"Your U.S.
Specialist"
CRAIG SELIG
P. O. Box 11725
Fort Wayne, IN 46860 USA
Tel. 1-260-749-4995
1-800-735-0073
craigselig at pnc3.com
P. O. Box 11725
Fort Wayne, IN 46860 USA
Tel. 1-260-749-4995
1-800-735-0073
craigselig at pnc3.com
|
|
CRAIG SELIG P. O. Box 11725 Fort Wayne, IN 46860 USA Tel. 1-260-749-4995 1-800-735-0073 craigselig at pnc3.com |
|
Straight Talk, Straight Up |
|
January 6, 2012
Cspan's presentation, "U. S. Postal Service Public Meeting on Plans to Close Postal Facilities." I cannot recommend this presentation about the USPS on Cspan 3 enough. I will not criticize the USPS, but rather, let the citizens of Vermont do so. |
|
January 6, 2012
Green Job Unemployment You know, oftentimes I sit here in the office filling your order and have Cspan 3 on to hear about what's going on in the world. Today they were having hearings about the abyssmal and abominable failure of the "green jobs" initiatives. I didn't exactly catch how many thousands and thousands and thousands of your tax dollars have been thrown at training folks for "green jobs." Even more upsetting was the employment rate of trainees once the government had trained them to do this green job or that. It was bad enough to make a person physically ill. My favorite green job is that of the plumber who has been trained on how to install those low-flow toilets that are going to fundamentally transform America. I will leave the tasteless jokes to others to dream up. Presumably some of the other training was teaching folks how to drive electric vehicles rather than conventional vehicles. Here's a link to the hearing on Cspan 3. Just listening to the first 5 minutes will give you a taste of when "fundamental transformation" is all about. |
|
November 6, 2011
Could you imagine... that one day, in addition to changing our clocks twice a year, we had to change our address, or our calendar. Waking up today, I had a strange dream that my address had changed, had moved a block, that a package destined for me was now being sent to someone else since I had failed to change my address by one block on an item I ordered. And then I thought, what day is this anyway, it feels somehow like Monday, and then I realized, no, this is still Sunday. What if we lost a day in the fall, that there was no Sunday, and then gained it back in the spring, that there would be 2 Saturdays, one right after another. What sort of awesome confusion that would generate. You'd have a calendar that missed a day every fall, November 6th would have gone the way of February 29th, irradiated out of 2011, and in its stead there was March 13th once and March 13th again. And then I thought about all those people in the southern hemisphere and about how it would be if those people also had to "spring forward and fall back" and about how their seasons are reversed vis-a-vis our seasons, and that they should be springing forward and falling back, and that as of today their clocks should be 2 hours different than ours, and how that might lead to some confusion around the equator. Then I thought, nah, that just won't work, that if they did anything, they "spring back and fall forward" down there, and that if this were the case, isn't any claimed energy savings in the northern hemisphere thereby negated by folks down in the southern hemisphere, and that this entire changing-your-clocks circus that we all engage in twice a year is in actuality a zero-sum-game? And then I thought about how our governor Mitch Daniels made us change our clocks twice a year. It used to be the case that I could tell out-of-staters that here in Indiana, we were so conservative we didn't even change our clocks twice a year like the rest of the country did. Alas, Mitch put an end to that, perhaps as part of his "move to the center" in anticipation of running for vice-president alongside Newt Gingrich, in all likelihood. Yep, you heard it here first. And the point to all this...just be happy our politicians aren't forcing us to do still more things, like maybe what time to get up and what time to go to bed and what to eat and what not eat and to brush our teeth and not consume alcohol to excess and how slow to drive and so forth and so on, etc., etc., etc..... |
|
September 14, 2011
attackwatch.com... This just out, Obama's gone flippin' paranoid. There's this nazi-like website that Obama's come out with called attackwatch.com where you're supposed to turn in granny if you see her say something bad about our dear president. I am not kidding. This is for R-E-A-L. Word is though that conservative Americans are mocking this latest creation from "Obama for Amerika," as well they should, as Al-Obama's attackwatch.com watches itself come under heavy attack. |
|
September 6, 2011
Standby Time for the USPS... The testimony of Mr. Donahoe, our current PMG, wasn't the easiest thing to find on C-Span. Here's a link to the 2-hour hearing. I don't want to go into too much detail about what I think's wrong with the USPS. But here's the big picture. Congress has set the ground rules for how the USPS operates. They are responsible for this shape the USPS is in. Congress is full of lawyers who are perfessional uninformed liars and idiots. To expect that they can run anything is stupid, as has been demonstrated time and again in the past. Republicans are as stupid as democrats. That's the one problem. The other problem is the unions. They, like so many other public service unions, have pushed for more pay, more benefits, more this, more that, and still more of everything else, and gotten it, over the last 30-40 years, so much so that the postal workers are so well paid that folks stand in line just to get on the postal gravy train. Lately though, the trains been full to overflowing, and the engineer (the postmaster-general) has paid those folks along for the ride immense sums of money just to get some of'em to jump the hell off the gravy train, that is, to take early retirement. It's pathetic and it's ridiculous. I will allow myself one example of inefficiency, politely stated. You've got postal personnel confined to a little room at this post office and that, doing absolutely nothing, something the post office calls "standby time," while around the corner and down the hall you've got folks lined up out the door to mail all their this-and-that packages. Union Rules. It's absolutely absurd. And this phenomena I surely believe belies many, many other absurdities deep within the bowels of the USPS. What's likely to happen is that the USPS' unions will take it on the chin for the next 2 years, until the Republicans sweep into power in 2012/13, at which point the USPS' unions will then take it in the groin. My concern is that all those "Forever" stamps, in fact, all stamps, are nothing more than IOU's written to all of us by what seems to be an insolvent entity. Did I hear someone say "Lehman Brothers?" And an afterthought.... It was a little over a month ago now, the temperature outside was maybe 95, just another day in the hottest July on record in Fort Wayne. I'm in my un-air-conditioned car, heading to the recycling center. I witness my mailman walking back to his un-air-conditioned postal delivery vehicle, after dropping off a package at the front door of my neighbor's house. A perfectly normal scene. Ten blocks later I see a fedex truck, also un-air-conditioned, and witness the fedex woman running up to the house with a weighty package, or back to the truck, maybe both, I don't exactly remember, but I do remember she was sweating heavily, hustling in the heat, a real trooper. These contrasting pictures spoke a thousand words to me about why the USPS is failing. Not that they don't do a good job, bur rather, because others do a better job. |
|
August 30, 2011
Made in Red China... I don't like advertising other sites, but I stumbled across a most interesting site today while doing some research about cedar lumber for a backyard project. That site is Alibaba. I don't know how much of this is for real versus how much of this is scam, but it was the first site I stumbled across purporting to offer massive quantities of this and that from our "friends" in Red China. If you want 20 metric tons of this and that, this looks like it's the site to go to. It looks like they've got pretty much anything a person could want, as long as one doesn't care about branding. I suppose though, that, given the fact it's Red China, they could label whatever you buy with whatever brand you'd like. Yes, welcome to the 21st century, now that you're unemployed or underemployed, you can spend all your time shopping Red China direct, where folks are employed. So what would you like to order? Let me suggest "stamp paper." I found this exceptional vendor offering their wares. They boast "We won one of The Best Stamp Printers in China, and exporting the stamps to many kinds of district, such as, europe, Austrilia, North America, Asia, Africa, etc." These guys sure sound like winners. Yepper, next time you need some stamp counterfeiting done, it looks like they're the "go to guys." They even speak English; they write "The Stamp can be valued or not." They apparently even know how to counterfeit cancels, besides counterfeiting stamps. You couldn't ask for more! By the way, it looks like you can get your personalized postage stamps there as well. Nothing like one-stop-shopping in Red China. |
|
July 29, 2011
Really.... This debt ceiling circus never ceases to amaze. Here we sit on Friday afternoon, Barack Hussein Obama talking not about the debt ceiling but rather about saving money in 2025 on fuel for government vehicles. He has shown absolutely no leadership in solving the government's financial crisis, scheduled to commence on Tuesday, August 2nd. He has no plan, no proposal, no nothing, save blame for others. Most people think he's black. I would beg to differ. He's yellow, as in a yellow-bellied coward, afraid of leading this country in this time of a self-declared debt ceiling crisis. Say what you will about the Democrats "this," the Republicans "that." The facts are, Obama is not leading. This country needs someone to stand up and take a position and lead us through the process of compromise. Obama, now given the opportunity to stand above all the controversy and lead, chooses instead to talk about fuel savings in 2025. |
|
July 21, 2011
Breaking News !! It has not been widely reported yet, but Barack Obama, in the middle of debt limit negotiations, and perhaps as a result of frustration with those negotiations, has played his best round of golf ever. His score, you ask... "Present." |
|
May 8, 2011
