Football time in Houston

 

This hasn't been a pro football blog. Not to make any changes here, except for the moment. Today was spent on reading up on the Texans pro football team. Why not write about it? So here we go.

Hope springs eternal at this time of the year. The Texans have struggled in recent years. With all the controversies of recent times, I've ignored the NFL for the most part. But I've gotten into it again. At least a little. When looking at the Texans, I'm seeing an entirely new outfit from when I saw them last. It's a completely different team. The last playoff season was in 2019.

Not much is expected from the team. For me, it is hard to say what their prospects will be. It wouldn't be a big surprise that they will be even worse than before. However, the talk around the team seems to be upbeat. Maybe they know something that nobody else seems to know.

I think it is preseason hype. Maybe the hype is so intense that they all believe it themselves.

This team is short of big time players. For the team to improve, they'd better find a lot of playmakers. If they do, it will have to be the young guys they brought in the last couple seasons. A bunch of guys that have knocked around the league aren't the kind of guys that are going to turn things around. This team is a far cry from the last playoff team in 2019. It's too much to ask for these guys to turn into world beaters, or even average. There's a lot to prove.

You can't tell much from preseason games. They've won the first two, with one remaining. If there's one thing that stands out so far is the number of sacks. But I'm not convinced that this is anything meaningful. Maybe the guys making the sacks will make the team. I'm not too sure that preseaon heroics is a guarantee of that.

Reality hits in a few weeks. The season is approaching fast. The young quarterback is predicting big things. He's not Joe Namath. Maybe it is better to hype things now. It could be the brightest part of this season for this team.

Blast from the past

An idea popped up to go back in the past and see what they're doing now. So, what's JP Aerospace doing these days? Checked it out, and they're doing pretty much the same things. JP wants to go to space in an airship, but he's not doing it really fast. Not only that, he's getting kinda old. Nobody lives forever. What happens when he cannot do it anymore? Is there anyone to follow him?

He has videos on YouTube. Some of those are about his propulsion system. Not really clear on how it works. He claims that it is pretty efficient. It's probably some variant on the ion propulsion device. If so, it will have a high ISP, which means it's fuel efficient; but it won't have much thrust. He won't need that much thrust in an airship.

How does anyone get to space in an airship? To make it short, it's complicated. The idea is to do it in stages, which is kinda the way they do it now. But these stages are not like the conventional thing. The first stage is an airship which will go to about 140k feet to a station floating in the sky. The second stage is to use another airship customized to the higher elevation. This ship will be friggin' HUGE. The idea behind that is to give lift, while gaining velocity. After enough velocity is obtained, the ship will have lift. The lift from the atmosphere allows it to keep airborne while it builds up enough velocity to get to orbit.

There are skeptics that this concept can work. Even if it couldn't, the technology could be useful some day. For instance, it could be useful on Mars. The thin atmosphere may allow for an airship type means of transportation from one point to another on the planet. On Earth, he uses helium. On Mars, an airship could use a less dense gas-Nitrogen, and still be able to get airborne. A concept like his might be useful to make ultralight airships that could be propelled by the propulsion devices he is working on.

But all of that is pie-in-the-sky. At his rate of progress, it won't happen in his lifetime. Which means it won't happen at all.

Thoughts on language and culture

There was a sequence of events that led to this post. On a podcast, there was a mention of the English language being gender neutral. In constrast, most languages are not. For example, in Spanish, there is no way that anyone could be called "latinx". It is either latino for male, or latina for female. There is no other such grammatical construct in Spanish that would permit the use of latinx for gender neutral. It doesn't work for latinos. Most other languages are the same. English is the outlier in that respect.

That reminded me of a scene in the 90's movie "Falling Down". The only reason I ever heard of that movie was that Rush Limbaugh talked about it on his show. I was curious and watched it. Since then, I've watched it a few more times. Anyway, there was a scene in which there was something about the gender neutral grammatical construct in English as it applied to specific persons. The character named "Nick" asked the character named "Officer Torres" why she wasn't called an "officer-es", because of "you know". That is to say, she was female. Why wasn't the word officer constructed to reflect the fact that she was female?

The way that this is taken in our modern day, and has been so since at least the 90's, that to mention that is somehow "sexist". I had the thought that it was a legitmate question. It was taken to mean that she had no business being a police officer. That is a different issue. But it was obvious in that scene that Nick wasn't just talking about grammar.

There was something else I found interesting. Someone said in reaction to the movie that for "Nick" to be murdered was somehow "ok" because he was a bad guy. Interesting to me that someone could think like that. Just because you find someone objectionable in some way, it is somehow okay to kill him? When did that become permissible?

Going further into these type of movies, there were a few that I haven't heard of before. I can see where this could lead if you were to watch enough of these. Could that be why people might want to ban certain kinds of speech? What was once objectionable, like Nick's behavior, is now worthy of death. If you normalize that kind of thinking, where does it lead you?

It is now out there that killing people that you don't like is socially permissible. That's the point. Also, that movies may have a bit more influence that people may wish to admit. It may be a First Amendment issue, but it is also permissible to shut down people who say things that you don't agree with. What happens next? Murders just because someone may be seen as a racist like Nick? Everyone is now judge, jury, and executioner. Do people get these attitudes from popular culture, like the ones shown in movies?

Nick may not have been a sympathetic character. Perhaps in some way, he may have had it coming to him. But for the character that murdered him, there was a total loss of sympathy from that point on. The character "DFENS" in that movie recognized it in himself. He had crossed a line. There was no turning back. You can't take back a murder. Once it is done, that's it.

Be careful out there. You never know when somebody might think you should die for just being who you are.

The miracle not heard around the world

Miracle not reported

An Indian state went to Ivermectin and conquered COVID. How is that even possible in this age of instant information at the touch of a fingertip?

A Wikepedia entry is not very complementary. However, the above link attempts to explain their situation with regard to the COVID-19 "pandemic".

Since the early portion of the "pandemic", I've been skeptical to the point of hostility to this phenomenon. The fact that this news has been suppressed only confirms my suspicion.

There have been reports that the media figures are wondering why people don't believe them. My response is why should anybody believe the media? Instead of being an honest observer and reporter of fact, they are totally enthralled to the masters of deception that rule us.

Whither the affadavit ruling?

Don Surber connects the dots--- RICO lawsuit filed against Hillary and DNC reason for raid

There's going to be a ruling soon on the affadavit supporting the raid on Mar-a-Lago. The same judge that approved the warrant is going to rule on the affadavit's release. That doesn't look good no matter how you slice it. If the judge denies the release, then the obvious questions arise about that judge. This particular judge is anti-Trump.

There was something this morning in the usual roundup of the news, which was about the genesis of the raid. It came down to another anti-Trumper government official. It was written by Margot Cleveland of The Federalist. She also says today that the affadavit will likely remained sealed. But she says that it will be a hollow victory for Biden and his DOJ.

If that is what the ruling will be, is there any remedy? What I mean is there a compelling public interest in the release of this document, even if it will damage an ongoing investigation? In other words, can this be appealed to the Supreme Court? If it was, then would the Court overturn the decision? Obviously, this is a speculation. It would seem to me that there IS a compelling public interest if there is a reasonable belief that corruption in law enforcement could result in greater harm to the public interest than the one that would result if there was a reasonable belief that Trump committed a crime. But aren't these ticklish questions exactly what a court is for?

There is a lot of mistrust in the public and its institutions right now. To keep this affadavit sealed isn't going to establish trust once again. A view of the affadavit should establish a bit more that may prove or disprove the suspicions that are swirling around. How can a bright light of sunshine be that much harm to the public interest? Wouldn't the public interest be better served if the public could have confidence in the integrity of its public officials?

The link above is about a possible corrupt motive for the raid. There is much talk of a two-tier legal system. There are constitutional issues involved here. It may be time for the Supreme Court to make a ruling on this.

