Government at work and how they do a shutdown
So, the dog and pony show of a shutdown is upon us. Here’s how the .gov reacts:
They will spend more money to shut down a website than it takes to leave it up. Just to show you who’s boss.
The feds are only closing the more popular locations and the lesser known ones stay open. Just to show you who’s boss.
Instead of just turning out the lights, hire 7 bodies to place barricades at more expense than just turning off the lights. Just to show you who’s boss.
And more of that. And Rand Paul agrees. It’s just to show you who’s boss.
No matter how cynical I get, I can’t keep up.
October 3rd, 2013 at 3:41 pm
I’m staying away from the website thing. It feels like a trap. Given the way a database heavy website is set up, its easily conceivable that “shutting it down” takes it from a 100 machine load balanced cluster to a single box serving a static page.
There are so many other instances of spite, I don’t want to get caught complaining about the one thing that actually does save money.
October 4th, 2013 at 8:40 am
While the parks closures are ridiculous, the website closures might make sense from a data security standpoint. So I’ll give the IT groups credit for their actions.
What I won’t applaud is cessation of IRS refund payments. That is not the government’s money. All efforts to return it to its rightful owners should be considered essential.
October 4th, 2013 at 9:36 am
The director of national parks was on CSPAN yesterday. He said his reason for “closing” the outdoors was because of bathroom cleaning. He did not have enough staff to keep the bathrooms clean for visitors.
Oddly, I have been to the National Mall during full budgets of every regime since 1988, and one could not tell that anybody was cleaning them, ever, if they were open. Oh yes, frequently the bathroom was closed but the attached monument was open.
October 4th, 2013 at 7:29 pm
The website closures are stupid. If you have a small business and it goes out of business tomorrow, your website does not go down the next day. You may add a notice to the site, but that is it UNTIL you don’t pay the hosting bill.
Downing websites is a tacky overreach unless the federal government is paying for service on a daily plan….which is doubtful. I’ve never heard of such a critter.