As regular readers know, I’ve had my share of issues with the USPS. That said, I have always praised them to the high heavens for what they DO get done, so (relatively) efficiently.

Apparently, that may be about to change for the worst. A friend turned me on to this post, which reads in part:

Basically, some people in the USPS are pushing fast and hard to change the USPS radically, closing many, many locations and potentially subcontracting for retail and delivery services. This is so not okay. Without a federally protected mail service, we have no strong federal guarantees that our mail will get where it is going, let alone in a timely fashion, or that it will arrive safe and unopened.

At the bottom of the post she gives links so you can verify that she’s not exaggerating.

I also believe this is a credible threat. We may be an email-based world, but my grandmothers (in New Jersey and Maine) are not. With out affordable mail service I’d never hear from them (and vice versa).

I too urge you to contact your congressperson and let them know that this is not acceptable and to support Support HR658. (Link is to a gov website and then one for the American Postal Workers Union.)

This popped into my inbox the other day:

With help from a proposed class action settlement, Google is planning to dramatically expand its Book Search service so that millions of books will be available for browsing, reading, and purchasing online. But in designing this new service, Google is leaving reader privacy behind. Without strong privacy protections, all of your browsing and reading history may be collected, tracked, and turned over to the government or third parties without your knowledge or consent.

Email Google CEO Eric Schmidt and demand that Google Book Search protect your freedom to read privately. You should be able to read about anything — from politics to health — without worrying that someone is looking over your shoulder. Demand that Google pledge it will not stockpile information about who you are and what you read and will not become a one-stop shop for government fishing expeditions into the reading habits of Americans.

While you’re at it — send a bit of money to the EFF. Like the ACLU, they are a non-profit legal group dedicated to keeping electronic free speech, anonymity, innovation, privacy, transparency,  and intellectual property rights from being infringed upon. A more detailed explanation of what they are doing is here: http://www.eff.org/work.

(Full disclosure: my sister is a Senior Staff Attorney at EFF.)

Earlier this month, I wrote a quick post about the letters I sent to my state senators asking them to NOT support the special tax on AIG executives. At the time, Congress passed the special bill by an overwhelming majority.

However, our President is smarter and wiser than all of them. An article on March 23 from the Associated Press reads:

President Barack Obama says he cannot “govern out of anger” just because of public outrage over bonuses paid at financial institutions kept afloat by taxpayer dollars.

Frankly, I am very pleased with the news that he’s keeping his eye on the big picture, which includes corporate and human resources law. I am especially please since in doing so he is going against the stated wishes of Congress at a time when he is trying to garner support for his budget proposal.

I think this article says all that needs to be said about the so-called abstinence-only sex education :

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2008879687_apbabyboomlet.html

Basically, after a decade of teaching kids to ‘just say no’ without any further information we not only have a population boom larger than the one we experienced when the boys came home from WWII, but 40% of those children were born to unwed mothers. Which means that the boys are getting off and then taking off.

I see two things here: sex education is a necessity and there needs to be more responsibility taken by both parents if they decide to have the baby.