Off the Kuff

2002-07-28T19:41:00.000-05:00

PLEASE UPDATE YOUR BOOKMARKS AND BLOGROLLS This site is no longer being updated. All new stuff is at my new home on the web:

http://www.offthekuff.com/mt/

Don't let me slide down in the Blog Ecosystem! Update your links while you still can!

2002-07-20T20:52:00.000-05:00

Goodbye, yellow brick road With much gratitude to Larry for the following appropriate sendoff. Eat your heart out, George Clooney.

This is a blog of constant sorrow
I've seen errors all my day.
I bid farewell to old Blogspot
The place where this was born and served.
(The place where he was born and served )

For six long months I've had such trouble
No pleasures here on site I found
For in this 'sphere I'm bound to ramble
There is no help to help me now.

(chorus) He has no help to help him now

It's fare thee well my old sitename
I never expect to use you again
For I'm tired of archive errors
Perhaps I'll now not post with pain.

(chorus) Perhaps he'll now not post with pain.

You find me at offthekuff.com
For many years where I may write
Then you might want to host your own site
Instead of being Blogger's slave.

(chorus) Instead of being Blogger's slave.

Maybe your friends think I'm just a whiner
My site you'll never see no more.
But there is one promise I'll give you
I'll write for you on this blog's roll.

(chorus) He'll write for you on this blog's roll.

With apologies and no offense intended to the good folks at Blogger and Blogspot, without whom many of us, myself included, would never have gotten started.

Please update your blogrolls and bookmarks and point your browser to http://www.offthekuff.com/mt/ for my new home on the web. Thanks!

2002-07-20T10:18:00.000-05:00

Blog spam To the folks who sent me a note announcing their new blog:

First, I suppose I should thank you for cospamming me along with the likes of Josh Marshall, Glenn Reynolds, and Tom Tomorrow. I don't get mentioned in the same breath as them very often, and after being ignored by everyone's favourite wanker I was beginning to question whether I'd ever get noticed by a link slut. So thanks for giving me a little Stuart Smalley moment this morning.

Of course, when you think about it, the A List gets a ton of unsolicited mail, most of which gets ignored since they can barely keep up with the mail they want to read. You're just wasting your time spamming them. You'd be much better off aiming at B and C listers, who might actually have the time to read your mail and look at your blog.

If you do, though, you run the risk that one of those lower-tier fellas (like, say, me) might discover that he's been begged for a link by someone who hasn't already linked to him. Which might lead to him writing a sarcastic blog entry about clueless link sluts and their pathetic attempts to garner attention.

(Actually, on second look, you don't link to most of the people that received your spam. I haven't seen such chutzpah since a UN representative from an OPEC country complained about New York City's gas lines in 1979. Bravo!)

I've already written about some of the ways in which one can properly try to draw people to one's blog. Leaving good comments with your homepage URL, sending feedback to specific entries, writing responses to other people's stuff on your blog (two words, Sparky - "referral logs"), the list goes on but stops rather short of spamming. If I happen to come across your blog by these means in the future, I may pay you another visit. I may even respond to something you've written or (heaven forfend) give you that link you crave. I'm a forgiving chap. Until then, I'm applauding your blog with one hand and deleting the email you sent with the other. Have a nice day.

2002-07-19T10:09:00.000-05:00

Best British Blog competition Hey, Avedon! If a few of your friends here on this side of the pond help to ~~stuff the ballot box~~ generate support for your weblog in the Best British Blogs contest, will you buy us all a round with the prize money?

2002-07-19T09:39:00.000-05:00

Think Different! Apple has found the perfect spokesperson for their Switch campaign.

2002-07-19T09:36:00.000-05:00

Another contender Former City Councilman Joe Roach has thrown his hat into the ring for the 2003 Mayoral race.

"I am running for mayor," said Roach, 41. "I moved to Houston in 1963. My father helped start NASA here. Houston has given me a tremendous opportunity.

"The city has overlooked my obvious disability and enabled me to become a lawyer, (assistant) district attorney, councilman and to have a tremendous law practice right now," said Roach, who is a dwarf. "Now, it's time to help those who helped me."

Back in 1998, the newly-appointed Director of Affirmative Action referred to Joe Roach as a "Republican midget", which led to her being forced out of office. I must confess that I wouldn't have known that "dwarf" was the correct term and "midget" was considered an insult, but then again I wasn't being paid 76K per year to be in charge of, you know, promoting equal opportunity for all. Though I never much cared for Roach as a council member, I thought he handled himself with dignity after Lenoria Walker's idiotic remarks - he spoke about why this was painful without sounding whiny. I can't say that he'd be one of my top choices for Mayor, but there are some runoff scenarios where he'd get my vote.

One would hope that Roach gets a better reaction to his announcement than Michael "The Boy Wonder" Berry has gotten to his. Here's the best thing any observer could say about him:

Republican political consultant Allen Blakemore accords the councilman a bit more respect. He believes Berry could draw Republican support away from Sanchez in a general election because "he's done as much on the issue of tax cuts in six months as Sanchez did in six years."

As the story notes, what Berry did was propose a one-cent rollback in property tax. It failed.

I will say this: As long as Orlando Sanchez isn't the beneficiary, I'm now officially hoping that Berry's candidacy helps sink Sylvester Turner, who helped to impose Berry on us by supporting him over Claudia Williamson. In return for Turner's support, Berry apparently promised to help Turner run for Mayor in 2003. Oops.

2002-07-19T09:35:00.000-05:00

If you're looking for alternatives to baseball this weekend, the Chron has a couple for you: The second International Double Wicket Cricket Tournament is going on at the Astrodome, and the 25th World Series of Dog Shows is right next door at Reliant Park. This has been a public service announcement.

2002-07-19T08:04:00.000-05:00

Another successful Houston blogmeet This time the political bloggers outnumbered the personal bloggers. We had a smallish crowd at Cahill's pub last night, but we hung out, drank a fair amount of beer, and yakked for nearly three hours. Though the H-Town Blogs group has grown quite a bit lately, we only had two newbies last night, Dave and Alex. We did have the first official meeting of the Heights Area Axis of Left-Leaning Bloggers, as Ginger, Michael, Ted, Rob and I were all present. (I'm pleased to report that our plans for world domination are on schedule, by the way.)

Rounding out the group were Mike, freshly back from his stint in London, Erica, our fearless leader Elaine, and Larry, who brought four loaves of fresh baked bread to give out. I left a bit before things broke up, so I don't know who the lucky recipients were. We did eat one of the garlic-and-parmesan loaves there, and it was excellent.

Once again, a good time was had by all. The H-Town group has done about one happy hour per month, so we really didn't need an "International Blog Meetup" promotion except as an excuse to pick a day. Anyone else do a get-together?

2002-07-18T14:10:00.000-05:00

Tough times continue in Central Texas Man, it just sucks to be dependent on the tourist industry sometimes:

The Guadalupe River could be closed to tubing and other recreation below the Canyon Dam for the rest of the year, compounding the economic hardships wrought by the Central Texas floods.

A ban on recreation on the Comal River also will remain in effect for at least another week, officials said Wednesday.

"None of this is good news," said New Braunfels Chamber of Commerce President Michael Meek.

Flooding ruined river-related business on the Fourth of July, one of the summer's three crucial holiday weekends. Meek called the floods a "worst-case scenario" that hasn't finished unfolding.

Comal County and Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority officials extended the bans on water recreation that had been in place since torrential rains and flooding struck the region beginning July 1.

The ban covers the waterways in Comal and Guadalupe counties and also applies to lakes in the region.

[...]

"I would think it would be close to the end of the year," said Comal County Judge Danny Scheel when asked how soon full use of the Guadalupe River might be restored.

People who live in the area will soon be allowed to use the river to access their flooded homes, Scheel said.

Scheel said that without doubt, the loss of almost an entire summer season will compound the economic misery of riverside concessions and other businesses that were flooded or rely on tourism.

"This has a trickle-down effect through the entire community as well as city and county government. On the Fourth of July weekend, we probably lost $125,000 in sales tax revenue," he said.

The disaster's full impact hasn't been felt or measured, Scheel said.

"Right now, we're still working on debris removal. We're trying to get people placed in housing of some sort, either rentals or mobiles," the judge said.

New Braunfels has about 35,000 people (Comal County has about 82,000), so that's a pretty big chunk of change for them.

The good news, as the story says, is that the Schlitterbahn is still open, and there's more to New Braunfels than just river activities. I've already heard one of the radio spots they're doing which extols its other virtues for visitors. But it's still gotta suck to have that many eggs in one basket.

2002-07-18T14:07:00.000-05:00

Get the cheese, the wine's on its way From the bidness section of today's Chron:

A judge's ruling brings University of Houston political scientist Richard Murray a couple of steps closer to sipping what he calls "nature's great gift to the world" without having to retreat to his home in California's wine country.

Laying aside recent rulings to the contrary, U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon on Wednesday decided that Texas' ban on the direct import of out-of-state wine to individual consumers is unconstitutional.

That sound you hear is Tiffany doing the dance of joy in the background.

2002-07-18T12:42:00.000-05:00

It's alive! The countdown continues apace...

2002-07-18T10:01:00.001-05:00

Priscilla Owen, judicial activist President Bush is lobbying for Priscilla Owen, a Texas Supreme Court judge and nominee for the federal bench, to get a hearing from the Senate Judiciary Committee. You can argue about whether the Committee is being needlessly obstructionist or just playing by the rules that were in play when Bill Clinton was President, but as Chron columnist Cragg Hines says, there are plenty of good reasons why Judge Owens should stay in Austin.

Here's the best reason of all:

If President Bush really wants "strict constructionists" on the federal bench, why on earth did he nominate Priscilla R. Owen to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals? She's got to be a finalist for Judicial Activist of the Year.

[...]

It doesn't take a raving pinko to catch on to Owen's act. Actually, it was pointed out very astutely by Alberto R. Gonzales, now Bush's White House counsel, when he was on the state's top civil court with her.

In dissents and concurrences in abortion cases two years ago, Owen said everything except that the U.S. Supreme Court majority in Roe v. Wade should be shot at dawn. She sought to contort the state court's already conservative interpretation of the parental notification provision to make it even more, well, conservative.

Gonzales, hardly an ACLU flamer, took a moment in his concurring opinion in one abortion case to point out that what the dissenters (who included Owen) were trying to accomplish were "policy decisions for the Legislature." What the dissenters had in mind, Gonzales said, "would be an unconscionable act of judicial activism."

Should Judge Owens ever get a hearing in the Judiciary Committee, I sincerely hope that someone asks her about this.

2002-07-18T10:01:00.000-05:00

Great article on the issues at stake in the baseball labor dispute by Allen Barra of Salon.

2002-07-18T07:08:00.000-05:00

McLane fallout Not too surprisingly, the Astros players don't give much credence to owner Drayton McLane's fiscal sob story from yesterday:

"You can throw the names of all these fancy accounting firms around all you want," said Gregg Zaun, the backup catcher who serves as the Astros' player rep. "When the big giants like Arthur Andersen go down and they're proven to be dirty, what are you going to think about the rest of these people and their creative bookkeeping?

"We've seen all the ways that they can hide money and make it look like they're losing so that the big momma corporation or the big pappa corporation gets a tax write-off at the end of the year."

[...]

"They're telling us one thing, and Forbes Magazine is telling us another," said Zaun, referring to a Forbes article the refuted MLB's claims earlier this year. "Until Major League Baseball is willing to open up the books to an independent auditor, it doesn't make any sense. They've lied to us so many times. But if I was going to believe any owner, Drayton would be it."

What is surprising is that Chron sports columnist John Lopez doesn't really believe him either. Oh, Lopez gives him the benefit of the doubt about operating losses. Typically, neither he nor beat writer Jose de Jesus Ortiz can be bothered to actually look up the Forbes story (registration required) that Gregg Zaun mentioned, which claimed a $4.1 million profit for the 'Stros last year. But at least Lopez couldn't bring himself to give McLane the kind of tongue bath that local writers usually lavish on owners in these matters.

If Drayton McLane actually does sell the team, he's likely to get anywhere from a 100 to 200% return on his investment in less than ten years. Don't waste any sympathy on him, OK?

2002-07-17T20:34:00.000-05:00

Same old song and dance Astros owner Drayton McLane makes his annual statement of poverty to the ever-credulous Chron. He claims he's lost $105 million since he bought the team in 1993, and that he projects a cash loss of $5 million this year.

In a word: bull. Like I said, Drayton has made these claims every stinking year. The people of Houston, myself included, voted to pay for a new stadium with all the bells and whistles so that McLane could make ends meet. If he can't make a buck with ~~Enron~~ ~~Astros~~ Minute Maid Field, then I have to wonder how he ever made his fortune in the first place.

McLane's comments are the latest salvo fired by management in recent days. Last week, commissioner Bud Selig said two teams have such severe financial problems that they were in danger of not finishing the season. One team, he said, might not even make its next payroll.

That team, the Detroit Tigers, did pay its players Monday, but Selig insisted the problems he described were real.

Since allowing owners to speak publicly on labor matters, they've come forward to detail their losses and the need for significant changes in the labor agreement.

That's all this is, a salvo in the labor wars. The owners know that a strike is exceedingly unpopular, and they want to force the players' hand. The fact that not a single thing that Beelzebud and his cronies has said about their finances ("two teams can't make payroll! okay, maybe not") has been true doesn't stop them from acting as if they have credibility.

Kevin also takes his shots at McLane.

Meanwhile, the new Cleveland owner is blaming George Steinbrenner for his problems. Look, I'll stipulate that the Yankees have more money than God, and that most other teams can't compete with the Yankees' checkbook. So don't. Don't give big contracts to "proven veterans". Develop young talent and keep them for as long as they're affordable. However unfair the system may be, does it make sense to compete where you can't fight? Again, I'm struck with how often the complaints of the owners boil down to statements about their own lack of business acumen.

I guess the reason why I don't understand people who get angry with the players for their salaries and willingness to strike is that the alternate choice is to side with a bunch of even richer guys who are fundamentally dishonest. The owners have never told the truth about their finances, their every move is calculated at shifting their costs to players and fans, they threaten to relocate if they public doesn't buy them new stadia - this is who I'm supposed to root for?

I know what it means to be a fan of major league baseball. I put up with the crap because I love the game. The game is bigger than any owner or player or labor dispute. I go to Rice games when I can, I sometimes travel with my dad and uncles to see minor league games, and someday I'll coach Little League for my kids, because it reminds me that the game is more than just what you see on ESPN. It's possible that arrogance and stupidity may someday kill Major League Baseball as we know it, but the game and the love it engenders will live forever.

2002-07-17T14:42:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Matthew Yglesias for his new domain and new blog look. Update those blog rolls, folks.

I'll take this opportunity to announce that I'm not far behind. I've settled on a hosting company (Dreamhost), and as of today I'm the registered owner of offthekuff.com. As soon as I can, I'll be moving everything there. Stay tuned!

2002-07-17T10:24:00.000-05:00

Same stuff, different state Tony Adragna outlines what the candidates for Maryland Governor plan on doing about that state's looming deficit. Here's Kathleen Kennedy Townsend's position:

Top-to-bottom management and budget review.
I will direct a review of the structure and budget of every state agency to identify cost-saving measures and organizational changes to improve performance and save money. I will draw on the expertise of leaders from the private, public, and non-profit sectors during this review. Economic Growth, Fiscal Responsibility

Tough choices.
Based on this top-to-bottom budget review, we will make tough choices and eliminate any wasteful and duplicative spending. Last year, we took steps to freeze hiring and reduce spending across state agencies, and eliminated 3,500 vacant positions from the budget this spring. Until our economy is fully recovered, we will examine all budget options carefully and continue to make tough decisions where necessary.

There's more than that, but it's basically "no new spending" and a statement against casinos.

Her opponent, Bob Ehrlich, is even more vague:

Excessive government spending has led to a $1.5 billion deficit. Maryland's budget must be balanced in an honest and efficient manner, without sacrificing programs for the poor and others in need. Excessive spending on non- essential initiatives must be curtailed and our budget priorities redefined.

In other words, both candidates are in favor of a balanced budget and fiscal responsibility, but neither one wants to say exactly how they plan on acheiving those goals, presumably because it would involve a dirty word ("taxes") or could mean cutting funding for a constituency that might otherwise support them. Put a couple of ten-gallon hats on them and you might think they were running for governor of Texas.

2002-07-17T10:23:00.000-05:00

The right to privacy Kyle Still has an excellent post on why exactly there is a constitutional right to privacy, even if the document itself never says the word "privacy". Kyle's been bugged by the permalink problem, so scroll down to the July 15 post.

2002-07-17T10:22:00.001-05:00

As long as I'm blogging about blog etiquette, may I recommend TTLB's post on drawing attention to one's blog. As Maarten Schenk says in the comments, I've sent some emails to individual bloggers when I've responded to something they've written, and I've added my share of comments on other folks' sites, both of which are well within the bounds of what I consider to be good behavior. Spamming, on the other hand, is right out. Anyone who does it - and that apparently includes everyone's favorite (oops, sorry, I meant "favourite") wanker - is someone who deserves to become a pariah.

2002-07-17T10:22:00.000-05:00

It's my party There's a kerfuffle over at Brad DeLong's weblog concerning some rules he's decided to enforce in his comments. Basically, Brad has said that he expects commenters to be polite, and if they're not he'd do something about them.

For some odd reason, this has inspired quite a few people to say nasty things about Brad in the comments to this post. They seem to be upset that the rules he's laid down for commenters don't apply equally to himself.

At the risk of being Mister States The Obvious, let me state the obvious: It's Brad's weblog. It's his forum to say what he wants. He's not required to give equal time to anyone else. He could turn off comments if he wants to. I note that all but two of the people who responded to him have their own blogs, so it's not like disabling comments would silence them.

I really don't see what's so controversial about this. If any of Brad's readers think that his policy makes him a wimp, or a hypocrite, or whatever, they're free to drop him from their daily blog reading and from their blogrolls. They're also free to handle feedback on their own blogs in whatever manner they see fit.

I've not had any problems with cantakerous commenters, but like Ginger, if I did I'd have no qualms about tossing them out. I'm doing this strictly for my enjoyment, after all.

In short, I am the Master Of My Blog. Soon I will be (as they say) Master Of My Domain. While I'm really glad everyone is here, and it's always a kick to hear from new people, my blog is not Usenet, it's not a town square, and it's not a bulletin board. It's my little home on the Internet. At the risk of making my wife spew Diet Dr Pepper onto her screen, I intend to keep it somewhat clean.

2002-07-16T21:43:00.000-05:00

Words and actions I see that the IRA has issued an apology for the deaths of "noncombatants" in the last 30 years of violence in Northern Ireland. You can read the text of the apology here.

Not everyone is happy with this, of course. An apology is generally more symbolic than anything else, though those symbols often mean a lot to their recipients. And as recent news stories have shown, not everyone has necessarily gotten the message.

But let's face it: If the PLO or Hamas ever issued such a statement, there would be a whole lot more hope for peace in the Middle East. For that reason, I applaud the IRA. A step in the right direction is always a good thing.

2002-07-16T12:25:00.000-05:00

Thanks to everyone for the web hosting feedback. I've commenced research, and hope to take action soon. Count your days, Blogspot. I've got your permalink problems right here...

2002-07-16T12:16:00.000-05:00

Meanwhile, Ron Kirk is holding his own in the money department against John Cornyn. He's also starting to get noticed by the national press. Took them long enough.

2002-07-16T12:14:00.000-05:00

Would you have preferred "crackpot"? The soon-to-be-eponymously-domained Matthew Yglesias points to this week's PunditWatch, which contains the following bits:

I want to reassure our audience, they could be forgiven for not being sure who Larry Klayman is, because when he was filing an avalanche against the Clinton administration, he was largely ignored. Now that he's filing lawsuits against Dick Cheney, he's an avenging Clarence Darrow leading off all the network shows. –Kate O’Bierne, CG

Well, Salon readers have known about him since at least 1998, thanks to articles like this one by Josh Marshall. Note the accompanying clip from a Newsweek article, too. I've sure as heck known about him for a long time now. Maybe Kate O'Bierne needs to expand her reading list.

Fox’s Tony Snow showed three contrasting clips of network reporting on Klayman. He was always “conservative” when filing suits against Clinton; he was a “watchdog” filing against Cheney.

Let me get this straight: Tony Snow was able to find clips of network reporting on Larry Klayman from when he was Clinton Lawsuit Central? Does Kate O'Bierne know about this?

If you look closely at the aforementioned Salon article, you'll note that Larry Klayman is quoted as describing himself as the "conservative Ralph Nader". However, JW does call itself a "non-partisan, non-profit foundation" which serves as "an ethical and legal 'watchdog' over our government, legal, and judicial systems to promote a return to ethics and morality in our nation's public life", so perhaps there is something to this.

It is true, as Jason Zengerle noted last year, that Klayman has been an equal opportunity litigant lately. Still, it's hard for someone like me to recall that avalanche against the Clinton administration, which was funded in part by grants from uber-Clinton-hater Richard Mellon Scaife and which included tinfoil-hat allegations about Vince Foster and Ron Brown as well as an attempt to subpoena Chelsea Clinton and not think that maybe Judicial Watch has been fueled by a bit more than an interest in good governance. Perhaps if the Snows and O'Biernes of the world had been equally dismissive of Larry Klayman when he was serving their agenda as they are now when he's not, I'd have more sympathy for them.

2002-07-16T12:08:00.000-05:00

One way to get the economy going Tony Sanchez has outspent Governor Goodhair by a 5-1 margin so far in the gubernatorial race. Sanchez has shelled out over $31 million, compared to $6 million for Perry, of whch nearly $28 million is his own money.

Both candidates are also getting some big-money donations. This one caught my eye:

The second-most generous donor [to Governor Perry] was Sam Wyly at $90,000. Wyly founded a Dallas investment fund that manages funds for the University of Texas. He also is a major owner of Green Mountain Energy Co., which competes in the deregulated electricity market.

Sam Wyly and his brother Charles were behind that notorious "Republicans for Clean Air" ad that ran in New York before the 2000 Presidential primary. John McCain, who was attacked as a polluter by the ad, filed a federal complaint later on.

Green Mountain Energy positions itself as a provider of electricity from renewable and nonpolluting sources such as wind. Some people challenge its credentials as a truly "green" provider, some others go farther than that. I wonder what the slacker types who have a Green Mountain signup booth at our local hippie-friendly eatery think about this.

2002-07-16T08:59:00.001-05:00

Grumpy Hour is still permissible This is going to be grist for someone's mill, I just know it:

BRUSSELS killjoys want to wipe the smiles off drinkers’ faces by BANNING pub happy hours.

Euro MPs will vote next month on outlawing the practice of cutting booze prices for an hour or two to attract punters.

Scandinavian socialists in the European Parliament claim big pub firms lose money on happy hours simply to crush rival bars that can’t afford discounts.

They also say happy hours encourage irresponsible drinking.

Via my still-blogless buddy Drew.

2002-07-16T08:59:00.000-05:00

The air up there Get the Straight Dope on why baseballs travel farther at Coors Field than they do elsewhere.

2002-07-16T08:58:00.000-05:00

Last word on competitive balance Jeff Cooper responds to my most recent post on this topic. Go check it out.

One clarification: In his original comparison of baseball versus football playoffs, Jeff had only included the top NFL wild cards. I missed that distinction, which is why I made a point of there being more playoff teams in the NFL in my response. Sorry about that.

2002-07-15T21:04:00.000-05:00

Back to basics Buffy the Vampire Slayer got off track in season 6. So says Leslie Moonves, channelling Joss Whedon. Expect more of the show's humor from early seasons next year.

By the way, did anyone else catch Robin Williams' live HBO show last night? It was good to see him back doing what he does best. And the Sopranos' season debut is September 15. About time!

2002-07-15T20:57:00.000-05:00

Hot dogs and proven veterans Kevin links to this report that shows that the Astros' concession prices are among the highest in baseball. That's a legitimate gripe, but I think Kevin goes off base here:

Granted, nobody has to pay [high concession prices], and I don't. But it shows some real nerve for Drayton to ask so much from fans when he won't even shell out the cash to keep, say, a Castilla or Alou or Astacio, or consider trading for Hampton (who is on the trading block, but deemed too expensive).

Kevin is making the assumption that the Astros would be better off if their management had shelled out the bucks to retain veteran free agents Vinny Castilla, Moises Alou, and Pedro Astacio. I would argue that it made good baseball sense as well as good financial sense to let them all go.

First, there's Moises Alou. There's no question that he was a very productive player in his time as an Astro. Unfortunately, he entered the 2002 season as a 35-year-old left fielder with a history of injury problems. He's had a huge dropoff in productivity, with an anemic .244 batting average, a miniscule .380 slugging average, and only eight homeruns. The Cubs are on the hook for Alou for three years and $27 million.

Vinny Castilla has always been an overrated offensive performer thanks to the time he spent in Coors Field, the greatest hitting environment that baseball has seen in over fifty years. He's another 35-year-old, though free of the nagging health problems that have plagued Alou. Like Alou, he's having a poor season at the plate, with a crappy .274 on-base percentage, a .383 slugging average and nine homeruns. The Braves signed him for two years and $8 million.

Geoff Blum is keeping third base warm for the 'Stros until Morgan Ensberg is ready. He has better numbers that Castillo in batting average, OBP, and slugging, he's six years younger, and he can play the outfield in a pinch. I can't find 2002 contract info for him, but he was a one-year signee by the Expos in 2001, so he's likely got a one-year deal this year as well. As this is only his fourth major league season, he's also likely to be a low-cost player.

Daryle Ward is eight years younger than Alou, and is also outperforming him in average, OBP, and slugging. Ward has actually not done as well as he was expected to, but unlike the 35-year-old Alou, there's still room for Ward to improve. And like Geoff Blum, he's cheap.

So, by letting Alou and Castillo go, the Astros have gotten better production for less money. However popular these guys may have been, I find it hard to argue with that.

Unlike the hitters, Pedro Astacio has had a fine season. He's 9-3 with a 3.14 ERA, tenth best in the league. He also would have cost Houston $9 million to keep him in 2002. The Astros had picked him up last year when rookie phenom Carlos Hernandez went down. This year, with a projected rotation that included Wade Miller, Shane Reynolds, Roy Oswalt and Hernandez, the 'Stros had to decide if they'd be better off with Astacio, a 33-year-old who had also had injury issues, or someone from the colection of Dave Mlicki, Tim Redding, or one of their other kids. The difference is that if AStacio had bombed out, he'd be an untradeable multimillion dollar albatross. If a kid like Redding bombs out, or Kirk Saarloos isn't ready, Houston has the room to make a move. Gambling on Astacio would have worked, but it's important to remember that the gamble involved high stakes and came with a limited upside.

