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Legal Commentary

Houston's Clear Thinkers

Wide-ranging observations on law, business, medicine, culture, sports, and other matters of general interest to members of the Houston business, professional, and academic communities.
By Tom Kirkendall

Post Frequency: 4.2/day

Last Entry: July 20, 2010 at 03:01:00

A great interview

Posted on September 04, 2009
Anything that happens in U.S. Open tennis over the Labor Day weekend is unlikely to match this hilarious post-match interview of Andy Roddick during the 2007 Australian Open after Roger Federer had defeated him in particularly dominating style....

An illusion of safety, but at what cost?

Posted on September 03, 2009
The only two airline-security measures that really matter -- fortified cockpit doors and the awareness of the flying public as to what a hijacking can mean -- have been in place virtually since the attacks of September 11, 2001....

Tecumseh Valley

Posted on September 02, 2009
The incomparable Nanci Griffith sings a classic song by the late, great Texas songwriter, Towne Van Zandt's classic....

County Fair, L.A. style

Posted on September 01, 2009
Yet another example of how commercials (see earlier examples here) are providing some of the most creative product on television(H/T Glenn Reynolds ):...

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Rationing health care in a disaster

Posted on August 31, 2009
If you read one article health care-related this week, make it this extraordinary Sheri Fink/NY Times Magazine article on the impossible choices that the heroic doctors -- including Dr. Anna Pou -- faced at the former Memorial Medical Center...

Hitchens lays the wood to an apologist for Islamic jihad

Posted on August 30, 2009
Christopher Hitchens at his best (H/T Reuben Moore)....

The Five Minute University

Posted on August 29, 2009
Food for thought from Father Guido Sarducci to collegians starting the new school year....

A real head scratcher

Posted on August 28, 2009
The Stanford Financial Group scandal has been anything but typical, but yesterday's developments may have been the most bizarre yet. The big news, other than the hospitalization of R. Allen Stanford, was the guilty plea that Stanford's right-hand man...

Ali and Arnie

Posted on August 27, 2009
The Observer provides this entertaining compilation of quotes from Muhammad Ali, who just turned 67. My two favorites: On his Parkinson's disease: "It wasn't the boxing, it was the autographs." (2003) On his biggest battle: "My toughest fight was...

Re-tracing Graham Greene's journey across Mexico

Posted on August 26, 2009
In the first of a series of upcoming blog posts that will interest most Texans, The Atlantic's Graeme Wood is re-tracing the journey across Mexico of Graham Greene of The Lawless Roads fame seventy years ago: Seventy years ago,...

Amazingly bad decision-making

Posted on August 25, 2009
One fringe benefit of economic downturns is that local public officials generally defer their financial decisions, which tend to be uniformly bad even during good economic times. Except apparently in Houston. Over the past few days, Houstonians have been...

The evolution of primary care

Posted on August 24, 2009

Mathemagic

Posted on August 23, 2009

Stros 2009 Season Review, Part Three

Posted on August 22, 2009
Given the inexplicable popularity of NFL football practice in these parts, who cares about Major League Baseball anymore, anyway? As expected, the Stros (59-62) faded into obscurity during the third quarter of the 2009 season, going 19-21 during that...

Scalding Scalia

Posted on August 21, 2009
Never one to avoid a lively debate, Harvard law prof Alan S. Dershowitz (previous posts here) lays the wood to Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in this Daily Beast op-ed over the extent of their rationalizations...

A Texas original

Posted on August 20, 2009
Given the achievement of covering his 200th major golf tournament at the U.S. Open this past June, Clear Thinkers favorite and fellow Texan Dan Jenkins has been making the interview rounds and it has been a rollicking good time....

Robert D. Novak, R.I.P.

Posted on August 19, 2009
Longtime Washington political columnist and television political pundit Robert D. Novak died yesterday, ending a virtually unparalleled 60-year career of reporting on national politics from the nation's capitol. David Broder and Jack Shafer do a good job of putting...

Alain de Botton on the randomness of merit

Posted on August 18, 2009
If you watch just one TED video this year, check out this 17 minute presentation by Alain de Botton on the cult of meritocracy and related issues. H/T Epicurean Dealmaker....

Where is the outrage?

Posted on August 17, 2009
A couple of stories caught my eye over the weekend. The first was the one involving Bob Dylan being pulled over by a couple of young cops while taking a walk in a New Jersey neighborhood a few hours...

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field

Posted on August 16, 2009
I watched this video enlarged on my 27-inch HD monitor. It is incredible. Enjoy....

Johnnie Walker "Walk"

Posted on August 15, 2009
As noted earlier here, the most creative product being generated on television these days is commercials. The commercial below is the latest in that trend:...

Les Paul, R.I.P.

Posted on August 14, 2009

The Stanford D&O Policy

Posted on August 13, 2009
This earlier post noted that alleged Ponzi-schemer R. Allen Stanford has been denied use of proceeds of a director's and officer's insurance policy to pay his defense costs because of claims made on that policy by the receiver appointed...

Colbert does Julie & Julia

Posted on August 12, 2009
The crack about "certainly there was something they haven't deep-fat fried yet" is an instant classic....

Enron, the play

Posted on August 11, 2009
It was probably inevitable, although I would have guessed an opening Off Broadway rather than in London. But the play is actually getting decent reviews. And it almost has to be better than this trash. Where are Zero Mostel...

Reflecting on astonishing abuses of power

Posted on August 10, 2009
As Congress contemplates an historic extension of governmental control in regard to health care finance, a couple of stories relating to the growth of unrestrained exercise of governmental power in another area grabbed my attention. First, former Dynegy executive...

12

Posted on August 09, 2009

A good sign

Posted on August 08, 2009
One of the many fascinating aspects of golf is that you can learn much about a person by playing a round of golf with them. Based on this Time article (h/t Geoff Shackelford), President Obama sounds as if he...

The increasing cost of public equity

Posted on August 07, 2009
Frank Quattrone, the former CSFB investment banker who has an interesting perspective, notes a dynamic of the now almost decade-long criminalization of business that I have been warning business owners and lawyers about for quite some time now --...

The health care finance wedge

Posted on August 06, 2009
Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Arthur Laffer lucidly identifies one of the key obstructions to controlling costs in America's health care finance system: Consumers are receiving quality medical care at little direct cost to themselves. This creates runaway...

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