New magazine issue looks at Razorback football history, cap and trade and natural gas

Feature stories about historic football games, cap and trade legislation, converting vehicles to use natural gas, the economics of the Arkansas lottery, indepth and surprising survey information and a famous restaurant in Pine Bluff are all captured in the latest issue of TBQ.

TBQ — Talk Business Quarterly — is yet another media element managed by Little Rock-based journalist Roby Brock through his TalkBusiness.net enterprise. Brock has a weekly television show that airs in central Arkansas, a Web site (TalkBusiness.net) and frequently airs on KUAF 91.3 and other stations around the state.

The headliner for new issue is a story by John Brummett about the 1969 “Shootout” between Arkansas and Texas in which Texas walked away with the 15-14 victory. Brummett suggests the game “probably qualifies as the third most historic national event to occur in Arkansas.” According to Brummett, 50% of American television sets were tuned in to “these goings-on in Fayetteville, Ark.”

The City Wire’s Michael Tilley takes a look at the on-again-off-again effort to convert U.S. vehicles to compressed natural gas. Mike Callan, president of Fort Smith-based Arkansas Oklahoma Gas Corp. as seen several “false starts” in this effort, but is confident a renewed nationwide effort might work this time.

Claiborne Deming, the former president and CEO of El Dorado-based Murphy Oil Corp., comes out swinging in his opposition of the proposed federal cap and trade bill. In an interview with Brock, Deming had this to say about the bill: “So when you think about it, what the bill really is, it’s two things to me: one, it’s political payback. A group’s in power in Congress and they have certain groups that they want to reward. And so they’ve rewarded heavily-unionized big industry. They’re rewarding certain politically powerful utilities, big lobbying groups, and big Washington offices. And they’re harming the oil and gas industry, which they view as an enemy and they don’t like. So it’s old fashioned, wonderful political payback: reward your friends and harm your enemies.”

Speaking of friends and enemies, TBQ also contains the complete results of a poll that has generated many headlines in recent weeks. The poll gathers the thoughts of Arkansans on the lottery, the upcoming reelection bid of U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., the performance of Congress and the popularity of Gov. Mike Beebe — just to name a few subjects.

TBQ also takes what may be the only thorough look at what the Arkansas Lottery might mean to the Arkansas economy.

“Would you be surprised to know that there have been no long-term studies of the impact of a lottery on any state’s economy?” Brock noted in a recent report about the story. “There are several reports that have looked at higher education spending related to per capita income, but a direct lottery study is lacking.”

Link here for the complete PDF (Warning: It’s big.) of the new TBQ.