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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

What the Tour players really think

Posted on February 06, 2009
Golf Digest is running in this month's issue the results of an interesting survey that the magazine recently took of 25 of the top PGA Tour players. Clear Thinkers favorite and longtime Houstonian Steve Elkington scores highly in one...

Thinking about Cheney's remarks

Posted on February 05, 2009
Many Americans were repulsed by the methods former Vice-President Dick Cheney used to consolidate and exercise war powers in the Executive Branch during the administration of George W. Bush. Unfortunately, that controversy clouds many people's judgment on Cheney's many...

Blogging NASA

Posted on February 04, 2009
One of my favorite new blogs is Wayne Hale's blog in which he discusses working at NASA generally and on the Space Shuttle program specifically. Despite being a political football from time-to-time, NASA remains a fascinating place. Every one...

The Rockets at mid-season

Posted on February 03, 2009
The Rockets narrative-- i.e., "Tracy McGrady is a superstar and the Rockets can't win in the playoffs without him, but he's not the type of clutch superstar who can win in the playoffs, blah, blah blah." -- continues to...

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Sound thoughts to start the week

Posted on February 02, 2009
Felix Salmon: It may or may not be true that we would have avoided much of this crisis had credit default swaps never been invented. I suspect it's not true, and that the CDS market, in allowing people to short...

A solid Super Bowl Ad

Posted on February 01, 2009

Vitals

Posted on January 31, 2009
Vitals is an ambitious project -- providing free information and patient ratings on doctors throughout the U.S. I've checked on a number of my doctor friends and every one of them is included in the database, so it appears to...

Considering the whole man

Posted on January 30, 2009
Over the years, I've written quite a bit (for example, here, here and here) on the questionable nature of the prosecutions of the executives who were involved in the AIG/General Re finite risk transaction that prompted Eliot Spitzer to...

Updike on Golf

Posted on January 29, 2009
The late author John Updike loved to write about and play golf, and his death this week reminded me of a fine speech that he gave about the game during the United States Golf Association's Centennial Dinner in New...

Evaluating the NFL QB's and RB's

Posted on January 28, 2009
As Super Sunday approaches, check out this Dave Berri post on his final quarterback and running back ratings for the 2008 season. A few observations: The Texans' QB Matt Schaub had the 10th best season among QB's and rookie RB...

The potential consequences of being tricky

Posted on January 27, 2009
It's rarely pleasant for a businessman to have his personal affairs splashed across the front page of the New York Times business section. But it has to be particularly unsettling for the businessman when he is already the target...

Making bad policy

Posted on January 26, 2009
It sure is getting hard to keep up with all the rules involved in determining whether an important person gets prosecuted for an alleged business crime. First, there was the Apple Rule, which was quickly followed by the Dell...

Can Mayor White pull off another "win-win" deal

Posted on January 25, 2009
Although the developers of the proposed Ashby high-rise condominium project didn't know it at the time, Houston Mayor Bill White did the developers a huge favor by putting up roadblocks to that project. Can you imagine trying to peddle...

Oral history of the Bush White House

Posted on January 24, 2009
When you have a spare hour or so, check out this "Oral History of the Bush White House" by Cullen Murphy, Todd Purdum and Philippe Sands in the current issue of Vanity Fair. The format of the article is...

Thinking about Ted Kennedy's health care

Posted on January 23, 2009
As the Obama Adminstration begins exploring how to reform America's broken health care finance system, Kevin Pho makes an insightful observation regarding the current medical treatment of one of the leading reformers: As we know, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy has...

You won't see this at the local Metro Light Rail station

Posted on January 22, 2009

Skilling fires back

Posted on January 21, 2009
As noted earlier here, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel decision in former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's appeal of his criminal conviction was unusual in several respects. For example, even though the three-judge panel reversed Skilling's sentence and...

Reality Bites

Posted on January 20, 2009
This earlier post made the following point about folks who lost their entire nest egg by investing it with Bernard Madoff: Although nothing is wrong with compassion for folks who lose money in an investment fraud, it's important to remember...

An entertaining upcoming week in Houston

Posted on January 19, 2009
No one in Houston this week can complain about lack of opportunity for intellectual stimulation. First, well-known legal blogger and Clear Thinkers favorite Larry Ribstein will be lecturing on Thursday afternoon from noon to 2 p.m. at the University....

The Hardest Job in Football

Posted on January 18, 2009
As you settle in to watch today's two NFL conference championship games, be sure to check out Mark Bowden's excellent article in this month's Atlantic on the enormous human and technological resources that to into the television production of...

Hayes Carll on the Battle of Crystal Beach

Posted on January 17, 2009
Clear Thinkers favorite Hayes Carll sings "I Got a Gig" and tells the humorous story about about his first gigs in Crystal Beach, Texas....

Marathon madness

Posted on January 16, 2009
The annual running of the Houston Marathon is this weekend, so the Houston Chronicle is running its typical series of supposedly inspiring stories about various participants. A couple of days ago, the story was about a couple of folks...

Fertitta calls off bid to take Landry's private, but takes it private, anyway

Posted on January 15, 2009
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...

Fascinating trend

Posted on January 14, 2009
Following on this earlier post, isn't it interesting that beer companies are funding some of the most creative product on television?...

The criminalization-of-business lottery

Posted on January 13, 2009
The owners of Long Term Capital Management may have been the earliest winners in the most recent era of what Larry Ribstein has coined the criminalization-of-business lottery. On the other hand, Jamie Olis may have been the earliest big...

2008 Weekly local football review

Posted on January 12, 2009
(previous weekly reviews are here) Texas Longhorns 24 Ohio State 21 In a not particularly well-played, but nevertheless highly-entertaining Fiesta Bowl last Monday night, the Longhorns (12-1) used some more QB Colt McCoy magic with 16 seconds left to...

Men are from Mars, Women from Venus

Posted on January 11, 2009

Dan Jenkins' 2009 Golf Season Pop Quiz

Posted on January 10, 2009
Clear Thinkers favorite Dan Jenkins is already in mid-season form with this hilarious pop quiz (H/T Geoff Shackelford) for the start of the 2009 PGA Tour season. Some of the questions to get you started: 7. Camilo Villegas is:...

Can Judge Kent receive a fair trial in Houston?

Posted on January 09, 2009
By now, most folks have heard that the government has filed a superceding indictment against U.S. District Judge Sam Kent alleging sexual abuse against a second federal employee and also obstruction of justice in connection with the Fifth Circuit's...

Another Angry Mob

Posted on January 08, 2009
The Fifth Circuit's decision yesterday reminded us of the angry mob that lynched Jeff Skilling. Now, as this timely Roger Parloff/Fortune article notes, an even larger mob is gathering to lynch the businesspeople who were attempting to save their...

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