Category Archives: News – Houston Local

Houston Texans, Year Nine

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gary-kubiak Year Nine of the Houston Texans begins this Sunday with a home game at Reliant Stadium against the dreaded Peyton Manning and the Colts, so it’s time for my seventh (!) annual preview of the hometown team.

The Texans finished off their eighth season in grand style by beating the mostly-trying Patriots with an impressive 21-point 4th quarter comeback. The win wasn’t enough to propel the Texans into the playoffs, but it was the Texans’ fourth win in their final five games of the 2009 season, which gave the franchise it’s first winning record (9-7). In the rather barren terrain of accomplishments that is Texansland, that was a major accomplishment.

Nevertheless, from a won-lost record standpoint, the Texans remain one of the worst expansion franchises in the history of the National Football League after eight seasons. As is usually the case in football, a myriad of influences have combined to cause the Texans’ poor overall record, not all of which are the fault of Texans management and players. Nevertheless, with a team as young and relatively unsuccessful as the Texans, it’s always helpful to review the team’s journey in evaluating whether it is probable that the team has made the progress necessary to make the leap into the NFL playoffs.

The Texans were the toast of Houston for their first three seasons during which Houston’s professional football-deprived fans were simply happy to have an NFL team again and didn’t really have much in the way of expectations. Texans management and the local mainstream media trumpeted the party line that Texans were building a playoff contender “the right way” — that is through prudent drafting and development of young players while eschewing the temptation of short-term rewards provided by over-priced veterans who were on the downside of their careers.

The progressively better won-loss records in the first three seasons (4-12, 5-11, and 7-9) — plus the drafting of young stars such as WR Andre Johnson, RB Dominack Davis (or whatever he ended up changing his name to) and CB Dunta Robinson — seemed to indicate that the Texans’ plan was working. The local mainstream media completely bought into that narrative.

Unfortunately, those progressively better won-loss records distracted Texans management from recognizing that the quality of the Texans’ overall roster was not close to that of an NFL playoff contender. The best evidence of that deficiency was that the Texans entered each of their first four seasons with the same two core problems — the Texans’ offensive line could not protect the quarterback and the Texans’ defensive front could not pressure the opposition’s QB.

Former Texans GM Charlie Casserly never could solve the offensive and defensive line problems (remember LT Tony Boselli, the flirtation with LT Orlando Pace, prospects such as Seth Wand and the thoroughly unimpressive DT’s, Anthony Weaver and Travis Johnson?). The 2005 draft was an absolute disaster (DT Johnson as the 15th pick in the first round?) and initial Texans head coach Dom Capers’ changes to the offensive and defensive systems between Years Three and Four proved equally dubious. After the Texans limped home with a desultory 2-14 record in Year Four, Texans owner Bob McNair mercifully cut the Casserly and Capers regime loose.

Reliant Stadium Subsequently, McNair decided to blow up his original management model and surprisingly hired Gary Kubiak, who promptly made (acquiesced to?) a whopper of a blunder in his first major personnel decision as Texans’ coach — retaining QB David Carr even though it was reasonably clear as early as before Year Three that Carr was unlikely to develop into even an average NFL QB.

Kubiak — who is a quick study in evaluating talent — promptly soured on Carr during the early stages of Year Five as Texans fans endured one of the worst offenses in the NFL that season. As a result of that horrible Year Five offense, Kubiak arguably overpaid for QB Matt Schaub before Year Six and clearly overpaid for over-the-hill free agent RB, Ahman Green. Not much changed through 12 games of Year Six as even the local mainstream media cheerleaders were questioning whether Kubiak was the proper coach to right the Texans’ ship.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the Texans showed some spark and won three of their last four games to finish with an 8-8 record for Year Six, the first non-losing record in franchise history. The Texans’ offense — even without Schaub and star WR Andre Johnson for five and seven games respectively — improved to 12th in the NFL in yards gained and 14th in points scored, by far the best finish of any Texans offense. That was enough to give long-suffering Texans fans hope that things might finally turn around for the franchise the following season.

