Another Science Facility Bites the Dust, Temporarily

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.'"

Comments

What's out there?

[noh8rz10]

Makes you wonder what we'll miss in the night sky. If I were an alien that read slashdot, I would know that the time to strike us now!

Re:What's out there?

[Mitchell314]

If an alien were to judge us based on slashdot, they'd strike immediately no matter what. :P

Re:What's out there?

[houstonbofh]

"That's no moon..."

Re: What's out there?

[allan572]

If aliens read slash dot they would skip earth and move on to find intelligent life! :-)

Re:What's out there?

[Bite The Pillow]

They would strike, then strike again 12 hours later, then spend the rest of the millennium bickering about arcana while one idiot bastard alien kept sending messages saying "Hi I'm from earf, you missed one," and "Commander Xeebo is a diddlepeen who eats natalie portman for frosty piss."

Oh sorry, that's what would happen if slashdot attacked aliens.

many gov sites down but

[shirosenshi]

They have closed many national parks and government websites, but The Healthcare Insurance Market Place is open. Are not 'selective shutdowns' illegal for political gain? U.S. Pres acting like a dictator. Also noticed he shutting down private businesses. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10/04/park-rangers-guard-inn-parking-lot-from-guests-during-shutdown/

Re:many gov sites down but

[__Paul__]

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.

Re:many gov sites down but

[houstonbofh]

Kinda... Base pay. But hazzard pay, and many other bonuses that can be up to half the paycheck are still out. And base comasaries are closing as well.

Re:many gov sites down but

[sumdumass]

The majority of the ACA is mandatory funding, not discretionary...which makes the Republican's government shutdown all the more moronic.

not if you paid attention to what they want to do. Only portions of the aca is mandatory and they tried to remove the mandatory itself. Now they just want to remove thr medical device tax which several democrats agree with doing, remove the subsidy scheme oboma designrf for congress, and either delay the personal mandate as long as big business is exempt or remove the exemption.

Re:many gov sites down but

[dbIII]

What they want doesn't matter as much as the way it's being done. This shutdown is like taking a thermonuclear device to a ping pong match. They are damaging the US economy for what, a minor tweak in health insurance? This sort of crap has to be stopped before it becomes the default option to repeal laws.

I this keeps on going any bets as to when Cruz gets a medal from Putin and Xi?

Re:many gov sites down but

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

The military is still being paid, but they are no longer sending feeds of sporting events ( including the NFL ) to the soldiers.
They are however, keeping Camp David and military golf courses open ( which he plays a lot on ).

On other notes. Republicans in the House passed a resolution to keep funding NIH research ( into things like childrens cancer ), but a party line vote in the Senate killed it. They also "shutdown" the WWII monument. This despite the fact that it remained open during other shutdowns. This despite the fact that it is open 24/7 but only manned during working hours. Veterans arriving found the monument blocked off by "Barry-cades". They were not to be stopped and simply went around. So to save the money for the shutdown the adminstration hired people to wire the Barry-cades together.

Oh and the White House chefs are considered essential. They have not been furloughed. Guess they are needed to bake the cakes.

Re:many gov sites down but

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:many gov sites down but

[Anonymous Coward]

The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. There's nowhere to go after the Supreme Court.

You're saying that they ruled it a "tax". That's not their ruling. If they ruled that way, that would imply they could make a law constitutional, but by ruling in such a way, the law is then unconstitutional. They cannot make up a paradox like that, that's not how the court works. Especially not the 9 justices of the Supreme Court.

Congress passed it. The president signed it. It went before the Supreme Court and passed judicial review. It's the law, designed and built by democracy. The Republican party should respect that.

Re:many gov sites down but

[khallow]

The Democrats and Barack Obama did not personally call the Parks department to "shutdown" particular monuments if that's what you are implying.

[...]

What you have really is that the Republicans want to shut everything down but don't want the political blame for shutting things down.

Let's not get hasty here and claim things that just might not be true. Last I checked the NPS really was going out of their way to close things down which hadn't been closed down in previous shutdowns. Who knows, that might have been due to a direct call from Obama or merely strongly implied in a meeting with the Secretary of the Interior.

Second, Republicans are known to want to shut down Obamacare to the point of forty-something votes to that effect.

Re:many gov sites down but

[_Sharp'r_]

That I think implies that the site is protected by federal police, and in light of the widespread shutdown it seems plausible that they felt it couldn't be properly supervised. They may have their hands full as it is.

Right... even though federal police are considered "essential" and are still working? These private business reports are places with contracted leases that weren't closed during previous "shutdown"s. They produce revenue for the government, they don't consume it.

