What do ice cream, salads, and cookies all have in common? Peanuts! And, um, salmonella.

Nearly three weeks after it first began, the nationwide recall on all manner of peanutty products has expanded dramatically -- and it's hitting the organic sector particularly hard. The recall now includes raw and processed nut goods produced over the last year by New Mexico company Sunland Inc., a big producer of conventional peanuts and the nation's largest exporter of organic peanut stuffs. The Food and Drug Administration has filled its Flickr stream with helpful photos of hundreds of recalled, delicious-looking treats.

We've noted before the sweetheart deals coal companies make with the U.S. government to extract coal on public land. Peabody Coal is paying 25 cents for a ton of coal from federal land that sells for more than $35 a ton -- a government subsidy if there's ever been one.

We've also noted how much American coal ends up being shipped overseas, to Europe and especially to Asia.

To connect the dots: The U.S. government is subsidizing cheap coal for China.

From Reuters:

Government auditors have long faulted lax oversight of the coal lease program, saying miners have too much sway. Officials have defended the system, saying their approach is the right one to help utilize a region that provides a large share of the country's power.

That argument has crumbled as more coal from federal land is being sold overseas and Asian economies anticipate gains from the program meant to keep lights on in American homes.

If U.S. miners can find ports to reach Asian markets easily it could mean hundreds of millions of dollars in additional profits and marginally lower coal prices for countries in those markets. …

That dynamic raises questions about whether taxpayers are essentially helping Asian economies save on energy costs, according to six former officials who served both Democratic and Republican presidents. The possibility of large-scale exports was far from their minds when they managed federal land years ago.

If you haven't gotten a chance to head out to the country and eyeball some funky-colored leaves yet, allow me to provide some good news: You've got 10 more days to do so than your parents did.

From Climate Central:

Using satellite-based measurements of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which gauges leaf cover over wide areas, researchers at the Seoul National University in South Korea found that the end of the growing season occurred progressively later over the course of their 26-year study. By noting the time of year changes in color occurred most rapidly, the researchers could track when fall started between 1982 and 2008.

As you probably guessed, this is probably linked to climate change. Big shock.

Here's a snippet of Tuesday's debate that we've mentioned before, but which bears mentioning again. In it, Mitt Romney, a candidate for the presidency of the United States who is also an adult, criticizes Barack Obama for not being "Mr. Coal."

"Look, voters, we all agree that the president should also be known as Mr. Coal or Mr. Oil. President Coal, we should call him. President Coal, Russia's on line one! That's the president you'll get if you vote for Willard 'Mitt' 'Coal' Romney!"

Yesterday, Barack Obama, an adult with children who leads the free world, responded.

Obama said voters should be skeptical of Romney’s embrace of coal, mocking him as “running around talking like he’s Mr. Coal,” as a crowd of 14,000 at Ohio University cheered him on.

“Does anybody ever actually look at that guy and think, man, he’s really into coal?” Obama asked the audience as he chuckled.

"Ha ha, look at this jerk! He's saying I'm not Mr. Coal? I'm, like, five times as much Mr. Coal as that guy! I talked to Biden about replacing him with a 10-gallon jug of high-octane gasoline, but Biden got all pissed off about it. But I tried, man. V.P. Mr. Gasoline. What's China going to say to that?"

They're not the first to call fracking dirty, but they may be the most vulgar by our count.

A producer at the Hearst Connecticut Media Group, which owns The Stamford Advocate, delivered the bad news that the company has been "forced to block" the word from comments to deter wily readers who might "exploit" it as a euphemism for "its more vulgar cousin."

(Those nasty readers might be vintage Battlestar Galactica enthusiasts, as the show switched to the clearly more modern "frak" for the new series. No word on whether fans of the Hungarian animated series Frakk, a macskák réme may still express their less-than-vulgar feelings for that loveable orange dog who stumbled his way into all of our hearts in the late '70s.)