Unfortunately, the Texans treaded water in Year Seven. A solid season-ending win over the Bears allowed the Texans to finish at 8-8 again, but the team did not contend for a playoff spot and suffered several demoralizing defeats. Given that the team had a 7-9 record after Year Three, a reasonable case could be made that not much progress had been made from the end of Year Three through Year Seven. The offense was better, but the defense was worse than it was after Year Three. Moreover, the 2007 draft was beginning to look almost as bad as the horrid 2005 draft. Had the deck chairs simply been rearranged on the Texans’ version of the Titanic?

Thankfully, several signs emerged in Year Seven that indicated the Texans were headed in the right direction. The offensive line and the receiving corps were far-improved and had more depth than at any time in franchise history. Despite being somewhat brittle, Schaub showed the talent necessary to be a consistently above-average NFL QB and RB Steve Slaton emerged as a game-breaking running back. Although the Texans’ defense did not improve statistically in Year Seven, the Texans had accumulated a nucleus of young defensive players who — with proper coaching and sensible personnel adjustments — were likely to gel into a reasonably effective unit sometime over the next couple of seasons.

Unfortunately, that progress really did not occur in Year Eight. After yet another loss to the Colts in Week 12, the Texans were 5-6 and already a long shot for the playoffs despite a generally favorable schedule. Slaton had inexplicably turned into a fumbling mess of a running back who ended up going on injured reserve after losing his starting job to a group of journeyman RB’s. So, despite winning four of their last five games to post their first winning record, the Texans’ Year Eight performance had the look of fool’s gold.

Andre-JohnsonAlthough disappointing, that performance was good enough to earn Texans’ coach Gary Kubiak another season at the helm. I’ve been skeptical from the start that Kubiak is the right coach to lead the Texans into the playoffs, primarily because I believe that he was not a good fit for the “strong coach” model that McNair adopted when he fired Casserly and Capers. McNair has endured quite a bit of on-the-job training with Kubiak that he probably would not have experienced with a more seasoned head coach.

On the other hand, each of Kubiak’s teams have improved during his tenure with the Texans and his current team appears on paper to be the strongest that the Texans have fielded in their nine seasons. Thus, even though every other NFL team has either made the playoffs or fired its head coach during Kubiak’s tenure with the Texans, Kubiak supporters can make a decent case that McNair made the right choice in retaining him, at least for Year Nine.

Despite my skepticism about Kubiak’s ability to lead the Texans over the playoff hump, he does have many positive characteristics. The players like him and play hard for him. He handles the players and media well, and I have always been impressed by his willingness to recognize mistakes, cut losses and make changes. Kubiak does not seem to be burdened with the stubbornness that often undermines NFL head coaches.

Moreover, continuity in coaching staffs is an underappreciated factor in the success of NFL teams, so maybe giving Kubiak more rope than most NFL coaches receive will finally produce McNair a winner. McNair certainly deserves it in view of his patient support of the Texans’ football operation.

But what does all of this mean for the Texans in Year Nine?

Given the high number of variables that play into a successful NFL season, picking NFL playoff teams is a highly speculative endeavor, at best. Given that constant change is a fact of NFL life, assessing something as seemingly simple as strength of schedule is a moving target and can literally change overnight, particularly given the high injury risk in the NFL.

My sense is that the Texans have accumulated enough talented football players on offense to be playoff-caliber so long as QB Schaub remains healthy and new PK Neil Rackers doesn’t have a meltdown like Kris Brown had last season. But defensive improvement will probably again be the key to whether this season is a breakthrough season for the Texans or another disappointment.

Inasmuch as one of the Texan’s best defensive players (LB Brian Cushing) is suspended for the first four games and Kubiak elected to go with a young and relatively inexperienced secondary, my sense is that defensive improvement will be slow and probably not evident until later in the season. Accordingly, I’m placing the over/under for Texans’ wins this season at eight, the same number as I predicted last season. Eight wins will not be good enough to make the playoffs.

Oh well, patience is certainly a virtue for anyone who is a Texans fan.

Finally, as with my regular baseball reports on the Stros, I’m dispensing this season with the weekly football game reviews that I’ve done over the past seven years. The blogosphere has grown to the point where virtually every pro and college team has a blog that covers each team far better than I ever could in my once-a-week posts. As with the Stros, I’ll continue to do an occasional post on discrete games or issues during the season, but simply not on a weekly basis anymore.

