I tend to digest information over an extended period of time in order to absorb knowledge with the highest efficiency. So when I have the duty to report information within hours of it being presented, not to mention writing after midnight and into the early morning, I feel like I must review it all over again with you. However, with a plane to catch, I will spray an outline for you to color-in for yourselves through further reading and research.

As a student who attended both conventions, I now have taken time to think – for myself – about the two candidates running for president, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen.John McCain.

I will specifically focus on their acceptance speeches. First off, they both accepted their party's nomination. Shocking, I know. Take note of the venue of the two speeches. Mile High Stadium in Denver drew in 85,000 individuals. A row of Greek columns behind Barack Obama stood out as a silent symbol of the White House. John McCain stayed conventional in Minneapolis - St. Paul and saved money by staying indoors at the same location all week. Perhaps that tells you something about the two's spending policies.

From Obama's speech, I learned that he supports moving troops from Iraq to Afghanistan (and wherever we have "actual intelligence" where terrorists may be).

He never addressed the costs of our foreign policy. Iraqi citizen death toll since the invasion in March 2003 is 1,255,026. That is over 1 million people! 4,154 American deaths and an estimated 100,000 wounded soldiers. If that is not bad enough for you, we cannot financially afford this foreign policy. It is not just the Iraq war that busts our budget; it is our overseas military presence as a whole, our empire. It costs $1 trillion per year to maintain. That is 12 zeros. The proposed Pentagon budget alone was $623 billion for 2008.

I wonder who or what is paying for this? That leads me to another issue Obama did not mention, the crashing dollar. We have an unprecedented financial crisis on our hands, which Congressman Ron Paul has predicted may result in a catastrophe worse than the Great Depression.

No, I lied, it is not unprecedented. It happened to Rome. Rome spread their empire out too far and too thin, and devalued their monetary unit by making alloy (a mixture of metals and a removal of precious metals) thanks to a man named Diocletian (Google him). Why? To pay for their empire.

They made or "printed" debased fiat money for their empire. Essentially, the same is happening to us. The government taxes citizens to pay for our overseas empire and prints worthless dollars to cover the shortfall. But the 85,000 strong did not know this, so they were inspired rather than angered.

Last night, I witnessed John McCain's acceptance speech. He proclaimed, as Obama did, that he will advocate for alternative fuels like solar, wind, geo-thermal and nuclear. He would appoint judges like John Roberts and Antonin Scalia. Sadly, McCain failed to mention the same foreign policy costs.

He is even advocating nation building and an expensive, omnipresence in the world. He would seek out monsters to destroy, even if they were no threat to us. He would coerce us to sacrifice our liberties for security from the government.

He would do these things for "peace." To him, peace comes from the barrel of a gun.

As to monetary policy, John McCain would not deal with the financial disaster that is descending upon this nation. Nevertheless, voters respect John McCain's heroic service as a POW, his willingness to disregard party interest and his lifetime of service in the United States Congress.

These are sound bites that I encourage you all to research for yourself at the two candidate's Web sites and beyond. As you can see, I have concluded from attending the two conventions that the candidates are the same on these main issues. There will be more war, less prosperity, and less freedom for Americans with both candidates.

Like I said, I have sprayed an outline of the two candidates, so get out your coloring crayons and start thinking for yourself and paint your own picture.