October 2005 Archives

31 October 2005

Never A Dictator The Times Didn't Like

Mao's 70 million (Ralph R. Reiland, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

I bring up all this history because I was halfway through reading "Mao: The Unknown Story," the new book by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, when The New York Times published Nicholas Kristof's review of the book.

Now it's true that Kristof, an op-ed writer at The Times, judges the book to be a "magnificent biography," and he does at least whistle past the graveyard, pointing out that Mao had slaughtered a quarter of the entire Red Army, "often after they were tortured in such ways as having red-hot rods forced into their rectums."

Still, Mr. Kristof worries that Chang and Halliday might have painted too dark a picture. He wonders if the 70 million number is "accurate," and if the book unfairly excludes "exculpatory evidence" about the upside of Mao's rule.

Arguing that "Mao's legacy is not all bad," Kristof pays tribute to Mao's successes with land reform and women's rights. "Land reform in China," he writes, "like land reform in Japan and Taiwan, helped lay the groundwork for prosperity today."

What he doesn't say is that land reform in Japan and Taiwan was accomplished without the slaughter of millions of people.

Regarding women's rights, Kristof asserts that Mao "moved China from one of the worst places in the world to be a girl to one where women have more equality than in, say, Japan or Korea."

The perfect example of this enhanced equality, perhaps, is that the Chinese government has just banned this new book on Mao, for both men and women.

Kristof just can't help himself.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/31/05 22:26 | Books/Culture | Technorati | Comments (9)

Stability: Scowcroft's God

Scowcroft's 'Realism' (Charles Krauthammer, RealClearPolitics)

Realists prize stability above all, and there is nothing more stable than a ruthlessly efficient dictatorship. Which is why Scowcroft is the man who six months after Tiananmen Square toasted those who ordered the massacre; who, as the world celebrates the Beirut Spring that evicted the Syrian occupation from Lebanon, sees not liberation but possible instability; who can barely conceal a preference for Syria's stabilizing iron rule.

Even today Scowcroft says, ``I didn't think that calling the Soviet Union the `evil empire' got anybody anywhere.'' Tell that to Natan Sharansky and other Soviet dissidents for whom that declaration of moral -- beyond geopolitical -- purpose was electrifying, and helped galvanize the dissident movements that ultimately brought down the Soviet empire.

Krauthammer, who along with Mark Steyn is one of conservatism's best editorialists, administers Brent Scowcroft a well-earned spanking in this one.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/31/05 22:16 | Other | Technorati | Comments (1)

The Leak Game

Joseph Knippenberg has some interesting observations about the Libby affair over at No Left Turns:

First, any decent defense attorney is going to work pretty hard to impeach the reporters as witnesses, which means putting their careers under a microscope. It’s hard to imagine anyone emerging from such scrutiny unscathed. And it’s hard to imagine these three (Tim Russert, Matthew Cooper, and Judith Miller) not serving as stand-ins for their respective news media (television, news magazines, and newspapers), at least in the public mind (to the extent, of course, that anyone pays attention to this).

Second, once these three testify against Libby, any source is going to think twice about promises of confidentiality and about speaking to journalists in anything other than the most bland and innocuous manner.

It will be surprising if Libby doesn't plead out, thereby saving the media and other administration officials a big fight over journalistic and executive privilege. That's really too bad, because exposing the game of media and pols when it comes to this sort of leaking would be great fun to watch, and would further damage what little credibility mainstream media retains.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/31/05 22:12 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (0)

It's Good That Pro Journalists Have Editors and Fact-Checkers

Cheney Names Two to Fill Libby's Positions (Nedra Pickler, AP)

Reid said he is disappointed that Bush and Cheney responded to the indictment by praising Libby _ known around Washington as "Scooter" _ and suggested they should apologize for the leak that revealed the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.

The indictment did not charge Libby with revealing the identity of a "covert" agent, but why bother reporting the facts when you have Sen. Reid's talking points?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/31/05 22:02 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (4)

When Sports Becomes Features/STAR

Sweeter dreams await offense (Emily Davis, Houston Chronicle, 10/23/05)

The Texans might not like the bed they've made. But they might be able to sleep a little easier now that things seem to be looking up on offense.

Sure, a 38-20 loss to Indianapolis — the sixth of the year and seventh straight — wasn't the way the Texans wanted to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

But with the season on a steady downward spiral, the team is looking for any reason to stay positive.

Brown savors 'special' win: Kicker dedicates game to 9-year-old victim of cancer (Emily Davis, Houston Chronicle, 10/31/05)

Veteran kicker Kris Brown wanted the Texans to win more than anyone Sunday.

But it wasn't to snap a franchise-record seven-game losing streak or give the Texans their first win of the season.

When Brown strode confidently onto the field at Reliant Stadium and kicked the game-winning 40-yard field goal with 2:50 left in the fourth quarter, he had a young fan on his mind and dedicated the win to him once the Texans held on to beat Cleveland 19-16.

This ongoing MeMofication of the sports pages really is annoying.

Is the target audience of the sport pages really that interested in reading college-newspaper-style features writing?

I'm certainly not.

UPDATE (11-01-05): Good gawd, this is even worse than I thought. More examples below.

Mr. Big stands tall for the winners (Emily Davis, Houston Chronicle)

They had practiced the play all week. But Jerome Mathis didn't know he'd be the one executing it against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday.

So when his number was called, Mathis had only one thing on his mind.

"I wanted to make that play," he said.

Payne delivers it to Texans (Emily Davis, Houston Chronicle)

It was a private moment shared with his Texans teammates.

It was filled with emotion and heated words and cut to the core of what an NFL veteran and leader on and off the field knew his team was desperate to hear.

While Seth Payne's exact words will be known only to the Texans' family, the results of his fiery speech prompted by the sixth loss of the year Sunday already can be measured.

His words stuck. The Texans are taking them to heart.

Area schools celebrate centennial (Emily Davis, Houston Chronicle)

I grew up in Beaumont. And when I was 6 years old, the city celebrated its 150th anniversary. There were weekly parties and festivities, and I even participated in a play re-enacting the events that put Beaumont on the map.

Yes, Beaumont is on the map!

Anyway, I still have fond memories of that time. So I get nostalgic when I see area schools enjoying the same type of celebrations.

Please make this stop. That's just brutal, especially that last.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/31/05 21:56 | Media Matters | Technorati | Comments (3)

30 October 2005

Big 12 Wrap: Week 9

It's time again for the Big 12 Wrap, my whimsical weekly look back at the football action in the Big 12.

Texas 47, Oklahoma State 28
Texas trailed Oklahoma State (winless in Big 12 play) by 19 points, and was outplayed by the Pokes in the first half. No matter. Vince Young just strapped the team to his back and accounted for over 500 yards of total offense by the end of the game, as the Longhorns raced away from the Pokes in the second half, winning the second half 35-0. Vince Young has to start figuring more prominently in some of the Heisman watch lists.

Texas Tech 28, Baylor 0
Mike Leach's vaunted offensive attack sputtered for most of the game, but it didn't matter, as Tech's underrated defense held an improved Baylor team scoreless. Both teams probably were suffering a bit of a hangover from tough losses last week.

Colorado 23, Kansas State 20
Colorado escapes Manhattan with a last-second field goal. The victory gives the Buffs a one-game lead in the North over Missouri, whom they play next week in Boulder. Kansas State has now lost consecutive home games for the first time since Bill Snyder's first season as coach (1989).

Oklahoma 31, Nebraska 24
Oklahoma dominated the first half, but had to hold on after Nebraska mounted a furious comeback. The Huskers have lost consecutive home games for the first time since 1968, as Bill Callahan's rebuilding effort continues to lag. The Sooners were boosted by the return of Adrian Peterson and good play late from Rhett Bomar and a young receiving corps. The team suffered more key injuries, however, and can definitely use the upcoming week off.