Moreover, with the maturation of the sports blogosphere, there really is no reason to rely any longer on the mainstream media for football news and analysis. For several years now, Alan Burge has been doing a much better job of covering the Texans on a nuts and bolts basis than the mainstream media, while bloggers Stephanie Stradley, Lance Zerlein and Houston Diehards all provide first-rate analysis of particular issues facing the Texans.

Similarly, on the college football front, both The
Wizard of Odds and the Pre-Snap Report are excellent resources for keeping up with the college football season overall. With regard to blogs that cover particular teams, Barking Carnival is my favorite for the Texas Longhorns, while I Am the 12th Man does a good job of covering the Texas Aggies.

On the local front, the best sources of information on the Houston Cougars are Steve Campbell’s blog and Fight for Red and White blog, while The Rice Football Webletter does a great job of covering the Owls.

So, with that, let the games begin!

Swing Thoughts

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Jimhardy2_000 A couple of interesting articles on very good golfers at different stages of their careers came across my desk yesterday.

Jaime Diaz – consistently one of Golf Digest’s best writers – wrote this Golf Digest article on his conversation with Jack Nicklaus in connection with the Golden Bear’s 70 birthday (H/T Geoff Shackelford). Although Nicklaus still holds the record for major championship victories at 18, he tells Diaz that he now thinks he could have accomplished substantially more if he had really applied himself (he believes he left about one third of his effort on the table). Nicklaus goes on to note that his failure to learn proper pitching technique until relatively late in his career cost him several major victories.

The other insightful article is this Sean Martin/GolfWeek piece on the hottest golfer on the PGA Tour this year – the relatively unheralded Matt Kuchar, who lost his Tour card earlier in the decade and appeared to fall off the golf map after a stellar amateur and collegiate career.

Martin does a good job of explaining the swing change that saved Kuchar’s career. And as with many things in golf, there is a Houston connection to Kuchar’s conversion.

When his golf game was bottoming out five years ago, Kuchar came to Houston to see Jim Hardy, who sort of specializes in golf swing reclamation projects.

Kuchar initially worked with Hardy, who then introduced him to his acolyte, Chris O’Connell. From there, as Martin explains in the article, O’Connell helped Kuchar change his swing to one that rotates much more around his body rather than up and down along the target line. As Jeff Ritter pointed out here awhile back, the swing changes that Tiger Woods is now making with his new swing coach (Sean Foley) are quite similar to the ones that Kuchar made.

It took a couple of years, but Kuchar has now fully embraced the swing change and the results have been amazing. With his win last weekend at the Barclay’s, Kuchar is now first in money earned this season on the Tour, has now finished in the top 20 in 11 of his last 13 tournaments and has the most top 10 finishes this season on the Tour. Not surprisingly, Kuchar will be one of the members of the U.S. Ryder Cup team next month.

Good thing he came to Houston, don’t you think?

The Commerce Clause — A conduit for state power

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The pro sports bubble

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bubble1.jpgSo, to the surprise of absolutely no one who follows such things, Moody’s Investors Service lowered the ratings of the already junk bond debt of about a billion dollars that the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority issued to finance construction of Reliant Stadium, MinuteMaid Park and Toyota Center:

Moody’s believes the liquidity reserves are sufficient to cover the November 2010 payment, but their depletion may result in a payment default from pledged revenues as early as March of 2011, the report said.

If hotel occupancy tax and motor vehicle rental tax revenue continues to decline through 2010, the ratings could face further pressure, Moody’s said. Revenue from those taxes to the Sports Authority dipped by 11.7 percent in 2009 and are continuing that trend in 2010.

Of course, the romantics among us think it would be peachy to borrow even more money and resurrect the Astrodome into another kind of white elephant. This despite the fact that the markets has been telling us for over a decade now that there is no profitable purpose for it.

Meanwhile, most professional sports franchises are not doing all that well these days even with local governments providing these huge public subsidies

So, highly-leveraged debt, a high-priced product, increasingly unprofitable operations, and intense competition from a myriad of different (and substantially cheaper) forms of entertainment.

Does anyone else think that this pro sports bubble is about to burst?

A misfired missile shot at the Rocket

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So, the seemingly inevitable indictment of Roger Clemens finally was issued yesterday.

Perjury is serious business and it remains to be seen how well Clemens will deal with the charges. Clemen’s legal strategy so far has certainly been at least questionable, if not downright bizarre.

