Friday, April 8 2011
The U.S. Government may shutdown at midnight (EDT) today 8 April. If this occurs then the NGS website and associated services, OPUS, UFCORS, CORS ftp servers, etc. will be made unavailable. To try and minimize disruptions when the US Government shutdown ends, automated retrieval of CORS data from contributing agencies will continue. Only minor problems will be resolved, due to the limited available staff during the shutdown.
Please contact Giovanni Sella at giovanni.sella @ noaa.gov if you have any questions.
Makes no sence since the power is still going to be on at these places. Why take the web-servers off-line, eveything is automated.
Well, at least they know what we know. Those services are not essential and life will ho on without them.
I really dislike that term "non-essential." If it is non-essential then why are we doing it? Oh maybe it is an essential government service although not law enforcement and fire.
It is a government shutdown. The power should be turned off because we don't know if Congress will appropriate money to pay the utility bills.
institutional inertia and kingdom building- you've been in public sector to know how this works.
You're right. What is so essential about the cops? The donut companies will go out of business without them? OH HAR HAR HAR!!!
It costs money to keep servers running.
"Essential" really only comes down to a skeleton crew, to keep only the most critical things running to prevent a complete collapse for the short term, like border patrol, airports, and so on - not all of the rest of the day to day things we need to keep things running longterm. And, a lot of agencies and department were exempted outright, like postal service and USDA food inspectors. If the shutdown were to continue for a couple of months, we WOULD then start to face more and more of a complete collapse.
> Why take the web-servers off-line, eveything is automated.
Cause some one will care and might scream about it. If it really didn't matter, they wouldn't dare taking it off line...what if no one complained?
And, everyone should be a member of a good RTN by now, get your download from them...
I don't think the shutdown is going to happen anyway.
Not paying the Military is just too dangerous politically.
Meh. Didn't stop 'em in '79 and '95. I was on active duty during both shutdowns and, to be honest, the impact on the military was fairly minimal. The military takes care of its own, and we had policies and programs in-place to make sure the enlisted soldiers and families were cared for in case the shut-downs went on too long.
These kinds of events tend to be self-correcting; neither side wants to have the shut-down go on too long. It just looks bad, and childish. My guess is that any shutdown will last a week at the most, then Congress will get an earful from their constituents and come to a compromise.
Doesn't fix the underlying problem, though. This government is bloated, out of control and has a voracious appetite for your money and mine.
Oh wait it's 6 minutes to midnight on the East Coast. Well maybe it'll go into tomorrow but that won't really mean much.
Well rest assured that Congress members will still get paid during the shutdown, earning their pay during the continued negotiations....
> I don't think the shutdown is going to happen anyway.
>
> Not paying the Military is just too dangerous politically.
Actually, the clip I saw on TV while sitting at the bank earlier indicated that combat troops would not be receiving their paychecks but expected to report for duty. Any back wages due them would supposedly be paid in in full when funding was appropriated.
Last time I checked, the armed forces were the last folks you should neglect to pay. Other countries that have neglected to pay their armed forces have usually regretted their decisions.
Personally, I think it's bad democracy not to pay a guy who might be the recipient of an incoming RPG tonight, or tomorrow, or the next day. It's easy sitting in DC to say "he won't get paid, until WE get paid", but in reality there is no similarity between sleeping in Helmand province, and sleeping in your cozy digs outside DC tonight.
As for NOAA/NGS servers being offline. Hmm, I guess I'll have to use my old NGS software if I need to do anything interesting. Odds are, I won't have any work while the government is shut down anyway...
Pulling the plug sounds like an F.U. by the people who won't be getting paid if the government "shuts down".
Yeah, I usually leave my computer connected to the Internet unattended for extended periods. No one would want to mess with it after all.
Riiiiight. Because my work PC and home PC are the exact same thing as a dedicated public government internet server.