Some lesser mentioned tidbits about Android Kit Kat.

A quick rundown of some other features of Android Kit Kat that haven't been written about or fully explained in most places:

• At the heart of Kit Kat is the newish Linux kernel 3.8, and thus lower memory requirements (RAM), along with better sandboxing of apps.  So, older phones with just 1GB of RAM can now be updated with the newest OS version, and it won't bog down your smart phone.  In other words, a possible end to some of the fragmentation where users get stuck on ICS and earlier Android versions.  At the very least, an old phone can be rooted then updated with a ROM from CyanogenMod and others, based on 4.4.
• Support built in to allow users to switch home screen launchers.  You've seen all those mycolorscreen home screens using Nova Launcher and others, right?  Now, you'll be able to switch back to stock Android screen and your customized screens.
• Local phone calls from people not in your address book, will trigger Google to search business listings in Google Maps to find a match.  Now that's a really awesome thing, because when I get a phone call from a number I don't recognize I just let it go to voice mail and deal with it later.

Hurry up or you'll miss out: Nexus 5 and Kit Kat official (Updated)

Done and done.  Bought it online via the Google Play Store, a white 32GB Nexus 5 for $399 + $9.99 shipping.  That's the price for an unlocked phone that runs on Sprint or T-Mobile (for now), unsubsidized, which, if you've shopped for phones at the T-Mobile store, you know how big of a bargain this is.

So you know how the Moto X has the always-on microphone ready for your voice commands?  The Nexus 5 has it built in, too, but at a much lower price.  I tell you, jump fast at this, or else you're going to end up waiting until after January for inventory to open up.

Seriously, I bought mine at 11:44 am with a ship date of Nov 5th, and 25 minutes later it's now Nov. 8.

Nexus 5 specs:

• Android 4.4
• 4.95" IPS 1920x1080 display (445 ppi)
• Gorilla Glass 3
• 1.3MP front facing / 8MP rear facing w/ image stabilization
• 69.17 x 137.84 x 8.59 mm
• 4.59 oz (130 g)
• 2,300 mAH -- 17 hrs talk / 300 hrs standby / 8.5 hrs WiFi internet / 7 hrs LTE internet
• Wireless Charging built-in
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, 2.3GHz
• Adreno 330, 450MHz
• Dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4G/5G) 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
• NFC (Android Beam)
• Bluetooth 4.0 LE
• 16 GB / 32 GB
• 2 GB RAM
• Micro USB
• SlimPort enabled
• 3.5mm stereo audio jack
• Dual microphones
• Ceramic power and volume buttons
• Accelerometer
• GPS
• Compass
• Proximity/Ambient Light
• Gyroscope
• Pressure
• Hall Effect
• GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
• CDMA: Band Class: 0/1/10
• WCDMA: Bands: 1/2/4/5/6/8/19
• LTE: Bands: 1/2/4/5/17/19/25/26/41
• T-Mobile / Sprint
• UNLOCKED

---

Updates:

Spotty inventory on Google Play, with the 16GB versions going in and out of availability, currently the black 16GB is out of stock.  It's starting to look a lot like a repeat of the Nexus 4 release where sales were brisk and availability became spotty through the end of the year.

Also, with the Nexus 5 supporting Qi wireless charging, a new charger has been revealed, but not yet available for sale.  Of course, since it's compatible with Qi wireless, you can get a non-Nexus-branded wireless charger for a lot less, right now.

Check out Google's Halloween doodle.

Go check out Google's Halloween doodle on its home page.  It's a nicely animated -- looks like stop-motion -- interactive doodle, so make sure that you explore everything on it.

Fall in the Pearl, in macro photo style.

Been there, done the Fall scenery photos.  With my newish extension tubes, I went outside to catch some frost and Fall colors up close in macro.

Discounted price: Digital Dwell sub at Google Play Store.

As soon as I saw it, I grabbed it: 10 issues of digital Dwell (1 year) for $9.97.

That's a lot lower than what you could previously get at a discount from other places ($13.99 at Amazon / Zinio; $19.99 normally).  I don't know how long this price will last, so grab it while you can.

10 thoughts for October 27, 2013

I have a lot of minor thoughts going through my head all the time.  I thought I should share some of it.

1. The voice of Edna Krabappel, Marcia Wallace, passed away.  Her character reminded me of my 7th grade English teacher, which is to say that I was her Bart: The rebel leader.  She wasn't a very good teacher though, and I'd confront her in front of class.  Probably wasn't a good idea -- she pushed me out of the honors track, and when I confronted her about it, she said that it was an "error".  I spent a year in the English class situated one below honors -- I got so bored with class, I stopped doing homework (I just plain didn't care) and got into trouble.  And then I sneaked my way back into the honors track in 9th grade.
2. Lou Reed, one of those foundations of rock and roll, died at age 71.  That's too young to die in my opinion, but he died from complications of a liver transplant, which probably means that he was paying for his rock and roll lifestyle from decades ago.  Too bad the cost was so high (dying young), but you know, we all eventually die.
3. Google now pwns the world.  Chromecast is the most-wished for item on Amazon and the current highest-selling electronics device -- even higher than any Kindle.  Chromebooks occupy the top spot and 4 of the top 6 in notebooks, at Amazon.  Top computers and accessories are all Android-based tablets.
4. Jack's Munchie Meals is clearly pandering to pot smokers.  But how do people high on pot get to Jack in the Box late at night?  Walk?
5. I really dig Primeval.  I can see why Primeval: New World failed, though: not much of a story tie-in from the original series, and parts of the story are completely implausible.  Funny thing: If you watch any sci-fi-ish show filmed in Canada, it's sure to have actors from one of the three Stargate TV series.
6. Kansas City Chiefs are 8-0; 49ers are 6-2.  Alex Smith is probably not missing SF a whole lot right now.
7. Nearly halfway through the NFL season, it looks like the AFC Championship game will be between Denver and KC, and the NFC Championship game will be between New Orleans and Seattle.  If somehow KC were to win the Super Bowl, he'd truly have the last laugh over his treatment following his concussion and benching at SF.
8. Ted Cruz and many other conservative Tea Party Republicans are saying that they won the fight over the shutdown and the debt ceiling, and will persevere.  Please, no one tell them otherwise -- let them live in their detached worlds.
9. As I might have mentioned, there are always winners and losers.  The absence of healthcare laws means there are winners and losers; single-payer (universal healthcare) has winners and losers; ACA has winners and losers.  The media has decided that they need to publicize the losers -- people who find that their rates have shot up.  So, if the media were true to their equivalence dictate, they would concurrently report on the winners.  Some have, while others haven't.
10. If free software is the future of selling physical objects, then some would say that Microsoft's Ballmer made the right move to direct Microsoft towards a devices and services company.  But then Microsoft is stuck in-between a Google and an Apple.  Google doesn't intend to compete with its manufacturing partners -- most of its own-branded hardware is a collaboration with its partners, and Motorola doesn't exactly have special privileges.  Apple is a closed system, so if it gives away software, it makes up for profit on its hardware sales.  Where exactly does Microsoft's position leave it?