I can understand where Kevin's coming from with these complaints, but I think it's misguided to call a refusal to overpay for veterans when a decent and cheap alternative exists a lack of commitment on the part of team ownership. Remember Doug Drabek and Greg Swindell? Their signings at the beginning of the McLane era was proof of his desire to win. Too bad neither player actually contributed to any winning.

There's a larger point here, and it's that many major league teams make this kind of decision incorrectly as a matter of course. They do so in part because of backlash from fans, media, and their own players, who don't see that $27 million for Moises Alou today is $27 million that won't be available for Oswalt or Lance Berkman tomorrow. Bill James demonstrated 20 years ago that the vast majority of players hit their peaks around age 27, coincidentally right at the time that they tend to become high-priced free agents. If more owners started to learn the difference between replaceable talent and non-replaceable talent, they'd have no need to call for a salary cap.

I should note that the guys at the Baseball Prospectus beat this horse all the time. Their regular Transaction Analysis feature is a treasure trove. If you consider yourself a serious baseball fan and you don't read the BP, you're like a French Lit major who's never read any Sartre. Don't leave home without it.

2002-07-15T06:44:00.000-05:00

Spam news An interesting article on the proliferation of blocklists, which are used to filter out spam by ISPs. Blocklist admins have gotten more aggressive in their filtering, which has led to an increase in false positives:

Magdalena Donea, a system administrator at Web hosting company KIA Internet Solutions, found a set of her company's IP addresses blacklisted recently on SPEWS. She successfully lobbied to get the listing removed, but it was relisted a second time with additional IP addresses, a move that also affected a company client, the Libertarian Party.

"The SPEWS system is unapologetic about false positives and even regards them as a plus. They've taken the 'ends justify the means' argument way farther than I've seen anyone else take it," Donea said.

"Their philosophy appears to be that if innocent businesses and individuals on the periphery of spam-house blocklists are affected, then those innocents will have no other choice but to pressure their upstream provider to remove the spammers from their blocks, thereby solving the spam problem bit by a bit. Draconian, yes. Effective? Sure."

The more spam I see in the course of my job, the more sympathetic I am to SPEWS' position. And when I do start getting mail through my own domain, I've already got a large list of domains from which I will reject all mail. I only wish I could do that now in Yahoo mail, instead of their wimpy system of blocking by address only.

2002-07-14T19:38:00.000-05:00

Wanted: Web host OK, this time I mean it. I've had it with Blogger archive problems and Blogspot unreliability. I'm ready to get my own domain and move this thing onto its own server so I can run Movable Type. I would very much appreciate it if anyone with positive or negative recommendations for web hosting services would leave word in the comments or drop me a note.

I don't need anything too fancy. I'm just a guy who gets 250 hits on a good day, so something low end is probably sufficient for my needs. Reliable and reasonably priced is what I'm looking for. Thanks very much for any feedback you can offer.

2002-07-14T19:34:00.000-05:00

The Kerrville Folk Festival is 30 years old and still going strong. It's amazing that they can draw so many people out to where the Hill Country meets West Texas in the middle of the summer for three weeks of music and camping. I really need to do this one of these years before I die.

2002-07-14T19:30:00.000-05:00

Houston does well in bid for Olympics, at least according to this Chron article. Sounds like the number of facilities we already have in place helped to impress the USOC.

Best news in the article:

"We talked at length about the prospects of adding some more high capacity, whether light rail or otherwise, particularly going to the two airports and other key centers that need to move people," [USOC task force chair Charles] Moore said. "It's not done, but it looks promising."

Rail lines to the airports! Woo hoo!

2002-07-14T11:01:00.000-05:00

Would you believe... A new poll shows that a majority of Texans favor a publicly funded national health-care plan. Fifty-two percent favored such a plan, while 43 percent opposed it. Nationally, only 40% like this idea.

One person who ought to be worried about this is Governor Goodhair. Only 57% of Hispanics in Texas have health insurance, yet he vetoed a bill to expand Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program. As Clay Robison notes, Tony Sanchez's latest TV ad attacks him for this veto, and links high insurance rates in the state to Perry's close relationship with the insurance lobby. I've seen this ad, and it's pretty harsh. It's just gonna get uglier from there.

2002-07-14T10:43:00.000-05:00

This is the life An entrepreneur has made a splash on Lake Travis by opening a floating barbecue restaurant that delivers:

Pink-bikini-clad Nicole Taylor is on a delivery mission for Tug's Bar B Que. Before she makes it back to the mothership, she'll drop off five sacks of brisket sandwiches, jot down orders from a dozen customers floating in life jackets and politely deflect the catcalls of several admirers.

The bright yellow restaurant, a 1969 Stardust Cruiser houseboat equipped with a large warming oven and remodeled to look like a tugboat, first pulled into the cove on Memorial Day weekend. A week later, it added the delivery boat to ferry barbecue and watermelon directly to boaters.

As you might imagine, the sun-baked, beer-fueled clientele tends to differ from that of, say, a quiet little French restaurant in downtown Austin.

"Yesterday we served a naked woman," said Nicole's father Norm Taylor, who runs the business. "It's a hoot."

God bless Texas.

2002-07-14T10:38:00.000-05:00

What Clear Channel has wrought on Houston radio A nice overview in today's Chron about how corporate radio has mostly eliminated local on-air talent.

New station owners with a bottom-line philosophy have canceled public-affairs programming, dismantled news departments and replaced local DJs with broadcasts of prefabricated material to cut costs.

Case in point: When KRBE's Sam Malone and Maria Todd first went on the air in 1993, most radio stations in Houston had a flashy, larger-than-life morning show. Now they're among the dwindling number of megawatt morning personalities.

Malone and Todd consider themselves lucky to work for a relatively small company -- Susquehanna Radio Corp. -- that runs its 29 stations the old-fashioned way, with on-air personalities around the clock and a full-time production, marketing and promotion staff that concentrates on only one station and touts its program at every opportunity.

"The tables have turned in 10 years," Malone said. "(Back then) people were saying, 'Don't go to KRBE in Houston, because they're a mom-and-pop operation.' Now everybody wants to work for a mom-and-pop operation."

"Instead of an evil empire," Todd added.

I used to listen to KLOL when the Stevens and Pruett morning show was worth listening to. S&P were typically raunchy Howard Stern clones, but hey, I was a male in the 25 to 34 age group, so of course they appealed to me. They pushed a lot of boundaries, and eventually station management (which is now the evil Clear Channel empire, though I don't know exactly when CC bought them) forced them to scale back on the racier stuff. They became more political instead, which I found unappealing since they still weren't exactly highbrow. Eventually, Clear Channel fired Stevens, replacing him with a late-night DJ named Greggo, whom I really disliked, and promoting sideman Eddie "The Boner" Sanchez. That lasted about a year, then the whole crew was fired and replaced by a no-talent morning crew called Walton and Johnson, whose only notable acheivement so far has been to annoy a local woman with a billboard that read "Hey, all you virgins - thanks for nothing."

Now, I listen to all-80s station KHPT in the morning. They play music instead of DJs. Sometimes I listen to KKRW's Dean and Rog show, which has been around for awhile and which is usually pretty funny. If KLOL started rerunning old Stevens and Pruett shows from about 10 years ago, I'd listen to that.

I'm moderately surprised that this article didn't touch on the Stevens and Pruett saga at all, since they were a highly rated morning show and their dismissals were sudden and unannounced. It does include this bit of unintentional comedy from a Clear Channel spokesdrone:

Clear Channel spokeswoman Pam Taylor argues that consolidation has led to more diversity in formats rather than less.

"If you own the No. 1 and No. 2 stations in the market, you're not going to compete against yourself. You're going to position yourself in some other niche," she said.

Yeah, it sure would suck to have actual competition among radio stations, wouldn't it? How much worse it was in the old days when radio stations competed for listeners instead of divvying up market niches. Thank God Clear Channel has saved us from that.

2002-07-13T12:51:00.000-05:00

Fly the locked-and-loaded skies I'm somewhat of an agnostic on the issue of allowing airline pilots to carry guns as a deterrent to hijacking. I don't oppose the idea, since it's rather hard to make the case that the events of 9/11 could have turned out any worse with armed pilots on board. Given the recent news stories about drunk pilots, all I'm asking is that there be some kind of oversight when it comes to determining who gets to carry guns on a plane. Is it too much to ask that the gun-toting pilots be required to take regular marksmanship and gun-safety tests?

What I really want to know is how much has been done with the proposals to reinforce cockpit doors? This June 19 Reuters story contains the following quote from Minnesota Rep. James Oberstar about the proposal to arm pilots:

The House Transportation Committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota, had called the original House proposal "horrible." He said he embraced the compromise on Wednesday because other security measures, such as reinforced cockpit doors and the screening of all baggage for explosives, were not completely in place.

How "not completely in place" are they?

One thing I did find while searching for information was this Aviation Safety newsletter from April, which pointed to this Transport Canada news release. Here's what our neighbors to the north are doing:

The Government of Canada has already made numerous enhancements to the air transportation security system since the attacks of September 11, 2001. For example, the Government of Canada:
required that cockpit doors on all Canadian airlines' passenger flights, domestic and international, be locked for the full duration of flights; and

committed more than $2.2 billion in the December 2001 budget to new aviation security initiatives, including:

the creation of the new Canadian Air Transport Security Authority, which is responsible for the provision of several key aviation security services including pre-board screening;

implementing a national program of armed RCMP officers on selected domestic and international flights;

funding of up to $128 million per year for pre-board screening; and

funding of more than $1 billion over the next five years for the purchase, deployment, maintenance and operation of new explosives detection systems.

2002-07-13T12:18:00.000-05:00

Coulter gets scammed Atrios, who just recorded his 50,000th hit, points to this hilarious interview of Ann Coulter by topnotch Coulter-mocker Scoobie Davis. Basically, Davis used a legit media contact to help set up a telephone interview with Coulter on the premise that he was a Rush-style local radio host. The result is a hoot.

Meanwhile, Alex Frantz opens to a random page of Coulter's potboiler and finds several things to dissect, including a patently wrong claim about the first Reagan-Mondale debate of 1984. You really have to wonder about people who consider Ann Coulter to be a reliable source of information.

2002-07-12T16:50:00.000-05:00

A lot of people have commented on this earlier post which speculated about a John Kerry-John McCain Democratic ticket for President in 2004. (Once again, trust not the permalinks. Search for "Rob Humenik" if it fails to take you to the right place.) People, this is the political equivalent of pretending to be the general manager of your favorite sports team. We may as well debate about the guys who call into radio sports-talk shows and say things like "What if the Royals traded Neifi Perez for Miguel Tejada? Do you think they could get in the wild card race then?" It's just sound and fury.

That said, there are a couple of things to address. One theme in the comments, a theme I've seen elsewhere as well, is that the Democrats must be really desperate to win in 2004 to consider letting a RINO like John McCain on the ticket. Well, yeah, of course they're desperate to win in 2004. They damn well better be desperate to win in 2004, just as the Republicans were desperate to win in 2000. When a party doesn't feel at least a little bit of desperation (the corporate weasel-speak that I'd use here is "a sense of urgency"), they nominate guys like Michael Dukakis. (When voters don't feel that sense of urgency, they cast their ballots for Ralph Nader.) You better believe I want the Dems to figure out who has the best chance to oust Team Bush in 2004.

Yeah, but McCain doesn't believe in all the things that Democrats believe in, I hear you cry. Sure, but so what? The only potential candidate who believes in everything I do is me, and I ain't running in 2004. I've long since accepted the fact that whoever I punch the chad for in an election is a compromise of some sorts. McCain likes vouchers and has a pro-life voting record? I'll weight that against what I perceive to be his positives, as well as the pros and cons of any alternatives, and I'll consider his odds of helping a ticket win versus someone else's, and make my choice. What's so hard about that? It's not like you Bush voters haven't had to make compromises, unless of course you supported steel tariffs, McCain-Feingold, the farm bill, and the Kennedy education bill. Are you going to change your vote in 2004?

And if McCain wants this, he'll have to make compromises, too. He can start by saying "Though I personally oppose abortion, I no longer think the state should prevent a woman from getting one." Again, it's not like he'll be the first or only politician to ever do such a thing for a prize like the Oval Office. Back in the 1960s there was a Houston congressman who was so progressive on issues of contraception that his nickname was "Rubbers". In a subsequent Presidential primary, he derided an opponent's plan to balance the budget while cutting taxes and increasing defense spending as "voodoo economics". Needless to say, that was Poppy Bush, and he changed his tune on both subjects pretty quickly when he was approached about costarring with Reagan in 1980.

Sure, the True Believers may never fully accept McCain as a Democrat, just as they never accepted Poppy Bush as a conservative Republican. Someone would have to convince them that the alternative of four more years of Dubya is worse. It wouldn't be easy, and in fact I'd bet that a Kerry-McCain ticket would draw spirited opposition in the primary. They'd have to make their case, which I think they'd be able to do, that not only will they ably represent the issues of their supporters, they're also the ticket with the best chance to ever be able to represent those issues.

In the comments to Rob's post, August J. Pollack suggests that the legal issues of divvying up federal campaign funds when there's a two-party ticket involved would bring the whole thing to a screeching halt. While I agree that this would be a legal nightmare, the answer is obvious - McCain would have to switch parties first. Like I said, if he wants it he'll do what it takes.

