Wonkette
Not that anyone really *uses* the Post Office anymore, which we suppose is part of the problem, but the Postmaster General popped into the Senate today, exchanged pleasantries, and then told the Senators, “So yeah um, funny thing… we’re broke too. Ha…?” The Senators rolled their eyes, sighed, reluctantly took out the golden checkbook with its goosefeather pen and responded, “Alright, goddamnit, fine, how much Obama Money do you want?” But the Postmaster General didn’t want their money — he wanted to cut his own budget! Congress does NOT like this “attitude.”
The obvious step for the Postal Service is simple enough: stop delivering on Saturdays. It’s the weekend and everyone has e-mail!
In testimony prepared for a Senate hearing this afternoon, [Postmaster General John E.] Potter said he needs “flexibility in the number of days we deliver mail.”
“The ability to suspend delivery on the lightest delivery days, for example, could save dollars in both our delivery and our processing and distribution networks, he said. “I do not make this request lightly, but I am forced to consider every option given the severity of our challenge.”
He said the cut in mail delivery would be at least one day a week. Currently, the postal system delivers mail Mondays through Saturdays.
Sens. Susan Collins and Daniel Akaka would have none of this “no mail on Saturdays” communist crap, and told Potter to, uh, do more research, there.
It makes you wonder about all of those “sacrifices” we’ll have to make in government programs and entitlements if and when we ever emerge from the current financial unpleasantness. When it becomes clear, in a couple of years, that the only way to rescue the dollar and prevent the government from debt default is to completely eliminate Medicare and Social Security (or murder all people over 62, whatever’s easier), will anyone in power be capable of taking a harder stand than simply ranting against a single $1.5 million earmark for days on end?
Postmaster Proposes a Cutback in Mail Delivery [WP/Federal Diary]
Just what postal workers need; an extra day to sit and home and think…and brood…and plot…
Hehe… Akaka.
…and then the Obama girls were like whaaaaaaa? in Chicago we get mail every day of the week, what is this, you Washington people are wusses.
(In all seriousness though, I live in Chicago and I got mail on Christmas day. But I think it was more an issue of our post office sucking too hard to get mail to us on normal days, and playing catchup.)
Fuckers can raise my taxes, and my taxes alone, if they would just stay open until 8PM on weeknights and stop changing the price of the first-class stamp every five seconds.
Crap. The weekend’s the only time I can get to the PO.
BTW, if the Postmaster General doesn’t get what he wants, is he going to bo postal on us?
oedipa my ass
With no Saturday delivery, how am I supposed to receive packages?
My urban mailbox is so small, Netflix only delivers the first 30 minutes of movies. And yes, M. Night Shyamalan is my favorite director.
DeLand DeLakes:
It’ll be like “Night Of The Living Dead” but instead going postal, postal workers! Home Depot will come back to life, because we’re all barracading ourselves in our slum homes with 2×4’s. Thus canabalism, then the dinosaurs return!
next he’ll be asking to discontinue the Pony Express!
but seriously, did the postal service finally figure out that those penny increases in postage every few months don’t generate as much revenue as they lose?
people get upset when their PostSecret postcards are returned because they were sent with $.38 stamps and those are the kind of people who swear off the postal service forever (by committing suicide)!
I really do wish they asked why Posties go Postal.
Sen Collins: Don’t you guys always go crazy and come back with a gun and shoot everybody?
Postmaster General Newman: Sometimes.
Sen Akaka: Why is that?
Postmaster General Newman: Because the mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming. There’s never a letup, It’s relentless. Every day it piles up more and more, but the more you get out, the more it keeps coming. And then the bar code reader breaks. And then it’s Publisher’s Clearinghouse day. And then you go to the gubbiment asking for more money.
The postal service is dying; it’s just a matter of time. Best to cut Saturday delivery than pour money into a service that is only going to become less profitable as time goes by. You can’t email packages, but the bulk of the post offices money comes from greeting cards and bill pay. We use the compooter for that now. Just imagine 30 years from now.
If I miss my astroglide delivery for this shit I’m gona be sooooooooooo pissed.
Don’t like the sound of this cutting government programs bizness. What’s next, Fix-your-own-damn-pothole day, or No-ambulances-will-be-dispatched-to-scene-of-any-emergency day?
