Super Bowl Time - The Gladiators in the Coliseum - Are the Saints Angels or Demons?

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Don't know about you but the one time a year when I like pro football is when it is time for the Super Bowl, football's version of the World Series, or is it the clash of titans? At any rate, this is the one game every year when there is so much money riding on the outcome, both legal and illegal, that you can almost count on an honest effort by everyone involved.



Gambling, yet another nation pastime that remains outside the law in most states, has had a corrupting influence on most sports over the years. Illegal gambling is like playing the hedge funds or derivative markets on Wall Street where you can bet and win for or against the team or fund depending on whether you can anticipate the outcome. All the better if you can influence it.



Many a great sports career has been tarnished or ruined by people trying to influence players or officials to throw games, fake injuries, or simply hurt an opposing star. Kind of like an investment house betting the housing market will collapse or oil prices will skyrocket and then influencing the news media to make it happen in the press.



In the league finals between the New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings it was like watching a gang of paid assassins trying to permanently damage the Vikings legendary quarterback Brett Favre. I can't tell yet if the Saints are angels or demons so I guess I will have to see if Payton Manning can avoid what they did to Favre.



Not that pain isn't part of the game, and Favre can take as much pain as anyone, but the viciousness and excessiveness of the quarterback attacks seemed to go way beyond good sportsmanship and even resulted in a couple of penalties from the see nothing do nothing officials.



As for the overtime in pro football, sudden death should be declared dead on arrival. That is the most unfair method of determining a winner I have ever seen and the only overtime format in all of professional sports where it is entirely possible the skill of both teams may never get tested in overtime. I mean even tennis has a multi-point winner, not the first to score, and in soccer both teams get shots to win.



But professional football has a system where a team can score and the other team's offense will never get a chance to play in the overtime, like what happened in the New Orleans game. College football needs a real playoff and pro football needs a real overtime that rewards skill, gives equal opportunity for both teams to demonstrate their offense and defense, and awards victory to those who earn it.



As for the New Orleans Saint and whether they are angels or demons, does it really matter in a sport where strength, hard hitting, bashing, shooting off the mouth and grandstanding are all considered part of the sports mystique? The Super Bowl will determine the real champion and if the game is lousy which does occasionally happen at least we know the commercials will be entertaining, even during an economic recession.



So we have the Indianapolis Colts and Payton Manning who won it a couple of years ago against the New Orleans Saint who have never even been in the Super Bowl. People like underdogs and of course the Saints are underdogs. However, both teams were first in their leagues and league champions do not often make it to the Super Bowl.



Manning is not Favre, he is much bigger, younger and stronger and the Colts are a lot more protective. It seems the most successful sports franchises protect their stars at all costs. Look what happens when an opposing pitcher hits one of the Yankees baseball team starts. Someone is going to get hit in retaliation. Indianapolis will protect Manning if he even needs it.



I do have a problem with Reggie Bush, star of the Saints. There is something unfair about what he did when he was in college at USC and he won the national championship and Heisman trophy. A multi-year investigation by the NCAA is about to be released and I expect it will show Bush violated many laws in college accepting cars, cash, a home for his parents, trips and who knows what else from agents intent on getting a piece of his pro career.

If that is true, then USC will probably have to forfeit all the games he played in and might lose the national championship and Bush might lose the Heisman as the best player in college football. It would be appropriate for the severity of what he may have done. What is unfair is that the university can lose all that, be put on probations and lose millions of dollars in revenues from bowl games, lose tens of thousands of dollars in sports scholarships other deserving kids might have been given, but Bush, the one behind the disaster, loses his trophy and nothing more.

He still kept all the payoffs during his college career, his parents kept what they got, Bush got his millions of dollars in the pros, so crime seems to be very rewarding for him. You see, without the national championship and Heisman trophy he never would have got the millions he was paid to turn pro. If pro football wanted to run a clean house they would ban for life anyone who cheated in college to benefit in the pros.

As it stands right now the next generation of pro football players will be encouraged to cheat, take bribes and illegal gifts in college, further eroding the morality in amateur sports, especially if Bush and New Orleans wins the Super Bowl. It just does not seem right that the signal we send our youth is crime pays, and pays and pays, not just for the moment but throughout their career. This Super Bowl will be a bit tarnished if the Saints win.



