Another Miracle at Coltons Point?

What is it about this ancient site in Southern Maryland that is the birthplace of religious freedom in America, the site of the first Catholics in English speaking America, the site of the first Jesuits in the continental United States, the site of the first miracle in North America, and the site where the first relics of the Cross of Jesus were brought to the new continent?

This unknown sacred site on the banks of the Potomac came to the attention of the world last spring when the Pope made his first trip to America and St. Clements Island at Coltons Point was mentioned on worldwide television as the birthplace of Christianity in the new world.

Ever since the miraculous healing of the fatally sick son of the leader of the Native Americans back in 1634 when the first Jesuit, Father White, placed the relic of the Cross of Jesus on the dying boy and he came back to life things have been unusual.

Tornadoes hit all around Coltons Point but none hit here. Hurricanes devastate and flood the surrounding area of Maryland and Virginia but there is never much damage here. It was almost 400 years ago that two ships from England brought Christianity, religious freedom, Catholics and Jesuits to this site and things just haven't been the same since.

Our most recent miracle happened just this past Monday when I was driving back to Coltons Point after dropping Hillbilly Joe off at his job. Around 7:00 am I came around the turn by the Catholic Church and there were two cars smashed beyond recognition nearly in front of the church.

One sat crossways in the road and the other was down in a drainage ditch with the driver's door pinned against the earth. The damage was so extensive it was impossible to tell the make of either car. I could see a body hanging out of the car on the road and I pulled over and rushed to the scene.

Car parts were strewn over 100 feet from the point of the collision. There was fluid leaking and moaning coming from both cars. I yelled at a person standing in front of the church paralyzed by shock from the horrific sight to call 911 which she did.

While searching the wreckage site for any sign of fire as fluid was everywhere I propped the guy halfway out of the car up, checked him for bleeding or obvious injuries, and went into the ditch to see if anyone survived the car that had been thrown through the air.

There was a woman pinned behind the steering wheel and trapped in the car as both sides had been crushed in the wreck. She was delirious, but no major arteries had been cut and she was falling in and out of consciousness. To reach her I had to crawl down the ditch and pulled the air bags away from her.

At that point one other person had reached the site and we did what we could to watch for fires while keeping the victims awake and comfortable. In the meantime Father Gurney, the Catholic priest came out of the church and administered Last Rites to the two people as both clearly were on the verge of death.

The woman in the car finally went out stone cold while we were waiting for the emergency vehicles with the jaws of life needed to cut her out of the wreckage. Now the wreck took place in front of the church and the EMS and Fire Departments were less than a mile up the road.

Still it took 20 minutes for the first responders to respond. During that time a fire or injuries could have easily killed the victims as there was no way to get the woman out. It was the longest wait I experienced in my life.

When they did arrive the EMS vehicle seemed to have two young kids and a woman in her 20's and that was the emergency crew. There was a great deal of confusion even after they arrived on how to proceed when there really was no choice, the guy on the road was available to treat while the woman trapped in the ditch needed to be checked.

Within minutes there were several police cars, fire trucks and ambulances on the scene and a committee kept meeting on how to cut apart the car and save the woman who already seemed to be dead or at least knocking on death's door. When they finally started using the jaws of life they seemed to be taking the most difficult path to saving her as they decided to cut the entire roof off the car to get her out.

Twenty more precious minutes passes before they completed the mission and twice they had to stop cutting and use axes to try and smash the windshield loose and then to crease the roof so they could bend it back. Both times the jolt of the axes and debris from the blows had to be affecting the woman trapped under the roof.

Later I learned that early morning calls to our all volunteer EMS and Fire Departments are the most difficult to fill because most of the veteran officers are at their regular jobs and only a skeleton staff is left. Helicopters came and landed in the field by the school and flew the two victims to the nearest trauma center about an hour after the wreck.

As for the miracle? The seventy-four year old woman we thought might be dead returned to consciousness as they were pulling her out of the wreckage and she looked at Father Gurney and I and waved. When the helicopter got her to the trauma center the only injury they could find was a broken wrist and by the next day she went home. The guy was recovering as well.

If you looked at the cars you would have said no one could survive such a wreck as neither car could be identified in the tangled mess. A high-speed head-on collision left the vehicles obliterated and the occupants should have been crushed. The 20 minute wait for emergency crews with the woman trapped, gas leaking and sparks flying should have resulted in an explosion and fire. When she lost consciousness and the priest gave her the Last Sacraments there seemed to be no life force left in her. Yet she awoke, waved to us, then walked out of the trauma center the next day with only a broken wrist.


As for me, as the helicopter flew away I went home thinking the whole thing seemed like a dream sequence. The things that can happen before your first cup of coffee. Then CuChulainn, my Irish Wolfhound, explained to me that Coltons Point is a mystical and mysterious place indeed.

Oil Hits Seven Week Low - How Low Can It Go?

Last Friday oil continued its two week decline bottoming out at $123.40 for US crude and $124.39 for Brent crude, both down over $2.00 for the day. Oil peaked two weeks ago at a record $147.37 a barrel and has been falling ever since.

So what does this mean to the consumer? The rule of thumb is the price of a gallon of gas should drop 2.5 cents for every one dollar drop in a barrel of oil. Thus gas prices should fall 57.5 cents a gallon based on the decline we have already seen.

It has dropped about 14 cents meaning a true market adjustment should see an additional fall of gas prices of around 43 cents, driving the average price from $3.94 to $3.51. This should conveniently happen before the November election with about 25 cents by September.

Now that is if prices remain as they are today. I expect prices to fall to about $90 a barrel by election day, meaning an additional $34 reduction in oil and an additional 85 cents in gas. By all rights our gas should cost about $2.68 a gallon by the time the next president is settled in at the White House.

Why does it take so long for gas prices to fall? Well the oil refiners and gas retailers benefit the least from high gas prices so they are taking their time lowering prices in order to get a little of the oil profits so greedily grabbed already by the speculators and producers.

So if the market forces cannot explain the high oil prices what is the reason? Read my article on the financial institutions. It may help shed some light.

Who Will Fall Next? Banks and the Credit Crisis

So who are the largest investment banks in the world?

1. Bank of America
2. Citigroup
3. JP Morgan
4. HSBC
5. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group
6. Royal Bank of Scotland Group
7. ING Group
8. Credit Agricole
9. Wachovia
10. BNP Paribus SA

How about the top brokers in the world?

1. JP Morgan Chase & Co.
2. Goldman, Sachs & Co.
3. Citigroup
4. UBS
5. Bank of America
6. Lehman Brothers
7. Merrill Lynch
8. Morgan Stanley
9. Bear Stearns
10. Credit Suisse


Finally who are the largest banks in the world?

1. UBS AG - Switzerland
2. Barclays - UK
3. The Royal Bank of Scotland Group - UK
4. Deutsche Bank AG - Germany
5. BNP Paribus SA - France
6. The Bank of Toyko Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. - Japan
7. ABN AMPRO Holding NV - Netherlands
8. Societe Generale - France
9. Credit Agricole SA - France
10. Bank of America NA - USA
11. JP Morgan Chase Bank National Association - USA
12. Banco Santander Central Hispano SA - Spain
13. Unicredito Italiano SpA - Italy
14. Credit Suisse Group - Switzerland
15. Citibank NA - USA
16. ING Bank NV - Netherlands
17. Bank of Scotland - UK
18. Fortis Bank NV/SA - Belgium
19. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation - Japan
20. HSBC Bank plc - UK

Notice the names appearing on all three lists? How about the fact that four of the top 20 banks in the world are UK, three from France, two from Switzerland, two from the Netherlands, and one each from Germany, Spain, Italy and Belgium. Hummm, 15 of the 20 largest banks in the world are from Europe.

