Chances are pretty good Netflix and Gamefly will turn to UPS and Fedex....
Let the free market succeed where the USPS only exists by monopoly.
Umm... You forget that the USPS is mandated to deliver and pick up from *every* address in the US (at a uniform price and service quality). Fed Ex and UPS are not. People malign the Post Office, but they are actually pretty efficient considering the volume of mail they process and the area for which they serve. I think the main problem with the USPS is Congressional oversight keeping the agency from being more nimble and responsive. The obligation to its retired workers is also an issue.
The U.S. Postal Service handles more than 40 percent of the world’s mail volume, five times more than the Japanese Post Office, the next largest carrier of letter mail.
In fiscal year 2007, the USPS sorted and delivered nearly 213 billion pieces of mail, about 703 million pieces a day.
The USPS delivers more items in one day than Federal Express does in a year and more items in one week than United Parcel Service does in a year.
The Postal Service delivers to 146 million businesses and households each day, six days per week. UPS delivers to 8 million addresses daily while FedEx serves even fewer.
And from Answers.com:
The USPS delivers 177 billion pieces of mail a year (at an average of 584 million per day) to some 150 million addresses in the US and its territories.
United Parcel Service (UPS) is the world's largest package delivery company, transporting some 15 million packages and documents per business day throughout the US and to more than 220 countries and territories.
Its FedEx Express unit is the world's #1 express transportation provider, delivering about 3.5 million packages daily to more than 220 countries and territories from about 2,000 FedEx Office shops.
Almost everyone accepts electronic bill payment these days.
True. I (manually) pay almost all my bills electronically via my bank (which apparently routes through CheckFree) except the water and sewer bills. They come every other month and can only be paid electronically through Bank Of America for a $3 fee and they don't offer any payment guarantee/protection (like my bank does), so fuck 'em, they get a paper check. I still get paper statements because (a) I don't get any discount for getting an electronic bill and (b) I like to have a statement to file and don't see why I should have to print my own and pay for the paper/toner, etc.
Also, for those who route their electronic statements through their Gmail account, remember that Google scans *everything* that goes through your account...
$13 billion? Meh. Drop in the ocean. When we're all short of trillions, what's a few billion between friends?
Umm... I think the issue is the $7.7 Trillion (yes, with a "T") in secret loans made to the banks at 0.01% interest, who then either loaned out the money at a higher interest rate or - hold on to your butts - invested the money back into T-Bills, also at a higher interest rate. That last situation effectively has the government paying interest to the banks on the loans made to the banks. With friends like that, I'll take enemas.
The Bloomberg article is pretty complete and there's another over here A Secret Scandal:
The reporters also calculated that recipient banks and other borrowers benefited by approximately $13 billion simply by taking advantage of the “spread” between their cost of capital in these almost interest-free loans and their ability to lend the capital.
The banks got loans from the Fed totaling $7.7 Trillion at 0.01% interest, loaned or - and here's the kicker - invested a lot of it back into in Treasury Bills, either at a higher interest rate than the secret loans. In the cases where money was invested in T-Bills, the US government was (or the taxpayers were) effectively paying interest - to the banks - on the loans they made to the banks.... <foreheadsmack>
the government should not spend tax money to distribute smut
Of course, "smut" is all relative. I'm sure there are those who get off on watching CSPAN....
"Ohh baby...filibuster that bill...that's the way daddy likes it."
AT&T has issued a scathing letter in response... 'We expected that the AT&T-T-Mobile transaction would receive careful, considered, and fair analysis,'... 'Unfortunately, the preliminary FCC Staff Analysis offers none of that.'
Since things didn't go their way, did anyone really expect a different response from AT&T? Can you imagine this?
AT&T: What were we thinking! <foreheadsmack> It's obvious now that we're wankers.
We commend the FCC for their insightful analysis; well done and thank you for your efforts.
Looks like they're pulling the same shit Ubuntu pulled with upstart (init replacement).
To be fair though, Sun/Oracle did the same thing with the Solaris Service Manager. While a minor pain in the butt, the SM actually does a lot of "good things" like providing parallel startup of services, which results in faster booting, and restarting of failed services, etc... And both Ubuntu and Solaris still support legacy {init,rc}.d scripts.
Texting is SMS and email is SMTP. Just different protocols for basically the same thing.
Thanks. Being a Unix system admin/programmer for 25+ years I know that:-) Just breaking it down for the people that probably think disk and RAM are the same thing too... For me Text/IM vs. Email is simply a time management thing - your time vs. mine - and, as I've said before, my time is more important than yours (you know what I mean)...
Personally, I don't even have an IM client on my computer (company installed, I removed) nor do I have a cell phone (well, okay, I have a Qualcomm QCP-1900 from 1998 for emergencies, but it doesn't text and I've only used it once in the last 6 years).
In as much as there are downsides to global warming (floods, heat deaths...),
...and from what I understand, more unpredictable and severe weather including tornadoes, hurricanes and, ironically, snow storms. Fun, fun, fun. Note that naysayers (I'm looking at you Fox News) just love to conflate weather and climate when the unseasonal snow storms strike to *disprove* global warming...
