USPS tries to surpress research paper that shows its mail processing centers closures will not save money

                  Good Day Humboldt County!

It’s just as I suspected – the Post Office’s claims that shutting down mail processing plants will save money – is bogus! Research is starting to trump rhetoric, but the USPS is not giving up without a fight.

The USPS supposedly lost a research paper that would have exposed the fact that there were no calculations on lost volume, and revenues in the decision process to shut down the mail processing centers.

I know one thing, no one will ever be able to convince me that when I send a letter to someone local and it’s re-routed to Medford, Oregon, it’s going to be a cost-saving measure! Anyone with a dose of common sense can see that the USPS is trying to pull a fast one, while slowing down service!

Snippet: 

“The Postal Service’s Big Hurry to consolidate 223 mail processing plants may be running into serious speed bumps.  The AMP studies don’t add up to anything like what the Postal Service says it will save nor do they reveal where most of the 35,000 eliminated positions will come from.

Now there’s news of a market research study on potential revenue losses the downsizing initiatives may cause that the Postal Service chose not to tell anyone about — and that it still wants to keep under wraps.

News of this other research was first revealed back in February, in testimony by one of the Postal Service witnesses for the Advisory Opinion on the Network Rationalization plan being conducted by the Postal Regulatory Commission.  Last week the Postal Service gave the PRC the data from this market research, along with a request to keep the materials “non-public.”  The Postal Service is also saying that because the research was “abandoned” before completion, there are no calculations on lost volume and revenues to look at.That's not sitting well with the participants in the Advisory Opinion process, and we're going to be hearing a lot more about this missing market research study.  Next week, witnesses for the Postal Service will be cross-examined before the Commissioners, and the market survey is sure to come up.”

Go here to read the entire article.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Smorgasbord of Silliness: Irrational exuberance on Pi Day

The most famous irrational number, pi, is being factored into a whole smorgasbord of silliness on 3/14.

On one level, today’s date is just an excuse for high geekery, ranging from eating mathematically meaningful pies to marching in a circular pi procession. On a deeper level ... well, who needs an excuse to celebrate one of nature's most mysterious numbers?

In differently curved universes, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter might be something other than 3.14159 and some change. But in our universe, the digits that describe that ratio have never come to an end or shown a repeating pattern, even though pi's value has been computed to a length of 10 trillion digits. The irrationality of pi has popped up as a theme in a goodly number of books and movies through the years, including "Contact" (the book) and "Pi" (the movie). Pi's continuing hold on our imagination is definitely something worth celebrating.

Here are a few ways to mark the day:

• Tune into the Exploratorium's webcast of its Pi Day ceremonies, starting at 1 p.m. PT and climaxing at 3/14, 1:59 p.m. The Exploratorium in San Francisco is where it all began in 1988, when physicist Larry Shaw organized the first public celebration of Pi Day. There'll also be a Pi Day party at the Exploratorium's Pi-arama Space Dome in Second Life, starting at 7 p.m. PT / SLT.
• Send a Pi Day e-card, courtesy of PiDay.org. The Web site also offers discussions and videos about pi, books and merchandise to buy, suggested activities and information about the why of pi.
• Click on over to the Reddit website, where Ford engineers will be posting a different math equation every 3 minutes and 14 seconds. The first person to provide the correct answer to one of the 42 equations due to be posted will receive "Reddit Gold" for use in their account.
• Look around for local events, such as Pi Day Princeton or the Maryland Science Center's Pi Day party. Chances are that your local science center is doing something to celebrate the day ... and if not, maybe you can convince the ticket-takers to reduce the cost of admission to $3.14, just this once.
• Celebrate Albert Einstein's birthday, which also falls on March 14. Our "Century of Einstein" special report is just as insightful today as it was when we published it in 2005 to mark the centennial of the great physicist's "miracle year."
• Make your plans for Tau Day, the holiday for people who think pi is passé. Tau is twice the value of pi, and some mathematicians say that makes their equations easier to juggle. If you're a tau touter, June 28 (6/28) is your special day. And if you don't follow the American style of stating dates, you might be more comfortable celebrating pi on July 22 (22/7), a date that evokes a fraction close to the irrational value of pi. (source)

Stay tuned: reality series features Clint Eastwood’s family - will it make viewer’s day?

One of my favorite actors is Clint Eastwood. As a devoted fan of his Westerns, and later Dirty Harry, and other memorable movies, I was intrigued by a new reality show staring his family.

I would have called the new show “Go Ahead – Make My Day” but the producers are reportedly taking a milder approach.

Clint Eastwood's family will be the focus at the legendary actor and filmmaker's home in Carmel, California. "Mrs. Eastwood & Company," a 10-part series that centers on Eastwood's wife, Dina, and daughters Morgan and Francesca (her mom is Frances Fisher, but she also calls Dina "Mom"), premieres on E! on May 20.

