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