There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about the results of rising ocean levels. Here’s a recent report from Australia.

Pruned has an interesting report about moving buildings back away from the sea, such as the Brighton Beach Hotel on Coney Island shown here. It was moved 450 feet inland. This was accomplished in 1888.

In a book about the subject, Cordelia Dean says, “There are three approaches to coastal erosion: armor, beach nourishment, and retreat. Until the twentieth century, retreat was the favored option. A growing number of people say it should be our policy again.”

The Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was also moved.

OK, I finally got around to allowing payment for a subscription purchase/renewal available through the website. It’s handled through PayPal and you can use it with a credit card even if you don’t have a PayPal account. Look for it in the Subscription link to the left.

Be the first one to try it out. And then I’ll know for sure that it’s working.

An annual review of natural resources finds that one-third of ocean fish caught ends up not on the human dining table but in feed for pigs, chickens and farm-raised fish. What’s the matter - cows don’t have a taste for fish? The majority of this forage fish catch is ground up for fish meal and fish oil - the oil high in omega 3 fatty acids that humans are supposed to eat for good heart health.

So, you got a problem with that? Sure, and it gets back to the issue regulations. Joshua Reichert of the Pew Environmental Group says:

Whatever people take out of the sea needs to be carefully calibrated to ensure that sufficient fish are left to sustain populations of other fish, seabirds and marine mammals, which all play a major role in the healthy functioning of the world’s oceans

In a weird episode of how things change, David Corn writes about the 2000 presidential election when John McCain was loudly accused of class warfare and redistribution of wealth. Sound familiar? Here are the candidate’s words from 2000:

Sixty percent of the benefits from [Bush’s] tax cuts go to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans–and that’s not the kind of tax relief that Americans need….I don’t believe the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans should get 60 percent of the tax breaks. I think the lowest 10 percent should get the breaks….I’m not giving tax cuts for the rich.

I cannot in good conscience support a tax cut in which so many of the benefits go to the most fortunate among us, at the expense of middle-class Americans who most need tax relief.

Gas at the corner store is selling for $2.20 a gallon. That’s quite surprising to me, although I’m among the cynical who wonder where it will be a couple weeks after the election. Or worse yet, a couple years from now. Faith Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency, said this in the Wall Street Journal:

In two years’ time, “we could see much higher prices than we saw three months ago, if the investments are not going through,” said Faith Birol, the IEA’s chief economist.

Andrew Leonard in Salon’s “How the World Works” reported this:

The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that according to a draft it has obtained of the annual World Energy Outlook report from the International Energy Agency, “Output from the world’s oilfields is declining faster than previously thought.”

Leonard’s overview is here.

When I stepped outside this morning about 7:02, I saw a lovely “slow-moving” meteor making its way across the southern sky. You know what I mean. Some of them just whoosh by quickly, others take their time a little more.

I decided to take soccer photos two weeks ago. Good decision. It was actually sunny and not too terribly cold.

In other news from the print edition of the Observer:

That’s the overview, but there’s much more to read in this week’s print edition.

That oh-so-important topic of Real Americans has entered the political fray in the last desperate days of the campaign. In case you haven’t been listening, real Americans live in a certain area of Virginia and vote Republican.

Tom Tomorrow takes on the topic in his recent cartoon, going after notions of voter registration vs. voter fraud, the blame for the subprime meltdown, cutting taxes while increasing spending, etc.

Good satire can quickly cut through the garbage that gets spewed.

Chinese reporters know how to bring a little extra cash. And you don’t need a journalism degree to get the job done. Sounds good since I never studied anything about journalism (some people would point this out as obvious). Reuters reports on reporters and “reporters” going after hush money:

Scams involving journalists and people posing as journalists to demand hush money are common in China.

Authorities jailed four men in October who tried to blackmail a local official by threatening to write incriminating information about government abuse of power in land usage.

Salon editor Joan Walsh is disgusted with the way Sarah Palin is now blamed for John McCain’s campaign failure:

What classless jerks. I am no Sarah Palin fan, but I think it was obvious, before McCain picked her, that Palin lacked “fundamental understanding” on key issues. They chose her anyway; her charm, charisma and appeal to the Christian right base outweighed her drawbacks back in August. Now they’re trashing Palin for their own failure to adequately vet her, or to anticipate the way her “lack of fundamental understanding of some key issues” might actually scare voters.

Don’t worry about her, Walsh says. Palin is leading the pack for 2012.

Should we request U.N. inspectors to oversee our voting process? With electronic voting machines, things will never be the same. I read that the New York Times published an editorial Friday calling for the end of the touch-screen voting machine, such as those used in Ohio.

Salon’s Machinist column gives a disheartening update from early voting

A little more than half of America will find this video funny. The other slightly less than half may be annoyed. It’s creative, no matter where you stand.

The name Al Gore is poisonous to some of the Fayette village council members. Before the meeting started Thursday, there was talk of Gore speaking about global warming when it was snowing somewhere or another - North Dakota? Colorado? As though it doesn’t snow in late October in a typical year.

So many people look at day-to-day weather and instantly conclude that global warming isn’t occurring. A cool day in July? It must be hogwash. A record low in December? It can’t be getting warmer.

You can say it over and over again, but that’s not the way it works. Local variations are not signs of climate change. There are plenty of studies that show the global changes. Ask Sarah Palin about the melting permafrost in her state.

One council member said he would be burning extra wood in his furnace to help warm up the world this winter.

There are always winners and losers in every crisis. Greenland will follow the lead of a Newfoundland company and bottle glacier melt for people to drink in the ever-expanding bottled water industry. More bottled water; more petro-fueled plastic bottles.

Treehugger has a report on this along with an update on Fiji Water:

Back to Fiji, where the bottled water industry has become an important business, employing 700 people and bringing in $150 million per year. A BBC documentary showed that a third of Fiji islanders don’t have access to clean drinking water, and still fall ill and die from related dirty water diseases such as typhoid.

I must be in Australia. My computer clock thinks that Daylight Saving Time has ended. It has in Australia, but we have another week up here.

My time is tied in with Apple’s clock. Have they ever goofed.