Suppose I believe that the universe was created 30 seconds ago by the spaghetti monster in its present state following all the currently understood laws of physics.
Skype is not only for calls, I mainly use it for text chats (which can be logged).
Texting/IM is just real-time email. The downside being that I must respond on your timetable, not mine, and my time is more valuable than yours - and before you respond to that last bit... Yes it is.:-)
Doctors who do not believe in "evolution" do believe in disease resistant organisms and understand how these organisms became that way. They merely reject that particular word for philosophical reasons,
In my experience, these people are okay with evolution for other creatures (bacteria, fruit flies, etc...), especially in light of demonstrable proof that they do evolve, but reject it for humans - usually because they believe that humans are "special". I reject that premise. Humans are just animals like all others. Our main flaw is that we are notoriously short-sighted with respect to our behavior, actions and their consequences.
Doctors are technicians. It doesn't matter how antibiotics are discovered, they merely need to know that they cure TB, and when they aren't working here is what you do. Doctors aren't supposed to be experimenting on their patients.
Though doctors do need to have some understanding of how things work in order to best utilize resources. Newer, more expensive, drugs are not always the best treatment. Sulfa works great on many bacterial infections, better than many penicillin-based drugs on some, and can be a drug of choice in those circumstances. If you're allergic to sulfa, however, you might die. In the comic example, if the doctor (or patient) didn't believe in evolution, and the old medicines worked just fine way, way back in the day, why prescribe something new and more expensive?
Medicine and evolution are science - demonstrable science. If a doctor is ignorant in this respect, in what other area might he/she be an uneducated dumb-ass? But, to each their own...
What does belief/disbelief in evolution have to do with medical treatment? A medical doctor needs to know how the body works right now, not how it got to that point. I'm a bit fuzzy on how a belief in evolution helps a doctor diagnose and fix a problem in the patient in front of them.
Condensed version:
A guy phones home; maid answers. Guy asks to talk with his wife. Maid says she's in the bedroom having sex with her lover. Enraged, guy tells maid to get his gun and kill the wife and lover. Minutes later, guy hears gunshots; maid picks up phone and asks, "what next?" Guy says to drag the bodies into the back yard, past swimming pool. Maid says, "what swimming pool?" Guy says, "is this 555-1234?"
... Senator Deputy Dawg, I mean Joe Lieberman, sent a letter to ventriloquist Jeff Dunham about the puppet Achmed the Dead Terrorist who constantly threatens audience members with shouts of "Silence! I kill you!" Lieberman is concerned that comedy may be "adversely affecting our ability to counter violent Islamist extremism online." The senator believes that Achmed's past appearance on Dunham's Very Special Christmas Special, where he sung a song called "Jingle Bombs," was morally unacceptable and contrary to the Christmas spirit.
Still, the company is preemptively notifying customers by hanging small signs around the shopping centers. Consumers can opt out by turning off their phones.
Ya, but the sign shown doesn't mention turning off your phone... Just to visit the Management Office or visit their website if you have questions. Of course, visiting the office will entail getting tracked. Also, I'm not sure how tracking our phones will help "enhance your shopping experience".
Granted. Neither side really wants to actually do anything. They'd rather point fingers and cast blame, hoping to cash in at the next election. Hell, a continuing bad economy fits directly into the Republican game plan:
Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has said his party has no greater priority than defeating Obama next year.
and I'll add the obvious side-effect: "no matter what the consequences to the country or its people"
Trying to muck with income tax brackets is a dumb idea.
Well... Expiring the Bush Tax Cuts restores the tax brackets as they were pre-Bush and specifically the top bracket to 39.6%. (It is currently 35% under the BTC.) In addition, the BTC also lowered the capital gain tax rate and raised the estate tax limit, so expiring the BTC would affect those uber-rich you mention. See...
Slashdot Mirror
Umm... You forget that the USPS is mandated to deliver and pick up from *every* address in the US (at a uniform price and service quality). Fed Ex and UPS are not. People malign the Post Office, but they are actually pretty efficient considering the volume of mail they process and the area for which they serve. I think the main problem with the USPS is Congressional oversight keeping the agency from being more nimble and responsive. The obligation to its retired workers is also an issue.
From http://www.nalc.org/postal/perform/productivity.html :
And from Answers.com:
True. I (manually) pay almost all my bills electronically via my bank (which apparently routes through CheckFree) except the water and sewer bills. They come every other month and can only be paid electronically through Bank Of America for a $3 fee and they don't offer any payment guarantee/protection (like my bank does), so fuck 'em, they get a paper check. I still get paper statements because (a) I don't get any discount for getting an electronic bill and (b) I like to have a statement to file and don't see why I should have to print my own and pay for the paper/toner, etc.
Also, for those who route their electronic statements through their Gmail account, remember that Google scans *everything* that goes through your account...