10 thoughts on the day, October 26, 2013.

1. HP's all-in-one 21" Android thingamajig is available for purchase directly from HP's commerce site for $399, but if you can wait, B&H has it for preorder at $349 through today.  This is a 21" touch-screen with 1920x1080 resolution.  That's an extremely awesome price, just for the HD touch-screen alone.  I think the touch screen and simple interface might be good for retired folks who are technophobes.  If you can wait six months, I'm sure there'll be refurbished models on WoOt for $299 or less.
2. If you want to watch a video that'll freak you out about the future of medicine as it relates to bacteria and antibiotics, check out Frontline's "Hunting the Nightmare Bacteria".  To whittle it down to a single point: Uncontrolled outbreak at the NIH.
3. Chris Mooney's got a great write up over Johnathan Haidt's analysis on the psychology of politics -- between red and blue -- based on his book, "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion".  Basically, conservatives seek fairness while liberals seek compassion.  Funny, but I grew up realizing that there was no fairness in life, and at the core of humanity, compassion is the most important moral trait we look up to: See Mother Theresa.  I mean really, if you're going to be engulfed by the lack of fairness in this world, you're probably going to grow up to be a bitter, old person.  I'm butting heads with a bitter old conservative online right now, as a matter of fact -- I'm going to post his stuff one of these days.
   
4. Had a client come back the other week, six months after we had gone through design development, with all new programming.  The core concept was changed, and all we're being asked to do on the main floor, is to make it function better and look nicer.  By way of how their company is run, everyone that works there has to buy in.  But of course, you know what they say about too many chefs.  I was leaning towards TBNT, because I don't need to be anyone's design puppet.  As egotistical as that sounds, you only have so much time on this Earth, and being told what to do is a waste of it.
5. I'd seen on Nightline the other morning that first-born tend to have the highest IQ of siblings, while the youngest is the rebellious one.  That's probably true of my family where my brother's got bona fide smarts and I'm the rebel who does things my way -- and only my way.
6. I've been playing Poko Pang.  And Line Bubble.  And Line Pop. And Sushi Ninja.  It's like working, but playing: You have to play hard to move up in the world.
7. Major series of CMEs yesterday, such that we have an ongoing R3-level radio blackout potential, though no auroras because the CME was directed away from Earth...well, at least nothing to write home about.
8. Just made banana muffins.  They're like banana bread, but in muffin tin.  I don't use a recipe.  I learned from the Joy of Cooking book a long time ago that muffins are all basically the same ingredients, so I just work off memory of what's in it, and roughly the proportion of things.  Tastes good, BTW.  Piping hot, moist and not too sweet.
9. Life doesn't stop.  You're not that important in the grand scheme of things.  So really, just enjoy your life.  Unless of course, you are important in the grand scheme of things, in which case, why are you wasting time reading this?!?
10. I try not to think about the future, because if I do, I think I might get a panic attack.  (I sometimes get those nightmares where I'm back in college and it's senior year and I hadn't gone to my classes, I'm sure I missed some courses, and I'm not quite ready to confront that reality that I might have to study for another year or two.  That's when I wake up in a sweat, thankful that my life was the opposite of my nightmare.)  You just trust that one remains flexible to adapt to whatever future may come forward.  As Talking Heads said, 

"And you may ask yourself, where does that highway go to? 

And you may ask yourself, am I right or am I wrong? 

And you may say to yourself, my God, what have I done?!"

What if USC unilaterally ignored the NCAA sanctions?

Following the public release of Miami's case, and seeing how they used kid gloves on a program that had a decade's worth of violations following a previous decade of violations, I can't help but wonder, what if USC just decided to unilaterally ignore the NCAA's sanctions and sign 30 players for 2014?

I mean, I know that the NCAA would try to come back with more sanctions -- that much is obvious.  But doing so comes at the expense of massive media scrutiny over their prior actions and the implausible injustice they have carried out.

Paul Dee will be rolling in his grave to have the media revisit his administration at Miami, and the multiple levels of hypocrisy by the current NCAA's treatment of Miami and the COI's treatment of USC under Paul Dee's leadership.  All hell would break loose, no?

Further, it would invite possible congressional interference, as well as bring enormous weight on the Todd McNair case to open up the NCAA's secret emails that, apparently, reveal internal bias and rules-breaking.

The end game being: USC's own lawsuit against the NCAA, or at least the tacit threat of one.

So where's the down side to forcing the issue?

Obamacare is so bad...

That in Oregon you get to choose from 9 insurers and co-ops offering 76 different plans.

(Was that too much snark?)

Here's my observations of the available plans:

• From what I remember from my last employer, most of the plans available at Cover Oregon cost less and have better benefits with lower deductibles and copays -- and that's not taking into account any federal benefit.  I'm sure though, that very large companies such as Intel and Nike, have far better plans and lower prices.
• For me, the price differences between the lowest and highest plan within each level are:
• Bronze = 48% ($176 - $260);
• Silver = 46% ($205 - $300);
• Gold = 36% ($261 - $354);
• Platinum = 37% ($294 - $403).
• See that Platinum level lowest price ($294)?  Five years ago my previous employer had the same insurer, but a significantly higher price with worse benefits including a higher deductible and higher copays. 
• The layout architecture is remarkably similar to ehealthinsurance, and that's too bad, because it'd be a lot more helpful if the plans were laid out in table form. Think side-by-side comparisons down the line of all costs and features, as you would do at online car shopping sites such as Edmunds.com.
• It's worth reiterating the point: I believe that the biggest benefit of the ACA, will be those who get laid off, especially during recessions.  As far as I can tell, the prices are very competitive with group plans that you'd pay via COBRA extensions, except that your loss of income would likely push the exchange prices with accompanying federal benefits far below that of your former company's plans.
• You can't apply for coverage directly through the website yet, but when they do bring that online, if it doesn't have forced / persistent HTTPS, I would strongly suggest calling them instead of using the website to sign up.  Right now they don't use HTTPS and you can't force HTTPS.
• This is really important: You must check the list of providers on Cover Oregon's website.  Each insurer has its own list of providers (doctors) and some insurers have different (ie smaller) lists based on the level you're looking at (Bronze, Silver, etc) -- interestingly, the lists are hosted on Amazon Web Services using HTTPS, of course.

