David Foster

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What da hey? Aw, I’m sad. I no longer see it live. That’s ok. Anyway, the Dr. Seuss movie people are cross-promoting.

They have a new opening sequence for the show and everything. Did they have that last night?

Jim Carrey is dressed like an elephant. “You know, if you do a movie for Fox, you’re contractually obligated to do so many of these…” but he loves the show and loves the kids.

UH-HAWWWW-SOME! They got such a great response that they’re doing the Lennon/McCartney songbook next week too. Frank and I are of the opinion they should just do it every week. Instead I’m sure they’ll do TV theme song week and movie love song week…

The medley is kinda painful. This time it’s Ramiele who doesn’t know the words. Look at all the sweat Michael Johns is throwing around!

Who did I predict for the bottom three? Did I predict a bottom three? I don’t think I did. Anyway, I predict it’ll be David Hernandez, Kristy, and Ramiele with David going home.

Frank and I both like Chikezie again after last night.

Jason Castro’s voice is so beautiful. It’s Mrazzy. I know I’ve said that before, but I was reminded just now.

Ick. Kristy’s performance from last night. Blerg again for good measure.

Carly, Michael, Jason, and Syesha stand together. I predict they’re all safe.

Carly is safe! Yay!
Michael is safe! Yay! Wow, he has a hot wife.
Jason is… please oh please… SAFE! WAHOO!

Wow, I was wrong about my bottom three. Syesha is in the bottom three. Randy and Pauler say her leaving would be the wrong choice. Simon says that yes, she deserves to be in the bottom three tonight. I agree, I just didn’t think it would happen. Syesha sings in case it’s her last time, and she’s better tonight than last night, but she just doesn’t wanna stop singing when the song is over and continues on in her own little world. She’s wearing semi-soul-crushers.

Cheesy Ford commercial is “The Distance” by Cake. It’s actually kinda cute, and Jason has his hair all pulled back, and it looks short, and I now give him permission to get rid of the dreads if he so chooses.

Clip show to “A Day in the Life.” The Idols got to meet Jim Carrey and Steve Carell. And the lead singer of REO Speedwagon.

Chikezie, Amanda, Kristy, and David Cook are standing together. Ryan’s getting so predictable. “Could you come down here for a second, Chikezie?” SarahK: “Now go sit back down, you’re safe.” Ryan just repeats after me.

Chikezie is safe.
Amanda is safe. No visible facial movement.
David Cook is safe. Cool.
Kristy is in the bottom three with Syesha. She hopes she’s not going home, but she has gut feelings and doesn’t want to say what she thinks out loud or something. I’m only not fast-forwarding through the performance because I’m watching for crazy eyes. There they are! But there also is the hoo-hah squat. In jeans. I don’t get it. This performance is also better than last night, only marginally so. It’s hard to call something that’s still a butchery “better.”

I’m all sad that we don’t get a live feed, because now you get to call into the show. I’d only have to beat 29 million other people to the phone. No biggie.

Up next, Katharine McPhee and David Foster. FRANK: “Who’s David Foster?” SARAHK: “Did you just ask who David Foster is?”

Phone calls.

Paige in Pennsylvania. Ryan: “Paige, welcome to American Idol.” Paige: “Hi Ryan, I’m good, how are you?” Hahahahaha. She answered a question he didn’t ask. Anyway, Paige, 12, asks Jason Castro, “If Jason could be any American Idol judge, which one would he be?” Jason says he thinks he’s the most unlike Paula, ’cause she’s a girl, and so maybe that and maybe wear some of Randy’s shoes and wear a v-neck like Simon and be a hybrid. He’s so geeky cute. *sigh*

Ronny Paulie, 22, asks the judges. “I’ve auditioned for the show six times, and I think I’m a great singer, and I’ll sing if you want me to, and I just want to know if the judges have any advice for me.” Simon says get another job, Pauler says keep singing for Simon. He says he’ll keep trying, and Simon says, “I’ll wait.” I love him.

John Aaron, 22, calls in and asks Ryan, “Hey Ryan, what’s going on?” SarahK: Oh nothing. Just painting my nails, shopping for shoes, hangin’ out.” Ryan: “Just hangin’ out, doing the show.” John has a question for Ryan and Simon. “Why don’t you two just duke it out right on the stage?” Simon says it’s not a bad idea, and Ryan [I’m not making this up] says, “I say load it in the mud. I’m ready.” He just makes it too easy.

Tracy, 40, asks Simon which country has the best singing talent, America or England. Simon concedes that American singers have more talent; however, on the judging panel, the Brits. So say we all!

David Foster on piano now, Katharine singing “Something in the Way,” but she’s singing about “him.” Her dress is awful. I think she’s wearing Kristy’s top from last night as a whole dress. She’s wearing diamond soul-crushers and boring me not just a little bit. But I’m so envious, because how awesome would it be to sing with David Foster accompanying on the piano? This is boring, David Foster notwithstanding. Dude, she just did a Celine accent. The earpiece she’s wearing looks like an old-style hearing aid. Katharine is working on a record with David Foster. David says Simon gets almost everything right, but David is gonna go on Access Hollywood every week just to fine-tune what Simon says. Whatevs. Just read what I have to say, David, and plagiarize. You’ll sound awesome.

