In my quest for a healthy river, I look at a lot of information every day. This morning, I am contemplating this little nugget, and what it means to me, aside from the growth of Big Brother.

The United States Thoroughfare, Landmark, and Postal Address Data Standard has been created to provide one standard that meets the diverse address data management requirements for local address administration, postal and package delivery, emergency response (and navigation generally), administrative recordkeeping, and address data aggregation. The standard will also provide a systematic, consistent basis for recording all addresses in the United States, define the elements needed to compose addresses and store them within relational databases and geographic information systems and define the attributes needed for address documentation, mapping, and quality testing, including address ID’s, coordinates, and linear reference locations. Provide a complete taxonomy (systematic classification) of US addresses that is useful to address data managers.

Earlier this year I couldn't order anything online because I kept getting the message: "cannot locate your address in the database - how about this address?" and it be somewhere in Missouri or some other place I never heard of. It wasn't the seller's database, it was THE DATABASE that was supposed to verify the address and correct it to the standardization required. I'm sure you've seen it where they slightly adjust your address and you agree that change is good enough to get it to you.

It was the darndest thing, and the customer service people where I was trying to order from couldn't figure it out, either, so I couldn't buy from them at that time, which to me means 'I'll never try that company again.'

Back to this morning. I'm looking at a web page of documents available from FEMA that deal with an expedited post-disaster review process they are setting up. Instead of several different federal agencies requiring their own unique reviews of applications for assistance or permits after a disaster, the agencies have supposedly agreed to come up with one set of requirements and they will all sign off on it. The need for this was identified after Hurricane Sandy, and we have to wonder why it took them so long to figure out it makes sense.

I figure this will last about as long as we have a Democrat in the presidency, plus a year, and then the various agencies will start to assert their egos - one will say: "The applicant MUST consider this little trivial thing," and another agency will say "Nobody cares about THAT, but here's this other little trivial thing." And the normal chaos of big government red tape will once again find its equilibrium.