Post Office (and other by-gone days)

CNN Money has a photo of a Post office truck with the caption: “Postal Service delivers debt”

If the “Debt Commission” is looking for something to cut, the Post Office should be item number two, right before the National Endowment for the Arts,

The Post Office delivered fewer items last year, some six billion items fewer, but lost more money — some eight billion dollars plus.

when was the last time anyone on this blog actually wrote a letter, put it in an envelope and “posted it?”

(O.K., my wife, a well-known Luddite, has been known to do exactly that, but the world should not be designed to make Luddites lives easy. A world designed around candles and fires in the fire place would suite my lovely wife, perfectly. She wants a TV with an ON/OFF switch.)

The alternatives to the Post Office, electronic and otherwise, abound. I remember the days when FedEX delivered to the north coast of Kauai, the most isolated point in the US not completely frozen, once a week on Friday afternoon — now FedEx trucks are a driving hazard!

To its credit, the PO has laid off some 150,000 “workers” — that is like the proverbial bus load of lawyers off a cliff, a good start.

Finish the job.

Subsidized Pet Rock

Thank you, George Will, for bringing us some clarity on the GM Volt. With an electric range of 33 miles (Popular Mechanics)and a subsidy of almost $7,500 (borrowed from China,) it will be available in VERY limited numbers in VERY limited states. (Including California, where economic illiteracy abounds.)

It will be the “Pet Rock” of 2011.

(Make that “subsidized” Pet Rock.)

(Have you noticed that there are no government subsidies for iPODS, or iPHONES, or iPADS, or Droids, or…well anything that the public actually WANTS?

Where is Dick Morris When Obama Needs Him

As smart a politician as was Bill Clinton, it took him more than six months to bring aboard Dick Morris to get his head straight after his mid-term drubbing, and several more months before Dick’s policy-movement policies became obvious to the public.

The liberals are still in shock, and the ones on this blog are certainly not as smart as was Bill Clinton.

They are lashing out in pain, and confusion. (O.K. increased confusion)

Cut them some slack — even the president says he was simply inarticulate about his policies, even though he was omnipresent on the TV.

He needs Dick Morris.

Just Helping Liberals Where I can…

To assist shell-shocked liberals replicate the Steve Farrar letter in today’s NCTimes with ease, I am developing an “Instant Liberal Phrase Generator” in three columns that will include, but not be limited to:

corporate bullies; money-grubbing Republicans; LIES!; woefully misinformed; dupes; “voting against their best interest” as code for “We know best what is good for you, trust us”; rich, fat-cats; Faux Gnues; Richard Murdoch; Davis Koch; “the rich”; “raping the poor”; “stealing from the workers”; “Workers of the World, Unite (etc)” racists, homophobic,  etc.

(Suggestions appreciated…)

Liberals will be able to mix and match these terms and pick one from each column with ease.

I hope the finished product will help liberals post more in forms not unlike the letters from Pacific Ridge School.

I’ll Be Off For a Few Day…

Just a note that starting Monday this blog will be quiet for a few days as I get my second knee “scoped.’  The surgery is not much of a problem, and I recovered from the first knee very quickly but all surgery is a bit uncomfortable, and particularly if I am sitting at a computer.

My experience with surgery just two weeks ago on the first knee was so good that I decided to do my second knee.  My surgeon was Dr. Bried of North County Surgery, and the Poway Surgery Center — both were EXCELLENT. I was in bed for a day. in a chair for a day, and on crutches for a day. There was some discomfort for a week — but no pain, and I am back to an hour on the bicycle now two weeks later without even knowing there was work done — so on to the other knee which also showed torn minuscous .

One clue to ANY surgery is a device called the Polar Care. It comes in two models, 300 and 500, and is basically an ice chest with a pump and a tube to pump ice water around your wound to diminish your swelling.

Yes, ice packs help but this device is much, much better. And, yes, it is expensive — more than $150 for what looks like a pretty simple device but you may be able to have your insurance pay for it; to borrow one from a family member (as I initially did); or, if you live in a community where older people are prevalent you may be able to buy one at an estate sale. (I did this, and paid $5 for a brand new one! Medical devices do not sell well at estate sales and are DEEPLY discounted.)

(Be careful and put some cloth on your skin, because this device get SERIOUSLY cold and can damage the skin with direct contact)

I strongly recommend this device for a quick recovery where pain and/or swelling can be controlled by cold.

Great Quotes Saturday

Lot’s of good quotes yesterday (and some fine football), but Michael Moore says the President should take off his ‘Pink TuTu” and fight — while Democrat pollster and Advisor says that the president shouldn’t attempt a second term.

Two sides of the Democratic Party (far left and left, because there is no center or right to that political party) viewing the same recent mid-term elections disaster.

Democrats say the Republicans are fighting over the spoils, and that’s true — but they have many more spoils to fight over. Given the choice for a fight, I’ll take the Republican problem.