By the way, one last bit of advice for the pros. The Pro Bowl, in other words the all star game for the pros, is the week between the League championships and the Super Bowl. That means all the star players on the top two or four teams in pro football cannot play in the all star game. Isn't that a bit stupid and a rip off for the fans who want to see the top stars in the all star game? Change the schedule so real all stars can play for the fans.

Questions and Comments about the Coltons Point Times

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There are at least nine Bald Eagles living in Coltons Point and that is just one reason why the Coltons Point Times is published from the banks of the Potomac River. Another is because we are just 60 miles downriver from the source of all comedy, tragedy and fantasy in America, Washington, DC.



Sometimes as new readers discover the Coltons Point Times, CPT, they ask about the distribution and extent of our readership along with what makes the CPT unique. Periodically I will update the stories with the latest information.



As of January 21 we were able to determine that 125,000 people have read the newspaper in the last 12 months with readers in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and 100 foreign nations. We believe this is indicative of the worldwide interest in America as well as in the birthplace of religious freedom in the world and the oldest continuously settled chartered community in colonial America.



The top ten nations in readership of the CPT are United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, Netherlands, Italy, India and Spain. In terms of states our top ten readers are in Maryland, Florida, California, Virginia, Texas, Washington, New Jersey, Georgia, Arkansas, New York and Colorado tied for tenth.



It is an honor to have people from every state and over 100 nations as readers. From New York to California, Washington to Florida, North to South America, Europe to Russia, Africa to Asia and down under in Australia and New Zealand we are delighted to share our view of America and the world.



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In addition we allow anonymous comments rather than personal emails to further protect your right to privacy. We will continue to resist all attempts by web sites and search engines to get us to carry their ads. This has cost us readership because big sites will not distribute and promote us if they cannot make money on us through internet ads.



We also maintain on line a full archive of all our stories so you can see if our predictions were true, watch a story develop over time or get all the background on an important issue. There are no restrictions on printing, forwarding or sending copies of our articles and we only ask that you credit the CPT when quoting our material.



Numerous reporters and news sites monitor the CPT and you may notice stories by other media that sound somewhat familiar to what we reported. We are happy to be a source of the truth for them and if stealing our information without crediting the CPT is how they view journalism, at least we are encouraging them to report the truth.



You can help us remain the only news site that does not violate your privacy, require you to register or inundate you with ads. The one site that solicits comments anonymously. You can help by telling people about us and encouraging people to follow the CPT. You can even give them direct access through the following link: http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/ and you can get automatic feeds of our stories, again without registration.



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Thank you for your interest and we look forward to better serving you as we continue.

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Obama - America's Perpetual Presidential Candidate - Turns Governing over to Campaign

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President's Job Stimulus Saves Campaign Workers & Contributors Jobs

As if his 2008 billion dollar campaign was not enough politics for America to stomach Barack Obama has turned his presidency over to his campaign team. throwing aside any pretentions of serving all Americas, and refuses to acknowledge there are any Independents, Republicans or Americans sick of politics as usual.

In preparation for his State of the Union an army of Obama campaign workers took to the airways to pave the way for his first State of the Union message telling long, tall tales of how Obama saved millions of jobs for America, how everything that went wrong since he was elected was caused by George Bush, how the American public is confused and deluded about the facts, and how he is going to help all those Democrats who are the old time politicians in the upcoming campaign.



With all government spending, policy, hiring, stimulus, communication and knowing what is best for an uninformed electorate safely in the hands of his old campaign team and out of the hands of an experts in their field, the Obama campaign fraternity has taken control of America in a way never seen before in politics.



Gone are the voices of cabinet members, except the Treasury Secretary who was also part of the campaign team. The only people authorized to speak for the president and his policies are those who were part of the Chicago gang who got him elected including the campaign manager David Plouffe who doesn't even work for the government, David Axelrod Senior Aide, Robert Gibbs, Press Secretary, Valerie Jarrett, Senior Aide, and the head of his campaign transition team Raul Emanuel, Chief of Staff.



I have been following politics for a lot longer than most of the media people except Larry King who I think came to America with Christopher Columbus, and I have never seen a president rely on his campaign team to run the nation. A year after getting elected Obama only relies on his campaign team for spending, policy, appointments, strategy and every word his speaks.



According to the White House appointment records he also relies on the people who financed his campaign as well including Wall Street executives, insurance executives, union bosses and others who invested millions in getting their guy in the White House.