If hot dogs do cause butt cancer…what’s next? Mom’s Apple Pie?

    Good Day Humboldt County!

In our walk through life we often get warnings of danger. Some are credible, some are not.

When it comes to the medical world I have my doubts at times. For example, I know two doctors with opposite views on the benefits of taking massive does of Vitamin D.

  One swears by it, the other says it doesn’t have any value at all. Which one should I believe? It’s time like this we have to take the bull by the horns and go with our gut feelings on how safe things are. That includes food. Like hot dogs for example. I’ve been eating them most of my life and I don’t have “butt cancer” (thank God!). Yet, there are legitimate concerns about those favorite baseball park “foot longs” associated with America’s pastime.  

The billboard above is one of a series of ads being put up in major cities by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), urging people to stop eating hot dogs, which it says is a leading cause of colon and other cancers. Needless to say, the hot dog industry is burned about the bad publicity.

The National Hot Dog & Sausage Council - hot-dog.org — reacted immediately to this billboard, which went up recently on the Eisenhower Expressway. Calling the ad "outrageous" and "inflammatory," the trade group dismissed the PCRM as a "pseudo-medical animal rights group" bent on turning all Americans into vegans.

Frankly (pun intended) I don’t know who to believe in this great hot dog debate! Meanwhile, I’ll still have one on occasion and take my chances. As for you dear reader, eat them at your own risk.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Did the FBI lie about homegrown 9/11 connections?

At least one man believes the 9/11 hijackers had help in the U.S., and he’s called for an investigation into two classified documents that link Saudis living in Sarasota, Florida to the 9/11 hijackers. For years, conspiracy theorists have claimed Saudis organized 9/11. With 15 of the 19 hijackers being Saudis, this seemed to further bolster the claim.

And why was the FBI instructed to not say anything to embarrass the Saudis directly after 9/11? There’s a lot of questions about what happened that terrible day. Here is the latest news on the subject:

“Former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired Congress’ Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has seen two classified FBI documents that he says are at odds with the bureau’s public statements that there was no connection between the hijackers and Saudis then living in Sarasota, Fla.

“There are significant inconsistencies between the public statements of the FBI in September and what I read in the classified documents,” Graham said. “One document adds to the evidence that the investigation was not the robust inquiry claimed by the FBI,” Graham said. “An important investigative lead was not pursued and unsubstantiated statements were accepted as truth.”

Whether the 9/11 hijackers acted alone, or whether they had support within the U.S., remains an unanswered question -- one that began to be asked as soon as it became known that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. It was underlined when Congress’s bipartisan inquiry released its public report in July 2003. The final 28 pages, regarding possible foreign support for the terrorists, were censored in their entirety -- on President George W. Bush’s instructions.

Analysis of Prestancia gatehouse visitor logs and photographs of license tags showed that vehicles driven by several of the future hijackers had visited the al-Hijji home at 4224 Escondito Circle, according to a counterterrorism officer and former Prestancia administrator Larry Berberich. If that did occur, it will feed into suspicions that the hijackers had Saudi support -- a suspicion held by some official investigators but played down by the 9/11 Commission.

Newly released Florida Department of Law Enforcement documents, however, state that an informant told the FBI in 2004 that al-Hijji had considered Osama bin Laden a “hero” and may have known some of the hijackers. The informant, Wissam Hammoud, also said al-Hijji once introduced him to Adnan El Shukrijumah, an ex-Broward County resident and suspected al-Qaida operative on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.

Last September, FBI spokesmen also disputed Graham’s assertion that Congress was never told about the Sarasota investigation. Graham sees what he believes to be the suppression of evidence pointing to Saudi support for the 9/11 hijackers as arising from the perceived advantages to the West, at the time and now, of keeping Saudi Arabia happy. In late December, the U.S. announced a new $30 billion defense deal with the Saudis.

“I think that in the period immediately after 9/11 the FBI was under instructions from the Bush White House not to discuss anything that could be embarrassing to the Saudis,” Graham said. It is inexplicable why the Obama administration has been reticent to pursue the question of Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attack.”

 article source

Vigilantes haven’t disappeared – they just don’t wear scarves on their faces anymore

                              Good Day Humboldt County!

  Once upon a time, vigilantes wore scarves over their faces in the Old West. They weren’t interested in a prolonged trial for a cattle thief, so they took justice into their own hands.

This twisted road led to the death of more than one innocent man, left swinging from his neck on a tree limb thanks to these vigilantes. They wore scarves to hide their identities in case an investigation later proved the dead man was innocent.

  There are still vigilantes today. They don’t wear scarves. As a matter of fact, they form neighborhood watches. Most of these loose groups do a great job of looking out for their neighbors and are a benefit to their communities. Gated communities often have these groups. Some of these groups have gun-bearing members and are ready to use them.

