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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again:

It seems to me that a conservative would be supportive of conserving one of our oldest institutions, the Post Office. But, they don't. They actually HATE it. I have a feeling, though, that they'd LOVE it, if it weren't unionized..

Would I be close?

excon

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I don't hate the postal service, I actually like getting mail delivered and at a reasonable price but it's so unnecessary these days. I can do nearly everything they do electronically except physically get something from one place to another. What I hate is it's just like every other thing the government has its hand in, it's woefully inefficient and overly complicated.

Part of my job is shipping, mostly parcel, and USPS is a pain in the a$$ to use. I can ship UPS with all the bells and whistles; email notifications, delivery receipts etc. in a matter of seconds - and have a daily pickup. What's not to love?

I do the same with USPS. No problems so far. What's funny though, most times my UPS, and FEDEX packages go to the post office and the mailman delivers them.

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Originally Posted by talaniman

I do the same with USPS. No problems so far. What's funny though, most times my UPS, and FEDEX packages go to the post office and the mailman delivers them.

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Yes, sometimes (especially Fedex) uses USPS, but I never have anything shipped UPS delivered by anyone other than UPS. But there is no comparison in my view, UPS is much more user friendly than anyone else.

Hello again, Steve:

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But there is no comparison in my view, UPS is much more user friendly than anyone else.

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If congress wanted the post office to be competitive, they could make it so.. But, they'd rather kill it, instead.

Excon

Do you print your own mailing label?

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, Steve:
If congress wanted the post office to be competitive, they could make it so.. But, they'd rather kill it, instead.

excon

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I think the congress is screwing the postal service myself.

It's pouring money down a sinkhole.

Postal Service expects only five-day cash reserve in October

The corresponding unions and their Democrat allies have blocked any attempt at reforming it, just like Detroit. Will you ever learn that after years of irresponsible management and spending money you don't have on promises you can't keep that eventually you have to pay the piper?

"Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They [socialists] always run out of other people's money." -Margaret Thatcher

Feel free to insert liberal/progressive for Socialist, same problem.

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again, Steve:
If congress wanted the post office to be competitive, they could make it so.. But, they'd rather kill it, instead.

excon

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That would be a nice talking point if this was a recent development . But as you know... the Postal Service has been an inefficent money-pit for many years.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

I'd say Citizens United leveled the playing field especially in regards to public unions ,who "negotiate " their salaries with the same pols they bribe with campaign contributions... salaries that are paid for with tax dollars .

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On that note...

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Investigators for the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee recently uncovered evidence of the lengths to which Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership are willing to go to stifle political speech with which they disagree, and it bears a disturbing similarity to the IRS scandal. There has been a concerted effort for several years among Democrats and their activist allies in the nonprofit world to force corporations to disclose more information about their support of independent political groups, especially those known as 501(C)(4) foundations, which are found across the ideological spectrum.

Forcing such disclosure could have a chilling effect on the firms' willingness to help groups supporting causes unpopular among liberal Democrats. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out, "corporations tend to support groups on both the left and the right, whereas unions are more reliably liberal. If businesses are limited in the public debate, it's a big win for Democrats."

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Originally Posted by tomder55

that would be a nice talking point if this was a recent development . But as you know ...the Postal Service has been an inefficent money-pit for many years.

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I don't suppose you would consider our model?

Australia Post - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'd consider other models .Like I said ;the Constitution gives the Federal Government the power to create a national postal service. With proper management and innovatin, it should be a no brainer to make it a profitable franchise.

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Already, the Postal Service expects to default on its next payment for a controversial requirement to prefund its retiree health benefits. Congress imposed the rule in 2006, but USPS officials and labor groups are calling for a repeal of the policy, which costs the agency about $5.5 billion each year.

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Congress Fiddles While the Post Office Burns | The Nation

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In 2006, a Republican Congress—acting at the behest of the Bush-Cheney administration—enacted a law that required the postal service to “pre-fund” retiree health benefits seventy-five years into the future. No major private-sector corporation or public-sector agency could do that. It's an untenable demand. “(The) Postal Service in the short term should be released from an onerous and unprecedented burden to pre-fund 75 years of future retiree health benefits over a 10-year period,” says US Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont. “With $44 billion now in the fund, the Postal Service inspector general has said that program is already stronger than any other equivalent government or private-sector fund in the country. There already is more than enough in the account to meet all obligations to retirees.”

“The Postal Service should also be allowed to recover more than $13 billion in overpayments it has made to its pension plans,” adds Sanders. “With these changes alone, the Postal Service would be back in the black and posting profits.”