Umm... I think the issue is the $7.7 Trillion (yes, with a "T") in secret loans made to the banks at 0.01% interest, who then either loaned out the money at a higher interest rate or - hold on to your butts - invested the money back into T-Bills, also at a higher interest rate. That last situation effectively has the government paying interest to the banks on the loans made to the banks. With friends like that, I'll take enemas.
The banks got loans from the Fed totaling $7.7 Trillion at 0.01% interest, loaned or - and here's the kicker - invested a lot of it back into in Treasury Bills, either at a higher interest rate than the secret loans. In the cases where money was invested in T-Bills, the US government was (or the taxpayers were) effectively paying interest - to the banks - on the loans they made to the banks.... <foreheadsmack>
Of course, "smut" is all relative. I'm sure there are those who get off on watching CSPAN....
"Ohh baby...filibuster that bill...that's the way daddy likes it."
Just for future thought, "smart" and "educated" are not the same nor always co-located.
Since things didn't go their way, did anyone really expect a different response from AT&T? Can you imagine this?
To be fair though, Sun/Oracle did the same thing with the Solaris Service Manager. While a minor pain in the butt, the SM actually does a lot of "good things" like providing parallel startup of services, which results in faster booting, and restarting of failed services, etc... And both Ubuntu and Solaris still support legacy {init,rc}.d scripts.
Thanks. Being a Unix system admin/programmer for 25+ years I know that :-) Just breaking it down for the people that probably think disk and RAM are the same thing too... For me Text/IM vs. Email is simply a time management thing - your time vs. mine - and, as I've said before, my time is more important than yours (you know what I mean)...
Personally, I don't even have an IM client on my computer (company installed, I removed) nor do I have a cell phone (well, okay, I have a Qualcomm QCP-1900 from 1998 for emergencies, but it doesn't text and I've only used it once in the last 6 years).
You do realize that communicating via Text, IM or Social Networking is basically the same thing as email - right?
What do you mean by "suppose"? :-)
Texting/IM is just real-time email. The downside being that I must respond on your timetable, not mine, and my time is more valuable than yours - and before you respond to that last bit... Yes it is. :-)
In my experience, these people are okay with evolution for other creatures (bacteria, fruit flies, etc...), especially in light of demonstrable proof that they do evolve, but reject it for humans - usually because they believe that humans are "special". I reject that premise. Humans are just animals like all others. Our main flaw is that we are notoriously short-sighted with respect to our behavior, actions and their consequences.
Though doctors do need to have some understanding of how things work in order to best utilize resources. Newer, more expensive, drugs are not always the best treatment. Sulfa works great on many bacterial infections, better than many penicillin-based drugs on some, and can be a drug of choice in those circumstances. If you're allergic to sulfa, however, you might die. In the comic example, if the doctor (or patient) didn't believe in evolution, and the old medicines worked just fine way, way back in the day, why prescribe something new and more expensive?
Medicine and evolution are science - demonstrable science. If a doctor is ignorant in this respect, in what other area might he/she be an uneducated dumb-ass? But, to each their own...
I think this illustrates the point nicely: http://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2005/12/18
Doctor: Afraid so, but we caught it early.
Doctor: Depends. Are you a Creationist?
Doctor: Because I need to know whether you want me to treat the TB bug as it was before antibiotics...
Doctor: Your choice. If you go with the Noah's Ark version I'll just give you streptomycin.
Doctor: They're intelligently designed.
I know I do. Had a few working on my particle accelerator, but they could only tell me what was probably wrong with it...
Condensed version: A guy phones home; maid answers. Guy asks to talk with his wife. Maid says she's in the bedroom having sex with her lover. Enraged, guy tells maid to get his gun and kill the wife and lover. Minutes later, guy hears gunshots; maid picks up phone and asks, "what next?" Guy says to drag the bodies into the back yard, past swimming pool. Maid says, "what swimming pool?" Guy says, "is this 555-1234?"
... Senator Deputy Dawg, I mean Joe Lieberman, sent a letter to ventriloquist Jeff Dunham about the puppet Achmed the Dead Terrorist who constantly threatens audience members with shouts of "Silence! I kill you!" Lieberman is concerned that comedy may be "adversely affecting our ability to counter violent Islamist extremism online." The senator believes that Achmed's past appearance on Dunham's Very Special Christmas Special, where he sung a song called "Jingle Bombs," was morally unacceptable and contrary to the Christmas spirit.
Ya, but the sign shown doesn't mention turning off your phone... Just to visit the Management Office or visit their website if you have questions. Of course, visiting the office will entail getting tracked. Also, I'm not sure how tracking our phones will help "enhance your shopping experience".
Have fun rotating your logs!
and I'll add the obvious side-effect: "no matter what the consequences to the country or its people"
Okay. No more coffee for you.
Well... Expiring the Bush Tax Cuts restores the tax brackets as they were pre-Bush and specifically the top bracket to 39.6%. (It is currently 35% under the BTC.) In addition, the BTC also lowered the capital gain tax rate and raised the estate tax limit, so expiring the BTC would affect those uber-rich you mention. See...