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Hubble has a problem. NASA says that one of the cameras on the almost 30-year-old space telescope – the Wide Field Camera 3 – is no longer operational because of a hardware problem.
"WFC3 is the major imaging instrument on HST [Hubble Space Telescope]. It is, frankly, the best view of the heavens that humanity has," Simon Porter, an astrophysicist at the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado, wrote on Twitter. "But apparently some bloody fence is more important."
Although the Hubble Space Telescope has been observing the sky since 1990, the WFC3 was added just 10 years ago during a service mission. Over the last decade it has captured spectacular images, including a high-resolution version of the iconic 'Pillars of Creation' – a gas cloud inside the Eagle Nebula that was first imaged by Hubble back in 1995.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday January 11 2019, @03:30AM (15 children)
Except the US doesn't have a parliamentary system. The US executive branch is not made up of *serving* congresspeople/senators. The only "no-confidence" vote for president comes every four years. No vote in congress (well, except impeachment in the House, followed by conviction in the Senate) will cause the government to "fall." Our system is different.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday January 11 2019, @12:55PM (2 children)
Does the executive have to approve the budget if the house and senate agree on it?
(Score: 3, Informative) by cmdrklarg on Friday January 11 2019, @03:23PM (1 child)
Yes, that is why the POTUS signs or vetoes the bills sent to their desk.
Mind you, if Congress wants something bad enough, they can vote again to override that veto. If they get two-thirds of both House and Senate to vote for the bill it is law, regardless of the POTUS.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 1) by DECbot on Friday January 11 2019, @04:21PM
Which is why I feel like Congress isn't working hard enough. POTUS made it clear what he wants to see in the budget. If two-thirds of the House and the Senate thinks the president's demand to be unreasonable, like you said, then they can give the POTUS a big "fuck you" and vote whatever they want into law which would reopen the government. Why we don't see that is because the Democrats don't have a super majority and thus have to cooperate with the Republicans to get anything passed. And for the past decade or two, the only thing the two parties agreed on is voting for was wars on things. So the question remains, how many Republicans can Trump convince to keep supporting the wall during the shutdown? Because that will determine how long the government will remain in shutdown if the Dems are definitively not funding a wall. If there is any good to come from this shutdown, it creates a reason for the Democrats and Republicans to come to the negotiation table. When that finally happens, it'll likely result in a budget including a wall/fence or Articles of Impeachment. Both of which would likely get the majority of support from the American people.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday January 11 2019, @09:28PM (11 children)
Yes, I am aware of that.
I was merely pointing out one of the ways in which your 18th century government system could be reformed, if there was a will to do it.
Yes, I am aware there is no real will to reform it.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday January 12 2019, @04:44AM (10 children)
The issues with the US Federal government (and with most democracies) isn't the system itself, rather with how those who are elected to serve approach using the levers of power.
When such levers are used to perpetuate the power/influence of those elected, rather than to govern in the interests of the electorate, we find ourselves in the situation with which we are now faced.
The current partial shutdown is a symptom of the widespread effort to put partisan politics over good governance. This is *not* a weakness of our system of governance, rather it's the culmination of decades of effort to expand the political franchise and personal liberties.
Those who would limit personal liberty are unwilling to compromise. Since compromise is at the heart of successful political action, we're stuck in a cycle of recrimination and blame.
The strict separation of powers is meant to make the various government branches work together and to restrict the ability of the majority to just ram through legislation without constraint. That Congress can't just dissolve the executive branch with a vote of no-confidence is a *feature* of the US system, not a bug.
I'd also point out that parliamentarism [wikipedia.org] pre-dates the US Constitution by quite a bit.
There are some aspects of parliamentary democracy, especially the ability of fringe/less popular groups to have their voices heard in legislative debates, which are lacking in the US system. However, the strict separation of powers is one of the US system's greatest strengths IMHO.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Saturday January 12 2019, @10:43PM (9 children)
I live in a parliamentary democracy, and we have strict separation of powers too, thta's not unique to the American system.
We also cannot have a government shutdown for the reasons I outlined, so I think your system is a poor one.
It was really great in 1776, but is not really fit for purpose now.
Could you expand on that point a bit? I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Sunday January 13 2019, @11:01PM (8 children)
Do sitting members of parliament hold positions in the executive branch of your government? If so, that's not the separation of powers I was talking about. In the US system, no sitting member of the Legislative or Judicial branches may hold positions in the executive branch.
If that is, in fact, not the case in your country, I don't see how a divided government can prevent a shutdown. Please elucidate on how that can be.
That's a complicated story. I'll try to hit some of the high points:
While the story begins much earlier (the 13th [archives.gov] and 14th [wikipedia.org] amendments, Jim Crow [wikipedia.org], Women's suffrage [wikipedia.org], miscegenation laws [wikipedia.org], sodomy laws [wikipedia.org]), I'll begin with the white/black integration of the US military after World War II [wikipedia.org]. Outside the military, blacks were once again subject to Jim Crow laws and societal segregation. This irked many, as they served their country and fought bravely for "freedom and equality," abroad. This added additional energy to the ongoing struggle to end anti-black segregation/discrimination.