But for all of Clemens’ unattractiveness, it’s difficult not to get the sense already that this is yet another colossal misuse use of prosecutorial resources (Bill Anderson agrees). In the glare of the spotlight of this high-profile prosecution, the more troubling issues involving the use of performance-enhancing drugs such as steroids are overlooked.

The mainstream media and much of the public will castigate Clemens — who is an easy target — just as they filleted Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez.

The dynamic is the same one that we saw in regard to the downfalls of both Tiger Woods and Ken Lay. We try in any way to avoid confronting our innate vulnerability, so we use myths to distract us. We rationalize that a wealthy athlete such as Clemens did bad things that we would never do if placed in the same position (yeah, right). As a result, Clemens supposedly deserves our scorn and ridicule. That a scapegoat such as Clemens comes across as arrogant and irresponsible makes the lynch mob even more bloodthirsty as it attempts to purge collectively that which is too shameful for us to confront individually.

Of course, much of that same mainstream media and public contribute to the pathologically competitive Major League Baseball culture. The MSM regularly caters to the public’s desire to idolize players who risk career-threatening disability by taking painkilling drugs so that they can play through injuries.

But players who used PED’s in an effort to strengthen their bodies to avoid or minimize the inevitable injuries of the physically-brutal MLB season are widely viewed as pariahs.

How does that make any sense?

Meanwhile, the fact that MLB players have been using PED’s for at least the past two generations to enhance their performance is largely ignored the mind-numbingly superficial analysis of the PED issue that is being trotted out by most media outlets. Sure, Barry Bonds hit quite a few home runs during a time in which he was apparently using PED’s. But should Pete Rose be denied the MLB record for breaking Ty Cobb’s total base hits record because he used performance-enhancing amphetamines throughout his MLB career?

These witch hunts, investigations, criminal indictments, morality plays and public shaming episodes are not advancing a dispassionate and reasoned debate regarding the complex issues that are at the heart of the use of PED’s in baseball and other sports. On a very basic level, it is not even clear that the controlled use of PED’s to enhance athletic performance is as dangerous to health as many of the sports in which the users compete.

Wouldn’t a public discussion on how to construct a reasonable regulatory system for the safe and healthy use of PED’s be a more productive use of resources than criminalizing Roger Clemens?

Here are links to a number of related HCT posts over the years on the issues relating to performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports

A Texas Legend Fades

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Emory BellardFormer Texas A&M and long-time Texas high school football coach Emory Bellard — who invented the famous Wishbone triple-option offense that transformed college football in the late 1960’s and 70’s — is suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The Chron’s Richard Justice passes along the news along with many nice remembrances of several of his former players.

Coach Bellard is truly a Texas football legend. He was an extraordinarily successful Texas high school coach from 1952 to 1966 at Ingleside, Breckenridge and San Angelo Central — his teams won the 1958 and ’59 state titles at Breckenridge and the 1966 crown at San Angelo Central.

But it’s Coach Bellard’s college coaching career that most folks remember. Darrell Royal hired Bellard as an assistant coach at the University of Texas in 1967 where Bellard developed the Wishbone offense that was instrumental in the success of UT’s 1969 and 1970 national championship teams that won 30 straight games.

Largely on the basis of his success at UT, Coach Bellard was named head coach at Texas A&M in 1972 and appeared to have the Aggie program at the brink of national prominence in 1978. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, a tumultuous two-week period midway through that season resulted in Bellard resigning the head coaching position that he coveted.

Coach Bellard went on to coach at Mississippi State from 1979-85, but this quintessential Texas football coach always looked somewhat out of place in SEC country.

So, after retiring from coaching upon getting the axe at Mississippi State, Coach Bellard returned to his Texas high school roots at the age of 61 and coached for six more years at Spring Westfield High School. Westfield had won four games combined the two seasons prior to Coach Bellard taking over. Under Coach Bellard, Westfield went 41-22-5 and reached the Class 5A Division I quarterfinals his last two seasons. After his Westfield stint, Coach Bellard finally retired from coaching for good and moved to Georgetown north of Austin, where he became a regular at Berry Creek Golf Club.

Emory Bellard is a bright thread in the fabric of Texas that makes this such a fascinating place. May his final days be restful ones. He will be missed.

