GOP Shutdown: NOW can we have TERM LIMITS?!

The partial government shutdown is about to enter its third week.  To top it off, we're only days from defaulting on our bonds for the first time in this country's history.  And yes, it's the Republicans' fault.  Not because they're a bunch of slimy racist old bastards (they are, but that's beside the point), but because they're afraid of a group of even slimier and more racist old bastards...the Tea Party.  Mainstream Republicans see what's happening to their party in the polls and, like President Obama, they want this thing to end, but they also want to keep their jobs.  And because the Tea Party has apparently pledged to be against ANYTHING that Obama wants, any Republican who even hints at compromising faces a primary challenge from the Tea Party.  All because the top priority for politicians in the House and the Senate -- for BOTH parties -- isn't doing the job, but keeping it.

Ya think we can start talking about term limits now?

Republicans vs. Obamacare: Now What?

I've been working in IT in some form for just over 20 years.  Starting as a PC tech (which back then meant installing Word Perfect from 5 1/4" floppy disks), and working up to what I do now (programming and systems administration).  If there's one thing that I've learned is that users do not like it when you take things away from them.  Whether it's a software application, or their old monochrome monitor, even if you replace it with something better, they react as if you're taking away one of their children.  Once people start using something, and get used to using it, good luck trying to get it out of their hot little hands.

Our country is in the midst of a government shutdown.  Spurred by their Tea Party caucus, the shutdown started off as the latest volley in the Republican Party's futile effort to repeal, replace, de-fund, delay, whatever, the Affordable Care Act, or as I proudly call it...OBAMACARE, but has now become one long tragedy, or sitcom depending on whose side you're on.