to the fun is the fact that The Players usually has the best field of any tournament of the golf season and this year is no exception — every one of the top 25 in the World Golf Rankings is playing with the exception of the Tiger Woods, who is convalescing from recent knee surgery. Not surprisingly, from the standpoint of most players, winning The Players is at least as prestigious as winning the PGA Championship, though still not as important as winning the other three majors.
So, a great field competing over one of modern golf design’s most interesting courses almost assures good entertainment — that’s why this is my favorite tournament. Add in that the 17th hole island par-3 is arguably the most creative (and highly controversial) hole in the backstretch of any Tour event is a virtual guarantee for high drama come Sunday afternoon. TV times for Thursday and Friday are noon-6 p.m. (CDT) on the Golf Channel, and 1-6 p.m. (CDT) Saturday and Sunday on NBC.
Stros 2008 Season Review, Part One
Despite a weekend sweep of the division-rival Brewers (16-16) and another stirring comeback victory over the Nationals (14-19), the Stros’ record (17-16) reflects their performance through the first fifth of the 2008 season — an average National League ballclub.
Collectively, the Stros are generating one less run through 33 games than a National League-average club would have generated in the same number of games (RCAA — that’s 9th among the 16 National League clubs) and the Stros’ pitching staff has collectively given up nine more runs than a National League-average pitching staff would have given up (RSAA — that’s 10th in the National League). Thus, the 2008 Stros have essentially the same record and collective statistics as the disastrous 2007 club had at roughly the same stage of the season.
Nevertheless, there is a reasonable basis for thinking that the 2008 club will turn out somewhat better over the course of the season than the 2007 edition (73-89). SS Miguel Tejada (12 RCAA/.379 OBA/.565 SLG/.944 OPS) appears to be revived by his new surroundings and has been much better than predicted, both offensively and defensively. Although still below National League-average, the Stros’ pitching staff can look forward to ace Roy Oswalt (-7 RSAA/5.57 ERA) improving steadily over the balance of the season after an uncharacteristically bad start (after going 0-3 with a 9.00 ERA in his first three starts, Oswalt is 3-0 with a 3.46 ERA in his last four starts), that second-best starter Wandy Rodriguez (5 RSAA/2.31 ERA) will eventually return from a stint on the disabled list, and that the relief corps will continue its recent improvement after a horrid start that was primarily responsible for the club’s atrocious 6-14 record after the first 20 games of the season. Likewise, an increase in offensive productivity is likely as RF Hunter Pence (-5/.288/.432/.720) and LF Carlos Lee (5/.333/.541/.874) rebound from slow starts and regular 3B Ty Wigginton (-2/.275/.333/.608) returns after missing 22 games with a broken thumb. Finally, the Stros’ prospects this season are buoyed by 1B Lance Berkman’s (22/.428/.731/1.159) strong rebound from a so-so 2007 season (at least by his standards) as he returns to his customary status as one of the top sluggers in the National League. Berkman went nuts at the plate again on Tuesday night against the Nationals, going 5 for 5 for the first time in his career and stealing two more bases, making him 6 for 7 on steal attempts this season.
However, that’s not to suggest that there aren’t warning signs that could lead this club to swoon in the same manner as the 2007 club did (26 losses in 40 games) during the second quarter of last season. Contrary to the mainstream media’s suggestion that the Stros are a good hitting team, no Stros hitters are producing above National League-average except for Berkman, Tejeda and Lee, and Lee is not producing anywhere near the rate he needs to in order to make up for all the runs he gives away with his laggard defensive play. Meanwhile, young players Pence, CF Michael Bourn (-5/.275/.315/.590) and C J.R. Towles (-3/.318/.386/.703) are all showing signs of their lack of AAA seasoning. Bourn has yet to learn that his future as a Major Leaguer is in being a line drive/ground ball hitter, while Pence is having to deal for the first time with the reality that he will get few meaty fastballs from NL pitchers unless or until he learns to lay off breaking pitches thrown outside the strike zone. On the pitching side, the starting rotation is seemingly on the brink of disaster most of the time (Chris Sampson has a -11 RSAA/7.96 ERA so far this season!), which has led to Manager Cecil Cooper’s quick hook and the resulting overuse of the relievers. Although they have been better over the past 20 or so games, those relievers are at high risk of reverting to their early season mediocrity as the innings pile up.
Consequently, through a fifth of the 2008 season, there still is not much evidence that the Stros can contend for a NL playoff spot. So long as they can avoid injuries to key players, the club might be able to achieve a .500 record, which would be 7 games better than my pre-season over/under prediction of 75 wins. However, the club’s pitching is simply too inconsistent to generate a sustained period of generating more wins than losses, which is necessary at some point in any season to propel a club into playoff contention. Look for the Cubs (19-14; 31 RCAA/24 RSAA) to take control of the NL Central as the season wears on, although the Cardinals (22-12; 28 RCAA/13 RSAA) have been the surprise of the division so far. I just don’t think the Cards will keep it up.
