<p>Tempest in a teapot. All will be well again in the next 100 hours. This week is a prelude to Thanksgiving and Christmas week, safe and except the lack of use confiscated Blackberries.</p>
<p>There’s an art center near DC too, that happens to be a national park. Many, many art and craft classes, weekly dances, children’s programs, etc., all immediately cancelled. It’s the type of place that seems more like community center but since it has some federal oversight, it has closed.</p>
<p>A few of these are crazy, like how much maintenance does the Panda Cam require? I know the Capital Crescent trail in the Bethesda area and wonder how they can effectively shut it, as there are many cross streets. </p>
<p>I hadn’t heard the service academy civilian staff has been let go. That’s a lot of instructors. </p>
<p>On a positive note, the IRS has stopped audits!</p>
<p>D was researching a paper for American govt. last night and could not access a number of database articles which were linked to the Library of Congress.</p>
<p>Next time they shut down the government they should put it to a national vote. </p>
<p>Please help us determine your essential services. Many of us would not consider keeping congress et. al paid to be one of these.</p>
<p>As I posted elsewhere, the nces website posted this yesterday
and today the link to the site doesn’t even work 
</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nces.ed.gov%5B/url%5D”>www.nces.ed.gov</a></p>
<p>I may be wrong, but I think there’s an actual law passed decades ago about what is allowed to happen when the government shuts down. I don’t think it can be left to personal decision, volunteering, or common sense. Anyone know for sure?</p>
<p>My cousin stays at my house occasionally when she has meetings nearby. She was supposed to come last night but the meeting is funded via federal $$ so was cancelled for today. No visit from cousin last night. Oh well!</p>
<p>My wife is supposed to go to Australia later in August to give a talk at a scientific meeting. Even though the trip is sponsored by the meeting organizers, it appears that she will not be able to go if the government is shut down.</p>
<p>As long as the shutdown doesn’t last stupidly long, I should be fine, but if it lasts long enough for agencies like the VA to start running out of money…yeah I’m gonna have to dig in to those savings of mine to cover expenses next month.</p>
<p>Stay on topic! How is the shutdown affecting you or someone you know personally? NO commentary about politicians or policies allowed.</p>
<p>Friend’s son is a student at the US Merchant Marine Academy. While it is considered to be one of the service academies, it is funded through the Department of Transportation (I think that’s the department, at any rate, it is not DOD funded). All classes have been cancelled. If the shutdown continues past this week the students will be sent home.</p>
<p>"and today the link to the site doesn’t even work "</p>
<p>It looks like you get the same message if the www is not part of the address.</p>
<p>My s’s GF is furloughed. I think she plans to take up knitting :)</p>
<p>Thanks, texaspg. It wasn’t working when I posted earlier (I used their direct link which I truncated in my post as it wasnt working anyway) - I got the bad link message. But now I get the message I posted in post # 106. Doubt anyone is monitoring the site. Its probably just glitchy.</p>
<p>We’re budgeting for a permanent loss of at least three week’s worth of income – right around the time spring tuition is due.</p>
<p>Okay, found it. It’s the Antideficiency Act, passed in 1884, and amended in 1950 and 1982. Here’s the relevant part that describes what federal employees are prohibited from doing:
</p></li>
</ul>
<p>As you can see, even if some federal worker volunteered to run the panda cam on his/her personal time, he/she could be subject to fine and even jail. This is why the government doesn’t mess around with what’s open and what’s not open.</p>
<p>"It wasn’t working when I posted earlier "</p>
<p>You are right jym. The link you have above did not work. I googled NCES to see what they do that might be important to me and got the posted message. Now the posted message shows on the link you posted too.</p>
<p>That law creates some issues for “excepted” personnel whose jobs involve some essential elements (like patient care) and some non-essential elements. I think most of them who have to work will do all their work–as long as it doesn’t incur any additional costs beyond their pay.</p>
<p>(Note: my wife’s trip to Australia is later in October. I know it’s a pretty petty problem, but if she doesn’t get to go she won’t get the airline status we were hoping for this year.)</p>
<p>I am in the middle of working a protest of a government contract. That’s all on hold during the shutdown.</p>