The Oil Spill in Perspective

You can go to http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/ to place the oil spill where you live so you can put it into perspective.

Fun Fact: Team USA Playing for more than Pride

According the the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. World Cup players are fighting for more than national pride this June — a clause inserted into U.S. Soccer's collective-bargaining agreement provides bonuses for each player. SportingIntelligence put the bonuses at at least $78,000 each even if the team doesn't get any first round points, and up to $895,000 apiece for winning the tournament. Let's hope that these new financial incentives will motivate team U.S.A to perform better than their 1 point disaster four years ago in Germany.

Drayton, are you hiring?

The Astros are terrible. That’s the uncompromising, unconquerable truth. It will take a Lazarus-type miracle for them to be in the pennant race by the time September rolls around. For reference: not only do the Astros have the honor of holding the worst record in the National League, but they also rank dead last in 8 key offensive categories (team batting average, OBP, walks, HR’s, Hits, XBH’s, Runs and AB’s). (Stats)

Somewhere inside Minute Maid Park, the whispers of the most successful owner in franchise history can be heard growing louder and louder. It is no secret that the Astros have made a laundry list of mistakes the past few years. Bad draft picks. Not signing draft picks. Stupid free-agent signings. Stupid trades. Unnecessary firings. Stupid hires. On the other hand, while the decisions made the past few years have led to the current downfall, the people currently inside the organization aren’t stupid. They know why the franchise went south, and they (hopefully) understand it won’t be fixed overnight. Have you checked the stats at Round Rock? Help isn’t on the way this year!

However, while the new management continues to search and groom for younger, promising talent, I offer up a suggestion to keep the fans interested THIS year. It is obvious that our fans want to see changes, so I would give them a change. I would implement a new policy centered on the team’s performance each night to try and build excitement inside Minute Maid, which would hopefully impede any mass exodus from the ballpark this summer.

My straightforward suggestion is to implement a ticket insurance policy for the rest of the season. Someone smarter than me can come up with the finer details, but for now we’ll say 10% of the original ticket price, and offer that as a hedge against an Astros loss. If you buy the insurance policy and the Astros lose, you get a voucher to attend another game at Minute Maid. This is a win-win scenario for Drayton and fans. With the way the Astros are playing right now, fans have the opportunity to purchase tickets for a game and more than likely will receive a 2^nd game for a minimal cost. On the other hand, if the Astros do win, Drayton rings the register on his insurance policies.

Now what if the Astros lose? And the Astros are losing on a regular basis right now. Won’t that end up being a financial burden on the club? Not necessarily. Like I said, I haven’t ironed out all of the details yet, but if the Astros lose and you buy the insurance policy, you will receive a voucher for another game you chose. At the very least, Drayton will be attracting the casual fans back into the stadium to sample another game. And we all know that once you’re inside the stadium Uncle Drayton can scrounge money off of anyone from the concession lines and souvenir shops. I would also propose that the vouchers be picked up from one of the participating sponsors locations throughout Houston. Having the fans pick up the vouchers at the local business might keep your sponsors from trying to renegotiate or pull the plug altogether.

With the current state of the economy and the dismal performance of the team on the field, I’m sure Drayton is looking for anything to heal the wounds. I’ve presented my idea and am willing to talk details if the phone rings!

Welcome Aboard

Chris Slovacek

Good morning ladies and gentleman. With me and my more than 80,000 disgruntled United employees, we would like to take the time to thank you for flying our depreciating airline. We want you to know that we take our job very seriously and that our labor unions will threaten a strike every quarter the company profits at least $1 Million. While Continental added clean, comfortable and efficient 737s and 757-300s with LiveTv, power connections and internet, chances are that you will now be flying a United Airbus 320 without any of these luxuries. Continental also brought over GE90 powered 777s equipped with a state of the art AVOD (audio video on demand) to the new combined airline, while United added the less efficient Pratt and Whitney powered 777s with a less desirable in-flight product. On the other hand, as part of the new United you will now have the pleasure of flying on one of United's dilapidated 747s on select transpacific flights that range up to 15 hours with no in-flight entertainment whatsoever.

Another part of our restructuring process includes the relocation of our headquarters from Houston to Chicago, which is a more expensive and less business friendly place to conduct business. We know deep down in our hearts that Houston would have been a far cheaper option for the combined airline, but we couldn't let a bunch of cowboys run the world's largest and most comprehensive airline. Plus we owe it to American people to help try and stimulate Obama's hometown economy. So I invite all of you to sit back, relax and enjoy the flight. Welcome Aboard.

Jeff Smisek

Inside the Box Score

10,314

Is the number of fans at the Toronto Blue Jays' baseball game Monday vs the Kansas City Royals, the lowest attendance in the team's 22 years at its stadium. This is the second time in the past week that the Jays have set a record for their worst attendance. Last Thursday the Blue Jays drew 10,744 fans against the Chicago White Sox.

Note: As of Wednesday morning, the Blue Jays are 9-6 this season, 2 games behind the Yankees in the AL East.

A New Adventure: Clemson

After months of waiting and praying, I found out last week that I was officially 1 of 20 students that was accepted into the Master of Real Estate Development Program at Clemson University. Unlike applying for an undergraduate degree, this was the only program I applied to. My thinking was that if I'm going to go back to school, it better be a program that I'm absolutely passionate about and feel it will be worthwhile (I learned that lesson in the Fall of 2008 at TX State).

