Prescription to heal the US Postal Service

As far as I can tell, Congress infected the USPS with a fatal disease when they agreed to allow delivery competition.  It's clear that FEDEX and UPS have siphoned off most of the high value service from the USPS.  There is no doubt that if the US had one, single, mail and package delivery system, it would be able to operate more efficiently at lower cost to all.  However that would require the USPS to have continually pushed to modernize it's system, streamline its distribution, and keep it's labor cost down.  It probably would have been possible for enlightened USPS  management to work with Government and labor to make those necessary investments.  However it appears that the only way to achieve those improvements was to allow competition.  UPS and FEDEX have shown how package delivery can be done and their examples have shown USPS that they can improve service also.  Those UPS and FEDEX examples have prodded USPS to make significant modernization.  However the USPS is still having trouble keeping it's head above water from a financial standpoint.  With the continued increase in internet as a replacement for normal mail functions, It appears to me that USPS is in a death spiral that needs to be stopped.

First of all, the US Government (Congress) needs to decide if USPS is a private corporation that needs to be able to operate freely and compete.  Or are they a Government service like National Parks, that is operated by the Government, but is allowed to collect use fees?  It looks like right now, USPS is a hybrid of the two concepts that is unable to compete, and is also restricted from full support of taxpayers.  If they were able to fully compete, they wouldn't have to get Government approval to close a post office, raise postage rates, or stop Saturday delivery.

What can be done?

1. Adjust rates to reflect the costs of the service provided. It's clear that delivery to a PO Box is a lot cheaper than delivering to a home.  But customers get "free" delivery to homes, but have to pay for a PO Box.  This is a "perverse" incentive that wastes everyone's money.  Yes, PO boxes shouldn't be "free" -- but home delivery  should be more expensive.  Solution:  Require customers to "subscribe" to mail delivery service with a weekly, monthly or annual fee -- similar to internet.   This will insure that only people who want to receive mail get it.  Everyone else will not get service.
2. For 30 years, all new housing developments have been required to install "cluster" boxes, which are much more efficient for carrier delivery.  However the homes built prior to the cluster box rule are all "grandfathered" and receive their mail door-to-door.  This is very unfair to people with cluster boxes, because they are, in effect, subsidizing those who get it door-to-door.  The USPS needs to establish standards and require all mail recipients to receive it at cluster boxes.  If required to deliver to a door, there should be an additional service charge -- like express mail, FEDEX or UPS would charge.
3. Charge for "special services" --Vacation held mail, mail forwarding and other similar services are all done for "free."  These are services that only some people benefit from and are subsidized by everyone else.  The USPS should charge to "hold" mail -- either by a daily fee, or a fee for the amount of mail held (per item, or per pound).  All forwarded mail should also be paid for by the recipient.  If I know the USPS will forward my mail for free, why should I exercise any discipline in notifying all of my correspondents of my new address?   That ends up creating much more work for the USPS delivery
4. Reduce mail delivery frequency.  I see nothing in the mail I receive on a daily basis that couldn't be delivered "tomorrow."  -- Anything that needs to be delivered urgently goes overnight mail, FEDEX, Express Mail, or UPS.  I believe mail could be reduced to only two or 3 days per week with no impact on commerce.  Yes, it might push a little more onto the internet or FEDEX -- but the trend is that anyway -- this would just accelerate that trend a little.  
5. USPS delivery needs to link in with the internet.  We should be able to pay for our deliver service on line.  We should be able to set up mail forwarding, vacation holds, and other similar services from online website. When large packages arrive at the PO, I should be notified to pick them up.  When I return from a trip, I should be able to request delivery of the held mail. 
6. The USPS customer data base is actually a national asset that the USPS owns and gets very little return on that investment.  I think they can easily make money from that database.  For example: We should also be able to select what junk mail  (in internet called "spam") we want to receive from the USPS.  Do we want Pennysaver every week? Do we want grocery store ads?  I know the bulk mail helps subsidize a lot of the service.  However it is a terrible waste to print all of that junk mail and deliver it only to go into the trash.  If the USPS knows that some residents want that delivered, those deliveries should be much more valuable to the senders.  Also, the USPS database of resident preferences will become very valuable, similar to Google &Yahoo's database on individual demographics.  That allows senders to tailor their advertising much better.  For example, if USPS knows that I want mail and advertising related to sailboats, they can sell that information to companies who want to market sailboat stuff to me.  This would be an extremely valuable database, and should be able to make money for USPS.
7. USPS should provide an address service to all publishers and subscribers that would handle addresses for them.  If publishers and subscribers use the service they would receive a discount on the mail service -- or, conversely if they don't use the service, they will pay a surcharge.  That service would keep a database of all publications that are delivered to an address.  Publishers would be delivered an updated address list on the date they need it to print mail labels on the publications (just in time delivery).  Subscribers could then go to one location (USPS) and execute an address change for mail publication forwarding.   USPS  could also operate a subscription service for publications and allow customers to subscribe.
8. A lot of mail I receive is unsolicited mail requesting donations for various charities or political  causes.  USPS could provide much better targeted mail lists to solicitors if they had more demographic data about each resident.  Yes, it starts appearing like "big brother" --but the USPS internet competition is already doing it.  The problem with USPS doing it is that it could appear that the Government is doing it.  That gets us back to the recommendation at the top of this post--is USPS a Government service?  Or a private business?  