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So what hasn't Obama fixed it? You had two years of total Democrat control so why were they fiddling instead of fixing? Oh that's right, they were busy ramming Obamacare down or throats.

What didn't Bush 8 years fix the liberal indoctrination education issue? Or during Reagan's tenure?

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Originally Posted by speechlesstx

So what hasn't Obama fixed it? You had two years of total Democrat control so why were they fiddling instead of fixing? Oh that's right, they were busy ramming Obamacare down or throats.

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The short answer is squeal, repeal, block, obstruct and destroy. Since 2008, that's been the only goal of republican. You guy are good at it.

A Manufactured 'Crisis': Congress Can Let The Post Office Save Itself Without Mass Layoffs Or Service Reductions | ThinkProgress

Hello again, Steve:

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You had two years of total Democrat control so why were they fiddling instead of fixing?

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According to your side, if he didn't fix EVERYTHING in his first two years, the problems he DIDN'T fix, clearly, CAN'T Be problems..

That's the stupidest crap I've EVER heard.

Excon

Hello again,

I got another question for our right wing batty friends...

I KNOW you reject global warming... But, I have a feeling, that what you reject, is what you PERCEIVE to be the solution, which would be HIGHER taxes, MORE government, and an assault on fossil fuels.

But, if we could come up with a solution that LOWERED taxes, stimulated economic growth, and left the oil companies alone, would you THEN accept global warming as real?

excon

Hello again,

Yeah, I got more to say... Although I BELIEVE in science, THIS particular science is full of holes. So, I came to my beliefs, NOT because of science, but because of simple OBSERVATIONS even a schmuck exconvict can make. You too, must have observed the same things...

When I was a kid, we threw our trash on the ground. We THOUGHT the ground was SOOOO big, that it would somehow swallow up, or otherwise HIDE the trash we threw there.. But, it didn't.

When I was in the Navy, we threw our trash off the fantail into the ocean.. We thought that the ocean was SOOOO big, that it would somehow swallow up the garbage, or otherwise HIDE it. But, it didn't.

Now, I know you object my terminology when I say TODAY, we are throwing our trash into the air, but there is NO OTHER way to describe what we're doing... Apparently, you think that the sky is SOOOO big, that it will somehow swallow up the trash we throw up there, or otherwise HIDE it. But, it doesn't. I can SEE it. You can too. I can SMELL it. You can too.

What would possibly have you think that what you can SEE, and what you can SMELL, isn't doing something BAD to our sky? It did bad things to the ground... It did bad things to the ocean. Why wouldn't it do bad things to the sky?

excon

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Originally Posted by tomder55

I'd consider other models .Like I said ;the Constitution gives the Federal Government the power to create a national postal service. With proper management and innovatin, it should be a no brainer to make it a profitable franchise.

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Our local post office looks like a mini Kmart (Walmart). Australia Post turns a profit for the government. The advantage when it comes to government agencies is that there is usually not much obstruction when the ruling party decides to implement change.There are of courses disadvantages as well.

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again,

I got another question for our right wing batty friends...

I KNOW you reject global warming... But, I have a feeling, that what you reject, is what you PERCEIVE to be the solution, which would be HIGHER taxes, MORE government, and an assault on fossil fuels.

But, if we could come up with a solution that LOWERED taxes, stimulated economic growth, and left the oil companies alone, would you THEN accept global warming as real?

excon

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Ex

I don't know which camp you put me in but let's say that here I am a conservative. So a opinion

I don't reject climate change but I still feel the jury is out on the extent to which human activity contributes and the extent to which we can do anything about it short of shutting down our economies and even then I think the horse has bolted leaving the stable door open.

Renewables have been a failure in reducing green house emissions too little, too late, and in any case we are now at the tipping point where releases of methane from the tundra and permafrost will outstrip anything we do. If we stop all activity right now we will still experience changes for at least the next century and then maybe things would stabilise, big maybe. Our real hope is the Atlantic conveyor might shut down and return us to an ice age, then burning fossil fuels would be a necessity to counteract the change but the impact is goodbye North America and Europe and Northern Asia and most of the population

Clete , Ex uses the old terminology 'global warming ' (actually the original terms was “anthropomorphic global warming”, which attributed a direct link to human causation ) . As we know ,scientists began hedging their bets because there hasn't been any real warming in over 17 years,and scientists are puzzled by it. So they changed to the vernacular that you used... 'climate change' .

Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the railroad engineer who for some reason chairs the IPCC's climate “science” panel, to his credit now admits that the skeptics who questioned the "settled science" have a point .

