Many indicators are now pointing to a reality that we have reached and passed the peak oil point. The big oil companies are drilling in places they would not have considered a few years ago. It is taking more energy to get this stuff out of the ground and refine it than it delivers in BTU's. The same is true for some alternative fuels such as ethanol. This should not be a surprise to anyone--it was predicted years ago.

So far, we have done nothing to prepare. If we continue to do nothing, we will perish as a culture because Americanism was built and is maintained on the assumption of cheap and plentiful energy.

Gas prices of $9-$10/gal. may well result in some of the scenerios described by one of the posters. It will certainly force the American people to WAKE UP!!! If we are lucky and begin serious action now, there will be a revolution. If we take no action, there will be chaos.

On April 30, the S.Ct. decided the case of KSR v. Teleflex. In their holding, they re-defined criteria for determining whether an invention is obvious. The new criteria is a throw-back to an old standard, the "flash of genius" standard. With this standard, very few inventions will be patentable. The last time US patent law was guided by the "flash of genius", the country became a technological backwater.

We are seeing the Patent Office employ this new standard and the results are not good. The impact of this new standard is that most high tech start-ups will not be able to protect their inventions. They will not be able to get investor money. They will be forced to give up their technology to big tech. Soon, there will not be start-ups at all.

This is exactly the result the Court wanted because they are in the pocket of big business. Roberts makes me want to puke.

Prior to the ethanol craze, the price of corn had not changed significantly since the 1970's. Soy beans were more profitable. Only the best farmers survived.

It is very important for corn farmers to rotate crops to prevent depletion of nitrogen from the soil. Even with rotation, it is necessary to supplement nitrogen with fertilizer. Without rotation, planting corn on corn on corn will "wear the soil out" and it will cease to be productive.

Another problem that farmers will have in the next planting is that the price of fertilizer is skyrocketing because the bulk transport of fertilizer and corn has been disrupted.

Prior to ethanol, corn was transported by rail and barge from the midwest to ports in the South. Once the rail or barges were unloaded, they were re-loaded with fertilizer. Now, the corn is processed to ethanol in the midwest. The ethanol is transported by unit trains around the United States. There are no empty barges or rail cars for transporting fertilizer.

I'm glad that farmers are seeing some relief from low prices but fear that they will pay a terrible price for this folly.

The molecular biologist is right about plant genetics. The biggest problems that I have observed, as a midwestern farmer's daughter, is occasional susceptability to blight, and, in the case of wheat, a progressive loss of gluten in the kernal over time.

She reads news stories, like a lot of men and women on a lot of television news channels around the world. BFD.

She is not a scholar. She has no particular expertise in another culture. She has never put her life on the line to get a story.

I am also a native Minnesotan and live a couple of miles from the bridge. Minnesotans, like people in the rest of the country, are sleep-walking while our pockets are being picked and our futures are literally being "sold down the river".

Our political leaders are as corrupt and spineless as everywhere else. Our legislature, dems and repubs, have spent the past two years trying to cram the expense of two new stadiums down the throats of citizens of Hennepin county. They finally succeeded by buying off the legislators outstate and forbidding the people who have to pay for it from voting.

The "large ebullient woman" referred to by Garrison should be fired or worse, but she won't be. She is the Roberto Gonzales of Minnesota. She is an idiot but she knows where the bodies are buried and Pawlenty, the governor, can't afford to let her go.

Once the news reporting began, I and my business associates, received calls and e-mails of concern from our friends in Mexico and India. These people are not sleep-walking and they are desperately trying to get us to wake up!

One of the most stunning and disappointing events post bridge collapse was the vote by our new DFL Senator, Amy Klobuchar, for FISA. The ghosts of Hubert Humphery, Paul Wellstone and Gene McCarthy have got to be shaking their heads in dismay in light of the actions of this democratic "gutless wonder."

I saw that pathetic performance tonight too. I could'nt believe that Fleischman did not know the soldier's name. That combination of arrogance and stupidity defines the Bush "era."

I think Ari Fleischman is "Anonymous."

that someone using the moniker "hitlery" would regard Bush and Ari Fleischman as "liberals."

What really scares me is inflation. I was pondering retiring in the next 10-15 years and, up to the recent news, was on my way to putting aside a respectable "nest egg." Inflation would dissolve that dream pretty fast.

The Financial Times reported today that the drop of the dollar relative to the Euro is due, at least in part, to the low interest rates in the US. The Times also reported that, unlike previous downturns, this one is largely limited to the US.

So, I am looking at the prospect that my "nest egg" will not grow because of low interest rates and that it could be devoured by inflation.

I'm going to have to work until I drop.