Really... Well it's been one week since Obama Bin Laden was killed, either by the Navy Seals or his own security folks, in order not to be taken alive and spill the beans, and where are we at? 1. The media has reported that Obama's decision was "gutsy." For Obama, any decision is gutsy. According to Mark Levin, Obama waited 16 hours twiddling his thumbs before deciding to launch the mission. Going in with the Seals instead of bombing the the house might have been because Obama said, "Bring him back alive." It could well be his own security folks did him in, rather than let him be captured and spill the beans. It is likely they went in with the Navy Seals in order to recover all the intelligence they could, since that would have been blown to smithereens in any air attack. That's not "gutsy." That's just smart. 2. When a child is caught doing this or that, and one day he gives one story, the next day another story, and the day after that another story again, what do we call that child? A Liar !!! Our government and the folks in it have given us different stories about the whole mission day by day. Draw your own conclusions. 3. It is stated that he was buried at sea within 24 hours of his death. I know nothing about the buried at sea rules, but it strains credibility when our less-than-credible government claims burying an individual at sea who died on land is appropriate and proper, especially so when OBL's current wife, who was dead before she was resurrected by our government's changing stories, would have been the individual who ought to have decided as to the final disposition of OBL's remains. Based on what our government said it did, if your grandma dies, our government could ignore grandpa's wishes and take Grandma's body out past Catalina Island or out off Chesapeake Bay and feed it to some endangered species. Bon Appetit. 4. It stands to reason that the military in Pakistan knew exactly who was building a fortress next to what is their West Point. It is simply implausible that a building permit for a fortress next to their West Point would have been granted 5 years ago without their knowledge as to who was going to reside in that fortress. Having said that, it stands to reason that somewhere amidst all that intelligence our government recovered that there will be proof that the Pakistani military was fully aware of what was up. Looking at the matter differently, OBL could have built his mansion anywhere. $1,000,000.00 goes a long way in the third world. It would stand to reason that the military itself assisted in getting the zoning variances for his fortress. for example, high walls topped with a healthy dose of barbed wire. 5. OBL lived under de facto house arrest for 5 years. It is fascinating that the most feared man on the face of planet earth was himself afraid to go out and walk the streets. Our government brainwashed us (and maybe OBL himself in a disinformation campaign) into believing that this man walked the streets of some poor village up in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan (aka Talibanistan) with an entourage of what, 10-15 human killing machines with AK-47's and the like. It is fascinating just how far the myth of Osama was from the reality of Osama, evidenced if nothing else by Osama's use of "Grecian Formula 16" to "get the gray out." 6. I was heartened to see a film clip of some Moslem's burning the American Flag still on TV. Obviously Obama's "We love you," "We won't profile you," "We're better than that," propaganda has not trickled down into the backwaters of Talibanistan yet, and probably never will. The Crusades continue.... My reaction to the American government-media-complex remains, "Really...." |
|
April 17, 2011
I think it is very telling that the left-wing, soft-spoken Marianna Huffington (or is it Arianna Puffington?) is being sued by her bloggers, wanting a piece of the $315,000,000.00 action she got for selling herself out to corporate America AOL. It seems obvious to me that this is par for the socialist left, believing that they're entitled to others' wealth, in this case, part or maybe mostly all of Arianna's $315,000,000.00. |
|
April 13, 2011, When 2 + 2 do not equal 4
Chairman Obama gave his speech today about how he's planning to trim $4,000,000,000,000.00 (is that the right number of zeroes?) from the federal budget deficit. Believeable? You decide. He fought tooth and nail with the Republican patriots last week, up until Friday at 11.00 pm, literally the eleventh hour, when they reached a much-heralded compromise to cut $38 billion in spending in the second half of fiscal year 2011. There is absolutely no way on God's green earth that a socialist like Obama who dug in his heels to save a few billion of profligate, irresponsible, wasteful federal spending of the Chinese' money can have in less than one week a "born again" fiscal awakening. There is no way that this man fights for a few billion here, a few billion there last week, and this week, trims $4,000 billion (four thousand billion) of the anticipated federal deficit in exchange for nothing from the Republicans. No way, absolutely no way. It is just beyond comprehension, in the same that $4,000,000,000,000.00 is beyond comprehension. |
|