The story below is about an armed member of a neighborhood watch for “The Retreat at Twin Lakes,” who shot a 17-year old Florida high school student (Trayvon Martin) because “he looked suspicious.” The student had a bag of Skittles (a candy-coated treat) and an iced-tea, which apparently spooked George Zimmerman, who shot him dead with a 9 mm pistol.

Zimmerman wasn’t wearing a scarf, but he’s no different than the vigilantes of the Old West. Judge, jury, and executioner. Interestingly enough, he was arrested in 2005 for resisting arrest with violence and battery on a law enforcement officer. Kinda makes you wonder about this vigilante with a history of violence doesn’t it?

But the police are saying there’s no evidence to challenge the shooter’s story. In their minds, a deadly bag of Skittles warranted a response from a 9 mm pistol. Maybe the kid threw them at Zimmerman? Now, there’s a reason to kill him. Don’t you think? Or, worse yet, was he murdered because he was an African-American?

The family and friends are trying to seek justice, but face an uphill battle. To read the whole story and view videos go to 6 NBC Miami

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

  

       

“The parents of a 17-year-old Florida high school student killed last month in Sanford by a neighborhood watch representative gathered Sunday night at a Miami Gardens church to demand justice in their son's shooting.

Family and friends said a prayer and read a poem for the teen, who was visiting his father and step mom in the central Florida town in February when he was gunned down by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch representative for The Retreat at Twin Lakes.

Zimmerman had called police and reported Martin as a suspicious person in the neighborhood, before following Martin from his car, police said.When officers arrived, Martin, who had gone to a nearby store for a bag of Skittles and an iced tea, was dead.

Police said Zimmerman told them that he shot Martin in self-defense.

"George Michael Zimmerman had a 9 millimeter gun, Trayvon Martin had a bag of Skittles, how can he claim self defense?" the Martin family attorney Benjamin Crump said.

A records search revealed an arrest record for Zimmerman, including an arrest in 2005 for resisting arrest with violence and battery on a law enforcement officer. The Martin family and their attorney, disputed the self defense claim.

"The police lied to this family, and told them he was squeaky clean and that was one of the reasons why they weren't arresting George Michael Zimmerman," Crump said.” (NBC 6 – Miami)

FaceBook Fails: Does any of this stuff ring a bell with you?

There’s more stuff like this here.

By The Oatmeal

Middle school coach can’t handle loss and bites off other coach’s ear!

I remember when I coached my three sons in soccer, basketball, and baseball. There was always an irate parent, or coach, who gave each sport a bad name. Adults often get too carried away living vicariously through their children. This is nothing new.

The irony is these kids get the wrong message early – win at all costs! Do whatever it takes. Just bring home a title. I’ve seen and heard of some extreme cases of mayhem by both parents and coaches but was surprised to see the bar is still going up. 

Memories of Iron Mike Tyson biting off Evander Holyfield’s ear came back to me when I read this article today:

“A middle school basketball rivalry took a violent turn on Friday, after one losing coach bit off part of another coach’s ear, police said. Police said the assistant coach of the losing team, Timothy Lee Forbes, 34, of Springfield, assaulted the coach of the winning team after a championship tournament game and bit off part of his ear.

Police received a report of a disturbance at the Holy Name School in Springfield during a sixth-grade boys' basketball game.

People at the game pulled Forbes off the coach, police said, and Forbes ran out of the gym before police arrived. The victim, a 34-year-old Springfield man, was rushed to the Baystate Medical Center in an ambulance to have his ear reattached. He has been released.

Forbes has been charged with mayhem, assault and battery and other charges. He will be arraigned on Monday afternoon in Springfield District Court.” (Read NBCConnecticut.com's story on biting coach's ear)

Things people say: Ordinary people can be drop dead funny

                 Good Day Humboldt County!

Are you ready to walk down a road that will leave you laughing every step of the way? Do you want an infusion of humor to set the tone for the paths you must pursue today?

For the most part, the humor is unrehearsed and unintentional. Hundreds of quotations are listed below. There are lines spoken by people intending to say something else. There are lines spoken by people who misunderstood something or other. They may or may not have known any better. The intricacies of human language may have fouled them up, or perhaps unfortunate slips of the tongue led them to ignominy. Whatever the case, there's a lot to laugh at:

                                                           Slips and Gaffes

• Accident Reports -- Descriptions of accidents as written on insurance claim forms.
• Excuse Letters -- Letters from parents to teachers, excusing their children from school.
• Courtroom Quotations -- Lawyers take ridiculous steps to be thorough.
• Patient Charts -- Doctors' remarks on patient charts.
• Church Bulletins -- Unfortunately phrased announcements in church bulletins.
• Classified Ads -- Classified ads that don't necessarily say what they were intended to.
•  News Reports -- Newspapers, radio, and television garble news reports.