So now they promise a feisty president who will fight for what he knows we don't know. These are the same speech writers and policy specialists who gave us the bank bailouts, insurance and auto bailouts, the economic non-stimulus program and more national debt than any president in history including Bush.



They also promised an open presidency, total transparency, negotiations with enemies, a new role for the US in world affairs, bipartisan governing, the elimination of terrorism and prisons and all that other stuff his circle of '60's radicals, big mouthed preachers and Wall Street manipulators told him to say.



After a year of failing to deliver on anything for the good of the people the wagons have circled the president and the same advisors who view promises as statements of political expediency with no need to worry about being truth are back, in control, once again telling Obama what to say.



What is good for the frat pack in Chicago has little relevance to all Americans. They have not learned a thing since taking over the presidency. They refuse to accept responsibility for anything he does as president. They are still running a campaign based on half truths and deception, whatever it takes to get elected, and let the public be damned.



The State of the Union should be a real interesting speech as long as the teleprompter keeps running. We might actually discover more promises for a yet to be determined future. But we will never know the real truth, the real agenda, and where they intend to drag America before they are done bankrupting the nation and gutting the government. It will most surely be an interesting display of motivational hyperbole and transparent objectives, more of the same.

Tweedledee and Tweedledum - 48 Hours after Massachusetts both Parties Double Cross Public

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In a stunning reaction to the Supreme Court ruling on campaign finances, both Democrats and Republicans seem to be suffering short term memory loss from the Massachusetts Senate debacle and they immediately took the most hypocritical and self-destructive positions possible. One thinks the American public knew this was coming, just more of the same politics as usual.

As for the lesson at the Boston Tea Party last Tuesday night, it fell on deaf ears in the White House and in both political party caucuses in the House and Senate. People are fed up with politics as usual. The Wednesday morning after the election Obama, Reid, Pelosi and the Republicans all said they recognized the angry mood of the public.



By Thursday both parties hoped the public would remember what they said Wednesday and forget what they had said before Wednesday. Thursday both had returned to vintage form in responding to the Supreme Court decision regarding campaign finance. You need a daily scorecard to keep track of how many times they change positions per day.

Obama led the Democrats in condemning the Supreme Court decision saying it opened the floodgates to corporate financing of candidates. Duh... As reported before, Obama and the Democrats are the chief beneficiary of corporate money in campaigns. They also failed to mention the unions were also given carte blanc to buy politicians by the Supreme Court. So the Democrats double crossed the public less than 48 hours after the campaign catastrophe in Boston.



How about the new found populist element of the Republican party? Well they double crossed the public in the same 48 hour period when they reacted to the Supreme Court ruling by saying it restored free speech in America or it puts media corporations and the rest of corporate America on the same footing. Either way it means the same thing, they supported the decision.



Both political party bosses and our young president sank back into the old world of politics before the ink even dried on the stories of how they learned their lesson in Massachusetts. My goodness, the mental institutions are filled with people with multiple personalities, self-destructive psychosis and subliminal paranoia.

Get out the straight jackets and move over patients, we have 539 politicians, (437 House, 100 Senate and 2 in White House - Obama & Biden) in need of a heavy dose of America's favorite cocktail, Prozac, or kid's drink, Ritalin, a straight jacket and a few years to sleep off their attack of sheer idiocy.



Obama, the Democrats and Republicans are all addicted to corporate and union money and all share in the spoils of hundreds of millions of dollars being poured into campaigns by special interests who own our elected leaders. Do not express your dismay, shock or approval in press conferences while you are stuffing your campaign accounts with money from these bad guys.



Any politician who takes the money or support from such dirty money should admit their deception immediately and give back the bucks or be thrown on the scrap heap of history. Untruth still rules our nation's capitol and the Non-political Independent movement that has already plowed through Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts the last few weeks can take aim at the rest of the gang in DC and keep on house cleaning.



We will continue reporting on the hypocrisy as long as the lies and cover ups keep flowing from the mouths of the guilty in Washington. Keep it up people, we have a lot of straight jackets to fill. In the meantime responsible public officials will eliminate private financing of campaigns, make corporate and union contributions of any kind illegal, provide limited public financing and require media to give ads to viable candidates. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out how to eliminate corruption, just an honest president and congress.

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Supreme Court Knocks Down Corporate & Union Spending Limits - Time to Get Rid of All Special Interest Bribes

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In a stunning decision the US Supreme Court knocked down the federal limits on non-candidate spending in campaigns. What this means is there is no limit to the money corporations or unions can spend in support of federal candidates for office as long as they don't give it directly to the candidates. The current spending limits on campaign contributions will remain.



