Maybe neither rain nor wind nor snow and all that other stuff can stop the postal service from delivering the mail, but, apparently, the rise of email can.

The postal service is saying that it is hurting so much from loss of revenue because of such things as email and private deliver companies, that it may need to cut Saturday mail delivery as well as overtime pay for employees.

Joseph Corbett, the chief financial officers for the post office, tells Reuters that the service is also planning what he called a “moderate” increase in the price of stamps.

I think people can probably live with paying a few more pennies for postage–though that might not be the case for businesses that rely on mass mailings.

But stopping mail delivery on Saturdays is another matter. I don’t think that will go over well with the public . And, since people will still want their mail delivered, my guess is stopping weekend deliveries would only force more people–if they can afford it–to give their business to the private delivery services resulting in even a larger loss of revenue for the U.S. Postal Service.

In February, says Reuters, USPS posted a loss of $297 million for the first quarter.

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Can you be too fat to fly?

Director Kevin Smith apparently was, as far as Southwest Airlines was concerned.

On a flight from Oakland to Burbank, the pilot apparently kicked him off the plane because he didn’t neatly fit into the confines of his seat.

Smith usually purchases two seats for his comfort, but got stuck with only one after he ended up flying stand-by to catch a different flight.

Smith tweeted up a storm knocking the airline and the airline apologized and also gave him a $100 voucher.

A lot of people don’t realize that many airlines have long had policies about very fat people flying, though they enforce these policies in different ways at different times.

While the initial impulse is to come to Smith’s defense-one has to recognize that the airline has a legitimate concern: the safety and comfort of its other passengers.

Airline seats are small enough, especially on the types of aircraft flown by airlines such as Southwest; sitting next to a jumbo human who is overhanging onto your space does not a comfortable flight make.

But it is actually potentially more serious than that: Someone who has trouble fitting into one seat on an airliner can pose a serious safety risk to all on board in the event of an incident that requires the fast evacuation of the plane.

For sure, Southwest probably should have handled this one with more diplomacy. But it is wrong to laugh at its basic policy (that a very large person must purchase two seats) which is a valid one.

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Lots of people already don’t trust Google. Now, there is even better reason.

The New York Times reporting that Google has joined forces with the National Security Agency in an effort to track down who was behind the attacks on its cybersecurity last year.

As the paper correctly puts it, ” The collaboration between Google , the world’s largest search engine company, and the federal agency in charge of global electronic surveillance raises both civil liberties issues and new questions about how much Google knew about the electronic thefts it experienced when it stated last month that it might end its business operation in China, where it said the attacks originated.”

Google’s ability to track and keep track of our most personal doings on the Internet is scary enough. But when you add to the mix the cooperation between Google and a giant U.S. spy agency, the possibilities are truly mind blowing!

Google apparently was the one reaching out to the NSA. Of course, the NSA was reportedly more than happy to agree.

As might be expected, the paper says a Google spokeswoman would not further comment on the matter, while an NSA spookswoman reportedly said the agency is also not able to comment “on specific relationships we may or may not have with U.S. companies.”

That alone is a statement worthy of further exploration: What exactly does she mean by relationships they “may or may not have” with other U.S. companies? Phone companies, perhaps?  Media companies, maybe?

We are, as a society, already well passed the danger point of becoming a police state. The blending of Google with the National Security Agency is just the latest, but, perhaps, most troubling example.

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It took President Obama a long time in his State of the Union speech before getting around to talking about his health insurance reform initiatives. I can understand why he would not exactly want to highlight this at this point in time.

He did have some typical fighting words indicating that he wanted the reform measures to pass Congress and end up on his desk sooner rather than later.

But he didn’t much sound like someone who believes his own message anymore. A number of side remarks the President made during the speech seemed to indicate that , while he would like to see health care reform this year, he is resigned to the fact that that may not happen..especially in the form that he had hoped.

He didn’t, as some argued he should have, stand up there and basically say–this is the plan I think is good for the country and ,therefore, what I want you to pass.

Rather, he put  the emphasis , as he often does, on trying to get bi-partisan support by saying he would entertain any proposal that offers an alternative to his, whether from his own party or from the Republicans, that accomplishes his basic goals.

But considering that the Republicans haven’t yet made known an alternative plan to the President’s, I think it likely Obama knows that is not going to happen anytime soon.

My guess is,  comprehensive health insurance reform is pretty much dead for 2010. Hope I am wrong, though.

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Hillary Clinton was right: Barack Obama was (is) just not experienced enough to be President of the United States. 

How else can you explain how badly he and his administration screwed up health care reform by not paying attention to what was going down in Massachusetts until it was too late to make a difference?

A more experienced politician (say LBJ) would have realized how vital the Senate seat left vacant by the death of Ted Kennedy was and would have made frequent trips to that state prior to Tuesday’s special election to drum up support for the Democratic candidate.

Instead, Obama was on his Hawaii vacation (he didn’t even bother to return to Washington after the Christmas day attempt to blow up an airliner landing in Detroit) when he should have been bundled up against the northeast cold helping to sell his party’s nominee for the senate seat to the voting public.

Instead, the President and those below him were asleep at the switch.

And now, the Democrats have lost their all important 60th vote, the one needed to prevent a Republican fillibuster…not only against health reform, but any other piece of legislation as well.

Obama was probably a damn good college law school professor. And, from most accounts, a pretty good Chicago political street organizor.

But none of that prepared him to wage wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and God knows where else in the months to come.

None of that prepared him to deal with Wall Street so that Main Street doesn’t get screwed, as it has, by the worst economic climate since the Great Depression.

And, obviously, none of that prepared him to effectivly butt heads in Congress to get the health care reform bill he said he wanted when he was campaigning for the Oval Office.

The nation needs health care reform. Badly. But the one person who should have been spearheading its victory through the Congress turns out to be the same person whose spectacular political incompetence has probably led to its premature demise. And, that person is non other than one Barack Obama, President of the United States.

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No matter what happens in the special election to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the late Senator Edward Kennedy in Massachusetts Tuesday, the Obama administration has taken a major hit.

Of course, should Republican Scott Brown win, it could derail the Democratic Party’s (and President Obama’s) health reform legislation by denying the Democrats the 60 votes needed in the Senate. They would have to resort to either trying to push the House to accept the Senate plan as is so there would be a a quick vote, or else, they’d have to use parliamentary tricks to try and push the legislation through. Either way, not a pretty thing!

Should Democrat Martha Coakley come from behind (where polls show her to be as of this writing) and win the vacated seat, while that would mean almost sure passage of the President’s health reform measures…a sure win for him…the fact that this even became a close race ,in and of itself ,has politically damaged the President and the Democratic Party.

The White House bungled this one badly.  The administration clearly confident initially that a Democrat would, of course, win in a state often referred to as a “Democratic state.”

But, as news reports have pointed out, this is only part of the story. Sure, the state legislature is controlled by Democrats, but Massachusetts voters, more and more considering themselves Independents, elected a Republican governor not all that long ago…so a Republican senator would not really be such a big leap.

Also, Massachusetts already enjoys a unique state run health care system providing universal coverage at a reasonable cost…so why would voters there want to risk losing that in favor of an untested federal version?

No matter what, the months forward will be interesting,indeed.

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