Monthly Archives: April 2010

The Pope and the NY Times

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vatican It all seems so clear, doesnít it?

As this Laurie Goodstein/Michael Luo/NY Times article presents, Pope Benedict XVI and a chronically corrupt Roman Catholic Church have been complicit in the protection of child-abusing priests.

But as this William McGurn/WSJ op-ed notes, the Timesí reporters undisclosed feeding of information from plaintiffís lawyers who have made a cottage industry out of suing the Catholic Church raises as many questions as the ones the Times raises about the churchís handling of the sex-abuse cases. As McGurn notes:

The man who is now pope reopened cases that had been closed; did more than anyone to process cases and hold abusers accountable; and became the first pope to meet with victims. Isn’t the more reasonable interpretation of all these events that Cardinal Ratzinger’s experience with cases like Murphy’s helped lead him to promote reforms that gave the church more effective tools for handling priestly abuse?

Yeah, but reporting that would not sell as many newspapers. And also not comply with the objectives of undisclosed agendas.

Morality plays are comforting because they make it easy to identify and demonize the villains. The truth is usually more nuanced and complicated, but ultimately more fulfilling to understand and less likely to generate witch hunts.

Update: Father Raymond J. De Souza provides more insight into the Kiesle case.

Another absurd cost of security theater

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Fed Marshals Service How much wasteful spending on security theater is enough?

Bruce Schneier links to U.S. Representative John Duncanís Congressional observation about the Federal Air Marshals Service:

Actually, there have been many more arrests of Federal air marshals than that story reported, quite a few for felony offenses. In fact, more air marshals have been arrested than the number of people arrested by air marshals.

We now have approximately 4,000 in the Federal Air Marshals Service, yet they have made an average of just 4.2 arrests a year since 2001. This comes out to an average of about one arrest a year per 1,000 employees.

Now, let me make that clear. Their thousands of employees are not making one arrest per year each. They are averaging slightly over four arrests each year by the entire agency.

In other words, we are spending approximately $200 million per arrest.

Let me repeat that: we are spending approximately $200 million per arrest.

One could quibble that spending per arrest is not an entirely fair measure of effectiveness. A good deterrent effect means fewer arrests, right?

Nevertheless, itís a pretty good indication of misdirected resources if a law enforcement agencyís officers are more likely to be arrested than to make arrests.

Good bye and good riddance

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Ben CampbellDo New York Times reporters even bother to research the subject of their articles at all?

Take this A.G Sulzberger/NY Times puff piece on the departure of current U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Benton J. Campbell.

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. 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 didnít take any.

Then, as if that wasnít enough, Campbell proceeded to lead the prosecution (unsuccessfully, thank goodness) that attempted to make refusing to throw in the towel a crime. Given that he decided to become a prosecutor while watching Rudolph W. Guiliani, who could be surprised by such appalling lack of judgment?

Sort of makes one wonder just how much unwarranted destruction of lives one has to be involved in before the Times notices?

How will Obamacare ration care?

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homer_beer During the latter stages of the debate over reform of the American health finance system, one of the key issues that seemed to fade amidst the rhetoric was the question of how the revamped health finance system will ration care (see also here). Inasmuch as it is still not clear to me how care will be rationed under Obamacare, this recent Happy Hospitalist post caught my eye:

I’m down in the ER the other day when I see a chief complaint fly by on the radar.  What is that chief complaint you ask? ìRefused by Detox.î

The patient was so drunk, even the community detox center refused them.  So how did this play out?  The patient was taken by ambulance from his home to a small town community ER for altered mental status.  There, he was  booked into the ER and seen by a small town community ER physician family practice resident or PA or NP.  Diagnosis you ask? ìAcute alcohol intoxication. Plan:  Discharge to community detox center.î

The patient was then transported to detox  by a cop where he was promptly refused by detox for being too drunk. Too drunk for detox.  How sad is that.  At this point another ambulance was called and the small town hospital refused to accept him back because he was "too drunk" for them to handle if he became comatose and critically ill.

So the ambulance drove him 75 miles to Happy’s hospital which has to accept him, where he was promptly booked into the emergency department in front of the 28 year old with heart burn, the 19 year old looking to get a pregnancy test and the 14 year old who’s mother brought her in because she just had her first period.  What happened with our drunk?  He was promptly placed in a room where stat lab confirmed what everyone else had suspected.  He was drunk.  The big city ER doctor billing $500 an hour proudly made his diagnosis and disposition plans known to the world: ìAcute alcohol intoxication. Plan: Discharge to community detox.î

By now, the patient’s alcohol level was down to 320 and he was awake, responsive and asking for a samich as the cops show up to take him away. Let’s conservatively add it up:

  • Two ambulance rides $1,000
  • Two ER visits $3,000
  • Two ER physician visits $500

Almost $5,000 to take care of a drunk in which doing nothing would have given you the same result.  And you wonder why Medicaid is going bankrupt.

The Hospitalist goes on to point out how expenses such as the foregoing is eventually going to lead to failure of many inner-city hospitalists. But an equally troubling issue is whether anything will change in regard to future opportunities for misallocation of expenses under an increasingly subsidized health care system?

Frankly, I doubt it.

The NFL’s big risk

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everett_600.jpgThis post from awhile back noted the high risks that NFL football players take relative to their compensation.

Well, it looks as if that risk may be coming home to roost:

Californiaís workersí compensation system provides a unique, and relatively unknown, haven for retired professional athletes among the 50 states, allowing hundreds of long-retired veterans each year to file claims for injuries sustained decades before. Players need not have played for California teams or be residents of the state; they had to participate in just one game in the state to be eligible to receive lifetime medical care for their injuries from the teams and their insurance carriers.

