The Government Shutdown...

Just thought I'd share this pic that one of my friends posted on Facebook today...which sums up just how out of tune the Republican Party is with the American people. The last time the U.S. government shut down was back in 1995-'96...when another Democrat (Bill Clinton) was in the Oval Office—and the GOP wanted to reduce funding to Medicare (as opposed to currently wanting to do away with the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare), public health, education and other programs. It remains to be seen how long this nonsense will last (the '95 shutdown lasted 28 days), but at least the mail is still coming in! Should expect a paycheck or two by today or tomorrow.

On another shutdown-related note, NASA celebrated its 55th birthday on Tuesday...and marked this milestone by ceasing work on everything that didn't involve the International Space Station or robotic probes and satellites already operating out in space. These craft obviously don't include the MAVEN Mars orbiter, which is a little over a month from its scheduled launch date on November 18...but is currently sitting silent at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It remains to be seen if the shutdown will end in time for MAVEN to resume launch preps to meet its November lift-off date, or—like the Curiosity Mars rover (which was originally suppose to depart for the Red Planet in 2009 but had to wait till 2011 to leave Earth)—will have its flight delayed to the next launch opportunity to Mars...which won't be till 2016. If that's the case, then I'd have to thank Congress; for being a bunch of dumbasses. Carry on.

EDIT (3:13 PM, PDT): Looks like Congress isn't completely filled with imbeciles... NASA will be allowed to continue launch processing for the MAVEN spacecraft due to cost issues and the time-critical nature of this mission!