What right do the Interior Department people have to violate their lease and keep them from operating? Because they're trying to throw the biggest bureaucratic temper tantrum possible?

that's Obama's choice

[stenvar]

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:that's Obama's choice

[NeutronCowboy]

You have absolutely no idea what happens when a budget doesn't get approved in time, do you? Here's some education for you: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/30/absolutely-everything-you-need-to-know-about-how-the-government-shutdown-will-work/

Re:that's Obama's choice

[kenwd0elq]

I was going to respond "President Obama has NEVER signed a budget", but other people have already made the point for me. The object of "cut spending" would suggest that the NPS should lock the gates and go home. But that's not what they're doing - they are (under Presidential direction!) doing ANYTHING THEY CAN to spite the American people, in an attempt to prod the populace into demanding quick action. When Nixon did that, few reporters called him on it. Now, the entire "press" is Obama supporters and will do or say anything to support "The One". But with this internet thingie and cell phones and Twitter, the "media" has lost their exclusive control of the "news".

And Obama's warnings of doom about the debt ceiling and our impending default - that isn't so clear, either. The Treasury is getting plenty of money, MORE than enough to pay all the debts that are due; bond payments and the like. The problem is that they're spending it even FASTER. So when we ram into the debt ceiling at Mach 3, somebody at the Fed will need to make a choice - make the bond payments and screw all the welfare recipients, pensioners, Michelle's vacation partners and Federal employees and NOT default, or default and give the money to other people. Or, keep borrowing and break the debt ceiling.

Defaulting or breaking the debt ceiling would both be impeachable offenses, but I suspect that he'd rather default and collapse the economy EVEN FASTER than he has been doing for the past 4 years.

I'm lucky; I'm old and probably won't need to worry about surviving the civil war that is coming. Because it IS coming.

Oh, one other tidbit; the Washington Post is ENTIRELY in Obama's pocket. He probably wrote that piece. It doesn't enhance your credibility to be quoting it.

Re:that's Obama's choice

[stenvar]

(1) By avoiding the problem altogether and negotiating with Republicans well ahead of time.

(2) By setting different priorities; after all, most federal employees are still working, he simply sent those home that had the biggest PR impact.

Re:that's Obama's choice

[Anonymous Coward]

Barry-caded, haha. Next thing you know, the evil dictator for life will be putting Barry-cuda in all of our drinking water. He'll outlaw Straw-Barry milkshakes, and Barry-cade your local breakfast aisle at the grocery so you can't buy your Boo-Barry Crunch cereal.

I wouldn't be surprised if all the Barrs in the national parks were being outfitted with Obama masks and provoked into killing intruders. Next he'll repeal our right to Barr arms right before the miliBarry takeover!

Re:that's Obama's choice

[kenwd0elq]

Budgets..... Aye, THERE'S the rub. By the Constitution, all bills appropriating money from the treasury of the United States MUST originate in the House. The Senate can propose amendments, which then go back to the House for their approval. The President is, officially, "out of the loop" for budgets.

In reality, most presidents in the last 100 years have proposed their own budgets, and an obliging Representative then introduces "his" budget, and then it's off to the races. In this case, Obama has never proposed a budget, the Dem house didn't bother, and Harry Reid has blocked any GOP-submitted budget since the Dems lost the House in 2010.

That's how Obamacare got so badly screwed up to begin with. The House proposed the original version of Obamacare, larded up with every leftists' wildest dreams; the Senate was supposed to revise it to make it work. Then Teddy Kennedy went to his eternal reward, Scott Brown was elected to the Senate, and the Dems lost their filibuster-proof majority - and their only option was either to pass the House bill (which EVERYBODY KNEW WAS CRAP) without changes, or watch the Republican minority filibuster their changes to death. They passed it, with Nancy Pelosi's timeless line "You'll have to pass the bill to see what's in it!".

Now we're seeing, and a LOT of people are having buyers remorse.

Re:that's Obama's choice

[vux984]

Now we're seeing, and a LOT of people are having buyers remorse.

Majority of the country favors obamacare. The majority of the country that republicans like to say support getting rid of it are split - 2/3rds actually think it goes too far... 1/3 doesn't think it goes far enough. that 1/3rd of so called group 'against the bill' doesn't want the act repealed ... they wanted it expanded. Couple that with nearly 50% that identify as supporting the bill and you have a clear majority.

So I don't really see buyers remorse yet, what I see is 40 odd republican tea party candidates from election proof gerrymandered disctricts that literally cannot lose no matter how braindead they act have decided to hold the entire country hostage.

As an aside, Bill O'Reilly while a guest on the daily show suggested, really, the most sane compromises I've heard.

The US government is so absurdly screwed up -- giving state governers the electoral powers they have was idiotic. All aspects of elections should be run by completely non-partisan groups with no interfering with the state or federal political parties. From identifying districts to running the election itself.

That same episode of the daily show had another good factoid -- 90% incumbency rate, 10% approval rate. It's broken.

I remember working at the VLA

[varmfskii]

In the early 90s and losing my job due to lost funding.

Selectivity

[OptimalCynic]

They should include legislative salaries in the shutdown, that would encourage them. Put in a constitutional amendment - when a budget for the United States is not in effect, Congressional representatives and senators shall not be paid.

Re:Selectivity

[artor3]

That gets brought up every time, and it's a terrible idea. It would feel good, sure, but you gotta remember that most Congressmen are already filthy rich.

