Got bad news for you, America: We may have another real estate bubble. Farmland.

This morning, The New York Times reported on the continuing growth of sales prices for farmland across the country.

Across the nation’s Corn Belt, even as the worst drought in more than 50 years has destroyed what was expected to be a record corn crop and reduced yields to their lowest level in 17 years, farmland prices have continued to rise. From Nebraska to Illinois, farmers seeking more land to plant and outside investors looking for a better long-term investment than stocks and bonds continue to buy farmland, taking advantage of low interest rates.

And despite a few warnings from bankers, the farmland boom shows no signs of slowing. Almost every year since 2005, except during the start of the recession in 2008, agriculture land prices have posted double-digit gains. In the same period, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has had double-digit gains in only three of those years.

The Times isn't alone in sounding the alarm. A search for "farmland bubble" on Google News returns hundreds of results dating back months.

Upwards of 4,500 protesters of the coalition group Defend Our Coast convened on the British Columbia legislature yesterday to advocate against further development of oil-sands pipelines.

From Environmental News Service:

The demonstrators are objecting to the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline that would carry diluted bitumen from the tar sands of northern Alberta to a proposed tanker port at Kitimat on the central British Columbia coast.

Kinder Morgan has proposed a $4.1-billion Trans Mountain project that would expand an existing pipeline from Alberta to Vancouver and bring tankers at the rate of about one a day through the already busy Vancouver Harbour.

When my wife left for work this morning, she grabbed her jacket, expecting to be part of a staff photo.

It turns out she was headed for a very different event. My wife, China, works at the Central Park Conservancy. And this morning, she was on hand when the park announced that it would be the recipient of $100 million to the park's endowment -- believed to be the largest gift to a public park in history.

From The New York Times:

At at press conference at Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain on Tuesday morning, Mayor Bloomberg and the Central Park Conservancy announced that John A. Paulson, the hedge fund billionaire, along with the Paulson Family Foundation were giving $100 million to the Central Park Conservancy. …

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) is hitting the old campaign trail, the high pope of denial anointing candidates with the black mark of coal dust.

From The Hill:

Inhofe began his tour in Montana, where he touted Rep. Denny Rehberg’s (R-Mont.) coal credentials. Inhofe said the Montana Senate candidate would fight to keep the Corette power plant in Billings, Mont., open, while incumbent Sen. Jon Tester’s (D) support of the administration's air pollution rules put the plant’s future in jeopardy. …

Montana was Inhofe's first stop on a three-state swing in which he will stump for candidates who want to repeal environmental rules the Oklahoman opposes.

The Corette plant's upcoming closure, announced in September, was blamed on EPA regulations. However:

David Hoffman, PPL spokesman, said Thursday that the Corette plant has been off line "a substantial period of time" this year because of the oversupply of power in the Northwest markets, including power from wind energy, and a flat or lower demand for electricity.

The price for electricity is also low because natural gas is so cheap, Hoffman said.

So, you know, it's the EPA's fault that we can no longer use this coal plant that we weren't using much because of the market.

And now, the most-talked-about exchange from last night's debate.

As conveyed in the transcript:

But I think Governor Romney maybe hasn’t spent enough time looking at how our military works. You -- you mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets -- (laughter) -- because the nature of our military’s changed. We have these things called aircraft carriers where planes land on them. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines.

And so the question is not a game of Battleship where we’re counting ships. It’s -- it’s what are our capabilities.

The "horses and bayonets" line was the most-tweeted of the night. Obama's argument was clear: The needs of the military change and evolve over time. Ships are less necessary now than in 1916 because we have planes, rockets. Problems change, and so do the tools we use to address them.

But just as quickly as Obama made that argument, partisans lined up to defend Romney, arguing in favor of bayonets. Here's the chair of the Republican National Committee.

“@rncresearch: .@barackobama You know who thinks bayonets aren't obsolete? The Marines: bit.ly/VkW085 #lynndebate #debates”

— Reince Priebus (@Reince) October 23, 2012

This weekend's New York Times Magazine profiles a particular kind of urban renewal happening amidst Las Vegas' bright lights and big real estate downturn.

The Downtown Project, headed up by Zappos chief exec Tony Hsieh, aims to build "the most community-focused large city in the world" with its $350 million -- a reflection of Zappos' own corporate focus on keeping customers deliriously happy.

“I first thought I would buy a piece of land and build our own Disneyland,” he told the group. But he worried that the company would be too cut off from the outside world and ultimately decided “it was better to interact with the community.”

And so Hsieh's adventures commenced.

We might be able to identify weak communities from space just as we can poor ones -- by looking to their trees.

Scott Doyon at PlaceMakers lays out his "seven keys to stronger community" in urban spaces, the last of which, he says, is "tree culture." When communities pass ordinances forbidding all tree removal, that can lead to dysfunction, he argues.

2012 has been a banner year for the American wind industry.

The U.S. wind industry in August for the first time surpassed 50,000 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity -- enough to power 13 million homes, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said in a report issued on Thursday.

Wind developers have added 4,728 MW of wind power so far in 2012 with another 8,430 MW under construction, a record for this time of year, AWEA said.

Nice work everybody! Next year, of course, we may not build any turbines at all -- unless Congress gets its act together and extends the wind production tax credit.

A million times we've said it. One million. On average, one out of every three posts on Grist (maybe an exaggeration) includes this line: There is no link between increased domestic oil production and gas prices. None. Doesn't work that way. The Department of Energy provides this detailed explanation of why that is [PDF].

All of that said: Domestic oil production is up and gas prices are going down. I'm sure this won't be misinterpreted.

First, gas prices. Here's what they've done nationally over the past four months.

USA Today predicts that the decline will continue:

As inventories rise and demand wanes, gasoline prices could plunge up to 50 cents a gallon from October's $3.86 peak average over the next few weeks, providing a lift for the economy and possibly becoming a factor in next month's presidential election.

Gasoline, now averaging $3.67 a gallon, is expected to fall to $3.35 or lower by late November. In some regions, prices have already sunk below $3. …

The drop could provide a boost to consumer spending and influence next month's presidential race, where gas prices have been a hot-button issue for much of the campaign. Several battleground states, including Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, are enjoying big price drops.

The natural gas industry may be eviscerating King Coal, but it's still having a rough time.

Over the weekend, The New York Times looked at the increasingly small profit margins for natural gas extractors (read: frackers).

[W]hile the gas rush has benefited most Americans [Ed. -- Um, the argument being cheaper energy costs], it’s been a money loser so far for many of the gas exploration companies and their tens of thousands of investors.

The drillers punched so many holes and extracted so much gas through hydraulic fracturing that they have driven the price of natural gas to near-record lows. And because of the intricate financial deals and leasing arrangements that many of them struck during the boom, they were unable to pull their foot off the accelerator fast enough to avoid a crash in the price of natural gas, which is down more than 60 percent since the summer of 2008.

Although the bankers made a lot of money from the deal making and a handful of energy companies made fortunes by exiting at the market’s peak, most of the industry has been bloodied -- forced to sell assets, take huge write-offs and shift as many drill rigs as possible from gas exploration to oil, whose price has held up much better.