Iowa State 42, Texas A&M 14
Iowa State simply dominated every aspect of this game at College Station, as Coach Fran's rebuilding effort continues to lag also. This was A&M's best chance to get to six wins to become bowl eligible. A&M will be underdogs in its three remaining games (at Oklahoma, at Texas Tech, and home against Texas). Tom Kirkendall actually got to spend Saturday on the Iowa State sideline, and has posted a great account of the experience.

Kansas 13, Missouri 3
Kansas hasn't been able to beat many teams under Mark Mangino, who will probably be coaching elsewhere next season, but his team has handled Missouri three years in a row now. Missouri's Brad Smith ran for only 38 yards and passed for 141 (14 of 37). Missouri has trouble winning when Smith has numbers like those, even against Kansas.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/30/05 21:45 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (3)

Time For A New Look

As some of you know, I've been tinkering with a new look for the blog literally for months now.

It hasn't been a very high priority, and so it's just taken forever.

I decided it was finally time to roll the thing out, even though parts of the thing aren't quite finished and I haven't done the usual amount of debugging.

The main goal was to change things up visually and go with something a little more crisp after a couple of years of grays. It's basically a version of the blogHOUSTON skin. Three columns were chosen so I could have one column of ads (and basically pay for hosting), and one column of more substantive stuff. The first sidebar column main page includes a syndicated-feed version of my furl archive (daily reading that I find interesting for whatever reason), a syndicated feed from Brother Judd (where I contribute a little, and a site that ought to be daily reading for folks interested in politics), and a syndicated feed from blogHOUSTON.

Some of you didn't like the green last time I asked, but it was the best I could do given the predominance of the "Drive Friendly" logo. And those signs at various entry points of the state have always been very amusing to me. Amusing myself is key to all this, you know. :)

There are still a number of things I need to do, including: 1) a PDA friendly page, 2) updating the skins on the static, non-blog pages of the site, 3) other stuff that I don't have on a to-do list yet. (Update: Blogroll is one of those other items; I'm using a plugin to manage the blogroll now, but it's a work in progress, as usual).

If anybody finds anything badly wrong with the new design or it won't render in whatever browser you're using, please shoot me an email or leave a comment and I'll do what I can

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/30/05 18:09 | Announcements | Technorati | Comments (6)

Hutchison Hoping For VP Slot?

What doomed Miers (Robert Novak, Town Hall)

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has approached Republican fund-raisers in her home state of Texas to test the waters for a possible 2008 presidential nomination, but party sources believe she is mainly interested in a vice presidential nomination.

Supporters describe Hutchison as saying that if Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is the Democratic nominee, the Republicans must consider putting a woman on their ticket. Hutchison, who has held statewide elective office for 15 years, would head the list for the GOP.

National ambitions may have factored into Hutchison's decision against challenging Gov. Rick Perry in a bloody Republican primary for governor next year. Hutchison chose instead to seek re-election to the Senate.

Novak must not read local left-of-center bloggers. Otherwise, he'd surely be worried about Sen. Hutchison's re-election chances against precinct chair Barbara Radnofsky.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/30/05 16:05 | American Politics | Technorati | Comments (5)

Backpack

John Wagner points to this productivity tool.

I'm big on lists, but have yet to come up with a system that I really like. Scraps of paper don't really do the trick, computer lists tie one to a specific machine, and to-do lists on the PDA that is more cumbersome than useful to me these days really don't work any better than scraps of paper. But an online service might just do the trick, for the same reason that Google Mail has become my email service of choice (it's portable and available wherever there's an internet connection, and there's generally an internet connection any place I might need to be consulting my to-do lists).

I'll have to give this thing a try and post a real review about the experience after a few weeks.

Question for readers -- what sorts of organizational tools do you find most useful?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/30/05 11:17 | Other | Technorati | Comments (2)

28 October 2005

Texas Could Beat That

Thousands Stage Mass Barbecue in Brazil (AP)

Thousands of Brazilians took to the streets Thursday to try to show the rest of the world that Brazilian beef is safe — by roasting and eating 22,000 pounds of it.

More than 40 countries have banned Brazilian beef following the country's latest outbreak of the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease earlier this month in the midwestern state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

To protest the ban, about 6,000 people gathered for the giant barbecue on a closed-off street in front of the Sao Paulo headquarters of Forca Sindical, Brazil's second-largest organization representing unionized workers.

Texas should declare a statewide grilling holiday just as a matter of principle.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/28/05 17:37 | International | Technorati | Comments (3)

Okay

Britain's prince to introduce Camilla to Americans (AP)

Prince Charles will introduce his new wife Camilla to the American people when they arrive in the United States next week but observers doubt she can ever replace the late Diana in their hearts.

Royal aides on Friday played down media speculation the heir to throne will use the eight-day tour -- the middle aged royal couple's first formal overseas visit -- as a bid to gain further acceptance for his bride of seven months.

Memories still linger of Charles' 1985 trip as a young man across the Atlantic, when his first wife, Princess Diana, stole the show and captivated Americans with her glitz and glamour.

Really?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/28/05 17:34 | International | Technorati | Comments (3)

From One "Publisher/Managing Editor" To Another

Now that Dan Patrick's megalomania is manifesting itself in a state senate run that will eventually require him to step back for a time from his vast media empire, it would seem like a good time for our good friends at the Lone Star Times to drop the goofy Publisher/Managing Editor title(s) and just go with Editor.

Even that seems a little stuffy, but titles are fun, so long as we don't go off into silly territory.

That's just this publisher/managing editor's opinion, anyway. :)

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/28/05 17:27 | Other | Technorati | Comments (4)

27 October 2005

Miers Withdraws

The Dallas Morning News is reporting on its top banner that Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination to the Supreme Court.

No link yet.

UPDATE: The Dallas Morning News has posted AP coverage. The President cited the impasse over documents in his announcement. Interestingly, Charles Krauthammer recommended that approach as a way out of this nomination on Friday on the Brit Hume program on Fox News.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/27/05 07:59 | American Politics | Technorati | Comments (2)

26 October 2005

A "Break" That Had To Come

The Neocon Who Isn’t (Robert S. Boynton, American Prospect)

Critics have faulted Fukuyama for clinging to his end-of-history thesis, accusing him of systematically underestimating events that challenged it, whether it was Yugoslav nationalism in the ’90s or Islamic radicalism today. “Fukuyama’s an optimist, which blinds him to a lot,” says Paul Berman, the author of Liberalism and Terror. (Reviewing “The End of History” in The New York Review of Books, Alan Ryan dubbed Fukuyama “the conservative’s Dr. Pangloss.” “If what we’ve got is what History with a capital H intends for us,” he wrote, “then we, too, live in the best of all possible worlds.”.

Krauthammer argues that it’s Fukuyama’s secular sensibility that blinds him to the appeal of radical Islam. “It has 1 billion potential adherents, which means that [Osama] bin Laden’s ideology has the potential to appeal to infinitely more people than the Aryan ideas of Nazism ever did,” he told me. “Frank has a stake in denying the obvious nature of the threat, but the fact is that history returned after 9-11 … . There are people running around trying to acquire anthrax with which to wipe out an entire city. If that doesn’t qualify as an existential threat, I don’t know what does.”

Fukuyama replies that these are the kinds of sentiments America should resist. “For the U.S. to treat every Muslim as a potential suicide bomber is precisely what fanatics like bin Laden want,” he says. “Iraq before the U.S. invasion was certainly not an existential threat. It posed an existential threat to Kuwait, Iran, and Israel, but it had no means of threatening the continuity of our regime. Al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups aspire to be existential threats to American civilization but do not currently have anything like the capacity to actualize their vision. They are extremely dangerous totalitarians, but post threats primarily to regimes in the Middle East.”

