Fracking poses enormous dangers to our food and water supply, air quality, and soil, and therefore to human health and welfare. It involves known carcinogens and neurotoxins and does irreparable damage. It poisons wildlife.

As an anonymous researcher at the NIH, my experiments have been devastated by the shutdown. I keep hearing the stories from my friends: Months of work with cell cultures that require daily tending is down the tubes. Sensitive behavioral training and testing is ruined. Animals will have to be destroyed when we get back to work because, sadly, they will be useless as research models (imagine a partial-inducement of Parkinson's Disease in a rodent: what can you do with this now that it is not characterizing anything in the human?). Humans enrolled as research subjects--something that takes months of paperwork and coordination--will likely not return for follow-up testing because timing is critical on these types of experiments. The list goes on and on. As a post-doc, and after a long haul of education and training, I make very little money. I work every weekend and many nights, but I love what I do. I do it because I believe in basic science. It's one of the most noble careers, because for me, it represents a quest for truth. And I feel white hot anger that these elected "representatives" toy with federal funding like it's play Monopoly money. I'm just one story. But I know I represent the vast majority of government-employed basic science researchers who are sitting at home right now wondering what they can do. So I hope you will sign this. A voice of reason is only as strong as those that join with it. Please help me get a message to Congress--maybe they'll quit ignoring some of us on the ground.

I, like most of the citizens of the U.S., have an overall dissatisfaction with our elected Senators and Representatives, with little to no recourse when they do not perform their responsibilities at a high level. As shown in public opinion approval polls, Congress receives 10-15% approval ratings with no accountability other than to not re-elect them 2-6 years during elections. The citizens of the United States should be able to fire elected officials who continue to not work for their constituents.

In an interview on the morning on Friday, Oct. 4 with WHP-TV, Gov. Tom Corbett laughingly compared same-sex relationships to incest. Recently arguing against a county clerk who’d begun issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, lawyers for the state's Department of Health suggested that those couples were just like 12-year-old children in being ineligible for marriage, but Corbett told WHP-TV anchor Sherry Christian that incest would be a better comparison, saying: "I think a much better analogy would have been brother and sister, don’t you?" Sherry Christian rightly seemed stunned by the governor's comment. It is a shocking example of bigotry and the governor must apologize without delay!

The welfare of our country and its citizens should be the top priority of our elected officials. It is ridiculous that elected officials can make such rash decisions that have an enormous impact on the income and economy of the American people while avoiding any effects themselves.

Closing the government affects tens of thousands of honest, hardworking employees, and their families, and because their services are unavailable, the security and economy of the nation is being put at risk.

Congress, in its unwillingness to compromise on a budget, has unnecessarily shut down the government. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees will be unpaid throughout the shutdown. Members of Congress should do the decent thing and forgo their wages for the same period. Our elected representatives at every level are voted in to represent us and our interests. Without a forfeit of wages, the officials making these decisions prove further that they are out of touch with the common citizen. The rash decision to shut down the government is damaging our already fragile economic recovery. The forfeiture of pay is the least they can do to prove that they are sincere in their efforts to provide a government worthy of its citizens.

This petition is designed to help put our government back to work and to right the wrongs created by the recent shutdown of the federal government. Our country's security is at risk and too many people, including children and families, have been hurt by the recent shutdown, which needs to end immediately.

The members of Congress are out of touch with the people of the United States. The pains of delays in Social Security payments, National Guard furloughs, and farm payments are ones that the members of Congress should be feeling.

As an artist, we are losing Art Spaces. Art is just as important as physical education and environmental education. We have plenty of environmental education centers in the state of Maryland. Please help us save the Art Galleries at Quiet Waters Park. If you've enjoyed the art galleries at Quiet Waters Park in Annapolis, please sign and share the petition.

You have failed us and do not deserve a salary. No pay for no performance. End the shutdown. The Affordable Care Act is LAW--get used to it.

To whom it may concern, As I prepare to file and pay my Federal United States taxes I find myself contemplating all of the resources and fundamental services that federal taxes are funded and supported by, including our beautiful national parks, United States Congress, Federal assistance and food programs, Veteran benefits and many, many more. Much of what makes this county prosperous and productive is funded through our federal budget and, of course, through the taxes of hard-working Americans like myself. However, in October of 2013, the government “shut down” at the expense of the American public and these necessary services which US citizens need and enjoy. As a result of this shut-down, people’s needs, desires, and plans were compromised and destroyed because members of congress, those of which we pay their salaries, could not compromise with each other, therefore allowing the American public to suffer at their expense. Weddings were canceled, long-term plans ruined, benefits restricted, and availability of American pastimes and monuments were cut off, even for America’s bravest heroes. Since the US Government was shut down for this period of time and these services were not opened, there is not a need for them to be funded during this time. Federal employees could not work and need to be paid for the time they were not permitted to do their jobs, however there is no reason why members of Congress should receive their larger-than-life salaries for these days, and alternate taxes which pay for the maintenance and upkeep of these services which were cut do not need to be paid for. Therefore, it only makes rational sense that US citizens should NOT have to pay ANY federal taxes during the time of the shut down. It only makes sense, we have to pay our electric or water bills based on the amount we use, since we’re not using Federal services, we should not have to pay. Tax filing for the year 2013 needs to include tax-free or extremely low taxes for the days the government is shut down in order to pay the salaries of federal workers who are the ones suffering here, NOT for those in Congress who forced the American public to suffer through their stubborn bickering. We as American citizens stand together to say NO federal taxes during the shut-down. When the government re-opens we will also re-open our wallets and enjoy the services funded by them however until then there is not a reason we should have to pay taxes. If we are forced to pay taxes during the days the government was shut down, in order to fund programs and services that have been suspended, it is STEALING, which is punishable by our own Federal laws. We will not serve as Pawns in a game controlled by a few which influences most Americans rights and services. Regards, The American Public