I'm reeling at the bread news. I refuse to believe it.

Why isn't bread baked on Wednesday?

There's nothing like coming from the hospital for a meeting only to find out that you forgot something vital for the meeting. So you fix it up quickly, and now the servers for the whole gov't are down, so you cannot print them.

Tsunami warnings cancelled: [link]

Thank fuck for that, anyway.

Some of what they say about government efficiency is true, it turns out.

Well, yeah. But part of the reason for that (I have learned) is in order to keep us from doing anything bad or wrong. So there's a lot of protocols in place for decision-making. And a lot of controls in place for spending money: what kind of money you can use for what, and what kind of obligations the government can take on, are both tightly constrained.

It sounds like the shutdown is coming down to banning federal funds to planned parenthood and preventing EPA regulation of greenhouse gases.

Because god forbid poor women get reproductive health care, or poor people living on the coastlines get protected from sea-level rise that the US is one of the parties primarily responsible for.

Relief that Japan "only" got an earthquake instead of another tsunami on top of it.

At least one member of the House (who represents the innermost suburbs of Northern VA) says reimbursement of furloughed federal employees is not likely. Hubs was on the phone with a co-worker for close to an hour last night about the possible furlough. He still doesn't know whether or not he'll be furloughed.

But part of the reason for that (I have learned) is in order to keep us from doing anything bad or wrong.

This. It can easily take close to forever to get anything done around here (for certain values of "anything"). I've had 15-20 reviewers on some projects. Even with a deadline, that many people can have a lot of things to say!

You know what really sucks about the furlough? Soliders are not considered essential, so that the people fighting overseas aren't going to get paid. Guess what, Congress? You can't just stop fighting a war because you're on furlough

And a lot of controls in place for spending money: what kind of money you can use for what, and what kind of obligations the government can take on, are both tightly constrained.

I had a friend who worked for the government who would complain that they were forced to always take the lowest bid for a project even if they knew it would end up meaning higher costs in the long run.

I had a friend who worked for the government who would complain that they were forced to always take the lowest bid for a project even if they knew it would end up meaning higher costs in the long run.

Yeah. Low bidder doesn't always mean cheapest on the job: it often means that they underbid to get the job and they'll make it up later on changes in scope.

Another issue is that some agencies just don't have the money to pay for good work: my old firm wouldn't bid on Forest Service or Park Service work, because they just didn't have the money to cover our costs.

I've been on both sides now, government and contractor, and I have to admit that the system is kind of fubar.

Actually, soldiers are considered and essential, as far as ATC said yesterday. It's just civilian contractors stateside where it gets iffy. Civ.cons overseas are more likely to not be furloughed, but at US bases, well...

You know what really sucks about the furlough? Soliders are not considered essential, so that the people fighting overseas aren't going to get paid. Guess what, Congress? You can't just stop fighting a war because you're on furlough

HMOG.