Letter to the Editor
President bush got more unfortunate news today as Lewis (Scooter) Libby was indicted on 5 felony counts that follows a string of other unfortunate events. He lost his nominee to the supreme court. The price of gas hovers at 3 dollars a gallon and Exxon posted record profits. The death toll in Iraq crossed 2000 and mothers like Cindy Sheehan are following him around questioning if he lied to start the war. Then there was the hurricane Katrina debacle where hundreds died because the FEMA director was inexperienced and clueless. This all is on top of the growing deficit and higher inflation, with more and more people no longer able to afford health care costs. New bankruptcy laws prevent people from starting over in favor of credit card companies. His program to change Social Security is going nowhere and congress is working on cutting Medicare and Medicaid so raise money to give permanent tax cuts to the super rich.
The right wing is turning on him as well as the Republicans in Congress who fear the 2006 elections will no longer favor them, even with rigged voting machines. Teen pregnancies are up and high school graduation is down. Taxes are up and services are down. The stock market has been flat hovering 2000 points below where it was 6 years ago. Then there's Halliburton kickbacks, Bin Laden is still free, the insurgents are winning, no weapons of mass destruction, Abu, Ghraib torture scandal, questions about the 9-11 attack, a gay hooker posing as Whitehouse press reporter, reporters going to jail, questions about stolen elections, global warming causing more hurricanes, bird flu, anthrax attacks, huge increases in heating oil, natural gas, and electricity costs, arctic oil drilling, mission not quite accomplished, Tom Delay was indicted, Bill Frist is under SEC investigation, and with the Republicans in power there's no one else to blame.
Poor Mr. Bush. Being president is hard work.
You would think a delivery service like Federal Express would have their shit together but they don't. In the last 2 week they have screwed up 4 times in a row.
It started with my HP laptop that had the screen die. HP sent Fedex out to pick it up. Scheduled for before 10:30 they didn't show till 3:00. Two days later they were supposed to deliver the computer before 10:30 - but they waited till 2:30. I wasn't home at the time so I had to pick it up.
No I have another package of computer parts and for the second day in a row the Federal Express truck just drives by without stopping. The tracking system indicates that I wasn't home - but the truth is I sat here and watch the truck drive by without stopping.
I sit here in amazement that these people actually manage to stay in business. I called them up and they say they are going to contact the driver in his truck and get back to me. That was about an hour ago and they haven't called yet. Let's see what it takes to actually get my package delivered. - Time 3:23 pm.
Watch this delivery process live. Tracking number is: 091993412703473
Time: 4:24 - Called again. Now they are telling me that they messaged the terminal but that there isn't always anyone at the terminal. I recorded the phone call. We got disconnected. Waiting for them to call back.
Time: 5:05 - No call back after disconnect. I call again. I get some guy on the phone who also says he's going to call the driver and call me back in 10 minutes. Recorded the call again.
Time: 5:36 - Fedex calls me back. They say they left a message on the driver's cell phone. They are also giving me a story that it wasn't on the regular driver's truck and that a second truck was delivering my package with some temp driver. The guy I talk to claimed to be the manager down there and he seems to be trying to get it delivered. He told the driver to call me but no one called and the woman I talked to earlier said she called the driver too.
Time 6:10: It finally arives. Driver almost drove by again.
When it comes down to it the real reason that this nomination failed is because she was a totally incompetent, inexperienced, unqualified, and a Bush cronie - so much so that even Republicans couldn't stomach it. Especially after the Michael Brown FEMA disaster. I was looking forward for a longer process before it failed. Amazingly enough Meiers is going to be the one who picks the next nominee.
Of course we're going to have to listen to the Christian pound their chests as if they had something to do with it but what they don't realize is that Bush doesn't need them anymore. Besides if the Christian Right wants to take credit for their control of the government then they can take credit for the deficit, the price of gas, tortue, lies, murder, that failed war in Iraq. In fact whenever I see a Bush supporter at the gas station filling up his gas guzzler and forking over $100, I just have to grin.
One of the things I think is disturbing is that Democratic Senate Minority leader Harry Reid supported Meiers. Just as Bush is the Republican moron who brings stupidity to his party, Harry Reid is almost as stupid as Bush is. What he's doing as a leader of the Democrats is a mystery to me.
