It’s the same advice pharmaceutical companies give diabetics… All research shows a low-carb ketogenic diet that’s complete in essential nutrients will give the best results in glycemic control, weight-loss, cholesterol ratio and triglycerides, but mayoclinic.com states the complete opposite, and locks comments when people post otherwise.

http://www.wlwt.com/news/health/Discovery-offers-hope-for-some-autistic-patients/-/9837732/15376754/-/156w6l7/-/index.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_10151863556055109_33408144_10151863657765109#f8bd8e17c

Joe

Joseph F. Clark, Ph.D.
Professor of Neurology
University of Cincinnati
Cincinnati OH 45267-0536
513 558 7085 – office
513 558 7009 – fax
joseph.clark@uc.edu

Please feel free to call me or email me any time.
Thanks
Abhijit Kumar
Ph:312-498-3750

We’re sorry to hear that you were disappointed in your recent experience with our health information website, MayoClinic.com, and the response you received from one of our customer service representatives. Unfortunately, the representative incorrectly stated that the database that contains supplement information is licensed from Micromedex. We do license a drug database from Micromedex, but the information that you are questioning is from a database that we license from Natural Standard. These two databases are the only two sections of content on MayoClinic.com that are licensed from external parties.

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I’ve been a stamp collector for many years, which has brought me in contact with a very many postal employees, and even postal officials. And they share many of your concerns.

One problem is that the USPS is only partially privatized. The USPS is in the position of not being able to set their own pricing or policies on any but express services, regardless of their costs, but are supposed to be self-funding. They face a Congress that dictates essentially all of their policy and business decisions and then says “but beyond that, you’re free to do what you like!” If Radio Shack had a branch in Nowheresville, running at a loss for its entire operation, they’d merge it with the one the next town over. If the USPS tries it, a U.S. Congressional Representative goes to the floor and insists it stays open. Yet they still do not receive the additional government resources and allocations that should go along with the command. Can you imagine if the federal government tried this with, say, the TSA?

Second, postal unions are extremely powerful, and even for someone as liberal as I, I think their effect is mostly harm, in allowing for the “walking retired” phenomenon that you describe. If one complains about a long-term postal worker, it is basically impossible to terminate him or her. This includes the bad apples who lie and say they attempted delivery. By the way, this is heightened by the fact that one of the powers not possessed by the union is to dictate the sort of work they are able to do: I’ve known letter carriers who underwent back surgery and were still expected to carry whatever the max bag weight is (it’s something like 30 – 40lb) or the max parcel weight (which is a whopping 70 lbs.)

In my experience, Express Mail service is, hands down, the best parcel and express letter service in the entire courier industry. It’s expensive for the consumer, however, but not really more than overnight FedEx. And the reason for this is that express services are fully privatized.

Also, services that require a signature (especially Certified with Return Receipt, and Registered [especially International Registered]) are accepted in a court with the most trust of any form of delivery. If you go to a judge and say “I promise they got it, I left-it-at-their-door/used-a-bicycle-courier/have-proof-of-delivery-from-FedEx”, none of those has the trust attached as does a USPS service.

A couple of tips:

1. Your security cam is a good idea. When you write a letter and say that you have proof that delivery was not attempted, don’t threaten that you’ll write your Congressional rep, promise that you’ll contact the merchant and insist they no longer ship to you USPS. A Postmaster can make a lying letter carrier’s life (unofficially) hell. I don’t know for a fact that this works better, but I think it’s worth a shot.

2. Your complaints about employees have almost no official result. But if you have a carrier whom you like, write a letter of praise to the postmaster out of the office he or she works. Here’s the proper way to address it under USPS regulations, this will give it the highest chance of getting to the right desk:

POSTMASTER
PO BOX 9998
YOUR TOWN CA  XXXXX-9998

Substitute your town, your two letter state abbreviation for “CA”, and the proper ZIP Code for “XXXXX”. Everything else remains the same.

The carrier will likely get a significant cash award (hundreds of dollars) and an official commendation in his or her file. He or she will not know who congratulated (or complained, actually) but if you … erm, accidentally let that slip, you’ll likely improve your service. That’s unofficial, and possibly unethical, and arguably reprehensible on the carrier’s part — but it’s also human nature and effective social engineering. Flies/honey/vinegar.

Hope this helps someone.