Finally, a commenter named Zizka thinks that McCain is pulling a fast one on us liberal suckers, and that once in power he'd revert to his previous conservative ways. That's an interesting thought, but I think it's way too deep a position for McCain to take. If he wanted to screw liberals, he could have sucked it up, made nice to Bush, and helped push Bush's agenda through Congress.

2002-07-12T13:09:00.000-05:00

Another view David Pinto, who was for many years the lead researcher for ESPN's Baseball Tonight, (and who, alas, has been struck by the Blogger permalink bug) has some words on the competitive balance issue. Check it out.

2002-07-12T12:29:00.000-05:00

More competitive balance and salary cap stuff Jeff Cooper has published his promised response to my most recent post about competitive balance in baseball. (Note: My permalink worked when I clicked it, but if it takes you somewhere weird, go back to the top of this page and search for "Fran Blinebury". If Jeff's doesn't work, search for "Charles Kuffner" at the top of his page.)

Jeff focuses on the period since 1995, when baseball signed its last Collective Bargaining Agreement, and came to the conclusion that baseball does indeed have less competitive balance than the NFL. He suggests that the revenue sharing in the NFL as well as its salary cap have helped it to enable more teams to truly compete for playoff spots than in baseball during the comparable timespan.

I don't deny that the rapid increase in average salary in MLB has made it very difficult for small market teams to compete, though it should be noted that when MLB talks about "small markets", they often include places like Houston and Philadelphia, while lumping Seattle and Cleveland as "large market". If you can wrap your mind around that, you're more limber than I am.

What I do dispute is the following:

The NFL model has led to greater competitive balance

The NFL model would be an appropriate one for baseball to adopt

A salary cap would help small market teams to compete better

Competitive balance is in itself a good thing

In order:

Joe Sheehan has put forth the best argument regarding the NFL's competitive balance: It's mostly perception based on a small number of games and a large number of playoff spots (12 for the NFL versus 6 for MLB). In many years, a 6-8 team still has a shot at the NFL playoffs, whereas a 60-80 MLB team is probably 20 games out. The NFL has an unbalanced schedule that rewards weaker teams, so it's not unusual for a 6-10 or 7-9 team to make no significant changes and win a wild card with a 9-7 or 10-6 record the next year.

If you allow 12 teams (6 from each league) to the MLB playoffs, you add Toronto, Minnesota, Anaheim, and Montreal to Jeff's chart. As the yearly standings show, many years any club over .500 would be in contention. Isn't that how it is in football?

In the same Baseball Prospectus article linked above, Sheehan also discusses how the NFL, with its national TV revenue, operates on a completely different financial model than MLB. For one thing, there's no such thing as a "small market" in the NFL since everyone gets 1/32nd of the TV money, and even if there were it has no effect on competitiveness, as teams have been willing to move from LA to St. Louis and Oakland as well as from Houston to Memphis.

Back in the golden days of the reserve clause, when salaries were entirely dependent on what the owners wanted to pay, there was essentially no competitive balance as I showed back in May. From 1921 to 1964, the Yankees won 29 pennants, while the Cardinals, Giants, and Dodgers combined to win 30. Of the other teams, only Detroit (6) and the Cubs (5) won more than three pennants over this time frame. It's true that there were only two playoff spots per year during this time, but there were also only 16 teams and no such thing as free agency. Having the ultimate salary cap in place was no help to the majority of teams.

In this article, Joe Sheehan discusses salary caps in much more detail. The Baseball Prospectus has been all over this issue for months now.

In baseball, we talk about "competitive balance" as a good thing. In football, the supposed model for competitive balance, we talk about "parity", usually in a negative fashion. In the 1995 to 2001 time period that Jeff discusses, there are usually one or two really good teams in the NFL and a whole lot of mediocre ones that will compete for the playoffs but have no real chance of getting to (much less winning) the Super Bowl. This is directly attributable to their hard salary cap. To quote Sheehan one more time:

To the extent that the salary cap contributes to competitive balance, I would say that it works negatively: it punishes success, forcing well-built, winning teams to shed talent on a near-constant basis. It also makes it virtually impossible to trade, increasing the impact of a single catastrophic event in a league where teams cannot make adjustments on the fly. A system that punishes success, rather than rewards it, seems an odd construct for any endeavor, and it's one I have difficulty supporting.

Even in the era of free agency, a well-built baseball team can be competitive for years because they are not forced to make personnel decisions based on an artificial construct. The Yankees can continue to employ players that they developed in their farm system like Mariano Rivera and Bernie Williams because they won't be prohibited from paying them market value when they acheive free agent eligibility. Not to get all Sam the Eagle on you here, but shouldn't hard work and success be rewarded in America?

It's true that teams make deals to dump salary, and it's true that teams let star players go because they can't pay them what they're worth. As the Mariners and A's have shown, this need not be a death sentence. Smart teams make moves to dump overpriced players for prospects, knowing full well that like the Mariners, Astros, Braves, Cardinals, and Indians of the 90s and the A's, Twins, and Reds of today, every team that has invested wisely in their product has been successful.

One final word: Bud Selig and the owners have spent the years since 1995 denigrating their product in order to get people to believe that a device whose only purpose is to limit their costs is good for the game. The first thing they did after the exhilarating and uplifting World Series of 2001 was to announce that they wanted to kill two franchises, one of which is seven games in first place and the other of which has just traded for two All Stars because they think they can win the NL wild card this year. If they had spent this time talking about all of the wonderful, exciting, unique, and historic things that have happened in baseball instead, would you still feel the same way about the state of the game and its finances?

2002-07-12T10:31:00.000-05:00

How is wimpy downstream American beer like making love in a canoe? My blog and Real Life buddy Mike Tremoulet is back in the States after an extended gig in London. He's got some pictures from his deportation party here. I just have one thing to say about this:

You're in England! Where they invented the pint! What are you doing drinking Budweiser?!?!

(BTW, if you really don't know the punchline to the joke, admit to it in the comments and I'll post it there.)

2002-07-11T21:58:00.000-05:00

Beelzebud speaks Larry wants to know what I think about this story that two MLB teams might not be able to meet payroll. Well, first and foremost is that I never believe a word that Beelzebud Selig says. Here's a man who, after Forbes challenged his fuzzy math, responded by calling the magazine a "tabloid". When he's too busy to lie, he sends one of his top assistants to do it for him. If Bud Selig tells you that the sky is blue and that water is wet, the odds are that you've been unknowingly transported into an alternate universe in which those things aren't true.

That said, one team that's had cash flow problems for awhile is the Arizona Diamondbacks. I suspect that David Stern would have words for Jerry Colangelo if his straits were that dire, so I wouldn't put too much credence into this. Larry has since posted a report that the Tigers may be such a team, but again, until I see actual proof, I don't believe a word that Selig says.

One of these days I need to write my How I Would Run Things If Baseball Got Wise and Named Me Commissioner Instead Of That Two-Faced Lying Rat Bastard They Have Now manifesto. I suppose I have to decide what my manifesto is first. Details, details...

Oh, and by the way: Larry Simon is a Norse God

(See here if you're confused.)

2002-07-11T17:19:00.000-05:00

And the Democratic ticket for 2004 is... Fellow member of the Houston Heights area Axis of Left-Leaning Bloggers Rob Humenik tantalizes us all with a hand-typed excerpt from the latest issue of Men's Journal:

The partnership [between Massachusettes Senator John Kerry and John McCain] is so tight, in fact, that insiders in both camps are speculating about the pair teaming for a 2004 presidential ticket, according to a source close to the buzz -- even without McCain switching parties, as Beltway rumors have previously hinted.

As Rob says, wow. Sign me up. If nothing else, this ticket would answer Craig Biggerstaff's point about how Dems won't be able to take advantage of Team Bush's business missteps until they "find a war footing at least as hawkish as the Republicans and someone credible to offer up as an alternative."

2002-07-11T17:18:00.001-05:00

Going to the dogs Liven up your next staff meeting by bringing your dog to the office. It's good for you, according to a British psychologist. Well, it depends on the dog:

[N]ot all canines are suitable for the dog-eat-dog world of business. Animals which have coat odour or flatulence would be inappropriate, as would those who are over-excitable or over-sexed.

I dunno, that sounds pretty typical of most staff meetings I've heard of. On a more common sense level, the good doctor has one more piece of advice:

"It’s not a good idea to go for small dogs who wear ribbons or which are yappy and excitable. Some people have strong prejudices about such animals."

No Fifis need apply. Link via Being Katie.

2002-07-11T17:18:00.000-05:00

He's baaaack Phil Donahue has come out of retirement to host a left-wing Larry Kingesque talk show. No word yet when the male strippers will make their first appearance. Link via Ann Salisbury.

2002-07-11T17:17:00.001-05:00

Continuing the case that Charles Murtaugh made about why the whole Harken business is likely to be bad for Team Bush, Spencer Ackerman says that there's a simpler way to frame the debate in a Democrat-favoring way:

Throughout his political career, Bush has cited his experience in corporate America as proof that he understands the world of business and is, by extension, a capable steward of the American economy. But if the "charitable" explanation for Bush's explanation is true--if Bush really had no idea about Harken's troubled finances--it casts the president's business experience in a far less flattering light, whatever the legal implications. Put simply, more important than whether Bush is guilty of insider trading, his Harken past shows him to be either lazy, or stupid, or both.

2002-07-11T17:17:00.000-05:00

Those who forget the past are doomed to write silly things Allen Barra gives the by-now obligatory outrage about the All Star Game fiasco, then veers off into something really silly.

He starts by giving the managers a pass on their concerns about overusing someone else's pitchers, a concern which Rob Neyer discussed in his All Star Game diary. Here's Barra:

Let's not blame this one on the managers. The managers are always caretakers of their owners' investments, and it is perfectly understandable that a manager wouldn't want to risk overusing (or, just as bad, to be accused of overusing) someone else's pitcher. That's why it was the commissioner's job to overrule the managers' requests -- in other words, to overrule the owners' wishes -- and let the game continue.

Fair enough. But while Neyer suggests that an answer to the extra innings problem is for the fans to name an extra player and pitcher for each team, both of whom are only to be used in "emergencies", Barra takes a detour out into left field:

As for what is to be done if future games go into extra innings, I would have thought the solution to be staggeringly simple: Let the players play. I mean, this isn't the World Series; isn't everyone entitled to a little fun? Why not let the fielders pitch an inning apiece until the issue is settled? Call for volunteers among the players already in the lineup: Who wants to pitch an inning?

Barra is suggesting that any player called on in these circumstances basically throw batting practice, but I still can't help but think of two words here: Jose Canseco. Remember how Canseco blew out his arm pitching an inning of mopup relief in a blowout? However much Lou Piniella might have griped if Freddy Garcia had thrown five or six innings on Tuesday, imagine his reaction if Torre had put Ichiro on the mound, especially if he were to complain of a twinge in his arm the next day.

Neyer's suggestion is for whoever winds up as the last pitcher to throw batting practice. Jim Caple advocates unlimited substitutions, so a guy like Barry Zito, who threw all of three pitches in his appearance, could come back later if needed. I'd say either of these is a better idea.

Finally, Fritz Schranck has the funniest bit I've seen about all this. It should be noted, however, that Tuesday was not the first All Star Game to ever end in a tie. Back when there were two All Star Games per year, the second game of 1961 at Fenway Park was called off after nine innings due to heavy rain with the score 1-1. I strongly suspect there was a whole lot less fuss about it.

2002-07-11T17:16:00.000-05:00

The USOC will be in town this weekend as part of its process to determine which US city will submit a bid for the 2012 Games. The locals will try to dazzle them with technology in hopes of enhancing Houston's chances.

Personally, I hope Houston gets the Games, not so much because I love the Olympics - I'm indifferent - but because I think it would be a huge boost for mass transit, particularly rail. If landing the OIympics helps or forces us to build rail lines along I-10 and I-45, it will be well worth the trouble and expense.

2002-07-11T17:12:00.000-05:00

Little relief for the flood Only $300,000 has been raised so far by the American Red Cross for victims of the recent flooding in Central Texas despite the $12 million the agency will spend on disaster relief. In bad economic times and with so many other catastrophes happening, it's gonna be tough for them. The Chron story has a link to the Red Cross donations page, or you can jump there from here.

A lot of people gave their time and money last year to help Houstonians who were wiped out by Tropical Storm Allison. I hope the same will be said of the flood victims this year.

2002-07-10T21:17:00.001-05:00

Texas NoCall has an effect already It's only been in place since July 1, but people are already reporting a decrease in telemarketer calls in Texas. I didn't get off my lazy butt on this until the third wave, so I'm still under assault until the end of the year. But I can enjoy the rewards that others have gotten.

The telemarketing industry is still singing the same sad song:

Since 1998, 26 states have adopted no-call legislation, and nearly everyone in the industry expects the other 24 to follow suit.

Keeping up with the differences in the existing laws has created a costly nightmare for the $668 billion industry, which claims the regulations threaten jobs and violate commercial free speech.

"The problem is each of the 26 states has its own list with its own set of rules," said Christina Duffney, a spokeswoman for the Direct Marketing Association, the largest trade group for telemarketers. "For a marketer to have to learn all 26 of the rules and abide by them, it increases the chance for errors, and it increases the cost of services provided by the marketers."

Yo, Christina. There's a simple answer to this: One federal no-call law. Hey, guess what? Such a thing is in the works:

The Federal Trade Commission also has proposed a national do-not-call list that could arm consumers with one more weapon in the battle against unsolicited calls as early as next year.

The national list, which would fine telemarketers $11,000 per violation, may or may not override the state restrictions, but it looms as another obstacle for the industry to overcome.

