IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 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. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Unlike my friend, who is still a hardcore Star Wars fan (that even has a complete section for it on his website), I have seen the light. The light that shines on a massive pile of crap that has been coming out of George Lucas's uncreative mind since the days of the first remake of the original Star Wars series. Good God, that was awhile ago. Since then, we've pretty much seen it all. Variations of inconsequential scenes, additional footage, new effects, Padme and Anakin getting frisky, and so on. Unfortunately we haven't seen Anakin going nuts on those critters that killed his mother... that is still as of yet unseen, but for how long?

Just a few minutes ago I read a very amusing article on Wired about other potential Star Wars remakes. It looks like Star Wars is dead to him too, as it rightfully should be with everyone. Honestly, I'd just be pissed if someone went around screwing with all the Star Trek movies... even the crappy ones. I've seen them already, and besides the even numbered ones, I probably don't want to see them again for a very long time... retouched or even completely redone! So why does Lucas keep doing this to his beloved series? Is it because he truly wants to make it better, or because he's milking it until it's dry?

I vote the latter.

My God man, put out something new, or give up on movie making! Some of us people here can only handle your marginally better remakes, and crappy prequels being in theaters and rereleased so many times!!

Gas prices are out of control. Around here they've shot past $3.00 a gallon, and electricity bills are going up too. The Maryland legislature dropped the ball and the local energy monopoly BGE is expected to jack up prices by more than 50%. A major hurricane can shut down nearly all of the refineries in the "deep South", the mere thought of another conflict in the Middle East is enough to send the oil market spiraling out of control, and yet we still have Joe American driving his super-sized SUV that gets about 12 miles to a gallon of gasoline on his way to work--alone.

My family has never owned an SUV. Or any large vehicle for that matter. Gas mileage has always been one of the prime factors in car buying, and it's been paying off. My father's car can get almost 30 miles to the gallon on the highway, and my mother's can do even better. That's a start, and we've been doing our part to conserve energy... but it takes effort on everyone's part in order to successfully have an effect on the energy economy. If everyone drove fuel efficient cars, that would significantly lessen the demand on fuel, and lower prices. That's only the first step though; what we really need to do is find acceptable renewable energy sources and invest in them! Wind, solar, geothermal, hydrogen, bio-fuel, whatever it takes to get us off the oil addiction to power our cars and our lives. We need oil in order to produce plastic afterall, so we probably shouldn't be burning it all up.

In order to solve our growing energy crisis, we're going to need to be creative, willing to spend the capital to get started, and take the time out of our day to actively save energy. Turning off the lights, opening the windows instead of using air-conditioning, carpooling, buying smaller cars, and planning usage of the car will help stem the inevitable drought of oil a little bit longer as scientists work on new ways to power our cars, our homes and our businesses. Because in reality, oil companies aren't to blame for the high prices, we are! When Americans everywhere finally stand up and say enough is enough and trade in our mega-SUV's for small fuel efficient cars, gas prices will come down.

I do my part to help and it's important to remember that every little bit of energy conservation counts, so why don't you?

It's been quiet around these parts for more than a month now and I felt the need to write an article about what I've been doing all this time. Other than real life, which I won't ever go into here... I've been visiting Newsvine a lot in order to get my news. I haven't even bothered going to CNN lately. Newsvine has been pretty good with keeping everything up to date. They have AP news articles, which I consider the real news, and then there's the other significant portion of the site... the editorials.

That part is a mixed bag, as some of my friends will tell you. On one hand, it's really interesting to see what other people feel about what's going on around us in the world today, but then on the other, some of the views are just so ridiculous I can't help but become irate over some of the articles written, or some of the seeds (links to other sites) posted there. They just show a complete lack of intelligence, a deep-routed bias against the United States and its people, or just an overt attempt to start a flamewar. One such seed comes to mind that was posted recently discussed how George W. Bush's grandfather sold stuff to the Nazis. Granted, I hate the Nazis, Neo-Nazis, or anything else Nazi-like; and I'm no fan of George W. Bush either -- but I think that at this point, that's just like scrapping the bottom of the barrel for reasons to hate the guy. And besides, if we're going to criticize President Bush for having family ties that worked with the Nazis, just about all of the western half of continental Europe is in the same boat, not to mention Sweden. And heck, the Germans were the Nazis. Oops...

Newsvine's most vocal members are more liberal than anything else, and it shows heavily in their posting. I've taken to picking off certain points in their arguments solely because I don't have the time or interest to write an incredibly long dissertation explaining why I feel they're wrong, and how I came to that conclusion. It seems to have done me well, as I'm rated around 85% on the site. Granted there are people on there with tons more articles and seeds than I have, but I'm fine with that. All I do is defend what I think is right, and point out when I think someone has stepped over the line with their arguments.

I'd like to think that the articles will become more balanced with time, but usually it's the more vocal members of either side of the political spectrum who do the most talking... and what they're saying scares the heck out of me.

For a nation in a neverending "war" on terrorism and terrorists, I think it's important that we look to ourselves and our history for some answers regarding the actions our current government administration is handling our affairs overseas and here at home. We're fighting a war, as President Bush has put it; even though it wasn't declared by Congress, nor is there any real, tangible, enemy that we're fighting against. Why has this happened? I'm thinking because few people take interest in the news and take an active part in our government.

Many don't even know how our government is set up or run. Let's take a quick quiz... See how many of these questions you can answer correctly:

• How many amendments are there in the Bill of Rights?
• How many Senators are there in Congress?
• How many Senators represent each state?
• What freedoms does the first amendment guarantee us?
• How many branches of the government are there?
• Name them.

• Ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights
• 100 Senators in Congress
• Two Senators each
• Freedom of Speech, the Press, Religion, Peaceful Protests, and Grievances against the government.
• Three branches
• Executive, Legislative and Judicial