Korb agrees. “The bombing in London was terrible, but it wasn’t like the Blitz,” he says. “Terrorists can make life unpleasant, but bin Laden isn’t going to end up running Great Britain, while Hitler very well might have.”

The difference between Fukuyama and his critics is as much philosophical as empirical. Whereas Krauthammer and Berman emphasize Islamic terrorism’s potential for imminent violence, Fukuyama takes the long view, reasoning that political Islam won’t win the larger ideological war regardless of how much damage it inflicts.

I sent this to Orrin Judd because I was curious what his reaction would be. And essentially, Orrin pegs Fukuyama (correctly) as adopting a "wait it out" approach to Islamic terror, viewing it as a minor threat.

Fukuyama's bigger break with mainstream conservatives (we'll not misuse the term "neoconservatives") has been brewing for a while. There's always been a tension between Fukuyama the scholar who was influenced by Straussian notions of natural right, and Fukuyama the scholar who is a neo-Hegelian (which, ultimately, leads one to the rejection of natural right). Fukuyama is obviously uncomfortable with Bush foreign-policy conservatives, who have couched American foreign policy more in moralistic than realistic terms (much to the chagrin also of realists like Brent Scowcroft). In the end, the neo-Hegelian Fukuyama just couldn't embrace that sort of foreign policy. John Kerry was much more his speed, and rightly so.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/26/05 22:09 | Other | Technorati | Comments (1)

Swoopes

So, Cheryl Swoopes is out of the closet.

Her comments may not please some WNBA fans, though.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/26/05 21:05 | Sports | Technorati |

25 October 2005

Figuring Out The Sooner Fall

OU Notebook (Justin Harper & George Schroeder, Daily Oklahoman)

OU is tied for third nationally for the most freshmen played this season in Division I-A with 12. Arkansas has played 16, Duke 14 and OU and Kentucky 12 each. OU is the only one of those teams with a winning record (4-3). The other three squads are a combined 4-17.

Combined with the injuries to key returning players and the attrition in the 2003 recruiting class, the reliance on so many freshman this season explains much of Oklahoma's fall down to the mediocre 11 of the Big 12 this year. Obviously, the freshmen didn't take part in spring practices, but at times this season it still doesn't look like the coaches accomplished much in the spring or the fall.

The good news is, there is some talent among this group of freshmen. Bob Stoops ought to have a team that looks more like his other OU teams next year, assuming he doesn't lose another whole recruiting class.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/25/05 21:41 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (0)

Cute

The Houston Democrats have some cool photos of Sen. Byrd (D) and some of his old friends posted on their website today.

What fun!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/25/05 07:42 | Other | Technorati | Comments (2)

24 October 2005

Typical Bledsoe

SI's Peter King had this comment in his Monday Morning Quarterback column earlier:

I have no idea how Drew Bledsoe, a veteran who should know better, could throw that last pass in Seattle.

Of course King knows how Bledsoe could pull that stunt. It's Drew Bledsoe. He's good for that at least a couple of times per season. But, he can also make all the NFL throws and frequently makes good plays.

Bledsoe's the best QB they've had running the show in Dallas since Aikman retired, but his brain farts really are disappointing. Still, I'd rather have that guy than Quincy Carter or any of the other clowns who have gone through the place in recent years.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/24/05 22:06 | Dallas Cowboys | Technorati | Comments (1)

23 October 2005

Texans

The Texans had six net yards passing today (on six completions in nine attempts!).

I guess maybe the offensive coordinator wasn't the problem, eh?

If they're only going to throw the ball nine times a game, maybe Barry Switzer could come help 'em install the wishbone. It couldn't be any worse.

UPDATE (10-24-05): The Chronicle's Emily Davis actually led a story in today's paper with this:

The Texans might not like the bed they've made. But they might be able to sleep a little easier now that things seem to be looking up on offense.

I'm sure I've seen something stupider on the sports pages of that poor newspaper at some point, but I'm hard pressed to come up with it today. Even the headline sounds like something that ought to be in the Features/STAR section with an update on David Carr's hair: "Sweeter dreams await offense."

Huh?

The team had six net yards passing!. That's not a sign of improvement. It's a sign of an offense that is inept by NFL standards.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/23/05 21:33 | Sports | Technorati | Comments (1)

Big 12 Wrap: Week 8 (Abbreviated Version)

The camping trip took precedence over the Big 12 this week, but it doesn't appear that I missed much.

The only team with much of a chance to disprove my notion that the conference should be renamed The Big One and Little Eleven this year instead proved that ringing up 80 points against a division I-AA opponent really doesn't mean squat when you're playing Texas.

The rest of the Little Eleven all sputtered against each other. The camping trip was definitely more entertaining than any of that.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/23/05 21:19 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (1)

My Unplugged Weekend

Callie and I are back in town after a much needed camping weekend.

Quite a while back, I started conspiring with some friends to do a fall camping event closer to us (the Memorial Day Float Trip is quite a drive for most of the crew).

We decided to hang out at Scott Chaffin's place. I figured if he couldn't come camping with us, we could just go camping with him.

The weather was perfect for camping (cool in the evenings, but not cold), kayaking on the river was a bonus, and an excellent time was had by all. Scott has a nice spread.

Several of us took laptops and had in mind maybe grabbing the wifi up at Scott's cabin, but it just didn't happen. Who needs internet BS when you can BS with TFG in person? That was my reasoning, anyway.

It was a pleasantly unplugged weekend. I did sneak a listen a few times to the Sooners (who struggled mightily against Baylor) and the Astros (on the blowtorch that is KTRH-740), but mostly didn't care. Campfire and friends were better entertainment.

UPDATE: After watching Qualls give up the stupid grand slam, I'm thinking I should have stayed at the campground another day.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/23/05 21:04 | Other | Technorati | Comments (1)

21 October 2005

Well, It's Been A Hard Week....

Week and a half, actually, but Randy's song doesn't start that way.

Posting is going to be limited here this weekend, perhaps nonexistent, as I'll be enjoying a little down time.

Hope ya'll have a good weekend!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/21/05 12:20 | Announcements | Technorati |

20 October 2005

Smile!

Tom DeLay

Rep. Tom DeLay's mugshot made me laugh out loud.

Anybody know what button he was wearing?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/20/05 22:20 | Texas | Technorati | Comments (13)

19 October 2005

Roy O

That was one hell of a game from Roy Oswalt.

And one hell of a game from the bottom part of the Astros lineup.

Thank goodness there was no choke. That would have just been too much.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/19/05 22:24 | Sports | Technorati | Comments (3)

Why Can't We Find A Texas Diva To Run For Guv?

A Serious Message May Get a Serious Diva Into Argentine Congress (Monte Reel, Washington Post)

Wearing a hip-hugging leather skirt and nothing above the waist but a strategically coiled artificial snake, Moria Casan shimmied her way to the place she knows best: the spotlight at center stage.

At the Broadway Theater one recent evening, the 56-year-old cabaret star shook through a steamy dance routine and cracked a few equally uninhibited jokes about Argentine politicians. Then Nito Artaza, a co-star in her comic song and dance revue, turned to the crowd and gestured toward Casan.

" She's going to be among our representatives in Congress?" he asked in mock horror.

"Absolutely," replied Casan, posing dramatically. "There, I will be the diva."

If Casan is elected to Congress on Sunday, as recent polls suggest might happen, Argentine politics will get both a strong shot of sequined glitz and a voluble dose of anti-political rhetoric.

"I don't have a political discourse, and I don't believe politicians," Casan said during a recent interview. "I believe the people need someone who will work for them without so much 'blah blah blah.' "

It's Kinky Friedman, but with boobies!

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/19/05 20:30 | International | Technorati | Comments (5)

17 October 2005

Way To Hang One

If you're going to hang a pitch, best not to hang one to Albert Pujols.

He doesn't need the help.

I have this fatalistic view about Houston sports teams. They almost always disappoint.

