Obama's troubles vs W's troubles—Small Potatoes

Hmm, with all the current furor over the troubled roll-out of the Affordable Care Act (that is, the website for the health care exchanges), i was wondering how it compares to the troubles of the last administration (that of George W. Bush)...

The cost of developing the troubled website (by contractors with problematic histories):
   $600,000,000 (six hundred million dollars)

The cost of the Iraq war (over weapons of mass destruction that were never found):
   $1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion dollars)

So how much worse was George W. Bush's bungle than Barack Obama's?

One Thousand Six Hundred Sixty-Seven times worse! (approximately)

Like i said in the title:  Obama's troubles (in terms of his legacy) are small potatoes compared to those of George W. Bush.

rainy Thursday

rain comes down and down today, but i won't let it get *me* down.

am working on some OCR stuff of a scan of a book i recently made—converting PDFs into a Word file that i can turn into an ebook for my Kindle (despite its being expressly forbidden on the copyright page, which of course i'm faithfully reproducing as well).  my kind of wild & crazy civil disobedience!

i own a copy of Eric Baum's What Is Thought? (MIT Press), and there's no ebook version available; so why shouldn't i be allowed to make my own ebook?  there's no reason whatsoever.  to me, it's fair use.

and i've found that the ebook conversion process is a great way to read & study the text!

keeping me company on this rainy day is Paul Oakenfold's DJ Box from May, June, & July 2013 — along with a big pot of strong Colombian coffee.  plus it's still free Thursday at http://www.MixRiot.com which offers 24 hours of free downloading of DJ mixes each week, from 6pm GMT on Thursday to 6pm GMT on Friday (which i think & hope is 2pm EDT).

enjoy the day, peeps!

A Mockery, Pure and Simple

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is being charged in federal court today with using "Weapons of Mass Destruction" in the Boston Marathon Bombing — WHAT A CROCK OF SHIT ! ! !

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/07/09/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-slated-appear-federal-court-his-first-public-appearance-since-being-apprehended-after-boston-marathon-bombings/M1xhQg8udEM421IXuN18iO/story.html

Iraq supposedly having WMDs is why Bush2 took us to war.  Did we find any there?  No.  So Dzhokhar Tsarnaev used something that *Saddam Hussein* didn't have in Iraq???  I think not.

What overblown hype by federal prosecutors, and secondarily by the media.

Pressure-cooker bombs are really nasty, but WMDs they are not.

Adult Content

Adult Content — why not?  i suppose i should wish to shield tender youths from the raw & unedited truths of real life.  This is it, kids; it doesn't get any more real than this.

who among us hasn't been disappointed by life?  no, really ... i don't mean that rhetorically:  i want to know if any of us hasn't been disappointed in some way by the way their life has gone.

disappointment is part of life, right?  sometimes things work out the way you hope, and sometimes they don't.  and so people try to focus on the former and let go of the latter (unless they wish to become annoying—hee hee!).

check back for more adult content!  whoo-hoo!

Perfect Day for a Ride!

my good bicycle is back from the shop—finally!—and i took it out for a fast ride this morning down the hills of Lancaster past the golf courses, through Five Corners, and over to Bolton Orchards; what a joy!

(and now sipping on chocolate milk and nibbling on an apple—no coffee, since i forgot my giant cup, but there's always next week.)

wishing everyone a happy day & hoping you can get outside to enjoy the weather a little!

My Free New Ebook - The Fitzgerald Collection - 7 Novels in One!

Hey gang, here's my latest free-for-your-Kindle creation (loving hand assembled by yours truly)—just in time for the new Great Gatsby movie!

The Fitzgerald Collection

And if you don't have a Kindle, you can get a free reader from Amazon for your computer or phone.

 6 novels by F. Scott Fitzgerald; 1 by Zelda Fitzgerald — all in 1 volume!

• This Side of Paradise - 1920
• Flappers and Philosophers - 1921
• Tales of the Jazz Age - 1922
• The Beautiful and Damned - 1922
• *** The Great Gatsby *** - 1925 
• Save Me the Waltz (Zelda) - 1932
• Tender Is the Night - 1933

Free, Free, Free!

http://www60.zippyshare.com/v/38809754/file.html

[just press the download button, and ignore the ads.]

NEVER MIND — the link is now dead; zippshare has it no longer.  but i'll send you a free copy if you email me at dsm32 [at] cornell [dot] edu

---

Plus, here's another chance for that old standby...

anomaly - an improbable memoir, by Mary Evans

This version still looks better than the version on Amazon, and it's free!  :-D

http://www60.zippyshare.com/v/3327702/file.html

NEVER MIND — the link is now dead; zippshare has it no longer.  but i'll send you a free copy if you email me at dsm32 [at] cornell [dot] edu

morning drizzle fizzled

looking for open source C++ human skeleton models on Google

sunlight coming through the trees on the backyard hill now

went for an early run as fallen drizzle-drops evaporated

Bruce Hornsby on the stereo sounding westernish

the big fan wants to migrate from the attic

dirty dishes call from the sink

finite time in every day

you can enjoy it

if you want

to live

now

.