Testing connections to blogs.

Northwest Sky, originally uploaded by Alex Williams.

Awesome weather moments!

How is it we have forgotten so much?

If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

This is why I support our troops and how I support them. It is their clarity and their professionalism. I only wish we could get that back in the White House!

From Armed Forces Journal  http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/

TO RUDY GIULIANI AND ATTORNEY GENERAL NOMINEE MICHAEL MUKASEY

For their tacit support of waterboarding. In an interview, Giuliani was asked for his views on using “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding. He responded that in a hypothetical scenario that assumed an attack, “I would tell the people who had to do the interrogation to use every method they can think of.” Prompted again on the specific use of waterboarding, he repeated “every method they could think of.” Mukasey said he found waterboarding to be “repugnant,” but he wouldn’t answer whether it amounted to torture.

Let AFJ be crystal clear on a subject where these men are opaque: Waterboarding is a torture technique that has its history rooted in the Spanish Inquisition. In 1947, the U.S. prosecuted a Japanese military officer for carrying out a form of waterboarding on a U.S. civilian during World War II.

Waterboarding inflicts on its victims the terror of imminent death. And as with all torture techniques, it is, therefore, an inherently flawed method for gaining reliable information. In short, it doesn’t work. That blunt truth means all U.S. leaders, present and future, should be clear on the issue.

This from Wikipaedia:

On November 16, 2006, Clear Channel Communications agreed to be acquired by Bain Capital and Thomas Lee Partners for nearly $19 billion.[

Why is this notable?

(Disclaimer: A Libertarian blog)

December 13, 2007

Mitt Romney to Buy Clear Channel Communications

What would it cost to buy the support of just about every nationally-syndicated neocon talk show host in America? About $19.5 Billion, which is what Mitt Romney's private equity firm, Bain Capital, and Thomas H. Lee Partners have agreed to pay in a leveraged buyout agreement with Clear Channel Communications, the largest radio station owner in the country.

Clear Channel owns over 1,100 full-power AM, FM, and shortwave radio stations, twelve radio channels on XM Satellite Radio, and more than 30 television stations in the United States. Premiere Radio Networks, which is the largest syndication company in the United States, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Clear Channel and is home to Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and many others. Sean Hannity recently signed a large multi-market contract with Clear Channel, as well.

Axiomatic: Follow the money

Does this disturb anyone? And if you follow the links on Bain Capital in Wikipaedia; it gets more so.

Read this lately? Dangerous and potentially illegal speech. But I'm just quoting an American historical document; aren't I?

"...certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

Thought Crime