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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

The NY Times discovers that Houston

Posted on April 04, 2008
is a pretty darn diverse place....

Catching up with Bill James

Posted on April 03, 2008
The beginning of the Major League Baseball season is a good time to check in with Clear Thinkers favorite, Bill James, the father of sabermetric analysis of baseball. Steve Dubner over at the Freakonomics blog recently provided James with...

It's 2008 Shell Houston Open Week

Posted on April 02, 2008
Following on this post from a couple of weeks ago, this week's Shell Houston Open at Redstone Golf Club has its best field in years (previous posts here), which includes the following top 25 players in the World Golf...

The Wall Street Journal's Enron embarrassment

Posted on April 01, 2008
In anticipation of the oral argument on Wednesday in New Orleans on former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's appeal of his criminal conviction, don't miss this Larry Ribstein post on Wall Street Journal Enron reporter John Emshwiller's tardy realization that...

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Batter up! Stros 2008 Season Preview

Posted on March 31, 2008
The Stros are on the road for the first week of the 2008 Major League Baseball season, but that's not a bad thing considering that the optimism usually associated with Opening Day during the Biggio-Bagwell era of the Stros...

Icahn on settling Pennzoil-Texaco with Jamail

Posted on March 30, 2008
This blog is mostly about business and law, so Carl Icahn's activities have been a frequent topic. Likewise, this blog also centers on Houston, where the Pennzoil v. Texaco case from the mid-1980's is a part of the city's storied...

Thoughts about basketball at Reliant

Posted on March 29, 2008
My friend John Stevenson graciously hosted a couple of friends and me at last night's NCAA South Regional semi-final basketball games at Reliant Stadium. Although the company and conversation was a solid A+, my grade for Reliant Stadium's performance...

Thinking about Bear Stearns

Posted on March 27, 2008
Michael Lewis -- author of Moneyball and The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game (previous post here) provides this particularly lucid Bloomberg.com op-ed regarding the implications of the Bear Stearns affair to investors generally: All of this raises an...

Throes of Democracy

Posted on March 26, 2008
One of the best books that I have read over the past several years is Walter A. McDougall's Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History 1585-1828 (HarperCollins 2004), the first book in McDougall's planned trilogy on American history....

Reliant Stadium, South Regional-style

Posted on March 25, 2008
Check out the Chronicle's nifty rendering of the new basketball configuration that will be used this weekend at Houston's Reliant Stadium for the NCAA Basketball Tournament South Regional. This configuration provides about 40,000 seats for this weekend's tournament...

The Enron Task Force laid bare

Posted on March 24, 2008
In this previous post on former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's Supplemental Brief regarding prosecutorial misconduct in connection with covering up exculpatory evidence contained former Enron CFO Andrew Fastow's interview notes, I noted that the Skilling brief would likely have...

Is this the key year for the SHO?

Posted on March 21, 2008
The Shell Houston Open has been a frequent topic on this blog, particularly the tournament's troubled recent history (see here, here and here). This year's tournament is coming up during the week of March 31-April 6 and, for the...

The ignorance of costs

Posted on March 20, 2008
I don't particularly like the distraction of talking on a cell phone while driving, so I avoid it as much as possible. It's also not enjoyable avoiding other drivers who are not paying full attention while chatting on the...

T-Mac for MVP?

Posted on March 19, 2008
The incongruity of Chronicle sportswriter Richard Justice writing about sports has been a frequent topic on this blog, so I don't much bother anymore keeping up with his often baseless observations about the local sporting scene. However, on the...

The Economist gets it

Posted on March 18, 2008
Following on recent posts here and here, The Economist produces the best mainstream media article that I've seen to date placing the prosecutorial misconduct of the Enron Task Force toward former Enron executives Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay in...

"America’s booming opportunity city"

Posted on March 17, 2008
Each time local politicians in Houston engage in bad policy initiatives such as the ones noted here, my wish is that they would be required to read this fine Joel Kotkin/The American op-ed entitled Lone Star Rising -- How...

The Nacchio debacle

Posted on March 17, 2008
I'm shocked, absolutely shocked, that a former Enron Task Force member would have ever been involved in improperly suppressing exculpatory testimony at trial that would ultimately lead to the Tenth Circuit's reversal of the conviction of former Qwest CEO,...

That pesky trust-based business model

Posted on March 16, 2008
Over the weekend, we learned that the Fed had bailed out New York-based investment bank Bear Stearns during this unsettled time in the financial markets. Almost seven years ago, a much larger company that shared many characteristics with Bear...

The stench of prosecutorial abuse

Posted on March 14, 2008
The stench of prosecutorial abuse has long hung over the Enron-related criminal cases. But the extent of that abuse became crystal clear this afternoon when the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granted former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's motion to...

More rumblings in the Skilling appeal

Posted on March 12, 2008
This post from last week noted some interesting docket entries in former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's Fifth Circuit appeal of his conviction on criminal charges in connection with the demise of Enron. Now, it looks as if the mainstream media...

The Spitzer Lesson

Posted on March 11, 2008
The mainstream media and the blogosphere have been buzzing over the past 24 hours regarding the fall from grace of New York's governor and former Lord of Regulation, Eliot Spitzer. As noted in this previous post, there is an...

What's going on in the Skilling appeal?

Posted on March 07, 2008
First, thank you to all of the many readers who have communicated their concerns and prayers for the family crisis that is precluding me from daily blogging for now. Your kind thoughts and words are comforting and much appreciated....

Landry's is worth more because of what?

Posted on March 02, 2008
Did I read right what Steve Scheinthal, Landry's Seafood Co. general counsel, said in this Chronicle article?: Landry's is . . . facing a handful of shareholder suits seeking class-action status in the wake of CEO Tilman Fertitta's bid to...

A change in blogging seasons

Posted on March 02, 2008
When I started this little blog a bit over four years ago, the blogosphere was a different place. The pioneers of blogs were well-established and had created a viable vehicle to enhance communication of information and ideas, but the...

Sanctionable softball parents

Posted on March 01, 2008
Robert Loblaw explains why parents of high school softball players who are upset with their daughters' coach should not vent their criticism in a federal civil rights lawsuit. At least not in the Seventh Circuit....

The "leadership" of Bill White

Posted on February 29, 2008
Let me see if I've got this straight. On one hand, private businessmen invest a millions in buying a run-down property and following the city's existing laws and regulations in preparing to build the Ashby high-rise, a large-scale residential...

They just don't make football players like that anymore

Posted on February 29, 2008
The Johnny Carson interview below of former Baltimore Colts defensive tackle Art Donovan had my late father and me (as well as Carson himself) in stitches when we first saw it together back in 1990. Donovan's description of his on-the-field...

Indexed

Posted on February 29, 2008
Jessica Hagy has had a smart blog for awhile. Now, she has a smart book. Barry Ritholtz provides a taste of her work. She is a very insightful lady. Enjoy...

I'm shocked, shocked! There is academic cheating in big-time college football!

Posted on February 28, 2008
The entertaining hypocrisy of big-time college athletics continues at Florida State University. (H/T Jay Christensen). Just like Rick's Cafe, everybody knows what's going on, too. So, what level of embarrassment in regard to "academic integrity" is it going to...

Baseball Prospectus 2008 is here

Posted on February 28, 2008
Baseball Prospectus 2008 is now shipping, so it's time to order your copy in plenty of time for the beginning of the MLB season. In terms of improving your understanding of baseball, it's the best $14 you can spend....

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