Now we will see if our Congress and President intend to work for the people or for special interests. If they have heard the disgust of the people toward current campaign spending and special interest influence they will find a way to stop all corporate and union contributions and expenditures for campaigns on the grounds that it will protect the integrity of campaigns.



A ban on all contributions in the interest of fairness and assuring equal opportunity to get elected would go a long ways toward cleaning out the mess Congress has made of campaign finance laws. This action by the Supreme Court though stunning in throwing the door open to millions more in special interest money, also will demonstrate once and for all which elected officials serve the public and which serve special interests.



You will be kept informed of those that are for and against the people and the revolution of getting rid of politics as usual will have a daunting task ahead, purging our nation's capitol of corruption once and for all. Watch for campaign reform actions. If there are none then they are all crooks.

Through the Looking Glass at The Vintage Source - Another Lost Weekend

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I took my monthly outing to see the ladies at The Vintage Source, the Fine, Funky Home Decor and Social Club of Southern Maryland where nothing is as it seems and not the least the four ladies who never seem to lose their thirst for living or good wine.

Of course there were the bargains, hundreds of them, and hundreds more had already been purchased before I got there. If you are not waiting in line before daybreak the third Saturday and Sunday of every month you lose out on the best buys. I tried it once but prefer to wait until the crowd thins and I can get the latest news from the most unusual proprietor and partners on the East coast.



If you haven't made it there you are missing out on great bargains, great conversation and the opportunity to see the world through their eyes, from the back side of the mirror, and a most bizarre view it can be. You see there are no rules when it comes to creative thinking when this gang gets together.



There is Michelle, who set out on a dream to build a business from a tent in her front yard and wound up building a spectacle where people line the street before it opens waiting to get in the doors. She actually thought she could be successful being open one weekend a month and did it. Outside running the Hotdog Wagon serving the best dogs this side of Manhattan is Tyler, her husband, a vice principal during the week and dawg hawker on weekends.



Then there is Cathe, the blueblood of Philadelphia and debutant of the Pocono Mountain resorts who shattered all the strictures of the Philly upper crust and ran off and married a Sicilian who joined the Navy. This girl was so sheltered that when she got married she had never driven a car (why when you had a chauffeured limo), cooked a meal or even seen a washer and dryer. From Dirty Dancing to Navy housewife it was a heroic transition.



The third wheel of the original gang is Cheryl, Miss perpetual motion from the Texas panhandle who also married into the military and used it as a stepping stone to learn every craft there is related to furniture, homes and unusual things. Cheryl took hands on experience to a whole new dimension with a desire to understand how everything is made, repaired or reconditioned in the world of antique furniture.



Finally there is Joy, the survivor of a vaudeville family upbringing who was once lost as a child in her mother's collection of over 600 antique dolls. I have never seen her not laughing about life even though she is also married to yet another military dude. But then I had the pleasure of meeting her rather eccentric mother and I could see how Joy was so full of joy with a mother like that.



So this month it was a little like joining Alice in Wonderland as they showed me their newest marketing gimmick. There were four antiqued postcards about The Vintage Source, each with a photo of one of the ladies when they were quite young. I was supposed to match them to the ladies. Nothing is as it seems.



You try it if you think it is so easy. Match the kid shots with the grown up shots in this story. I was okay with Joy (the weird dog), then Cheryl (the red hair), and finally Cathe (who else climbs out of a Pocono Mountains resort pool with dry hair). But Michelle, now that was a stretch no matter how hard I studied the photo.



Either the ladies were playing a joke on me and it was not her, or she had been the victim of an alien abduction and they returned the wrong body to her home. Since that happened to me once between second and third grade I was suspicious. You look at these photos and tell me you don't agree.



The little Michelle looks like a midget football player in drag with a strange hair style, a large soup bowl cut, and nothing at all like the rather stunning specimen remaining today. On her worst day of the year she could not look like the little curmudgeon of yesteryear on the postcard. I know when a person was replaced and if that was her back then we need to look for her on Mars today, not at The Vintage Source. In the meantime we will keep the alien.



You really should experience the place one of these days. Maybe you will meet Michelle's mother and you can ask her for the truth about her daughter. Was she abducted and was she returned or replaced? See you at the true Source, The Vintage Source.

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