Continuing along these lines, over the next 20 years, a number of supreme court decisions (Brown v. Board of Education [wikipedia.org], Loving v. Virginia [wikipedia.org], Griswold v. Connecticut [wikipedia.org], and even into the 1990s, with Lawrence v. Texas [wikipedia.org]) and acts of Congress (Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965), as well as the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment [wikipedia.org] caused many Democrats (who, for a century after the US Civil War, were staunch segregationists/misogynists) to abandon their party in favor of the Republicans. This was solidified with the campaign and election of Richard Nixon in 1968, where he used fear of changing social norms/racial integration/fear of the evil black man to bring those people who felt abandoned by Lyndon Johnson's Democratic party into the Republican fold.
This tension served to change the constituencies of both parties, which were, until the mid 1970s, fairly diverse. This mass sorting of ethnic/economic groups has driven a wedge between those in each party, which came into prominence in 1993, with Newt Gingrich being elected Speaker of House and encouraging his compatriots not to compromise -- on anything. That was not just a quirk of Gingrich's, rather it was the culmination of strategies hatched in the late 1950s and early 1960s by folks who didn't want to see real equality for *all* Americans.
Nancy MacLean's excellent treatise [amazon.com] on this should give you much more information as to how this has metastasized over the last sixty years or so.
If you're not inclined to read books, you can hear it from her directly [c-span.org].
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday January 14 2019, @12:20AM (7 children)
The executive are made up of sitting MP's yes, but they have different responsibilities to non-cabinet members.
We (the people) also know in advance who they're going to be, and can vote them out if they're useless. This also prevents the appointment of people like the odious Betsy DeVos (for example).
As far as the shutdown thing does, I stand corrected, instead of "cannot" have a shutdown, I should have written "do not" have shutdowns. The reason being that if the government loses a budget vote, that is automatically a confidence matter, triggering a general election.
Anyone that triggers an early general election is pretty much always punished by the voters, and they know it. That is one of the moderating factors on the behaviour of MP's.
Thanks for the rest of your post. It's very interesting.
It often surprises me just how vicious and self-interested some of the South in your country is.
Anyway, I suppose the point I was trying to make is that government services have been shutdown again in your country, and for purely political reasons.
It really is time you guys reformed your government
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday January 14 2019, @01:00AM (6 children)
Actually, it's time that we cleaned house. Our governmental structure is actually pretty good. The problem is those who populate the political offices of that structure. We managed not to shut down the government, even with divided government, for most of the history of our nation. This is primarily because those in the minority were considered the "loyal opposition" and both sides engaged in legislating on behalf of their constituents, rather than demonizing them for political gain.
I again suggest that you check out Nancy MacLean's book (or at least her presentation). It provides, in quite a bit of detail, how there are folks who are actively seeking to destroy our governmental structures to gain/retain power and influence in a changing world. Modifying our governmental structure will do nothing to remedy that, given that the problems are purely political and not a result of poor governmental structure.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday January 14 2019, @01:30AM (5 children)
Thanks.
We probably will have to agree to disagree on your governmental structure.
I am of the view that it is a huge part of the problem that your country of 300-odd million people has only two political parties, and seems destined to only ever have two. The seems to be pretty fundamental to the whole thing, as you have only ever been able to muster two parties (even if their names have been different). Two parties seems to be really easy to capture by various versted interests.
I will have a look at the Nancy MacLean presentation, as I currently have a stack of books on my bedside table I need to get through, including one for the Soylent book club.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday January 14 2019, @03:33AM (4 children)
I think we're in violent agreement here. Political parties are not governmental structures, IMHO. The governmental structures I was referring to are defined in the US constitution. And political parties aren't discussed at all. In fact, several of the founders warned against political parties.
I've often thought that having more *relevant* (as we do have many other political parties) political parties would expand our political discourse and make more voices heard.
And so, I agree that the *political* system has significant issues. However, I don't believe that the structure of government is the cause of those issues.
It's worthwhile to note that the US Constitution does not specify how each state should conduct their elections (even for those elected to serve in the federal government, up to and including the president). The winner-take-all elections we have here (except in the state of Maine as well as a number of municipalities, who have implemented ranked-choice voting [ballotpedia.org]) could be reformed, but aside from our Electoral College [wikipedia.org], there are no Federal (national) rules governing elections.
I am going to enjoy re-reading The Moon is A Harsh Mistress myself. It has been described as a re-telling of the American Revolution and it does have some similarities. I look forward to participating in discussion about it with you and others.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday January 14 2019, @06:44PM (3 children)
I'm skipping the Moon... and going straight to We are Legion (We are Bob) as I have not read it before.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday January 14 2019, @07:14PM (2 children)
Apparently, TMIAHM garnered the most votes [soylentnews.org]. So doesn't that make it the next selection?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday January 14 2019, @08:49PM (1 child)
I thought the one after that was WAL(WAB)
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday January 14 2019, @09:49PM
Sounds good to me. Enjoy!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr