Hello everybody out there in farm country.

Do we really want to rescue the planet from global warming? The ice at the North Pole is melting. That will open the Northwest Passage and our ships won't have to go through the Panama Canal. Ethanol and biodiesel have a lot of new supporters because they burn cleaner than petroleum.

Thc whole world is worried about greenhouse gas, though. You can't pick up a newspaper that doesn't have at least one article describing the threat of global…

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Hello everybody out there in farm country.

Here we are on the anniversary of the 9-11 terrorist attack. General Petraeus has reported on the effectiveness of the troop surge in Iraq. Politicians argue and squabble over just about every challenge that our nation faces. If you listen to the national press reporting, you would gather that nothing is going right. We're headed toward certain oblivion. It may be they arc right. We can't seem to stabilize the warring factions in Iraq. We can't win…

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Hello everybody out there in farm country.

I spent some time last week in Illinois -- at the Farm Progress Show and at our farm up near Galesburg.

The optimism in farm country is "off the chart." Not that we ain't complaining about a lot of things. Of course, we are. "Look how expensive anhydrous is going to be this fall -- $550 per ton. Production expenses for the 2008 crop will be up at least 10%." It does seem that the minute we get some profit margin it starts to leak away. The crowds…

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