In general, it's good to live in a state that is blue and supported a state-based exchange.  Better yet, the ACA is a major boon for independent contractors, the self-employed and small businesses who do not have the purchasing power of big companies.

It is not perfect, but it is a start, and if it doesn't work out, don't expect Republicans to bring a better plan forward; at best, you can expect tax incentives, which would be rather ironic, given their penchant to deride the IRS and the complicated tax code (that Congress is responsible for writing).

Also, I can completely visualize how some might have panic attacks at the idea of being forced to buy something which they do not see as affordable.  But the alternative of living in constant worry of what-if-I-get-sick-or-injured is a lot worse.

---

Update: I just now visited healthcare.gov, and noticed that it had persistent HTTPS. I sure wish Cover Oregon was entirely HTTPS.

10 misc thoughts to catch up on the news.

1. The NCAA is a cesspool of assholes.  They break the rules when investigating an enormous -- re: a decade of violations coming off a previous decade of violations -- case against the University of Miami.  To compensate for their own fouls, they tap lightly on the feet of Hurricane athletics.   Meanwhile they break the rules while investigating the Reggie Bush case, and try desperately to hide it all, unrepentant.
2. After losing a couple of players for the season in practice on Monday, USC is down to 40-something scholarship players available to play against Utah.  Again, all thanks to the NCAA's cesspool of assholes.
3. The real message sent to USC: Cheat better, by pretending to be post-scandal remorseful of a lack of diligence of what had been going on around you.  We've had multiple major infractions cases involving the dreaded "lack of institutional control" on multiple programs, and all have resulted in light taps at the feet of said programs.
4. On the heels of a disappointing September jobs report -- hey, remember that thing called sequester cuts? -- with the October government shutdown and threat of the debt ceiling, I have read that the October jobs report will be terrible.  Macroeconomic Advisers previously suggested that a 2-week shutdown would result in a 0.3 percentage point drop in GDP for Q4, followed with a recovery by 0.3 pp in the following quarter.  Another economist has suggested it'll be a 0.6 pp drop.  I'm inclined to believe the latter because the debt ceiling and budget issues were merely put off until January / February.  Business owners and companies are going to be wary of hiring until both are resolved.
5. The narrative that financial shocks are harder to recover from, is only half true.  The speed of recovery from the 2008-2009 recession is faster than the one following the brief, shallow 2001 recession.  The issue here, is that financial shocks result in deeper drops.  For instance, if the economy of Fakestan has 100 jobs, drops 50 then recovered all 50, from its nadir, it will have gained 100% increase in jobs.  But if Fakestan lost 75 jobs then recovered 50, it'd have gained 200% employment, but it'd still be short 25 jobs from its peak.  Well, we're Fakestan and we're a ways away from getting back to the peak in early 2008.
6. If you think the US is in dire straits economically, think about Greece's nearly 28% unemployment rate.  Worried that the US might become Greece?  Don't.  The only reason why we'd become Greece is if we closed the central bank, passed a balanced budget amendment, brought back the gold standard, and to top it all off, eliminated regulation.  In other words, allowed Ted Cruz and his gang to take over.
7. The easiest way to bring stability back to the economy and trust in the US, is to kick out the Tea Party.  Their actions are causing young Americans to question Democracy.  Say hello to Anarchy.
8. The federal ACA exchange is an unmitigated disaster, not because of all the errors in the system, but because no one seems to know what the problems are, making it impossible to resolve.  And, if the problem is related to the backbone architecture of the system, then it'll need to be reworked from the ground up...no simple fixes and definitely won't be completed before the deadline to sign up.
9. If the federal exchange is flawed from its architecture design, then Democrats actually have a giveaway for a 6-month mandate delay, available for the debt ceiling / budget fights in Jan/Feb.
10. Apple is dying.  Or at least the market is not convinced.  On a day where they introduced all the new widgets (sans wristwatch) everyone had come to expect, their stock price drooped while Google's fluffed up a teensy bit.  It no small part, their future

The worst part about AutoCAD.

After some 20 years of using AutoCAD, I can state without reservation, that the worst part about AutoCAD is that it always fails you at the most inconvenient time, such that even a 10 minute backup is rendered useless, because, well, I get a lot of stuff done in 10 minutes when I'm in turbo mode fueled by coffee.

Now, some will surely state that, were I to plan better, I'd never be rushing to complete drawings on a deadline.  But that's fairly unrealistic because there's always deadlines that are unreasonable.

Besides, without pressure there's no incentive to work at turbo mode.

Daily Beast is wrong: Cronyism didn't bring us CGI Global

An excerpted paragraph of an article from the Daily Beast, on the federal rollout of the ACA signup:

Cronyism
“If you want an IT project to fail, allocate a bunch of dollars to it,” wrote former Presidential Innovation Fellow Clay Johnson. “HealthCare.gov isn’t a book by itself. It’s a chapter in an epic saga of large IT implementation screw-ups.” That includes a military veterans health database that is so backed up with unscanned documents that the paper load is collapsing the floor it’s warehoused on.
The company hired to build HealthCare.gov’s failing database, CGI Global, is an established government contractor (established enough to have actually lobbied Congress on the Affordable Care Act). Even though Canada had previously fired the firm for a botched $46.2 million medical registry system in 2011, CGI Global was still contracted to the build the technical keystone of the U.S. healthcare law.
“I think procurement in the federal government is broken. It favors incumbents and the status quo over the lean start-ups in terms of its archaic procurement rules and regulations,” Vivek Kundra, former U.S. chief information officer, told The Washingtonian.
Startups simply don’t have the knowhow to get around the oddly complicated procurement rules—or the congressional ties to curry favor. As a result, a mediocre contractor charged an astounding $93 million for a botched job.