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In Melbourne for a 24-hour visit to deliver a lecture for Deakin University, Dr Pachauri said that people had the right to question the science, whatever their motivations.

“'People have to question these things and science only thrives on the basis of questioning,' Dr Pachauri said.

“He said there was 'no doubt about it' that it was good for controversial issues to be 'thrashed out in the public arena'.

“Dr Pachauri's views contrast with arguments in Australia that views outside the orthodox position of approved climate scientists should be left unreported.

“Unlike in Britain, there has been little publicity in Australia given to recent acknowledgment by peak climate-science bodies in Britain and the US of what has been a 17-year pause in global warming. Britain's Met Office has revised down its forecast for a global temperature rise, predicting no further increase to 2017, which would extend the pause to 21 years.”

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The Australian e-newspaper

But that was flawed too . As we know ,the only thing constant in the climate is change. So they changed it once again to “global climate disruption.”
Some scientists do not think the attribution to climate is adequate .
Extreme weather : Nature News & Comment

The emperor and his minions don't think that captures the essence of the "problem" .Tuesday , at the White House 'Organizing for Action', his perpetual campaign machine declared that there was a new name. Hence the issue shall be called “carbon pollution.” The phrase has also been used by the White House science adviser John Holdren.
It's a way to paint carbon dioxide as if it were black soot billowing out of industrial smokestacks. Carbon dioxide is actually what humans exhale, and it's food for plants.

OFA is now out in force promoting the emperor's new series of executive actions to force onto the United States his 'Climate Action Plan'... which will in essence be a full frontal assault on carbon based energy ;and of course include perks to the Goracle in the form of carbon tax/credits .

One day soon the wording will be changed again .Perhaps they can use my preferred one... 'Natural Climate Variations'.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

Clete , Ex uses the old terminology 'global warming ' (actually the original terms was “anthropomorphic global warming”, which attributed a direct link to human causation ) . As we know ,scientists began hedging their bets because there hasn't been any real warming in over 17 years,and scientists are puzzled by it. So they changed to the vernacular that you used ...'climate change' .

Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the railroad engineer who for some reason chairs the IPCC's climate “science” panel, to his credit now admits that the skeptics who questioned the "settled science" have a point .

The Australian e-newspaper

But that was flawed too . As we know ,the only thing constant in the climate is change. So they changed it once again to “global climate disruption.”
Some scientists do not think the attribution to climate is adequate .
Extreme weather : Nature News & Comment

The emperor and his minions don't think that captures the essence of the "problem" .Tuesday , at the White House 'Organizing for Action', his perpetual campaign machine declared that there was a new name. Hence the issue shall be called “carbon pollution.” The phrase has also been used by the White House science adviser John Holdren.
It's a way to paint carbon dioxide as if it were black soot billowing out of industrial smokestacks. Carbon dioxide is actually what humans exhale, and it's food for plants.

OFA is now out in force promoting the emperor's new series of executive actions to force onto the United States his 'Climate Action Plan' .....which will in essence be a full frontal assault on carbon based energy ;and of course include perks to the Goracle in the form of carbon tax/credits .

One day soon the wording will be changed again .Perhaps they can use my preferred one .......'Natural Climate Variations'.

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Yes, but what people in the northern hemisphere forget is that the southern oceans are becoming a huge sink for carbon.

So is continental United States . We sequester huge amts of carbon.

Call it whatever you want because air, land, and water quality is the issue and what we do with our waste products. We may breathe out CO2, but we sure can't breathe it in and live very long.

Recapturing emissions from burning fossil fuels has advanced as have what we do with those bi products but we have a long way to go. So while you "drill,baby drill", clean up the mess you made extracting energy from the earth. That has yet to be addressed and you cannot ignore those consequences of our OOOPS, or what we do with those waste products.

We have to be honest with our science if we are to be effective and efficient with out technology. I submit as evidence the lingering effects of the Exxon Valdez, and the pollution of the Colorado river as evidence of the lousy job we have done so far. Those are but two examples of our failures, as there are MANY more and more to come.

Call it whatever, it exists, and man makes it exist.

Calling carbon dioxide a pollutant is dishonest and has nothing to do with the emission examples or the spills you cite.

It is a pollutant when man discharges it into the air, water, or land in excess of the naturally occurring levels.

A million trees can convert mans breathing but not a steel mill belching out bi product. Ask the Chinese. Even new technology yields a certain amount of pollutants far lower than previous plants and factories, and that's just scientific facts, and goes toward standards for emissions set by man, NOT nature.

