Seen in Print

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Cute. Astute.
("Not that there's anything wrong with that.") (Seinfeld Show)

Judge not lest.....

Precisely.

[webenda]

TRUST

[webenda]

Also worked for Mark McGwire, lance Armstrong and Jose Canseco plus countless election campaigns. It seem more often then not The consequences don't out weigh the benefits.

And car companies... like Volkswagen's diesel emissions test mode software.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772

[webenda]

At last, a faster way to get entangled atoms!

[robert.]

If he stays in france and keeps his money in Europe then the USPS can pound sand.

It's not the USPS, the Justice Dept joined that suit in Federal Court and he can't hide in France. He also has a lot of financial holding in this country still - those will all go away..

Do you think he'll struggle to pay his rent? Somebody should investigate the approval of $30 million from the usps. I feel they don't belong in sponsorship of an international sports team.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

If he stays in france and keeps his money in Europe then the USPS can pound sand.

It's not the USPS, the Justice Dept joined that suit in Federal Court and he can't hide in France. He also has a lot of financial holding in this country still - those will all go away..

Do you think he'll struggle to pay his rent?

No more than most high profile criminal will - but he should be ashamed to go out in public in the light of day forever and shunned like a pariah

Somebody should investigate the approval of $30 million from the usps. I feel they don't belong in sponsorship of an international sports team.

You & I and lot of others agree on that, but I think that it was investigated and somehow oozed under the table - an organization spending millions that can't keep out of red ink.

[webenda]

If he stays in france and keeps his money in Europe then the USPS can pound sand.

It's not the USPS, the Justice Dept joined that suit in Federal Court and he can't hide in France. He also has a lot of financial holding in this country still - those will all go away..

Do you think he'll struggle to pay his rent? Somebody should investigate the approval of $30 million from the usps. I feel they don't belong in sponsorship of an international sports team.

The USPS is often mistaken for a government-owned corporation (e.g., Amtrak) because it operates much like a business. It is, however, an "establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States", (39 U.S.C. § 201) as it is controlled by Presidential appointees and the Postmaster General, so I get your point Robert.

The post office advertises its product to compete for customers against other courier services and eMail.

Why did the post office sponsor an international cycling team?

Because sports, like mail delivery, involve speed, persistence, and global influence. There are few people at the Postal Service willing to talk about the logic behind the cycling sponsorship these days, but the deal was relatively uncontroversial in 1996. The original agreement was for just $1 million in the first year, $1.5 million in 1997, and $2 million in 1998. (The Postal Service spent more than $232 million on advertising in 1996.) The deal had nothing to do with Lance Armstrong, who was a minor competitor at the time and wasn’t part of the team when the Postal Service signed on. The sponsorship was about sports in general. The Postal Service has a long history of sponsoring athletes, including a controversial decision to spend more than $100 million on the 1992 Olympics. The agency believes that athletes represent the characteristics business owners should associate with mail delivery in the era of rapid globalization: speed, reliability, consistency, and worldwide reach. Their commercials demonstrate this connection. In a 1992 advertisement, for example, figure skater Michael Weiss, depicted working long hours on his technique in Albertville, France, receives a videotape via overnight mail from his grandfather showing him how to perform a double axel. A 1996 commercial featured cyclist Rebecca Twigg speeding around a track, while a voice-over promoted the incomparable speed of Global Priority Mail.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

The agency believes that athletes represent the characteristics business owners should associate with mail delivery in the era of rapid globalization: speed, reliability, consistency, and worldwide reach.

And do business owners actually get that from the USPS? Just standing in a line for 20 min watching the slug in January speed of all too many clerks tends to color one's thoughts. I know I can rely on my packages to get delivered to the same sorting station 2-3 times before proceeding to a PO 20 miles away and then to another PO 5 miles away for delivery instead of the one 1.5 miles away. File that under consistency, too. As for worldwide reach, they make it very clear that once it's out of the country, it's out of their hands and control.