Well, it's official: 2012 is the second-worst year for West Nile cases in the United States since 1999. If that doesn't seem like that long a span of time, remember that the disease didn't exist in America until 1999. (The Nile is a river in Egypt.)

Here's Reuters:

The number of West Nile virus cases across the United States has topped 4,500, with another 282 cases reported last week, making 2012 the nation's second-worst year on record for the mosquito-borne disease, government figures showed on Wednesday.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 4,531 cases have been reported this year, the highest number since the record outbreak of 2003, when 9,862 cases were reported.

And that's maybe the good news? After all:

Just over half of the cases reported to the CDC this year have been of the severe neuroinvasive form of the disease, which can lead to meningitis and encephalitis.

The milder form of the disease causes flu-like symptoms and is rarely lethal.

The "milder" form is rarely lethal. Whew.

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether to take on a case that could upend decades of delicately balanced water agreements between states -- a case that's all the more pressing in a year when two-thirds of the continental U.S. has been hit by drought.

Oklahoma and Texas water authorities are anxiously awaiting word on whether the court will hear a challenge to a federal appeals court decision that threw a key water compact into jeopardy. In Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Texas' claims that Oklahoma was keeping more water than allowed under the 1978 Red River Compact. If the appeals court decision stands, that could throw interstate water agreements across the country into question.

James Oliver, the general manager of Texas' Tarrant Regional Water District and a party in the lawsuit, writes in Politico of coming "water anarchy" should the decision stand:

at risk is the viability of Native American nations, as well as Western farmers and ranchers whose livelihoods and very existence depend on water from interstate compacts. These include the farmers of Southern California’s Imperial and Coachella Valley, prime sources of winter fruits and vegetables for American consumers. Add to the casualties the shale oil, coal and petroleum producers Americans are counting on to end our dependence on imported energy.

OH, well in that case!

Here's debate moderator Candy Crowley explaining afterward how she decided which questions to ask and which to skip:

I had that question for all of you climate change people. We just, you know, again, we knew that the economy was still the main thing so you knew you kind of wanted to go with the economy.

"All of you climate change people." I don't want to read too much into this. But I very much want to read a little into it. So I will.

When I hear “all of you climate change people,” I expect to hear this coming right after it: “Or whatever kids are into these days.” I see a dismissive wave of the hand, a little smile acknowledging that the speaker is treading into terrain that isn’t her own but that she recognizes as popular.

More than three-quarters of a million Americans are regularly biking to work, according to new Census data. This map shows cycle commuting hotspots.

Davis, Calif., tops the charts with 16.6 percent of the city's workforce peddling to punch the clock. West Coast cities, especially dense college towns with little public transit in California, Colorado, and Oregon, round out the top. But large metro areas, from Seattle to New York City, saw the biggest increases in cyclers since 2006. (Meanwhile, the East Coast and South are totally kicking ass on walking to work.)

Overall, there's been a 47 percent increase in bike commuting since 2000.

From the Governing blog, which compiled and visualized the data:

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Josh Beckett is known for a few things: his goofy soul patch, the necklaces he often wears, his ability to beat the Yankees regardless of the league he plays in. One thing he has not been known for, until now: his love of ocelots.

The ocelot is a small, endangered member of the leopard family that lives primarily in Central and South America, but there are regions of southern Texas where the animals can still be found -- including on a ranch Beckett owns in La Salle County. Until recently, a section of the ranch was home to ocelot habitat. Now, that section is home to a pipeline constructed by a fracking company. With time on his hands (given the Dodgers' failure to make the post-season) and a competitive spirit, Beckett is suing.

From MySanAntonio:

According to the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Laredo, Eagle Ford Midstream and its parent company Midstream, told the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is charged with protecting the endangered species, there was no ocelot habitat on Beckett's 7,000 acre South Texas ranch.

The pipeline company then continued with survey work for constructing the pipeline despite ranch representatives giving it an alternative route and letting it know it would be sued in federal court if it continued. …

The notice of intent to sue stated that “multiple big cat tracks” were located and photographed as recently as June, and Beckett observed ocelots on his property as recently as November.