VIRTUAL WORLD GROWS VIRTUAL TERRORISTS

Last month, Eric felt old after reading about Second Life, an online world akin to The Sims in which one can carry out a parallel life. Today comes word that should make Eric feel old and scared. People are creating terrorists to demonstrate their unhappiness with Second Life.

RE: JENKENS & GILCHRIST

Brenda Sapino Jeffreys at Texas Lawyer files this story about four litigators from J&G’s Houston office jumping ship this week, on top of the four transactional lawyers who left the Houston earlier this month. On top of that, an anonymous FrontBurnervian says:

It’s true…. employees have been calling our office worried about their profit sharing and retirement plans.

RE: JENKENS & GILCHRIST

More than one law-firm-tracking FrontBurnervian has pointed out similarities between the situation at Jenkens & Gilchrist and another Dallas firm by the shorthand name of Vial Hamilton:

I heard a few days ago that almost 20 partners resigned from Vial, Hamilton the week before last, about half leaving to start another firm, with the remainder going to a variety of different places. I just looked at their website, and that doesn’t leave very many lawyers left to lawyer. As I recall, Vial, Hamilton went through a similar turmoil a few years ago, as rumors of the firm’s imminent demise ran rampant. I thought they had weathered the storm but maybe not.

He offers at least some confirmation of the story here. (And special note to “R.B.”: I know the word is “dissolve.” I was being ironical.)

ALIEN NATION

Personal log: So even though Rod and I have squared off on occasion about illegal immigration, the truth is the whole issue is a lot bigger than either simplistic extremes of A) “Deport them all; they’re taking our jobs!” and B) “Amnistía ahora!” (Though I’d be delighted to trade a few million of our native-born welfare cases for a few million hardworking Mexicans and a Southern California township to be named later.) Anyhow, had a conversation with a neighbor who takes position A. And I mean aggressively. Which, you know, fine. But then I asked him if he’d checked the papers on the crew who were weeding his lawn and cleaning his flower beds this weekend. IJS.

BULLY FOR ANTIOCO

Blockbuster had a less-than-stellar quarter–a 28 percent drop in profit–but CEO John Antioco got a big-time bonus. Not big enough, he says. Plenty big, the board says. (I’m paraphrasing.) More info from the fine folks at the DBJ.

RE: JENKENS & GILCHRIST

An insider-knowing FrontBurnervian chimes in:

It’s true. My dad does work for them.. he told me the partner he works with is losing all his shares and is going to have to start re-planning his retirement at age 58! Something about the Chicago office getting in trouble with the IRS and is forcing them to dissolve. It is going to happen in May.

Right. About those IRS troubles…

JENKENS & GILCHRIST TO DISSOLUTE?

That’s the word from across the pond. A UK site called Legal Week notes the 19 lawyers in J&G’s LA office have joined a competitor. Talks are still under way about the future of the Texas office.

A spokesman for the firm said: “The end result of discussions could take any number of forms and we are not prepared to speculate as to what they might be.”

TXU OPTIONS SURGED BEFORE BUYOUT

Yet another helpful FB’er send this tidbit.

RE: PHD POLITICIAN

A helpful FrontBurnvian (and aren’t they all?) provides the link.

RE: LEADING OFF

1. Hard to write from home when I still can’t get on the new site from there. Trying to fix, but…

2. Too busy making up for the people who blog instead of write stories. Which is the sort of thing that we tell students will get you fired in the real world. Which reminds me…

3. Still don’t have your column, Tim. It needs to be 750 words. Or, 23 words shorter than this post.

4. No wonder Jennifer hated everyone.

THE PhD POLITICIAN

Yesterday’s Austin American Statesman carried an interesting article by Gardner Selby on Plano Republican Rep. Brian McCall, which I can’t link to, but here’s the lead, which tells you that McCall is a very unusual state representative:

Just before Rep. Brian McCall publicly stabbed at history last month by trying to unseat the speaker of the Texas House, the Plano Republican quietly plowed gubernatorial history to earn a doctorate in humanities from the University of Texas at Dallas. His dissertation, capping 18 months of research, traces the styles and achievements of seven governors, from John Connally in the 1960s through George W. Bush. The endeavor drew on McCall’s conversations with more than 30 people…

LETTERS TO OTHER EDITORS

This edition of Letters to Other Editors is a doozie, not so much for the letter itself, but for the buzz it’s created on the Internet(s). The missive in question comes from Fort Worth’s Kristin Ritchie, aka MC ROUTER. She penned it to Wired and it reads:

I’m one of the “few ladies” you mentioned in your article about nerdcore (Play, “Me So Nerdy,” issue 14.09). You ignored all of the females in this scene so you could discuss people like HAM-STAR – a rapping hamster. You looked only at what these people had in the way of “nerd cred,” and I guess being women makes us not nerdy enough to warrant inclusion.

Except, Ritchie didn’t like the way Wired edited her letter, making her “sound like a feminist.” So she wrote a song about it and posted it on her MySpace page, not to mention the nerd core tattoo she got on her chest. Link props to BoingBoing, where an excerpt of her NSFW lyrics can be found. For more background on Ritchie, check out the recent Star-Telegram profile of the genre.

BUT WHERE WILL THE POWER COME FROM?

The media are full of environmental buzz over the TXU deal, but the NYTimes looked hard at the debt structure and sees big problems (full article after the jump). Meanwhile, an energy executive who is a TXU competitor told me yesterday that in two years we can expect (a) rolling brownouts, and (b) higher TXU prices. TXU probably only expected to get 5 new coal plants out of the 11 it proposed, but electricity prices are set by burn rate of the least efficient plants — and TXU still has plenty of those, which the new plants were planned to replace. Meanwhile, the ERCOT requirements are still in place: we need new energy sources to meet our state’s population growth. All in all, there are many questions about this deal, which the temporary environmentalist euphoria does nothing to answer. Meanwhile, there are dangers in the financing:

(more…)

RE: WHERE THE MONEY IS

Claritas tells me that we’re actually No. 8 in the country, right about where you’d expect to find us, based on population. Here are the cities with the most millionaire households by DMA (designated market area), based on income-producing assets:

New York, NY — 258,559 millionaires
Los Angeles, CA — 163,124
Chicago, IL — 108,535
San Francisco et al, CA — 97,700
Philadelphia, PA — 94,290
Washington et al, DC-MD — 87,506
Boston et al, MA-NH — 80,489
Dallas-Fort Worth, TX — 61,921

WHERE THE MONEY IS

I don’t mind us being behind Minnesota (although it is counter-intuitive), but New Jersey?

LEADING OFF

1. Eric?

2. Late-breaking news in the DMN about the Cotton Bowl moving to Arlington, in which we find these two graphs:

Bill Blaydes, chairman of Dallas City Council’s economic development and housing committee, agreed that the bowl game’s move to Arlington “is a forgone conclusion.”

But he blamed a venue shift on Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who decided in 2004 not to build a new stadium in Fair Park — his stated first choice.

Listen, I’ve now heard from several sources who aren’t terribly interested in going on the record about this. But Jerry Jones’ first choice was never Dallas. I hear Dallas was never even a serious consideration. I’ll miss having the Cotton Bowl at the Cotton Bowl, but let’s just get it on the record (or at least on the un-attributed blog post): Jerry Jones used Dallas to get to Arlington. Our city government didn’t fail us on that count.