The Gamut

Well, okay, maybe not ever.

Economy Grows at Fastest Pace in 1 1/2 Years

Wow, that sounds great, doesn't it? Well, not so much.

Here, see for yourself. This is a graph charting the GDP over almost two decades. It is true that this is the highest quarterly report under Bush in a year and a half, but it is not Bush's highest report ever. That was back in 2003, and it was a one time anomaly. Now, I will credit the Bush economy with recently maintaining a fairly consistent steady growth rate, but that doesn't excuse the hyperbolic headline. And the curent rate of growth is not exactly stellar when compared with the rate Clinton managed to sustain from mid-1996 until he left office in early 2001.

Neener neener neener!

Today is a great day for the US Constitution, for science, and, yes, for religion too! Intelligent Design as it was being presented was never true religion, because in order to try to get creationism taught in school in this pseudo-scientific disguise, the proponents of it had to deny the hand of their particular idea of the creator. It was watered down religion at best, and it was based in lies about what the people who wanted it taught actually wanted it taught for. If there is a Jesus in heaven, He surely would not have approved.

Yesterday morning at 9 AM I got my second tattoo. After my wife left last year, I decided to explore some new things. One of those things was body art. But I didn't want to just go into a shop and pick something off the wall that somebody else had created. So I designed a tatty for myself. It looks like this:

The ladybug in the center is red, and I chose it because my 7-year-old daughter collects them. It has ten spots because my ex and I were together for ten years. I showed it to her on the anniversay of the day we met. The frame is supposed to look like a beetle in flight, but the bottom is a claddagh. That's the Irish symbol with two hands holding a heart under a crown. Above the lady-bug are the initials RBD intertwined. Those are the initials of my ex, myself and my daughter.

Anyway, after getting this tattoo, I decided that since I was married once before and I have two children from that previous marriage, I should create a tribute to them as well. So I designed this:
It is an anagram of my children's names; ShawnMegan. If you read it from behind viewing it upside-down, it still says ShawnMegan.

I got the idea for it after reading Dan Brown's Angels & Demons. I also decided to get it in color. This is how it was supposed to look:

It doesn't. Instead of starting out blue and fading through purple to red, it is three seperate colors. Luckily, the purple is fairly light. Next year, I will go to a diferent tattoo artist and have it fixed. None-the-less, it still looks pretty cool.

I'm not singling out any one right-wing moron this morning. Every single solitary blogger who wrote a post supporting the Commander-in-Chimp when he said the media endangered national security by revealing his illegal wire tapping activity should be issued a fourth grade civics text to study and then tested to see if the school system somehow failed them.

American citizens are spied upon every day in this country in a legal way. Wire taps are routinely issued by the courts, and terrorists know this. If they are then stupid enough to plot a mall-bombing on the phone that's their problem. But it is not legal for the president to circumvent the courts.

For Bush to try to shift the blame to the media for exposing him is the height of arrogance, but it should not be unexpected. But for American citizens to "see his point" when he does is inexcusable.