Why The Postal Service Is Going Under And How To Save It

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I just read the reasoning behind why the postal service is going under:

http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/07/8191425-twisted-government-accounting-behind-postal-service-woes

 

 

Obviously, they need to take away future benefits to assist in the here and now. Would those people working at the USPS rather be unemployed and lose all their benefits or employed?

And here’s MY 2 cents…

The government should set up an OFFICIAL email service directly from the post office. Here’s what I am thinking:

You will sign up for the post office’s email service by providing 2 forms of I.D. that will be kept on file. This means that this is an “Official” email address. The only mail that comes in has to come from a legitimate source, which means a temporary or permanent password is given to the sender to put in the subject line. You will be able to have only one address with the USPS, it will be linked to your social security number. That means that you would be able to vote using this email.

Any official business with the government MUST be sent to and from this address. Tax forms, government student education loan information, etc. can all be sent. The government would sell advertising (like they sell delivery for junk mail) to tack on the end of any emails being delivered or sent. (Remember ads on AOL mail or juno?)

You would log into a spot on the net to get your mail. Signing in with your SS number, username, password. Triple protection from hacking.

Businesses could pay for “certified” mail being sent to this address. If you log in and you have a certified email, you must open it before doing anything else. Notification is sent to sender.

If a user wants a hard copy of the email, they can pay for it to be delivered.

NEW PEOPLE should be hired to sign up people for this service. The current employees may allow things to slip through….

Every six months, a review should be done of the people who signed up BY EMPLOYEES AT ANOTHER PART OF THE COUNTRY, making sure they were put in the system properly, that all their information is current and correct.

No one without a government-issued picture I.D. will be allowed to sign up. This makes sure that there is a face with the account.

This can spill outside of government stuff as well. Let’s say your creditors want your official email address. You would allow them to have that address and once it’s made a permanent sender, they could send you official mail.

When you have a permanent sender, it’s tied to their email address/I.P.address and passcode that you set up for them. Example: john@somecompany.com wants to send you weekly emails. You set it up by making john@somecompany put the passcode in the subject line. You can change these settings, allowing only once, always allow, or allow until finished. There will be buttons at the top of the email that says “finished”, “allow once”, “always allow”.

The email console on the site will have ads like any other site that the USPS will make money off of.

So the money comes from:

ads on site
ads tacked onto email
certified/confirmed email
hard copy and delivered
government voting-paid for by campaigners-a percentage of what they raised.

Banks MUST use these addresses for customers.

VOTERS MUST use these email addresses. You will NOT be allowed to vote without it (and it must be valid).

Government voting will pay to have these emails delivered as certified. If you live in the district that’s voting, you must either cast a vote or click the “not voting” or “vote later” button(expires within a certain time). Since this is tied to your SS#, you will not be allowed to vote after clicking “not voting” or you cast your vote.

I see this as the same thing the record companies had to do to stay in business. Change with the times. No one has an official, lifetime email address at this point, and this will solve that.

Repo Games – TV Show Review – Spike TV

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When I ran across this show, my immediate response was that it was very toying with people’s emotions. The premise of the show is that they are going to repossess someone’s vehicle, but they give them a chance to be part of a “game show” and if they answer 3 questions correctly, they get to keep the car and the show pays off the vehicle completely. Watching the first one, I was imagining how repossession plus being on the edge of a game show must feel. The host was a handsome muscle bald bearded bear named Tom.

After watching someone win the game and getting to keep their car, I realized that this was actually a good thing for this economy. Most people know how it feels to lose that kind of thing, so this offers some hope. It is also a “spit in the face” to creditors.

It was interesting to see how people, and when I say “people”, I mean one type of person, didn’t even give Tom a chance to explain how they could get something out of this. I want to think that these people were just actors put on the show just to make it stupid.

The show was ok as far as shows go, but I will admit that I don’t like Jerry Springer-esque drama and this show was full of that, but you can probably get through it by concentrating on the eye candy. 😉

A Tale Of Two Sisters – Liza Minnelli and Lorna Luft

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I watched “A Tale Of Two Sisters” yesterday and was very moved by not only their relationship, but by the positive attitudes they have on their mother, the fans, the drugs, and life in general.

This was an interview back in 2003 or 2004 aired on British TV, probably to promote the show “Songs My Mother Taught Me” that Lorna Luft was doing in London. It was the first time I actually saw them together as adults. What’s funny is that Lorna seemed to have the more outgoing personality of the two.

One of the things Liza Minnelli said was that she did not blame MGM for prescribing the pills to Judy Garland at 15 years old. She stated that the drug was new, everyone was taking it, no one knew what “addiction” was in the 30’s (I think that was when they were still putting cocaine in coca-cola products!) and so she didn’t have a grudge against MGM. Her mother had the alcoholism gene and she also inherited that. Lorna seems to have not gotten that gene.

