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2009 Weekly local football review
(AP Photo/Don Heupel; previous weekly reviews for this season are here) Texans 31 Bills 10 The Texans (5-3) dominated the game, but somehow found themselves trailing the Bills (3-5) after three quarters. Previous Texans teams probably would have folded,...
The Landry's debacle
There are bad stock plays and there are horrible stock plays. And then there is Houston-based Landry's Restaurants, Inc. This story began back in July of 2007 when the company announced that it was delinquent in its regulatory filings...
A timely reminder
As the heat of the summer months rises and thunderstorms become more frequent, this Bill Pennington/NY Times article passes along a helpful reminder to golfers regarding two commonly often overlooked hazards -- overexposure of skin to the sun and...
How did it come to this?
That's the question I kept asking myself as I watched former U.S. District Judge Sam Kent be sentenced to 33 months in federal prison yesterday (previous posts here). I had an early-morning hearing in federal court yesterday and another...
The Chron's last gasp?
With traditional newspapers folding left and right, it's no surprise that the newspaper business is no bowl of cherries these days. According to this WSJ Digits blog post, that uncertainty is prompting Houston's main daily newspaper -- the Houston...
Fertitta calls off bid to take Landry's private, but takes it private, anyway
Suffice it to say that it's been an interesting past year and a half for Houston-based Landry's Restaurants Inc., which owns restaurants such as Landry's, Rainforest Cafe, Charley's Crab, The Chart House, and Saltgrass Steak House, as well as...
2008 Weekly local football review
(AP Photo/Tony Dejak; previous weekly reviews are here) Texans 16 Browns 6 A win is a win, right? Well, maybe. But the reality is that the Texans (4-7) finally found a team in the Browns (4-7) that is more...
2008 Weekly local football review
(AP Photo/Michael Conroy; previous weekly reviews are here) Colts 33 Texans 27 Texans (3-7) backup QB Sage Rosenfels (13-18/192 yds/0 TD/1 INT) had another "Sage moment" (i.e., "what the hell was that?") when he threw his only interception of...
Almost a month after Hurricane Ike
A friend of mine who is a homebuilder in The Woodlands passes along the following regarding his experience in overseeing a crew rebuilding the neighborhood of his weekend home in Hurricane Ike-ravaged Galveston: Just back from Galveston after 3...
Stros 2008 Season Review, Part Five: Season Recap and Report Card
The Stros 2008 season has been over for over a week now, so it's time for my final review of the 2008 season (prior 2008 season reviews are here) and my grading of the Stros players for the 2008...
2008 Weekly local football review
(AP Photo/Phil Coale; previous weekly reviews are here). Jaguars 30 Texans 27 (OT) If it isn't one thing, it's another for the Texans (0-3). After pretty much stinking it up in the Texans' first two games, QB Matt Schaub...
Tough day at the office
Clear Thinkers reader Charles Satterfield passes along these pictures of a trading office on the sixth floor of JP Morgan Chase Center, looking out toward the blown-out windows on the east side of JP Morgan Chase Tower (the tallest building...
The "Rookies and Rednecks" come through
What with a hurricane hitting the upper Texas coast and a financial hurricane hammering Wall Street, the U.S. team's improbably stirring victory over the European team in last weekend's Ryder Cup matches has been somewhat overlooked. As usual, Geoff...
2008 Weekly local football review
(AP Photo/John Russell) After a week off in deference to Hurricane Ike, the weekly local football review is back (previous weekly reviews are here). Titans 31 Texans 12 OK, it wasn't as bad as the Week One loss to...
Interesting golf fact of the day
What with Hurricane Ike and the meltdown on Wall Street -- as well as my general pessimism about the U.S. team's chances -- I haven't blogged much about this weekend's Ryder Cup matches at Valhalla in Louisville. But Clear...
Progress in the aftermath of Ike
Wednesday was a good day. Large areas of Houston -- including the area that includes my family's home -- had power restored. Our land phone lines were also restored on Wednesday after they had survived Hurricane Ike only to be...
A day in a life after Ike
Just jotting down a few observations throughout the day of living in an area that just experienced a major natural disaster. FEMA, take note Although The Woodlands did not suffer as much damage as many other parts of the...
The aftermath of Ike
An estimated 5 million customers along the upper Texas Gulf Coast lost power as a resuit of Hurricane Ike. Only about 5% of those have been restored as I write this post. Current estimates are that it will be 2-3...
Surviving Ike
Yes, although you haven't heard from me for awhile, I'm still here. My family and I survived Hurricane Ike just fine. Although not an intense hurricane (it came ashore as a category 2), the enormity of the storm was...
The Galveston Seawall
You probably have heard much over the past couple of days about the Galveston Seawall. It was constructed in the early 20th century after Galveston was destroyed by the storm surge of the Hurricane of 1900. The purpose of the...
A developing disaster
The extreme storm surge of Hurricane Ike is causing a disaster in Galveston, Texas, which is about 50 miles southeast of Houston. The Coast Guard announced earlier today that the authorities believe that Galveston Island will be completely submerged...
Waiting on Ike
When I started this blog back in early 2004, it never occurred to me that hurricanes would end up being a frequent topic. Then, on August 27, 2005, many folks discovered this little corner of the blogosphere when this...
Movies in five words each
What with Hurricane Ike scheduled to bear down on the upper Texas Gulf coast over the weekend and the Texans looking as pathetic as ever, we could use a bit of levity around here. So, check out The AFI...
2008 Weekly local football review
(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar; previous weekly review is here). Steelers 38 Texans 17 Geez, that Texans' performance certainly didn't make this preview look very good. Getting one's ass kicked in the first game of the season is never pleasant,...
Here comes Ike
Looks like we're going to be dealing with another powerful hurricane (Ike) in the Gulf of Mexico late next week. Ay, yi, yi, yi, yi! This earlier post in regard to Hurricane Gustav noted a number of excellent sources...
2008 Weekly local football review
(Previous weekly reviews from the 2004-2007 seasons are here). Rice 56 SMU 27 As noted earlier here, I think the Owls (1-0/1-0 CUSA) are a good bet to surprise this season. They have an excellent and experienced QB in...
The genesis of a mortgage fraud hotspot
Dealbreaker's essential Opening Bell yesterday included the following note about the connection between the state of Florida and mortgage fraud: Florida tops 1Q mortgage fraud list (AP) This is not surprising... Florida is already a key location of the...
Todd Graham's Inferno
Rice University gave Todd Graham his first opportunity to be a head coach of a college football program. As noted earlier here, Graham in his first year on South Main led the Owls to their first bowl game since the...
A real insurance fraud
I've been meaning to pass along this James Q. Wilson/WSJ ($) op-ed that lucidly describes the crisis that has developed in property insurance markets along the Gulf Coast as a result of the litigation risk and attendant cost of clearly...
In Dr. Pou's words
Dr. Anna Pou (previous posts here), the former faculty member of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, performed heroically in the horrific aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. For her heroism, she became the main subject of one of the...
What does the investment of a billion dollars in New Orleans generate?
According to this NY Times article, apparently not much: Six inches. After two years and more than a billion dollars spent by the Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild New Orleans’s hurricane protection system, that is how much the water...
Katrina evacuees and the enduring nature of poverty
In the summer of 2005, tens of thousands of citizens from the New Orleans area relocated to Houston and other cities in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, most of whom never returned to their former home. A substantial number of...
"Superstar historian"?
Please excuse three straight posts bashing various Chronicle articles, but this Chronicle/Allan Turner reads like a press release from Rice University regarding the institution's hiring of former Tulane University history professor, Douglas Brinkley: The man who once took a busload...
The injustice of the Jeff Skilling case
In a few days, unless the Fifth Circuit grants his motion to remain free on bond pending appeal of his conviction, Jeff Skilling will report to prison to begin serving a 24-year prison sentence. The image of Skilling entering that...
2006 Weekly local football review
Redskins 31 Texans 15 Oh, my. It's only been three games, but let's face it -- the Kubiak Era is looking like an utter disaster. As noted in this earlier post, when Bob McNair replaced former general manager Charley Casserly...
The more things change, the more they stay the same
Several posts from last year (here, here and here) addressed one of the constants of my 27-year legal career in Houston -- the chronically abysmal condition of the Harris County Jail. With this article, the Chronicle's Steve McViker continues the...
The increasingly sensitive energy markets
Bill O'Reilly contends that it's all just an energy company conspiracy, but this week's price hike for gasoline and crude oil is actually showing just how sensitive U.S. energy markets have become to disruptions that just a few years ago...
An unintended consequence of Hurricane Katrina
Of all the consequences of Hurricane Katrina on the state of Louisiana, this NY Times article reports on one that I never expected: State officials assumed that Louisiana's tax base had been battered by last year's hurricanes, but the latest...