I think that if the USPS would implement some or most of these recommendations, the Nation's mail service will remain strong and solvent.  A lot of "waste" will be removed from the process.  

How the Freaky Octopus Can Help us Understand the Human Brain - Wired Science

I enjoyed this article in Wired about the Octopus.  They are very clever animals!
How the Freaky Octopus Can Help us Understand the Human Brain - Wired Science:
It appears to me that if we can learn more about this, we may be able to improve design of computers and robots.

Database Mining and Dystopian Future -- We can control it!

Steven Greenhut wrote this column in Sunday's Union Tribune: http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/oct/18/data-mining-dystopian-future-government/ about how we are moving towards a future where all privacy will be eliminated.  The Government will be monitoring all of us all of the time using powerful software mining government and private corporation's databases.

With the revelations by Eric Snowden, Americans are now realizing that the Government has been exploiting databases of corporations that we all thought were kept private.  It is possible that there were some serious breaches of basic rules of privacy by those agencies.  However it is also possible that employees of those companies or agencies who own the databases may have also violated reasonable rules of privacy.  To prevent the possibility of a terrible "dystopian" future.I believe the US needs to establish some sort of controls over these databases.  If the US takes the lead at doing this, I believe that other countries will also follow our example and establish similar systems.  
A control system for managing all "personal" databases that might need to be another "branch" of the Government, like the Federal Reserve, or it could be part of National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).  For the purposes of this Blog, I'll assume it is NARA.  Federal legislation will be required to establish the NARA authority over all databases.  .

All databases that are over a certain size (say 10,000 humans, cars, boats, planes, photos, phone calls etc) or that contain people or images that cross state lines will be controlled. I believe this would be determined as constitutional and there are legal precedents established in other interstate commerce cases.

Databases can include:  Google and other search engine's collection of an individual's searches, email of individuals and organizations, photo collections, surveillance photos, and videos,  airline customer databases, telephone call metadata, property tax roles, vehicle registrations for cars, boats, aircraft, contractor licenses, school records of students, arrest records, medical records, insurance claims, face recognition files etc. ,

Data bases will be registered with the agency to include description of data, purpose, owner, and how long it is kept., Registration acceptance by NARA will serve as a "license" to maintain the database

Owner of database will identify security and privacy controls on the database and will be subject to minimum standards established by the agency.  Those controls will most likely differ depending upon the sensitivity of the database. Owner will define the number of copies of the database, and how it is protected for disaster, as well as how it is protected from attack or theft.

Owner of the database will maintain a price list for access and establish a process for approving access or for provide data when requested.  The price list and process to be used will require some sort of review or approval by NARA.

Legitimate users of these databases will also be required to register with NARA and renew their registration on a periodic basis -- such as annually.  Businesses and agencies who wish to use those databases will register, but also the individuals within those organizations will be required to be trained, licensed and required to take continuing education to be eligible for renewal of their license.  Users of some databases may be required to take an "oath of office"

Citizens using FOIA process should be able to obtain information about the databases, and about the licensed users of the database.  However average citizens will not have access to those private databases unless there is a crime, a judge's order, etc.