But I was almost invested in this Astros team with 2 outs in the top of the 9th.

Almost. Except it's Houston. I know better.

What a choke.

Going back to Busch is going to suck.

UPDATE: So if the Astros get themselves swept in St. Louis after being up 3 games to 1 and one out away from the World Series, will that surpass the Oilers' 1992 playoff loss to Buffalo as the greatest choke in Houston sports history?

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/17/05 22:40 | Sports | Technorati | Comments (11)

16 October 2005

Big 12 Wrap: Week 7

It's time for another Big 12 wrap, my quick takes on the games in the Big 12 each week.

Texas 42, Colorado 17
In a likely preview of the Big 12 championship game, Texas dismantled the North division's best team. Vince Young ought to be considered the Heisman front runner after another dominant performance: 25-29 for 336 yards and 2 TDs passing, 10 rushes for 58 yards and 3 TDs. Up next for Texas: Texas Tech, the only team remaining on the schedule with a realistic chance of competing with the Longhorns.

Texas Tech 59, Kansas 20
Mike Leach's crew started slowly (by Leach's standards), then dropped 42 points on Kansas State in the second half to run away with the game. Tech quarterback Cody Hodges threw for an astounding 643 yards. Tech faces Texas next week in a game that will likely decide the champion of the South.

Oklahoma 19, Kansas 3
The Sooner defense scored a touchdown early, and that proved ultimately to be the difference in a that was quite a display of offensive ineptitude for both teams. Mark Mangino almost certainly will be fired at the end of the season barring an unlikely turnaround.

Nebraska 23, Baylor 14
Baylor is certainly improved from past years, but it really says quite a bit about the fall of Nebraska from college football's elite that this close win is a source of excitement for Bill Callahan and crew.

Texas A&M 62, Oklahoma State 23
A&M wins the Battle of Bad Big 12 South teams. Former OSU coach Les Miles is probably patting himself on the back for taking the LSU job about now. Coach Fran, on the other hand, might just be looking at Alabama and second guessing himself.

Missouri 27, Iowa State 24
Who would have guessed that Missouri's Brad Smith would get knocked out, and his freshman replacement would lead Mizzou right past Iowa State? That sort of thing could spell trouble for Iowa State's Dan McCarney, who really needs to pick up some wins in the conference.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/16/05 22:14 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (0)

Bell Campaign Proposes "Reform" Enacted in 2003

Part of candidate's ethics plan already covered by state law (Liz Austin, Associated Press)

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell on Tuesday unveiled an eight-point ethics reform plan to clean up what he called the "culture of corruption" in the Texas Capitol.

Trouble is, one of those eight points is already banned by state law.

Bell, who lost his spot in the U.S. House of Representatives last year, said the governor should be banned from accepting campaign money while considering whether to sign or veto legislation. He pointed to Gov. Rick Perry's veto of a record 82 bills after the 2001 legislative session. Perry raised about $1 million during that 20-day veto period.

"It just makes sense, and frankly I'm surprised that they haven't done something about that one already," Bell said.

Actually, they have.

The Legislature in 2003 banned lawmakers and statewide officeholders, including the governor, from raising campaign funds during the 20-day veto period immediately after a legislative session. Before the change, Texas law already banned fundraising for the 30 days prior to and during a session.

"We appreciate Chris taking the time to endorse proposals that have already been signed into law by Governor Perry," said Luis Saenz, Perry's campaign director.

[snip]

Mark Sanders, a spokesman for Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who's challenging Perry in the Republican primary, declined to comment on Bell's idea to ban contributions during a veto period.

That part of his proposal was removed from Bell's campaign Web site by midafternoon Tuesday.

This is just the latest gaffe from a campaign that clearly isn't ready for prime time.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/16/05 20:32 | Texas | Technorati | Comments (4)

This Brand Of Football Deserves The Name Cougar High

UH its own worst enemy in 35-20 loss (Michael Murphy, Houston Chronicle)

Given their history, beating Memphis was going to be a hard enough task for the University of Houston. But add to the mix the fact the Cougars seemed eagerly intent on beating themselves, and you pretty much wind up with the disaster that happened Saturday night at Robertson Stadium.

UH rolled up another batch of wild offensive statistics, but an incredible series of gaffes, freakish plays and flat-out boneheadedness in the red zone doomed the Cougars to a stunning 35-20 loss that put a hit on their hopes for a Conference USA title.

Normally, I'd prefer straight reporting rather than so much opinion, but it's clear that UH was dogged by the same problems it's had since Art Briles has been running the program. While they put up some big numbers on offense, they tend to lose to most winning teams, and they are plagued by penalties and mistakes that never get corrected.

Earlier in the season, I wondered if Art Briles and the rest of his collection of high school football coaches were ever going to grow into successful NCAA I-A football coaches. The jury is still out, but right now there's not much evidence that it's going to happen.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/16/05 17:49 | Sports | Technorati | Comments (0)

15 October 2005

Terrible

"Both teams' offenses are inept" - Sooner play-by-play man Bob Barry Sr., who knows something about ineptitude.

So far against KU, I think the Sooner offense may have regressed to a point that it is worse than any offense that John Blake ever coached at that school.

It's just bad.

There's honestly no excuse for it, given the talent the Sooners have and the fact that salaries of the coaching staff are among the highest in college football.

UPDATE: Okay, so the Sooners generated enough offense to beat Kansas on the road. But it wasn't pretty most of the time.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/15/05 19:15 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (3)

Was Chuck Long Around For Spring/Fall Practices?

Return to 'Run Gun' shouldn’t surprise (Justin Harper, Daily Oklahoman)

The Sooner offense looks new - based on a run-option package with the quarterback in the shotgun formation - but it’s not as new as you might think.

OU ran the same thing in 2003, with Quentin Griffin racking up big yards. Then, the quarterback (Jason White, fresh off his knee injuries) couldn’t run like Rhett Bomar can.

So why return to “Run Gun”? Bomar gives OU the flexibility to use it often after leaning on Adrian Peterson and the I-formation last year.

And the Sooners have one of the architects of the scheme - assistant coach Kevin Wilson.

And Wilson has been drawing up plays for the “Gun Run” package for half a decade.

Back in 2000, Wilson, then offensive coordinator at Northwestern, installed a spread formation that utilized the running game out of the shotgun. It worked out pretty well. The Wildcats averaged 442.9 yards per game in total offense (third in the nation), averaged nearly 40 points per game and saw their star running back (Damien Anderson) rush for 1,914 yards.

Either Justin Harper's editors wanted this story slanted a certain way or he's a pretty clueless choice for covering the Sooners.

Yes, Kevin Wilson has some experience coaching the spread offense, but the "architect" of Oklahoma's use of that offense is current Texas Tech head man (and offensive genius) Mike Leach, Bob Stoops' first offensive coordinator at Oklahoma. Several members of the current coaching staff (not Wilson, who wasn't there then) learned it from Leach, and Mark Mangino continued to run a variation of the offense at Oklahoma before becoming head man at Kansas. It's not as if this coaching staff is unfamiliar with how the offense should work, even though it appears that way this season.

Peterson's running style doesn't fit switch (George Schroeder, Daily Oklahoman)

Oklahoma’s shift away from the I and other power formations was made in part to take pressure off a struggling offensive line, and in part to take advantage of quarterback mobility. But it doesn’t necessarily play to Adrian Peterson’s strengths.

Peterson, who rushed for 1,925 yards last year as a freshman, is primarily a downhill runner; he works best when given a handoff on the run. From the shotgun, running backs are often handed the ball while standing still.

Co-offensive coordinator Kevin Wilson said the pace and rhythm are different.

“He needs to be a better gun-runner,” Wilson said. “As good as he is, he has a lot of things he can improve on. Being a better gun-runner would help our offense.”