Wanna bet the DMA opposes such a thing, even though it would eliminate all of those different rules that telemarketers must abide by? Well, they do in fact oppose the proposed federal law. I know you're shocked to hear that.

Here's one marketer who gets it:

The no-call lists do, however, provide a time-saving benefit for some companies, said C.J. Johnson, senior vice president of CCC Interactive Corp., which employs 385 people at the Houston Community Call Center.

"The people that get on to the DNC lists are the people who are not going to buy anyway," Johnson said, meaning time and expenses can be better spent on potential customers for his call center's Fortune 100 clients.

Which is what I said previously.

2002-07-10T21:17:00.000-05:00

Governor Goodhair gets on board Say what you want about our feckless yet photogenic governor, he knows when there's a script to be followed. That would be the reason for this announcement that the State of Texas, whose unofficial motto is "Providing a Good Climate for Bidness Since 1836", will be cracking down on those evildoing CEOs and their rapacious ways.

It's almost a shame that, as our Lege only meets every other year, the Gov won't get a decent photo op out of this until after the election in November. By that time, if he's really lucky, no one will remember any of this. If he's not so lucky, it'll be Tony Sanchez's problem. We can only hope.

2002-07-10T21:13:00.000-05:00

More blogrolling I've added a few links to the left. Nathan Newman was kind enough to drop me a line after discovering my pearls of wisdom through Avedon Carol. I followed a link to Kevin Raybould, and the magic of referrer logs took care of the rest. So many people have recommended Brad De Long that I finally acceeded to the inevitable.

I found Jeff Cooper and Paul Orwin through Ted Barlow - good to have you back, btw - and Ann Salisbury via Fritz Schranck, both of whom certainly count as good references.

The blogroll is pretty big these days, which reflects a growing number of quality blogs out there. There was a time (you know, back in the Good Old Days of blogging) when you could read just about anyone who was worth your time to read. Anyone who tries to do that now is either unemployed or soon to become unemployed. I figure I'll visit the favorites more or less daily, and the rest at least weekly.

Anyway, check 'em all out. And remember to use BlogRolling and Weblogs ping to make life easier for you and your readers.

2002-07-10T17:58:00.000-05:00

Permalink problems Blogger sure picked a great time to give me permalink problems, when I've been getting cited by Ginger, Scott, O-Dub, Atrios, and Kevin. Republishing my archives seems to have fixed the problem, but I'm still leery. Anyway, thanks to everyone who's pointed people here. I hope the "page not found" errors hasn't discouraged too many of them.

UPDATE: Well, there's another possibility - I just got a message from Blogger that their server went boom, so no publishing is available. Sigh...

2002-07-10T08:29:00.000-05:00

Showing a lot more sense than Frantic Fran Blinebury is King Kaufman in Salon, who notes that there was a perfectly good reason for halting the All-Star Game last night, even if it was done in a tin-eared way:

The problem is that All-Star managers want to get all of their players into the game. They'll try to do that if the roster is 30 men or 32 or 35 or 40. With skillful substitutions, it can be done. But if the manager wants to get everyone in the game, he has to get them in before the ninth inning ends, because he can't count on extra innings. So if the game does go into extra frames, he's out of luck.

That's what happened Tuesday. Both Bob Brenly of the National League and Joe Torre of the American League used all their players in the first nine innings except one emergency leftover pitcher, Vicente Padilla of the Phillies for the N.L., Freddy Garcia of the Mariners for the A.L. By the 11th, those two had both gone two innings. It would have been unfair to them and to their teams to ask them to pitch for the duration, when it wasn't their regular day to start and they had prepared themselves to pitch only an inning or two. These guys have regular jobs, you know, in real games, which resume Thursday.

"These organizations and other managers entrust us with their players," Brenly said. "We have to make sure we don't do anything that could hurt them."

Damn right. The All-Star game is an exhibition game, people. It's a sideshow. Get over it.

2002-07-10T07:28:00.000-05:00

Personifying problems Chron sportswriter Fran Blinebury shows why he personifies the problems that most of us have with his employer with today's turd-ugly hack job that passes for his regular column. He hits all the usual cliches about Barry Bonds and the players not "getting it", going so far as to blame the MLBPA for the mythical "competitive balance" problem.

How many times and how many different ways do I have to demonstrate that there is no such thing as a "competitive balance problem", at least not in the way that the typical room-temperature-IQ sportswriter understands it? Let's take one more look, just for yuks. In the last 20 years, how many baseball, football, and basketball teams have played for their sports' championship?

Basketball - 14 of 31 teams (Boston, Philadelphia, New York, New Jersey, Detroit, Chicago, Indiana, LA Lakers, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, Houston, San Antonio, Utah)

Football - 18 of 31 teams (Buffalo, Miami, New England, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Denver, Oakland, San Diego, Dallas, NY Giants, Washington, Chicago, Green Bay, Atlanta, St. Louis, San Francisco)

Baseball - 20 of 30 teams (NY Yankees, Boston, Baltimore, Toronto, Cleveland, Detroit, Minnesota, Kansas City, Oakland, NY Mets, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Florida, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Arizona)

And look at the 10 who haven't: Seattle is a pretty good bet to get to one soon. The Angels are three games out of first place. The Astros and Rangers have made the playoffs consistently in recent years. Pittsburgh was a champ in 1979 and had three excellent shots at the Series in the early 90s. Montreal might have made it in 1994 had it not been for the strike. The only complete loser is the expansion Devil Rays. Baseball is the only sport of the three to have a recent expansion team as champions (Florida and Arizona).

I knew most of this off the top of my head, but Fran Blinebury, a Professional Sports Writer, can't be bothered to do the ten minutes of light reading required to see if what he's saying makes sense. And on a newspaper that also features Dale Robertson, he's not even the worst we have. Arrrgh...

2002-07-10T06:51:00.000-05:00

Where have I heard that one before? Brian Linse quotes Maureen Dowd as follows:

Can a Bush — born on third base but thinking he hit a triple — ever really understand the problems of the guys in the bleachers?

That's a great line. It was also a great line in 1988 when it was said about Poppy Bush by either Jim Hightower or Ann Richards. Doesn't really matter, my point is that Dowd is actually quoting someone. She ought to say so.

2002-07-09T13:15:00.000-05:00

Another reason why I gave up on Kaus is his recent entry about the possibility of violence from the left, spurred on by Paul Begala and MediaWhoresOnline. It's not so much that Kaus thinks that "the left" may cause violence, it's that he makes the same mistake of lumping "radical environmentalists or fringe anti-globalists" with Begala and MWO. I've had this argument before, and I maintain that the problem is in trying to force the same label on the loony fringe as the mainstream. I find such practice, which Kaus engages in here, to be disingenuous at best. I'll say it again, and I'll type slowly so even Mickey Kaus can understand me: The loony fringe is not the same as the mainstream. Applying the same label to both makes the label meaningless. Using that meaningless label to draw parallels between the loony fringe and the mainstream is dishonest. Is that so hard to understand?

Even if you accept Kaus' lazy labelling, he's still off base. Last I checked, fringe anti-globalists were quite busy throwing rocks at Starbuckses during the Clinton administration, when all us "leftists" were supposed to be fat and happy. EarthFirst! was founded in 1979, and the Earth Liberation Front started setting fires in 1998. So why the sudden fear that we're about to be hip-deep in violent "left-wing" protest?

I don't know who's been peeing in his Wheaties lately, but as noted, I no longer care. Happy blogging, Mickey. Hope your new permalinks work better than your buddy Sullivan's do.

Anyway, O-Dub, Atrios, and Kevin Raybould all give Kaus the business as well. Check 'em out.

(Note: Edited to note the fixed permalink on Lean Left, and to correct the spelling on Kevin Raybould's name. Sorry, Kevin!)

2002-07-09T13:14:00.001-05:00

The low-fat myth goes mainstream By now you've probably read that big NYT magazine article about the dawning realization that a low-fat diet may not be all that it's cracked up to be. Of course, if you're a longtime reader of Off the Kuff, this should come as no surprise.

2002-07-09T13:14:00.000-05:00

Oh, the noise, noise, noise, noise! For the second time in two years, the Houston Press has had an article about an inner-city resident complaining about the noise of a nearby bar or restaurant. This time, the complainer lives in a downtown loft; previously, the complainer lived just outside the Heights.

You'd think I'd be a pretty sympathetic audience for these guys, given that I'm a light-sleeping homeowner with distinct early-bird tendencies. You'd be wrong, though, for the simple reason that each of these whiners bought their overpriced lofts and townhomes knowing fully well that they were in close proximity to places that featured loud music. In each case, the music venues existed before the residences were built. It would be one thing if one day you woke up and discovered that a nightclub was being built next door. It's another thing entirely to buy a house next door to one and then bitch about the noise.

I note that two years later, the Jax Grill on Shepherd still features live zydeco music on Friday nights. I strongly suspect that in two years, the Spy nighclub downtown will still be playing its music. Which is as it should be.

2002-07-08T18:46:00.000-05:00

Blogrolling Well, my blogroll on the left has finally been converted to BlogRolling. All the blogs that are fit to link are there. I've officially given up on Mickey Kaus, who hits the quinella of defending Ann Coulter and getting the facts wrong on TAPped's web stats in the space of a few days. Hey, Mickey, if I want to read NRO, I'll link to them.

Meanwhile, I'll add Matt Welch and Ken Layne back when I add some new links, since as Movable Type users they ought to show up as modified whenever they get around to updating.

MT sends an automatic ping to Weblogs.com when users add something new, but Blogger users need to do this manually. I suggest you take a moment and check Larry's handy dandy blogrolling tips, with all Blogger users giving extra attention to the one-click Weblogs ping so you too can show up with the nifty "New!" tag on my blogroll. Larry tells you how to add this URL to your Favorites; as I tend to publish from more than one computer, I've found it more convenient to add the link to my template, so it's always with me. Whatever floats your blog.

2002-07-08T13:41:00.000-05:00

In case you were wondering, the July 4 shooting spree at LAX by a ~~terrorist~~ ~~disgruntled ex-employee~~ nutball dirtbag was actually Tom Daschle's fault. You just can't make up stuff like this.

Via Atrios.

2002-07-08T13:40:00.001-05:00

What we have to look forward to COntenders for the 2003 Houston mayoral race are lining up already in anticipation. I agree with Kevin in that Michael Berry has no chance. The reason is right here in the Chron story:

Berry, 30, has served on council since January after beating Claudia Williamson in a runoff election for the at-large seat formerly held by Chris Bell, who ran last year for mayor and now is a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives.

So far in his short council tenure, Berry's only real push was for a property tax rollback that council rejected last month when it set the city budget. He has said he will make another run at cutting taxes by 1 cent per $100 valuation this September.

In other words, he's a one-issue candidate who hasn't had any success on that one issue just yet. There's a compelling resume for you.

None of the known or rumored candidates so far excites me. I'm still holding out hope for Gabriel Vasquez, my City Council person, but given how bloody and expensive the race is likely to be, I'd rather he stay in his nice, safe Council seat until he's term-limited out.

2002-07-08T13:40:00.000-05:00

Flooding down in Texas It's hard to believe, but a mere one year after Tropical Storm Allison unleashed hell on Houston, Central Texas has been hit by even worse flooding. Thirteen counties have been declared disaster areas.

Even more incredible, the same storms that caused all this damage then headed northwest and did some more. Buried in this story is the following paragraph:

In Abilene on Sunday, hundreds of people returned to homes that had been deluged by the same storm that dumped more than 30 inches of rain in Central and South Texas last week. The storm moved north and west and poured a foot of rain on Abilene and surrounding areas in a single day.

Take a look at this map. Abilene is about 400 miles from New Braunfels, which is between San Antonio and Austin. That's a really big storm.

Annoyingly, the Chron couldn't be bothered to give info on how or where to make a donation to help these flood victims. I had to go to the San Antonio Express-News and the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, which points to this American Red Cross Page. Thanks, Chron!

2002-07-07T20:19:00.000-05:00

InstaSpanking Mother Nature fact checks Glenn Reynolds' ass, as reported by Brian Linse. Someone needs to tell the InstaPunditWatcher that it's time to get back on the job.

2002-07-07T19:56:00.000-05:00

Nice to know that Matt Welch is keeping busy during his blog hiatus. Via the newly permlink-enabled Josh Trevino.

2002-07-07T13:12:00.000-05:00

In another 5-4 Supreme Court ruling the SCOTUS has struck down a law that prevents judges from saying in campaign ads how they'd rule on a particular issue. A local former judge disagrees with this ruling:

Most people who can count to three know the separation of powers is why we have three branches of government, instead of two. The judiciary is supposed to declare the law, no matter how unpopular. Unlike the executive and the legislative departments, the judiciary is not supposed to declare public opinion. If people don't like a judicial decision, they can amend a constitution or a statute or they can elect a new judge. But, until now, they could not expect candidates for judge to say in advance how they would vote on particular cases.

Is that change good or bad? Some say it's good. They say the public can't cast a meaningful vote for a judge without knowing how he or she will rule. Without that information, there's nothing to vote for or against. Others say it's bad. How, they ask, can you get a fair trial from a judge who has declared how he'll rule before he has heard the case? A judge who has publicly pledged to vote one way cannot be, or be perceived to be, the neutral magistrate the law requires. If the judiciary is not neutral, it is worse than useless. It's fraudulent.

He also points out that as was the case here a few years ago, a judicial candidate may perhaps win election after promising to make a popular ruling that violates the law. The example cited was a candidate who said he'd never consider probation for DUI offenders, despite a state law that mandates he do so. That guy lost, but are you so sure that the next one will?

