THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. For the last eight years, I have had the honor of speaking to the American people Saturday mornings through this radio address. In hundreds of broadcasts, I have talked to you about important issues affecting our security and our prosperity. And today, in my final address, I want to send a simple and heartfelt message: Thank you.

Eight years ago, Laura and I left our home in Texas to come to Washington. Through two terms in the White House, we have been blessed by your kind words and generous prayers. We have been inspired by those of you who reach out to feed the hungry, clothe the needy, and care for the sick. We have been moved by the courage and devotion of those of you who wear the uniform. Serving as your President has been an incredible honor.

Like every individual who has held this office before me, I have experienced setbacks. There are things I would do differently if given the chance. Yet I’ve always acted with the best interests of our country in mind. I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right. You may not agree with some tough decisions I have made. But I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions.

The decades ahead will bring more hard choices for our country, and there are some guiding principles that should shape our course. While our Nation is safer than it was seven years ago, the gravest threat to our people remains another terrorist attack. Our enemies are patient, and determined to strike again. America did nothing to seek or deserve this conflict. But we have been given solemn responsibilities, and we must meet them. We must resist complacency. We must keep our resolve. And we must never let down our guard.

At the same time, we must continue to engage the world with confidence and clear purpose. In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad. If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led.

As we address these challenges — and others we cannot foresee today — America must maintain our moral clarity. I’ve often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This Nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense — and to advance the cause of peace.

Eight years ago, on a cold January morning, I stood on the steps of the United States Capitol, placed my hand on the Bible, and swore a sacred oath to defend our people and our Constitution. On that day, I spoke of “our Nation’s grand story of courage and its simple dream of dignity.” Next week, my term of service will come to an end — but that story and that dream will continue.

On Tuesday, Laura and I will join all Americans in offering our best wishes to President Obama, his wife Michelle, and their two beautiful girls. And later that day, we will return to the love of family and friends in Texas. I will depart office proud of my Administration’s record. And I will spend the rest of my life grateful for the opportunity to have served as President of the greatest nation on Earth.

Thank you for listening.

Source: White House Press Office

When history is written, George W. Bush’s worst critics will accuse him of everything from willful negligence in handling 2008’s economic crisis to war crimes in the context of the catastrophic mistake that is the war in Iraq. In the end, they very well may be correct, but it is possible that all of his mistakes were not of the completely sinister nature like they’re sometimes characterized, but rather can be traced back to overall tragedy that he was simply a president stuck in the wrong century. Bush’s core beliefs — that the free market could police itself, that oil is always our answer, and that we can bomb and kill others into submission without chain reactions of consequences — were dying an eventual death around the time of Y2K, but Bush made sure to keep them on life support much longer than they ever should have survived.

There is no bigger example of The Past sucking the blood out of The Future than GM, Ford, and Chrysler begging for money from the U.S. Government yet again. This past month, we saw the Big Three auto companies fly in their private jets to Washington to request billions of dollars because for the past 25 years they have steadfastly refused to look at the calendar. They defiantly rejected efforts to increase their fuel efficiency standards as every country—even China—passed us in their mandatory requirements. Because executives lobbyied Congressmen to vote against everyone’s interests but theirs, their companies made short term profits that both crippled them and damaged the country. After all, only a 7.6 mile per gallon increase in our collective car efficiency would be enough to completely free ourselves from Middle East oil, while saving the individual American consumer critical pocket money. Instead, these companies marketed trucks that could pull airplanes down a runway and consumed oil at a breakneck pace. But why would they care about those details? They could just shove SUVs down Americans’ throats by luring them through tax breaks into a choice so obviously against their interests.

This is just the most blatant example of our chronic sickness of holding onto the past. It illustrates that the worst flaw of George Bush, and in turn of the corporations he represents, may be that he simply did not realize what century we lived in. The banking crisis, car company meltdown, and failed fight against Islamist extremism can be boiled down to using 20^th century policies in a 21^st century world.

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As tears were streaming down the faces of millions of Americans on the night of November 4, 2008, President-elect Barack Obama said, in words that would ring loudly far after the last piece of confetti had fallen, “The time for change has come.” It was a beautiful sight for more reasons than one. Many were crying because the sight of a black man winning the American presidency was possibly the most powerful symbol of American exceptionalism anyone had ever seen. But those words were much more than a symbol of tolerance and the triumph of ability. They were a prologue to the tangible changes that will dramatically alter this country in the coming months—much more change than has ever happened in our lifetime.

Obama has spent his transition months putting together what has been almost universally lauded as a cabinet filled with experience, pragmatism, and overall excellence. It is a cabinet based solely on achievement, without regard for partisanship or political and financial connections.

While all of Obama’s cabinet picks have been praised for their qualifications and temperance, none exemplifies the stark realities of the new way of doing things better than Obama’s pick for Energy Secretary, Dr. Steven Chu. Chu is a Nobel Prize winning physicist who is a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a global warming research center whose primary goal is “to develop methods to “store” solar energy in the form of renewable transportation fuel.” There is a reason Al Gore is planning a Green Inaugural. It’s because The Age of Oil is coming to a close and Obama plans to kick it out the door.<!–nextpage–>

Bush’s pick for Energy Secretary, on the other hand, was Spencer Abraham, a Michigan senator most famous for taking more campaign donations from those same dinosaurs in the American Auto Industry than any other senator, and led the fight against corporate average fuel efficiency standards in automobiles. Change indeed.

But this is not just a Liberal president replacing Conservatives with more of the same from the other side. It’s a complete change in a philosophy that has run our government since its inception. Obama, when asked what he would do to help his “friends” in Springfield, Illinois to stem their State’s budget shortfalls,  challenged the very nature of the question.

“Part of the charge [of the budget team] is to make sure that we are proceeding on projects and investments based on national priorities and not based on politics,” he said. “Now you mentioned, sort of, ‘my friends.’ I want to be clear friendship doesn’t come into this. That’s part of the old way of doing business.

“The new way of doing business is, let’s figure out what projects, what investments are going to give the American economy the most bang for the buck. How can we protect taxpayer dollars so this money is not wasted; restore a sense of confidence among taxpayers that when we spend their money, it’s on things that are actually gonna improve their quality of life; create the jobs that are so desperately needed; help to spur on economic growth and business creation in the private sector? That’s all part of the new way of doing business.”

Being friends with the President is no longer a means to an end in any sense. Just ask John Kerry, one of Obama’s biggest and earliest supporters. He was passed over for Secretary of State in favor of Hillary Clinton, a person many accused of secretly rooting for Obama’s political destruction only months ago. While Kerry was certainly qualified, Obama’s decision underscored the notion that the age of cronyism is over. No more “Heckuva Job” Brownies or “I do not recall” Alberto Gonzaleses.

This Cult of Competence has been put in place to help Obama alter our policies as smoothly as possible, and the cornerstone to this change will come in the form of a massive stimulus package that Obama plans to sign perhaps as early as Inauguration Day, every single element of which is designed take take us out of the antiquated 20^th Century once and for all.

For a month now, Obama’s economic team has been crafting this new package, not aimed at Wall Street Banks or the crumbling car companies, but for Middle Class Americans. And it starts with the Internet. The money will be spent on laying broadband across the country, with the goal of giving every American free Internet access, a move that’s been on the FCC’s desk for years but which the Bush Administration has stubbornly tabled. As Obama has said, “we are the nation that invented the Internet, yet we are 15^th in the world in broadband adoption. It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online.”

But that is just the start of what may come to be known as America 2.0. Every goal of the stimulus bill is designed to put Americans to work immediately, but even more importantly, set us up for the future. A nationwide high-tech power grid that will allow states to share solar and wind power will accelerate our ability to get off our dependence on foreign oil. Along with that universal access to the Web, a transfer of all hospital records to an electronic broadband system will eventually save the country billions of savings in administrative costs annually. Moreover, massive construction efforts to modernize public schools will encourage young Americans to learn and save massive amounts of money by making the buildings more energy efficient with new lighting and insulation.

As Obama often said during the campaign, the money that we spent on the Iraq War could have been used to rebuild every road, bridge, and school in our country — an intriguing thought that some might say is farfetched. Not anymore. This stimulus package could reach as high as $800 billion, actually approaching the number we have fiddled away in Iraq.

With all of this new technology helping the lives of people in the United States, Obama’s foreign policy will be aimed at change for everyone that lives outside of the country. He is in the midst of planning a major foreign policy speech to be given in an Islamic country in his first 100 days, through which he hopes to win the hearts and minds of everyone looking for an end to the seemingly never ending violence in the Middle East and beyond. This has never taken on greater importance than now as Israel’s War against Hamas threatens to put the region and the world on an even greater imbalance. The 20th Century was filled with religious wars and intolerance on a global scale, and as the leader of the Free World, the weight of moving not only our country, but the world in a new direction has fallen squarely on Obama’s shoulders

Our new president will face tough questions about how to bring the Iraq War to an end and how to fix a war in Afghanistan that now includes Pakistan, India, and even complications with Iran—a daunting challenge. But if we learned anything from Barack Obama on that historic November night, while the path to the future may be tough, there is only one answer to the question as to whether this country and the world can succeed. Yes We Can.

Starting an environmental club at school is a great way to get students energized about taking care of the Earth and helping their community while learning about some of the most important issues facing the world in the 21st century.

EarthTeam, a non-profit environmental network for teens, teachers and youth leaders, offers many tips on how to start an environmental club. First and foremost is to make sure there are at least a half dozen or so other students interested in forming such a club to begin with, and then also finding a teacher, community leader or parent who is willing to serve as an adult sponsor. The sponsor’s role is to provide advice along the way and to help ensure the stability of the group from year-to-year given that all of the students, even the founders of the club, will eventually graduate, or move on to other interests or endeavors.

Once the core membership and adult sponsor have been established, EarthTeam suggests all sitting down together to decide on the club’s vision (“Why are we here?”) and to brainstorm about possible activities or projects to undertake (“What do we want to accomplish?”). Once these questions have been answered, it’s time to hold the club’s first official meeting, which should be advertised as widely as possible to other students who may be interested in finding out what the group is about and how they can get involved, too.

The next step, according to EarthTeam, is to forge an action plan that focuses on one group-oriented, year-long project that has measurable benefits to the school or community and that can keep the interest of the student members-who will no doubt be spending long hours volunteering. Whatever project(s) the group decides on, members should develop a timeline that clearly lists goals, dates and responsibilities.

In addition to undertaking the one major project, clubs can also host or sponsor special events for extra visibility. EarthTeam suggests getting students outside for a river or beach clean-up, a tree planting day, or a field trip to a local wetland, zoo or nature reserve. Another popular idea is to hold an Environmental Awareness Day to educate the entire student body about relevant green issues.

EarthTeam is also a networking platform so clubs can work together and share experiences with each other to help get a sense of the bigger picture beyond one individual school’s locale, given the global nature of most environmental issues. Another great networking resource is the Greenspan website, which lists clubs in 21 different U.S. states as well as in Australia, Canada, Japan, Ghana and Malaysia.

Another great resource for those starting up new or managing existing school environmental clubs is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Student Center website, which offers dozens of ideas for projects that both stimulate and enlighten participants while helping the local community. The website also provides links to several partner non-profit groups with club-worthy activities.

CONTACTS: EarthTeam, www.earthteam.net; Greenspan Environmental Club Network, www.greenspanworld.org/environmental_club_network.htm; U.S. EPA Student Center, www.epa.gov/students.

Telling the story of George W. Bush’s presidency, the rightly titled “W.” (pronounced “Dubya”) is ironic and critical, but makes President Bush look like the victim rather than the enforcer of the manipulation and deceit that has brought his popularity rating to a historic low.

Playing Bush is Josh Brolin, who is proving to be the next great actor of our generation. Following his critically acclaimed role in the Cohen brothers’ Oscar-winning “No Country for Old Men,” Brolin gives a near perfect interpretation of good ol’ Dubya.

The only issue with Brolin’s portrayal of Bush was that he was cast to play Bush in his college days. While Brolin was able to pull of the character of Bush, his wrinkled veneer gave away the 20 year age difference between how old he is and how old the character he was supposed to have been playing was.

The all-star player was Thandie Newton’s Condoleezza Rice, whose awkward facial expressions and nasal vocal-interpretation of the Secretary of State added new levels of humor to some of the more straight-forward character caricatures.

Rounding out the bunch was Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney, Scott Glenn as Donald Rumsfeld, Toby Jones as Karl Rove, Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush and James Cromwell as George Herbert Walker Bush.

“W.” chronicled the story of George Bush Jr.’s life through his interactions with his father. Stone portrayed Bush’s actions as only wanting to live up to his father’s expectations and earn Bush Sr.’s approval. The jealous of his elder brother Jed was undercurrent throughout the entirety of the film.

The story was told out of chronological order, which was confusing because it was hard to judge when it was supposed to have taken place. Eventually the contexts became clear, but, especially with the age issues with Brolin, the idea was there for telling Bush’s story thematically though un-chronologically, but it was not delivered as effectively as it could have been.

The themes were very strong throughout the story and the film was well-created. Introverted shots like Bush trying to catch a baseball in the outfield of his empty stadium and lines like Bush Sr.’s “Who do you think you are, a Kennedy?” really give interesting dynamic to what has become known as one of the worst presidencies of all time.

Stone ended the film just as Bush was going into his second term as presidency (around 2004) which I didn’t quite understand. The film ended on a bizarre note, with Dick Cheney coaxing Bush to enter into war with Iraq and eventually Iran, saying, “There is no exit strategy.” It didn’t really make sense for Stone to end the film where he did when so many more important and critical events happened after the invasion of Iraq. By leaving the second term of Bush’s presidency out of the film, he did not create an apt representation of the president that so many have come to despise – unless Stone has secret plans for a sequel.

“W.” was an incredibly well created piece of film, both visually appealing and character driven. It gave new insight into a public figure in ways that have not been shown before. Thought it had a few minor flaws, “W.” is worth your money.