MAVEN Mission To Mars Will Proceed, Despite Shutdown 87
necro81 writes "Due to the ongoing shutdown of the U.S. Government, NASA is largely grounded. This is bad for all kinds of reasons, but one particularly bad outcome would have been missing the launch window for the MAVEN spacecraft, due to launch 18 November. The next launch window would not have been until 2016. MAVEN, thankfully, has been given the go-ahead, in large part because this orbiter will serve as a vital communications link for the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers currently on the surface. Currently, these rovers are served by two aging orbiters: Mars Odyssey (launched 2001) and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (launched 2005). Maintaining communications with the rovers is considered essential, hence the preparations and launch will proceed. (NASA's official mission website is currently offline.)"
Re:The Shutdown is a lie (Score:4, Informative)
Just because you don't agree with a democratically elected government doesn't mean that it is corrupt
You could read his post. As noted, the Obama administration has decided which parts of the law to delay and which not to, even though they weren't given that option (in other words, illegally). Various waivers of Obamacare provisions have been made to Democrat party allies. And there is indeed an exemption for certain government employees (I just know of Congress and its staff having a specific exemption).
When certain people have to follow the law and other, better connected people don't, that's corruption whether you agree with it or not.
and it doesn't mean that its policies are unpopular
There, I would go by public opinion too. Polls indicate most people don't have a clue. So it's not unpopular as I would see it - yet.
I also find it mildly ironic that a person who accuses the government of corruption seems to feel that the current situation is normal, since misappropriating a law that deals with the government's budgetary process in order to combat a law that would otherwise pass through the legislature strikes me as corruption.
Why is that corruption? This is how the law is meant to be used. It's incentive for people to compromise rather than not pass some sort of funding legislation (real budgets or the current continuing resolutions) for years on end.
Re:The Shutdown is a lie (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, but it's generally expected that once congress gets back in order they'll authorised back-pay, as has happened in previous shutdowns. Some of the employees may need to borrow money to get them through the crisis, but they'll get paid. Eventually. Probably.
Re:The Shutdown is a lie (Score:5, Informative)
"to furlough ( that is let federal employees have days off ) with pay"
furlough is UNPAID leave.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furlough [wikipedia.org]
a furlough (/frlo/; from Dutch: "verlof", leave of absence) is a temporary unpaid leave of some employees due to special needs of a company, which may be due to economic conditions at the specific employer or in the economy as a whole.
the Affordable Care Act was made LAW last year. get it? LAW. So some politicians are ignoring the LAW and holding the REST OF THE GOVERNMENT hostage.
Re:The Shutdown is a lie (Score:5, Informative)
"And there is indeed an exemption for certain government employees (I just know of Congress and its staff having a specific exemption)."
Congress does not have an Obamacare waiver. In fact, Congressmen and their staffs are now *required* to purchase health insurance from the new health care exchanges and have lost their existing government health plans. This is a bizarre misconception I hear all the time from the right, so I'm guessing it's coming from talk radio but I have no idea. Yes, the government is subsizing part of their coverage just as most other employers do, but I will repeat: Congress is REQUIRED to purchase health care provided by the ACA.
Re:The Shutdown is a lie (Score:2, Informative)
Congress is a large employer. Many large employers bought health insurance for their workers already and Obamacare mandates that they all do so in future. Congress was one of those large employers.
BUT THE REPUBLICANS DIDN'T LIKE THAT so they pushed for an amendment requiring Congress workers to get their health insurance from Obamacare's non-employer markets, which doesn't make any sense, but they figured when the Democrats said "No, that's stupid" they could spin it as "See, Democrats don't want Obamacare, they're just forcing others to use it". So, fine, the Democrats accepted the stupid Republican amendment
BUT AGAIN THE REPUBLICANS DIDN'T LIKE THAT so they said you can't subsidise medical care for employees (even though Congress has done that for many years). They tried to push through an amendment that would effectively cut pay to all Congressional staff by thousands of dollars, pretending that this was an "Obamacare subsidy" when in fact it's part of those employees normal pay and conditions.
And this time their own staff rebelled, because it's all very well being in favour of protecting rapists and eliminating welfare, but when it comes to your family going without because your employer wanted to look good on Fox News then it all gets very real. So that plan never happened.
The ONLY reason Congress is special at all in the Obamacare legislation is because REPUBLICANS insisted on it. So when you hear a REPUBLICAN moaning about that, remember they VOTED to make things the way they're complaining about. Hmmm, what's that about eh?