Pure joy from a 5-year old

The pic on the left is of a painting called "Aquarium". The artist is 5-year old Marla. This BBC News article talks about the little girl who has fun with paint. So far, at least, she is happily oblivious to the stir that is being caused by her play. Already US$40,000 has been paid for her paintings. A fellow blogger, Chris Byrne had emailed a few of us about this story. If you'd like to see more of Marla's vibrant colors, you can go to Marla's web site. Hopefully, the money is going into a trust fund and her folks and others are just letting her have fun. Childhood is for children, and ideally is a time of lots of play and exploration and joy of life. These paintings express that spirit.

Bush is NOT an environmentalist; he IS part owner of a timber company

This was another great debate tonight. Bush didn't look as incompetent as he did in the first debate (that would be hard to repeat!) Nonetheless, he continued to lie. I don't remember the exact phrase he used, but Bush basically called himself a steward of the environment! Whoa! I don't have the stamina to list all the harm that Bush has done to the environment (in less than a single term, mind you), but you can read a detailed, chronological account at this page at the Natural Resources Defense Council site. Grab a pot of coffee, 'cause you're going to be reading for a while.

When talking about taxes, John Kerry mentioned that Bush would have been considered a small business owner due to his partial ownership of a timber company. Bush acted like that was something Kerry made up. Bush walked around for a moment, then asked Charles Gibson (with that trademark Dubya smirk) if Gibson wanted to buy some lumber. Well, the fact is that the income tax return of George W Bush for tax year 2001 shows $84 of income from partial ownership of a timber company. This was less than .01% of his income, but due to the manner in which it was reported, Bush qualified as a small business owner. He still reported income from the timber company the past 2 years as well, but on the 2002 and 2003 returns it was reported as "royalties" and listed on a different schedule. So Bush would not be considered a small business owner today - at least not due to the timber company. But he has owned a stake in the company for at least the past 3 years. Looks like deliberate misleading to me.

THIS is the critical point here: the Bush campaign inflates the number of small business owners who would be impacted by Kerry's rollback of the tax breaks for the wealthy. The Bush camp counts as a small business owner anyone who makes one dollar or more, as reported on Schedule C. There are other ways to qualify as well. So Bush made 0.01% (or less) of his income from the timber outfit. But because he did make over $200,000, he would be affected by the repeal of the wealthy persons' tax cut. So...by the twisted reasoning of Bush, et al, folks like Bush (Cheney also qualifies as a small business owner) are counted among the small business owners who would be affected, exaggerating the affect of repealing the tax cut, and thus - once again - deliberately misleading the public.

More misleading. More dishonesty from the lying liars. Check for yourself in this posting on Factcheck.

And George W Bush continues the deception

Mr Bush just got 60 minutes of free political ad by lying to the press.

The White House announced Tuesday that Bush would be delivering a "major policy address" on terrorism on Wednesday, October 6. As Fred Kaplan reports on MSN, it was nothing more than a campaign rally. You can judge for yourself and read the full text here at the White House web site.

It's time to get these lying liars out of our White House.

Dick Cheney is a dishonest lying liar

I know, so what else is new? He's been caught in the past denying statements he'd made earlier (with video proof of the lies). In Tuesday's debate, Cheney lied yet again. I honestly believe that he lies so much he has lost the capacity to even think about whether he is being truthful or not. I have absolutely no respect for this insult to humanity that is the current VP.

On Tuesday night, in an effort to give the impression that Edwards had never shown up at the Senate in all the time that Cheney's been VP, Cheney said to Edwards,

Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the president of Senate, the presiding officer. I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session. The first time I ever met you was when you walked on the stage tonight

Cheney is such slime. It is conceivable that 2 folks could be present in the Senate and not actually meet, shake hands, have a moment of conversation. Had that been the case, Cheney's comment would have been literally true, but would have nonetheless been misleading. But in point of fact, Cheney had met Edwards on at least THREE occasions prior to the debate.

Tim Russert (moderator of NBC's Meet the Press) said he saw Cheney and Edwards shake hands and chat off-camera on April 8 2001. Other news organizations are reporting that on February 1 2001, Cheney publicly thanked Edwards from the podium during a senate prayer breakfast, and then sat next to Edwards for the remainder of the event. On January 8 2003, Edwards accompanied Elizabeth Dole to her swearing-in ceremony. Cheney swore Dole in and all three were observed chatting. Here's a very brief video proving Cheney is a dishonest lying liar.

When confronted with these facts, Cheney commented, "Oh yeah."

Here's a couple of pics that folks have located:

The Associated Press story with the details is even posted at Fox News. If you (understandably) can't stomach Faux News, the same AP story is available (without all the ads and bloat of the Fox site) at Mercury News.

Mr Bush, how about some truth

Fear is a great motivator. Sometimes our own government has even lied to us to generate fear and get the populace to back an action that would otherwise not be supported.

President Lyndon Johnson lied to America to get the country to support a much heavier military involvement in Vietnam. The "Battle of Tonkin Gulf" was the sole basis of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. The "battle" never actually happened. On the evening after the battle that didn't actually happen (August 4, 1964), President Johnson went on TV to ask the country to support a Congressional resolution. Two days later the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was approved. Over 50,000 Americans died in the Vietnam War. Years later we finally learned the truth.

Going back now to Pearl Harbor, some believe that President Franklin Roosevelt had prior knowledge of the attacks. I only recently heard this accusation (from various sources), and I have no idea if it's true. What concerns me, however, is that I would not be surprised if it were proven that FDR mislead America in order to bolster support for involvement in the Pacific in WWII.

The reason I would not be surprised is that we know that Johnson lied to us. We know that Nixon lied. There is evidence that FDR may have lied. And we now know that George W Bush lied about at least some aspects of the Iraq situation.

On the really scary end, I've seen articles and videos by folks claiming that the Bush Administration not only lied about the WMDs in Iraq (as we know now), and deliberately misled the country to try and get us to believe that Saddam was somehow connected to the attacks of Sept 11, 2001 ....but these folks also believe that the Bush group had prior knowledge of the attacks, and did nothing. Some go even further with their allegations. I'm not going to get into that here; you can go to Google and search on "911 coverup" or "911 conspiracy" and read all kinds of stuff. You can also check out the 911 In Plane Site video - previews and comments are at the linked site. I've purchased the video and it does raise a number of questions. I suggest trying to verify sources before believing everything. Remember that our government has lied to us in the past, the media has at best distorted some things in the past, and anyone can post anything on the Internet (including me, so do your own research!)

At this point we really don't know what the whole truth might be. But if al Qaeda was behind the 9/11 attacks, and if bin Laden was behind al Qaeda, and if bin Laden was in Afghanistan ...then why the heck did we suddenly shift the main focus to Iraq, where there was no tie to the 9/11 attacks, there were no WMDs, there was no bin Laden? Even if you want to buy the story that Saddam had to be removed because he was evil, why now all of a sudden? Why not finish the job in Afghanistan first? There is some logic missing here, and no matter how many times Bush, Cheney, et al, change their story it won't make sense until the truth is told.

By the way, as a great example of how the Bush Administration is trying to use September 11, 2001 to increase fear and get some support from the voting public, have a look and listen at this clip culled from the Republican convention.