I do confess to liking their delivery of free Priority boxes to my front porch! And, the local deliver persons tend to be very helpful and also very much in agreement that the PO that my mail comes from for delivery is connect to some transdimensional portal to one of the circles of Hell and that an escaped demon oversees that same PO.

[rogruth]

I do not understand why mail mailed in our local post office to someone with a box in that same post office needs to be sent 150 miles away and returned to the same post office to be delivered.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I do not understand why mail mailed in our local post office to someone with a box in that same post office needs to be sent 150 miles away and returned to the same post office to be delivered.

File under: " speed, reliability, consistency,"

[robert.]

For some reason. I have less of a problem with the USPS. giving money to the Olympics. Our Olympians will need funding and get it from some branch of our government but sponsoring a team like tailwinds is crazy. What's next? change Fedex stadium to the Postal Coliseum. How about talking to the NCAA New years day we can have the Priority Bowl OUR OFFENSE ALWAYS DELIVERS.Or GUARANTEED TO CRUSH YOUR PACKAGE. Try this one. OUR OFFENCE WILL HAVE YOU PAYING MORE. More postal customers will watch a bowl game over the TOUR DE FRANCE.

[webenda]

I do not understand why mail mailed in our local post office to someone with a box in that same post office needs to be sent 150 miles away and returned to the same post office to be delivered.

Once upon a time, the USPS was making a profit and turning excess monies over to the US Government.

In 2006, a lame-duck Congress mandated that the Postal Service pre-fund retiree healthcare, pensions, and workers’ compensation. No other agency or company in the country has to pre-fund for even one year; the Postal Service must pre-fund 75 years' worth of these benefits in advance. That $5.6 billion annual charge is the “red ink.”

What if your credit card company told you: “You will charge a million dollars on your credit card during your life; please enclose the million dollars in your next bill payment. It’s the responsible thing to do.” Doesn’t seem quite right, does it?

Well, that’s what the U.S. Postal Service’s requirement to prefund its long-term pension and healthcare liabilities is like. The Postal Service is required to pay the full estimate of its liabilities, currently estimated at nearly $404 billion, even as that estimate moves around and is based on assumptions that are highly uncertain and can frequently change over the life of the liability.

To meet the liability, the USPS told Congress that they would have to shut down certain operations, like the mail sorting operation at Roger's post office, in order to save money for the pre-fund payments. Thousands of postal employees would be out of work. Congress did not care. So, the USPS said they would have to sell their real estate holdings to make the pre-fund payments. Congress did not care. So, the USPS is now cutting jobs and selling post offices in order to make the pre-fund payments demanded by Congress.

You are lucky to have a post office, Roger. Many of the 3,653 post offices on the shutdown list have already been shut down and sold.

The USPS shutdown the sorting operation at Tucson's main post office. Now when I mail a letter to myself, it makes a 240 mile round trip to the USPS sorting facility in Phoenix, AZ.

Reference: https://www.uspsoig.gov/blog/be-careful-what-you-assume
http://www.newsweek.com/post-office-ain ... -it-397788
https://about.usps.com/careers/working- ... nefits.htm

[rogruth]

Wayne,
Yep. I knew all of that. It still doesn't make sense except to someone involved in government funding and spending.

[Big Jim]

I do not understand why mail mailed in our local post office to someone with a box in that same post office needs to be sent 150 miles away and returned to the same post office to be delivered.

I have experienced the same as the rest of you, however, I had something odd happen a couple of weeks ago.

I had addressed a card for my girl friend across town and took it to my nearby post office to get the extra postage that was needed. They put it in their basket and I left. The next day, the card was delivered to my mailbox. I immediately knew what I had done wrong as soon as I saw the envelope. Yep, I wrote the wrong zip code. The interesting part was that, other than some black marks covering the wrong zip and pointing to my own zip on the return address, the stamp was not cancelled. I merely whited out some black lines and put a sticker with the correct zip over the wrong one and put it back in the mail the next day.

There was a time when someone at the post office would have realized the zip was wrong and forwarded to to the correct PO for delivery. But, someone must have intervened being as the stamp was not canceled.

[Rufus T. Firefly]