Kevin Wilson is co-offensive coordinator AND offensive line coach. Rather than telling Adrian Peterson what he is doing wrong (because aside from injuries beyond his control, Adrian Peterson is NOT the problem at Oklahoma), Kevin Wilson should take a long, hard look in the mirror and ask himself what in the hell he accomplished with the offensive line in spring and fall practices. The answer seems to be: not much.

We now hear that Bob Stoops hired Mike Leach to run his first offense at Oklahoma because he knew the offensive line was poor, and the quick, spread passing game helped to minimize that deficiency (that's not the story Stoops told for several years after Leach's hire, but I'll save that for another time). There's no doubt that attrition has taken a toll on this year's Sooner offensive line, and one might make the case that a quick passing game out of the spread coupled with Bomar's mobility could take some pressure off of the line. Unfortunately, it also puts the pressure to make plays squarely on Bomar, who has been the weakest link so far on offense, and it minimizes the role of Adrian Peterson, the Sooners' best player.

Another option might have been to ditch the multiple formations that seem to confuse the Sooners' young players more than opposing defenses, and simply tailor a run-pass I-formation option game to the strengths of the Sooners (making good use of Peterson and a decent tight end). In other words, simplify the game for Bomar, the line, and for Peterson.

The main problem with the Sooners this year is that you can't make these sorts of changes willy-nilly in the middle of conference play, as John Blake discovered when he tried to do the exact same thing one season. Championship-caliber programs must get this work done in spring and fall practices. Increasingly, it looks like Chuck Long and Kevin Wilson must have been on vacation when those practices were conducted.

OU Notebook (George Schroeder and Justin Harper, Daily Oklahoman)

Jerry Bomar, the father of OU quarterback Rhett Bomar, said Wednesday he didn’t intend to cast a “negative” light in comments he made in Wednesday’s edition of the Tulsa World.

Jerry Bomar was quoted as saying his son didn’t get as many snaps during practices last season, last spring and last August as would have been necessary to facilitate his development. Rhett Bomar redshirted last season and ran the scout team, split snaps with Paul Thompson and Tommy Grady last spring, and with Thompson last August.

Wednesday, Jerry Bomar declined to comment on specifics.

“I never intended for it to be negative for the coaches or the players or the staff,” Jerry Bomar said. “They have my total, 100 percent trust in what they’re trying to do with my son.”

100 percent trust? Daddy Bomar's way beyond me at this point.

Some of Daddy Bomar's comments are really just a variant of what I've been saying. It's increasingly clear that the Sooner offensive coaching staff just wasted their spring and fall practices, which should have been crucial in getting young players ready to step in and contribute. The Sooners still have more talent on offense than many college teams, but they are near the bottom of the NCAA in virtually every statistical category. It's just plain ugly, and it's mainly on the coaching staff for not being ready to play this season.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/15/05 09:55 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (1)

14 October 2005

Pardon The Interruption

Yes, it's been quiet here for a few days.

I've been busy this week helping a friend work through some personal issues, but expect posting to get somewhat back to normal over the weekend.

I don't really do much pro baseball blogging, but for the readers who have requested it: Go 'Stros! :)

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/14/05 09:02 | Other | Technorati | Comments (6)

11 October 2005

Better Sign Some Players Who Stick Around

Recruiting class of ’03 dwindles (George Schroeder, Daily Oklahoman)

Just 11 players remain from Oklahoma’s 24-man class of 2003 - their class - which was touted as one of the nation’s very best.

Only two players, Carl Pendleton and Cody Freeby, are starters; Finley and Gutierrez are frequent contributors.

It’s pretty thin after that.

You want explanations for OU’s sudden, steep fall? Maybe you should look no further.

The class of 2003 was ranked No. 3 nationally by Scout.com, No. 4 by Rivals.com. It included such gems as quarterback Tommy Grady, defensive tackle Lawrence “Moe” Dampeer and safeties Tony Cade and Donte Nicholson. At the time, many believed it might have been OU’s finest class since the Barry Switzer era.

But the boom went bust.

Although Nicholson, who was a junior-college transfer, was a solid two-year starter at safety, Dampeer, Grady and Cade never made an impact. They’re gone - along with a few more.

There’s no discernible trend. Some players transferred in hopes of more playing time. Some didn’t make the grades. Some just ... quit, with no real explanation.

Heck, one guy washed out twice. McAlester’s Brandon Keith didn’t qualify academically out of high school. Then, after graduating from Northeastern Oklahoma A&M and enrolling at OU last summer, Keith quit the team early this semester.

Losing over half of a Top Five recruiting class is a big hit for any major program to absorb, but it really doesn't fully explain why Chuck Long's offense looks like it accomplished nothing during spring and fall practices this year, or why Oklahoma's special teams had so many problems in the first three games.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/11/05 23:03 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (2)

10 October 2005

What's Murder When There's An Overincarceration Crisis?

Mother fights parole for son's killer (Mike Glenn, Houston Chronicle)

A man sentenced to 45 years in prison for killing Houston banker Paul Broussard in an infamous 1991 gay-bashing incident will tell parole officials in Huntsville today why he should be freed after 14 years behind bars.

Opposing Jon Buice in his bid for early release will be Nancy Rodriguez, the victim's mother. It was a mission she also undertook in 2003 during the assailant's first parole attempt.

Perhaps Ms. Rodriguez would be more accommodating if only a helpful blogger would let her know about the "overincarceration crisis" in Texas.*

(* Just so there's no confusion, that was heavy sarcasm).

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/10/05 23:10 | Other | Technorati | Comments (0)

Are The Sooners Going To Screw UT Again?

OU Questions and Concerns (George Schroeder, Daily Oklahoman)

So, should we fast-forward Texas to the Rose Bowl?

Well, yes. And no. It doesn't look like any Big 12 team can keep Texas from going undefeated. But collectively, the Big 12 could keep them out of the Rose Bowl.

The conference's weakened state, coupled with Ohio State's loss to Penn State (and any more losses by the Buckeyes), puts the Longhorns in a bad BCS position. Virginia Tech or Florida State or Georgia could pass Texas -- and probably will -- in the computer rankings, and perhaps the polls, because of the national perception that the Big 12 is in a down cycle.

Wouldn't it be ironic if Mack Brown found himself wishing he had waited a year to lobby for the Rose Bowl? Because he can't do it this year; the backlash would hurt more than help.

Actually, I find it more ironic that in recent years, Oklahoma's BCS ranking was helped tremendously by a Big 12 conference that has been stronger than this year's, and in particular by defeating Texas, which has been a solid Top Ten team. Granted, Joe Castiglione has tried to schedule nonconference games that will help (or certainly not hurt) in BCS calculations, but the Sooners have gotten a huge boost from beating highly ranked Texas teams. It will be ironic that the year Mack Brown finally beat the Sooners, those Sooners are not going to be ranked (let alone highly), and the victory isn't going to help in BCS calculations.

Schroeder's point about Ohio State is also a good one -- another loss, and that win isn't going to be so helpful for Texas either as BCS calculations go. I realize it's early for this sort of speculation, but if there is an undefeated SEC or ACC team to go with Texas and USC at the end of the season, Texas may not make it to the Rose Bowl, and that would give BCS opponents yet more ammo against the system.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/10/05 08:22 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (7)

09 October 2005

Big 12 Wrap: Week 6

The theme in the Big 12 this week was, once again, that the league really is the Big One and the Little Eleven. Here are the games:

Texas 45, Oklahoma 12
Texas had a turnover and costly penalties that might have cost them against a very good football team, but they were not playing a very good football team this week. The Longhorns barely broke a sweat in probably the biggest victory for Mack Brown as the head coach at Texas. Oklahoma was mostly without running back Adrian Peterson (Bob Stoops misled gullible media members during the week that Peterson was fine), but a healthy Peterson wouldn't have mattered this year. Oklahoma is just too young and disorganized right now, and Texas is just too good.

Texas Tech 34, Nebraska 31
Texas Tech had this game won, then pretty much gave it away to Nebraska at the end, except Nebraska gave it right back. One Nebraska player called it bad luck, but the better team won this game in Lincoln. Nebraska remains a below average football team despite its record, and the clock is ticking on Callahan's rebuilding project. Nebraska could have trouble at Baylor next week. Texas Tech gets Kansas State in Lubbock.

Colorado 41, Texas A&M 20
Speaking of rebuilding, Coach Fran's little project seems to have stalled out somewhat, as Colorado took a 41-0 lead into the fourth quarter. The Buffs seem a step above the rest of the teams in a poor North division.

Kansas State 12, Kansas 3
Word is that Mark Mangino's job may be in some jeopardy at Kansas. He could have helped his job security quite a bit by beating Kansas State, but his team just isn't quite ready to take that step.

Baylor 23, Iowa State 13
Baylor gets its first Big 12 road victory ever. I'm starting to think these guys are not the hapless doormats we're used to seeing. I'm even starting to think they're going to give Nebraska a little trouble next week in Waco.

Missouri 38, Oklahoma State 31
It's quite a contest in the state of Oklahoma to see which Big 12 school can put the worst offense on the field. Oklahoma's stinker of an offense probably led slightly going into this one, but OSU's quarterback situation and shaky execution of the spread offense aren't inspiring much confidence. Brad Smith had a nice game for Mizzou.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/09/05 21:43 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (0)

New Feature

I've enabled a Nucleus feature that I should have enabled some time ago.

Commenters now have the ability to create an account in Nucleus for commenting purposes. This allows a logged-in user to edit comments, and to bypass the captcha challenge graphic.

I planned on enabling the feature in the coming redesign, but there's no real reason to make anybody who might want to use it wait. The links to create an account and to log in are also in the comment section of individual posts.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/09/05 14:04 | Announcements | Technorati | Comments (6)

08 October 2005

Nice Job, ABC

ABC seems to have lost the video feed for the OU-Texas game.

But don't worry. They have the video feed for Minnesota-Michigan.

Losers.

UPDATE: The video feed is back, just in time for Texas to score a touchdown on their first drive. I continue to think this is going to be a long day for my Sooners this time around.

UPDATE 2: As I feared, Adrian Peterson is still badly injured and probably isn't going to be much help. Stoops is never forthcoming about such injuries (nor do I blame him), and his assurances during the week that AD was fine were not *ahem* forthcoming.

UPDATE 3 (Halftime): For any realistic chance to win, the Sooners had to stop long plays by Texas, generate some offense of their own, and create some breaks with turnovers. One out of three (turnovers) isn't enough, and the Sooners are effectively out of this game at halftime, not that Texas hasn't given them some chances. This Sooner team just is too young and inexperienced to take advantage.

UPDATE 4 (Texas 45, Oklahoma 12): Mack Brown finally gets it done. The Sooners would have had to have all three keys (above) go their way to have a chance, which didn't happen. And really, the fact that Adrian Peterson couldn't play meant this game was over before it even really got under way for the Sooners, who have quite a bit of work to do with their young talent to get back to elite levels that they've enjoyed under Stoops.

I'm off to the Icehouse for beers. Longhorn fans can feel free to give me some grief in the comments, given what I've done here over the years. :)

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/08/05 12:18 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (2)

07 October 2005

It's Icehouse Weather

Tomorrow's a blog gathering of sorts at the West Alabama Icehouse, for those who missed the announcement at blogHOUSTON. We're going to head over there about 4pm. The weather looks like it will be perfect.

The Icehouse festivities will commence shortly after this year's OU-Texas contest. I don't think it's going to go so well for my Sooners this time, so brews at the Icehouse should help to ease the pain. :)

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/07/05 22:58 | Other | Technorati | Comments (0)

06 October 2005

Like Tossing The Keys To An Alcoholic

I've no idea what has persuaded him to do so, but friend Orrin Judd has tossed me the keys to his blog and told me to stop sending so many links and post 'em myself.

So, I will throw up a few posts over there from time to time, until Orrin comes to his senses and takes the keys away.

I've long considered Orrin's place THE one blog I must read daily. I'll try not to detract from it too much. :)

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/06/05 23:05 | Other | Technorati | Comments (5)

04 October 2005

Everything Not Already Politicized Must And Will Be Politicized

All McKinneys Now (James Bowman, New Criterion, via Brothers Judd)

It is only one more indication of the melancholy truth, touched on with some frequency in these columns, that in our threadbare public culture everything that is not already politicized must and will be politicized. In the first hours after the storm hit, Louisiana’s Democratic leaders, Governor Kathleen Blanco and Senator Mary Landrieu, were vying with each other to praise Michael Brown, FEMA’s director. But when the evacuation failed and public order broke down, both sides scrambled to be the first to blame the other. And why not, when it was obvious that finding someone to blame was going to be the response to the disaster both of the political and of the media cultures? Within ten days Brown was demoted and a no-nonsense admiral had taken his place. Once “the blame game”—as defensive administration officials inevitably but no less accurately called it—got going, it was pretty clear where most of the blame was going to go.

And if any blame, why not all? From slackness about taking over the control of relief efforts from local officials to a deliberate policy of abandoning the poor and black citizens of New Orleans to their fate seemed an easy leap to some. The despicable nature of such a wild charge might once have seemed shocking even to the President’s most determined opponents, but in a world where a member of Congress, Representative Cynthia McKinney, has publicly accused the President of being complicit in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, we have grown inured to such things. The irrepressible Rep. McKinney popped up on this occasion too, announcing that “as I saw the mostly African-American families ripped apart, I could only think of slavery. Families ripped apart, herded into what looked like concentration camps.” This, by the way, of those who were rescued—not that that should interfere with similar imputations against those who had previously failed to herd them into what looked like concentration camps. Earlier, Jesse Jackson had described those abandoned, as he saw it, by the federal authorities as “desperate, perishing, dehydrated, babies dying. It looked like Africans in the hull of a slave ship.” Against such a rhetorical backdrop, I don’t know why anyone bothered to appear surprised when the “rapper” and well-known moralist Kanye West announced that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people!”

Mr. West, who also believes that AIDS is a plot of the white government and power structure against black people, is not, perhaps—or not yet, anyway—the most respectable of witnesses. But that didn’t prevent the media of seeking, however gingerly, to ally themselves with him in this instance. “I don’t think Kanye West can support his view that George W. Bush just doesn’t care about black people,” announced Jacob Weisberg of Slate. “But it’s a demonstrable matter of fact that Bush doesn’t care much about black votes. And that, in the end, may amount to the same thing.” That “may” sounds to me to be the product of a deservedly bad rhetorical conscience, for they are not the same thing at all. Politically, Bush would be a fool to “care” about black votes in the sense of trying to win more of them by seeking to placate the Kanye Wests of the world. Not only would he find it impossible to win the good opinion of those who are so ready to believe the worst of him, but he would also alienate the great majority of his own supporters who sincerely believe that the sorts of things he would have to do to win more black votes would amount to bad policy. All this is no more than to say that Bush is not a Democrat and is unlikely to become one. But only the most cynical and jaundiced of commentators could imagine that this obvious fact “amounts to” a callous disregard for the lives of American citizens on the grounds that they didn’t vote for him.