DeLand DeLakes: Lewis Black, is that you?
Chicago is way ahead of the curve on this one again. I regularly don’t get mail on saturdays, or select weekdays or when it’s slightly cold or raining, they must be saving a fortune.
BillyClubb:
Ronald Reagan is that you?
Bad day for the olds. First the House of Representin’ takes away their teevee and now no mails.
How can they be losing money with millions of eBay sellers taking the free Priority Mail boxes, turning them inside out and sending stuff by Parcel Post?
Nerdalicious: One problem with that plan: the Home Depot may initially appear to be a great hideout from zombies/postal workers- relatively few windows, lots of stuff to make into weapons and barricade doors- but no food. We would be reduced to eating cedar chips as soon as the vending machines in the break room were emptied, i.e. in twenty minutes.
Plus I’ve been polishing my katana all these years to fight zombies, not some pussy fucking postal workers. Boo.
Without Saturday delivery I won’t get my Time magazine to read about all the stuff I’ve already learned about on Wonkette. Fuck it, go ahead and take the whole weekend off.
If you want to deliver a package, you’re better of with UPS and FedEx (or DHL? Does anyone know anything about DHL?). If you just want to send a message, email is the thing. So what exactly is the point of the Post Office?
Jamie Sommers: Depends. Would I be richer if this were the case?
braintonshire: Either they deliver it, or dump it in Lake Michigan, whichever’s easier. Seriously, this was a big scandal in the nineties.
I say let the damn thing fold. I’ll do fine without the junk mail, thank you very much.
Oh noes, how am I going to get my junk mail and free coupons now?
DeLand DeLakes:
How’s it going in Utah, freedom fighter? Say Hey to Terry Nichols for me! Yes, we’re all survivalists now! Thanks George Bush Jr.! And Sr. And Neil Bush, and Jeb Bush &, well you know who you are! Kisses. Back to my Freedom Fries.
NoWireHangers: That’s fine for you, but how the hell am I supposed to kite checks without the Post Office? They’re an essential component to my budgeting process.
Akaka? Whatever.
I wonder when Hip-Hop will head to Capitol Hill looking for some monies.
Ghostface Killah to Sen. Leahy: Yo Fam, we need some bailout shitz too.
GUARANTEED to get a Drudge siren.
Vewol Mevemont: The goddamn Court’s (many of them at least) still demand that everything be sent by mail as a backup to fax or email, because Justice Roberts hates trees, probably.
Uh, Jim? The gov’t could also skimp on defense spending (and keep welfare) to make ends meet. I feel safer when I can afford healthcare than when I hear a bomber plane fly over head anyway. Also.
This is dumb. The USPS should stop delivery on Tuesday. Monday is the heavy day - coming after the Sunday backlog. The smart thing would be to stop the backlog by taking every other day off - not expecting people to go TWO days without mail delivery, and still use the post office for anything but letters to Santa.
Also, no. I won’t apologize for my way of life, and that includes mail on Saturdays. The terrorist are winning.
We all have to make sacrifices. For example, I’ll make sure to have my letter bombs sent out by 4:00 on Tuesdays to ensure Friday afternoon bloodletting, as opposed to Saturdays.
You know what pisses me off? Trig got a job and I spent last night sorting my neighbor’s recycling so I could pay my beer tab.
I suspect the Netflix lobby. Cutting a delivery day would greatly increase their $$$.
Colander: I hope you are on a plane right now that is leaving, because Jim Newell is an FBI informant.
When can someone invent that Star Trek transporter thingy? How come no one’s though of that, its far better than all those stupid fake green jobs they’re supposed to create. Plus, I’d like to ship all the postal workers to Iceland, naked and have them sort it out amongst themselves.
Why don’t they just charge more for junk mail? No one wants that shit anyway. It’s just giant awful businesses (=banks) that send that shit anyways.
If the Post Office goes bankrupt how will Mark Penn deliver all those direct mail pieces to the Bitterz & the Pumas? Hillz has already stiffed him millions, we can’t have this guy go under or, or, it might be bad to the superdelegates or something
shortsshortsshorts: I don’t know what effed up courts you work with. All I can say is PACER, PACER PACER, and PACER. It’s buggy and unwieldy enough to satisfy courts’ desire to eff with your mind, but electronicy enough to give them cover when they’re accused of being antiquated.