Did you read anything that specified where cronyism occurred?  I didn't.  The only reference to cronyism, is in the second-to-last sentence, which ambiguously presumes that congressional ties leads to awards -- but that is untrue for large projects.  Most jurisdictions have strict rules which prevent the bypassing of the bid process (except for work / services / goods that are below a specified ceiling cost), coupled with strict scoring rules for those bids.  Most of the time where congressional ties help, it's in the award of pork money, not the award of bids.

Flat out, Daily Beast misunderstood how CGI Global obtained the contract.

Lowest qualified bid

Almost all government contracts, whether local, state or federal, select winners based on the lowest price, by law.  Assuming bidders meet the qualifications set by the governing jurisdiction, and depending upon the scoring system used, a crappy contractor's bid can be treated equally to a top notch contractor if their bid prices are matching lowest submitted.

In fact, lowest-qualified bid was meant to counter cronyism.  When cronyism creeps into government contract awards, you'll see it manifested in the awarding of a higher-priced bid.  So sorry, but Daily Beast is flat out wrong.

But that doesn't mean that lowest qualified bid works.  Administratively, bid documents must be complete and clear.  Often, lowest bidders use gaps in bid documents to add post-award contract cost increases.

Further, once you're in the middle of a contract, the reality is that the larger the cost, the greater the disincentive to cut your losses.  If it was your fault for clarity in your bid documents, are you really going to cut off the contract and move on to sign a new contractor?

Procurement rules are supposed to be complicated

Let's say you want to buy a pack of bubble gum.  All you need is a simple contract that says, "give me the lowest price for the procurement of bubble gum", right?  Wrong:

• Trust -- a handshake does not seal a deal; you need to have rules as to who can bid.  Do you want felons?  What about potential felons -- drug-testing?  To do this, you need to know the background of all the people involved in the procurement of bubble gum.
• Protocols -- if you want to evaluate bids on equal footing, you need to define the protocols of how those bids are written and processed.  You should try to dig through a 20-page bid, trying to figure out if a prospective bid contains everything you requested.
• Penalties -- if you don't have penalties for failure to deliver bubble gum on time, at the correct place, and for the agreed-upon price, then you might be severely dissatisfied.
• Bonuses -- maybe you actually want bubble gum now, not a week from now, so to incentivize contractors to deliver early, you outline the bonuses for early delivery on contract.
• Bid security -- if someone offers a price that you can't refuse, what happens if that person changes their mind after you've awarded them the bid?
• Specifics -- does any bubble gum work?  Do you accept bubble gum that has expired, or was made in Bangladesh with unknown materials, utilizing child-labor?

But dammit, all you wanted was some bubble gum!?!  If we're talking about a multi-million dollar project, you should expect it to be a lot more complex.

"I'm feeling lucky" inside of Google Play Music.

Yesterday, Google Play Music announced that they had incorporated "I'm feeling lucky" into their apps.  Once you update your apps, it'll show up.  Based on your listening habits, it'll serve up what it thinks you'd like to hear.  Not sure how this is different than the Instant Mix feature, but hey, whatever.  It works with or without an All Access subscription, by the way.

As you might guess, my I'm feeling lucky" mix is heavy on 80s and early 90s music.

Happy to be wrong!

I'm quite happy to have been proven wrong -- that the House approved of a Senate compromise deal to reopen government and to stave off the debt ceiling.

But let's deconstruct what happened.

• House Republicans were going to take up the Senate bill for a vote before the Senate, but changed its mind.
• Senator Cruz announced that he would not block a vote on the Senate compromise.
• Tea Party Republicans in the Senate voted against compromise (Lee, Cruz, Rubio, Paul).
• In total, 40% of Senate Republicans voted against the compromise.
• Outside conservative groups split their message with some calling Republicans to vote against the Senate compromise while others hailing it as a victory for House Republicans -- more on that in a future post.
• John Boehner broke his Hastert Rule again, as the final tally would indicate with 62% of House Republicans voting against the compromise.
• But wait, all they did was punt the debt ceiling and government funding until late Winter (Jan / Feb 2014). 
• And to top it off, it maintained sequester-level cuts, while altering the ACA with a Republican-led demand to tighten up income verification.

In other words, yet again Democrats caved to give Republicans some of what they wanted, and none of what Democrats wanted, unless you count reopening government and raising the debt ceiling as things that only Democrats want.  And if that's the case -- that Republicans really are nihilists -- then maybe they should disband as a political party.

Think about that for a bit before you go to bed.

---

An aside for Oregonians:
Guess who voted for default and to keep government shut down.

How to shut up a Republican about taxes.

Explain to them that the IRS was a creation of the Republican Party, and therefore they have no one but themselves to blame for taxes.

Wait for confusion, then excuses, followed by frustration and an exhortation of irrelevance.

House GOP attempt to counter bipartisan plan with unilateral one...fails.

This has got to be one of the sadder chapters in the Republican Party.  House Republicans, unhappy with what Senate Republicans and Democrats were crafting, decided to unilaterally draw up their own bill, and for good measure, they added some anti-birth control language in it.  Of course you know what happened: Everyone rejected it, including Tea Party Republicans.

Just the fact that they unilaterally drew up their own bill -- thanks to Darrell Issa -- with the expectation that they could entice Democrats to sign onto it, was ludicrous.  But again, they live in this echo chamber of punditry that absolves them of false equivalence and terrible logic.  (They really ought to stop listening to their own voices and open up to what the rest of the world thinks of Republicans.)

But as I said previously, even if there's a bill drawn up and approved by the Senate, don't expect House Republicans to approve it.  In fact, the Senate plan might not ever come up for a vote in time, if Ted Cruz pulls a filibuster.

I don't know where all the optimism is coming from, considering the history of actually going over the fiscal cliff, and oh-by-the-way government is shut down.  Yet somehow, markets and the media all seem to believe in the fantasy world where Republicans have a change of heart.  I am of the persuasion that some diehard Tea Party Republicans from deeply red states will simply not give this fight up.

There might be some good news though: The shutdown has saved some money in the short term, leading some to believe that the Treasury will still have enough operating cash for an extra week or two.  Understand, that's not really money saved, per say, but temporary cash flow changes that won't work after two weeks.

So you think a debt ceiling deal is possible, do you?

Monday morning (East Coast afternoon) and reports are that the Senate has the broad outlines agreed-upon, except the dates.  Great!  But there's just one enormous elephant in the room: House Republicans.

The vast majority of House Republicans have been quite clear: They won't settle for anything less than alterations to the ACA to get government reopened and specific cuts to federal spending to raise the debt ceiling.