April 10, 2011, Letter to Linn's Editor, re Feb. 28, 2011 Linn's, page 13, "Postmaster General Donahoe's Plans to Increase USPS Revenue" I read that the USPS is becoming increasingly dependent on junk mail to stay in business. I have a suggestion. My trash pickup is on Thursday. If the USPS would deliver all my junk mail on Wednesday, they could go to one-day-a-week delivery for all I care. In on Wednesday, out on Thursday, that's my motto. Nationwide they could co-ordinate with trash pickup services from Maine to Hawaii and from Florida to Alaska. Trash pickup runs 5 days a week, and letter carriers could co-ordinate with their cohorts at junk pickup, doing their rounds one day after junk mail delivery. Talk about going green, that should've been one of the new "go green" stamps that the USPS is propagandizing us with.... |
|
April 10, 2011 And on a similar note..... For my money, if they ever resume putting a deposit on pop bottles, etc., etc. in order to facilitate their return to the grocery store whence they came, that's when I'll believe our would-be politicians do in fact believe in ecology. Until then, I can only conclude their lip service re being green and is lip service and nothing more. |
|
April 10, 2011 Well, well, well, Mr. Clean Energy, Barack Obama, has reaffirmed his belief in that so-called clean power, nuclear energy, in the face of substantial radioactive contanimation surrounding what remains of TEPCO's Fuku-whatever-shima nuclear reactors in Japan. I'm suffering from a split personality, I don't know what's more abhorrent, the mess TEPCO has made in Japan, or the idiocy of Barack Obama in continuing to declare that nuclear power is supposedly the the non-plus-ultra when it comes to power generation. It will be the case in Japan that countless square miles surrounding those plants will be uninhabitable by humans for centuries on end. Areas less contaminated will be inhabited by those who lack the wealth to live in areas further away which are less contaminated. Plant, animal, and insect life will live on in the areas off-limits to humans, producing God-only-knows what types of mutated life forms. And who is to say to what extent those mutated life forms will migrate out of those off-limits areas and perilously disrupt what were once thriving, viable eco-systems. You know, you have folks who stay awake at night worrying about bio-engineering of new life forms in a controlled environment, while in Japan, we have set the stage for uncontrolled bio-engineering on a massive scale. Could this skid out of control in the same way the nuclear power itself skidded out of control? And as for the Obama, let me suggest that we take all the nuclear waste that Harry Reid didn't want to store in his home state of Nevada in Yucca Mountain and scatter that radioactive poison up and down the National Mall in Washington DC and see if that doesn't change some politicians' minds...before we change out those very same politicians. |
|
April 4, 2011 I read Hotchner's article in the March 14, 2011 Linn's regarding the USPS' explanation for placing the year-date at the UL corner of the 2011 stamps....with disbelief. He stated that Roy Betts of the USPS said: "The placement of the year date is due to technical necessity. As you may know, the Postal Service has to account for 'postage in the hands of the public.' With an all denominated program, it is easy to attribute a value to a stamp. As such, Stamp Services was able to incorporate the year date inside the image area of commemorative stamp designs, and in a logical place on definitive stamps. However, moving to an all forever commemorative program, finance must be able to easily determine when the stamp was issued to determine at what price it was sold. We were asked to make the year date easily identifiable. For 2010, we place the year date in the Forever Evergreens in the upper right hand corner. For 2011, the year date will be placed in the upper left hand corner. In 2012, the year date will be placed in another corner. This gives us eight positions to work with over an eight year period, and instead of making the year date font size larger, the placement of the year date has assisted in solving the problem. Our intent is not to detract or distract from the art. As always, we are committed to maintaining the integrity and high quality of the art portrayed on U.S. stamps." Well, let me tell you, in my opinion, this is pure Washington double-talk. For one thing, it does not matter when a forever stamp was sold in determining the value of postage in the hands of the public, essentially a guesstimate-calculation in the end anyway. So all these words are simply obfuscation. What is this man covering up, one asks onesself.... It was clear to me in 1995 when the USPS intentionally increased the font size of the year date of the 32c Flag over porch convertible booklet of 20, as well as a few other issues subsequent to that, that they were setting the stage for the demonitization of US-stamps at a future point. They surely anticipate that the politicians will privatize the USPS in the future, as has occurred with some foreign postal administrations, in order to reap billions of dollars from the sale of the USPS. In such an event it would be incumbent on the government to wipe out all past liabilities, specifically to demonitize unused stamps held in private hands, likely in stages, based on the year date of the stamp. Now you may say, the USPS would never go back on its word to make the forever stamps good forever. Nonsense. Never have promises made by our government stopped our politicians from doing whatever suited their political purposes at the time. The Indians were the first to learn this as they signed worthless treaty after worthless treaty. Citizens who voted for FDR learned this when FDR confiscated their private property, namely gold bullion. Nixon cheated foreign central banks when he took this country off the gold standard. To imagine that the USPS would have anything against cheating the populace is simply naive. That's they way things look from here. |
