Well, Yeah

Life and Lemons

You know, lots of folks seem to be focusing on the 800k "unnecessary" employees furloughed.  On how amazing it is that the government has this many non-essential employees, what good they are, what they actually do, etc., etc.

I've got a few thoughts about the situation.

First, keep in mind that "non-essential" does not neccesarily mean "useless".  Just because Sally or Bob got furloughed, that does not mean that the job they were doing had zero value.  What it does mean (at least, ideally) is that the job they were doing was something that could be postponed for a while.

Think about it this way - there are many different kinds of inspections, reviews, audits, and the like that various agencies are responsible for.  If the shutdown only lasts for a week or two, their work schedule gets pushed out a couple of weeks.  Yearly inspections that should have been done this month get done Job next month.  If your job involved you being part of a multi-year or even decade-long process that can be put on hold for a bit without any serious consequences... well, welcome to an unpaid vacation of indeterminate length.

So a lot of these folks are not useless employees; they're employees who's work can be easily suspended for a while.  Yes, I am sure that there are some functionally useless federal employees that got furloughed.  Just as I am sure that there are some functionally useless useless federal employees that are still managing to collect a paycheck. Despite that, a lot of them are simply people who were doing useful, but not urgent, work.  Work that the federal government just can't pay for at the moment.

Now that you have that thought in mind - that "furloughed" does not mean "useless" - try looking at it this way.  As of Tuesday, there are nearly a million people who are at least temporarily out of work.  A lot of these folks are highly-educated, well-trained and experienced individuals who also happen to have a lot of experience with how the federal government does business.

And right now, they are getting seriously screwed over by their current employer.

How many of them do you think might - just might - be interested to hear about opportunities in the private sector?

This sort of thin happens all the time in the private sector, doesn't it?  Just a year or so ago, there was a major tech company in Pittsburgh that folded up its local office and laid of umpteen-hundred people.  When they organized a job fair for the departing employees, other companies jumped at the chance to attend.  "A few hundred well-educated, talented, experienced folks who are looking for a new job?  Heck yeah, we'll be there!"

Here's a chance to reduce the size of the federal government, at least temporarily.  Not by forcing them to cut jobs, which seems to be all but impossible; but just by hiring away the people that they've laid off.

QOTD

You've got to read it in context, I think, but...

Normally I would observe that giving political power to giant, evil, intelligent rats hell-bent on the destruction of civilization may not be the healthiest course for a society to take, but we’re the country that elected Barack Obama so I don’t really have the high ground here.

That's pure gold, right there.

QOTD

On a FB comment thread about the shutdown, one David Burkhead provides a succinct answer to the accusation that the efforts of the Republican House to avoid funding the ACA are "unconstitutional":

Let me be perfectly clear. When the House of Representative says "this is what we will fund and this is what we won't" they are not engaging in dirty tricks. They are not trying to do an end-run around the Constitution. They are _using_ the authority given to them _by_ the Constitution to do. their. job. 

Their ability to say "no, we won't fund that" is a feature, not a bug. It's one of the "checks and balances" built into the Constitution.

Diary of a Shutdown Survivor, Day 3

Spent the night in the wilderness.  Cold.  Alone.  Forsaken.

Itchy.

I think that I bedded down in a clump of poison ivy, no doubt growing rampant due to lack of federal government funding.  That's what the mushrooms told me.  It was kind of odd that they didn't start talking to me until after I ate them, but it all makes sense now.  Now I know.  And knowing is half the battle!

Thankfully, my cell phone battery is holding out, so I am able to spread my message... flee, flee, ye fools, from the wrath that is to come!

It is only a matter of time before cell phone towers start falling, killing everyone in their wake.  Bridges and roads and monuments and buildings and all that start decaying immediately if they're not kept in the presence of a soothing flow of federal government money.  Soon rabid squirrels will run rampant through the streets, infecting everyone with the zombie plague, just like the NIH warned before they went dark.

Went dark.  Dark.  Dark.  Cold.  Itchy.

You would think that everyone would know all that, wouldn't you?  I am pretty sure they covered that in high school civics class.  Or maybe it was in health class.  Whatever.  It's common knowledge.  Lack of federal government spending equals climate change, rampant erosion, acid rain, plagues of locusts and ravening hordes of post-apocolyptic barbarians fleeing from mutant rabid squirrels.  Ipso Facto, E Plurbus Unum. Cruscio Reductio! Fuego!  Fuego!  Iä! Iä! Cthulhu Fhtagn!

The mushrooms are telling me I should probably not eat any more of them.  Just in case.

I itch.

Diary of a Shutdown Survivor, Day 2

Slept poorly last night.  It was cold and dark.  Raging hunger gnawed at me like a live rat in my belly.  My need for sustenance drove me to acts of desperation so depraved that I pray for oblivion.  As the evening wore on, I eventually curled into the fetal position next to my ruined and burning car, eking out whatever parcel of warmth I could while wrapped in scraps of tattered cloth.

My wife is hysterical, in denial.  She is putting on a brave front, trying to pretend that we can still have a normal life, but she can't see that she is just going through the motions.  She acts as if we still have a home to live in, food in the pantry, kids to get off to school in the morning.  I know that these are just illusions.  The Shutdown has come, and all that we once had is naught but a memory.