While some Republicans have come out in support of a clean CR to restart government and raise the debt ceiling, there's just not enough of them willing to vote with Democrats.  And, while they my have passed the fiscal cliff deal (thus showing that there could be enough Republicans willing to cross the line), at the time House Republicans were given the green light to vote whichever way they wanted to, without being penalized by conservative groups.

Further, markets seem to be convinced that a deal will occur, so they've gone up on every rumor that a deal could be in the works, and that only solidifies the false narrative of conservatives that a default won't occur, come Oct. 17th.

In other words, this time there doesn't seem to be support behind House Republicans to vote against the grain of their party's platform while markets are outsmarting themselves, and so I don't think you should expect a debt ceiling deal.

On the positive side, it's going to be sunny and in the lower-70s this week in Portland, Oregon, and that doesn't happen often in mid-October, so if the country defaults, I'll just go walk outside and enjoy the sun.

Bob Corker, cry baby.

I saw this quote from Senator Bob Corker at WaPo, and it most certainly describes why we're going to hit the debt ceiling:

"[The debt ceiling is] typically a point where you try to create reforms and reduce deficits, so to agree to something that raises spending from previously agreed-to levels, I just can’t imagine that."

So what you have here are Republicans demanding to renegotiate the ACA, but crying foul over renegotiating the sequester cuts.

If you look at the current state of affairs, Republicans believe that Democrats have to negotiate in order to save the economy, while Democrats wonder why Republicans aren't also concerned about saving the economy.  Why are Republicans using the economy as a bargaining chip?

Thus, Democrats have come back and said, "Okay, if you want to alter the ACA, then we want to have the sequester cuts back."

Fair is fair, right?  Nope, not in the Republican universe.

Except, their universe is fake, and in this one, the GOP will suffer the consequences of their false narrative.

Can we have zero false equivalence, please?

Here's something you probably haven't heard yet, but you should be hearing eventually:

While Democrats have voted on various House and Senate Republican CR proposals, Republicans have either blocked or tried to block Democrats from voting on Democratic CR proposals.

Try to remember that, when considering why government is dysfunctional.

We are going to default. (updated twice)

House Republicans have already voiced dissent from Senate Republican plans, and have closed talks down with the White House.

With clear thinking, one should know that hitting the debt ceiling is bad, yet there are a growing chorus of Republicans voicing their doubts on this -- of course that also weakens their proposition of negotiations, if they don't believe they hold a trump card.  But the basis of using the debt ceiling and the government shutdown as a bargaining chip is flawed logic to begin with, because Republicans are essentially demanding that Democrats bail them out of their manufactured crisis and bad tactical thinking.

So, absent an act of contrition -- since you know, Republicans keep harping on contrition as a sign of weakness -- we're headed for a default.

There has been much written on Treasury contingencies, with its separated disbursement system for bonds and t-bills, keeping the US from seeing a credit default in the markets, though surely t-bill rates will soar even while long-term bonds will sink (thus creating the inverted yield curve, see: Instability.)

That however means that the other system for disbursements will be clogged up and it'll be first-in / first-out for Social Security checks, Medicare payments, incomes for federal employees, etc.  In that case, federal contractors will have to decide if they'll stop working until they get paid, or take an IOU on the bills they've submitted for payment.

The immediate slash in federal spending will send us into recession.

Normally US tax revenue plunges in a recession while automatic stabilizers (unemployment income, food stamps, etc.) jump.  But because we have a fixed debt ceiling, now we have to slash spending even more, with fewer social security checks being mailed out.  Hence, the austerity's downward spiral.  But wait, it's worse than that.  With government shut down, no one's able to track GDP, unemployment or other economic and labor figures -- government leaders will be flying blind.

Something to think about: There's been growing discontent a la Occupy with the treatment of the poor, sick and unemployed.  Add in the Tea Party's perpetual crisis, and I think the debt ceiling could either be the linchpin or an inline domino for an American Spring.

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Update:

Senate Republicans voted today to block consideration of a clean CR.  Also, you might want to pay attention to the fact that House Republican leaders reneged on a deal from early September.

The Republican Party now owns the default, fair and square.

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Update 2:

John Boehner thought he could rally support behind a unilateral plan in the House, that could serve as a counter-proposal to the bipartisan Senate plan that was in the works.  It backfired.

The Heritage Foundation and others warned lawmakers to vote against Boehner's plans and anything short of a delay in the mandate.  You can imagine what these conservative groups will say about the Senate's bipartisan plan ... assuming Ted Cruz will allow it to come up for a vote.

So, if we get through the week without actually hitting the default, this will only embolden Republicans in their belief that default fears were overblown.  As they say, a frog in a pot of water that is slowly heated up, hasn't a clue that it is being cooked.

So I tell you again: THE US WILL DEFAULT AND WE WILL GO INTO RECESSION.

Well of course he was...

Best paragraph in the news last night came from WaPo's coverage of the debt ceiling negotiations:

"Boehner was huddled with his top lieutenants in a hideaway on the first floor of the Capitol, reviewing his options over Chinese takeout and cigarettes."

1. I think the Chinese already had their takeout -- everyone else has.
2. Of course it was a hideaway -- hiding from the public's scorn, that is.
3. Smoking indoors -- thank goodness these guys have the new ACA that bans lifetime caps.

Why would I want to help Starbucks [promote false equivalence]? [updated title]

I am mystified as to why anyone would want to help Starbucks and Howard Schultz in their gambit to bring politicians together.  It was his participation in Fix the Debt that helped establish the Republican cause for repeated government crises, and his letter continues this same cause.

• First, reopen our government to serve the people
• Second, pay our debts on time to avoid another financial crisis
• Third, pass a bipartisan and comprehensive long-term budget deal by the end of the year.

Let's make it clear: If you want to cut spending (which is referred to, as a "long-term budget deal"), then propose what programs you'd like to see cut; push for specific cuts, not abstract cuts.  If you keep pushing abstract ideas, you're only enabling politicians to seize those abstractions and use it as their cause to shut down government and hold the debt ceiling in place.  And, by making people cite specific cuts, we can have a national discussion on those cuts, and make people defend them.

When someone wants to cut a program, they should have the courage to stand up for those causes, rather than seek political cover by blaming it on someone else.

I'm warning you now, these abstractions are going to lead to slashes in Social Security and Medicare, but nary a finger on military spending.

60% of Americans are either idiots or lazy.

