USPS To Ban International Shipping On Lithium Ion Powered Gadgetry

sl4shd0rk writes "Apparently the USPS is enacting a ban on the international shipment of all devices containing Lithium Ion batteries. The ban is expected to lift in January of 2013. It seems like this would drive more business away from the already floundering USPS financial situation. The article focuses on the shipment of items out of the U.S., but doesn't mention whether the same ban will apply to purchasing these items on eBay from overseas sources."

Comments

Canada will keep the USPS alive

[i_ate_god]

As long as our currency is on, near, or above par with the US dollar, most sensible canadians will order stuff from the US and use USPS to deliver it, since UPS and the like are really just crooked extortionists. How their extortionist techniques are legal, I just don't know.

Re:Canada will keep the USPS alive

[SlippyToad]

Both parties do this.

Umm, you are just wrong. The Republicans have been on a privatizing tear that has been well-publicized and nearly non-stop for decades now. Examples include Reagan turning our student loans over to third parties, which jacked up the costs of college (Obama ended this practice, btw). Rick Santorum proposing to end our national weather services' free information so that he could stick his (or his buddies') private company in that place instead. Florida governor Rick Scott foisting a mandatory drug test law on welfare recipient so that his company Solantic could cash in on the misery of the less fortunate, Arizona governor Jan Brewer's nasty anti-immigration law which was, as it turns out, funded at the behest of the private prison complex so they could put more bodies in beds on the taxpayer's dime. The examples of GOP leaders shit-canning a public industry, or deliberately creating a market to funnel taxpayer dollars to their private buddies, are FUCKING LEGION.

I know Democrats are occasionally found sticking their hands in the till. But it is almost universally a Republican issue.

As a post script, I'm pretty fucking sick of this "both sides do it, so we can't/shouldn't do anything about it" attitude. That is an utterly false dichotomy that is designed specifically to shut down debate.

So, bring your "Democratic" examples or shut the fuck up.

Re:Good job not reading

[Idbar]

Not also that according to the table (Exhibit 10.20.8 Lithium Battery Mailability Chart). The ones non-mailable are the called primary, which seem to refer to the lithium batteries, not "Secondary" which seem to refer to the Lithium-Ion (rechargeable) batteries.

Am I confused about this?

Not such a bad thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

If vendors have to airfreight electrically powered items without their batteries, this is a good thing.

Why?

Because it means the batteries will have to be shipped separately, which means:

they will need to be user-installable, which means:

they will be user replaceable.

No longer will you have to replace kit simply because the battery no longer recharges.

About that floundering financial situation

[SlippyToad]

. It seems like this would drive more business away from the already floundering USPS financial situation.

The USPS is struggling because they've been required by a vindictive right-wing to maintain an absurd 75-year pension plan commitment, basically they are being forced to fully fund pension plans for employees who haven't even been born yet.

If they were simply required to do business under the same rules as their competitors, they'd be kicking UPS' punk ass raw.

So, just for clarity let's make sure everyone understands that the USPS is being deliberately engineered to fail by the same vandals and saboteurs who are deliberately engineering our economy to fail.

Re:About that floundering financial situation

[Anonymous Coward]

So, just for clarity let's make sure everyone understands that the USPS is being deliberately engineered to fail by the same vandals and saboteurs who are deliberately engineering our economy to fail.

Republicans run for office on a platform of the failure of government, then when elected, set about making it come true.

Re:Good job not reading

[dgatwood]

Which is fascinating, because I've never heard of a watch battery bursting into flame during normal operation, yet this would appear to ban the international shipping of nearly all watches. Lithium ion batteries are a fire risk because of overheating, but probably 99% of the time, the overheating is caused by charging, which lithium primary cells do not do. I understand why you would not want to pack cartons of a hundred lithium primary cells (because if a fire occurs external to the batteries, they tend to intensify it), but a single cell here or there would seem to pose little risk.