[venturi]

Okay, here's my conspiracy theory on this...

1) Desmond's girlfriend's Father (Mr. Widmore) owns Widmore Industries (kindof a duh there). Widmore Industries is a subsidiary/partner/something of the Dharma Initiative. So it would follow that young Ms. Widmore and her pile of money and some inside knowledge knows a bit about what cookie jars her daddy has his dirty fingers in. Now, we know she's probably got a good idea good ole dad is doing something a sane person wouldn't do with electomagnetism and we also know she probably figures he had something to do with Desmond virtually disappearing from the planet. So, add the two together and wherever there's a global magnetic disturbance traceable from the friggin north pole and you've got a good indication of where Desmond and dad's bag of tricks are at. But ... is she even trying to find Desmond? When the two guys said "I think we've found HIM" who is HIM?

2) The compass bearing. Given the extreme magnetic field centered on the island all compasses are going to be wacked except on two azimuths. The azimuths that align with the plane separating the magentic poles of the field will be the only points where the field will not totally screw your compass up. So theoretically if you follow Precisely one of those two courses you will travel in a straight line. Any other bearing and you just end up going around in a big circle around the island. Which if you were following things that is exactly what Desmond did for the two weeks he was at sea trying to get to Fiji.

3) The key. We know it's for the "fail safe" on the magnetic reactor(?). And failsafes shut things down. So what did it do. Well they've been referring to it as a capacitor for magnetic energy of sorts. (not sure how scientifically sound that is but hey, it's fiction so we'll roll with that.) The only way to shut down a capacitor is to discharge it, and discharging a capacitor releases a shit pile of energy - especially a capacitor it takes a friggin island to hold the power source that charges it. Hell even the normal scheduled 108min. discharges to keep it in the safe zone brought down a jumbo jet flying at 30K feet. I won't hazard a guess what that kind of magnetic field discharge would do to the iron molecules in a human body - but I'm guessing it *should* make a bit of a mess.

Something you might have missed... The hot redhead that gave Desmond the boat? That was Libby. You know, Hurley's now very dead girlfriend on the island? The chic he actually knew from a long time ago when he was in the loony bin - and she wasn't a psychologist but rather a fellow PATIENT?

Now here's the part that's really gonna bake your noodle... That hatch with "QUARANTINE" that dropped out of the sky after the discharge... Was it the hatch that they blew last season? ... OR did the discharge blow a Hatch that is above the island itself? Remember Desmond saying "There is no real world! We're in a bloody snow globe!" - what did that *really* mean?

BWAHAHAHA! See ya next season!