By the way, the 2008 season has brought us another solid source of information on the Stros. Zachary Levine — who takes a refreshingly objective approach to baseball analysis — has quickly become the most insightful Houston Chronicle reporter on the Stros. Along with Lisa Gray’s insightful Stros blog and Alyson Footer’s articles at Astros.com, Levine’s reports on the Stros provide solid sources for keeping up with the Stros on daily basis.
After finishing up against the Nats this week, the Stros make a West Coast swing against the Dodgers (18-14) and the Giants (14-19) before returning to Texas to play the Rangers (13-20) in the first inter-league games of the season. Then, it’s back home later this month to play the Cubs and Phillies (19-14) before going back on the road to finish May against the Cardinals and Brewers.
The 2008 season statistics for the Stros are below (through 33 games), 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 40 man roster is here with links to each individual player’s statistics:
The subprime mortgage criminal lottery
Well, well, well. Look who is resurfacing in connection with the creation of the Justice Department’s latest criminal Task Force to investigate whether crimes were committed when the subprime-mortgage market collapsed (just what we need — another corporate crime lottery):
Federal prosecutors are stepping up their scrutiny of players in the subprime-mortgage crisis, with a focus on Wall Street firms and mortgage lenders.
Prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn have formed a task force of federal, state and local agencies that will involve as many as 15 law-enforcement agents and investigators.
The U.S. attorney for the office, Benton J. Campbell, who supervises about 150 prosecutors, said the group will look into potential crimes ranging from mortgage fraud by brokers to securities fraud, insider trading and accounting fraud.
You may remember Campbell. He was the lead prosecutor on the Enron-related criminal trial known in these parts as the first Enron Broadband trial, which ended in an embarrassing loss for Enron Task Force after the prosecution was caught threatening defense witnesses (see also here) and propounding false testimony from one of its key witnesses during the trial. Sort of what you would expect from a trial in which the Task Force advocated an unwarranted expansion of a criminal law intended to punish kickbacks and bribes against business executives who did no such thing.
Interestingly, in the Wall Street investigation, Campbell thinks there actually may be a non-criminal explanation about the meltdown in the sub-prime market:
Mr. Campbell said the "jury is still out" on just how much criminal activity the office might find, particularly on Wall Street, which saw a sudden decline in the value of securities backed by pools of mortgages last year. "There are market forces in play in that area, and that doesn’t necessarily mean there is fraud," said Mr. Campbell, 41 years old.
H’mm. How many damaged lives and careers would have been salvaged had Campbell and his fellow Enron Task Force prosecutors been so open-minded?
Chron: Sacrifice the local economy for the polar bears
Given the editorial slant of the Houston Chronicle over the past several years, it’s not particularly surprising that the editors ran this editorial calling for polar bears to be declared an endangered species under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Unfortunately, it’s also not surprising that the Chron editorial failed to mention that the oil and gas business — a key source of jobs and wealth for Houston and the nation — is likely to suffer considerable financial damage as a result of the polar bear listing push, which Hugh Hewitt notes "is not only an abuse of the ESA’s original intent but also unsupported by the facts concerning the ice and the polar bears."
"Because you’re not that guy. . ."
Beyond occasional gems such as John Adams or NBC’s 30 Rock, I don’t watch much television, so I’m pretty clueless on the latest TV ad campaigns. However, my wife and I laughed heartily last night when we saw this Helzberg Diamonds commercial below for the first time:
Much to my surprise, I discovered later that my amusement with the commercial apparently reflects my sexism to some folks. This post provides a bit more balanced perspective on the ad campaign.
The stench of injustice
Scott Henson reports on the 17th exoneration (see also here) of a citizen in Dallas who had previously been wrongly convicted. This time prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence from the defendant’s lawyers and police failed to investigate it. New Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins continues to investigate what appears to be have been a culture of abject injustice within the Dallas County D.A.’s office. I will not be surprised if there are more exonerations.
By the way, the rest of the country is noticing this outrage.
The Rockets Narrative
As the Houston Rockets face the beginning of their straight decade of failing to get out of the first round of the NBA playoffs, the familiar mainstream media narrative regarding the team’s probable playoff loss to Utah is all around us — Superstar Tracy McGrady folds during crunch time at the end of close games and is simply not the type of true superstar who can carry his team to greater success.
However, reality is much different. Rather than underachievers, this season’s Rockets overachieved, somehow winning 55 games during the regular season despite having only two players on the team who were in the top 15 of NBA players at their position in terms of wins-produced. And those two players — injured center Yao Ming and relatively little-used power forward Chuck Hayes — are only ranked 14th and 15th respectively at their position. Not only is McGrady no longer a superstar player, there are dozens of players in the NBA who produced more wins for their team this season than the just-above league average McGrady.
Given this quality of analysis in the local mainstream media, don’t expect the familiar narrative regarding the Rockets to change any time soon. But the truth is that this Rockets team — relative to their talent level — had one of the best seasons of any team in the NBA this season. It’s just that the club needs to find or develop a couple more above-league average players before it can get beyond the first round of the playoffs.