McCain has told the Democrats how to keep him from the debate at the University of Mississippi tomorrow – it has been reported to the public that if there is no agreement on the $700,000,000,000 bailout then he will not attend the debate.

Because I think that our parties have reached the level that George Washington warned us about in his Farewell Address on September 17, 1796 – I believe that even though last night Democrat leaders were on CNBC and MSNBC saying that they were mobilized and knew what they needed to do to get the bill passed, I think that they will delay the bill until Saturday or Sunday for the sole purpose of furthering their domination of McCain.

McCain has been in a no win situation since Tuesday of this last week

If he shows up at the debate and there is no agreement – he will be called a liar.
If he doesn’t show up, then Obama gets the stage all to himself to vilify McCain for delaying any sort of agreement that the two parties were close to achieving before he inserted himself into the process…

The fact is that the media was complaining that if McCain and Obama did not go back to Washington to work on this bill that they were not doing their jobs – so, McCain decided to go – which I don’t mind… after all that is his current job as a legislator, as it is Obama’s. So, fine…

But then he goes and says… I won’t go to the debate until there is agreement… well, we are living in a Party State where all things are petty… Irregardless of what is best for the country and irregardless that we should all want the same basic things – the security and well being of our fellow Countrymen – I predict that the bill will be passed, but not until it is either too late for McCain to make it to the debate or until Saturday just for the selfish purposes that I have outlined above from our beloved leaders.

I wish we could simply get past the selfish notion of Party and move on to a united front and work together to remain the country that we all know we have the capability to be… how did we get here? There may be some clues in the letter from our first President, George Washington, below:

Taken from George Washington’s Farewell Address September 17th, 1796

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion, that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the Government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in Governments of a Monarchical cast, Patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And, there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

This is a long video but worth watching (there are audio issues, but they go away in the first third of the video). It is more current than the last T. Boone Pickens video which we posted. I was put up on the Pickens Plan site on September 17 from Boone’s appearance the Future is Green Conference and Expo on September 15 – the direct link to the article is “We have the natural gas, why don’t we have more vehicles on natural gas?”

I think there were some great questions asked by the audience and it was good to hear Boone’s responses.  I think it is amazing that most politicians are “chasing their tails” by going after the most ineffective ways to solve this issue.

We are facing so many issues right now as a nation, it would be great to see the United States actually unite behind something that would benefit everybody and not special interests or unfair capital advantage – I think it is also very interesting that we are spending $700 Billion per year to import foreign oil at the same time the government spends $700 Billion to nationalize a bunch of irresponsible businesses to keep them afloat for some aloof benefit to the taxpayer which we will never really realize – but I digress… the point being that if we weren’t pissing our money away funding the lifestyles of the rich and infamous in the Middle East, perhaps, the $700 Billion the Fed and the Government say that we need right now for our economy would be a little easier to swallow – but you but these 2 numbers together and now we are at $1.4 Trillion dollars this year – for what???  Nothing but programs which weaken us as a nation… I love America and the people here – whether they share my views or agree with me or not – but, we have seriously got to wake up – or what will be left for our grandchildren?

I cannot believe they are getting a bailout for being irresponsible! They screwed up and now are going to screw many of us out of more money in the form of $85,000,000,000 – that is what $85 Billion looks like… not so nice when you write it with all the zeros, eh?

They have been buying business in my State (Texas) on the P&C side with total disregard for their loss ratios and in effect making it VERY difficult for companies who are trying to improve their loss ratios to win business – but I guess they don’t have to worry because the government will just bail them out… total B.S.!

They should be allowed to go the way of the dinosaur and let companies that ARE responsible earn their book as it disintigrates… why would we “bail out” a company which has proven that it only knows how to mishandle the funds that have been entrusted to it… I totally don’t buy the, “They’re too big to fail.” balony! Nobody and NOTHING is too big to fail… they fail if they deserve to, ESPECIALLY if they have done the things that this company has chosen to do!

This whole situation SUCKS!  What do you think?

<blockquote>The ads have been “cleared” by every network… except for NBC which has refused to clear a :15 second ad about Iran…The problem? NBC wants us to PROVE that “we’re not doing a thing here.”</blockquote>

I’m not sure that NBC could be missing the point more…

According to the video on the left, the United States is in BIG trouble – we are transferring $700 Billion to foreign entities to purchase oil – that is Billion with a B folks! And it is per year… what a staggering number? Can you even imagine such a big number, try this on… $700 Billion looks like this… $700,000,000,000 – According to an ABC News Article, dated March 10, 2008, “Studies: Iraq Costs US $12B Per Month“- if we multiply that by 12, that is $144 Billion per year… not much when compared to the $700 Billion we are spending on foreign oil… Now, read this carefully… really let it soak in – Every year we are transferring just under 5 (4.86) times that amount for foreign oil outside of our country PER YEAR – or another way to put it – we could fight almost 5 wars as big as the Iraqi war for what we are spending on foreign oil EVERY YEAR! This has got to be the definition of insanity – Even another way to put this, which is maybe more scary is that we are sending out enough dollars to effectively fund 5 other countries to fight against us with the same budget in the Iraqi war…

There are some conspiracy theorists out there who suggest that this whole effort is a “cover” for Boone’s aquifer projects… and, you know what? It could be… I don’t have an answer to that – but I will say that the MUCH bigger issue is the United States transferring $7 Trillion dollars outside of our country over ten years! At the end of the day, I would suggest that if his company makes money on an aquifer project by getting us off of foreign oil, I think it could be looked at as fair commission for solving the much larger issue our country faces.

$700 Billion Dollars per year going OUT of our country and, for the most part into the hands of countries which hate America and want nothing more than to see the United States fall is insane – could we please agree on that?

What I appreciate about this approach is that Boone not only shows us how we got here, but he shows a way for us to get ourselves out of this mess. If you check out his site, and watch his messages the idea is to do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING we can to get off of foreign oil – solar power, wind power, offshore drilling, renewable energy, etc.

To me it seems that you can never make the crazy environmentalists happy (I did not say all environmentalists, I said the “crazy” ones *grins*). If you drill for oil so you don’t have to use FOOD to power the world, they complain; if you try to use renewable crops for fuel they complain that people are starving; if you say we can use the wind they try to frame some other negative picture – this group of people NEVER offer solutions which are applicable to the world we live in, just criticism and no answers…

T. Boone Pickens is putting up his own money and is not saying that wind is the only way. Boone’s Pickens Plan primarily focuses on swapping Wind for Natural Gas though, and I would say that one of the biggest pieces the Pickens Plan is missing is that we should also push for grants to companies like GM, Ford & Chrysler to create fully electric cars – screw hybrids and screw bailing them out, if all they are going to do is continue to make vehicles which continue to only run on oil – that doesn’t help! I would totally support grants to create fully electric cars which we can plug into our homes – in that way, we do not have to worry about the “infrastructure” debate which has raged for the last 20 years. This technology is also here today… in fact it was here in 1996 by GM, it was called the EV1 – and my belief is that if we can put a man on the moon in 4 years, in the span of 12 years, we sure as heck can create an electric car which has a range of 300 – 400 miles and can go 100 mph which can be plugged into a normal 120V outlet with a recharge time of less than 3 hours… In fact, if GM had spent the last 12 years perfecting their original design of the EV1, they would probably not be in front of Congress asking the American people to bail them out…

The way I see it, our dependence on foreign oil to fuel our vehicles (Cement Trucks, Rail Road Engines, as well as passenger vehicles) has become a matter of national security and I think it is a horrible thing that all we can do is continue to criticize each other instead of agreeing that ANYTHING is better than funding our enemies to the tune of $7 TRILLION over the next 10 years… Just think what our economy could do with an extra $7 Trillion dollars in 10 years… or more practically how many jobs GM, Ford, or Chrysler would be able to do create with people driving electric cars powered by electricity made here in America.

It is also exciting to think about what could happen as we started to export wind generated electricity offshore… America’s economy could become untouchable again!

You can view the full documentary in 10 parts, also on YouTube, which was put up by somebody called Irridescent.

It is a great story which seems to have inspired so many people positively, I thought I would highlight it here.  One final note, please visit the Born Free: Keep Wildlife in the Wild Blog to see how you can help the folks and the foundation which was responsible for all of the great efforts and work it took to reintroduce Christian to Africa.  Will Travers, CEO of the Born Free Foundation posts a note on the above video in the blog here.

Note from Will Travers regarding Christian’s story:

Born Free does not advocate the keeping of any wild animal as a ‘pet’. Christian’s story was from another era and was unique. Today we must do all we can to ‘keep wildlife in the wild’.John Rendall is based in the UK and still supports wildlife conservation both with Born Free and with the George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust. Ace now lives in Australia.

Christian lived the life of a free, successful lion, in and around the Kora area until he was seen no more. It was assumed by George Adamson that he had crossed over the Tana River and out of the Reserve.

I was starting to get a little worried that I had not seen any updates to his Update page since the middle of May.  I visited the site on Monday of this week, and was very pleased to see that on May 18th he had what he called, “A Perfect Day”.  Randy comments:

Everyone should have a day this perfect in their lives. Carnegie Mellon flew Jai and me up to Pittsburgh to attend graduation. I had the honor of giving the charge to the graduates at the end of the ceremony. Even the weather cooperated to make it a perfect day with the sun breaking through the rain clouds as the ceremony started. I also got to speak briefly to the SCS and ETC commencement ceremonies. It was wonderful to see all of our old friends and colleagues and I was very touched by the invitation.

I realize that his Update page is probably not a priority in his life right now, and that is as it should be – which is probably why I do not check it daily any longer.  However, I was pleased to see the update and to find out that he had this experience and that the University still supported and invited him to participate in the 2008  Commencement ceremony.

Our prayers and thoughts continue to be with the Pausch family as well as all of those afflicted with Pancreatic Cancer – If you would like to donate or get involved with the organizations Randy has recommended, you can find information on The Lustgarten foundation and the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network by clicking on their names.

For a band that didn’t set out to play arena rock, the Foo Fighters have never
had trouble filling stadiums.

Be sure to check out the

Foo Fighters Concert Schedule.

“I wouldn’t want things to go huge, crazy out of control,” Dave Grohl, the
band’s versatile front man said in 2000. Since then, with the help of band
members Taylor Hawkins, Nate Mendel, and Chris Shiflett, Grohl’s band has sought
to keep its roots firmly planted in unconventional, anti-studio rock, even while
their popularity has skyrocketed.

In June of 2006, the band played its largest show to date to a crowd of 85,000
in London’s Hyde Park. Their appeal as a live act lies in energetic,
hard-driving melodies, Grohl’s characteristic rocker growl, and a mix of old and
new songs that keep the audience on its feet.

But what exactly is a Foo Fighter? The band took their name from a term used by
US Army Air Force pilots who patrolled German airspace during WWII. The pilots
would encounter maneuverable balls of light thought to be a top-secret aerial
weapon used by the Nazis. Without a technical term for these weapons, the pilots
began referring to them as “Foo Fighters” or “Kraut Balls”.

The driving force behind the Foos, Grohl has the distinction of not only
witnessing, but playing a major role in the early 90’s rock revolution known as
grunge. The Washington D.C. native began playing guitar in his early teens and
by the late 1980’s, he was drumming for the D.C.-based hardcore band, Scream.

The turning point in Grohl’s career came when he joined Nirvana in 1991 at the
age of 22 and played drums on the now-classic album Nevermind. Grohl’s
penchant for hard-hitting backbeats helped the band achieve its often-imitated
sound as Nirvana left a permanent imprint on the face of modern rock. In
Utero followed two years later and Nirvana looked ready to lead a growing
legion of alternative rock acts that now included Soundgarden and Pearl Jam.

Get

Foo Fighters Tickets and More at
TicketsNow.com.

Following lead singer Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994, and the consequential breakup
of Nirvana, a devastated Grohl nearly gave up the music business for good. A
year later, it was Grohl’s love for making music that pulled him back onto the
scene as he set out to independently record songs he’d written before joining
Nirvana. Grohl played nearly every instrument on what would become the Foo
Fighter’s first, self-titled album. After a bidding war between record companies
anxious to capitalize on Grohl’s connection to Nirvana, Capitol Records signed
the album. The disc’s “This Is a Call” quickly saw heavy radio airplay and by
1996 the album had gone platinum in the U.S.

When Grohl decided to take songs from that album on tour, he assembled a band
with former Nirvana guitarist Pat Smear, Nate Mendel on bass, and William
Goldsmith on drums. Grohl stepped into the role of lead singer with raw,
powerful vocals, and an utterly electric stage presence.

A few years and a few changes in band members later, the Foo Fighters were
scaling the Billboard charts with their 1997 album, The Colour And The Shape.
Hits like “Monkey Wrench”, “Everlong”, and “My Hero” brought the band
enormous commercial success and a respectable place in the late ‘90’s post
grunge fallout. And while MTV was courting highly packaged pop acts, the Foos
remained a bastion of melodic, midtempo, punk-influenced rock.

Upon entering their second decade as the Foo Fighters, the band sought to push
their talents even further with their latest album, Echoes, Silence, Patience
and Grace. Even the Foos themselves describe it as their “most complex and
confident” album yet. The album has a something-for-everyone feel as hook-heavy
anthems like “Long Road to Ruin” are balanced with ballads such as “Statues”
that feature Grohl’s hidden talent on the piano.

With this level of versatility, it’s no surprise the band most recently took
home two Grammy awards for Best Rock Album and Best Hard Rock Performance for
Echoes, Silence, Patience and Grace. “This doesn’t get old,” Grohl said as
he accepted the group’s 6th Grammy.

As anyone who’s seen the Foo Fighters live will tell you, seeing them rock out
on stage doesn’t get old either.

This talented punk-pop artist seemed to take the pop music scene by storm with the release of her 2002 debut album Let Go. At just 17 years old, she received 8 Grammy nominations, and 4 Juno awards. Lavigne’s first album sold over 16 million copies world-wide. Let Go included the hit singles, “Sk8ter Boi,” “Complicated”and“I’m With You.” The success of this album led to Avril Lavigne being named the “Best New Artist” in 2002 at the MTV Video Music Awards.

Avril Lavigne’s second album offering entitled Under My Skin debuted at number one in 2004, not only in the U.S., but in Canada, the UK, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Thailand, Spain, Hong Kong, Argentina, and Korea as well. Over 380,000 copies of Under My Skin were sold in the U.S. in its first week alone. Much of Lavigne’s second album was written in collaboration with fellow Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk, who would later be involved in some allegations of plagiarism against Avril Lavigne. Other contributions to the album were made by Evan Taubenfeld, Butch Walker, Ben Moody, Matt Brann, Raine Maida (husband of Kreviazuk), and co-producers Don Gilmore and Butch Walker.

The album includes songs “My Happy Ending,” Nobody’s Home,” “Don’t Tell Me,” “He Wasn’t,” and “Fall to Pieces.” Awards for Ms. Lavigne’s second venture included “World’s Best Pop/Rock Artist” and “World’s Best-Selling Canadian Artist” at the 2004 World Music Awards. In addition to her album endeavors, Avril Lavigne collaborated with Matthew Gerard to co-write the song “Breakaway” which appeared on the soundtrack for the film The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, recorded by Kelly Clarkson. Clarkson later included the single on her second album, and released the song as the first single from the album.

The year 2004 was a busy one for Avril Lavigne; she also embarked on a twenty one city tour of malls in Canada and the United States to promote Under My Skin. The tour was unique in that the venue was not announced for each city until 48 hours prior to show time. Lavigne performed acoustic sets with Evan Taubenfeld; her guitarist. Cleverly, selections from the tour were released in Target stores in the U.S., on the Avril Lavigne Live Acoustic EP.

In 2005, Avril Lavigne garnered five Juno Award nominations, where she won three of the categories. She also won the “Favorite Female Singer” award from the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards in the same year.

Avril Lavigne was born in Ontario, Canada on September 27, 1984. She was recognized early on by her mother as a singing talent, and she has continued to cultivate that talent up through the present time. In 1998 Lavigne won a competition which awarded her the opportunity to sing with Shania Twain, a fellow Canadian, on Twain’s first major concert tour. After singing in local venues in Canada, she was noticed by a folk singer, Steve Medd, with whom she sung on some of his albums. She met and was discovered by her first professional manager Cliff Fabri while singing in a bookstore in Ontario. She was signed to the A&R division of Arista Records at sixteen years old, when she begun production on Let Go; her first album.

Lavigne has performed with other bands and artists, and has appeared in videos with artists such as Treble Charger, Butch Walker and Lil’ Mama. She’s also done covers of songs by artists such as The Goo Goo Dolls, Bob Dylan, Green Day, Coldplay, and Shania Twain. Avril Lavigne has also appeared in films, her debut being as a voice actor in the animated film Over the Hedge. She acted in the movie Fast Food Nation, and she recorded a song with Dr. Luke for the Eragon film soundtrack entitled “Keep Holding On.”