The Peanut-Butter Crisis of '09 rolls on -- two pieces of news this past week. First, consider this Strib headline: "Supreme Protein recalls certain lots of crunch and nut bars." Supreme Protein, frankly, sounds like the leader of an alien race that has come to enslave us. My name is unpronounceable to your ape-like tongues! You shall merely call me Supreme Protein!

Minnesota know-how helped solve the mystery of the tainted legumes; our Department of Health traced the outbreak to the King Nut brand -- King Nut, incidentally, is the only one strong enough to defeat Supreme Protein.

But there's more. The stories have also exposed the breadth and depth of the Peanut-Industrial Complex. The stories usually have a passage like this: "Consolidated Legume markets its products under the brand names of Crem-E-Nut, Roaster's Choice, Farmer's Pride, Grinder's Joy, Nut'n Good, P.B. McSpread (Chunkterffic or Smoothtastic) and 247 other private-label brands."

It's like it all comes out of one gigantic subterranean peanut-butter reserve with derricks pumping 24/7.

But there's even more. Girl Scout cookies that contain peanut parts, we were assured this week, are safe. Admit it: Some of you are disappointed. You're not fond of being dunned. Understandable; I hate dunning people to buy cookies. No one can refuse. No thanks, I prefer to disappoint your children, and perhaps sour them on both entrepreneurship and charity.

If you bring your kid to the office in too-cute Brownie mufti, which boosts sales 30 percent, they're often mortified by the solemn mysteries of Grown-Up Places, and dissolve in embarrassment; if you do it yourself, your kid looks at the sales totals and asks, "Don't people like you, Dad?"

So you end up buying 10 extra boxes so your kid thinks you're popular. Contaminated peanuts could have saved us this annual trial.

Checking Google for news of an extraterrestrial invasion at the mines where they excavate the Thin Mint filling ... drat. Where's Supreme Protein when you need him?

jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 More daily at www.startribune.com/buzz