Some data may be "bought and sold" freely and accessed by anyone able to pay for the data.  Other, more sensitive data may require a subpoena and a judge to approve the request.  The NARA function will be to codify the requirements for each type of data and the processes to be used.

NARA may require some data to be kept longer than the owner of the database plans to keep it.  NARA may also require some types of data to be deleted sooner than an owner may want to -- depending upon the sensitivity of the data and the possible future need of people to access the data.  NARA may also desire to capture certain databases for "historical record" purposes.  In that situation, NARA would be required to pay or contract to obtain or save those data.

We Must Never Forget the Lessons of Orwell’s ‘1984’

I've thought about George Orwell and 1984 frequently.  His  book described a continuous war with two regions of the world, which allowed the Government to take over many of the citizen's rights.  That is very similar to the current situation where the Government has created two continuous wars: The war on Drugs, and The War on Terrorism.as excuses for usurping our civil rights.  Of course, it is pretty obvious that the Drug and Terrorism problem is one created, and sustained by the Government in order to maintain power.
Now, in addition to the war on two fronts, we also have the technology of the video screen and continuous tracking that Orwell described.  Government is now able to track everything we do.  Every book we read, movie we watch, phone call we make,  mail we send and receive (email) can be monitored continuously.  Our car license plates can be almost continuously tracked.
Now Richard Lederer who writes weekly column in Union Tribune has pointed out that the changes in our language are also moving towards a 1984 sort of scenario.
We Must Never Forget the Lessons of Orwell’s ‘1984’ | Richard Lederer's Verbivore:
Most science-fiction writers seemed to have missed the concept of pervasive video, location tracking, and, of course the use of the internet.  However, it is amazing how good Orwell's predictions were --except he was 30 year off on his date.  Instead of 1984, hos book should have been 2014.

Yom Kippur, the unnecessary war?

Even back in 1973, I didn't understand why Israel went to war with Egypt.  Now Yigal Kipnis in this article (and his book: 1973: The Road to War) explain that the Yom Kippur war was, in fact, unnecessary, and that peace could have been maintained. Apparently Henry Kissinger was making progress with Anwar Sadat and had a reasonable peace proposal for Golda Meir, who rejected it due to political concerns.
Yom Kippur, the unnecessary war? - latimes.com:
If, in fact, a treaty at that time could have been negotiated, how would history have unfolded in the many decades since?  Would the Palestine problem have been resolved?  Syria been more democratic?  Lebanon would have never self destructed?  Golda Meir's single political decision destroyed immense amounts of infrastructure in Egypt and Israel and resulted in the death of thousands of people.
My question is: why was this fact kept secret for so long?  The answer may be that if the American citizens knew that Israel had an opportunity for peace, but chose, instead to attack Egypt, that it would weaken the US support for the immense amount of foreign aid the US provided (and still provides) to Israel.  Instead, Israel's 6-day war was touted as being a masterful stroke of genius and military skill, when in fact, it was simply won by overwhelming force with the most modern technology.   My guess is that Israel and Israel's supporters will continue to try to downplay this revelation, and most news outlets will either not mention it, or keep it on the back page.
Israel continues to masquerade as a "victim" in the Middle East, while they continue to maintain the most modern of weapons, including nuclear weapons.  Israel argues against any of their neighbors having "weapons of mass destruction" when they probably have more than all of their neighbors combined!
I believe the same sort of thing happened when George W Bush attacked Afghanistan, and Iraq.  Afghanistan was reported to be willing to negotiate a turnover of Al Qaeda operatives to the US, if we would provide some "financial assistance." -- but Bush wanted to start a war to make it look like he was doing something in response to 9/11.  His attack on Iraq also was clearly an impatient response to rumors that Saddam had WMD.   So far, I think the way Obama has handled the Syrian situation makes perfect sense -- if we can extract the chemical weapons without starting a war, we are way ahead.  Yeah, the right-wingers accused him of being "wishy-washy" and indecisive by not attacking Syria, as he threatened to do.  He had to take that heat.  I wish Golda Meir and George W Bush had used better judgment--similar to Obama's. They may have faced criticism from political foes at the time, but waiting to attack was the right thing to do.