Saturday, March 29, 2008

County Convention Day

Wow

All most time. The Democratic county convention is today and we are expecting between 7000 and 12000 people at our county convention. Hope to see everyone there!!

Friday, March 7, 2008

Trek Bikes Slaps Wheelchair Vets

Well I need to tell everyone about my friend Chris Stanford.

Chris designed a innovative treadmill for wheel chair users, then started a company to refine the design and start manufacturing. He named the company TREKEASE which first sounds like "trekkies" ala Captian Kirk and his bunch and also means: Translational & Rotational Equivalent Kinetic Energy Aerobic Stationary Exercise. Ok with me so far. oh and by the way Chris himself is a wheelchair user and a past Officer of the PVA -- Paralysed Veterans Association.

Chris filed a trademark application for the name TREKEASE to be used in association with exercise equipment for the disabled, or differently-abled or what ever one is to say these days.

Then it got interesting, Trek Bicycle Corporation, objected to his use of the name TREKEASE as being too close to Trek their trademark.

It seems that Trek lost a very big and public trademark battle with another exercise equipment manufacture Orbitrek and since then it has adopted a policy of harassment and opposition to every trademark application that has any thing close to trek in its name.

So even after clearly losing a court case where it was determined "Although, the mark TREK might be famous among bicycle enthusiasts, Trek did not establish fame in the niche market for stationary exercise machines, the market in which Thane operates. Similarly, Trek did not establish the level of fame among the general public necessary to support a claim for dilution." Trek continues to file objection after objections. According to Chris some of their oppositions include:

FastTrek, Trexa, TrekTile, CyberTreks, Electrec, Strekoza, Neotrekk, Treq, EasyTrec, Tech Bike, Ripp Traxx, SuperTrax, I-Trek! , Velotrekk, TC Trecker, T-REX, OrbiTrek, Treknology, Jazztreks, Trek PhoneCard, Trek Desk, SkyTrek, History Trek, Treksys, LifeTrek, ProTrek, WordTrek, Trekkers, Treksta, Trekker, VersaTrek,Trek-N-Treat, UltraTrek, CamTrek, GreenTreks, Treks, TimeTreks, IdeaTrek, TurboTrek, Trekkers, Rainforest Trek, EcoTrek, AltoTrek

Well Chris wasn't really wanting to give up his trademark, even though Trek Bicycles offered him $5000 for the trademark. So they are planning on going forward with thier objections, and since Chris can't afford an attorney to argue at the trademark office he feels that it is unlikely he will win even though precedent and truth and justice is on his side.

To publicize his plight he made up a flyer that me mailed to a few folks, which quickly resulted in a threatening letter form the Trek Bicycle People.

Unfortunately Chris's Document is in pdf form so I'm trying to figure out how to post it to this site. In the mean time check out his site at www.trekease.com

Moses was high on drugs: Israeli researcher

High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.

Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.

"As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don't believe, or a legend, which I don't believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics," Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.

Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the "burning bush," suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.

"The Bible says people see sounds, and that is a clasic phenomenon," he said citing the example of religious ceremonies in the Amazon in which drugs are used that induce people to "see music."


more

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Results from my precinct

We had quite a night last night. 639 peopled showed up to caucus, which is amazing!! The problem was that the curch that was being used as a polling place had a fire safety limit of 96 people. So we got the caucus started in the parking lot. Final sign in results:

Obama 442
Clinton 197

As one of the 5 biggest precincts in Travis county we had a total of 91 delegates to the county convention the brake down was

Obama 63
Clinton 28

I must say I was never prouder of my neighbors and friends that I was last night. Thanks all for coming out and thanks for being so patient with us through out the night. It was truely amazing and humbling.