I have argued with Speech many times about air quality, since where he lives there is less heavy industry than where I do. We have air quality reports daily as part of the weather report, and its different and less dangerous to old people and kids or people with health issues during mild to moderate temperatures than it is when it's 106 degrees for weeks on end. It's scientific fact the atmospheric conditions can weaken or strengthen ordinary, and natural storms.

How else can they predict and warn of hurricanes, tornadoes and storms, and track them? Or predict the conditions for super storm we are seeing more of?

Hello again,

I wasn't intending to CONVINCE our right wing friends of stuff they're just NOT going to believe.. I was just wondering if the perceived BIG GOVERNMENT solution was standing in the way.

But, I see that the science deniers are going to CONTINUE to deny.

excon

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Originally Posted by excon

Hello again,

I wasn't intending to CONVINCE our right wing friends of stuff they're just NOT going to believe.. I was just wondering if the perceived BIG GOVERNMENT solution was standing in the way.

But, I see that the science deniers are going to CONTINUE to deny.

Excon

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Your question was
But, if we could come up with a solution that LOWERED taxes, stimulated economic growth, and left the oil companies alone, would you THEN accept global warming as real?

Sounds like a solution looking for a problem to me .You need a lot more proof to convince me that 'Natural Climate Variations' are man made .

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But, I see that the science deniers are going to CONTINUE to deny.

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“Promoting science isn't just about providing resources -- it's also about protecting free and open inquiry. It's about letting scientists do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient -- especially when it's inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda -- and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.”- Barack Obama, March 8, 2009

I refer you to the distorted data by the AGW proponents as proof that the ones in favor of the science are the skeptics of the "settled science" ,and NOT the scientists who's jobs depend on the continued advancement of their flawed hypothesis.

Hello again, tom:

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You need a lot more proof to convince me that 'Natural Climate Variations' are man made .

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Like I said, I'm NOT a scientist... But, when you can SEE and SMELL the garbage we throw into the sky, that's proof enough for me.

You know, I didn't NEED a scientist to tell me about the garbage we threw on the ground.. I could SEE it, and I could SMELL it. I also didn't need a scientist to tell me that the garbage we threw into the oceans were poisoning it. I LIVE on the coast, and I can SEE the ruination.

I don't know how you can SEE the same stuff I do, and tell me there nothing going on, unless there's some underlying ideology at work. I KNOW there's something going on. I am NOT blind.

I also see that you're SOOOO married to what you PERCEIVE the solution to be, that you're not even WILLING to entertain an alternative.. So, keep your heads in the sand, and grab your waterwings..

Excon

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You need a lot more proof to convince me that 'Natural Climate Variations' are man made

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Seeding clouds for rain, damming rivers for electricity, cutting forests, and dredging rivers for the benefit of man by man isn't natural. To say it has NO effect is presumptuous. But fact is Sandy and the Oklahoma should make you pay attention to who affects who the most.

Back to all those increased hurricanes and other scare-mongering? Howa botu some science?

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The Met Office has admitted that global warming has stalled.

Officials say that by 2017, temperatures will not have risen significantly for nearly 20 years.

They concede that previous forecasts were inaccurate – and have come under fire for attempting to ‘bury bad news’ by publishing the revised data on Christmas Eve.

Read more: Global warming: Met Office releases revised global temperature predictions showing planet is NOT rapidly heating up | Mail Online

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Speech some temperatures have not risen but there is a problem in the Artic which is seeing the release of methane gas as the permafrost melts. We must prepare for climate change to go beyond what we have experienced even though there has been response to emissions. I have long said I didn't believe what we were told but some change has occurred and will continue and we need to understand this in a rational way and not respond to local circumstance only. I think we fail to understand the impact of volcanic activity

Climate change, like weather, happens.

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I think we fail to understand the impact of volcanic activity

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Or solar activity ;or the retreat of the glaciers from the last ice age (which would explain the methane emissions. Organic material once existed in abundance where there is now frozen tundra. )

So Tom if I read you correctly you are saying everything is normal just part of a long cycle of ice ages and inter glacial periods. I wonder why the panic merchants (scientists) haven't thought of that? No grants in stating the obvious?
Tell it to these guys;
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/cl...819-2s7dt.html

OK I'll tell them. When you dig in some parts of the American mid west you uncover fossilized sea shells. That's because about 65-80 million years ago there was an inland sea that retreated as sea levels fell. My own pet hypothesis is that the natural state of the world is warm ;and that it's disruptions like asteroid strikes and volcanic activity that cools the planet . As an example ,in your neck of the world ,Krakatoa erupted in 1883, sending 25 cubic kilometres of ash into the air It also cooled the world's oceans and suppressed rises in sea level for decades afterwards.