Matt Simmons, R.I.P.

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The Houston business community is in mourning this week over the sudden death this past Sunday of Matt Simmons, the 67-year-old investment banker, author and pundit whose views were a common topic on this blog over the years.

Matt founded Simmons & Company in Houston in the mid-1970’s with his brother L.E. as one of the first investment banks focusing on the increasingly important oil-field service sector of the oil and gas industry.

Simmons & Company eventually expanded into other areas of the energy industry and, by the late 1990’s, became one of the top energy mergers and acquisitions investment banks in the country.

Around 1983 or so, Matt’s firm and my law firm were on two of the floors near the top of the 700 Louisiana building in downtown Houston, so we developed a cordial friendship over the years by taking innumerable elevator rides together.

I’ve always been involved in a fair amount of oil and gas litigation, so Matt was always interested in that part of my practice.

And during the depression in the energy industry in Texas during the 1980’s, Matt was arguably the most insightful businessperson in Houston at the time on the direction of the industry and how it’s recovery should be structured.

Matt was a joy to talk with — witty, intelligent and interesting. That’s one of the reasons why, over the past decade or so, he became a media favorite for providing his provocative opinions about the energy industry.

Matt enjoyed his new role as one of the media’s energy industry pundits, but that wasn’t the best fit for the chairman of a company that was often advising companies that could be affected by his controversial opinions.

Matt retired from day-to-day management of his company in 2005 about the time his peak-oil treatise was published, but he continued on as executive chairman to help the company maintain client relationships. Matt and the company formally split ties earlier this year when he made his utterly unsurprising public comments in Fortune magazine about the probability of a British Petroleum bankruptcy.

Sadly, I didn’t see Matt again after the split, so I was never able to ask him about it. But my sense is that it was probably not that big a deal for him. He was working hard on his Ocean Energy Institute and I really think that is where his heart was as he segued into elder statesman status in the energy industry.

So, the local energy industry has lost a big part of its personality with the death of Matt Simmons. Many folks in the industry did not agree with some of Matt’s often controversial views, but that never stopped him from expressing those views and forcing energy businesspeople to think about the issues and formulate alternative viewpoints toward them. That is a resource that is vitally important to all industries, particularly one that is facing the current challenges of the U.S. energy industry.

Yes, Matt Simmons will be missed. Rest in peace, friend.

The Tiger Mike Memos

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Tiger MikeThe oil and gas business in Houston has generated its share of characters over the past century. But few have been as colorful as Edward “Tiger Mike” Davis.

Tiger Mike owned an independent exploration and production company in Houston during the boom days of the late 1970’s and early 80’s, and then directed his company through a volatile chapter 11 case during the depression in the oil and gas industry in the mid-80’s. I have always thought that one of the most impressive credentials of Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Chief Judge Edith Jones is that she represented Tiger Mike during his company’s chapter 11 case. Based on her representation of Tiger Mike alone, Edith definitely understands the challenge of representing a difficult client.

Legend has it that Tiger Mike was born in Lebanon, had no formal education and eventually emigrated to the US, where he was a cabbie in Denver. He was hired by wealthy Helen Bonfils’ husband and remained her chauffeur after his death, which eventually led to his marriage with the 70 year-old widow. After her death, Tiger Mike inherited a part of her fortune, which he invested in several drilling rigs that he later sold at a substantial profit. That was his stake into the exploration and production business, where he proceeded to drill 50-odd dry holes and spiraled into bankruptcy.

The stories of Tiger Mike resonate in Houston oil and gas circles to this day. At one point, Tiger Mike was allegedly carrying on a torrid affair with one of the McGuire sisters (a popular singing group from the 1960’s) at the same time as Ms McGuire was the mistress of Sam Giancana, the notorious Chicago Mafia boss. No one was ever quite sure whether Tiger Mike had Sam’s consent to that arrangement.

Another time, during a particularly difficult work-out negotiations over a botched drilling project, Tiger Mike waltzed into a conference room filled with creditors and their lawyers in his trademark one-piece khaki polyester leisure suit with white shoes and belt. He proceeded to throw his briefcase on the conference room table, grabbed a 45 caliber pistol out of the briefcase and slammed it on the table to the astonishment of everyone in the room.

