sweasel.com

Off all people, NPR has a nice short bit on the ‘shutdown'(LOL). If you need one to point people to.

That great hot mess Imgur is just full of stupid today.

Also, Ace is calling it 404Care. Heh heh.

Toddlers running our govt.

I don’t know what you’re talking about. The shutdown has been a complete disaster for the people of my town. Why, just this morning there were three zombies having a heated debate at the Starbucks about who should be in the Cowboys’ starting lineup. Well, I think they were zombies. They might have just been a couple of office workers, but still. They were arguing. Later in the afternoon I saw some of my neighbors cannibalizing people from the subdivision across the road. They invited me to the riots tonight, but I have to work. It’s really getting scary. People are desperate. If we don’t get more government back in our lives soon, I hate to think what might happen.

Closing the White House to tours was also just spite, but they are still closed.

This administration has plenty more spite where that came from — enough to last them the next 3.5 years even. DOOM.

As it happens, I live in the Imperial Capital. Well, immediately next to it (I have SOME weasel sense…). Today the streets of our town, which is a local bar/restaurant attraction, were as full as any Friday or weekend, full of “panicked bureaucrats who are living paycheck to paycheck” who somehow were going out to lunch and hitting the bars early. One restaurant owner I know said it was among his best days in months. The Metro was only slightly less full today. This is all theater.

At one point I worked for the government at the Department of Defense. It was an opportunity to be an outsider (very) on the inside, in perhaps the most “professional” of the departments. The work culture was divided unequally between national security professionals, often well educated and ex military, and loafers. And this was the best of the government. While I am sure some suffer, especially those who actually DO live paycheck to paycheck and never save anything, the fact is most are treating this as a holiday, paid or unpaid (I’m not sure if they get the pay made up later, my impression was they do).

The US government is about too many people doing too little, and often in duplication. It is a jobs program first. I agree that the outward PR is pure spite, especially after the furloughs didn’t produce the pain intended to the public.

If it works out like the previous shutdowns, they will eventually get back pay for the time off. In other words, paid vacation.

Not to say there aren’t some people at the low end of the scale who are hurting in the meantime.

My favorite example of the pettiness of the current administration is

Those Bastids shut down the PANDA CAM at the National Zoo.
Exactly how much money is saved by shutting down the Panda Cam?

This may be worth a FOIA request just to find out what idiot thought this would be good press.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57605460-1/national-zoos-panda-cam-falls-victim-to-government-shutdown/

Sometimes it backfires.

http://isthegovernmentopen.com/images/obama.gif

Did you see this, Stoaty?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2156490/They-look-cute-fluffy-don-t-fooled-baby-stoats-killing-machines.html

Yay! Killing machines!

FYI, y’all, Buster is doing great and settling in nicely. But, oh my dear lord, I have never EVER smelled shit like that in my life…

The sun rose in the east this morning and 800,000 “non-essential” government workers didn’t have to go to work today. My question is, if they aren’t essential this day, why the hell do I pay them for any other day?

They shut down the websites for officially “non-essential” functions. Note that. To answer a question from someone I know about whether the Andrews Air Force Base Golf Courses were still open [where Buraq Hussein plays golf]; I looked up and went to their web page, where one reserves tee times.

http://www.aafbgc.com/scripts/webtrac.wsc/wb1000.html?wbp=1

No “due to the lapse in Federal funding” notice. Just the normal log-in page. Which makes me think that Andrews AFB golf course is being kept open so that His Obamaness can continue to play golf while his thugs try to block veterans in wheelchairs from the monument honoring their service. I checked it again, by the way, just before posting this. Still operational.

There is a powerful amount of Karma being accumulated, and the cascade is going to be impressive when it comes.

Subotai Bahadur

Maybe the French will rent you their Guillotine…I hear they could use some cash…

How about putting up barricades around the White House & keeping that turd popsicle out?

Yeah they had all this ready months ago, maybe even years, waiting for the first shutdown. They had the signs printed, the strategy worked out, etc. Although the national monuments one doesn’t seem to be panning out well for them. Pretty bad optics there, even if the press does its damnest to not cover it.

