1. Map. What you see above is how the "shiptracker" function of NOAA's Office of Marine and Aviation Operations looked earlier today, showing the recent course of some of its oceanic-and-fisheries research vessels. All the tracks shown on that map listed a termination date no later than midnight tonight, September 30, 2013. That is because the boats were ordered back to port in anticipation of the shutdown. Here is the way the map looks just now. The little red and yellow dots near Pascagoula, Mississippi, are two research vessels that have been called back.

As The Blog Aquatic says about the shutdown,

Will it halt NOAA’s ocean research? For the most part, the federal government’s ocean research activities will be shut down. NOAA’s research vessels will all be ordered to return to port, scientific staff will be sent home, and research efforts will be wound down.

Just to rub it in, here is what similar boats have been doing in the past 30 days, according to NOAA data. Now all stopped.

Yeah, nobody's "hurt" by a shutdown or sequester. (Thanks DR.) This is one of ten thousand examples. Even if the showdown is brief, the wasted shut-down and start-up costs ...

2) Thought experiment. Let's suppose it's the fall of 2005. Suppose George W. Bush has been reelected, as he was in real life. Let's suppose, also as in reality, the Senate remained in Republican hands. But then suppose that Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats had already won control of the House, rather than doing so two years later. So suppose that the lineup as of 2005 had been: