This LA Times piece profiles Texas Republican congressman Joe Barton the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Two of the revelations from the article — Rep. Barton is not a “Hollywood-type guy” and he enjoys playing poker.
Today’s Wall Street Journal ($) contains this devastating op-ed by Therese Raphael about the corrupt United Nations‘ “Oil for Food” program that Saddam Hussein and his henchmen used to line their pockets during the final years of Iraq’s fascist regime. The entire article is well worth reading, and concludes as follows:
There is no doubt that the U.N. relief effort in Iraq has been a global scandal. A monstrous dictator was able to turn the Oil-for-Food Program into a cash cow for himself and his inner circle, leaving Iraqis further deprived as he bought influence abroad and acquired the arms and munitions that coalition forces discovered when they invaded Iraq last spring.
A U.N. culture of unaccountability is certainly also to blame. And Security Council members share responsibility for lax oversight, no doubt one reason there is so little appetite for an investigation.
But Saddam’s ability to reap billions for himself, his cronies and those who proved useful to him abroad depended on individuals who were his counterparties. These deserve a full investigation if the U.N.’s credibility is to be restored and its role in Iraq and elsewhere trusted. Especially now, with the U.N. taking a more active role in Iraq, it’s time we knew more about how the Oil-For-Food scandal was allowed to happen.
The bankruptcy lawyers are already lining up for this rather odd enterprise.
In connection with entering the guilty plea of a United Transportation Union officer in a criminal case involving alleged kickbacks, an assistant U.S. Attorney informed federal District Judge Sim Lake yesterday that the U.S. Attorney’s office is currently investigating several unnamed Houston attorneys in connection with its probe of the union. The UTU website lists four designated counsel from the Houston area. It is unknown whether any of the four are targets of the investigation referred to above.
In light of this earlier disclosure, this announcement by El Paso Corporation yesterday is no surprise.
Melvin Watkins announced his resignation yesterday as Texas A&M University‘s men’s basketball coach. In six seasons at A&M, Mr. Watkins did not post a winning record, going 60-111. The Aggies lost 20 or more games four times in the last five seasons.
Mr. Watkins — as with recently reassigned University of Houston basketball coach, Ray McCallum — is one of the nicest men in the coaching profession. The lack of success that both Messrs. Watkins and McCallum experienced at their respective schools is further evidence that the age-old saying “nice guys finish last” applies to big-time college basketball. While Coach McCallum’s failure at UH was attributable to his inability to recruit effective front court players, Coach Watkins was never able to establish the recruiting pipelines in Texas generally and in the Houston metropolitan area particularly that are necessary for success at A&M. The basketball program at A&M has now been in the tank for almost two decades — it’s most recent NCAA Basketball Tournament appearance was in 1987.
As this prior postreported, Chevron-Texaco is balking at closing its purchase of the former Enron building in downtown Houston because Harris County Commissioners have not approved a tax abatement in favor of Chevron-Texaco. This Houston Chronicle article reports that Chevron-Texaco has put off the closing until after the Commissioners consider the tax abatement.
Copy and paste the following URL into your media player
http://texasdwi.org/multimedia/zero_0100.mpg
and then get ready to see the most gut wrenching commercial that you will ever see regarding the horrors of drunk driving. This site contains more information about the young woman who is the subject of the commercial.
Following this post here from last week, Daniel Drezner has an excellent blog discussion contending that last week’s attacks on Shiite Muslims reflect that Islamic fascists are becoming more desperate and less powerful.
The price of West Texas crude oil has climbed $10 in the last six months to its current level of $36.28, its highest level since the eve of the Iraq war. Meanwhile, the economy is expanding at a 4.1 percent annual rate, weathering the rise in oil and gas costs without the inflation and economic stagnation that occurred in much of the national economy after energy price spikes in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. This NY Times article addresses the reasons for this reversal in the normal countercyclical effect that high energy prices have on the rest of the national economy, and the point at which even higher energy prices would likely slow the economy’s expansion.