And stop feeding the kitten Beef-a-Roni.

Shutdown?

lol!

You wait till we start dumping your foreign currency reserves – then you will know what shutdown is really like.

And if you try anything dodgy with Syria, we will stuck one of your own nukes up your collective arseholes and pull the pin.
But then, we could just do it out of spite anyway …

The Japanese may have invented Kabuki, but it took American politicians to perfect (?) it…

The spite is applied unequally it seems.

While the Powers are telling people the National Mall is in effect closed and you can’t even walk through the WWII memorial etc (which is wide open anyway but they barricaded it and enforce it with their thugs) the George Washington Parkway and it’s parks are still open. I ran through them today and no one stopped me or my dog. Evidently maintenance and safety at the WWII memorial is more expensive than in the parks along the parkways. We can argue whether the GW Parkway counts as essential anyway…

Oh and it was “Ripley” above, not my evil twin. Though she seems to post anyway.

I see that LLNL is having a little home time, and NIH is also playing outages on their databases.

What gives? Your website doesn’t crash that fast – over soooo many sectors.

Don’t let Harry the Ginger out in the Rain Stoaty.
A friend not far from you has a radioactive dog ….

“White House closed, sorry Mr. President, try the Holiday Inn.”

lol “turd popsicle” Stark

Anyone have Tom Clancy?

Interesting that the Obamacare website, customer service, and IT techs are all working while the other “non-essentials” are getting the time off.I wonder where they got the money to keep that particular service running?

Oh, Stoaty,

Have you wormed Buster? I rescued a kitten once and took it to the vet. I was told that all kittens are born with worms, and they need to get the meds to get rid of them. It is the stuff of nightmares…dead worm shit. Yeesh, I still gag just remembering it, and now I’ve shared the memory with you all.

Deworming agent:

Shuffle on down to yer local Tractor Supply & gitcha a $3.95 tube of ivermectin (for horsies! yay horsies!). Mammals (including humans, guinea pigs, dogs, goats, & cats) should take 200 micrograms per kilogram of body weight. Assuming you’re pretty good at basic algebra, it shouldn’t be too hard to get your kitten dosed up just right.

“It is dangerous to play politics with the Budget.”
— Clement Attlee

Especially if you’re a globally recognized wuss.

Might as well shutdown the NASA web site, NASA isn’t doing anything anyway.

Might as well shutdown the NASA web site, NASA isn’t doing anything anyway.

If musselmans ain’t bein made to feel good about themselfs, what’ll they do?

This is wedding week in our household, and none of us gives a flying leap about any gubmint shutdown. Except the pretentious fools in Triple Rock on Shattuck Avenue in Berkekey last night…they’re very very VERY concerned about those bastardly conservatives who are killing starving babies and old people and who knows what else.

As long as the guests are able to get here from Toronto and Hong Kong and Oslo and Hamburg we are good.

Well this is rich. The NPS barricaded the parking lots to Mount Vernon — even though they don’t own or run Mount Vernon or even contribute any funding. The Mount Vernon website says the house and grounds are open as usual. Barricades in a parking lot? Really? Because they can?

Related: The NPS give no funding, maintenance or anything at ALL to the Claude Moore Colonial Farm, and hasn’t since the early 1980s. It is on NPS property, but it’s completely passive for them — and staffed by a non profit which is self funding. They have barricaded THAT too.

Yesterday, while running on the Mount Vernon Trail(which is alongside the GW Parkway, and both are NPS), I was surrounded by young bikers, all talking about their days off and what they planned to do and where they would go. Pentagon City Mall was full. This is a holiday.

BTW, according to US Today, the average fed makes over $83,000 — but I think it’s a bit less if you take out the VA doctors and DOJ lawyers. I did a little research. It appears that while furloughed workers are not automatically paid back pay for this, every other time there has been a shutdown, Congress has authorized back pay.

Haste to the wedding, Nina! May it–and the marriage–go well.

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