So why this program? First off, there are only a hand full of programs throughout the country that offer a true advanced degree in Real Estate Development. Most schools, like the University of Texas, offer programs in City & Regional planning, but they do not focus finance, construction management and law factors associated with the development process. On the other hand, Clemson is one of these schools that offers a Real Estate Development program. In fact, Clemson is the only program in the country that is a joint degree between an architecture and a business college, with required classes in MBA, Finance, Law, Construction Management, Architecture, and City & Regional Planning. The combination of these courses, coupled with the hands-on involvement of current development projects throughout the Southeast, will provide me with the framework and opportunity to gain a broad understanding of not only a creative, sustainable vision of the future, but an understanding of the practices of yesterday.

Where is Clemson?

Clemson is located in the northwest part of South Carolina situated at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. It is 30 minutes from Greenville, South Carolina and two hours from both Atlanta, GA and Charlotte, North Carolina.

Where is the nearest airport?

The closest airport is in Greenville, SC (GSP) and has daily flights to Houston on Continental. However, it is usually cheaper to fly into ATL or CLT on any major airline. Note: Southwest does not fly into GSP, ATL or CLT. The closest Southwest destination is either Birmingham, AL (275 miles) or Raleigh, North Carolina (300 miles).

Which conference is Clemson in?

Clemson is in the Atlantic division of the ACC conference. Clemson's biggest rival is their in-state foe, The University of South Carolina (SEC). Their main rival in the ACC is Georgia Tech, which dates back to 1898. Although Georgia Tech and Clemson were split into different divisions when the ACC expanded to 12 teams in 2005, they are designated cross-division rivals and still play each other every year in football.

I am very excited about the opportunity that has been presented to me and will continue to keep everyone updated as I learn more about Clemson!

2010 Texas Gubernatorial Republican Primary Results

*Data obtained from the Texas secretary of State's website

The long awaited showdown in the Republican Party to become Texas's next Governor has come and gone. A few months ago, the safest bet you could of made was betting on a runoff after the March 2 results came in. The conventional wisdom had it that the Republican gubernatorial primary in Texas would be a battle between challenger Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's sophisticated urban base versus incumbent Rick Perry's yahooing, secession drumming, rural base. However, after the results came in last night, it was clear that this was not the case. Rick Perry ended up winning the Republican nomination without needing a runoff, capturing 51% of the votes to 30% and 18% for Hutchison and Medina respectively.

If you're just waking up from a cave or haven't kept up with Texas Politics in a while, you might be asking yourself who is Debra Medina and why wasn't she referenced in the previous paragraph as a front runner? Well, sometime in between the back and forth bickering of the two front runners emerged Debra Medina, a grass roots candidate who ran on basic conservative principles of limited government and minimal taxes. After two televised debates the Libertarian-minded Medina was soaring in the polls and looking more and more likely to be the candidate to challenge Perry for a runoff. Nevertheless, just as quickly as she emerged onto the scene, Medina exited stage left. During an interview with Glenn Beck, Medina refused to rebuke a question of whether or not she was a 9/11 truther -someone who believes the government was involved in the terrorist attacks- and just like that her momentum came to a halt and the race refocused on Perry vs Hutchison.

After Medina's blowup on Glen Beck's show, it was not at all surprising to see Rick Perry win last night. However, it was interesting to see the manner in which Perry won. Perry won this election not in rural and small town Texas like the pundits thought would be the case, but in metro Houston. (One would have to think this bodes well for him in the general election, since it indicates strength in the home base of the well regarded Democratic nominee, former Houston Mayor Bill White). As you can see in the chart above, Perry won 58% of the vote in Fort Bend County, 61% in Harris County and 65% in Montgomery County. These counties were by far Perry's stronghold last night and can be attributed to his outright victory over Sen. Hutchison. Without these huge gains in suburban Houston, it is highly probably that Perry does not reach the 50% threshold he needed to avoid a runoff. (Note: I did not include Hidalgo County's 64% advantage for Perry because of the low Republican turnout).

As for Hutchison's results, she was able to perform fairly well in urban Bexar, Dallas and Travis counties (all above 30%) and did win 28 rural counties; unfortunately for her though, those counties didn't give her nearly a big enough margin to offset Perry's advantage in Houston. For example, the most populous county Hutchison won yesterday was Tom Green County, where her margin of victory over Perry was only 4,560 to 4,112. The map below shows the county by county results and as you can clearly see the counties Sen. Hutchison won are predominately rural.

*It should also be noted that Medina's gaffe clearly hurt her all over the state. She didn't even win in her own backyard of Wharton County(Hutchison did) where she served as the GOP chairwoman in 2004.

In the end, Rick Perry was once again the benefactor of an exquisite sense of good timing and a little bit of luck. Most people who follow Texas Politics know by now the conventional wisdom about Perry: that he is an accidental Governor who inherited the job when George W. Bush became President; that he is "Governor Goodhair" or "39 percent" or some similar mild, slightly disrespectful humor; that he doesn't really do anything well except win elections, which he once again proved last night that he does that very well. Ultimately, Perry was successfully in capitalizing on the political mood that has set in across the country; that of anything and everything anti-Washington, which made it almost impossible for Sen. Hutchison to generate any sort of excitement for her campaign from the beginning and eventually opened the door for a grassroots candidate to playfully pretend to be a formidable challenger to Rick Perry. Nevertheless, just like that of his entire political career, Perry benefited from an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time and ran a professional campaign —unlike Medina —and once again, proved his luck is still running strong.

As for November, the biggest question that remains is will enough of the anti-Perry Republicans hold their nose and fall in line in? It would be hard to imagine otherwise...