“Now,”ù exclaimed Tiger Mike. “It’s time to deal!”ù

All of which is a prelude to the the always-observant Letters of Note‘s posting of the hilarious Tiger Mike Memos,ù a series of 22 interoffice memos that the “incredibly amusing, painfully tactless, and seemingly constantly angry”ù Tiger Mike sent to his employees over the years.ù

To those of us in Houston who remember Tiger Mike, none of them are surprising in the slightest. But they are fun. Enjoy!  

Boomtown D.A.

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Carol VanceAfter Le Affaire Rosenthal and the ensuing change at the top levels of the Harris County District Attorneys Office over the past couple of years, it’s easy to forget that the local D.A’s office was a model of stability and excellence during the previous generation.

Johnny B. Holmes, who ran the D.A.’s office for 21 years before retiring in 2001, is still relatively well-known to many Houstonians. But less well-known is that Holmes inherited a well-organized D.A.’s office from Carol Vance, who was D.A. from 1966-1979 and literally transformed the local office from a small-town outpost into one that other major cities copied.

I pass this along because I just finished reading Vance’s autobiography, Boomtown D.A. (White Caps Media 2010) (it’s not available through Amazon at this time, so I bought my copy through the publisher’s site). For any long-time resident of Houston, it is a thoroughly enjoyable read. And for any attorney practicing in Houston, it is an essential read.

Vance was involved in his share of juicy cases, so the chapters on those cases are the meat of the book. Vance’s big cases include the John Hill case of Blood and Money fame, the cases arising from the TSU race riot of 1967, the prosecution of two corrupt judges (District Judge Garth Bates and Supreme Court Justice Don Yarbrough), the amazing transformation of former UH professor Gerry Phelps, and the prosecutions of Elmer Wayne Henley and David Brooks, who were the sidekicks to the worst serial killer in Houston history.

Moreover, just as interesting to me as the big cases is Vance’s explanation of how the D.A.’s office grew from a relatively small office that was easily overwhelmed by a big case into one that could take on virtually anything that was thrown at it. Vance had many people helping him with this task and he is effusive in his praise of those folks, many of whom went on to become successful judges and attorneys in Houston after leaving the D.A.’s office. And Vance has a field day describing his interactions with Houston’s formidable criminal defense bar, including such legends as Percy Foreman and Richard “Racehorse” Haynes.

But most impressive is Vance’s description of his efforts after leaving the D.A.’s office in becoming one of the leaders of prison care and reform in Texas. The Carol Vance Prison Unit in Sugar Land is named for him and has one of the lowest recidivism rates of any prison in the U.S., a result of that unit’s robust Christian ministries that Vance nurtured and promoted.

Carol Vance is a remarkable man who became Harris County District Attorney at a key time in Houston’s history. We are all the better for that. Check out his book and learn why. You won’t be disappointed.

Update: The book’s editor, Kit Sublett, passes along that Carol Vance will have a book signing at Brazos Bookstore on July 22nd, and that the book signing scheduled for July 31st at Murder by the Book has been postponed. Mr. Sublett also advises that the book is available at all Houston-area Barnes and Noble stores and the Barnes and Noble website.

Lessons on governmental decision-making

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astrodome5 This blog started in February 2004 and the first post about what to do with the Astrodome was in September 2004.

Over the intervening six years, there have been a couple of dozen posts about the various boondoggles that have been proposed for the Dome. To date, no one has put up a penny to redevelop the Dome.

Despite this dismal track record, Harris County officials are still dithering over what to do with the Dome.

At least the current proposals are similar to the one that I made a couple of years ago. That is really the only one that makes much sense for the facility. Typical to Harris Countyís handling of this situation, there is no mention in the Chronicle article that Harris County officials have had any discussions with Texas Medical Center officials about development and financing of such a venture. Thus, at this point, it would appear that the only financing for such a project would be on the County’s dole.

And in an amazing display of blindness, County officials are planning not to convert the land that the Dome sits on into badly needed additional parking for the Reliant Park area if the decision is made to raze the facility. Why not generate some revenue from the land to help pay off the $35 million in bond debt that still exists on the Dome?

Oh well. There are many lessons to be drawn from this experience, but two in particular:

1. If you canít figure out what to do with something in six years, then itís probably time to get rid of it; and

2. Donít ever rely on governmental officials to make sound decisions.