Unfortunately, the media’s cynicism in more places than Slate seems well up to making such assumptions. We are all Cynthia McKinneys and Kanye Wests now. Moreover, such hyperbolical language makes it more difficult to see where politics really does come into the relief efforts. On the front page of The New York Times, a leaked report from within the administration confirmed what should have been intuitively obvious, namely that political considerations made any earlier intervention highly problematical. “Can you imagine how it would have been perceived if a president of the United States of one party had preemptively taken from the female governor of another party the command and control of her forces, unless the security situation made it completely clear that she was unable to effectively execute her command authority and that lawlessness was the inevitable result?” said the Times’s anonymous source. But inside the paper, such analytical sophistication seemed utterly beyond the likes of Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, Tom Friedman, Bob Herbert, Paul Krugman, and Nicholas Kristoff, to say nothing of the paper’s own editorialists. Throughout this crisis, as throughout all the others since 9/11, none of them had anything more to say than the latest reiteration of the first theme of the first lustrum of the third millennium—namely “I hate Bush,” repeated with ever more ingenious variations.

Bowman offers up a pretty fascinating perspective.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/04/05 22:04 | American Politics | Technorati | Comments (2)

That Oil-For-Food Thing Sure Met "International Standards"

UN condemns Iraq charter change (BBC News)

The United Nations has criticised changes to Iraq's electoral law that make it harder for Iraqis to reject the draft constitution.

The two-thirds majority needed in three provinces to defeat the constitution will now be counted from all registered - as opposed to actual - voters.

[snip]

"We have expressed our position to the national assembly and to the leadership of the government," said Jose Aranaz, a legal adviser to the UN electoral team in Iraq, in an interview with Reuters news agency.

Mr Aranaz said parliament's decision was unacceptable and would not meet international standards.

If the United Nations had existed at the time, it would have announced that the American drafting (and ratification) of a new Constitution was extralegal and did not meet international standards. It did work out rather well in our case, though.

UPDATE (10-05-2005): Err, never mind. :)

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/04/05 21:51 | International | Technorati | Comments (0)

03 October 2005

Crime, Punishment, and the Underclass

Crime rate remains at 2003 level, study stays (Mark Sherman, AP)

The nation's crime rate was unchanged last year, holding at the lowest levels since the government began surveying crime victims in 1973, the Justice Department reported yesterday.

Since 1993, violent crime as measured by victim surveys has fallen by 57 percent and property crime by 50 percent. That has included a 9 percent drop in violent crime from 2001-2002 to 2003-2004.

The hallmark of the underclass (Charles Murray, OpinionJournal)

A rough operational measure of criminality is the percentage of the population under correctional supervision. This is less sensitive to changes in correctional fashion than imprisonment rates, since people convicted of a crime get some sort of correctional supervision regardless of the political climate. When Ronald Reagan took office, 0.9% of the population was under correctional supervision. That figure has continued to rise. When crime began to fall in 1992, it stood at 1.9%. In 2003 it was 2.4%. Crime has dropped, but criminality has continued to rise.

This doesn't matter to the middle and upper classes, because we figured out how to deal with it. Partly we created enclaves where criminals have a harder time getting at us, and instead must be content with preying on their own neighbors. But mainly we locked 'em up, a radical change from the 1960s and 1970s. Consider this statistic: The ratio of prisoners to crimes that prevailed when Ronald Reagan took office, applied to the number of crimes reported in 2003, corresponds to a prison population of 490,000. The actual prison population in 2003 was 2,086,000, a difference of 1.6 million. If you doubt that criminality has increased, imagine the crime rate tomorrow if today we released 1.6 million people from our jails and prisons.

But... but....

Certain friends on the left are so adamant with their "tuff on crime" ridicule and their "overincarceration crisis" rhetoric.... Why can't we just let 'em all out?

Seriously, the Murray piece is a very interesting look at the underclass. Even if you don't appreciate my tweaking certain folks, you ought to give it a read.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/03/05 23:24 | American Politics | Technorati | Comments (10)

02 October 2005

Big 12 Wrap: Week 5

It's time for another Big 12 Wrap, my quick takes on the weekly games in the Big 12.

Texas 51, Missouri 20
Missouri stumbled and bumbled with numerous mistakes, and Texas capitalized with big plays. The outcome was not really in doubt after the first quarter, although Texas did not play a perfect game in rolling to 51 points and nearly 600 yards of offense. Scary. The big game with Oklahoma looms. If Mack Brown can't win it this year with this team (and Oklahoma's freshman-laden lineup), he really will have to be replaced.

Texas Tech 30, Kansas 17
Texas Tech has more talent than Kansas, and that's why Mike Leach edged Mark Mangino in this battle between former Sooner offensive coordinators. Kansas rallied in the second half to make it more of a game, and Tech's offense was less potent than usual, but a win is a win.

Oklahoma 43, Kansas State 21
Kansas State, while improved from last year, is not the Kansas State that once contended for Big 12 championships. The Wildcats hurt themselves with numerous mistakes, including snapping a punt through its own end zone because the punter never took the field. Still, the Oklahoma defense played very well, giving up a few misleading scores after the Sooners cruised to a big lead, and the Sooner special teams were much improved. The offense is still a work in progress. It stalled frequently with Adrian Peterson in the lineup, but moved the ball more effectively when Rhett Bomar was unleashed after Peterson's injury. The Sooners improved greatly with their bye week, but the number of freshmen running around on the field was astounding at times. This team will have a tough time against Texas next week, but the future is looking brighter.

Oddly, there was some sort of suicide bombing during the game, but not much information has come out of Norman.

Colorado 34, Oklahoma State 0
Colorado did about whatever it wanted to. Oklahoma State did not.

Nebraska 27, Iowa State 20
Bill Callahan's offense has rarely been seen in the two seasons he's been at Nebraska. On Saturday, the Huskers picked apart a porous Iowa State defense and still only barely won in Lincoln. Even in a down year for the Big 12, the North just isn't very good. Any of the mediocre teams in the division could win the thing. That's not what the fans in Lincoln are accustomed to.

Texas A&M 16, Baylor 13
Is Baylor really that improved, or was A&M just that disappointing at home? I don't have a clue.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/02/05 21:22 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (5)

Redesign

I'm sick to death of all the gray here, and am in the process of changing things up a bit.

Here's a preview of where it's headed. Obviously, I've borrowed some from the blogHOUSTON skin structure. Otherwise, it's pretty low on graphics and designed to load quickly. The final version will have RSS feeds (their location won't change) and the ability to create accounts in order to edit comments.

Any thoughts?

Does it look horrid in your browser? Do you hate the colors? What else?

Obviously, it's a work in progress, but I'm ready for a change.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/02/05 18:15 | Announcements | Technorati | Comments (13)

The "Do-Nothing" GOP

Republicans DeLayed: The GOP leadership deficit is one of ideas, not ethics (OpinionJournal).

Except for the 2003 tax cuts, we can't think of a single recent major policy accomplishment. There have been smaller victories--trade bills, some modest tort reform, and now some judges approved. But the drive for major reform has stalled. Mr. Bush was a co-conspirator in passing the 2003 Medicare drug bill that is the largest expansion of the entitlement state since LBJ's Great Society.

Bush's Unheralded Health Care Agenda; It's less modest than you think (Merrill Matthews, Weekly Standard)

Health Savings Accounts--President Bush has already opened the door for the expansion of consumer-driven health care by championing the new, improved Health Savings Accounts in the Medicare bill that took effect in January 2004. These HSAs are tax-free, personal accounts that are used for everyday health care expenditures and must be combined with high-deductible health insurance coverage. They replace the older, restricted Medical Savings Accounts enacted in 1996. Health Savings Accounts put health care dollars back in the hands of patients. With the consumers controlling the money and the decisions, health care providers are more alert to patients' needs.

Patients, meanwhile, get to keep any money in their HSAs that they don't spend on medical bills, and thus have a reason to be value-conscious shoppers for health care. Golden Rule, an insurance company that made a point of promoting the old MSAs and has hit the ground running with HSAs, announced recently that its customers had saved more than $110 million in their health accounts, and that the number of applications for such accounts was up 133 percent since the new law took effect. With the administration promoting HSAs for federal employees (see www.opm.gov/hsa/), the new accounts may take off.