How many kiddie grenades and uzis does that kid have stuffed in his bag? He’s way to happy.
problemwithcaring: I’ll vote for no delivery on Tuesday and Thursdays. And the workers will get paid for only 4 days a week and no whining or they’re out the door and we hire laid off bankers to do it.
And you can go online and sign up for no mail you didn’t request, ie., junk mail.
And Congress has to pay 1st class mail prices for their crap.
And I get a job at a post office or at least one of those cool Pith helmets.
Done.
My aunt in Pennsylvania doesn’t check her email on Sundays, because you know, no mail gets delivered on Sundays.
Fawxer: Hey hey, don’t mess with junk mail. That BULK RATE is a special thing, they don’t just give it away. This is how Penn can recover his Hillz debt
Vewol Mevemont: Federal Court, sure, but State Court’s in California use this brand new technology called “OLD FASHIONED AND SHITTY.” I recommend it.
Those fuckers better be open on Saturdays during the Christmas season because nothing fills your heart with holiday joy than taking several boxes to the post office, waiting in line an hour behind fat dumpy people in sagging sweats filling out their forms for shit they sold on Ebay & there’s only 2 people at the counters (but 6 counters!).
shortsshortsshorts: If the post office goes under, goodbye mail fraud. They’ll never be able to prosecute us our pixelated goodness.
Where’s that Snopes thing about the post office wanting to tax email messages now?
honestly, I won’t be worried about the postal service until the Postmaster General resigns because he has cancer, then his deputy resigns because he has cancer and no one else except a female mail-carrier from Kansas City will take the job.
Is the fucking DMV next in line?
My postal lady is nice even when the neighbors’ dogs want to chew her ass off.
I see her on Saturdays only and I’ll pay (gulp) another 5 cent increase to keep my mail coming on Saturdays.
Shit.
Welcome to my world, Suckaz. Here in Toronto, no mail on Saturdays and no mail on fakey holidays like Victoria Day, Family Day, August Civic Holiday and Good Friday.
Kev-O-Tron: That would be change I could believe in.
I only open envelopes that have checks in them, so you can reduce my deliveries to once a month.
An American in Toronto: But you can buy cannabis seeds, right? Screw the mail.
Get rid of bulk rate, for fuck’s sake.
I would bitch about not getting Netflix on Saturday, but it is not like I can afford Netflix anymore. God this recession is boring.
The only things I ever get in the mail anymore are bills, which I can’t pay anyways. And cards from relatives I don’t know.
Fuck, who’s going to deliver my Bill O’Reilly monogrammed condoms now? I’m gonna hafta wait ’til Mondays? I can’t keep the little man contained all weekend without help!
slavojzizek: I remember dropping paper ballots into the Chicago River.
Zhu Bajie
Bruno: Crooked evangelists do a lot of direct mailing to superstitious old people. Crooked evangelists are the only growth industry in America!
Zhu Bajie
I was already upset that they don’t deliver five times a day, like they did back in Lord Byron’s time.
Still, whoever’s in charge of issuing all those groovy stamps should get the Medal of Freedom.
Hey, I got an idea. Why don’t the postals (did any of the senators ask Potter if he was “disgruntled” with his budget?) form a PAC? Just like Sarah. Then people will give them lots of money to fly around and not shoot them. And maybe they’d get some fancy duds instead of those yecchsville unies that look like Maytag repairman costumes.
NoWireHangers: Word. And another one: the Postal Service is a government corporation, not the government. It has to be financially self sufficient. But unlike, say, a bank or a ponzi scheme, the USPS has to raise money the old fashioned way: by selling a service that people want to use. And use it folks do–to send Christmas cards to Kotzebue, AK, for the same postage as it costs to send it across town. And you know, if I send that card from, say, Greenville NC it will probably get there in about a week. (Chicago–two months, tops). It *has* to deliver to East Igloo Alaska and Magma Creek HI, and to effing GUAM, for eff’s sake, cos it’s the law. Meanwhile, UPS and FedEx have snagged the profitable NY-DC trade, etc. (for the stacks of money that keep heading north and disappearing). So, yeah, under those constraints, what manager wouldn’t go postal? You have to serve everyone, you have to send a mother may I note to Congress to raise your rates, and all the good business has been taken over by punks. Sounds fun to me.