Later in the evening, she began pelting me with a litany of nonsense questions over and over.  Things like "Why are you half-naked?  It's freezing out here!  Come inside!" and "Why did you set our car on fire?  How are you supposed to get to work tomorrow, you idiot?" and "What do you mean, 'We have to flee into the woods to escape the wrath that is to come'?" and "Honey, would you please tell the nice man why you're sitting outside naked, next to our burning car, and OH SWEET HEAVEN ARE YOU EATING THE DOG?!?"

She doesn't understand.  It is the shutdown.  The Shutdown.  The SHUTDOWN.

Thank You, Democrats!

Washington, D.C.  As leaves turn and autumn weather rolls over the capital, a Democrat president looks towards the Congress, where the House and the Senate are engaged in a bitter legislative battle over health care.  A key point of this contention: abortion funding.

Driven by member of the House who oppose the use of  federal tax dollars to fund abortions, disagreement between the chambers of Congress creates a legislative deadlock.  Although the House passes legislation to keep the federal government funded and running, the Senate refuses to pass any proposed compromise legislation that does not include federal funding for abortion.  As a result, the federal government is left unfunded.  While most offices are kept open, all non-essential workers are temporarily furloughed until the issue is resolved, and Congress can pass an appropriations bill.

The year?  1977.  In three separate events that fall, the federal government was shut down for over five work weeks while the Democrat-controlled House battled the Democrat-controlled Senate over over the Hyde Amendment [1].  A few years later, based on a interpretation of the Anti-Deficiency Act of 1884,  the Carter administration ruled to limit the power of unfunded federal agencies, thus requiring the shutdown of non-essential functions of the federal government in the absence of Congressional  appropriations.

Now, your political inclinations may lead you to side with one side or the other in the 1977 debate over the Hyde amendment.  You may also argue that the Carter-era ruling on the ADA was either entirely appropriate or hideously incorrect.  Be that as it may, you cannot deny this fundamental truth:

The current government shutdown would not - could not - exist, were it not for the actions of the Democrat party in the fall of 1977, and the Carter administration's ruling on the ADA.

So here's a hearty "Thank you!" to the Democrats of years gone by, who made it possible for the current House to not only force the issue on the funding of the ACA, but also seriously torque off Harry Reid.  Because seeing Harry froth at the mouth in frustration is one of the gifts that just keeps on giving, y'know?

[1] Just a quick question: were the Democrats in the House who opposed federal abortion funding then wrong, or are the Democrats in the House who support federal abortion funding now wrong?  Inquiring minds want to know!

Diary of a Shutdown Survivor, Day 1

I spent the morning huddled with my loved ones, weeping quietly. Venturing to work - trekking through the howling, government-free wilderness - left me drained and numb. I wonder why I bothered, as I am completely unable to concentrate. My mind is continually drawn back to contemplate the horror of a country in which the national parks are now closed. Based on the news reports I am seeing, I expect that I will have to resort to cannibalism in order to survive the day.

Quotes, Glorious Quotes!

At the suggestion of a friend, I have collected and created a page consisting of quotes that I have highlighted on my Facebook wall and elsewhere.  Some of them are cute, wome are snarky, some still make me chuckle.  YMMV, but I think there is enough there that you will probably find something you can appreciate.

There is a new Blogger widget over at the top of the right-hand sidebar that lists the blog pages that includes a link to the new "Quotes" page, which I will endeavor to update roughly whenever I can get a round tuit.

It Will Be A Cloudy Day

We are starting week 4 of the C25K program, after taking a week off for vacation and a slow weeks due to illness.  Eldest Daughter is still feeling poorly, but the Lovely Mrs. Robb has gone out with me in her stead a couple of times.

Yeah.  She has started running at the place it took me two months to get to.  Sigh.

In any case, it looks like running in the morning stimulates the old noggin.  I was contemplating this old news about how the German Pirate Party managed to crash a drone right in front of Chancellor Angela Merkel at a campaign rally.

I came up with half a dozen ways that drone could have killed her, and possibly everyone around her, before I got out of the shower.

None required explosives.  None required guns.  Most required a basic knowledge of chemistry, a little skill, and (ideally) some planning.  One only required a decent grasp of physics.  Being an engineer by inclination and training, I also spent some time thinking about how you might defend against these sort of attacks.  There are possibly defenses.

Well, if I am being honest, not so much defenses as mitigation actions.  Heavy, impermeable blankets and breathing apparatus, for example.  Throwing your body over the Chancellor to protect her when a drone pops up may be heroic, but it isn't going to count for much if the drone starts spewing out an aerosol containing a nerve or biological agent.

In every scenario I could come up with, reaction time, followed by immediate movement, was key.  If you look at the image attached to the linked article, above, I would say that Merkel's security detail could have had half a second - maybe - to react to the drone before it did anything dangerous.

That is nowhere near enough time.

Easy to obtain.  Easy to deploy.  Easy to weaponize.

Incredibly difficult to defend against.

It is a much scarier world all of a sudden.  At this point, I think it is only a matter of time before a major political figure is assassinated by drone.