Haha, Jim Carrey is sitting with the contestants and oh-so-nervous about going home. “I never should have done that REO Speedwagon thing.”

David A, Brooke, David H, and Ramiele. It should be David H in the bottom three.
David A is safe. Ryan: “You get a chance to redeem yourself.”
Brooke is safe! HOORAY!
Ramiele is safe.
David H is in the bottom three. I predict he leaves us tonight. I’m totally fine with that. So now he’s gonna Elvisize the Beatles, pure treachery. Can’t end soon enough for me. This, too, is better than last night. Maybe we should just make every night elimination night, and they’ll all sing better. Well, the ending still bit the big one.

Ryan asks if America got it right. SarahK says yes. Randy says yes. “Pauler, where is your head right now?” “On my shoulders.” Pauler says this is one of the strongest bottom threes she’s ever seen. Simon thinks America got this absolutely spot-on. I think so, too.

Syesha is safe. No shockers there.

Today my coworker L predicted Kristy goes, and I predicted David goes. Kristy is safe, and David is out. Man, I should have made a wager with her! “If David goes home, you do all my journal entries tomorrow, and if Kristy goes home, I do your payroll entries this week.” That would have totally rocked.

I hate the Studdard song that we have to listen for the next ten eliminations.

So I’m guessing

The term "green jobs" might conjure an image of workers operating the turbines in a wind farm, such as those just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Somerset.

For David Foster, the term has a broader meaning, one that includes the steelworkers who help to make the blades for those turbines.

Expanding the understanding of what it means to go green is part of the thrust of "Good Jobs, Green Jobs," a conference starting tomorrow at the David L. Lawrence Conference Center. Mr. Foster is executive director of the Blue-Green Alliance, which is coordinating the gathering, billed as the first national conference on green jobs.

"There are green products, and there are green processes," Mr. Foster said. A green product is one specifically designed to address environmental issues. But a green process is simply "making products in ways that don't have a harmful effect," a criterion that could apply to virtually any product. When manufacturers learn to use green processes, their employees' jobs become green jobs.

"The green revolution isn't just creating new and different jobs," Mr. Foster said. "It's revitalizing and creating new investment in a lot of the jobs we already have."

He cited M.A. Mortenson Co. as an example. The Minneapolis-based company completed its 50th wind power project in January, installing a 205-megawatt wind farm in Chandler, Minn. That made Mortenson, already one of the nation's largest contracting companies, the nation's largest installer of wind turbines.

Nearly 800 people have registered for the conference, which will offer presentations on such topics as "Public Policies and Private Investments," "The Potential and Growth of Biomass in Rural America," and "The Mayors' Climate Protection Agreement: Can Climate Protection Drive Job Creation?" Presenters will include representatives from government, nonprofit organizations, academia and labor.

Indeed, the alliance itself is a partnership, which some might deem unlikely, between two of the largest labor and environmental organizations -- the United Steelworkers union and the Sierra Club. The two organizations worked together on several policy initiatives in recent years, and, "we discovered that we had a lot of common values," said Mr. Foster, a former USW district director.

"We found ourselves advocating the same kinds of investments in green energy," and as a result, they formed the Alliance in June 2006.

Mr. Foster said the Alliance hopes to produce two outcomes from the conference, one general and one quite specific. As a general outcome, it hopes to "heighten the public discussion about the green economy"; more specifically, it plans to produce a "green jobs policy book" from the conference proceedings, to be released on Labor Day, that will provide legislators and business leaders with guidelines for developing environmentally friendly policies.

Mr. Foster foresees a day when thinking green will become the norm in the world of business.

"I think that we've reached a point at which not just the efficiency with which we produce products in the global economy, but the manner in which we produce them, has become key to our survival as a human civilization," he said. "We're in the dawning of understanding that that has to become second nature to our economic activity."

He pointed to the American automotive industry, which has been in tumult for the greater part of a decade, as an example of what could happen to companies that fail to accept the green paradigm soon enough.

"Those companies that have been slow to pick up on the importance of fuel efficiency and have been resistant to making that a cornerstone of what they do are suffering the consequences of that," he said.

America's chemical industry faces a similar danger, Mr. Foster said, as European chemical companies transform their operations to comply with European Union regulations on chemicals that became law in June. The regulations require companies to submit information about the chemicals they work with to a European Chemicals Agency database, and to substitute less dangerous chemicals for more dangerous ones.

Leaders of the American chemical industry "ought to think about the long-term environmental impacts of substances that they manufacture and make use of," he said. "If we choose to resist ... we'll lose" to European companies.

Conversely, thinking green can open up opportunities, he said. For instance, a national effort to retrofit existing buildings to green standards "can rebuild an entire manufacturing infrastructure."

The alternative to taking global leadership in the greening of business is that instead of benefiting from it, "we can be the people that come knocking on the door with a tin cup," he said.