Bongino, episode 1830

Today's show discusses the Trump raid some more. Bongino said that this was a general warrant, as opposed to a specific warrant. A general warrant would be for something that they really don't know what they are looking for, nor where it is. If they really knew what they were looking for, they'd know where to look, and what exactly they are looking for. It could be enumerated and specified in the warrant directly. Therefore, it looks like a fishing expedition to me.

He went into "whataboutism", which is the left's way of trying to shut up any dissent about it. Bongino fired back forcefully that whataboutism is necessary for the equal protection of the laws. Therefore, it is justified to mention the differing treatments of Hillary versus Trump. It shows the two standards of justice in the country today. It is always about whataboutism, says Bongino. It just so happens that this argument doesn't favor the left, so they want to silence dissent.

There was something on Bongino today about the real aim of the raid, which was to protect the Spygate perpetrators. This was mentioned in an earlier post about the optics being bad. A lot of the same people involved in Spygate are also involved in this. Carlin, Monaco, and McCord. Same names, same type of unethical and unlawful acts.

He also said that this isn't going to stop. It is going to get worse. So much with commentary on Bongino. Maybe 30 minutes to an hour ago, I saw a video of MSNBC, which looks like what Bongino is talking about with respect to it getting worse. My impressions of what I saw looks as if they are prepping their viewers with the prospect of even more repressive tactics on the grounds of ANTICIPATED violence. That is to say, VIOLENCE that hasn't even happened yet, and my not happen at all. ( Or may be ginned up in a false flag again, like January 6th.) This is getting pretty sicko if you ask me.

No link on the MSNBC video. I had some time to consider it before starting this post. That is what I think of it.

Bongino may well be right about it getting worse. They are not about to back off of this.

Pot calling kettle black

 

This Trump raid is all about politics. You can tell that by the words being used in the media. Do these people really think that they are the epitome of reason?

The media is playing this to draw an audience. The more emotional it is, the more viewers it draws. When they do that, then turn around and complain about the partisanship of others, they have no credibility.

Credibility should be the name of the game in journalism. Otherwise, it is only propaganda. Complaining about anyone else's "propaganda" is absurd.

What IS propaganda? By its nature, propaganda is partial to one point of view ONLY. Are these people really going to convince anybody that they are partial to Trump???? Even Fox doesn't do THAT. But to present any Trump-friendly viewpoints is denounced as "propaganda".

Anyone in the media that claims that Fox is propaganda should show why that theirs isn't propaganda. Otherwise, it is propaganda itself. It is the pot calling the kettle black.

Presenting both sides of the question is NOT what the media does these days. If it weren't so, Fox wouldn't exist. I'm not defending Fox, mind you. I don't even watch Fox. I don't watch ANY of them on a regular basis. Just snippets here and there on the web. The reason I DON'T watch media is that they are biased, and have been biased forever. Well over 90% of those in the media are LIBERAL. But you'll never hear that. You WILL hear denials of that.

It is good that Fox exists. There are those, in particular one guy named Obama, who said he didn't consider Fox a news source. You need alternate viewpoints. It is natural to follow what you tend to agree with, but you don't learn anything new that way. This is one way to avoid groupthink. Groupthink can lead to some very bad outcomes.

For the longest time, I haven't trusted the media. The things I have seen since this raid on Trump only confirms the worst of what I've seen in them. It is really rich to hear them complain about Fox. Fox isn't particularly conservative, in my opinion. They say that they would prefer not to even put Trump on the news, just like the rest of media. But they lie. ( A charged word that.) By the way, I would prefer to avoid using that word, but in this case I think it is fair. Bashing Trump brings in the ratings. To say otherwise is the lie.

The truth is that Biden needs to get his approval ratings up because the election is near. In the end, this is all about politics. Rule of law my eye. The greatest impediment to justice these days is the justice system. The greatest impediment to truth are those who claim to be offended by the dishonesty out there. We might have a better chance if people actually practiced what they preached.