Regulating the regulation
Houston-based -- er, . . I mean Bermuda-based, or is that Barbados-based? . . . -- Nabors Industries, Inc. is one of the world's largest drilling contractors. The company has nearly 600 land drilling rigs and more than 900 land...
Hey FEMA, can you spare a dime?
So, you thought that the Federal Emergency Management Agency's response to the damage from Hurricane Katrina last year left much to be desired? Well, this NY Times article reports that a recent Congressional investigation has determined that the agency's relief...
More on the ripples of the 2005 hurricane season
This NY Times article reports on two recently-published Census Bureau reports that constitute the findings of the bureau's first study on the social, financial and demographic impact of the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita last summer on the Gulf Coast region:...
Remember those high prices for natural gas?
Remember those high natural gas prices of last year and the corresponding calls for more regulation of the oil and gas industry? Well, after a hurricane season last year when prices skyrocketed to above $15 per British thermal unit and...
The storms of Katrina
With hurricane season officially starting tomorrow, this NY Times article about the research that has been done over the past year into Hurricane Katrina provides some interesting information, including the stages of the storm on the New Orleans metro area:...
Checking in on oil prices
While the price for natural gas has receded quickly from the post-hurricane highs of last summer, oil prices have been a different story. Crude-oil future contracts on the New York Mercantile Exchange climbed about a dollar yesterday, settling at a...
Bowl game reading
My old friend Coach Mac is in town this week with his Iowa State Cyclone football team to play the TCU Horned Frogs tomorrow afternoon in the EV1.net Houston Bowl at Reliant Stadium. As a result, blogging will be a...
That sinking Galveston feeling
Don't allow the publication on Christmas Day of this important Eric Berger/Chronicle story entitled "Rising Growth, Sinking Fortunes" about erosion on Galveston Island. Berger, who is the Chronicle's SciGuy, consistently generates many of the local newspaper's most insightful research articles:...
Natural gas prices spike to new record
It was the coldest day of this winter season in Houston and much of rest of the U.S. yesterday, and the cold blast was met with a new record price for natural gas -- January natural-gas futures hit an all-time...
O'Reilly's appalling ignorance of markets
Bill O'Reilly is a popular Fox News show host and author, but he is really nothing more than a fleetingly entertaining demagogue. Case in point is the following exchange between O'Reilly and Neil Cavuto, another Fox News host: CAVUTO: Okay....
Wilma devastates Cancun and Cozumel
Hurricane Wilma came ashore yesterday afternoon directly on the popular Mexican resort communities of Cozumel and Cancun as a devastating category 4 storm. Although damage reports are still skimpy because of poor communications to the area, there is high probability...
Wilma!
This is getting very monotonous. Hurricane Wilma moved toward Mexico's popular Cancun resort Wednesday as an extremely dangerous category 4 storm that has already become the most intense hurricane to form in the Americas since such storms began being recorded...
Addressing the real problem in New Orleans
Edmund Phelps is the McVickar Professor of Political Economy at Columbia University. In this Wall Street Journal ($) op-ed, Professor Phelps makes the remarkably simple but adroit insight that much of the political debate over the rebuilding of New Orleans...
And you thought the recent hurricanes were bad?
As the U.S. goes about recovering from the double whammy punch of the two hurricanes that hit the Gulf Coast region over the past month or so, this NY Times article reminds us that a potentially much more serious threat...
The "Energy Hog?" -- Let's hope for a mild winter instead
On the heels of announcing the sale of almost a billion dollars worth of power plants in New York City and the Bush Administration announcing an energy conservation campaign centered around a mascot called the "Energy Hog," Houston-based Reliant Energy...
2005 Weekly local football review
Bengals 16 Texans 10 The local media will likely view this game as a moral victory because the Texans (0-3) at least had a chance to win the game. However, the Texans passing game generated a measly 128 yards on...
Assessing the hurricane damage to Gulf production facilities
Following on this post from yesterday, the markets continued to react to more information that indicates that damage to Gulf of Mexico offshore production and drilling facilities from the recent hurricanes is going to reduce production and exploration from that...
Market responds to Rita-related damage to Gulf production facilities
Following on this post from yesterday, Chevron Corp.'s announcement that its Typhoon tension leg platform was severed from its moorings by Hurricane Rita and is floating upside down in the Gulf of Mexico dovetailed with the news that natural-gas futures...
