Saturday, September 30, 2006

Lightening Round

So much to say, so little time:
  • No legislation was passed, but at least they were talking about gun laws in Harrisburg last week. Given the carnage continues in some Philadelphia neighborhoods, it is shameful that a legislator would call gun-control efforts "liberal gun-grabbing legislation." I don't oppose the private ownership of guns. I do oppose the lack of even reasonable regulation of such ownership. I wish people cared half as much about gun laws as they do about smoking laws.
  • The Philadelphia Tribune has produced a stunning series on the African-American incarceration rate and its possible causes and effects. Here's Part 1. Just a few of many horrible statistics: More that 70 percent of the inmates in Philadelphia jails are African-American. There are more African-American men in prison today than there are in college. One-third of African-American men between age 20-29 are or have been in prison or are on parole. (Hat tip: Talk Left).
  • One of the Freakonomics guys asks why people care so much about medical privacy? The issue is not that almost no one cares about the particulars of someone's medical records. The problem is that a very few people -- e.g., your employer -- may care a whole lot and be able to cause problems for you if the information were known. So long as we put the primary burden of providing health insurance on employers, we are going to require medical privacy laws. Having said that, the privacy law known as HIPAA is a joke and is often used to erect barriers making it difficult for those entitled to the information to get it.
  • The dreadful Joe Lieberman was in Philadelphia yesterday, scarfing up $300,000 at a luncheon with many of the usual suspects among the City's power-broker set. How symbolic that many of this City's power elites from both parties are rushing to support someone who is seeking to make irrelevant the results of one of those pesky primary elections. The lesson may not be intended, but it is clear: Let's not forget who really runs things around here.
  • Andrew Fastow is one lucky SOB. Jeff Skilling won't be so lucky in a few weeks, despite taking part in the same crimes and hurting the same victims. Why the different treatment? Unlike Fastow, Skilling did not give up his bedrock constitutional right to have his case heard by and proven to a jury of his peers. And now he will suffer the consequences for being so forward as to avail himself of one of the constitutional protections that supposedly makes our country so different than so many others. Think about that while watching fireworks next July 4.

Friday, September 29, 2006

Life Intrudes

I'm sorry to say that the blogging pace has slowed as the life pace has quickened. Lots of work-related travel and surgery for Mrs. FCB (all is well) have been the main causes of the bloggus interruptus. Check back over the weekend for some new stuff.

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Caveat Diner

PhilaFoodie is a better man than I am. He reports here about a Center City restaurant that added a 20 percent gratuity to his bill without any notice of the "autograt." He then explains that, since he likes the food, he'll be returning to the place, whatever its tipping practices.

Sorry, but a restaurant that adds 20 percent to your bill without telling you isn't acting in good faith and doesn't deserve your business. While it is always a good idea to review a check before paying since honest errors do occur, a restaurant should not have business practices that make such scrutiny a necessity. No one's food is that good.

If You're Gonna Lose, Lose a Lot

Do you know who Peter Dicks and David Carruthers are? News of Amaranth Advisors and its loss of $6 billion this month (related post here) guessing wrong about where natural gas prices were headed led me to think of Mr. Dicks and Mr. Carruthers. Both are executives of online sports betting companies that are located outside of the United States but which accept bets from people in the United States. Both also were arrested recently on gambling-related charges when they made the mistake of traveling through U.S. airports. According to government officials, it is illegal for online companies to solicit or accept wagers from persons in the U.S., even when those companies are located outside the U.S., and even though it is not illegal for people to place the bets.

So, let's see if I understand all this: If you solicit and accept money from individuals willing to gamble on a sporting event, you're a criminal. If you solicit and accept money from pension funds willing to gamble on energy, commodity, and stock markets, you're a big-shot hedge fund manager. Makes sense to me.

The Bluto Defense

Remember the scene in Animal House where John Belushi smashes the guitar of the guy pretentiously singing some nonsense to coeds on the stairs of the frat house? After obliterating the instrument, Belushi pauses, shrugs, then says "Sorry."

I thought of that scene when I was reading this article about the hedge fund Amaranth Advisors LLC, which lost about $6 billion of its investors' money in the past couple of weeks. The story says that the head of Amaranth had a 15-minute conference call with investors, apparently adhering to the theory that when your fund is down 65 percent on the year, you don't want to spend a lot of time in meetings. Here's the best part:
"They were apologetic," said Brian White, chief executive officer of the San Diego County Employees Retirement Association, who listened in on the call. "They said they want to make money for their investors, and this was not the outcome they were looking for."
I'm sure that everyone on the call -- like the guy on the stairs -- felt better after hearing that.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Higher Education

The fallout over the blown calls late in the Oklahoma-Oregon game on Saturday shows why I have always felt lukewarm, at best, regarding instant replay. I have always liked that human error -- that of players, coaches, and even officials or umpires -- contributes to the outcome of sporting events. Although no one can dispute that officials and umpires make bang-bang calls correctly nearly all of the time, with instant replay the standard -- especially in football where replay is firmly established -- now has become perfection. Well, obviously, even with instant replay, you will have mistakes, such as the ones that occurred on Saturday at such a critical time.

