Tom Kirkendall

Bold in thought, precise in speech, moderate in action.

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

@TheStalwart @devahaz I think it's because there is a trend away from sample abusing: https://t.co/CEY5F47w6J

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

Light rail is the quintessential urban boondoggle. Oscar Sotboom explains by comparing Dallas's bigger boondoggle to Houston's, via Tory Gattis's @torygattis Houston Strategies: https://t.co/UqkpgnTEQu

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

I wish the late Larry Ribstein were alive to comment on this abomination: https://t.co/DmnxBGY59T via @WSJ

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

So true. There is more than one way to skin a cat. My sense is that there is a good understanding generally of this difference among Tour players and their swing coaches. But it is not well understood among amateurs who either don't get good swing instruction or who receive inconsistent instruction.

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

R.I.P., Richard Dole, longtime University of Houston Law Center professor and a nationally recognized expert in several areas of contract law. He was a great teacher and a wonderful man: https://t.co/InJcZTIeT9

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

@RedNinetyFour The descent of the Rockets and Astros' management teams after the Morey and Luhnow eras is disconcerting.

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

The great legacy of Houston's George Mitchell.

[Charles Fain Lehman @CharlesFLehman]

The United States is the world's largest exporter of natural gas — a remarkable change from decades ago, when America was dependent on the often-hostile OPEC nations for its energy needs. That's probably saved us as much as $4 trillion in the past two decades.

That change is largely thanks to the "Shale Revolution," the development of fracking and horizontal drilling technology that is now responsible for 36 percent of total U.S. production.

In a new @nberpubs paper, Berkeley's Lucas W. Davis uses data on gas prices in the United States, Europe, and Japan to estimate the savings generated by the Shale Revolution.

The effect is obvious in the plot below: Starting in 2007, American prices diverge sharply from Europe and Japan. We're also more insulated from big shocks.

He pegs the total as between $3.1T and $4.3T between 2007 and 2025. That's $164B to $227B per year — between $500 and $700 per person per year.
https://t.co/brNtqmz2AS

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

@AndrewDBailey Andy is correct. The refs already have a nearly impossible job officiating a game of tremendous speed played by incredible athletes. Use technology to review flops and sanction the floppers quickly and harshly. The problem would evaporate quickly.

[Hoop Herald @TheHoopHerald]

Victor Wembanyama working out with Hakeem Olajuwon

One of the best of the time teaching one of the best prospects of all time

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

Ted Frank @tedfrank on Trump's corruption - "At least he's transparent about it!"

[tedfrank @tedfrank]

The Biden Administration, in removing the guardrails Jeff Sessions and Jeff Clark put on the DOJ’s settlement authority during Trump 45, took the position that the only limits are constitutional and statutory. See the attached Grassley-Gupta exchange. And when House GOP passed legislation to do that in 2017 and 2023 or 2024, Senate Dems blocked it.

On the statutory front, Congress in 1982 authorized infinite spending from the Judgment Fund. 31 USC 1304. So does that override the Major Questions Doctrine to establish single-payer? Probably not under the current SCOTUS lineup, but who has standing?

I’ll note that the settlement you describe isn’t all that hypothetical: the Sweet v Cardona settlement effectively undid Biden v. Nebraska by forgiving billions of dollars of student loans DOE had no authority to forgive. (I speculate Biden/Harris didn’t make campaign hay out of it because they were scared of offending judges in the then-pending Ninth Circuit appeal by being too open about their evasion of the SCOTUS ruling. The Ninth Circuit ruled post-election that the colleges challenging the settlement didn’t have standing and they chose not to seek cert or even to ask around to see if someone would do it pro bono.) Similarly, the Obama administration repeatedly asked Congress to fund a $500M EV charging network, Congress repeatedly refused, so the Obama DOJ made Volkswagen spend $1B to fund it as part of a settlement instead of giving the money to the Treasury for Congress to appropriate. Judge Breyer didn’t even mention the issue in his ruling approving the settlement when my then-client objected that this was ultra vires. Alas, no client authorization to appeal.

It’s bad policy! Congress should explicitly limit DOJ’s authority! But we need to understand that this isn’t a Trump-specific problem. If this is what it takes to get bipartisan support for fixing it, Trump has greatly strengthened our democratic institutions. But at the moment, he’s just playing by the rules Democrats established and insisted upon. The only real difference is that Trump, as is his wont, is being considerably less suave about the corruption he’s mimicking. “When you say keys, you mean kilos of cocaine, right?”

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

@K_Mehrabian No hating of either. The people responsible for protecting the integrity of the game are not doing so. The MVP is taking advantage of that. If that's not a sign that the league needs to address the issue effectively, it's hard to fathom what will be.

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

@K_Mehrabian Don't stop there. The NBA's greatest player of his era is a flopper. The league's failure to address it effectively has incentivized players to use it to their advantage. In so doing, it has demeaned the league's product.

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

@K_Mehrabian Well, he is the league's MVP, which magnifies his status as a flopper. If you review my feed, you will see I have regularly criticized other players for flopping.

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

Of course he does, as do many of the best players in the league. The league has indulged the practice to the point where the MVP and many of the best players in the league see no downside in doing it. The NBA's integrity is at risk and, for whatever reason, the people in charge of protecting the league are not doing anything about it.

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

The NBA's MVP is a serial flopper.

[House of Lowlights @HouseLowlights]

Shai flopped on every single shot attempt.

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

"[T]he Astros are conducting a corner-outfield carousel of Zach Cole, Cam Smith, Zach Dezenzo and Brice Matthews. The quartet entered play Wednesday with a .622 OPS, 30.8 percent strikeout rate and .271 on-base percentage across 386 plate appearances."

Uff da!

[Chandler Rome @Chandler_Rome]

Astros’ offense continues May malaise, outfield options are scarce: Takeaways https://t.co/TNlcSvfNKT

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

R.I.P., Dr. George Noon, who was one of the remarkable surgeons who shaped Houston's Texas Medical Center into one of the leading cardiovascular surgery centers in the world.

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

"That's our Hitler!": https://t.co/dMbwIulAtc

[cinesthetic. @TheCinesthetic]

What scene in a movie made you laugh so much that you were physically hurting?

[Tom Kirkendall @bigtkirk]

You just never know who is going to give the best graduation speech of the year: https://t.co/pPAhxrwu6U