|
March 20, 2011 Filling an order, I stumble across this interesting bit of history. The Director of Civil Defense in about 1949 or 1950 is saying: "I personally believe that they're out to conquer the world and destroy free governments everywhere...." talking about the Russians. He's convinced they're gonna strike, and strike everywhere, and they're not going to wait: "An attack this year would be a likely time for one to come." (from the Russians.) Click here to view this terrifying piece of television history. It reminds me of Janey Incompetano, Director of Homeland Insecurity (the modern title for the "Director of Civil Defense,") telling us a terrorist attack is just around the corner (as well). For as long as I've been alive, folks have been predicting the downfall of civilization being just around the corner, and this is just one terrifying example of such....long before I was born. Time for me to get out in the backyard and start building my nuclear shelter now, tonight, before the enemy attacks.... |
|
July 22, 2010 Well, you know, if it's not one thing, it's another, when it comes to those brain surgeons and nuclear scientists employed at the USPS. According to Linn's, Costco is pressuring the USPS to issue its Christmas stamps in coil format, and it appears the USPS is inasmuch as saying "No way Jose, get lost, go away, Costco!" Clearly, Costco believes that some of its customers want Christmas coil stamps, and surely demand for such would be sizeable. Yet the USPS appears reluctant to do what the public wants, and then sits there, twiddling their thumbs, wondering why folks aren't buying stamps and aren't mailing letters. And then tells the public, oh well, your letter needs to be not so thick, or we're going to charge more, or can't be so small, since then you can't even mail it, or we don't like you mailing those little packages, so we're gonna really jack you around on the rates for those, or hey, this one's got a cute little electronic musical box inside the card, so again, we're going to charge you more, or it's too stiff, so we're going to charge you more. "More, more, more," seem to be the only word the USPS understands. Get a clue, Mr. USPS, you need to give the public what it wants, not what you in your ever so finite wisdom decide to impose upon it. Suffice it to say, the USPS has an arrogance that at times defies comprehension, and this Christmas Coil Saga is one of those times. Give the public what it wants, for crying out loud, and quit your bellyaching, Mr. USPS!!! |
|
July 20, 2010, Letter to Linn's Editor You know, all I could do was shake my head in disgust as I read the "USPS requests 2c letter-rate hike" article. "Big Jack Potter" states "These proposed rate adjustments are moderate and part of a fair and balanced approach to insuring mail service for all Americans well into the future." (I believe correct English would be "ensuring." As a former actuary, I can state with complete assurance that "insuring" is a bit of a different concept than the concept of "ensuring.") Later in the article, I read that, lo and behold, "Even with the increase, the Postal Service will face a likely deficit of $4.7 billion in fiscal 2011...." What sort of utter nonsense is this that we're being fed. Does Big Jack think we're moronic enough to believe this politically correct LIE about ensuring mail service for all Americans well into the future. Does he think all Americans flunked 3rd grade and can't dis-obfuscate this fib, this lie? Did he take his fibbing lessons from the likes of Barrack Hussein Obama, Joe Bite-Me, Dirty Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi-Mussolini. Apparently so..... If Big Jack says he needs a composite rate increase of 5.6%, I've got a simple solution for him. Cut wages 5.6% and you're there. You don't need to fret over falling into the feared death spiral of continually rising prices fusing with continually falling volume to form the nuclear meltdown of the USPS that benefits no one in the end. Dear Big Jack, cut wages, cut benefits, and get back to the job of delivering the mail, rather than running a welfare system for government employees with a mail delivery service attached as an afterthought !! |
|
July 12, 2010, Letter to Linn's Editor I think a few additional points need to be made regarding the study that blackballed the rural post offices. The USPS is basically a junk mail distribution system, and as such, mail and its corresponding revenue comes in by the pallet at the bulk mail centers and is spread like fertilizer across America, politely phrased. The revenue is highly-concentrated, while the expense is distributed across all the rural post offices, obviously with no corresponding revenue. It is obvious this was a political rather than scientific study, designed to indict and then convict every rural post office in this country. Shame, Shame, Shame on the USPS and "Perfesser" Tony Yezer for their propagandizing. Shame! |