HIS FRAUDULENCY (OTHERWISE KNOWN AS PRESIDENT BUSH) must have this belief that his Presidential duties and powers, the Constitution notwithstanding, extend to resorting to a "schoolyard bully" role, if and when necessary, for the sake of defending American soverignty and soverign identity.

Case in point: His Fraudulency asking OPEC, under pain of "extreme measures," to increase oil-production output within measurable distance "for economic reasons," as if suggesting that cheaper oil is one with National Economic Stability, in turn to be seen as one with National Cohesion and Identity. Not to mention "dropping hints" for the GOP's Presidential campaign handlers on "talking points" their eventual Presidential candidate should expect to parrot out to the voters.

Which seems rather ironic in the wake of a study just coming out as suggests that a gasoline-ersatz made from switchgrass could actually be more environmentally-friendly than such made from cereal grains, in particular when it comes to carbon-dioxide emission rates (88% less than conventional gasoline); further, the study suggested that 320 US gallons of biofuel could be produced from just one acre of switchgrass.

But then again, is it feasable for facilities producing ethanol from cereals to be converted to producing switchgrass-based fuels in a cost-efficent manner?

For now, though, farmers, don't bet the farm on switchgrass as a viable answer to energy self-sufficency.

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TELL ME THIS IS A RATHER SICK WAY to get off welfare, especially when you're in an area where jobs are few and hard to come by and the prevailing mood is to leave for elsewhere:

Anti-Cosa Nostra officers in Italy have arrested 51 Nigerian nationals as were caught up in a Nigerian-based human-trafficking ring which tricked Nigerian women into "employment" as prostitutes and drug couriers across Europe; another 15 were arrested in Operation Viola, mostly in The Netherlands.

It's not just 419 scams any more coming out of Nigeria....

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TO HEAR NORTH DAKOTANS PUT IT, SOMETHING IS ROTTEN in its depiction by National Geographic in its January number under title of "The Emptied Prairie."

The vast majority of the complaints so directed, involving not only high-level North Dakota government officials but also proud North Dakotans themselves, take issue with an overzealous emphasis on rural North Dakota's decline.

As in abandoned farms, houses and grain elevators.

Derelict rural churches.

Even rural communities in severe population decline, with mostly elderly residents left to carry on.

Which, to the Peace Garden State's epistles of Babbittry, is not a very positive image indeed, especially considering where North Dakota's agricultural exports are on the rise, they've become the North American continent's #3 producer of durum pasta wheat, and the Bakken oil and natural gas field in the northwest shows signs of becoming a major production area for the 21st century.

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MEANWHILE, BACK IN MINNESOTA, Governor Pawlenty's new budget just out seems to have a fetish for road and bridge projects thanks to the I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis last summer, the which has now been attributed to design faults per a preliminary enquiry by the National Transportation Safety Board.

Yet, Pawlenty still thinks it's feasable to finance such construction by keeping gas taxes @ unrealistically low levels, and justifying such laughable rates as being necessary to maintain socioeconomic stability--especially so among the Lower Classes otherwise "helplessly enslaved" to State welfare and in "clear and compelling need" of "the healthy and beneficial effects" of free-market capitalism.

And things could be even worse: The Star Tribune is reporting where MnDOT kept an embarrassing inspection report on the Hastings bridge over the Mississippi River out of the loop since its most recent inspection last summer. I say "embarrassing" because the Hastings bridge, which replaced the legendary Spiral Bridge in that same city in 1951, is the single busiest two-lane span in the The Gopher State in terms of traffic volume and is showing it with rusted and corroded deck plates throughout.

"Earth to Pawlenty! Earth to Pawlenty!"

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AND ONE THING MORE: Horror-movie actress Vampira (t/n Maila Nurmi), perhaps best remembered for her role in what many call the single worst movie ever out of Hollywood, 1958's Plan 9 From Outer Space, has died @ 85 years of age.