About 700 former N.F.L. players are pursuing cases in California, according to state records, with most of them in line to receive routine lump-sum settlements of about $100,000 to $200,000. This virtual assembly line has until now focused on orthopedic injuries, with torn shoulders and ravaged knees obvious casualties of the playersí former workplace.

Given the dozens and perhaps hundreds of players who could file similar claims, experts in the California system said N.F.L. teams and their insurers could be facing liability of $100 million or more. They identified a wide spectrum of possible effects: these costs could merely represent a financial nuisance for a league that recorded $8.5 billion in revenue last year, or, if insurance costs rise drastically because of such claims, the N.F.L. could be forced to alter its rules to reduce head trauma. Officials already are considering decreased contact in practice and forbidding linemen from using the three-point stance.

Perhaps the NFLís undervaluing of this risk is a product of a false sense of security that the NFL owners have nurtured from a collective bargaining process that has shielded the league from most anti-trust liabilities over the years. But the NFL owners better pay attention to this development. Plaintiffsí lawyers will have a field day against that group.

Batter up! Stros 2010 Season Preview

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Minute_Maid_Park With the opening of Major League Baseballís season, this is the seventh (!) HCT preview  (previous ones here) of the Strosí upcoming season. But with the continued development of the blogosphere over the past seven years, itís time to change the way in which HCT covers the Stros and MLB.

The reason for the change is simple. When this blog started in early 2004, coverage of the Stros was limited pretty much to the local mainstream mediaís coverage, which has been mostly bad. However, over the past 6+ years, the blogosphere has exploded and now a large number of bloggers and Twitterers cover the Stros on a daily basis better than either the mainstream media or this blog:

Astros County/http://twitter.com/Astroscounty

Crawfish Boxes/http://twitter.com/crawfishboxes

Zac Levineís Unofficial Scorer/http://twitter.com/thescorer

Alysonís Footnotes/https://twitter.com/alysonfooter

Tagís Lines

Kiss My Astros

AstrosDaily.com

A Misplaced Astros Fan (quite good, but not updated recently)

Also, the following sites come in handy while following the Stros and MLB:

Stats MLB site

Coolstandings.com site (continually updated playoff odds)

Baseball Reference.com

Stros Sortable Stats

Stros Active Roster

Stros 40-man Roster

With all this coverage, Iím no longer going to cover the Stros in the depth or regularity that I have in previous seasons. I will continue to post occasional observations about the Stros and baseball, particularly when the mainstream media passes along myths and misconceptions. But check out the resources above for really good and comprehensive coverage of the Stros.

With regard to the Stros, not much has changed since last yearís dismal 74-88 season. That club failed to make the playoffs for the fourth straight season since the Stros 2005 World Series appearance. This season’s club is arguably weaker than last season’s club, so it would appear that playoff contention remains a pipe dream.

As Iíve been saying for years now, the Stros have been a team in decline for a long time even though generally superior pitching during the 2002-2006 seasons masked that downturn. Owner Drayton McLane cleaned house toward the end of the disastrous 72-90 2007 season and the club is now firmly in the process of rebuilding its farm system, which had deteriorated into one of MLB’s worst over the latter stages of the Biggio-Bagwell era. 

Last season, the Stros were muddling around with a .500 record based on slightly above-average hitting and slightly below-average pitching as of All-Star break when the pitching staff fell apart during third quarter, saving an astounding 43 fewer runs during that 40-game stretch than a National League-average pitching staff would have saved over those games. The pitching continued to go south during the final quarter of the season while the hitting fell apart completely down the stretch, which left the Stros with a 74-88 record, a ñ77 RSAA and a ñ34 RCAA. 

Frankly, this performance level was easily predictable given what Baseball Prospectus has dubbed the "stars-and-scrubs" Stros roster. The Stros continue to play out a weak hand of a few above-average stars and below-average balance of the roster while attempting to deal with the long-overdue rebuilding program that has became necessary — but was generally ignored — during the final years of the Biggio-Bagwell era. GM Ed Wade and Scouting Director Bobby Heck have completed their third straight strong draft in terms of numbers, so the rebuilding program is in full swing. But it’s going to take another year or two before any appreciable amount of that investment begins to payoff at the MLB level.

This season, expect the Strosí pitching staff to improve somewhat (could it really get worse than last seasonís?), although itís not a good sign that Roy Oswalt (-1 RSAA/4.12 ERA/8-6 W-L) has already had to have a cortisone shot to treat a deteriorating disc condition that contributed to his worst MLB season last year. Moreover, itís quite probable that the hitting will be worse this season given that the Stros best hitter ñ 1B Lance Berkman ñ is coming off his least productive MLB season (31 RCAA/.399 OBA/.509 SLG/.907 OPS/25 HR/80 RBI in 136 games) since his 2000 rookie season and will start the season on the disabled list for a few games with a balky knee.

Thankfully, the rest of the National League Central is not overwhelming. The Cardinals and the Cubs appear to be the class of the division and my sense is that the Reds are the most likely club to make a jump up the standings this season. It appears that the Stros will be fighting it out to avoid the cellar with the Brewers and the Pirates. As a result, an over/under of 73 wins for the Stros seems about right.< /p>

Nevertheless, despite the Strosí woes, I continue to enjoy watching Major League Baseball. This will be the 25th straight season that Iíve had season tickets to the Stros games. Iíve seen some really good teams during that span and some really bad ones, too. But my curiosity about the game has never wavered. It wonít this season, either.

Play ball!

Underwater astonishments

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David Galloís remarkable footage during his 2008 TED lecture.

Could this persuade the Aggies to consider female cheerleaders?

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The yell leaders could have some fun with this.

Update: Turns out that A&M does have female cheerleaders, albeit “competitive cheer” only. The squad is called the Texas A&M Competition Squad (http://competitionsquad.tamu.edu/).