We all recognize that in recent decades many important achievements have helped create a cleaner healthier environment yet our national needs in environmental health are not being fully met.

Liberals in Congress have spent the past three decades pandering to environmental extremists. The policies they have put in place are in large part responsible for the energy crunch we are seeing today. We have not built a refinery in this country for 30 years.

In a few decades the relationship between the environment resources and conflict may seem almost as obvious as the connection we see today between human rights democracy and peace.

Americans are a decade behind Canada when it comes to sex education and understanding their bodies.

During the decades after Brown v. Board of Education there was terrific progress. Tens of thousands of public schools were integrated racially. During that time the gap between black and white achievement narrowed.

But baseball bounced back in the next decade to reclaim its place as the national pastime: new heroes spirited competition and booming prosperity gave birth to dreams of expansion both within the major leagues and around the world.

How much obesity has to be created in a single decade for people to realize that diet has to be responsible for it?

My dad was a bartender. My mom was a cashier a maid and a stock clerk at K-Mart. They never made it big. They were never rich. And yet they were successful. Because just a few decades removed from hopelessness they made possible for us all the things that had been impossible for them.

Although the war in which you fought took place more than half-a-century ago your courage your sacrifice and your patriotism reaches through the decades and inspires us today.

Overcoming the Cold War required courage from the people of Central and Eastern Europe and what was then the German Democratic Republic but it also required the steadfastness of Western partner over many decades when many had long lost hope of integration of the two Germanys and Europe.

One of the biggest challenges we had in the first decade was not that many people had personal computers. There weren't that many people to sell to and it was hard to identify them.

It was used for decades to describe talented computer enthusiasts people whose skill at using computers to solve technical problems and puzzles was - and is - respected and admired by others possessing similar technical skills.

During the past few decades modern technology with radio TV air travel and satellites has woven a network of communication which puts each part of the world in to almost instant contact with all the other parts.

In a free society government reflects the soul of its people. If people want change at the top they will have to live in different ways. Our major social problems are not the cause of our decadence. They are a reflection of it.

I never had the high-paying job or the company car. It took me over a decade to pay off my student loans. I never had to worry about where to dock my yacht to reduce my taxes.

I was turning 20 during my first record. Those decade birthdays always kind of cause me it seems to reflect look back and then look forward. I just was closing this period of my life where I was living in a car and scrambling my whole life to then signing a six-record deal with Atlantic.

I am especially grateful that I have been able to keep my own style over the decades in spite of the many changes that have taken place in the world of fashion and in its business.