Back when the Boomers didn't trust anyone over 30, there was something called the generation gap. Young people held views (liberal, both politically and socially) that were remarkably different from those (conservative) held by their elders.

Now the generation gap is back. A good source for data is the Pew Centers. In info released a few weeks ago, Scott Keeter, Pew director of survey research, wrote, "In surveys conducted between October 2007 and March 2008, 58% of voters under age 30 identified or leaned toward the Democratic Party, compared with 33% who identified or leaned toward the GOP."

Keeter also said, "In fact, the Democrats' advantage among the young is now so broad-based that younger men as well as younger women favor the Democrats over the GOP -- making their age category the only one in the electorate in which men are significantly more inclined to self-identify as Democrats rather than as Republicans."

The topic is beginning to attract more notice among pundits. In a piece in the New York Times titled "The widening gap," Andrew Kohout pointed out that despite the trend, "Today’s political generation gap is of course modest by the standards of the 1960s."

In a column in Newsweek, Jonathan Alter pointed out that Barack Obama is trailing with older voters, and quotes Obama himself, "If you look at the numbers, our problem has less to do with white working-class voters [than] with older voters."

Although my evidence is merely anecdotal, I would say the same phenomenon is at work in the Scott Kleeb campaign.

The new government report that concluded wind energy could generate 20 percent of the nation's electricity sounds too rosy to me.

The Economist magazine reported that the wind industry has an acronym for reaction to its proposals: BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.)

Perhaps that syndrome was on display when Ted Kennedy and clan opposed the proposed wind farm off Cape Cod.

The BANANA reaction not only kicks in for the turbines, but also the transmission lines necessary to carry the power from farms to users.

So far NIMBY and BANANA have not surfaced in Nebraska, which I assume is a credit to their good judgment.

Are you interested into analyses that divide a population into groups with catchy names?

The aid of this approach is to help us see the familiar with new eyes, or at least that's what I've been told by the consultants who visit the newspaper.

The Christian Science Monitor has a feature on its website, funded by the Knight Foundation, called Patchwork Nation, in which the United States is divided into 11 groups.

Supposedly those of us in Lancaster County are in a group titled "Campus and Careers." There are three counties in the "Immigration Nation" cateogry. A tier of counties in the Omaha area are in the "Monied Burbs," category.

We have no "Evangelical Epicenters," which mildly surprised me, and no "Boom Towns." I raised my eyebrows that only a few counties in Nebraska were counted as "Emptying Nests." It was no surprise to learn that most of the state is counted as "Tractor County."

The stage is set for a test of wills on the latest version of the farm bill.

Conferees announced they have reached agreement. The president has promised a veto.

The last farm bill veto may have been in 1956 (still checking), when President Dwight Eisenhower handed one down. According to Time Magazine: As Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson "sprawled out in his chair, grinned broadly and winked at his party colleagues," Democrats believed they "had been handed a deadly issue against Eisenhower." In the end, however, Eisenhower prevailed.

The politics of the farm bill are fascinating, with coalitions -- environmentalists supporting President Bush! -- that exist nowhere else on the planet.

Meanwhile, Dan Owens of Nebraska's Center for Rural Affairs lays out the case against the farm bill in this blog. The Washington Post also took another shot, saying of the latest proposal, "Plow It Under.

The Journal Star editorial board is among critics of the latest compromise. Its good features, like a needed hike in food stamps payments, are outweighed by the bad -- more corporate welfare for agribusiness and policies which encourage farmers to plant on fragile and drought-prone land.

Nothing but a gut feeling here, but I predict Clinton will exit the primary before the month is out.

If the polls can be trusted, Clinton will probably win in West Virginia and Kentucky, but she'll probably lose in Oregon.

One of most clever post-May 6 columns so far came from John Dickerson, who took Clinton's comments to Gen. David Petraeus on Irag, and applied them to Clinton's situation.

Dickerson wrote that Clinton "famously said that to believe his (Petraeus) description of progress in Iraq required 'a willing suspension of disbelief.' After the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, the same may now be true about her case for winning the Democratic nomination."

Eleven months ago I wrote for the editorial board that "the grain-based ethanol industry doesn't seem to realize that its days as the darling of the renewable fuel industry are appearing at the edge of the rear view mirror."

Hoo boy, that's turning out to be an understatement.

Twenty-four Republican senators, including presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona, sent a letter Friday to the Environmental Protection Agency suggesting it waive, or restructure, rules that require a fivefold increase in ethanol production over the next 15 years.

Instead of distant appearance in the rear view mirror, it's more like there's an 18-wheeler smashing the ethanol industry's rear bumper.

It's going to be a bumpy ride from this point in time. The Los Angeles Times Sunday editorial referred to the Great Ethanol Bubble of 2008.

It seems to me that Nebraska is being ignored in all the speculation on whether Hillary Clinton will be able to claim she received more popular votes than Barack Obama.

Mort Kondracke of Roll Call points out that it's how you count the popular vote, as he presents a dizzying list of scenarios. Jonthan Last of the Philadelphia Inquirer highlights the important of Puerto Rico. Both pundits talk about caucus states like Iowa, and hybrid states like Texas, but Nebraska gets nary a mention.

There are at least two websites (Realclearpolitics.com and usaelectionpolls.com)tallying votes. Calculations are complicated by questions on whether to count Florida and Michigan, which were excluded by the Democratic leadership. Nebraska shows up on both with 26,126 votes for Obama and 12,444 for Clinton.

I'll bet that if Clinton should happen to outpoll Obama in the May 13 primary, Nebraska won't be overlooked any longer, even though the delegates are all locked up, with all six of Nebraska's superdelegate votes supposedly going to Obama.

The winding down of Sen. Ernie Chambers career in the Legislature was deemed worth of many inches and photos in Tuesday's New York Times.

Most of the story is familiar, but there are a few fresh notes.

Saulny put Nebraska's Legislature in a national context, pointing out that it is probably "one of the most intimate institutions, being the only one-house, nonpartisan legislature in the nation, and also the smallest with only 49 members." I think Nebraskans forget sometimes how a small club their Legislature is.

Also, Saulny ended with an anecdote that was new to me...."On one of Mr. Chambers’s last days actually legislating, Mr. Heineman’s office called to invite him to be part of the governor’s escort procession onto the floor of the Legislature. Mr. Chambers’s answer was a resounding no.

“I don’t do things like that,” Mr. Chambers grumbled after the call. “No ceremonies. That’s not what I’m here about. I tell you, I’m a loner.”

That sounds about right

People will attach varying degrees of importance to the information that WRK LLC gave $4,125 to Chris Beutler's mayoral campaign.

Although some politically connected types give money to both sides in a campaign, I didn't find the firm listed as a contributor to Ken Svoboda's campaign.

I also did not find John Q. Hammon listed as a contributor in the mayoral campaign.

I find this information that WRK LLC donated to Beutler's campaign merely interesting, and make no judgment beyond that.

Although details are still scarce, it looks like the new farm bill that congressional negotiators reportedly hammered together last week is more of the same, or worse.

Rich farmers and landowners will continue to receive billions in subsidies despite record high prices for grain.

Alarmingly, there's something new in the bill -- a $3.8 billion permanent disaster fund -- that some think will end up paying farmers to plant crops on fragile land prone to drought. Most of the money is expected to go to wheat farmers.

That will be a blow to those in the growing movement to preserve and expand natural grasslands in the Great Plains. The Environmental Defense Fund notes that just five states received 40 percent of disaster payments to farmers between 1985 and 2005.

And you thought the environment would be safer with Democrats in charge? Not necessarily. Not when grabbing power and holding it has become more important to the players than using it wisely.