What is so depressingly predictable about this episode is that none of the alleged adults involved with the Oklahoma team appears able to act his age. We wuz robbed, OU officials say. No more games with Pac-10 officials when we have to play one of that league's teams, they demand. And university president (and former United States Senator) David Boren calls the blown calls an “outrageous injustice” that require the elimination of the game from the records books. Uh, hello? President Boren? This is an outrageous injustice. So is this. And this. There are a thousand more examples of real injustice just from today's news alone, and none of them has anything to do with a football game. How naive of me to think that a college president might attempt to use a situation like this as a means of teaching an important lesson.

For Pete's Sake

Pete Rose's current story is almost as believable as the one he used to tell about never betting on baseball. That said, I don't understand what is such a big deal about him signing baseballs containing a printed apology for having bet on baseball. I don't even see why this is a news story. Maybe if the balls had said "Dear Bud: Kiss My Home Plate" -- that would have been a story.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Time for the HazMat Guys

Some jobs just don't pay enough. I could have said several other things, but my mother reads this blog.

Miller Time

This study can't be right. If it were, I'd have retired 10 years ago.

We Aren't Getting the Olympics Anyway

The BBC Newshour, which airs on WHYY at 9 a.m. here, is broadcasting from Philadelphia today. At the moment, it is running a story about how bad the gun violence is in Philadelphia. Not what the tourism and convention people were hoping for, I suspect. At least no one has mentioned cheesesteaks -- yet.

Update

The verdict is in on the youth baseball coach accused of offering one of his players $25 to injure a teammate with autism so he wouldn't be able to play (earlier post here). The jury believed the kids.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

The Shame Continues

Now it appears that the White House is pressuring JAG lawyers to fall in line regarding the Administration's response to the Supreme Court's Hamdan decision. The military lawyers who defend detainees imprisoned and demonized on unproven and untested charges demonstrate more courage every day than our big-talk President, "other priorities" Prince of Darkness, and incompetent Rumsfeld have shown in their entire lives. The issue is not solely whether Hamdan and the others at Gitmo are guilty of what they haven't been charged with. It is also whether America will defeat its enemies without defeating itself. My hope is that history will remember these military lawyers -- and the civilian lawyers who work with them -- as among the heroes of our time.

When the Owner is a Hockey Puck

When you read about things like this, you have to wonder how an owner so stupid ever earned enough money to acquire a sports team. What, a player of this caliber was going to turn down a five-year, $25 million deal? A six-year, $30 million deal?

Smoke and Fire

Is that the soundtrack from Jaws that I hear every time I read about Lance Armstrong and the drug culture of cycling? Sad to say, it's becoming increasing difficult to believe Armstrong's claims that he never never never ever ever ever used performance-enhancing drugs.

Given the absence of definitive proof, Armstrong no doubt will continue to state his case for innocence. But in order to believe Armstrong, you pretty much have to accept that -- virtually alone among world-class cyclists in a time when his sport was dirtier than a bus station bathroom -- he excelled on talent and hard work alone. Maybe. But in what other sport driven by individual performance (track? baseball?) does the clean guy outperform the dirty guy?

I want to believe Lance Armstrong. And it's sad to even think about what will happen if it can be proven that his denials are untrue. Given his fame, health history, and all those books and bracelets, he will fall farther and harder than any of the others who have been or will be exposed. Cue the music.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Sports Build Character

Remember this case, which received a lot of publicity last year? How such a simple matter takes nearly 15 months to come to trial is beyond me, but such a delay should help the defendant given how memories can fade, and even the slightest change in the stories told by the children witnesses will be exploited by the defense attorney.

Anything is possible, I guess, and I know that children have falsely accused adults of far more serious crimes than this, but these kids sound credible, especially when you consider how way too seriously a lot of these coaches take such games. If you watched the recent Little League World Series for even five minutes, you saw lots of examples of that.

Point of View

This article from yesterday's Inquirer demonstrates the problem I discussed in this post. Center City District President Paul Levy takes the macro view and says the demand for housing in Center City remains strong. The owners of the half-dozen houses in my Center City neighborhood that have been for sale for three months or more are inclined to take the micro view, and no doubt would disagree. Both could be right, of course, since housing demand is always strong if the price is right. Isn't supply and demand a wonderful thing?

Monday, September 11, 2006

It's Not Just Me

He doesn't like Dick Cheney either.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Judge Not

Here's a discussion about one of my all-time law-related pet peeves. Isn't it really pretty simple? If you are an active or retired judge, you should be called "judge." If, however, you resign from the bench to work at a law firm or, as the Fourth Circuit's Michael Luttig just did, for a big corporation, then obviously you are no longer a judge, so the title should not be used.

The worst part of the practice is that the label "judge" is usually used in order to cloak its user with an air of impartiality that, in fact, he or she has abandoned. For example, in the late 1990s, you frequently heard Clinton bashers refer to Kenneth Starr as "Judge" Starr, as if that made what he was doing more legitimate. I'm not saying it wasn't legitimate, just that Kenneth Starr is no more a judge than I am, and if I used that term I would be disciplined by the bar for misleading clients and the public. The same rules should apply to those who have chosen to leave the bench for private practice, the business world, or some other non-judicial endeavor.

Maybe He's Behind Door Number 2

Quite an article in today's Washington Post regarding how little progress the CIA and others have made in the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Here's my favorite part of the article:

"There's nobody in the United States government whose job it is to find Osama bin Laden!" one frustrated counterterrorism official shouted. "Nobody!"

"We work by consensus," explained Brig. Gen. Robert L. Caslen Jr., who recently stepped down as deputy director of counterterrorism under the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "In order to find Osama bin Laden, certain departments will come together. . . . It's not that effective, or we'd find the guy, but in terms of advancing United States power for that mission, I think that process is effective."

That pretty much sums up the problem with this Administration, doesn't it? What it does is "not that effective," but it keeps doing the same things anyway. And you have to love the "certain departments will come together" part. Because everyone knows that the more government departments that are working on a problem, the faster it gets solved.

Heck of a job, Brownie.

When All Else Fails...

Prince of Darkness Dick Cheyney is at it again, smearing those who would dare to disagree with the Bush Administration's disastrous Iraq policy. From the Washington Post's account of Cheney's appearance today on "Meet the Press":
The vice president said U.S. allies in Afghanistan and Iraq "have doubts" America will finish the job there. "And those doubts are encouraged, obviously, when they see the kind of debate that we've had in the United States," Cheney said. "Suggestions, for example, that we should withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq simply feed into that whole notion, validates the strategy of the terrorists."

Cheney also continued to push his discredited argument about the relationship between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. And as for the report issued Friday by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee finding that Hussein "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates"? According to the Post, Cheney said he hadn't read it.

Of course not.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Pay to Play

This post from Sports Law Blog reminds me of an issue I have long wondered about: Why do athletes pay their agents so much money? According to the post, baseball uber-agent Scott Boras charges a 5 percent commission. If Boras (or some other agent charging the same commission) obtains a $60 million deal for Carlos Lee, he makes $3 million.

If Lee, however, hired a top corporate/dealmaking lawyer in, say, Chicago and paid him even $1,000 per hour, that lawyer could negotiate for hundreds of hours and receive a fraction of what Boras would get. While I am not certain of it, I have always assumed that Boras-type agents do more than just negotiate the deal for their fee (e.g., tax and accounting services, ongoing help with other issues requiring representation, such as grievances or other aspects of the player-team relationship, etc.). But after paying the Chicago lawyer, Lee would have lots of extra money to hire someone to do that, even assuming that the Chicago lawyer wouldn't or couldn't. In short, I have always thought that athletes were paying "sports agents" for services that experienced lawyers who negotiate deals all the time could provide for a lot less money.

In addition, any athlete paying a commission on the total amount of his contract is foolishly overpaying for agent services. As the Sports Law Blog post notes, Lee is widely expected to land a $60 million contract given the player market for someone of his abilities. If that is true, then I could get him a $50 million contract. Why should Lee pay a big-shot agent much to accomplish that feat? If I were Lee, I would structure my agreement with the agent to pay the agent 1 percent for the first $50 million and 5 percent of any additional amount up to $65 million. If Lee got a $60 million package, the commission would be $1 million. You think there might be some lawyers out there other than "sports agents" who would accept that deal? Then, of course, I would offer the agent a lot more for any amount over $65 million, say, 20 percent. That would mean a $2.25 million commission on a $70 million deal, which is a good deal for Lee and his agent. So paying a first dollar commission equal to a last dollar commission seems nuts to me.

Hey, Carlos, have your people give me a call.

Pay to Play, Part II

Malcolm Gladwell comments here on the case of former Oklahoma quarterback Rhett Bomar (see prior FCB item on that situation here). His question asking how the NCAA gets away with the type of rules that did in Bomar's Sooner career is an easy one to answer: Because the rules are set up to benefit everyone except the athletes. What Bomar did is against the rules, but is it so surprising given that such things have happened for years? What else would you expect since NCAA rules let coaches and universities make loads of money (in the case of Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops at least a couple of million dollars a year) while the athletes who put all those paying butts in the seats get little, even if you count the "value" of a college scholarship? I agree with Gladwell: Bomar and those like him should be able to work for who they want for whatever amount they can get. Sort of like what their coaches do. Colleges that don't want to play that game can form their own leagues and compete against each other. Enough with the charade.