So there is a concentration of wealth but also a concentration of credit exposure. So far these banks have lost billions of dollars from investing in the US sub-prime mortgage market and the credit crisis but do we really know the scope of the crisis?

Losses of nearly $400 billion have already been written off from sub-prime mortgages. A confidential study by Bridgewater Associates, the second largest hedge fund in the world expects total losses from the credit crisis to reach $1.6 trillion, yes trillion. That is four times the current staggering losses.

One of these major players has already gone under (Bear Stearns) and more can be expected if the credit losses approach that level. In fact one of the major players, Fortis Bank, expects a collapse of the US financial markets with 6,000 US banks filing bankruptcy and major corporations like General Motors and Citigroup becoming victims to the US financial meltdown.

Very quietly 7 US banks have already gone bankrupt this year but are we prepared for a massive meltdown? Today the Bush administration announced we face the largest budget deficit in history. Oil prices are out of sight and housing prices are collapsing. Perhaps the meltdown is already well underway.

Of course many of these institutions are on the earlier list I published of the financial institutions that have paid billions of dollars in fines for fraud, price fixing and other economic high jinks that used to land you in jail but now just get you a slap on the wrist and a tax deduction.

Many of these banks already recovered billions of dollars of losses with their manipulation of the oil futures market so maybe the projections of Fortis have to be updated by adjusting them for the billions of dollars already stolen from the citizens of the world at the gas pumps.

Will we ever reach the point where our financial institutions won't have to steal, manipulate and defraud the public in order to cover their losses from creative stock frauds which should never have happened in the first place if the government regulators were doing their job? Stay tuned for Armageddon.

Olympics Just Days Away

The greatest gathering of athletes in the history of the world is about to take place at the XXIX Olympics in Beijing, China with 10,500 athletes competing in 302 events in 28 sports. NBC Network will be televising the event and all network executives have their fingers crossed that viewers will actually be able to see them.

Did I mention that China, one of the world's fastest growing economies does not really believe in environmental regulation nor human rights but those issues are being kept from the public as much as possible. Unfortunately, years of environmental abuse in China has left the air in Beijing so polluted that a total ban on automobiles in one of the largest cities in the world is being considered.

It would take such drastic action along with an order to shut down all the polluting factories in Beijing to clear the air enough for television cameras to see what the athletes are doing in the events. So enjoy what you can see of the Olympics and don't be upset if you can't see the faces of your favorite athletes because they most likely will be buried behind face masks to protect them from the pollution.

Randy Pausch, 47; terminally ill professor inspired many with his 'last lecture'

(Valerie Nelson of the LA Times reports this next story better than anyone.)

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-pausch26-2008jul26,0,1202748.story
From the Los Angeles Times

OBITUARY
Randy Pausch, 47; terminally ill professor inspired many with his 'last lecture'

His speech at Carnegie Mellon University after a pancreatic cancer diagnosis became an Internet phenomenon and bestselling book.
By Valerie J. Nelson
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 26, 2008

Randy Pausch, a terminally ill professor whose earnest farewell lecture at Carnegie Mellon University became an Internet phenomenon and bestselling book that turned him into a symbol for living and dying well, died Friday.

He was 47.Pausch, a computer science professor and virtual-reality pioneer, died at his home in Chesapeake, Va., of complications from pancreatic cancer, the Pittsburgh university announced. When Pausch agreed to give the talk, he was participating in a long-standing academic tradition that calls on professors to share their wisdom in a theoretical "last lecture."

A month before the speech, the 46-year-old Pausch was told he had only months to live, a prognosis that heightened the poignancy of his address. Delivered last September to about 400 students and colleagues, his message about how to make the most of life has been viewed by millions on the Internet. Pausch gave an abbreviated version of it on "Oprah" and expanded it into a best-selling book, "The Last Lecture," released in April.

Yet Pausch insisted that both the spoken and written words were designed for an audience of three: his children, then 5, 2 and 1."I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children," Pausch wrote in his book.

Unwilling to take time from his family to pen the book, Pausch hired a coauthor, Jeffrey Zaslow, a Wall Street Journal writer who had covered the lecture. During more than 50 bicycle rides crucial to his health, Pausch spoke to Zaslow on a cellphone headset.

"The speech made him famous all over the world," Zaslow told The Times. "It was almost a shared secret, a peek into him telling his colleagues and students to go on and do great things. It touched so many people because it was authentic.

"Thousands of strangers e-mailed Pausch to say they found his upbeat lecture, laced with humor, to be inspiring and life-changing. They drank up the sentiments of a seemingly vibrant terminally ill man, a showman with Jerry Seinfeld-esque jokes and an earnest Jimmy Stewart delivery. If I don't seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you. He used that line after projecting CT scans, complete with helpful arrows pointing to the tumors on his liver as he addressed "the elephant in the room" that made every word carry more weight.

Some people believe that those who are dying may be especially insightful because they must make every moment count. Some are drawn to valedictories like the one Pausch gave because they offer a spiritual way to grapple with mortality that isn't based in religion.

Sandra Yarlott, director of spiritual care at UCLA Medical Center, said researchers, including Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, have observed that work done by dying patients "resonates with people in that timeless place deep within." As Pausch essentially said goodbye at Carnegie Mellon, he touched on just about everything but religion while raucously reliving how he achieved most of his childhood dreams. His ambitions included experiencing the weightlessness of zero gravity; writing an article in the World Book Encyclopedia ("You can tell the nerds early on," he joked); wanting to be both a Disney Imagineer and Captain Kirk from "Star Trek"; and playing professional football.

Onstage, Pausch was a frenetic verbal billboard, delivering as many one-liners as he did phrases to live by. Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. When his virtual-reality students at Carnegie Mellon won a flight in a NASA training plane that briefly simulates weightlessness, Pausch was told faculty members were not allowed to fly. Finding a loophole, he applied to cover it as his team's hometown Web journalist -- and got his 25 seconds of floating.

Since 1997, Pausch had been a professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon. With a drama professor, he founded the university's Entertainment Technology Center, which teams students from the arts with those in technology to develop projects. The popular professor had an "enormous and lasting impact" on Carnegie Mellon, said Jared L. Cohon, the university's president, in a statement. He pointed out that Pausch's "love of teaching, his sense of fun and his brilliance" came together in his innovative software program, Alice, which uses animated characters and storytelling to make it easier to learn to write computer code.

During the lecture, Pausch joked that he had become just enough of an expert to fulfill one childhood ambition. World Book sought him out to write its virtual-reality entry. He didn't get to be Captain Kirk, but actor William Shatner, who played the starship commander, visited Pausch's lab at Carnegie Mellon. Pausch believed that watching Kirk had taught him leadership skills. After the speech, Pausch was given a walk-on role in the "Star Trek" film due out in 2009.Inside the auditorium, Pausch dared the crowd to overcome obstacles.

The brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people.After his applications to become a Disney Imagineer were repeatedly rejected, Pausch said, he talked his way into spending a sabbatical in the mid-1990s at the company's virtual-reality studio. He helped design such virtual-reality rides as Aladdin's Magic Carpet at Walt Disney World.

Randolph Frederick Pausch was born Oct. 23, 1960, in Baltimore and said he won the "parent lottery" with Fred and Virginia Pausch. His father sold insurance and his mother taught English. As a teenager growing up in Columbia, Md., he was allowed to paint whatever he wanted on his bedroom walls. His artistry included a quadratic equation, elevator doors and the rocket ship that adorns the cover of his book.