So there's that poll out there where 60% of Americans think all members of Congress should be fired.

So now we know, 60% of all Americans are either idiots or lazy: They've bought into the false equivalence of  equal blame for the government shutdown and debt ceiling fight and can't be bothered to understand what's going on.  Besides, if you fire all of Congress and hold new elections, you're just going to come up with more of the same, due to the gerrymandering of district lines to enshrine political power, rather than force elections to become competitive and balanced.

And if you think I'm wrong, then start paying attention to some real moderate conservatives, and not the fake ones that the media is presenting.

And I'm still perturbed by the media's conflation of information between the government shutdown and the debt ceiling, as well as their lack of reporting over the CBO's report on the cost to repeal the ACA.

Why the GOP offer was a red herring.

The market got excited, news outlets spouted off: The GOP made an offer to raise the debt ceiling for 3~6 weeks so long as the President and Democrats agreed to sit down and talk.  Seems reasonable, right?  But it was a red herring.

The Republican proposal maintained a closed government, and in order to reopen it, both sides would have to agree; short of that, we'd be stuck in a closed government and another debt ceiling crisis in 3~6 weeks.

The tactic here, is to drag out the crisis and chip away piecemeal all that Republicans want, even though they lost seats in the last election and failed to beat President Obama.  It's why Democrats are against mini-CRs, and it's terrible governance in the first place, because it diminishes confidence in government and reduces economic output by holding the economy teetering on the edge of recession.

If the GOP's biggest argument for a long-term deficit reduction plan was to bring stability, then their tactic to drag out the crisis is hypocritical.

Jack Lew is a very smart guy.

I'm streaming C-SPAN's coverage of Treasury Secretary Jack Lew's testimony before the Senate Finance committee, and there is one thing that cannot be denied: Jack Lew is a very smart guy.  He's able to directly confront any topic with facts and careful language at rapid-fire pace, and dominates senators who do not approach his command of the facts.  While these senators are using notes from their staff, Lew is working off memory and knowledge -- it's just an incredible tour de force of intellectual power.

Directly on point: October 17th is NOT the deadline for Congress to act, but is the best estimate of when the Treasury faces an actual shortfall in day-to-day cash.

I do have to say though, Republicans (on the finance committee no less!) continue to conflate Social Security entitlement spending with deficit spending; it is not.  It shouldn't even be part of the conversation on deficits and debt.

Social Security's Trust Fund invests in special bonds; if we reach the point whereupon the Trust Fund is depleted, then zero money goes into those bonds.  At that point, the Trust Fund is no longer investing in federal debt, and thus the debt switches from nonmarketable bonds to publicly-traded bonds.  That's all.

So let's stop this nonsense and let's get the media to stop participating in this ridiculous conflation of debt and social security.

And for what it's worth, Jack Lew is a lot smarter than Tim Geithner.

Early Fall Photos (It's not quite Fall is it?)

Soooooo, I finally pulled myself out with the extension tube I bought last month and took a bunch of photos. It was a bit late in the afternoon and streaks of clouds obscured the sun, so I had trouble getting enough light.  I was forced to use ISO 800 / 1600 with wide open aperture, neither of which is a good thing on macro shots.

Fall colors haven't yet come out in force, so instead, it was more like late Summer colors.  These extension tubes are truly awesome, by the way.  They work, if you know how to use your lens and are mechanically-inclined -- in other words, they're not magical devices that'll make your photos better; they're just tubes.

Yield inversion at the short-term side of Treasuries.

Picking up from yesterday's post regarding rising short-term Treasury yields combined with dropping long-term ones, yesterday's opening of bids for 4-week T-Bills by the Treasury resulted in a jump of their yields...and all others except 20- and 30-year Bonds.  This change, albeit small, signals an ever so slight distrust in US.  What seems interesting to me however, is that the 4-week T-billl  is now significantly higher than the 2-year Bond.  This short-term inversion appears to be a significant signal that markets now expect the US to hit the default button on Oct. 17, and not have this whole economic mess resolved anytime soon.

Now, this is no Greece for two reasons:

1. Greece defaulted because it couldn't afford to pay its bills as borrowing rates soared across the board to unbelievable heights.  Meanwhile, the US is still at historic lows for borrowing rates, even in the face of a threat of the debt ceiling.
2. If the US defaults, it was a selective default because Republicans artificially presumed the need for slashed spending in the face of low borrowing rates.  The day after Republicans stop being stupid and agree to raise the ceiling and quit using the economy as a bargaining chip, is the day both the markets and the US government resumes normal operations.

We're a long ways away from having the sort of yield inversion that Greece exhibited.  Still, it's worth paying attention that the markets are now expecting Republicans to hold their ground and keep the debt ceiling in place.

A (relatively) quick note on market expectations over the debt ceiling and gov't shutdown. (updated)

People are, rightfully so, concerned about how the combined government shutdown and debt ceiling issues are playing out in the stock market.  But take a look at Treasuries, because there's an interesting split between the 4 week through 2 year yields and the 3 year through 30 year yields.  The 4 week through 2 year yields are going up, while the longer term rates are ever-so-slightly sagging.

This divergence started with the government shutdown.

So it seems that no one is panicking over the long-term, but that in the very short term, things are volatile, especially when it comes to the issue of repayment of 4-week T-Bills, now with an effective yield higher than that of 1 year bills.  But why the cutoff in trends at the 2 year yield, rather than closer to the 3-month T-Bill?

Is the market trying to figure out how to price bonds in a new, 2-year recession?

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Update: I forgot to add, that while this might be some sort of signal, in reality these numbers are still at historical lows.  So for instance, going back to Jan. 3, 2006 the one-month T-Bill sat at 4.05% while the 10 year bond was 4.37%.

So what we're really looking at today, is the curious inversion where the shortest-term rate is climbing above slightly longer rates.  So far no one is panicking (except of course, in stocks), but the oddity of the inversion usually implies some sort of expectation of a recession or at least instability.

The critical Boehner fib.

"We are not going to pass a clean debt limit ... the votes are not in the House to pass a clean debt limit.” -- John Boehner on ABC This Week.

Not true.  Over a dozen Republicans have announced their intention to vote for a clean CR -- enough that, combined with Democrats, would result in a clean CR being passed.  And the number keeps climbing.

Obviously he's holding back.  He's not bringing up a vote because he needs to get a lot more Republicans to signal their willingness to vote for a CR, in order to gain the political cover he needs.  And it won't happen until days before the government defaults.