2002-07-07T13:05:00.000-05:00

Suburbs v. vouchers This op-ed piece in the Sunday Chron makes an interesting point about school vouchers and their promise to improve schools, namely that the better schools, usually located in suburbs, have resisted and will resist efforts to take away their autonomy.

People in the suburbs are generally satisfied with their neighborhood schools. They want to protect the physical and financial independence of those schools, as well as suburban property values, which are tied to local school quality (real or perceived). School choice threatens the independence of suburban schools by creating the possibility that outsiders, particularly urban students, will enter them and that local funds will exit them.

When suburbanites perceive a threat to their schools, they fight back -- and usually win. Consider school desegregation and school finance reform. Suburban districts largely succeeded in insulating their schools from the reach of desegregation decrees, which rarely went beyond urban districts or required suburban schools to participate. Consequently, urban school districts were left to experience the costs and benefits of school desegregation, while most suburban schools remained safely on the sidelines.

Suburban school districts have been equally successful in protecting their financial independence. Efforts to equalize school funding have largely failed. Even when funding schemes are reformed, wealthier, suburban districts are usually left free to devote as much of their local resources as they wish to their own schools.

A similar pattern can be seen in school choice plans, almost all of which work to protect the autonomy of suburban schools. Public school choice programs, which include charter schools, rarely require suburban schools to open their doors to students from neighboring districts or to send locally raised revenues to another district.

The Cleveland plan, at issue in the Supreme Court's decision, is an example: Students in Cleveland were given a voucher that could be used in private schools within Cleveland and in any suburban public school that volunteered to accept voucher students. No schools volunteered.

Meanwhile, proposals to expand voucher programs have been defeated time and again, in both legislative arenas and at the ballot box. Those proposals failed not because teachers' unions opposed them but because suburbanites did.

I've never been convinced that we couldn't solve most of our schools' problems by funding the poor schools at the same level as the rich ones. I've also never been convinced that private schools are the answer, as I attended one crappy private school and two outstanding public schools in my childhood. When the Fort Bend and Montgomery County school districts say that they'll find room for kids from the Fourth Ward, then maybe I'll believe that vouchers are about something other than subsidizing religious education.

2002-07-07T12:23:00.000-05:00

RIP, Ted Williams It's been a busy weekend for me, as we threw a housewarming party on Friday night, so I haven't had a chance to blog about the death of Ted Williams. The ESPN piece linked gives a good overview of him, but there's two bits in it that I'd like to expand on. One has to do with the near-trade of Williams for Joe DiMaggio. It was the Yankees who backed out of the trade, giving the reason that their fans thought DiMaggio was the better player. I'm a diehard, lifelong Yankees fan, but the numbers say that Williams was better. Yankee fans will argue that DiMadge was a stellar performer at a much tougher position as well as a much better baserunner. It quickly becomes a bigger morass than Vietnam, which may speak to the wisdom of not taking that particular road.

It also leads in to my second point, about what DiMaggio and Williams said about each other post-retirement. They both figured that stoking the who's-better debate would likely be counterproductive in the long run, so they came to an agreement where DiMaggio would call Williams "the best pure hitter he ever saw" and Williams would call DiMaggio "the best player he ever played against", thus acheiving equal parts truth, wiggle room, and accession to ego.

Jayson Stark now wonders who is the best living player with Teddy and Joltin' Joe deceased. Again, with all due respect to the Yankee Clipper, I think it's only deference to his legend that put him above Willie Mays and Hank Aaron in the first place. (There was also a poll taken in the 1960s that asked this question. DiMaggio won, and no one ever had the cheek to ask when we should ask again.) My vote goes to Mays, but it's close. And I refuse to consider Pete Rose a serious contender.

Rest in peace, Teddy Ballgame.

2002-07-07T10:07:00.000-05:00

I really thought I had nothing more to say about the whole Cal Thomas/where's-the-outrage kerfuffle. I'd gotten some good feedback that showed there was some outrage, and this made me feel better.

After reading Kevin Whited and Owen Courreges, I got to wondering about my motives for all this in the first place. I have to confess, a certain part of it was the defensiveness that I, as a left-leaning blogger, have when it comes to right-wing attacks on stupid things that are said and done by leftists. What I see in these attacks is a sometimes implicit, sometimes totally blatant attempt to link outrageous radical left behavior (think "Terror Widows", or that Canadian feminist who claimed that Afghan women were better off under the Taliban than they'd be in America) with, well, me.

(By the way, if you're wondering what I'm talking about, here's an odious little example. What do you say to someone like this? I don't know what blogs this guy does or doesn't read, but either he isn't reading the liberals that I read or he's in serious need of some remedial education. I suppose this guy is barely worth my contempt, let alone any defensiveness, but there's no shortage of this kind of thing out there. Link via Alex Frantz.)

What do you do when you identify as a liberal and you come across people saying that all liberals must be idiots because Ted Rall (a known idiot) is a liberal? I can't speak for anyone else, but I feel like I have to do what I can to demonstrate that I'm a liberal who isn't anything like that idiot. The easiest and most effective way to do that is to join in the attack on the idiot in question.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you - most often, the objects of derision are indeed idiots who should be attacked by anyone who's capable of critical thinking. Some people in the blogosphere, notably Charles Johnson, realized that critical thinkers on both sides of the left/right split had way more in common with each other than they did with the radical fringes of their own sides, and attempted to bridge the gap by dividing the world into idiotarians and anti-idiotarians.

But still I'd feel like I was under attack. Again, I can't speak for anyone else, but I'd be rather surprised if no one else felt this way. And so, when an obvious opportunity came to put the shoe on the other foot, I took it. Cal Thomas is an idiot and a conservative. You conservatives - prove to me you're not idiots! Fair is fair, sauce for the goose, blah blah blah.

It's a pretty lousy reason, I suppose. After all, if what I thought was being done to me was wrong, then what I was doing was also wrong, and if what was being done to me was right, well, what am I bitching about? I'm not sure which contradiction I'd rather choose, but for what it's worth, that's how I felt.

So, I apologize for doing unto others as I don't want done unto me. As it happens, I believe it was ultimately worthwhile, if for no better reason than this little bit of blog synergy that I encountered. In his response to me, Kevin Whited gives a perfectly good reason why he considers slapping Cal Thomas to be beneath him:

I generally don't find him very interesting at all (just went poking through Reductio to see how often he shows up, and the answer is -- not very). I don't really consider him to be one of the columnists that I just can't miss while doing my daily reading. And isn't that a more damning critique than any denunciation TAPped might want from conservative bloggers: I just don't read the guy because, frankly, columns like this aren't all that surprising!

And then I see this in that same Alez Frantz post from above:

So what's a flag-waving leftist to do? Well, there's always bashing the right, which the Nuisance does with zeal and pleasure. I don't spend equivalent energy going after the American far left simply because at this time they don't matter very much, although I always enjoy a shot at Ralph Nader.

So rational conservatives generally consider it a waste of time to respond to their radical fringe, and rational liberals feel the same way about theirs. I wouldn't go quite that far myself, but I appreciate the perspective. I suppose there are better things to do than to bash each other over who is or isn't responding to a given idiot. As long as we're all playing by those same rules.

2002-07-06T14:02:00.000-05:00

Kuff: Your low-cost, can't-do-any-worse answer at CEO Kevin points to this KTRK story of how Reliant Energy had to restate its earnings yesterday. Seems they somehow managed to overstate them by, uh, $7.8 billion.

I guarantee, if I were CEO, I wouldn't lose that much money. One billion, maybe two billion tops, and I'd save you a ton in salary, perks, and golden parachutes. Come and get me, Corporate America, while you still can!

2002-07-05T11:45:00.000-05:00

They are getting younger all the time Interesting Chron story today about how state judges in Texas have gotten a lot younger on average over the past two decades. The accompanying graph really shows the trend in recent years. Factors involved in this are pay and a change in the pension rules, coupled with electoral uncertainty.

But the Texas Legislature amended the judicial pension requirements in 1985, diminishing the economic incentive to become a judge and remain one. Before the legislative change, judges could begin earning a pension after serving 12 years on the bench or after eight years if the judge had prior military service.

Now, judges must serve 20 years on the bench to qualify for a pension. Because of financial and political uncertainty, many judges do not stay on the job that long anymore.

Serving 20 years means at least five elections. While I don't think enough incumbent judges get ousted to really make "political uncertainty" a strong reason for this trend, I can certainly understand more people not wanting to be locked into something for that long. And let's face it, raising money and campaigning all those times has to get old.

Judges say money is often a factor in determining whether a lawyer runs for or stays with a judgeship, considering the lucrative urban market for top-notch lawyers.

A first-year associate at one of Houston's prestigious firms can earn an average of $150,000 annually, lawyers and judges said.

The average state district judicial salary is about $114,000, although county-court-at-law salaries, tied to more county benefits, average about $122,000.

"Clearly if the Legislature wants judges to spend more than a few years on the bench, it will have to pay judges at least what top-notch, first-year lawyers make," [state District Judge Mark] Davidson said.

"How much can you ask of children to sacrifice their education because you want to do public service as a judge?"

While it's often hard to empathize with someone who makes $120K per year (I sure wish I made that kind of lettuce, and I'm far from underpaid), it's also hard to argue that nobility is worth $30K or more per year. And there's nothing quite so special as having your salary be captive to a state legislature, as my dad can attest from his 14 years on the state bench in New York.

2002-07-04T14:25:00.000-05:00

Harken-gate, coming to a theater near you Charles Murtaugh writes about the revelations that Dubya may have engaged in some illegal insider trading back in 1989 when he made over $800,000 selling stock at just the right time in the floundering Harken Energy company. Murtaugh notes that the meat of this scandal, if the Democrats want to get traction with it and avoid the mistakes Ken Starr made when he went Clinton-hunting, is not in the technicality of Bush's late report to the SEC or the details of how he made the money, it's his close personal connection to the whole thing:

So here's the beauty part for the Democrats: it doesn't matter whether or not Bush broke the law in his insider trading. The scandal here is moral, rather than legal: Bush was intimately connected with a corporate accounting scandal precisely akin to those now in the headlines, and costing tens of thousands of jobs. If the Democrats focus solely on the legalistic question of how Bush made his eight hundred large, they'll be making a Starr-esque error. It really didn't matter whether or not Clinton lied to the grand jury about his affair, the real Lewinsky scandal was that he'd been having the affair at all. The conservatives were right: character matters.

In Harken-gate, it makes little difference whether Bush broke the law by waiting thirty weeks to alert the SEC of his stock sale, instead of the required two or three (yawn... eyes... glazing... over... must... follow... the money...). What will be harder for Bush to shake off between now and 2004, particularly if the corporate accounting scandals continue to drag down the economy, is his guilt-by-close-association with a book-cooking energy company.

I think Murtaugh is absolutely right about the late filing, which I note that Team Bush is blaming on "clerical error". The bit about how Bush came out of this with nearly a million bucks is probably just a corollary to the moral scandal that Murtaugh talks about. The Chron article lays out the case pretty nicely, with the crucial bit being right here:

During the 1994 gubernatorial campaign, Bush denied knowing Harken was having financial problems at the time of his stock sale even though he was on the board's audit committee.

Where have we heard that defense before? From Kenny Boy and the Enron Ensemble all the way back to Poppy "I was out of the loop" Bush, the standard response is always one of ignorance. Never mind my position of authority, I had no idea that things were going to hell in a handbasket all around me.

Well, forgive my impertinence, but maybe you should have known. As Gregg Easterbrook notes, CEOs have been built up as talented, visionary superheroes, with salaries and perks to match. Yet when performance fails utterly to justify the remuneration, the CEOs still get paid handsomely, often with bonuses, while the people who did the real work get shown the door.

Here's a modest proposal for corporations: Tab any random idiot to be CEO, pay him or her a simple million bucks, and keep doing what you're doing. The cheaper CEO will have as much effect on your long term profitability as any overpriced Jack Welch wannabee, and their cries of ignorance when your earnings inevitably have to be restated will be much more credible. It's a clearcut win-win for all involved. I'm available if you ask nicely, and I bet Larry would be happy for the chance to take a major step closer to his billion-dollar goal.

OK, I'm a bit off track here. Anyway, if the Dems keep it simple and say that whenever you put a Bush in charge, things fall apart while he and his friends make out like bandits, they might be able to get somewhere. We'll see what happens.

Oh, and as an aside to Mickey Kaus: This may not specifically be Enron, but it's close enough. Still think there's no campaign issue here?

2002-07-04T13:47:00.000-05:00

RIP, Ray Brown It's been a bad week for bassists, as legendary jazz bassist Ray Brown died in his sleep at the age of 75. Brown, who was married to Ella Fitzgerald for four years, was on tour with his trio at the time.

A college buddy I lived with for a summer introduced me to Ray Brown via the excellent CD Soular Energy, which featured a lovely arrangement of Take the A Train and the rip-snorting Mistreated but Undefeated Blues, which is on my short list of Greatest Song Titles Ever. Take a moment and check it out.

Vaya con Dios, Ray Brown.

2002-07-04T13:34:00.000-05:00

Unbelievable In an editorial on the budget deficit (from Wednesday, which I forgot to publish), the Chron actually gives praise to Bill Clinton in a manner that is neither snarky nor left-handed. Is the regular editorial board on vacation? How could they let this happen? Look! In the streets! I see dogs and cats living together! Aaaahhhh!