After graduating from Brown University with a bachelor's degree in 1982, Pausch earned a doctorate in computer science from Carnegie Mellon in 1988. At the University of Virginia, he taught for nine years. When he got tenure, he thanked his research team by taking members to Disney World. Although he didn't make it to the NFL, Pausch said playing high school football taught him to master fundamentals and accept criticism. A month after his speech, the Pittsburgh Steelers invited him to a practice. Pausch caught passes, grinning ear to ear.

Last fall, he moved his family to southeastern Virginia so that Jai, his wife of eight years, could be near relatives. He tried to "build memories" with his children, taking his oldest, Dylan, to ride a dolphin and introducing his son Logan to Mickey Mouse at Disney World. For his final Halloween, his family -- including his youngest, daughter Chloe -- went as the animated characters the Incredibles, personifying his end-of-life mantra: We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.

With the newfound status the speech bestowed on him, Pausch called attention to the need for cancer research, appearing before Congress in March and filming a fundraising spot for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. The same friends who called him "St. Randy" to poke fun at his media image were "not surprised that he's moving the world," Zaslow said. "They always thought he was special. Even his doctor said, 'If I picked one patient who would become famous and inspire the world, it would be him.' "Weeks after his book was released, 2.3 million copies of it were in print. It is being published in 29 languages.

By the book's end, Pausch sounds like a parent imparting advice as fast as he can. The chapters grow shorter as he tries to fit it all in: Don't obsess over what people think. No job is beneath you. Tell the truth. Ever the comedian, Pausch delighted in his mother's use of humor to keep him humble.

After I got my PhD, my mother took great relish in introducing me as, "This is my son. He's a doctor, but not the kind that helps people. "His mother couldn't have been more wrong. In addition to his wife and children, he is survived by his mother and a sister. Donations may be made to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, www.pancan.org, or to Carnegie Mellon's Randy Pausch Memorial Fund, www.cmu.edu/giving/pausch.

valerie.nelson@latimes.com

The Case of the Mysterious Satellite Signal

I have basic cable like many Americans because I cannot afford the many levels of premium packages, because I need cable for the high-speed internet connection, and because the program choices on cable seem rather stupid, condescending and patronizing.

Coltons Point is one of the last outposts of wilderness in the Eastern USA so cable was a recent technological advance here. We still have no DSL on phone lines. Fact is we have no fiber optic wiring at all as the phone system is based on ancient boxes set on the ground which short out every flood or hurricane.

No cell phone towers in Coltons Point either. You have to drive 12 miles to get to the nearest cell phone reception zone meaning we remain free of radiation bombarding our brains. Here we have no technological excuse for being stupid. Yet we are only 60 miles from our nation's capitol, as in Washington, D.C. for those not historically correct.

Basic cable now means you get no cable channels, just the local network, public access and PBS stations. Not even CNN, Fox News or the Weather Channel are on basic cable. I think Congress, who regulates the telecommunications industry and sets the license requirements for broadcasters, should tell them to quit lying. There is no cable in basic cable. It is just a convenient way to charge people for the free channels in their area.

Coltons Point is also a magical place where very strange things can happen. Ever since the shipload of English arrived back in the year 1634 at Clements Island just off Coltons Point there have been strange things happening. For those of you short on history that was before New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Chicago and Los Angeles even existed.

The latest strange miracle is the mysterious case of the wayward satellite signal. If you want to pay for television and be a player in the 500 channel digital broadcast game you must have a digital television and you must have access to the 500 channels through either digital cable service or satellite television. To play you have to get a cable or satellite dish installed and be willing to pay between $35 and $200 a month for no one knows how much they are really being charged.

Now technology 101 teaches you need a cable for cable television and a satellite dish for satellite television. Digital television sets have about a thousand stations available on the super remote controls. Older sets may have 125 channels available. Even older sets have 99 channels as they could not figure out how to get three digits of channels. I have an even older set.



A couple of weeks ago I was scanning my six basic channels when a strange message appeared on the screen saying my satellite signal had failed and I needed to readjust the satellite dish. I had satellite television before and the damn dish needed to be readjusted every time the wind blew or the rain was too hard so I knew what the message meant. I just didn't have a satellite dish to adjust on my cable TV.

Still it made me curious so I started checking to see how many blank channels had the same message. Remember, my basic cable left 93 blank channels out of 99 possible. When I got past the basic channels to my complete astonishment every single cable channel except the pay channels for movies, sports or porn I guess appeared on my screen.

I've heard of wires being crossed before but never have I heard of an old television set with basic cable and no satellite suddenly start receiving satellite signals. Besides, this is a case of wires and wireless being crossed which makes for an interesting physics challenge.

So Obama goes to Europe and I get satellite television on my cable tv. This must be some kind of sign of enlightenment. Maybe we should get him elected. Even the rednecks that don't like him might like the free World Wrestling Mania, the Saturday Night Slam Down or whatever it is they watch.

I don't see how they can charge me for satellite tv when I don't have a satellite dish. This momentary miracle has given me a chance to go back and see if television programming has advanced since I last had cable or satellite service.

Fat chance. If anything the standards are far less. The shows are stupid or a copy of something that worked once upon a time. Tell Congress things are so bad we now need a warning to appear on every television show; "The Surgeon General has determined that watching digital television not only causes tumors but also destroys brain cells causing intellectual constipation. If you have not already destroyed all your brain cells you should turn off your television and start taking all those prescription drugs.

Obama Conquers Europe - Is America Next?

Over 200,000 Germans watch as Obama walks along the podium on his way to address the world. It was the highlight of his whirlwind trip from Afganistan to Iraq, Israel to Germany to France and England.

Memo to John McCain: Stop whining and start giving us a reason to take you more seriously than Obama. Ever since Obama left for the war zones and Europe McCain has been complaining about the press coverage, complaining about the policies Obama has announced, complaining about being assigned the junior varsity of the news corps since all the media stars were with Obama in Europe and complaining about every word uttered by Obama on the trip.

His "good old boy" approach to the campaign does nothing to tell us why he should be elected as the most powerful person in the world, how he will improve the image of America around the world, or how he will end the wars and stop all the special interests who are running and funding his campaign. We need solutions to problems. We need a leader who can motivate us to do good. We need a president who will go after the crooks in our financial, oil, medical, pharmaceutical, entertainment and media industries.

I thought it was pretty amazing to see an American speaking to over 200,000 Germans in Berlin and being applauded. When I see polls that say two-thirds of Europeans want Obama to be the next president I think the fact the rest of the world is taking such an interest in our election is an indication of the power of the United States and the role they hope to see for America in leading the world.

Think about it, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and England have been around about a thousand years longer than the USA. Yet in all their amazing history they have never had a minority leader, whether president, prime minister, king or queen. Only the USA, the newest kid on the block, has taken such a quantum leap forward to be seriously considering electing the first minority president in world history in a Western democratic or capitalistic society.

The people of the world stand in awe of our political system that practices what it preaches, that all people are free and everyone has an equal opportunity to be president. I happen to think that is quite extraordinary and our founding fathers should be smiling down on the land of freedom and opportunity they helped create.

There are one hundred days until the election. Both candidates have plenty of time and money to make their case to be the next leader of our nation. Let us hope they use that time and money to give us positive reasons to elect them, not negative reasons to not elect their opponent.