I'm still waiting to see ig Jesse Ventura will run for president. I'm ready to stick it to both parties.
PRESS RELEASE: Date 10-26-2005
From: Marc Perkel
Founder / First one - Church of Reality
CONTACT: marc@perkel.com
TITLE: The Church of Reality files for Trademark on the word "Reality"
The Church of Reality has filed for a trademark on the word "Reality". Trademark Application Number 78735626 in the International Class 045: Counseling in religious and spiritual matters was filed on October 18th 2005. The Church of Reality seeks to protect the intellectual property rights of the use of the trade mark "reality" to ensure that "Reality" is in the right hands. "Part of the reason behind the filing of this trademark", says Marc Perkel, Founder of the Church of Reality, "is to make sure that no one else files for it first. It is part of our mission as a religion to protect the integrity of reality. We wouldn't want the term reality to be under the control of religions who have nothing to do with reality."
"We also believe that very few, if any other religions will be affected by this trademark because even though members of other religions believe their religion is real, most all other religions have no reference to reality in their religious texts." Perkel states pointing out that the word Reality appears only once in the Bible and it's never used by God, Jesus, or any of the prophets. "Christians, for example", states Perkel, "would have no basis for a claim to oppose this trademark. Reality is simply not part of their published religious texts."
Even though Perkel jokes that if granted this trademark that every time a preacher says "reality" that they have to pay me a quarter, the Church of Reality is dedicated to spreading awareness of reality and encouraging people to make reality part of their daily lives. "In these days of complex trademark and intellectual property laws we feel that the Church of Reality should be the proper custodian of the rights to reality. Who is better suited to own reality than us? The Church of Reality is the rightful custodian of reality itself."
Perkel realizes that his trademark might not be granted but that even if his trademark is denied that the denial itself might protect reality for the people. "If we lose this the right way it might have the same effect as winning.", states Perkel. "The trademark office might decides that no one can own the right to reality, or they might decide that our previous trademark of "Church of Reality" also covers "Reality" by itself. So we could also win by losing this. We also feel that it will be good for people to debate the issue of whether or not terms like reality merit trademark protection. And we are also interested in seeing if any other religions oppose our trademark and attempt to state in legal documents what their relationship is to reality. All discussion of reality is a good thing."
The Church of Reality, who just this month received 501C3 tax exempt status, is a religion based on believing in everything that is real. Reality, as the name implies, is the central theme of the Church of Reality and represents or religious identity. Religions have different marketing themes that they use to compete for the religious mind space as they compete for membership. Except for the King James Bible, most all other Bibles are copyrighted works which generate income for their copyright holders. So people in the religion business do use intellectual property rights to protect their funding sources. We as the Church of Reality believe that our religious identity might be harmed in the future should a competing religion abuse our identity by confusing people leading them to believe that they are us and raising money in our name. Therefore we feel it is our responsibility to address this.
Marc Perkel
First One
Church of Reality
Letter to the Editor
It is somewhat ironic that Vice President Dick Cheney is trying to weaken the anti-torture bill to create loopholes allowing suspected criminals to be tortured when he is facing possible criminal charges himself. As someone who may of outed the identity of an undercover CIA agent it makes me wonder of Cheney himself would be subject to his proposed torture exception provision that would allow CIA agents working undercover to use torture. Perhaps if we shipped Cheney to GITMO and kept him awake 24 hours a day playing peace protest music he might crack and confess to outing the identity of Valerie Plame. Maybe we should allow special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to tortue Bush's staff and see how it works?
Letter to the Editor
On the eve of criminal indictments against top Bush administrations officials America has now lost 2000 of our military in Iraq. They all died because Bush lied to America fabricating evidence to trick us into an unjust war. We are losing this war and perhaps rightfully so because, like Vietnam, we are on the wrong side of history. If Bush lied and the prosecutor can prove it, he should be put on trial for murder and treason and if convicted shot as a traitor. The way it looks to me is that the Bush administration knowingly lied sending thousands of people to their death. This strikes at the very heart and soul of who we are as a country and what we stands for. Are we going to face reality as a nation and do the right thing or are we going to continue to believe our own lies?