I don’t agree with President Bush about much, but I support the remarks he made today about alternative energy sources.

“The problem is we get oil from some parts of the world and they simply don’t like us,” Mr. Bush said, speaking of Middle East suppliers, but naming no countries. “And so the more dependent we are on that type of energy, the less likely it will be that we are able to compete, and so people have good, high-paying jobs.”

While these words are, in my opinion, typical of Bush’s very poor public speaking ability, I think he’s right. Right or wrong, our country has developed a need for enormous amounts of energy, and we are extremely dependent on other nations to get it. Our need to ensure that we have petroleum in large quantities effectively dictates our foreign policy far too much.

I would like to see us change two things about how we spend money as a nation: (1) Dedicate far more of our resources, private and public, to developing more abundant, less polluting energy sources and (2) Dedicate much more of our resources toward direct help for third world nations, particularly Africa.

I firmly believe that alleviating our dependence on hostile and/or unstable countries for energy and helping resolve humanitarian crises in other nations will make our country less of a target and our world a safer and more compassionate place to live.

I am a big fan of Google, but I think this recent news about their research for audio eavesdropping software is going too far.

Google is an innovative company that has developed a lot of the great tools on the Web these days (Blogger, of course; also Google Reader, Google Earth and their original search engine, too). They generally seem to be devoted to making information more accessible for the benefit of everyone, but this latest step raises at least one eyebrow for me.

Introducing this technology without, at the minimum, allowing anyone to opt out of it would be a major violation of privacy, in my opinion. I get that Google, and other companies like it, needs to continue to develop revenue streams and alternatives to conventional advertising. I fully accept that reality in return for the use of their technology, but there is a limit to what is acceptable. Even developing this technology and opening the door for another company or even individuals to use it for ill purposes is a concern for me.

Let’s hear an explanation, Google, because I think one is in order.