The United States is the sole world super power because we can stand united behind a cause for good, be more creative and innovative than any other nation when we set our mind to it, and we are the most compassionate and caring people on Earth. As long as the world is watching with such interest, let us give them an election they will never forget.



Not to be outdone by Obama, McCain is shown here meeting with the Dali Lama while Obama was meeting with the Germans, French and English. He used the occasion with this man of peace to blast Obama for his trip and to challenge the images of the wonderful reception he received in Europe.

Letters to the Editor

I got a letter from Cathe the other day asking why no new articles have been published lately. Letters to the editor are rather rare here at the Coltons Point Times but are greatly appreciated as it is the only indication people are reading and finding the stories to be of value.

So I told her I broke my brain and had to take time for repairs but the break happened at a good time as everything in the news was predictable. Truth is I was taking a break while the world caught up with my previous articles.

We made a number of predictions and suggestions on a variety of issues and it seemed as if the government was never going to get around to doing their job but slowly, often grudgingly, they seem to be getting in gear.

I suspect some of the movement by the bureaucrats might be they realize in a few months they may have a new boss and they better do something to justify their existence. There is also the calls for change by the presidential candidates and the strange policy reversals of late by President Bush that have changed things.

The Race for President
In March we called the Democratic primary and even the general election naming Obama the winner of both. The first already happened and the second is well underway. Of course the news media says the race between Obama and McCain is only a 4 percent lead for Obama. We addressed that in an article on polling stating that polls will not be accurate until after September 1 at which time we expect Obama to surge to a 15% lead and never look back.

The Oil Price Rise
For nearly two years we urged investigation of price manipulation of the futures market and finally, this week, the federal government announced the first of what could be many indictments for illegal price fixing. An expansive investigation is already underway.

The Housing Crisis
Also long ago we pointed out the impending collapse of the housing market because of over priced real estate and the proliferation of Wall street, the banks and investment houses in scam sub-prime mortgages. Well the house of cards did collapse at a cost of well over $300 billion. We urged extensive prosecutions of the mortgage, banking and financial sectors and they have also begun.

The many articles covered a host of sins ranging from medical costs to environmental issues, prescription drugs to vaccines. We pointed out that new born children now receive 26 vaccinations by the time they are two years old. No wonder our immune systems have broken down. The average older American now takes six prescription drugs a day.

We are over regulated, over stimulated, over manipulated and over weight and still we listen to the maniacs every evening on the news singing the praises for the quality of life in America while their networks suck every last advertising dollar from the guilty parties.

Television programs on our 500 channels are the dumbest collective bunch of nonsense in history, video games are the most crass and destructive forces ever inflicted on mankind, violent crime is glorified on local news and corporate crime is covered up on network news.

The price of oil and food goes up every time anything in the world goes wrong even if it has no effect on oil and food prices. Still we send the same people back to congress and our state legislatures as if they have no responsibility for all the corruption and greed that dominates our world.

Well I don't know if President Obama can change things as he will still be stuck with the same congress but he certainly can't do any worse than the last few presidents. I presented a program to Take Back America which starts to address all the freedom, choices and morality we have given up but a positive approach to problem solving has no place in a world that dwells on the negative and glorifies greed.

Still the population of Coltons Point is a couple of hundred and there are over 7,000 readers of the Coltons Point Times, not to mention the many web sites that place my articles on them so at least several thousand people are starting to look for the truth.

In order to serve that purpose and make certain Cathe has something of value to read we are now rested and will not rest again until the crooks have been driven from the capitol, from Wall Street, from television and radio, and even from the pulpits.

We will not rest until you get medical help to heal you, not keep treating you until your insurance runs out. When owning a home means something. When education actually teaches. When speculation in oil and food is stopped because such greedy speculators are threatening our national security. When foreign aid goes to countries that help us lower the cost of oil. And all that other stuff.

BIG BROWN TRIPLE CROWN BID FAILS

Big Brown stunned the world with his loss in the Belmont race for the Triple Crown. His loss so overshadowed the victor of the race that no one remembers who won. The horse racing analysts are having a field day explaining what happened to the powerful Big Brown but we at the CPT know the truth.

This horse wins every time the jockey lets the horse run his race. He did it in the Kentucky Derby and again in the Preakness. But in the Belmont the jockey decided to let the horse know who was in charge, a fatal mistake. Big Brown was about to settle on the rail for a long haul, one in which he surely would have run down the leaders as they faded toward the end, when the jockey jerked his head toward the rail.

Still the horse recovered and was focused on riding the rail when the jockey looked at the horse next to him and made the fateful decision to change the race and take Big Brown off the rail to the outside.

With his ears laid back Big Brown was ready for the fight but the jockey was not content to let the powerful horse have his way and again jerked the reins, this time slowing the horse and sending him to the outside around two other horses just after the first turn. Big Brown actually was being asked to slow down early in the race and then circle outside behind the leader. A really strange strategy in such a long race. Suddenly the ears went straight up as he was slowed and then eased to the outside.

As they flew down the track Big Brown looked back at the jockey with the most disgusted look I have ever seen on a face. He continued with his head up and glancing back at the jockey as he moved off the rail around the other horses.

The last thing anyone should do is change a horse during the most important race of its life. Like triple-crown champion Secretariat, Big Brown was well aware of what it took to win and how to achieve it. Each race in the triple-crown Secretariat ran differently and Big Brown was doing the same, until there was human interference. Now the horse was third on the outside.

By the last turn of the longest race in the triple-crown the jockey had Big Brown way to the outside, meaning he had to run much farther than any other horse. Big Brown quit because he knew how to win and was not about to let the jockey tell him different. Will we ever learn to trust the instinct of animals?

This is what his trainer had to say about the race. Dutrow — who spoke publicly for the first time since the Belmont, telling The Daily Racing Form he feels “like a loser” — said this regarding Desormeaux’s ride. He told the racing publication that he did not know why Desormeaux had to ease the horse at the top of the stretch. Dutrow said he was sure that Big Brown had no idea “what the hell was going on going into the first turn,” because Desormeaux “was switching him all over” the track. “I don’t know what he was doing,” Dutrow said.

If the trainer was confused how in the world could the horse have known what to do? The only time Big Brown was running his race, when he was finally settled at the rail in photo 3 his ears were laid back and he was focused. By the time the mixed signals from the jockey had him going to the outside his ears are straight up, a sign of confusion and frustration. For comparison, the following is the stretch run at the Kentucky Derby when he was left alone. Note the ears are way back as the horse thunders to victory.

So Affirmed remains as the last triple-crown champion and it will now be at least 31 years since the last winner.

OBAMA BEGINS MAGICAL QUEST

Barack Obama has secured the Democratic nomination and now begins his magical quest to become the first Black president in the history of the United States. On March 6 The Coltons Point Times declared Obama would be the Democratic candidate and would become the 44th President of the United States. As we said in the earlier story:

WHY BARACK OBAMA WILL BE THE 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE USA!

The Lincoln Connection

In his Second Inaugural Address March 4, 1865 President Abraham Lincoln said the following:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Such words of Abraham Lincoln seem as valid today as they did 143 years ago so perhaps the hand of destiny may play a part in this election. Whoever wins will become president in time to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth on February 12, 1809. The fact Lincoln lived in Illinois throughout his career is another interesting parallel with Barack Obama.

The artwork preceding this article depict Lincoln and Obama in Springfield, Illinois and in time may depict them in our nation's capitol. His success in the general election and as president will be dependent on whether he grows into the role of leader of the strongest nation in the world. Many such as Lincoln and John Kennedy have done so and there is no reason to expect otherwise.

