day 4

we're going into day 4 of working from the couch. it's most maddening that nobody else from my building is checking email. c'mon, people! next week has a national holiday! get some work done now so you can drink beer and sell bottle rockets to neighborhood kids next week!

it's also maddening that the announcements have changed. the first couple of days, they said the buildings were closed, and please check back frequently. now, they're switched to giving this whole spiel about how we're really OPEN, but a FEW employees in a FEW buildings are on administrative LEAVE - and no estimates of when the buildings might actually be open again. clearly, someone is afraid that the press will find the very-public-website and say that we are not doing our jobs. the irs (near us) announced that they will be closed for 30 days, but that "the shutdown would not affect IRS service and enforcement operations". enforcement!

also... this is appalling - buffet gives a lot of money to a great cause which is changing the way world healthcare is looked at (or at least forcing the traditional methods to be re-thunk - the gates model is not necessarily ideal, but we won't get into that here), and a priest compares him to mengele because one of the wonderful results of his donation may be that birth control is promoted? ai. at least the religious right is busy with the big names, and keeping their snotty noses out of the hpv vaccine issue.