Another Science Facility Bites the Dust, Temporarily 193
An anonymous reader writes "Today, the latest victim of the U.S. government shutdown, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory
shut its doors and essentially mothballed all three of its radio
telescope facilities: the Very Large
Array or VLA (think Jodie Foster, Contact); the Green Bank
Telescope, and the Very Long
Baseline Array or VLBA. While the ALMA telescope is not yet
affected (mainly due to it being run by a consortium of European,
Japanese, Chilean and U.S. organizations), the U.S. funds for that will soon
also dry up. Not only does this furlough most of the ~550 employees, it has also
thrown a monkey wrench into many long-term carefully planned observations
(to the tune of wasting half a million dollars and a year's worth of
work). Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society also has a commentary
on the closure — and a plea to 'stop the madness.'"
many gov sites down but (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:many gov sites down but (Score:5, Insightful)
You conveniently forgot to mention that the military is still being paid.
You could save a fortune if you defunded them and brought them all home.
that's Obama's choice (Score:2, Insightful)
Obama is choosing what to close and what not to close. Closing these facilities, national parks, monuments, etc. is pure politics on his part. There are plenty of other things he could cut, and he could have cut a long time ago.
Re:many gov sites down but (Score:3, Insightful)
I this keeps on going any bets as to when Cruz gets a medal from Putin and Xi?
Re:that's Obama's choice (Score:2, Insightful)
This is not about approving budgets because there are no budgets. Obama has failed to submit them, Congress has failed to pass them. This is about Obama demanding money willy-nilly and Congress refusing to pay it for equally chaotic reasons.
Re:Don't worry, it's all a scam! (Score:2, Insightful)
But i guess the news didn't report a parks officer saying he got orders to make the shutdown as painful as possible or a top whitehouse official say they were fine with the shutdown because they were winning if obama actually cared about it.
With some thorough research, I have discovered that yes, the news DIDN'T report that, only fundamentalist blogs whose next story was shape shifting reptilians creating the Obamacare Death Panels were reporting anything of the sort.
Re:Aw (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:many gov sites down but (Score:5, Insightful)
That is some petty, small-minded thinking. Of course the Republicans are going to push for gradually refunding the government in a series of small bills, it alleviates public pressure on the shutdown. If they had their way the shutdown would only pertain to Obamacare.
So they put forth these bills that they know won't pass so they can blame the Democrats on keeping things closed. It riles up their base of narrow-minded twats who get 90% of their daily news intake from ultra-conservative loudmouths on talk radio and Drudge Report.
But that talk radio will conveniently omit the fact:
1) The bill is law. The debate is settled. It's been signed into law. The court has ruled. The president has been re-elected, he has been endorsed by the majority of voting people to be on the right track.
2) Conservative lawmakers planned on using "the power of the purse" to get their way -- i.e. shut down government.
3) The House is chosing to abide by the "Hastert Rule" and impeding a vote on the senate's version of the bill. That bill would pass, but unless there is a "majority of the majority" likely to vote on the bill the bill will not come to a vote. This means the Republican Party, already fracturing from their reeling defeats in previous elections, is hostage to the Tea Party, a party that holds views dramatically right of most people.
citizenry and government go hand in hand... (Score:2, Insightful)
This is what happens when people vote with their arshole. The american people get the government they deserve, and right now they have decided to give the keys of the kingdom to a bunch of science hating, bible thumper, retarded tea baggers republicans.
Maybe the few intelligent republicans still in Congress should fork the party. Call it Republican 2.0. Otherwise the US of A will be the laughing stock of the world for decades to come (ot at least until the next world war).