2002-07-04T13:33:00.000-05:00

Bad news, good news Governor Goodhair picked up an endorsement from a group of black ministers, which may help him peel off some of the black vote from Tony Sanchez.

"I don't see why you need to change a horse in the middle of the stream," said alliance member the Rev. F.N. Williams of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church.

That doesn't sound like high praise to me, but the bottom line is what matters.

The good news comes from some poll numbers:

As Perry received the endorsement, the UH Center for Public Policy released its new Texas Public Policy Survey showing that Perry leads Sanchez by 42 percent to 32 percent.

Pollster Richard Murray, a UH political science professor, said the poll indicates a sizable gain for Sanchez, an oilman and banker from Laredo.

A separate Scripps-Howard Texas Poll released in early June showed that Perry had a 20-point lead.

Murray said Perry appears to be slipping amid attack ads by Sanchez and a recent string of bad news for Texas, including a projected $5 billion state budget shortfall.

"Sanchez isn't so much gaining support as softening up Perry," Murray said. "Perry is an incumbent governor, but he succeeded to the office and is not yet well known to many Texas voters."

[...]

The Texas Public Policy Survey -- a telephone poll of 739 registered Texas voters conducted June 20-29 -- had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

The poll also showed that:

Democrat Ron Kirk holds a lead of 36 percent to 28 percent over Republican John Cornyn for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Phil Gramm. The earlier Texas poll showed Cornyn leading 35 percent to 30 percent. Cornyn is Texas attorney general, and Kirk is a former mayor of Dallas.

The race for lieutenant governor is tight, with Republican David Dewhurst, the state land commissioner, at 31 percent to 29 percent for Democrat John Sharp, a former state comptroller who narrowly lost the 1998 lieutenant governor's race to Perry. Dewhurst led the Texas Poll 36 percent to 29 percent.

Wow. Kirk is doing better than I'd have thought. I'm actually surprised that John Sharp is not leading his race, but a statistical tie isn't bad. And Rick Perry doesn't seem to have much of an incumbent's advantage. So all in all, not too bad.

Elsewhere in this piece, Sanchez bashes Perry for not returning all of the campaign contributions he got from WorldCom, and Perry bashes Sanchez for having made money off of Enron in the past. A Perry spokesman claims that Sanchez should return the money he got from selling Enron stock in 2000 as well as any profits Sanchez's oil and gas company made from doing business with Enron.

Um, I think there's a small bit of difference between owning stock in a company and getting a campaign contribution from a company. Plus, in 2000 when Sanchez sold his Enron stock, Enron was still on top of the world. Is Perry saying that Sanchez had really advanced knowledge of Enron's collapse, or is he saying that any money earned from Enron is tainted? If it's the latter, there are lots of people who will need to cleanse themselves. This all strikes me as silly.

2002-07-03T18:51:00.000-05:00

Final word on Cal the Cretin Two Andrews, Andrew Ian Dodge and Andrew Sullivan, continue with the conservative spankings of Cal Thomas. My thanks to those who took up the task, and those who helped find these examples for me.

On another front, TAPped has also been leading the charge against Anvil Annie Coulter. A number of people, such as Scoobie Davis and Bill Herbert, have been doing this for awhile - anyone who can read as much Coulter as Scoobie does is either superhuman or masochistic, I'm not sure yet.

I think Meryl really captures the reason behind why I sometimes obsess over things like this. I had tried to say something like what she said when I wondered where the conservative condemnations of Cal Thomas were, but I didn't say it nearly this well:

The fact that Coulter can proclaim this crap and not be excoriated from the rooftops of all conservative institutions bothers me a great deal. A great deal.

How you can claim this woman as one of your own astonishes me. How you can respect anything this woman writes astonishes me. How you can take seriously anything she utters angers me.

You ask liberals to decry the Cynthia McKinney loons. Fine. Now I'm asking conservatives to do the same for Ann Coulter. Stop being proud of idiots like Coulter and slam them the way you slam McKinney. I'm getting a little tired of the bozos getting a free pass because you agree with a few of the things they say. Fair practices, my conservative friends—that's all I'm asking for.

That's it in a nutshell. I'd come across a comment from Jeff Goldstein in this Matt Yglesias post that basically said "why should I bother?" and claimed that expecting some "equality of verbiage spent on putdowns" is a "lefty" argument, and until I read Meryl's piece I couldn't quite frame a response to that. Now I can. Thanks, Meryl!

2002-07-02T21:51:00.000-05:00

Not everyone's on vacation Yeah, I know, Reynolds is off galavanting around somewhere, Welch and Layne are off doing the "Hey kids! Let's start a newspaper!" routine, and Diane is taking a breather. Cheer up - I've taken about all the vacation I'm gonna take for the year. Doesn't that make you feel better?

And hey, Kimberley Swygert is back from her world tour, and she's got lots of interesting stuff. Go check it out.

2002-07-02T15:56:00.000-05:00

Kuff beats the Chron to the punch On Sunday, Chron political columnist Clay Robison wrote about politicians who campaign on the promise to "run government like a business".

It was amusing last week to hear Sanchez, the Democratic outsider, vowing to "scrub" the budget and Perry, the Republican governmental veteran, defending state spending and insisting that Sanchez didn't know what he was talking about.

Which is pretty much the sentiment that I expressed on Wednesday. You read it here first!

(OK, so Robison's column only runs on Sundays. Sue me.)

Robison also throws rocks at Tony Sanchez's idea that "scrubbing" the budget will magically solve our looming multibillion dollar deficit. It's a pretty nice fantasy, the idea that, essentially, if we root around the government's seat cushions we'll find enough dropped change to make us solvent without having to make any unpopular choices. Anyone remember the Grace Commission, which was supposed to help Ronald Reagan balance the federal budget by eliminating "waste, fraud, and abuse"? Or maybe the liberal-fantasy movie Dave, in which Kevin Kline's accountant friend balances the federal budget, and they pass a full-employment bill after the Prez kicks the bucket? Each had about the same level or realism.

I've started to wonder just what issues Sanchez will campaign on. As Robison notes, the "run government like a business" claim is even dicier these days. The other article I linked says he's going to attack Perry for the bills he vetoed last year. Perry got a lot of criticism for that, so maybe there's some traction there. I haven't watched much TV since the various season finales, so I haven't seen any recent ads. I have to say, though, I'm getting more worried about Sanchez's ability to win. He's easily the weakest part of the "Dream Team", and if he doesn't at least boost turnout among likely Democratic voters, we can look forward to four more years of GOP domination of the state.

2002-07-02T15:31:00.000-05:00

Campaign finance reform the hard way The implosion of various companies has hit politicians in the wallet, as several Texas candidates line up to divest themselves of tainted WorldCom money.

Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who has already forfeited $85,000 in campaign contributions from failed energy giant Enron, has decided he won't keep a $10,000 contribution from WorldCom Inc.

"We will not keep the funds," said Perry spokesman Ray Sullivan. "We are looking for alternatives rather than return the money to the company."

Other candidates who will be donating WorldCom funds include GOP Senate candidate John Cornyn ($5000), GOP Attorney General candidate Greg Abbott ($3000) and incumbent GOP Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander ($4500). The article did not indicate if any Democratic candidates are in the same position.

2002-07-02T15:21:00.000-05:00

There's a market for everything The University of Texas Medical Branch here in Houston is apologizing for the actions of a former employee who may have sold donated body parts for profit, and for accidentally mixing up the ashes of cremated bodies:

Federal agents are investigating allegations that an employee at the University of Texas Medical Branch illegally sold body parts for his own gain, an FBI spokesman said Monday.

And, in what UTMB President Dr. John Stobo called "an unforgivable failure of oversight," officials at the medical school said they have discovered that the cremated remains of many people who willed their bodies to science were mixed.

[...]

The problems were revealed in a management audit of UTMB's Willed Body Program that began in March and resulted in the May 9 firing of Allen Tyler Jr., 56, of Galveston.

Tyler was responsible for receiving and shipping all bodies and body parts at the medical school, as well as for dismembering bodies and shipping parts to other research facilities across the state and nation, according to a document obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

The Willed Body Program receives an average of 300 bodies a year, officials say, only about half of which are used by medical students and researchers at the Galveston medical center.

Under direction of the Anatomical Board of the State of Texas, UTMB can ship cadavers and body parts to medical schools and research facilities in other states, but not for profit.

The FBI is investigating whether an employee at the center was running an illegal body-part brokering operation, Houston FBI spokesman Bob Doguim said.

"There may have been someone inside that program who was selling those body parts," Doguim said.

He did not mention Tyler but said officials at the medical center had asked the FBI to investigate its Willed Body Program.

Stobo said Monday that UTMB requested the investigation when Tyler was fired.

You gotta hate it when that sort of thing happens.

2002-07-01T21:38:00.000-05:00

Testing, part deux Also testing the Weblogs ping form. Larry, please tell me if I'm doing this right. Thanks!

2002-07-01T21:34:00.000-05:00

This is a test I'm fooling around with Blogrolling. Let's see how this looks...

2002-07-01T18:07:00.000-05:00

RIP, Pete Gray Pete Gray, who played for the St. Louis Browns in 1945 despite having lost his right arm in a childhood accident, died Sunday at the age of 87. For sure, we will not see the likes of him again in the big leagues.

2002-07-01T17:54:00.000-05:00

An immodest proposal Larry sends an open letter to Larry Flynt regarding the woman in Florida who insists on covering her face for her driver's license photo. It got me wondering - When do you think Playboy will feature its first Muslim/Arab Playmate? They've featured a Jewish Playmate - Conservative, even, not Reform - and we all know how fast-growing Islam is, so it makes you wonder. Well, okay, it made me wonder.

2002-07-01T17:15:00.001-05:00

Texas No Call kicks in Today is the day that the Texas No Call law kicks in, meaning that people who have signed up to be on the no-call list for telemarketers should start to see a decline in annoying telemarketer calls.

Naturally, the evil telemarketing industry is trotting out its usual sob stories:

"I think folks at the state and federal levels had in their mind that this was kind of a small business that kind of annoyed people, so it's OK to revile it," said Louis Mastria, spokesman for the New York-based DMA. "But those things don't match up with the economic reality."

An estimated 185 million Americans purchase goods or services by phone each year, including many older residents who don't feel comfortable doing business over the Internet, according to industry records.

For every 19 people who yell at or hang up on telemarketers, there's at least one who's receptive to the sales pitch, according to industry statistics.

"I don't think people mind being called at home. Most consumers are bothered by the volume of calls," said Kevin Brosnahan, spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based American Teleservices Association.

I'm gonna assume that "185 million" refers to the number of annual transactions and not actual number of Americans who buy things from telemarketers, as there are roughly 200 million adults in the US, and I have a hard time believing that 90% of them bought goods over the phone last year. It sure doesn't square with the statement that 19 out of 20 people hang up on telemarketers. And for the record, Kevin, I do mind being called at home.

It's too soon to tell whether the no-call laws will prompt companies to cut back on telemarketing, industry officials say.

But the additional costs -- registering with the state, buying no-call lists several times a year, hiring people to input the lists and paying hefty fines for violations -- likely will be passed on to consumers.

"It will force legitimate telemarketers to pay for the sins of the 20 percent of the industry that give us all a black eye," Mastria said.

Oh, cry me a freakin' river. Are you saying that the cost of condo timeshares and satellite TV installations and low-rate credit cards are going to go up because the state of Texas is generously filtering out the people who would have slammed the phone down on you? Look at it this way: With all the telemarketer-haters out of the way, your hit rate per call will go up. Don't you think that will make your costs go down? Amazing.

Meanwhile, a four-Claude rating goes to this headline: "Some telemarketing officials think no-call list unneccesary".

Many telemarketing industry officials say the Texas no-call list, effective today -- and more than two dozen other states' similar lists of residents who don't want telemarketing calls -- is unnecessary. They say consumers already are protected under federal law, which:

Prohibits telemarketing calls before 8 a.m. and after 9 p.m., based on the resident's time zone.

Prohibits companies from using automated dialers and leaving prerecorded messages for commercial purposes on a resident's answering machine.

Requires firms to keep a no-call list of residents who specifically have asked that company not to call them anymore.

Requires every telemarketer to state his or her name, which can be an alias as long as the company can identify the employee if a customer files a complaint.

Requires telemarketers to state their company, that they are calling to sell a good or service, and the seller's address or phone number if a customer wants to cancel the order or lodge a complaint.

Man, I get at least a dozen auto-dialer prerecorded messages on my answering machine per week. If there are existing laws which are supposed to prevent that, they ain't working.

2002-07-01T17:15:00.000-05:00

Principles, schminciples The Chron gives Dubya the business for abandoning his free-trade principles. It's a good piece, and it's always heartening to see a bastion of pro-Bushiness such as the Chron take him to task, but would it kill them to note, even in passing, that Clinton (who bucked his party on NAFTA) and Gore (who eviscerated Ross Perot in a debate on NAFTA) had solid records on free trade? I know, the cognitive dissonance would probably make their heads explode. I'll go off into a corner and be happy with what I can get.

I see that Owen agrees with this editorial, noting that "like a broken watch, the Chronicle is still right a small percentage of the time". Given our differing perspectives, it's amusing that we both see Houston's Only Information Source (motto: As If You've Got A Choice) as being the classic blind pig finding an acorn on this issue. Note to theChron's editorial board: This is not one of those times when you should take comfort in the belief that you must be doing something right because you're being attacked from all sides.