Or at least that's what I'm telling myself to believe, because the alternative is that John Boehner went in front of the cameras, feigned anger and lied straight to Americans, with the complete intention to win at all costs, even a default, not to leverage for a compromise.

The continually-shifting GOP rules.

Imagine that, John Boehner used his Sunday off to change the GOP's rules once again, this time it's back to the old debt-ceiling demand from 2011: dollar for dollar matching cuts for debt ceiling increase.

The path towards something...

• Two weeks ago it was repeal ACA -->
• A week ago it was a delay of the ACA-->
• A day after that, it was repeal the medical equipment tax -->
• Earlier last week it was program-by-program continuing resolutions -->
• A day after that, it was a demand to restore funding for 200 terminally ill patients -->
• Late last week it was a request to sit down and have a conversation with the President -->
• Today it is dollar for dollar cuts for debt increases, or else we hit the debt ceiling and start slashing.

And later this week, will it be Cut, Cap and Trade and the Balanced Budget Amendment redux, followed by Sequester 2.0?  I say count on it.

Where is this path headed?

There isn't much time left -- just 11 days max -- before the US truly defaults.  So there isn't much more room left for GOP to shift their demands, scatter-shot as they are.  John Boehner might be waiting to be pushed into the corner by Senate Republicans demanding that House Republicans forgo the Hastert Rule and let House Democrats win the vote with a minority GOP group.  Or, Boehner might actually be expecting Democrats to capitulate yet again, in which case there is no recourse but to go into default and watch the US economy grind to a halt, as Democrats probably aren't looking to share the blame as they did the last time -- fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

The Zombies won't die

As it was in the 2011 debt ceiling fight, I wrote that it was ironic that Republicans were willing to risk a default to slash spending, seeing as the results were the same: government spending as a percentage of GDP would balloon once again.

But Republicans have looked the other way as austerity failed overseas while Japan's increased spending and expansionary policies have reversed its declining prices and flat economy.  So, we have Republicans presenting a refuted and false narrative as their ultimate demands against our economic growth.

The zombies won't die.

Nexus 10s starting to disappear.

And then there was just the 32GB Nexus 10s left in the Google Play market.  With the 8GB and 16GB Nexus 4s gone and now the 16GB Nexus 10s out of stock, it's only a matter of time that we see the new Nexus devices.

I'm planning on getting that Nexus 5, for sure, if priced at the same range as the 4, and just as my current 2-year contract expires.

Like government, iGoogle will be shutting down, too.

I've known about this from last Winter that this was coming, but today the pop-up warning message said that there are just 28 days left for iGoogle.

I suppose I don't really use it anymore, and I can pinpoint to having a tablet with RSS feeds and apps, as the cause to my decline in usage of iGoogle.  Still, I'm going to miss that really awesome GasBuddy gadget, though the GasBuddy app is just as good if not better.

Interestingly, Yahoo has made a push to make the My Yahoo landing page relevant.  Ms. Mayer seems to think people will return.  I admit, I checked out the updates the other week, but since then I haven't touched it -- again, I have a tablet with RSS feeds in my Feedly.

The false equivalence of "saving" kids with cancer. (Updated)

You've probably heard or read by now, Republicans would like to "compromise" by going back to session and scheduling votes on individual department funding, one of which is the NIH, which had to put on hold a drug trial for terminally-ill cancer patients.  Naturally, Republican lawmakers dressed up in hospital gowns to make their press announcement and called Democrats callous.  But it's all false equivalence mixed with hypocrisy.

Do the most good

You know, they have a lot of balls to hypocritically deny millions of Americans the right to affordable health insurance, asserting lies about the program, then going so far to tell young adults to not sign up for health insurance!  So Republicans are concerned about 200 terminally ill cancer patients?  Then the FIRST funding bill they should pass, is for the ACA, in full, without restrictions.

With affordable health insurance that has free pre-screenings for several diseases and the removal of lifetime caps, the ACA will do more to save lives than any single drug trial of 200 people.

Maybe these politicians need to be reminded that in a drug trial, the group is divided between a control group and the one receiving an experimental drug or protocol, where the control group receives a placebo, and is expected to all die.  Or maybe these politicians need to be reminded that thousands of uninsured Americans visit the emergency room every day.

Not political grandstanding

Don't stand around in hospital gowns for the media, pretending as if you actually care.  These are the same people who wanted to slash federal spending under their Cut, Cap and Balance bill. Don't forget either, that under their half of sequestration cuts, Republicans pushed to cut non-defense discretionary items, to balance out defense spending cuts.

I mean really, how low can you get, to demand that government stop the handouts, then insist on handing out money for drug trials for terminally ill cancer patients in front of cameras in medical gowns?  It's worse than when President Bush stood on the deck of a carrier declaring the war in Iraq over; at least he genuinely believed in his fantasy; you Tea Party Republicans don't even believe in the government helping the sick and poor.

Stop the disgusting show.

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Update:

John Boehner is at it again, this time venting anger that Democrats won't agree to a simple request by Republicans "to sit down and have a discussion" over the ACA. Half a year to "sit down and have a discussion" over budgets and the ACA -- nay, make that 2 1/2 years since Republicans gained control of the House -- and with government shut down, now they're saying that they have been denied the opportunity to "sit down and have a discussion"!

The audacity to shift goal posts then feign anger that no one knew about the new location of their goal posts is just blatantly ridiculous, but then to make up stories that are veritably false, is a rather disgusting show of desperation.

The 2013 winner of the Biggest Douche Bag in the Universe goes to...

Representative Randy Neugebauer from Texas.

This Tea Party member is getting paid by our government while walking around grandstanding to a National Park employee, an employee who is working but not getting paid (she won't get her paycheck until after Congress passes and the President signs a budget bill), even as the majority of her colleagues are furloughed and may never get paid.

Let's be clear: Randy Neugebauer is blaming this woman for blocking access to the nation's national parks.

And why?

Because Randy Neugebauer doesn't want Americans to have access to affordable healthcare, and in order to achieve this goal, the Republican Party chose to delay work on the budget until the week before the deadline, as a bargaining chip.  Having failed, they're now denigrated themselves down to nickel and dime tactics to partially fund operations, then walk around the Capitol in grandstanding fashion, pretending to care about average Americans.

By the way, these are the same people who demanded that their own staffers participate in the ACA rather than be enjoined to the federal employee program, then demanded that their subsidies be removed.  Nothing like working for a guy who wants to cut off your healthcare insurance, to make a point about freedom, eh?

