Congress passes CR to fund government through Oct. 30 – Federal news, government operations, agency management, pay & benefits – FederalTimes.com.
The bill also would reduce the USPS obligation to its retirees health fund.

On to the President.

Dead Tree Edition: USPS Steps Up Mail-Processing Consolidation.

Post office wrong target for conservatives — baltimoresun.com.

Monday, October 12th is a USPS holiday, Columbus Day. All Post Offices are closed. Plan accordingly for delivery.

USPS branch closures unlikely to affect DM – DMNews.

The more I talk with mailers, mail service providers, and even USPS personnel, the more I am struck by the misinformation regarding individual mail piece tracking and Intelligent Mail Services.  I’d like to take this opportunity to dispel some of the erroneous perceptions out there.

#1 – Intelligent Mail – neither Full Service Intelligent Mail or Basic Intelligent Mail provides individual mail piece tracking information, in any format!

#2 – In order to track mail pieces, either outgoing or incoming, using Intelligent Mail – OneCode Confirm service must be purchased as an additional service.

#3 – Full Service Intelligent mail is NOT required in order to track individual mail pieces.  OneCode Confirm can be added to, and used with Basic Intelligent Mail.

In order to track individual outgoing mail pieces using Intelligent Mail, the service is called OneCode Destination Confirm.

In order to track individual incoming mail pieces using Intelligent Mail, the service is called OneCode Origin Confirm.

Please do not hesitate to comment this blog, or contact me directly with any questions on individual mail piece tracking.  I will give you the complete picture.

Lisa.Bowes@intelisent.com

From today’s Postal Bulletin, there are details of a DMM clarification regarding the standards for the optional palletization of First-Class mail:  http://foxyurl.com/vAT

Via the DMM Advisory–

PostalOne! releases –
>There will be a software patch to correct some Periodicals problems with the Edition Weight worksheet deployed on 10/4.  Release notes for this will be posted on RIBBS 9/24.
>On November 15, PostalOne! release 22 will be deployed.  This release will support Full Service Intelligent Mail, including the price discount.

Mail.dat  –
>Mail.dat 8-1 support will cease with the November 15 release
>Mail.dat 8-2 support via the current applet and batch submission methods will continue through March 2010.  After November 15th an alternate Mail.dat 8-2 submission method via the new Mail.dat Client will be available.
>Mailers are strongly encouraged to migrate to Mail.dat 9-1
>Friday, September 25 2-4 pm EST there will be a webinar on 8-1, 8-2, and the Client.  Visit RIBBS latest news for the details of how to access this webinar.

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http://twitter.com/intelisent

From a Tweet from the USPS Office of Inspector General:

Should the USPS eliminate Sunday Mail Processing Operations? Tell them what you think:
http://tinyurl.com/mhr3bf

* a “Tweet” is a post or status update on Twitter, a microblogging service.  Because Twitter only allows for messages of 140 characters or less, “tweet” is as much a play on the size of the message as it is on the audible similarity to Twitter