2002-07-01T17:12:00.000-05:00

Feeding frenzy! I got mentioned on TAPped. Woo hoo! Just goes to show what a relentless commitment to quality and a well-placed double sawbuck can do.

Anyway, Atrios points to this entry from Privateer. Well done! He also points to this VodkaPundit entry. I agree with Atrios in that VodkaPundit misses the point. Look, many of us on the left thought Noam Chomsky was an idiot long before 9/11. We've had to spend a lot of time since then disavowing him and people like him since then, people with whom we'd never identified or sympathized. There were many reasons why we felt compelled to do this, not the least of which was a strong desire to not be associated in any way with the kind of wrongheadedness that they espoused.

It may seem like a waste of time to shoot down idiots like Cal Thomas. It is in some ways, but there's an important reason to do it anyway: There is probably some portion of my readership, as well as VodkaPundit's, that had never heard of Cal Thomas before today. We're doing these people a favor by making sure they know who he is and why, should they ever encounter a blogger who quotes or cites him favorably, they should seriously consider whether that blogger has anything worthwhile to say. I suppose VP's blithe dismissal of Cal Thomas accomplishes that, but I still wish he'd taken this more gravely.

In the comments on yesterday's entry, Josh points me to this Midwest Conservatove Journal entry, and to today's WSJ Best of the Web, in which James Taranto makes the same body-count observation that I did. Thanks, Josh!

Andrea Harris nominates Cal Thomas for Dumbass of the Month. With all due respect, he should get a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Andrea points to Rand Simberg, who I believe gives Cal way too much credit for subtlety:

If he'd said, "I believe it's a greater injury..." then I might say, what an idiot. But he's simply saying that many will conclude that, which may, as far as I know, be perfectly true.

Mmm. Sorry, but I agree with Andrea: This sounds like a royal "we" to me, too. There's a reason that English teachers and Microsoft Word deprecate the passive voice. I like what David Ross says in Andrea's comments, that Thomas is "too cowardly to stand by his own beliefs, and too dishonest to admit that no-one of any brain would support them either. A 10th grade teacher would dock a cool 10% from a term paper for that."

DailyPundit takes the same ho-hum approach that VodkaPundit does. As noted above, I think that's copping out. It's easy to point to one stupid thing someone says and say "I always knew that guy was an idiot". If you really believe that, you ought to provide some evidence for it.

Besides, it's not the case that TAPped "suddenly discovered" that Cal Thomas is an idiot. When TAPped says "But never did Tapped believe that anyone -- even Cal Thomas -- would say this", that sure sounds to me like there's an implied "a big dumbass such as" in there. The point that TAPped was making was that even by Thomas' incredibly high standards for idiocy he managed to shock them. That's worth commenting on, frenzied or not.

On a completely unrelated note: Is it just me, or does Cal Thomas bear an uncanny resemblance to Dabney Coleman?

2002-06-30T22:15:00.000-05:00

Trivia time Who is the only NBA player taller than 7'2" who has played on a championship team? Read this article on the life and times of the league's biggest players to find out. Anyone who gets this right is a serious sports fan.

2002-06-30T19:10:00.000-05:00

Where's the outrage? TAPped recently printed this excerpt from a dreadful Cal Thomas column:

On the eve of our great national birthday party and in the aftermath of Sept. 11, when millions of us turned to God and prayed for forgiveness of individual and corporate sins and asked for His protection against future attacks, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has inflicted on this nation what many will conclude is a greater injury than that caused by the terrorists.

You read that right: Cal Thomas believes that the recent 9th Circuit Court ruling about the Pledge of Allegiance is a greater injury to America than the 9/11 attacks.

Putting aside the fact that the death toll from this ruling was considerably lower than that of airplanes flying into buildings, Thomas seems to verge awfully close to saying that the attacks were somehow the result of those individual and corporate sins that we were supposed to be asking forgiveness for. Does anyone want to bet that if there is another attack, Thomas will write a column that mentions this ruling as a contributing factor?

I'm not going to waste too much time on this drivel. Cal Thomas is a predictable right-wing shill in the David Horowitz/Ann Coulter mold. He's a modern day Pharisee who writes tirelessly about the virtues of people like himself. There's no starting point for engaging in debate.

TAPped says that the blogosphere "ought to get itself whipped into a frenzy about this one." I agree, but for liberals like me and some of the others who have responded to TAPped's call, it's shooting fish in a barrel. Thomas may have grooved one for us here, but let's face it, we could randomly pick any one of his columns and find something that we consider reprehensible. There's no challenge to this.

So what I would like to know is where are the denunciations from conservatives? This is easily the equivalent of any stupid thing Noam Chomsky or Ted Rall has said. I know perfectly well that the vast majority of conservatives, even those who I find appalling, would disagree with what Cal Thomas has written. I want to see some examples of conservative pundits and bloggers taking Thomas to task for this. Otherwise, given that more than one conservative writer has attempted to make hay by tarring all liberals with the Chomsky/Rall brush, many of those freestyle Fiskings of the loony Left were really nothing more than scoring points.

Please feel free to use the comments to point me in the right direction. I will happily give credit where it is due.

By the way, Thomas begins the last paragraph of his hit piece as follows: "The overwhelming majority of Americans have been forced to stomach a lot of garbage in recent years". You can add your column to that garbage heap, pal.

2002-06-29T17:38:00.000-05:00

Houston "fitness czar" controversy Sigh. No matter how much people like me defend Our Fair City, it's stories like this that give the Randall Pattersons and Katherine Mieszkowskis of the world their ammunition.

Houston's new "fitness czar" is using the city's weight-loss Web site to push a diet that nutrition experts say is potentially harmful and that promotes protein powders and other nutritional supplements he sells.

Larry says it best:

If [Mayor Lee] Brown wants to promote fitness, he can loosen taxes on fitness centers, provide incentives for employers who allow their employees access to a weight room or motivate employees to take time to exercise, quit tearing up the bike paths with short-term construction projects, etc. and so forth. Standing on the sidelines and cheering with rah rah rah go Houston while letting his buddy sell something that's contrary to what the USDA recommends isn't going to work.

Amen.

2002-06-29T12:11:00.000-05:00

HMO successfully sued A jury has awarded $13 million to the widow and daughter of a man who died days after an HMO forced him out of a skilled nursing facility. The 83-year-old man was back in the hospital the next day and died five days after that.

George Parker Young, a Fort Worth lawyer who represented the family, said the jury was outraged by evidence that Cigna's medical director and utilization review nurse received bonuses for reducing inpatient stays.

"It was clear that Cigna put cost-cutting ahead of patient safety at a time when the patient most needed care," said Young.

[...]

In addition to finding Cigna was grossly negligent, the Dallas jury said that the company caused serious bodily injury to Pybas, a violation of the state's criminal law against elder abuse. Young said that finding negated otherwise applicable caps on punitive damages.

According to the lawsuit, [Herschel] Pybas was in and out of the hospital from Oct. 6, 1998, until his admission to the skilled nursing facility on Dec. 31, 1998. He was forced out of the facility on Jan. 22, 1999.

Dr. Nathan Watson, who was treating Pybas, testified that he wanted to keep his patient in the nursing facility but Cigna was pushing to get him out.

Pybas suffered from congestive heart failure and progressive renal failure as well as a bedsore. He had a history of stroke, anemia, upper respiratory infection and malnutrition.

Young said evidence showed that Cigna officials never reviewed Pybas' medical records before deciding he should be sent home. Although Pybas required oxygen, he was not provided any when an ambulance took him home from the nursing facility.

This is the first such jury award in Texas, which was the first state to allow people to sue HMOs. The bill became law without then-Governor Bush's signature. Bush vetoed the earlier law, refused to sign this one, then crowed about his achievements in health care reform on the campaign trail in 2000.

About 20 to 30 lawsuits have been filed since the Health Care Liability Act was passed in 1997 over the objection of conservatives who swore that it would lead to a flood of such suits. That's four to six filings per year in a state of 20 million people. Some flood.

2002-06-29T11:59:00.000-05:00

To all those who have come by lately looking for pictures of the Women of Enron or Shari Daugherty, I have one question: You do know that Playboy has, like, a web page, right? Just checking.

2002-06-28T14:06:00.000-05:00

RIP, John Entwhistle The bassist for The Who is dead at 57. I saw The Who at the Astrodome in 1989, which was the first of their reunion tours. It was an awesome show, made even better by having Stevie Ray Vaughn as the opening act. How often do you see an opening act do an encore and get a standing ovation?

2002-06-28T13:41:00.000-05:00

Redneck neighbor Think you've got bad neighbors? Read this and be thankful. Via my cousin-in-law and faithful reader Emilie.

2002-06-28T13:39:00.000-05:00

Citizens vs. the Katy Freeway expansion The Katy Corridor Coalition has taken its first steps towards challenging the proposed widening of I-10 west of Loop 610. The notice, which you can read here, focuses on the lack of any high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes, which allegedly violates the federally-approved clean air plan for Houston. There are plenty of other concerns, such as noise, flood control, and the need for rail, but this is a good place to start

Naturally, the cronies who pushed through this plan pooh-pooh the opposition:

County Commissioner Steve Radack, in whose precinct the freeway lies, called it "a shame that a few people would get together and conspire to inconvenience hundreds of thousands of people because of their own selfish beliefs."

Funny, I was thinking exactly the same thing. I have a proposal for you, Steve: Let's use the patented Tom DeLay Transportation Solution and vote on this. If it's good enough for light rail, it's good enough for the Katy Freeway.

2002-06-28T13:29:00.000-05:00

First Enron indictments Three former British bankers who stole over $7 million from Enron via secret investments in an Enron partner company have been indicted for wire fraud. Next up on the Justice Department's shopping list: Fastow and Skilling:

The [defendants] were involved as outside players in some of the complex and controversial partnerships set up by Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and his aide Michael Kopper that critics have said eventually helped sink the company.

[...]

According to the Justice Department's charging document, the three bankers used a series of intricate financial transactions involving an Enron entity called Southampton LP to defraud the British bank they worked for.

The fraud occurred when the men secretly invested in Southampton, eventually reaping $7.3 million in profits that belonged to the bank that employed them, the Justice Department charged.

[...]

Southampton has been under scrutiny by federal and congressional investigators almost from the outset of the Enron debacle because of huge profits made by executives of the company and others from relatively tiny investments.

In early 2000, Fastow and Kopper each turned a $25,000 investment in Southampton into a $4.5 million gain within a few months, according to a special report released earlier this year by the Enron board.

Others, like former Enron treasurer Ben Glisan and lawyer Kristina Mordaunt also reaped huge cash payments from investments in Southampton.

I really hope they plead out in return for testimony against Fastow and Skilling. The only thing that's keeping me from taunting Mickey Kaus right now is the lack of Ken Lay's name anywhere in this article. Maybe he really was totally clueless about what was happening under him. Amazing.

2002-06-27T12:19:00.000-05:00

That other freeway A nice little article in the Chron about community participation in the debate over widening I-45 north of downtown. Neighborhood groups, including my own, were there to oppose plans to widen I-45 beyond its existing right-of-way, as this would require the demolition of many houses. The story covers one of three meetings that Metro is holding to discuss transit options, including rail.

The meeting that address concerns inside the Loop was one of three organized by the Metro team to gather comments on the highway study's progress. Their work is focused on an area that runs about 30 miles from downtown to The Woodlands along I-45, and between I-45 and the Hardy Toll Road. About four miles of I-45 and U.S. 59 segments south of downtown are included.

As part of the study, Metro is analyzing a variety of advanced high-capacity options such as light rail or high-speed bus, as well as highway improvements.

[...]

Located near Houston's largest and busiest airport and a north Houston business district, and surrounded by several growing suburbs, the Greenspoint area should serve as a mass transit crossroads, said many participants at Metro's Greenspoint/IAH planning session.

While the majority agreed that a light-rail system running through the area is a must, many ideas surfaced on what route that train should take and where and how many stops it should make.

"Is there any reason we can't ask for all at the same time?" said Houston Police Department Sgt. Corby Weber.

Some common themes that emerged from the meeting, Smith said, included the need for light-rail access from Greenspoint along Greens Road and the Hardy Toll Road, a stop at Greenspoint Mall, a light-rail line that serves local residents, and a line continuing north with stops at FM 1960, FM 2920, The Woodlands and Texas 242.

Eager for a high-speed alternative to lengthy and congested road trips to downtown Houston and points beyond, Woodlands-area residents and business owners voiced strong support for a light-rail line down I-45.

That last bit is especially encouraging, since it's so often the folks in the far-flung suburbs who push for road widening because they can't get to work fast enough to suit them. Compare to the recent announcements about widening I-10 west of Loop 610, which was pushed through without any real consideration of other options, led by westside Congressman John Culberson. There is organized opposition to this plan, but unlike the I-45 corridor folks, these people are starting out behind the eight ball.

2002-06-27T12:07:00.000-05:00

Maybe they're looking to boost their hit count as well The Chron uses its whimsical puns quotient in this front page story on the Women of Enron, then gets all metaphorical on the editorial pages:

It's blushingly appropriate for the times, some would say, that on the same day WorldCom was making headlines for having overstated its cash flow by more than $3.8 billion, "the women of Enron" were making a splash and some cash by baring their personal assets in Playboy magazine.

Had the same level of transparency applied to WorldCom, the nation's second-largest long-distance carrier, to Enron and to a growing host of other corporate giants, investors and employees might not be losing the proverbial shirts off their backs and the fig leaf of corporate ethics wouldn't be in the media mulcher.

These things just write themselves sometimes, don't they?