Obama has already done what no Bush has ever accomplished, defeated the powerful Clinton machine and he started as an unknown while the senior Bush was the incumbent president. So do not underestimate the maturity of our young presidential candidate. He understands the need to break from the past and the need to embrace the future.

His first test will be selecting a vice president and Hillary supporters aside, as she more than anyone represents the link to the past, he needs to make a mature, reasoned selection that will complement his portfolio and strengthen his administration. We believe the best choice for Obama will be former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia.

Not only was Sam Nunn one of the most respected members of the US Senate but he has fought his entire political career for the elimination of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons throughout the world and is responsible for eliminating over 5,600 nuclear warheads from the American war machine. His age, 70, and experience make him most complimentary to the Obama ticket and his early retirement from the Senate because he felt he was not accomplishing anything demonstrated his commitment to his beliefs.

Stay tuned as history is made in America.

U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY PAULSON FUELS OIL PRICE CONSPIRACY

The Bush Administration continues to ignore the realities of world oil prices as spokesperson Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on June 1 that oil price increases are due to “supply and demand” issues. Just a couple of days earlier the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a federal regulatory agency, announced a massive criminal investigation of price manipulation in the oil futures markets.

The CFTC indicated the investigation had been quietly launched six months earlier and the announcement sent shock waves through the financial sector. The Coltons Point Times has written 14 articles about the financial manipulation of the oil futures markets over the past 18 months so we are pleased a federal agency has actually started the process.

However, the CFTC may not have the ability nor the resources to undertake such a massive investigation as their targets would have to be the largest financial organizations in the world. We already disclosed that equity owners of the London oil futures market, ICE, which is a USA company but not subject to federal regulation, include two of the largest investment houses in the world, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, three of the largest oil companies in the world, Royal Dutch Shell, BP Amoco and Total Fina Elf, and two of Europe’s leading financial institutions, Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale.

The price manipulations under investigation could be the result of actions by these and all the other top financial houses and oil companies in the world and the CFTC says it has just five lead counsels to handle the cases. There are already over forty investigations launched. To give you an idea of the limits of the CFTC a spokesperson testified just ten days ago before a Senate Committee and listed reasons for the record oil price as “the weak U.S. dollar, demand from emerging economies, world unrest, bad weather and supply disruptions.” No mention was made of financial manipulations.

Now Secretary Paulson should have known about the CFTC investigation before he spoke, everyone else in the world knew. Paulson used to head Goldman Sachs, one of the certain targets of the investigation, and he knew Goldman Sachs was one of the owners of the oil futures market. Are the Bush people really that disconnected from reality or is there another reason for the refusal to acknowledge the potential for price manipulation from speculators?

Bush recently traveled to Saudi Arabia and asked OPEC to increase oil production to lower prices and they told him it was speculators driving up the price, the financial institutions, not the producers. Both the president and treasury secretary continue to get the wrong information and that raises a lot of questions about the quality of the staff in the Administration.

The CFTC was set up in 1974 to protect Americans from manipulations in the commodity markets. It was last updated in 2000 even though in 2006 a Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said there was substantial evidence of price manipulation in the commodity oil futures markets and a gaping loophole in U.S. Regulations that would lead to further speculation and manipulation.

That was the same year the Administration allowed ICE, the new oil futures market owner in London to trade American oil futures in London. Oil prices were $59-60 per barrel then and since the gaping loophole in our regulation prices have more than doubled, meaning the price impact of speculation could be $60 per barrel today.

So Goldman Sachs represents ICE in securities offerings and was an original equity owner of ICE. The current Treasury Secretary was former head of Goldman Sachs. The current head of NYMEX, the New York Mercantile (Futures) Exchange whose contracts can be bought through ICE in London, is James Newsome who also sits on the Dubai Exchange, the third and last oil futures exchange in the world. Interestingly Newsome is a former chairman of the CTFC.

The current CTFC Global Markets Advisory Committee includes Newsome and Jeffrey Sprecher, Chairman and CEO of ICE, along with representatives of J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Citigroup, UBS and Barclays among others. The CTFC Energy Market Advisory Committee includes Newsome and Sprecher from the futures exchanges along with Goldman Sachs, Shell Oil, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, J.P. Morgan, and others.

So the two key advisory committees to the CTFC contain many of the very firms that are under investigation by the CTFC and the largest investment houses, banks and oil companies of the world are the target. The five CTFC lawyers could spend decades searching for truth.

Why did Congress and the Administration refuse to act to close the huge CTFC regulatory loophole two years ago when it was identified? Why were no changes made in CTFC regulations to enable it to effectively stop oil price manipulations since Bush took office? Why does the Treasury Secretary ignore what may be massive oil price manipulations by the financial sector speculators? How can the CTFC investigate the largest and richest corporations in the world with five lawyers?

If Congress or the Administration have any sense they will assign all the investigative resources of the federal government to the CTFC investigation including the FBI, SEC, FTC and any intelligence service monitoring the world oil situation. If ever there was a need for a national security investigation this is it as our economy and the world economy are at risk. This could be the last chance for Bush to actually do something for the good of the people before his Administration becomes a target of the investigation.

And don’t forget these same financial and oil companies have already given $1.6 billion to the campaigns of our U.S. Senate, House and presidential candidates in this election year and another $1.6 billion will be given before November. Let’s hope $3 billion cannot buy the influence of Congress. They have also paid over $20 billion in fines for fraud and stock manipulations in recent years so such behavior may not be anything new.

HILLARY LIED --- AGAIN! DEMOCRATS DRIVE BLACKS BACK TO REPUBLICANS

The Rules Committee of the Democratic National Committee finally met to decide what to do about the Michigan and Florida primaries, those bad boys who ignored party rules and set their own date for primaries. Of course this had already been decided last year that no votes would count and no delegates seated at the convention, an action agreed to by Hillary and Obama.

But Hillary lied. Now she wants the votes counted, the delegates seated and Obama penalized because he stayed out of the Michigan primary. This latest lie by Hillary could lead to a hijacking of the presidential nomination by her in that Obama leads in popular vote and delegates but Hillary already claims according to a new ad that started running just today to have the most popular votes in the history of American primaries.

In order to have the most popular votes every single vote in Florida and Michigan have to count, and since Obama was not even on the Michigan ballot in accordance with DNC rules, he would get zero votes in Michigan. Hillary’s claim is bogus, confusing, misleading and consistent with a campaign that ignores the rules and changes them in the middle of the game if they are losing.

The DNC Rules committee didn’t authorize counting the votes in those two states but did change their mind and allow all the delegates to attend the convention except the delegates each get half a vote not a whole vote. Clinton’s enforcers promptly announced this was unacceptable and they would take their fight to the Credentials Committee of the convention.

This means the nomination will be fought over on technical grounds requiring an overturning of DNC rules and will not be decided until August. It also means the DNC rules action that already overturned some of the DNC rules did not go far enough to appease the Clinton thugs. Does all this nonsense mean that if Hillary were president and didn’t like some rules, like the freedom of the press or religion, then she would ignore the rules to suit her own purposes? Of course it does!

It also means if she is successful and can steal the nomination from Obama on idiotic technical rules that the Democratic party will have successfully driven all the minorities in America including the Blacks and Hispanics who are part of the foundation of the Democratic party back into the Republican fold. Over 140 years ago when Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, freed the slaves all Blacks were Republican but over the years they all drifted to the Democrats. Hillary could care less.

MEMO TO PREACHERS IN POLITICS – SHUT THE HELL UP!

What is it about people in religion and their obsession with getting center stage in the political world? Do they really think shooting off their mouth is a good way to increase the size of their congregation or the amount of donations flowing into their coffers? Don’t they already make more than enough tax free money?

Good God, putting up with them in the pulpit is bad enough to drive herds of people to atheism but now that both Democratic and Republican candidates have had to denounce the endorsement of men in cloth because of their bionic tongues and the demagoguery of their preaching enough is enough.



Our Founding Fathers sure knew what they were doing when they made certain there was a separation of church and state. Maybe our current crop of Congress should take the next logical step and ban the big mouths from political campaigns as well. We could always take away their IRS tax exemption for lobbying without registration and blabbing without purpose.

THE HIJACKING OF AMERICA – THROW THEM OUT, THROW THEM ALL OUT!

Not since Al Capone stole Chicago has there been a theft of the grand portions we are now experiencing with the oil price crisis and this time there are no g-men or J Edgar Hoover to stop the insanity. Once upon a time the federal government could be counted on to protect the American public but that day has long since vanished in the corruption tolerant world we live in today.

It is said that mighty empires don’t collapse because of lost wars but suffocate on their own from the break down of morality and ethics as the seeds of evil grow and bring down the empire. Well America stands at the precipice of self-destruction because big business doesn’t care and big government turns a deaf ear to the cries for help from the people.

Once upon a time the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Justice Department Anti-Trust group, the Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service and other government agencies would never tolerate the corruption and deceit running rampant today.

Today we give tax deductions to corporations guilty of multi-billion dollar crimes against humanity. We give tax breaks to oil companies that refuse to build refineries and develop new oil fields. We bail out banks and investment houses that violated the law and created the sub-prime mortgage scam. We make money available at cheaper interest rates to institutions that then refuse to lower mortgage rates. And worst of all we allow 535 Senators and Congressmen to employ 18,000 staff and receive $1.6 billion so far in campaign contributions from the very same companies bankrupting our economy and destroying lives.

The federal campaign finance laws are an invitation to corruption and the House and Senate refuse to change them. No wonder when they get $1.6 billion just for the primary elections. The media blindly ignores the truth about the extent of corruption because they get billions of dollars in advertising revenue from the same companies.

Investment houses, banks and pharmaceutical companies have paid well over twenty billion dollars in fines for illegal activities since 2000 and we reward them with tax deductions for the fines they pay. Then we watch as the Federal Reserve guarantees lines of credit to keep them in business and to bail each other out while reducing the cost of our tax dollars to them so they can continue with their market manipulations.

Many of the same companies that lost $400 billion on the sub-prime mortgages they created out of greed are now benefiting from the incredible oil price surge with record profits every month while the average American is watching their lives, standard of living and retirement funds disappear.

Congress calls hearings to question the oil executives on their salaries and bonuses while doing nothing to stop the oil price spiral. What in the world is the point unless the point is to distract the American public from the truth? Keep the eye of the public off the financial institutions that are pouring billions of dollars into the congressional and presidential campaigns while raiding the US treasury in every way humanly possible.

Through it all the people have patiently waited for their elected representatives to protect them and their federal agencies to stop the bad guys. Neither has happened nor are they likely to happen. Congress is still looking in the wrong places and the administration is still asking the oil producers to increase production and neither strategy has worked.

Why do we have to ask those that directly benefit from our defense spending in Iraq (over $500 billion) to help us with the oil supplies when they could care less? Perhaps all those Sheiks in training that came to our Ivy League Schools to learn the ways of the world learned a little more about price gouging and a little less about protecting their own market.

Of course the oil companies have not developed known reserves nor increased refinery capacity so they are contributing as well to the mess. The President blames Congress for not passing his energy bill during the last eight years. How long does a president have to wait to figure out his bill is no good? If the president wanted the bill so bad then during those eight years he might have acted like a leader and found a way to get it passed. I mean he does head the “executive” branch doesn’t he?

Then there are the car companies who have become so dependent on oil and the internal combustion engine and the massive after market repair revenue it generates they sat back and waited until the consumer was getting squeezed to death before addressing the need for an alternative fuel engine.

In the end there is us, the American consumer, who bought the cars, burned the oil, let the financial institutions invest our money, elected the president and the congress, and now are screaming about what went wrong. We could have elected responsible officials who warned us of the dire future but we didn’t. We could have thrown out the politicians who lied to us but we didn’t. We could demand our elected officials prosecute the financial institutions that own the futures market, manipulate the media to drive up the price of gas, and get the federal government to bail them out whenever their greed gets them in trouble. But we don’t.

We did reduce our driving and that is good. What we really need to do is clean house, both houses of congress that is along with the administration. What policies the president did implement over the part eight years required the approval of congress to budget so they are both guilty of complicity in the oil fiasco. Besides, when it comes to being bought off by campaign contributions from these powerful forces both were willing to do whatever it took for the money.

So we need look no further than the mirror for the real culprit in the oil debacle as we let all the players make the grand scam happen and if there is to be a solution it will be found when we wake up and use the ballot to fight back. Throw them all out of office and there is a chance the world might become a better place. After what the politicians have done to us how can we do anything less?

STOP THE OIL PRICE CRISIS – IMPEACH CONGRESS!

Okay folks, down here in little old Coltons Point, Maryland where we work very hard to keep the march of civilization from contaminating our village even we can see the most serious roadblock to getting a grip on the devastating oil price spiral is the very institution we elect to protect us, the United States Congress.

Our village newspaper, the Coltons Point Times has presented twelve articles over the past eighteen months identifying the culprits, the problems, and the myths of the oil price mess and offering ways a responsible president or congress could address these problems.



Now we expected nothing from the Bush administration in terms of attacking the problem because we knew the administration was clueless, ignorant, or conveniently looking the other way while planning their retirement homes in Dubai. One should never expect anything from the lamest of lame ducks.

But the Congress, under new Democratic leadership the past two years and with all those wonderful promises of dynamic action to fix the wrongs of the world, they could do something about it but won’t. Oh they hold periodic idiotic hearings to show the world they are on top of things and accomplish nothing with the utmost of noise.

What the congress and administration have allowed to happen with the sub-prime mortgage catastrophe and the oil price disaster will forever be known as the darkest hours in the history of our system of Democracy. The very people we have elected to protect us have sold their souls to the devil and their hearts to big money in the biggest takeover in US history, the takeover of the US government.

There are about 450 House and Senate incumbents up for re-election this year along with the three major presidential candidates. The securities, investment, real estate, and oil and gas industries alone have pumped over $1.6 billion into their campaigns and the election is not even half over in terms of potential contributions. Our administration and congress are as green as green can get but not in terms of environmental consciousness, they are awash in the green of billions of dollars being invested in their futures.

Unfortunately if our leaders looked at the facts they might question those green billions but they don’t. Instead they keep blocking campaign reform, allowing mortgage and securities bailouts and do nothing on oil prices while they keep banking the big bucks. Of course when you spend your time kissing babies and glad-handing constituents you may not have time to be responsible but the 535 Senate and House members have over 18,000 staff and you would think they could do something to help their bosses and our protectors.

So we pointed out in a series of articles that the largest investment houses in the world have lost almost $400 billion in the sub-prime mortgage fiasco that never should have happened if the administration and congress were doing their job. We also pointed out some of the same powerful investment houses were the silent owners of the oil futures exchange while the Arab nations who were bailing our the sub-prime losers also owned a lot of those oil reserves soon to be sold on the futures market.

That information was provided in November of 2006 when the oil price was $50.98 per barrel. Today, thanks to inertia by our government the crude oil price is now over $130.00 per barrel, an increase since our first article of nearly $80 per barrel.