Initial HSA offerings solidify trend toward CDH products (Steve Brown, Employee Benefit News).

With the ink barely dry on the colossus Medicare bill signed into law by President George W. Bush December 8, insurers have already begun planning, developing and rolling out new health savings account (HSA) products enabled by the legislation. Industry watchers say the HSAs are the logical evolution in the market trend toward consumer-driven health care.

"Over the last few years, we've seen a tremendous level of innovation in the product design that our members offer employers. It's extremely important, as more and more people realize what the main health care cost drivers are and how they want to better manage their health care costs," Mohit Ghose, director of public affairs for the American Association of Health Plans - Health Insurance Association of America says.

Attached to high-deductible plans (per the new law $1000 for individuals and $2000 for families), HSAs share similarities with flexible spending accounts (FSAs) and health care reimbursement accounts (HRAs). However, only HSAs are portable, may be funded by employees, employers or both on a tax-deductible basis, and allow unused funds to be carried over to the next year. Susan Relland, health policy legal counsel for the American Benefits Council says with the trend toward consumer-driven health (CDH), HSAs are the "perfect vehicle.

Medicare's hidden bonanza (Michael Scherer, Mother Jones)

For conservative leaders, the best part of the Medicare bill President Bush signed in December had absolutely nothing to do with Medicare. Rather, the provision that House Speaker Dennis Hastert calls "the most important piece in the bill" and former Speaker Newt Gingrich considers "the single most important change in health care policy in 60 years" is a little-noticed tax rebate set to cost the Treasury $6.4 billion over the next decade. The measure allows Americans to open tax-free "health savings accounts," which can be used to pay medical bills—in effect removing their owners from the shared risk that has been the core of the health-insurance system since World War II.

Conservatives claim health savings accounts will encourage people to more closely monitor their health care spending and bring down medical costs.

Health Savings Accounts great plan for health care (Terry Savage, Chicago Sun-Times)

The Health Savings Account was hidden away in the prescription drug bill passed by Congress last December. But unlike the seriously flawed drug plan, the Health Savings Account is an exciting concept that could make health insurance available -- affordable -- for millions of Americans who aren't covered by an employer plan.

It's a concept so new that the insurance industry is just gearing up to make it available. Health Savings Accounts combine inexpensive, high-deductible health insurance plans with a tax-advantaged savings account. "Tax-advantaged" is a new phrase, appropriate because this new account has so many different tax benefits.

Aside from making health insurance more affordable, there's a great social benefit to HSAs since they encourage everyone to be more watchful about unnecessary medical tests and expenses. If you don't spend the money in your HSA account, you keep it!

Drug coverage in the face of deficits (New York Times)

The administration announced last week that an unexpectedly large number of private health plans have been approved to offer drug coverage to elderly Americans, defying predictions that there might be too few companies participating to make the program effective. Ten companies will offer drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries throughout the country, and many more will offer coverage in various regions. The lure of a vast new market of up to 42 million Medicare beneficiaries proved irresistible to companies that some thought might sit on the sidelines.

The result will be a lot of choice for consumers, with many more options than initially expected. There will also be a lot of competition among plans that should, in theory at least, help hold costs down.

As I noted on friend Tom Kirkendall's blog, Paul Gigot's Potomac Watch column was regularly one of the best political columns going, but he has been far less insightful after moving to New York to take over as editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal for an ailing (now deceased) Robert Bartley, who was truly one of the influential men of the conservative revolution of the 80s/90s. Gigot's editorial page contention that aside from tax cuts, he "can't think of a single recent major policy accomplishment" by the Republican Congress is really kind of laughable, as a person could do what I've done above on healthcare reform for any number of policy areas instead. Once insightful, Gigot seems intent on fighting the battles that his old boss and friend Bob Bartley made a staple of the WSJ editorial page, when indeed conservatives have mostly won those battles and must get on with the business of reforming (not rolling back) the welfare state.

To make it even more simple for readers -- the prescription benefit for seniors was the price the Bush Administration and conservative leaders on the Hill (including Tom DeLay, whom Gigot is blasting in that editorial) were willing to pay in order to get innovative HSA healthcare reform. In return, they have gotten blasted by shortsighted conservatives as well as economically astute friends like Kirkendall for an admittedly costly compromise that was absolutely necessary to winning passage of a healthcare bill notable for market-oriented HSAs (a governing majority must win passage of its ideas, not just trumpet the ideas, or it will not long be a governing majority). It is highly unlikely that that the GOP's slim majority in Congress could have won passage of HSAs without the "bribe" so to speak. So it's disappointing when those who profess fealty to economic analysis either ignore or devalue the importance of getting HSAs in that legislation.

I bring up HSAs because my own employer, which tends to react somewhat slowly to changes in human resources management, has just announced it is rolling out HSAs coupled with high-deductible (catastrophic) insurance coverage for 2006. In recent years, our buffet-style (all-you-can-consume) PPO insurance plans have skyrocketed in cost to employees and to the company. Most of us employees -- healthy and unhealthy -- have had no real choice but to absorb those costs, because it's obviously unwise to go without insurance. However, in my case, it's been almost absurd to pay as much as I have been for healthcare coverage that covers EVERYTHING that might come up, when I've perhaps consumed $500 in healthcare over the last three years.

Under one of the new plans that will be offered by my employer, I'll be able to take catastrophic healthcare coverage with a deductible of somewhere between $1000-2000 annually (I forget the exact number); the coverage goes beyond typical catastrophic coverage in that it does fully cover routine exams, to encourage people to engage in preventive care. The monthly cost to me will be about 40% of the monthly premium I have now in a traditional PPO plan. The company will also start an HSA for me, and will contribute a certain amount to it each month. I will have the option of contributing to it as well, on a pre-tax basis, up to the amount of the catastrophic policy's annual deductible each year, and I plan on funding it fully. Unlike the old FSAs, the accounts roll over from year to year, accrue interest, and behave much like an IRA (that is, at a certain age, the money can be withdrawn penalty/tax free, and the money can always be spent on healthcare tax free).

I expect many more companies will begin to offer these sorts of policies next year and the year after. In my company's case, enrollments for such benefits take place once per year, so this is really the first opportunity they've had to put together such a plan. I'm impressed with it, as it moves us away from buffet-style consumption of healthcare towards greater individual responsibility in the consumption of healthcare.

It's a very important change to healthcare policy, yet Paul Gigot -- once one of our most astute observers of American politics -- can't even think of it as an accomplishment as he sits in his editorial office in New York.

I've said before that folks will only come to appreciate the transformative nature of many of the Bush Administration's policies over time, and the case of HSAs serves to illustrate my contention.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/02/05 14:46 | American Politics | Technorati | Comments (7)

Not Personal, Just Opportunistic

Seize this moment for reform: An opportunity for a new covenant (Chris Bell, Houston Chronicle)

During the past year, many have wanted to turn the ethics complaint I filed against DeLay into some sort of personal battle between DeLay and me, but that was never what the complaint was about.

Of course it wasn't.

It was about currying favor with party activists and the Netroots in preparation for the next political race.

We saw the same dynamic in action when Bell heroically *wink* *wink* made the "decision" to back out of "a divisive three-way runoff" and endorse Lee Brown, in return for the way being smoothed for Bell's run for Congress.

Neither actions were personal, just opportunistic.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/02/05 09:04 | Texas | Technorati | Comments (2)

01 October 2005

Strangest Football Play In Ages

Kansas State snapped the ball to the punter in the end zone.

Big problem: the punter never came onto the field.

The ball skidded through the end zone, for an Oklahoma safety.

That's something you don't see very often, let alone from a Bill Snyder team.

Both Oklahoma and Kansas State have exceptional coaches, but it's hard to tell from watching this game.

Posted by Kevin Whited @ 10/01/05 19:04 | Big 12 Football | Technorati | Comments (2)

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