Creative Cloud data hacked.

Well, so much for the Creative Cloud gambit.  Brian Krebs reports that a week ago he'd discovered a 40GB treasure trove of source code while researching a major breach.  Also part of that trove of source code: Creative Cloud customer data, including credit cards, though that was encrypted  and might still be safe.

First issue: Now it's a lot easier for nefarious actors to slip a few lines of code into software made to look like it was cracked, then post it on torrents and sit while the hijacked software proliferates, then executes said code.

Second issue: Trust.  Dude, it was your plan to move people to the Creative Cloud, and you couldn't keep hackers away from it?

I'm not saying that this is a reason to stay away from Creative Cloud, but I'm glad that I stayed away.

You can just imagine the lawsuits coming their way.

Schadenfreude.

Mind you, I have zero sympathy for people who make their bed with the devil, then complain about how hot it is in bed -- you reap what you sow.

Having said that, it appears the business community might be having regrets about sleeping with the Republican Party...or in this case, the conservative Super PACs that donated money to all those Tea Party Republicans who don't really care what the business community thinks.

Funny.

But the amusement doesn't stop there.

You see, as Esquire notes, "We have elected people to govern us who do not believe in government."  After all, people who believe in smaller government aren't exactly planning on reopening government with their votes in tow.

It took a while, but I think this is well-deserved Schadenfreude ... for all those people who complain about effective government, while voting for people who despise and distrust government, and for those who bitterly fought (and won) the battle to equate money with free speech rights.

Another way to tell that Republicans deserve all the blame for the shutdown. (Updated)

They won't allow House Democrats to introduce a continuing resolution to come to the floor for a vote, stricken of any encumbrances trying to destroy the ACA.

In other words, the House would have the votes to pass a clean continuing resolution because they would have no choice to vote for it, but far-right Republicans won't let it come up for a vote.  Now, it should be obvious by now why they're afraid of a vote for a clean CR: It'll show that Republicans -- particularly Tea Party members and the Koch Brothers -- wasted all this time and money pretending as if they had a mandate to shut down the ACA.  They know that a clean CR would pass, but won't let it happen, at least not yet.

Meanwhile, the Affordable Care Act moves forward and, it turns out most Americans have been bamboozled by the media into believing that the Affordable Care Act is better than Obamacare.  And if you also believe that the ACA is better than Obamacare...uh...

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Update. WaPo notes:

A growing number of Republicans in the House — 19 as of late Wednesday night — say they would support a bill to fund the government that does not require changes in the health-care law. Democratic leaders say they could combine those votes with the votes of all 200 House Democrats to pass a “clean” bill and end the crisis.

Confirmation that blame lies squarely in Republicans, particularly John Boehner, for allowing the government shutdown to continue on.  Just think about it for a moment: In the last three years, House Republicans have voted over 40x to repeal in parts and in whole, the ACA.  They can't even bring themselves to vote once on a clean budget CR, let alone go to conference on the original House and Senate budgets passed last Spring.

You might have heard that House Republicans want to go to conference on a 3-month CR.   But since they won't drop the repeal / delay demands on the ACA (which by the way, is a smashing success with 2.8M people visiting the federal website on the first day!) the conference offer amounts to pointless grandstanding and ultimately an empty gesture -- a total waste of time so that Republicans can pretend that they tried to do something.

The worst part about all this?  In 14 days Treasury defaults, but long before that deadline comes, global equity markets will react with increasing negativity.  The predictions were too rosy; a 3-week government shutdown that overlaps with the threat of a Treasury default (even if Republicans avert a default), will cause much greater damage in Q4's GDP.

Republicans are playing with fire, and have already burned themselves; the only question is whether they get out alive.

How much damage will the GOP dogma cost us?

I am equally disappointed and yet not surprised, that a recent poll shows that a majority (52%) of Republicans support the idea of the US defaulting, to stop the ACA.  Maybe they don't realize it, but this represents two layers of irony.

The ACA saves us money, and John Boehner knows this

Firstly, repealing the ACA would result in an additional $10B in federal debt, per year, according to the CBO.  The punch line here, is that it was John Boehner who requested the CBO study the effects of repealing the ACA.

I should be clear here, that the reason why federal debt would increase without the ACA, is because other provisions of the ACA increase federal income: medical devices tax, penalties paid by those who do not purchase insurance, etc.  The ACA subsidies to individuals does cost about $130B +/- a year and Democrats expected this, so to offset those costs Democrats bundled the individual subsidies with income-generating provisions.

Now, most Republicans think that the ACA will cost jobs and increase federal spending, but what is lost in some sectors, are gained by others.  The ACA will result in higher healthcare spending, including more higher-wage jobs, to add capacity for the millions of newly insured.  Don't believe me?  Look outside your house and look at all of the new facilities just coming online as the ACA opens up.

If you're looking for job stability, healthcare is it.  And again, the net effect of the ACA results in lower deficits and therefore lower debt, not higher deficits and higher debt.

The GOP dogma results in lower GDP

Secondly, Moody's Analytics' Mark Zandi estimated that a default would result in a 9% annualized loss of GDP in November; Princeton economist Alan Binder says that it is a 6% decline; Barclays thinks it'll be -4.2% decline; Credit Suisse, -5%.

To put into perspective, the US Commerce Department estimated that the 2008-2009 Recession resulted in a -5.1% reduction in total US GDP.

So, a majority of Republicans would risk a recession as deep (if not deeper) than the last one, because they think the ACA will end up growing the deficit and debt while slowing the economy.  But the ACA is going to save us money and by forcing a US default, we'd lose real jobs and grow the deficit and debt.

Truly, the debt ceiling is GOP dogma

Since they regained power in the US House of Representatives, they've pushed multiple versions of their Cut, Cap and Balance plan, a Balanced Budget Amendment, or dollar-for-dollar debt ceiling increases for non-discretionary cuts.  All of these come with the same effect: Slashing GDP by slashing federal spending.

Now, if you think for a minute that Democrats should be responsible adults and do everything they can to stop Republicans, as I have long espoused, there is nothing for Democrats to do but let Republicans shoot themselves in the head.

If Democrats help bail out Republicans, Republicans will blame Democrats for the very cuts that Republicans wanted in the first place -- see Sequestration.

No.  The responsible thing to do here, is to force Republicans to take credit for their failed dogma.