In January of 2007 we listed the secret partners in the purchase of the oil futures exchange in London including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank (Germany), and Société Générale (France) all among the biggest financial giants in the world, three major oil firms BP Amoco, Royal Dutch Shell and TotalfinaElf, all three among the top eight most profitable corporations in the world in 2005, and six of the largest energy companies in America.

We warned that the same financial institutions were among those losing billions of dollars in the US sub-prime mortgage market and that they were in a position to offset their sub-prime losses by keeping oil prices at record levels. Every day the price stays up these firms benefit through their ownership of the futures market not to mention the billions of dollars they manage that can be leveraged to keep the futures market at record levels.

So-called oil industry analysts who worked for these firms and were darlings of the news media were identified by us as in potential conflicts of interest by not identifying they and their employers benefited from the runaway oil prices fueled by their expert analysis that projected $150-200 per barrel. Our headlines could not have been clearer.

“Slicker than an Oil Spill”, “The JP Morgan Chase Takeover of Bear Stearns - A Trillionaires Delight”, “Oil Price Conspiracy – Kings and Pawns”, “Oil Profiteering”, “Oil Bailing Out Sub-prime Mortgage Mess”, “Politicians and Oil – the Silence is Deafening”, “Oil Analysts Drive Oil Price Records”, and Demons and the Black Gold.”

So eighteen months, twelve articles, an $80 per barrel increase in oil and over $1.6 billion poured into your campaign coffers and still nothing has happened of substance in congress. You now leave us with no alternative but a Constitutional crisis because all of Congress, the House and Senate, are co-conspirators in the sub-prime and oil price shenanigans that have resulted in destabilizing the world economy and hurting very badly a lot of innocent people here and around the world. You should be ashamed and shamed for what you allowed to happen.

It might be too late to impeach the administration for their complicity in this series of tragic events because they will be long gone soon enough and it would be yet another waste of federal money but the truth is you, the congress, should be impeached and that is the cause of our constitutional crisis.

Impeachment proceedings require that the House of Representatives bring articles of impeachment and the impeachment trial be conducted by the Senate. There is no provision in the Constitution on what to do when the entire House and Senate is going to be impeached so the American Civil Liberties Union or maybe those lawyers who have also poured $72 million into your campaigns could figure out some way to bring a class action impeachment against our entire congress. It sure sounds like a lot in legal fees could result.

In the meantime you or your 18,000 staff members should take the time to read our twelve articles and see if it can inspire you to come up with a strategy that might work to bring down the oil price. You can find them at http://coltonspointtimes.blogspot.com/ where truth is free and we make no campaign contributions.

THE PRIDE OF THE POINTER PEOPLE – FISH TALES

Rumor has it a few disgruntled readers question why I can write about Coltons Point when I didn’t grow up in Coltons Point or some such complaint. A most interesting question when the questionnaire didn’t grow up in Coltons Point either and I guess part of the answer is that some people learn how to learn about people, places and things.

I mean Einstein didn’t grow up in the nucleus of an atom with electrons, protons and neutrons but seemed quite capable of pioneering the physics of the atom. Most historians certainly didn’t grow up back in the past yet they seem to have no problem writing about it. Still, the question is worth discussing because there are other ways one can relate to a place such as the Point besides growing up in it, which probably doesn’t mean a lot since it has changed dramatically since then.

There are two reasons I am comfortable writing about the rather odd things in Coltons Point. First I was a trained researcher and journalist and our job was to find out things. Second, since one of the primary features of the Point is the Potomac, meaning being a River Man, then my previous fishing adventures should be of value.

So I thought back and decided the high school fishing experiences probably didn’t count since the only worm that got caught was the one in the bottom of the bottle of Mescal and we never even bothered to bait our hooks.

But there was one early fishing adventure when I was fishing at the Mississippi River locks and caught a prehistoric monster. There was also the time I caught three buckets of lobster at Prince Edward Island in Canada. A tuna adventure in an old tuna boat far off the coast of Nova Scotia also adds to my credibility along with catching one of the largest striped rainbow trout in Colorado that season.

I tried my hand off the Florida Keys in search of Marlin but caught nothing then came face-to-face with a barracuda while snorkeling because the fishing was too boring. Rest assured those 600 teeth were gigantic through the magnification of goggles. Finally there was the 24-pound lobster my friend and I caught and ate to solidify my credentials.

Down on the mighty Mississippi about 60 miles north of where Mark Twain grew up I was fishing from a lock with my friends Diamond Jim the ancient riverboat captain and the Indian Chief, probably a survivor of Little Big Horn. I used to entertain them when I could get away to the river. Suddenly my pole nearly flew out of my hands as some monster snatched my bait and made a run for it and an epic struggle took place before I could bring the creature close to the locks where I could pull him out of the water and see what I caught. As I pulled in the line something more ugly than sin emerged from the churning surf with a long snout and sharp spikes all around it. I screamed, the Indian Chief and Diamond Jim roared, and before I knew it what they called a Garfish was released back in the water to terrorize another kid.

The buckets of lobster were caught from a pier on the coast of Prince Edward Island up by Nova Scotia but the catch came to a rapid halt when a Canadian Royal Mounted Policeman came up and said he could arrest us for catching lobster from shore. I tried to explain that growing up in Iowa surrounded by cornfields did not help us learn the Canadian lobster laws but we certainly were sorry and could we please keep the ones we had for dinner. I do not think he wanted to spend the night at the jail with us as I had this propensity to talk non-stop asking questions and articulating theories so we got a lecture and the lobsters and were sent on our way.

The tuna adventure was a good idea gone badly as I challenged an old French captain to take on my two brothers and me as crew on his tuna boat. Reluctantly he agreed and we were to meet at 5 am at the wharf. Now this was to be a real adventure as I heard the tuna were huge, we go to go out on the Atlantic Ocean a long ways, and after fishing for Marlin and failing in Florida finally I might catch a deep sea fish. When we arrived at the wharf in the dark our hearts sank as the boat was so old it should have been in a museum and the way the smoke belched out of it there was no way we could make it out and back.

However the captain insisted a deal was a deal and off we chugged for England I think as we went straight out to sea for at least two hours before slowing. Long ago the land had disappeared. When I asked the captain if we could survive if the boat capsized he said we didn’t need to worry, if the hypothermia didn’t get us fast the sharks would. I could sense a growing hatred from my brothers.

Finally in the early morning hours the old salt spotted a school of tuna and told us to drop the lines. I looked around for the poles like in Florida and he laughed. “The wire coiled at your feet and all around the deck, drop those lines,” he yelled and thank goodness they were already baited. We tossed the steel cables over the side and in minutes the old boat started groaning from the weight of a thousand tuna pulling at the cables.

“Now what” I yelled and he responded, “pull the damn cables in!” Before the first tuna was on board our hands were bloody pulps but the minute the tuna broke the surface our pain vanished as we spent the next few hours catching what seemed like an endless supply of giant tuna. Exhausted, bloody and smelling like tuna, we finally made it triumphantly back to shore where he offered us tuna steaks to take home but we passed.

The 26-pound rainbow trout caught in the Rockies was a little easier. We drove to a mountain stream I had read about and the spring runoff was over, there was barely a trickle of water left coming down the mountain. Persistent, I walked the riverbed until I found a small amount of water and there in the water was the giant trout that I promptly caught with my hands and we ate for the next three days. The result far overshadowed the catch.