Throwing money at All the King's Men
John Fund explores in this OpinionJournal piece the risk that long-standing Louisiana elements of corruption are likely to hijack a good part of the extraordinary amount of federal aid that will be flowing into the state in the wake of...
Mississippi's AG increases the cost of rebuilding
This previous post explored the role of federally-subsidized flood insurance in attracting capital investment in New Orleans that probably would not have occurred had the owners of the capital been faced with paying the cost of private flood insurance. Until...
Thinking about Houston's evacuation plan
A couple of days ago it was gridlock as an estimated 2.7 million Houstonians evacuated out of fear of Hurricane Rita. Today, it appears that at least a portion of that gridlock is developing coming in the opposite direction as...
Houstonian wins USGA Senior Amateur Championship
In the category of better things to do than waiting around Houston for a hurricane to arrive, Houstonian Mike Rice -- who I believe plays out of Champions Golf Club -- won the the 2005 USGA Senior Amateur Championship on...
Hurricane Rita update from The Woodlands
As predicted during the morning yesterday, the Houston metropolitan area was spared a direct hit from Hurricane Rita, which came onshore at about 2:30 a.m. this morning at Sabine Pass near the Texas-Louisiana border. In The Woodlands, which is on...
Here comes Rita
Houston awakens this morning to the news that the two most likely locations for landfall are Port Arthur and Galveston. The cone of uncertainty extends from southwestern Louisiana on the east to the entire Houston metro area on the west....
A cautionary observation
After the jolting early morning news that Hurricane Rita was heading directly toward Galveston Bay, the track models have been trending further eastward for most of the day. The current most likely projection is that the storm will make landfall...
Thank goodness for the Onion
Hand it to the Onion to provide some levity during Houston's preparations for Hurricane Rita: WASHINGTON, DC—A bill introduced by Sen. George Allen (R-VA) as "just a goof" several weeks ago was signed into law by President Bush Tuesday. "I...
Will the NY Times blame Enron for the delay in the Hurricane Katrina relief effort?
My sense is that the New York Times editors need a little psychiatric help in letting their "Enron-thing" go. In this article, the Times reports on a working paper by a couple of East Coast economists who propose the rather...
Gambling with your money, their lives
The title of this post is from Holman Jenkins' insightful Wall Street Journal ($) column today in which he decries the role of federally-subsidized flood insurance in promoting the risk-taking that helped turn New Orleans into a disaster waiting to...
An example of failed local leadership
Following on this earlier post and Joe Carter's post noted in the post below regarding the failures of the federal government in the Hurricane Katrina aftermath, former state legislator Bob Williams -- whose district was the most impacted by the...
One of the effects of mass transit choices in New Orleans
Awhile back, I participated with local bloggers Tory Gattis, Anne Linehan and Kevin Whited, Laurence Simon, Owen Courr�ges and several others on a lively thread regarding the causes and effect of the public policy choices that Houston is making in...
2005 Weekly local football review
Amidst the chaos resulting from Hurricane Katrina, at least a small amount of normalcy returned this past weekend as the local college football season kicked off. As with last season, I will pass along a brief summary of the local...
Katrina's economic ripples
As state and federal officials grappled with the massive human toll that Hurricane Katrina exacted on the Gulf Coast region, further assessment of the damage is indicating that the storm has wreaked havoc to key business properties along the Gulf...
Evaluating Katrina's damage to oil and gas production facilities
Officials of oil and gas companies and refineries with facilities in the path of Hurricane Katrina were scurrying around yesterday somewhat helplessly attempting to evaluate the extent of the storm's damage on key oil and natural-gas production facilities that rattled...
Sometimes these things get overlooked on holiday weekends
Inasmuch as my utterly unprofessional opinion is that the Houston area is going to be hammered by a hurricane this season, just a note to let you know that Tropical Depression 3 has just formed in the Atlantic. Current projections...
The Texas City blast
A huge explosion tore through a British Petroleum oil refinery in Texas City Wednesday morning, killing at least 15 people and injuring over 100. Here is the exhaustive Chronicle coverage on the blast. Texas City is a city of 40,000...
Stros are officially unconscious
After creating the go ahead run in Saturday night's game, Mike Lamb went nuclear on the Pirates on Sunday afternoon at the Juice Box in leading the Stros to their ninth straight win, 10-5. The Stros have now won 11...
UT assistant Haith to coach Canes
Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News is reporting that Frank Haith, 38, associate head basketball coach at the University of Texas for the past three seasons, will be named the new head coach of the University of Miami Hurricanes basketball...
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