NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Computational design of protein-small molecule interactions.

YA THINK? Wolf Blitzer: Obamacare website shutdown ‘embarrassment for administration.’

WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: A surprisingly simple scheme for self-assembling robots.

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TEST-DRIVING THE TOYOTA COROLLA ECO: Long On Fuel Economy, Short On Fun.

SPACE: Mars Mission To Launch Despite Government “Shutdown.”

TAXPROF: The IRS Scandal, Day 149.

WAGES OF “SMART DIPLOMACY:” Saudis Snub The General Assembly.

We mentioned before how the blunders of the Obama administration’s Middle East policies would alienate our closest allies in the Arab world, Saudi Arabia. The proof is in the pudding: The NYT reports that the Saudis passed on their turn to speak at the UN General Assembly this week. . . .

It’s not just our Syria non-policy that has the Saudis at arm’s length. The newfound cooperation between President Obama and President Rouhani of Iran has put an added strain on the US-Saudi relationship. The Saudis, like the Israelis, are displeased with the prospect of US-Iranian non-proliferation talks. They see them as an Iranian ploy to ease UN sanctions while continuing to press toward getting the bomb. And while the Saudis are a key American ally, they are adept at securing their interests in the region and are not beholden to Washington. If they continue to be dissatisfied with US policy, they might hinder, or at a minimum do nothing to help, other US interests in the Middle East.

They’ve always been frenemies at best, but things are likely to go downhill now.

MARC THIESSEN: The Seinfeld Shutdown.

MARK TAPSCOTT: Shutdown Or Not, It’s Still Bureaucrats Gone Wild.

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WELL, TO BE FAIR, THEY’RE SUPER SKEPTICAL OF ANY STORY THAT DOESN’T ADVANCE THE PREFERRED NARRATIVE: Chad Henderson Story Exposes The Credulous Media. “In the media’s rush to make a star out of Henderson, they failed to vet him thoroughly. Most of the press missed the fact that Henderson is a current political activist and Organizing for America volunteer. Somewhat more egregiously, they also missed the fact that Henderson’s story was not true.”

IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: Investor’s Business Daily: Ben Carson’s IRS Audit Can’t Possibly Be Coincidence.

This is not a coincidence, any more than awakening with a severed horse’s head in your bed after being made “an offer you can’t refuse” is.

Someone — either within the IRS bureaucracy or above it — saw what Carson did, didn’t like it, and decided to make him pay. The American people must know who it was.

And there are two other crucial points to the victimization of this man who personifies the American Dream.

First, when a government is as big as ours has become, outrageous abuse from the soldiers of its financing machinery is inevitable, especially within a governmental climate that encourages it.

Second, there is no excuse for a president who’s been in office for more than four years failing to ensure that such outrages couldn’t happen.

Whether or not Obama instigated IRS abuse for political objectives, he is responsible for a culture within the bureaucracy that tolerated and even encouraged it.

Reminder: In 2009, Obama “joked” about having the IRS audit his enemies.

SHUTDOWN THEATER UPDATE: Park Ranger: “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”

MICHAEL BARONE: Blame James Madison For The Government Shutdown.

The current divisions result from what I call volitional migration in my just-published book, “Shaping Our Nation: How Surges of Migration Have Transformed America and Its Politics.” Americans have been moving to places they consider culturally congenial.

Democratic voters—blacks, Hispanics, gentry liberals—are heavily clustered in certain central cities. They give Democrats an advantage in the Electoral College.

Republican voters are more evenly spread around beyond these Democratic bastions. That gives Republicans an advantage in the House of Representatives.

So both sides have a legitimate mandate — but not an unlimited one.

Republicans are furious that their members can’t defund or delay Obamacare. They want to see politicians stand up yelling, “No!” Theater has a function in politics.

But in fact, they’ve had a partial victory this year, a win that didn’t seem likely last December. By accepting the sequester despite its defense cuts, Republicans have actually dialed down domestic discretionary spending.

Democrats’ position now is essentially the sequester. They’re swallowing something they hate. No wonder Obama seems sullen.