Another thing that really touched me and I had never heard before was a story Lorna told. She was walking with her then 7 year old daughter down a street in San Francisco and her daughter asked what that flag was that they were seeing. She told her, “It’s the gay flag, to symbolize the gay community’s pride.” The daughter then asked “Why is it a rainbow?” She responded that it was actually a reference to her grandmother, Judy (Over The Rainbow).

I did not know that! How obvious, but never noticed. Gay men used to have to call themselves “Friends Of Dorothy”. A code that was used because of the oppression of homosexuals.

I looked up the rainbow flag on wikipedia( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_flag_(LGBT_movement) ), and lo and behold, it was true. While I was there, I also found out that the original rainbow flag had 8 colors, then reduced to 7 because of a shortage in a certain color, then to 6 to become an even number. Each of the colors represent something as well.

Back to the interview. It’s on youtube (that’s where I watched the whole thing). Watch it here(5 parts):




Ants Bury Their Dead In The Northeast Corner Of Their Anthill

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I read that ants will always bury their dead at the NorthEast corner of their anthills. This odd ritual is made even stranger when the anthill is “turned”… If you have one of those ant farms (the ants inside a plastic container) where they have buried a dead ant and you turn the farm in a different direction, they will dig up the dead ants and rebury them at the new NE corner.

This fascinated me. Morbid, yes, but this is one of those mysteries that scientists have not solved. So I want to brainstorm and come up with some theories.

One thing I read was that ants don’t have very large brains because the brain uses too much energy and they always work as a group. (Don’t take the movie “A Bug’s Life” as truth!) There are never any rogue ants. So, in theory, the more brain functions you use, the less likely you are to follow the crowd. I could insert a political or religious statement here, but I won’t.

Ants rely on chemical communication.

I will start with the biggest influence. If the earth’s magnetic field is what affects the ants, that’s where I will start. The earth spins in the eastern direction. A chemical trail should always go from east to west, then. Yes, factors like wind may affect this. By burying their dead in the corner “upwind”, if a predator comes along and finds the rotting corpses and decides to eat them, the ants inside the hill will instantly be aware of the chemicals released by the consumption. Maybe the sound waves also trail off better in an eastern direction as well. Once the ants notice the corpse chemicals, they can react before the predator surprises them. Isn’t it strange that the ants wouldn’t eat the rotting corpse themselves? That further proves my theory. Instead of this being an “honoring the dead” ceremony, this is akin to a security system.

I am open to research grants to study this anomaly, if any government agency wishes to assist!

Official Language Debate Finally Over

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I have been hearing things in the press about English as the official language of the US and the debate over whether that can be implemented/enforced. I realized something very simple that actually does make the official language English. This idea holds true in EVERY country on earth:

Whatever language the laws of a country are written in is the official language. Laws are always written in the “official”  language of the country. So that makes ENGLISH the OFFICIAL LANGUAGE of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

Amici Italian Restaurant – Orlando, FL – Review

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One recent Sunday evening, I was driving around the Downtown Disney area, looking for a place to eat. I had tired of the theme park overpriced burgers and had even burned myself out on fast food! (Can you imagine?)

I came across Amici Italian Restaurant at 8594 Palm Parkway and it was a gem! It was kind of late Sunday, so there were very few people there. As soon as I walked in the door, the host was there and extremely nice and accommodating. Nice jazzy music playing on the speakers, a large patio overlooking the water, and excellent service from Courtney, who is leaving to go into the service in 8 days!

They have an extensive menu, but, of course, I chose the lasagna. The sauce tasted like it was made with fresh tomatoes and there was a ton of meat in it! The bananas flambé was excellent as well.

This is definitely a repeat, especially knowing that they have live music sometimes on the patio.

Here’s the take away menu: (PDF)

AmiciItalianRestaurant

Have We Left “Blobs” Of Air In Space?

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Every time they opened the doors to a spaceship, they “let out” some of the air. I will assume that the air is an invisible blob in space. I am not sure if it would disperse or clump together, but I would guess it would stay together. If that is the case, then it would stand to reason that there are blobs of earth air on the moon, in space, etc. Inside this air would be human-carried germs and the common cold, etc.

The sun’s radiation should kill off those things…. OR mutate them.

What if another inhabited planet has done the same thing? Maybe their air has come into our atmosphere. Maybe when they “visit” us, they open their ship’s doors and a flood of their air comes out, with viruses, and it is deadly to cows…

Oh, and… SUPERTAX IMPORTS!