Hundreds of thousands of jobs are at risk. Delays await at airports. Padlocks are ready at national parks.

The nation will suffer greater risk of wildfires, workplace deaths, and even surprise weather events, if government predictions are to be believed. Our entire military readiness and superiority are at risk.

What if nobody cares?

President Obama sure does. He’s making the case, aggressively and comprehensively, that the automatic spending cuts set to go into effect at the end of the month will have a devastating impact, both on the economy and on essential government services.

“They will slow our economy. They will eliminate good jobs. They will leave many families who are already stretched to the limit scrambling to figure out what to do,” the president said Saturday in his weekly radio address.

But there are few signs to suggest the public is listening. A poll out late last week found that barely one in four Americans said they’d heard much about the automatic spending cuts — known unhelpfully for public-comprehension purposes as “sequestration” — and four in 10 said they were comfortable with the cuts going into effect.

President Obama Faces ‘Cliff Fatigue’ in Latest Budget Fight - ABC News

Is a federal brain-mapping project just pie in the sky? The White House will soon unveil a major initiative to map brain cell activity. The effort, led by the National Institutes of Health, could be on the scale Relevant Products/Services of the war on cancer in the 1970s or the Human Genome Project of the '90s, which mapped the human genetic blueprint.

"This is not a project yet. It is more like an idea," says Story Landis, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. "The brain is the last great frontier. It's what makes us human, how we think, how we write poetry. And the burden of disease that affects the brain is pretty extraordinary."

Yet the proposal has triggered disagreement among neuroscientists over whether such an effort is warranted or whether it threatens other, more vital research. The debate comes amid intense competition for federal research grants among biomedical researchers, who have seen the National Institutes of Health's $31 billion budget stay flat in recent years after a period of doubling in the past decade.

"We are right on the edge of finding out really vital information Relevant Products/Services about the brain," says Brown University neuroscientist John Donoghue, who was part of the project team. "There are questions we can now answer that can only be tackled as a collaborative project," not by individual labs.

But other researchers such as Leslie Vosshall of Rockefeller University in New York have criticized the ambition and potential cost.

"We don't understand the fly brain yet. How will this come to anything?" Vosshall asked

Researchers Debate Wisdom of Brain-Mapping Idea | Sci-Tech Today

The Old Days; Why climb a Mountain? Because it is there!

The Present; Why climb a Mountain? Because the Government will give us a Grant to do that.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

It's somebody else' fault according to The new Teflon President.

I find it appalling when any criticism of the President is simply ridiculed as either racially based, or class warfare.
Can we no longer discuss issues?

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

That's kind of where it's at. The President could change that politically based rhetoric out there, if/provided he wanted to, but unfortunately I don't see that happening.

It's rather easy to identify those that are racists by what they say and write. Without racism, they have nothing else in their bag of tricks to use. I pity them.

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'06 E320 CDI
'17 Corvette Stingray Vert

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Oh to dream...

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1980 300TD-China Blue/Blue MBTex-2nd Owner, 107K (Alt Blau) OBK #15
'06 Chevy Tahoe Z71 (for the wife & 4 kids, current mule) '03 Honda Odyssey (son #1's ride, reluctantly) '99 GMC Suburban (255K+ miles, semi-retired mule) 21' SeaRay Seville (summer escape pod)

^ Statistics. Not perfect but oh well.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Good article about sequestration: Sequester offers President Obama a time to lead - The Washington Post

"alluded to" not "eluded to".

To "allude" is to make reference. To "elude" is to avoid.

seriously... em etib

Phones aside, as I understand it if you randomly got a 20%ish pay cut things would become a but tight if you're a young'n. I know I'd have to cut back on some hobbies if I lost 20%

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$60 OM617 Blank Exhaust Flanges
$110 OM606 Blank Exhaust Flanges
No merc at the moment

When my 2 days furlough per pay period kicks in I will be selectively "voting" with my money even more closely as to who gets paid and who will have to wait for "their" money or any further expenditures as a customer. Its called trickle down economics and it works both ways.

Yep, gotta cut back on everything, to pay for the Federally backed student loans that allowed me to go to college, so that I could get a stable (yes government) job, then suffer a 20% pay cut.

In the past, the lack of proactive decision making lead to temporary Gov shutdowns. Federal workers received retroactive pay once a budget was approved. This sequestration is not like that. The furlough means a 16 hours fewer operations time per pay period and a "no-ifs-ands-or-buts" 20% pay cut. Absolutely no retroactive pay measures of any kind. Plus, I will still have to accomplish a similar work tempo. So I'll just have to work harder/faster and come home even more exhausted.

Not that I will not consider going elsewhere to work, but I suspect that the defense contract re-negotiations will start this summer.... that will equate to workforce reduction for MilCons. That is likely just a matter of time.

This is the first step in major cutbacks if this trend continues.

Lesson learned: Don't trust anyone. You're never safe, no matter how hard you work, no matter what you do...

That said, If I must look for a new job, "This makes you... my competitor."

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2013 Volkswagen Jetta Hybrid SEL Premium (Sparky)
http://badges.fuelly.com/images/smallsig-us/193500.png

It's a car not a science experiment! Open the throttle!