It's a sad day when the leaders of the free world engage in such deception and trickery. I voted against this unnecessary war and will continue to argue that the best way to support our troops is to bring them home.

Even if gas prices fall, consumers will continue to be gouged at the pump the only thing that we can be sure rises faster that the price of gasoline is the skyrocketing profits of oil companies.

Technology tools such as laptops are the kind of help that we need. A program that provides laptops for all youngsters would close a gap that most of us are not aware of, or will not admit to, which is a tremendous gap in the poor communities.

Washington has been ignoring this issue for too long.

I do not think we are ever going to be able to, for a long time, get the kind of quality of school personnel that we need in our schools, especially in the areas of science and math. One of the answers to that problem is to use more educational technology.

We can close the gap and improve what happens in the classroom by using educational technology that is the same high quality everywhere.

Therefore, you are not training young people for the world of today and the world of tomorrow unless you are doing proven technology training. That is one of the reasons I'm so concerned.