So both sides will have frustratingly partial victories and not get everything they want. That’s how James Madison’s system is supposed to work in a closely divided country.

Indeed.

CORY BOOKER, surprised that he might actually have to work for that Senate seat. Hey, even Barack Obama had to get some divorce records unsealed.

AS HE SHOULD: John Boehner will demand concessions from Obama before raising debt ceiling.

After all, as Senator Obama said:

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure.

Yep. And now Obama’s the leadership.

DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE BUDGET CONTRETEMPS: Richard Simmons is here to help. What’s next, Susan Powter? Spending doesn’t make budgets fat! Budgetary fat makes them fat!

ED DRISCOLL: ‘I Don’t Think I’ll Ever Feel Sure Again About Anything.’

IT’S NOT “NEEDLESS,” IT SERVES A DISTINCT POLITICAL PURPOSE: The Hill: Hatch accuses Treasury Sec. Lew of creating ‘needless panic’ on debt limit.

The Treasury Department released a report Thursday that warned that a debt default could lead to financial chaos and drive the nation into a recession worse than the one caused by the 2008 financial meltdown. And in an interview with CNBC Wednesday, President Obama said Wall Street “should be worried” about the debt limit fight. The president also met with the heads of major financial institutions earlier this week to discuss the shutdown and debt limit debates.

Hatch said he agreed that default is not an option but accused the president of being the one driving fear over a default, as opposed to congressional Republicans. GOP lawmakers are lining up a number of concessions in exchange for an increase to the borrowing limit, while Obama has said he would not negotiate over a boost to the borrowing cap, calling it too important to be used for haggling.

Perhaps the Administration actually expects an economic tumble and is trying to pre-establish blame. That would be consistent with their general approach.

TRAIN WRECK: ObamaCare Website Going Down Over The Weekend To “Fix Glitches.”

Related: Analysis: IT experts question architecture of Obamacare website.

Government officials blame the persistent glitches on an overwhelming crush of users – 8.6 million unique visitors by Friday – trying to visit the HealthCare.gov website this week.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversaw development of the site, declined to make any of its IT experts available for interviews. CGI Group Inc, the Canadian contractor that built HealthCare.gov, is “declining to comment at this time,” said spokeswoman Linda Odorisio.

Five outside technology experts interviewed by Reuters, however, say they believe flaws in system architecture, not traffic alone, contributed to the problems.

For instance, when a user tries to create an account on HealthCare.gov, which serves insurance exchanges in 36 states, it prompts the computer to load an unusually large amount of files and software, overwhelming the browser, experts said.

If they are right, then just bringing more servers online, as officials say they are doing, will not fix the site.

“Adding capacity sounds great until you realize that if you didn’t design it right that won’t help,” said Bill Curtis, chief scientist at CAST, a software quality analysis firm, and director of the Consortium for IT Software Quality. “The architecture of the software may limit how much you can add on to it. I suspect they’ll have to reconfigure a lot of it.” . . .

He said because so much traffic was going back and forth between the users’ computers and the server hosting the government website, it was as if the system was attacking itself.

Hancock described the situation as similar to what happens when hackers conduct a distributed denial of service, or DDOS, attack on a website: they get large numbers of computers to simultaneously request information from the server that runs a website, overwhelming it and causing it to crash or otherwise stumble. “The site basically DDOS’d itself,” he said.

Kind of a metaphor for the whole Obama administration, really.

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UGH: Mile-wide tornado touches down in U.S. Midwest.

INADVERTENTLY, BUT EFFECTIVELY: Surprise! The Koch Brothers Are Boosting Obama. “While President Obama continues to tilt for windmills, rising oil and gas production has showered his administration with unexpected benefits. Those producers inadvertently include his arch enemies—the Koch Brothers. How deliciously ironic it is that the oil industry – consistently scorned by this president – has been one of the most potent economic drivers of this recovery, the biggest contributor to an improving balance of payments picture and has provided Obama significant leverage in digging out of his difficulties in the Middle East.”