                                                               Things Kids Say

• Kids' Ideas About Love -- 5 to 10 year olds expound on love and marriage.
• Kids' Ideas About Science -- 5th and 6th graders illustrate scientific principles for the layman.
• Kid Quotes -- Young children make hilarious observations.
• Exams and Papers -- 7th through 12th graders give creative wrong answers to exams.
• Classroom Discussion -- Quotes from college kids, spoken during classroom discussions.

                                                                     Stupidity

• Warning Labels -- In today's litigious society, products need ridiculously obvious instructions.
• Employee Performance Evaluation Quotes -- Evaluating the performance of the less proficient employees.
• Bad Predictions -- Famous last words about science and technology.
• Twins -- Some people have comic ideas about what being a twin is all about.
• Anecdotes of Stupidity -- In the general public, you can't hide from stupidity.

                                                               Famous People

• Yogi Berra -- Verbal blunders from one of baseball's legends.
• Samuel Goldwyn -- Verbal blunders from the famous movie mogul.
• Eugene Ormandy -- Verbal blunders from the famous orchestra conductor.
• Murray Walker -- Verbal blunders from the famous motor racing commentator.
• John Madden -- Verbal blunders from the famous football commentator.
• Dan Quayle -- Verbal blunders from a notorious former Vice President.
• Other Famous People -- Verbal blunders from an assortment of other celebrities and political figures.

                             Source: “Things People Said” is a RinkWorks production.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

As It Stands: Smile, ‘They’ only want to get to know you

“This is our land. A land of peace and of plenty. A land of harmony and hope. This is our land. Oceania. These are our people. The workers, the strivers, the builders. These are our people. The builders of our world, struggling, fighting, bleeding, dying. On the streets of our cities and on the far-flung battlefields. Fighting against the mutilation of our hopes and dreams. Who are they?” --   Nineteen Eighty-Four

                   By Dave Stancliff/For the Times Standard
   “They” just want to get to know you.
   “They” have been around since the day you were born, watching your progress and taking extensive notes about things you like and don’t like.
   “They” have many faces that have changed over the decades, but their mission is still to document your life. “They” aren’t doing that to write your biography and make it a best seller. Actually, “They” jealously guard whatever they find out about you, because you are a cash cow.
   The statistics change over the years as you grow older. “They” have the option of selling your likes and dislikes to the highest bidder, or keeping that information stored in their vast data banks for other uses.
   By now, you may have guessed who “They” are. Marketers, advertisers, retailers, pollsters, mobile phone companies, social media like FaceBook, Path, and Twitter, internet investors, and other services that depend upon the ability to personalize for profit.

  “They” really want to get to know you without being too overt. That’s not always possible however. Recent revelations that Google Inc, Twitter and other popular Internet companies have been taking liberties with customer data, are only the tip of the iceberg.
    Privacy advocates and lawmakers are critical of these companies, but nothing ever gets done about them. The companies involved quickly apologize and say they were only doing it to help their customers and their intentions were pure as the driven snow. Or something like that in lawyer talk.
   When you have business models that depend on increasing their ability to target a marketing pitch to an individual, your privacy takes a back seat. Their intentions are pure all right; to make money.

   Millions of times each day, the right to advertise to a specific user is auctioned off in a fraction of a second by computers talking to one another. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Google was tweaking ads on Apple's Safari Web browser to install tracking cookies. 
   Here’s what happens; a company over-reaches, gets caught, and promises to do better. If their promises are not enough to reassure a greater than usual display of outrage and public demands for new legislation, then the industry will counter with a new plan for self regulation.
   This self regulation usually means something like publishing privacy policies that users seldom read. In other words, “They” have the game down. “They” invented the game. “They” have evolved with modern technology, but their mission remains pure; to learn all they can about you.
    Facebook and Google both agreed to 20 years of privacy audits by the Federal Trade Commission after they were caught using customer information that had been considered private. Don’t expect much action from these audits however, when there are few restrictions on data collection.

   I’m sorry to report that privacy advocates say they do not expect big changes any time soon. "Trying to pass a bill through Congress that's actually going to safeguard user records, especially when you've got huge advertiser lobbies trying to defang that law, is an incredible challenge," said Rainey Reitman, activism director with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a interview with Reuters on February 19th.
   Internet companies have faced little punishment for pushing privacy boundaries. Those boundaries are more extensive than most consumers understand. Practically every key stroke you make, each visit to a website, generate new information about your interests.
   For people who already have privacy concerns with laws like the Patriot Act, this is just another example of how they’re monitored by Big Brother. A Big Brother with many faces.
   As It Stands, from the Feds to FaceBook, they all just want to get to know you.