Emphasis on most. Some of them aren't, and they would be forced to cave in order to afford their rent. This country is enough of a plutocracy as it is. We'd best not give the rich yet another tool to extract concessions from the people.

Re:Don't worry, it's all a scam!

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[Osgeld]

they are not worth the paper they are printed on 10 years ago

Re:Aw

[philip.paradis]

This is why I place high value on firearms, ammunition, and basic supplies. I'm not exactly a "prepper" but I'm certainly not a fool, either. Bad times can happen any time, and people who understand how to find food and water stand a better chance of dealing with circumstances than those who don't.

I have two daughters, a son on the way, and barring mass extinction of wildlife I'll be able to feed the family. The other unfortunate complications of a true economic collapse are factors I'd rather not consider in depth unless I have to.

citizenry and government go hand in hand...

[Anonymous Coward]

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).

Re:Aw

[symbolset]

This is true, but at least back then we let people pretend they were worth something. Once we default, that game is over.

Not all parts of your lovely govt are shut down

[boorack]

Despite shutdown US decided to extend military training program for syrian terrorists (err ... "rebels") stating that only "moderate rebels" are being trained that is propably yet another of its never ending stream of lies. FOMC is still peddling cheap money to stock markets, so all those Wall Street parasites calling themselves "investors" receive their checks. It's funny as they're just recipients of yet another government giveaway, albeit conceived a noth as instead of directly receiving government money, they're "earning" it from financial markets massively pumped by government via FOMC and similiar mechanisms. Call it socialism for rich people.

In short, two most important functions of US government today - that is funding wars and Wall Street bankers - are alive and kicking.

Re:Aw

[mysidia]

In two weeks when we have defaulted on the national debt you will forget these trivialities. We will have bigger stuff to worry about, like how to feed your family when dollars are not worth the paper they are printed on.

This is why i'm planning to borrow millions of $$ from the bank, and stock up on things like Guns and Ammo, that won't be devalued by the US default on the national debt.

By the way; in the event of inflation, Real Estate, and commodities such as silver, copper and steel, can be expected to increase in face value, to match the amount of inflation. These commodities, and things like Bitcoins can then be used as a medium of trade.

Gold is probably not the best thing to acquire at this time, because it's already inflated.

I heard somewhere; that if you are one of the few that has guns and ammo: you should be able to find food in any economy. There will still be plenty of resources to survive; in a survival situation, you just need to be a good competitor.

It's also worthwhile to build a massive stockpile of long-shelflife foods and cooking materials: coconut oil, baking soda, lots of hard liquors of course, cornstarch, salt, maple syrup, pure honey, dried wild/white/jasmine/basmati rice, sugar, dried fruits, dry beans (pintos, kidney beans, blackeye beans), canned beans; freeze-dried stuff, pure vanilla extracts, distilled vinegar, buckwheat, dry corn, kamut, millet, barley, rye, oat groats, flour

But you can't stock up on these at home --- you need to make sure you have a secure, confidential, defensible location for resource storage.

Re:So the government is a victim of itself?

[Xyrus]

Both sides won't compromise so its both party's fault.

I keep seeing this and it's bullshit. The house won't allow a vote on the senate budget bill because the neo-fascist Tea-Party won't allow the vote to take place with ACA funding in the bill. They're holding the budget hostage because they have failed on numerous other occasions to get ACA repealed using legitimate legislative channels. So now they're resorting to sleazy tactics like this one (and now that they've done it, how much do you want to bet we will see more of this?).

The senate has ALREADY APPROVED the budget. And if they could get a vote in the house it would already have been approved there as well. But these Tea Party jackasses won't allow to come to a vote. Now a number of republicans are trying to distance themselves from these yahoos because they know the American public is more than fed up with this crap.

What majority?

[iceperson]

Prety much every poll shows more than half of Americans don't want Obamacare. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/health_care_law http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/09/16/usa-today-pew-poll-health-care-law-opposition/2817169/ http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/09/three-years-later-obamacare-arrives-little-understood-and-not-well-liked/

Re:Yet when it comes to a register

[philip.paradis]

I don't get pissed off at public records being made available to the public. I get pissed off at unreasonable legal requirements that lead to things being entered into the public record in the first place, and I fully support every individual's right to make his/her own decision on whether their ownership and use of firearms should be a matter of public record or not.

People who follow the law in this case wind up unreasonably burdened and subject to information disclosure beyond their control. People who do not follow the law aren't burdened by it, and do as they like without the mere existence of the laws or threats of prison sentences doing anything to stop them from committing violent acts. Put simply: neither nanny state mentalities nor "tough on crime" policies actually work very well. See how this works?

Do you support privacy rights? I certainly do, and I support equality as well, meaning I don't pick and choose which citizens deserve privacy and which don't.

For the record, if you're planning on creating your own app to show who owns firearms, you can add me as your first entry. I gladly volunteer this information; kindly respect the privacy of others until you're told otherwise. Have a nice day, champ.