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Originally Posted by tomder55

ok I'll tell them. When you dig in some parts of the American mid west you uncover fossilized sea shells. That's because about 65-80 million years ago there was an inland sea that retreated as sea levels fell. My own pet hypothesis is that the natural state of the world is warm ;and that it's disruptions like asteroid strikes and volcanic activity that cools the planet . As an example ,in your neck of the world ,Krakatoa erupted in 1883, sending 25 cubic kilometres of ash into the air It also cooled the world's oceans and suppressed rises in sea level for decades afterwards.

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Tom it is obvious we had a vast sea in the inland too, I have travelled across gibber plain, ancient sea bed. But what this tells us is that things change over time so I agree change is normal. It is not Krakotoa and similar we get those every century somewhere but the supervolcanoes in Yellowstone and Rotarua that change the climate for centuries, millennia and we are overdue for such an eruption. I am concerned that they might exist where we know nothing about them. We are five volcanoes away from nuclear winter at any time

2012 DVD Clip - Yellowstone Volcano Erupts - YouTube

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Originally Posted by tomder55

2012 DVD Clip - Yellowstone Volcano Erupts - YouTube

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Yes a pretty picture, minus the plane of course which could not fly in a pyroclastic flow but interestingly the makers of that movie forgot that eruptions on that scale give rise to world wide nuclear winter

Ted Cruz must really be getting under the media's skin. My goodness, back in college he played poker and lost and walked by the women's wing of the dorm in a robe. I could never, ever imagine a college dude doing anything like that.

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When Craig Mazin first met his freshman roommate, Rafael Edward Cruz, he knew the 17-year-old Texan was not like other students at Princeton, or probably anywhere else for that matter.

"I remember very specifically that he had a book in Spanish and the title was Was Karl Marx a Satanist? And I thought, who is this person?" Mazin says of Ted Cruz. “Even in 1988, he was politically extreme in a way that was surprising to me.”

By Mazin’s account and those of multiple members of Princeton’s class of 1992, the Ted Cruz who arrived as a college freshman in 1988 was nearly identical to the man who arrived in Washington as a freshman Republican senator in 2013: intelligent, confident, fixated on conservative political theory, and deeply polarizing.

“It was my distinct impression that Ted had nothing to learn from anyone else,” said Erik Leitch, who lived in Butler College with Cruz. Leitch said he remembers Cruz as someone who wanted to argue over anything or nothing, just for the exercise of arguing. “The only point of Ted talking to you was to convince you of the rightness of his views."

In addition to Mazin and Leitch, several fellow classmates who asked that their names not be used described the young Cruz with words like “abrasive,” "intense," “strident,” “crank,” and “arrogant." Four independently offered the word “creepy,” with some pointing to Cruz’s habit of donning a paisley bathrobe and walking to the opposite end of their dorm’s hallway where the female students lived.

“I would end up fielding the [girls’] complaints: 'Could you please keep your roommate out of our hallway?'" Mazin says.

Cruz also angered a number of upperclassmen his freshman year when he joined in a regular poker game and quickly ran up $1,800 in debt to other students from his losses. Cruz’s spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, said Cruz acknowledges playing in the poker games, which he now considers “foolish.”

“He went to his aunt, who worked at a bank in Dallas, and borrowed $1,800 from her, which he paid in cash and promptly quit the game,” Frazier told The Daily Beast, explaining that Cruz worked two jobs and made monthly payments to his aunt for the next two years to repay the debt.

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OMG, he paid the debt? How irresponsible.

Here's the point of the hit piece...

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"More than anyone I knew, Ted seemed to have arrived in college with a fully formed worldview,” Butler College colleague Erik Leitch said. “And what strikes me now, looking at him as an adult and hearing the things he's saying, it seems like nothing has changed. Four years of an Ivy League education, Harvard Law, and years of life experience have altered nothing."

While Cruz’s friends from the debate team foresaw a successful career in politics for Cruz, many of the Princeton alums offered that they were deeply troubled by the possibility of Cruz running for president, a notion that one, who did not want to be quoted speaking against a former classmate who is now a senator, called notion “horrifying.”

Craig Mazin said he knew some people might be afraid to speak in the press about a senator, but added of Cruz, “We should be afraid that someone like that has power.”

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You mean someone who's smart, well spoken, conservative and believes in the constitution? A man who in could not be rehabilitated by the Ivy League? Ay, chihuahua!

And that's not the half of it, he tweaked the media by releasing his birth certificate and yes, he has dual U.S.-Canadian citizenship.Qeulle horreur!

Once again birtherism is cool?