Meanwhile, see if you can get your lazy ass teenager to take an index card across your rumpus room for less than 42 cents. As Sir Mix A Lot would say, “start steppin’, Leroy” because no one’s gonna do it except the USPS.
We return to your regularly scheduled snark.
We await silent Potter’s empire?
On word: automated postal centers. If the PS would keep them in an open area for 24/7, all will be solved.
In Amerika, Technology mails you!
Hugh Heffner is broke too!
http://dailysuffering.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/hugh-heffner-is-out-of-beer-money/
shortsshortsshorts: It can’t be any worse than the NY state courts. Even some of the federal judges in NY require hard copies IN ADDITION TO electronic copies, which kinda defeats the purpose of electronic filing.
NoWireHangers: There was a theory that though letters were being sent through snail mail less and less (because more and more people can read minds), people were ordering more and more things over the internet (because of Truck Nutz websites).
It is a vicious cycle, we need to go to the post office to pick up our monthly supply of Truck Nutz, but we need the Truck Nutz in the first place to look American enough to drive to the post office.
Calgon take me away!
One year decades ago, the Postal Service actually made a profit. So they used the money to buy more signs that say “This Window Closed”.
The Postal Service has to make big sacrifices to keep its monopoly and yet it receives no tax money. It has to be deliver to every address in the US. I’ve read that they lose lots of money delivering to far away places and sprawl just continues to worsen. It’s hard to run a business that will deliver a letter from Key West, Florida to Ketchikan, Alaska for less than fifty cents.
Bruno: Once again, Star Trek turns out to be the answer to ALL our problems.
Ya get used to it. There’s no Sat delivery in Australia but they open up the post office from 9am-1pm on Sat so you can go get your packages. It really ends up making no difference to your life, well unless your well-being relies on getting another bill, bank statement or credit card offer on your weekend and let’s be honest, anyone reading this probably spends their Saturdays hung over on the couch watching episodes of Frisky Dingo on DVD and not checking the mailbox anyway.
Bruno: I would settle for the little device McCoy would carry around that he would use to inject crazy shit into people’s body’s directly through their clothing. I also wonder why it didn’t occur to me until now that at some point McCoy probably held Kirk’s balls in his hand.
kingofnothing: I have a solution for you. ANTHRAX. Judges love it.
And yes California is equally as bad. They call them “courtesy copies,” and they destroy things, everywhere, forever.
DangerousLiberal: Coincidentally, East Igloo Alaska and Magma Creek HI are the first stops on my next holiday getaway!
postal employees must be horrified at the thought of not working weekends. thank god our even HARDER working Senators are saying “hurumph, hurumph”. Collins, did you give us a Hurumph? hmmmm.
The fuck? How am I gonna get my Obama munnies check so’s I can pay my baby mommas for my crack babies? Someone, plz allah, and think of mah chilrens!/snark
Honestly USPS has been 1000 times more reliable than those assbags @ UPS, FEDex, DHL etc…
Also, buttsecks 4 evarr. Kthxbye
The post office is little more than an employement program today, which was fine when the people suporting it were employed. Humane suggestion, close it down, redeploy the postal workers as home health aids for the elderly. Most of the mail I get is either ponzi schemes, newsletters to help me choose between ponzi schemes, or offers to help me recover assets lost in ponzi schemes. At least UPS only delivers stuff that I requested someone send me. As far as bills go, why can’t they pack all that suff into one or two letters.
Post office bye by.
The Post Office is edging over carefully to the day when they can successfully charge us NOT to stuff all that stoopid crap in our boxes. I would sign on right now, myself.
Try mailing a letter in, say, France. They make our PO employees seem like Mother Teresa.
FlaminYawn: AMEN. To rephrase what James Thurber said about pigeons, nothing in the world falls so short of being able to do what it cannot do as La Poste does, or of not being able to do what it can do, as far as that goes.
This must be an important story! Newell is actually resorting to alt-text.