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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

Can Schiller and Del Grande save Cafe Express?

Posted on February 04, 2008
At one time earlier this decade, the Cafe Express restaurants were among the best "upscale" fast food restaurants in Houston, perhaps anywhere. Then, in 2004, Wendy's International purchased a majority stake in Cafe Express from the original owners, Lonnie Schiller...

WinkingSkull.com

Posted on February 03, 2008
Check out WinkingSkull.com, a worthy counterpart to the Visual Medical Dictionary (noted earlier here) in better understanding anatomy and medical conditions. Along those lines, did you know that "the bacteria count in the plaque on human teeth approaches the bacteria...

Piling on Rosenthal

Posted on February 02, 2008
It's become fashionable around Houston to be critical of outgoing Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal. Frankly, much of the criticism is deserved. But given what Rosenthal has been going through over in federal court over the past couple of...

Jérôme Kerviel channels Tom Cruise

Posted on February 01, 2008
In this clever Financial Times op-ed, John Gapper lucidly explains why the business world will always be dealing with risk-takers such as Jérôme Kerviel, the alleged ?rogue trader? at Société Générale whose trades are responsible for the $7 billion plus...

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The never-ending City of Houston corruption probe

Posted on February 01, 2008
It's been a couple of years since I last blogged on it, and it's been over two and a half years since the new defendants were first mentioned as potential targets in the probe, but the feds finally got around...

Protesting the absolute priority rule while wintering in Houston

Posted on February 01, 2008
This Tom Fowler/Chronicle article reports on a retired commercial painter from Ohio is engaging in a rather novel protest of the absolute priority rule, the bankruptcy principle that prevents shareholders from receiving any value under a bankruptcy plan unless creditors...

The stadium ruse

Posted on January 31, 2008
Something to think about in regard to the City of Houston's latest stadium boondoggle. Skip Sauer over at The Sports Economist notes this Rick Eckstein op-ed on the myth of economic benefits from the public financing of sports stadiums: ....

The wisdom of U.S. Presidential campaigns

Posted on January 31, 2008
Much is wrong with U.S. Presidential campaigns. They last much too long, are far too expensive and the rhetoric is mostly mind-numbing. However, for all its faults, the messy process does have a way of eliminating the candidates that need...

What time is it over there?

Posted on January 31, 2008
When I'm going to be involved in telephone conferences with folks overseas, I am constantly wondering what time of the day it is for them. This website helps me....

Arnold Kling's Medicare experience

Posted on January 30, 2008
As I've noted many times, EconLog's Arnold Kling is doing some of the best writing and thinking about health care and health care finance issues in the U.S. right now. In his latest TCS op-ed, Kling describes the care received...

NASCAR golf?

Posted on January 30, 2008
This earlier post suggested a creative approach to create interest for a PGA Tour golf tournament caught in the Tiger Chasm -- i.e., the neverland of golf tournaments that draw nowhere near the interest or publicity as the 15-18 golf...

The products of an entertaining form of corruption

Posted on January 30, 2008
Inasmuch as the corrupt sponsorship of big-time football and basketball by academic institutions is a common topic on this blog, the following articles caught my eye: The Chronicle's Richard Justice surveys several of the ugly recent incidents in big-time college...

The worst in Major League Baseball?

Posted on January 29, 2008
Sabermetrics Godfather Bill James coined the "Law of Competitive Balance" to explain the trend that teams that win in professional sports tend to slack off in the following year because team management doesn't work as hard, resists taking risks to...

What's Fertitta's real plan for Landry's?

Posted on January 29, 2008
Given this experience, Landry's Restaurants CEO Tilman Fertitta's offer to take Landry's private in a deal valued at $1.3 billion is not particularly surprising. But the question is this: Would Fertitta, who owns just under 40% of Landry's, actually prefer...

Hillary's Inner Tracy Flick

Posted on January 29, 2008

The power of myths

Posted on January 28, 2008
A common topic on this blog has been the power of anti-business myths within American society. Take Enron, for example. We all know how the myth played out. Enron, which was one of the largest publicly-owned companies in the U.S.,...

The bus to Houston

Posted on January 28, 2008
Check out this interesting story of how a young woman's bus ride to Houston in the 1960's led to a better life. A redeeming quality of Houston is that it attracts folks who are looking to improve their lot in...

The costs of prohibition

Posted on January 28, 2008
The nature of the problems that confront Texans and law enforcement officers who live near the Texas-Mexico border have been a frequent topic on this blog (see here, here, and here). Those problems are exacerbated by the archaic nature of...

A truly frightening thought

Posted on January 27, 2008
It's been comforting that John Edwards' demagoguery has not generated the type of buzz and political support that would make him a top contender for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. However, this Robert Novak/Rasmussen blurb ended my sense of comfort:...

Subprime sense

Posted on January 26, 2008
Cato Institute's Alan Reynolds passes along some interesting observations regarding his review of subprime mortgages (see previous posts here). Among them are the following: Most current foreclosures are on prime mortgages, not subprime. Half of subprime mortgages are fixed, not...

The Fastow notes

Posted on January 25, 2008
The big Enron-related news this week was the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear the appeal of the Fifth Circuit's decision to dismiss securities fraud claims against several of Enron's banks (Ted Frank explains the decision). In light of the...

The vanishing primary care physicians

Posted on January 25, 2008
This earlier post on my internist's decision to adopt a concierge health care model for his practice noted that the economic crisis faced by most primary care physicians was one of the primary reasons for the change in his practice....

Oh great!

Posted on January 25, 2008
The chronically-troubled airline industry is a common topic on this blog, as is the generally abysmal state of air travel. For good measure, this post by a former air traffic controller explains how air travel isn't particularly safe, either. Just...

The latest boondoggle?

Posted on January 24, 2008
Anne Linehan, Kevin Whited and Cory Crow note this week's "are you kidding me?" moment from City Hall -- two Nancy Sarnoff/Chronicle articles reporting on the trial balloon that Mayor White floated about building a second large convention hotel in...