Why The NFL Is Fixed

Don:...And that,my dear Ella ,is why good ol' Rushy boy is no different than Howard Stern.

Ella:Yeah,yeah,yeah.At least he does his research.You may think he twists the facts,but at least he has the integrity to use them to give his own opinion.

Don:Are you switching the subject?

Ella:MSNBC,now,there's the joke.

Don:I'll drink to that.I just didn't think you would.

Ella:There is no Forth Estate when Rush Limbaugh and Jon Stewart are the hardest hitting torch bearers of actual news.Not fluff.

Don:[snicker]Ya got that right.Would have people kept buying if MSNBC kept yelling from the rafters,'Danger!Danger!Danger,Will Robinson!'This whole sub prime scheme;the whole banking fiasco,could have all been avoided if the news would have actually acted like news teams instead of banking and mortgage company cheerleaders.

Ella:You had to mention 'cheerleaders'...

Don:Huh?

Ella:Mmm,that's a good whiskey sour.You had to mention cheerleaders.

Don:Again...huh?

Ella:The NFL is fixed.It's 'entertainment'.Not real sport.

Don:look,I'm a Browns fan.I know it's real.

Ella:P-leeease.

Don:Explain..

Ella:Have you heard what's happening to Bobby Bowden at Florida State?

Don:Yeah,he might lose some of his game wins...

Ella:Because some of his athletes cheated on a single on-line music class test.

Don:Um...I'm an Ohio State fan...What's this got to do with The NFL

Ella:Florida State's Bobby Bowden is virtually tied with Penn State's,Joe Paterno,for most college football wins.He's close to 400 wins!And Florida State is going to take,maybe,season's worth of wins away from him,one of the greatest coaches ever,because some members of his team cheated on an on-line test.

Don:WoW!Harsh.But...

Ella:But...A couple years ago,the Patriots coach Bill Belichick,was caught cheating...

Don:Yeah,yeah,illegally filming the Jets in the first game of the season.They lost a draft choice,and a huge amount of money.

Ella:But is was Bill Belichick that got caught cheating...stay with me now...not a player...

Don:Ummm...

Ella:If the NFL had the integrity of Florida State:FLORIDA STATE-The Pat's should had to forfeit that game.

Don:They would not have been an undefeated 18-0 team.The Super Bowl wouldn't have mattered as much...because...

Ella:Stay with it...

Don:Because the Patriots would have started the season:o-1 !

Ella:Riiight!Ding-ding!You win the prize.

Don:Damn!!!

Ella:..and,why didn't the NFL have the Patriots forfeit the game?

Don:!?!

Ella:Because the betters would have demanded their money back from their bookies.And there is no way in hell that was ever going to happen.

Don:So...The NFL couldn't make the game a forfeit,WoW!

Ella:If The Patriots weren't undefeated/were 0-1 the whole season could have been different.

Don:And,if gambling affected the outcome of this one game...WoW!

Don & Ella:It's Fixed!

Ella:At least on a simple level,The NFL looks like they let the outcome of their games become affected by sources outside of the NFL.

Don:Yeah,but look at this.Chad Johnson couldn't change the name on the back of his jersey to OchoCinco,not because of some NFL rule against it,but because a sponsor said,'No,he couldn't'.

Ella:Hey,bartender,another one of these...Geez...is nothing sacred?

Bartender:Yeah,the NFL's pretense of integrity is sacred.You two better be careful of what you say while you're drinkin'.'NFL players are known to shoot people'.

Ella:All praise the Mighty and wonderful NFL.

Don:Here here.

This & That

Who will watch the 'Watchmen?Many people,I hope.It was a great-no holds barred-pull no punches-good movie.Rorschach was my favorite...the movie was a great 'adult' movie experience.Notice,I said ,'adult'.With the graphic violence and nudity,I was shocked that parents actually brought what looked like to me,eight year old children to see this{rape,graphic love scenes,the fully monty male frontal nudity abound}.

...but then,I remember back to when when my now 27 years old nephew,was around four or five years old.My brother and his wife let him watch two videos over and over and over again.They were,'Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer' and the original uncut,'Friday The 13th'.Marcus is one the over all nicest and well adjusted young men I know...it didn't seem to hurt him at all.

... my blogging buddy,Micki,over at Mixtersmix is now a paid journalist.Check out or column over at the Milwaukee [Atheism ]Examiner .Besides talking about her beliefs as an atheist,she pokes not so gentle fun at Christian foibles.Watch out for her readers...they are around as kind to Christians/atheists as Brutus was to Caesar.Micki does a good job of corralling her herd of readers,though.Freedom of speech and kindness don't always go together{in fact,sometimes,shouldn't},Mixter,takes it as good as she gives.An open forum for the open minded.Go take a read.

W.W.W.D.

I have been thinking of God as sort of like the world wide web.Being able to reach everywhere and into everything.You can use different providers and different ways of connecting,but you can still be whom you are my doing so.In fact,in the noted atheist,Arthur C.Clarke's(co-authored Stephen Baxter) book,'Sunstorm',there is an artificially intelligent sentient being called,Athena,that is essentially the world wide web in the future.Athena gives credence to my theory,anyway.

In fact,the great alt-Country rock group,'Wilco' in their lyrics from their fantastic song,'Wishful Thinking',say as much:

"Fill up your mind with all it can know
Don't forget that your body will let it all go
Fill up your mind with all it can know
What would we be without wishful thinking"

Sounds like we are nothing but hard drives ready to crash,and lose all of our information when we do.

Neil Young says as much.In his song,'In A Dream',when singing about death and dying he sings:

"Just a memory without anywhere to stay"

It makes you think,doesn't it?

Of course,The Bible ,says it,too:'All is vanity'.

Maybe,that's all we are just hard drive robots that eventually crash losing all of our data.Maybe,we can transfer some of the software,before we go,huh?