I already mentioned the Florida Keys and the deep-sea adventure that caught nothing so the only story I have left is the 24-pound lobster. That happened in lower Manhattan when I won a bet with my boss and let me tell you it was the biggest lobster I ever imagined though not the biggest on the menu. I suspect they chopped it up with a chain saw and served it to us in big bowls and it proved the most delicious meal I ever ate.

So there you have it, my diverse and dramatic credentials to be an honorary Water Man and be able to tell the story of the Pointer people. Did I mention when I worked for the Governor of New Jersey and we were trying to get a ban on oysters from New York Bay lifted and the Fish people walked in with oysters the size of watermelons? They said they were delicious and could serve a family but I questioned whether the world was ready for giant mutant oysters that required a sledgehammer to open.

WHY MEDIA POLLS FAIL – THE CREDIBILITY COLLAPSE!

We are halfway through the silly season of the never-ending campaign for president and it is time to take a look around at all the damage that has been done. How do we do that? Well the media and politicians use a clever technique called polling to keep us informed of what we think and the big question is does it really do that? No!

Wake up media and stop trying to sway the American public opinion. It has been 40 years since I started developing campaign polling and demographic databases and the one constant through eight presidents is nothing has changed. The American people will always make up their own mind and if you try to influence them your polls will be the same disaster as always.

So why should the news media care? Because the credibility of the media is just as poor as the credibility of the president, congress and corporate America and those reporting the news should not be considered a joke. If I didn’t care about the reputation of the media I would not care, although the extreme efforts of some media to distort the public will does provide some form of entertainment.

News reporting is a protected privilege in America, it is even protect by the Constitution in the Bill of Rights. But along with such privileged status comes responsibility, the responsibility to not abuse your rights and many of the media seem to forget.

What is the purpose of polls? Polls are a snap shot at that moment of time in reaction to a specific question. No more no less. The more objective the question the more objective and honest will be the answer. The more scientific the pool of people polled the more accurate the results.

Every day political news reporters try to apply the results of daily polls to what will happen in the future. For example, they tell us McCain is equal to Clinton or Obama in the fall election. Such extrapolation is nonsense and the media knows better. When you hear such things just know there is a hidden agenda by those making such silly reports.

This is May, not November, and many people have not even started thinking about the general election. We don’t even have the final candidates for the general election. My years of polling experience have shown people wait until September to start thinking seriously about the general election.

Any poll done at this time when the final candidates are not selected and they are not running against each other could be 20-25% inaccurate. So why does the media continue reporting these results? They know better.

The only polls accurate right now are those concerning the public sentiment and they foreshadow serious change this fall. More than two-thirds of the public think the country is headed in the wrong direction, more than two-thirds think Bush is doing the wrong things, and more than two-thirds think congress is just as misguided. Barring some unforeseen catastrophe no Republican can win the presidency this year.

If McCain is running even at this time it is only because the public does not know Obama well enough and know Clinton too well. When two-thirds of the public is opposed to the direction of the country and to President Bush, and McCain is the Bush standard-bearer, Hillary should be light years ahead of McCain, not just even in the polls. Obviously the public knows her too well.

Also, there is no way the results in one state mean the same thing will happen in another state as the people of West Virginia are far different than those in Mississippi or Iowa, just as New York is different than California. Polls can also be very distorted if the people surveyed are not registered to vote, or even if they are registered does that mean they will actually vote.

If a poll is of “eligible voters” it will be wrong for 50% of eligible voters are not even registered to vote. If a poll is of “registered voters” it could also be 50% wrong for half of the registered voters are not going to vote. If a poll is of actual voters based on their actual voter record then it is getting close to right but very few polls ever attempt to identify those most likely to vote, thus polls are consistently off though the media would have you believe otherwise.

There is a final distortion of poll results if the caller identifies who employs them for if they say it is a Washington Post poll for example some people are going to be inclined to answer the way they think the “media” wants them to answer. People do not want to feel stupid so they might just make up answers, especially on issues they do not know.

As a result the economy will always be the number one issue and specifically jobs within the economy. Gas prices will follow closely. Many people will list the environment as a key issue having no clue why that is so. Global warming and related issues are too complex for most people to understand. Foreign policy will always be way down the list unless there is a war with a lot of deaths and still it will remain far behind the economy and crime.

Immigration is a quite disruptive issue as the media loves to play up the controversy but in truth it is not much of a real issue because 85% of all American citizens identify themselves as a person of foreign ancestry for example French-American, Irish-American, German-American, Hispanic-American, and African-American. That means only 15% of our citizens consider themselves genuine Americans and that is really how it should be and is. How could a nation of immigrants hate immigrants? Only the media can make that happen.

The bottom line is this. If you believe the polls published by the media you are as crazy as the media. On the other hand, if you really want to see a meaningful poll the following are the latest results from a Harris Poll on the Confidence of the American Public in our institutions.

The Harris Poll® #22, February 28, 2008

(Percent of the public having a great deal of confidence in the major institutions.)

The Military 51%, Small Business 47%, Major Educational colleges & universities 32%, Medicine 28%, The US Supreme Court 25%, Organized Religion 25%, Public Schools 20%, The Courts & Justice system 16%, Television News 16%, The White House 15%, Major Companies 14%, Organized Labor 11%, Wall Street 11%, The Press 10%, Law Firms 10% and Congress 8%.

It would appear the general public already know what they think of the media and their polls when 84% of our citizens do not have a great deal of confidence in Television news, and they have even less confidence in The White House, Major companies, Organized Labor, Wall Street, The Press, Law Firms, with Congress bringing up the rear in terms of the American institution with the least confidence of the American citizens.

BARACK BUSHWHACKED BY BUSH LEAGUE BUSH MOVE

So we all heard about President Bush traveling to Israel for the 60th anniversary of the founding of the nation and then we heard about his speech to the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, where he took a cheap shot at presidential candidate Barack Obama. "Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said.

The president went on to smugly mention terrorists, Nazis, Hitler and Iran implying he was talking about Obama although that implication was later denied by the White House Press Office in a most sarcastic manner. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino stated: “"I understand when you're running for office you sometimes think the world revolves around you. That is not always true. And it is not true in this case." That seems like a rather calculated and nasty response from the spokesperson for the president.

So Obama wanted to meet with those we don’t agree with in order to try and resolve our differences. Bush says that is bad. Of course Ronald Reagan, John Kennedy and many other presidents have entered into direct negotiations with the enemy to resolve conflicts and even people in the Bush Administration have met with Iran, Korea, Syria and others the Administration once called enemies so what in the world was Bush thinking?

Since it has always been an unwritten rule of American politics that we do not attack other politicians on foreign soil these statements seem little more than the typical bullying tactics that have helped drive the popularity of the Bush Administration into the ground making it the most unpopular presidency ever recorded. I wonder why?

McCain, who more and more sounds like a stalking horse for Bush in a failed race was quick to come to the defense of the president elevating the issue to a headline story but I am yet to understand how trashing an opponent is helping to explain the policy differences between candidates for president.

The White House must feel concerned that McCain needs help three months before he even becomes the official candidate for the Republicans, a good sign that the lame duck president has serious doubts about the new GOP candidate.

Bush has chosen to not stay above politics and has jumped into the action always eager for a fight whether there are any weapons of mass destruction or not. McCain has chosen to parrot the president so we can only hope his shoulders are strong enough to carry the sins of the president in the campaign.

The Democrats demonstrated that differences or not between their candidates, the most unifying force in America to bring the Democrats together in the fall is the president himself and the presidents’ own tendency to bully the opposition may just be the best advantage Obama needs to be the next president.