[imgbelt img=PH2010110106375.jpg]We’ve linked to a number of stories over the past year about the rush to buy farmland and grain storage facilities. Rural is the new hot ticket on Wall Street.”Both investors and farmers continue parking money in what looks like the only sure bet in town these days — farmland,” writes DTN’s Victoria Myers. She finds the rush to buy land still strong across the U.S. And she lists the ten best states for land purchases. Best is Nebraska, which has had a 10% price increase in the last 12 months. Second, comes Arkansas, where prices have jumped 7% in the last year. Then Iowa, Kansas, Texas, Indiana, North Dakota, Ohio, Kentucky and, finally, South Dakota.Is this all sounding like (and looking like) a bubble?• While we’re looking at studies, how about this one from Gallup, which finds that “Americans who are the most religious also have the highest levels of wellbeing.” • Jack Wright, a friend in Athens, Ohio, sends us a story about how a rural broadband provider may turn down a government grant because the dang thing is too much trouble.A Nelsonville, Ohio, cable company had received a $4.6 million grant to extend broadband to areas that now have only dial-up connections. But the projected has turned into a “complicated ordeal,” according to the company and the company is thinking about turning down the money. • We are fighting two wars, but war is hardly mentioned in the campaigns that end with the vote today, according to the L.A. Times. Remember that soldiers come disproportionately from rural communities.• Urban professionals are giving up jobs in the cities to become organic farmers. Yes, we’ve heard about those kids from Brooklyn who are learning to farm.But, wait, this story is about urban professions in China who are going back to the land. (Above)”They are giving up high-paying salaries in the city and applying their business and Internet savvy to once-abandoned properties,” Washington Post reporter William Wan writes from China. “They are trying to teach customers concepts such as eating locally and sustainability.” • Russians used to call poultry leg quarters “Bush legs,” since they ate mostly U.S. chicken. But that’s changed, and Russians are eating more of their own poultry — especially after U.S. chicken was banned after Russia decided the chlorine disinfectant used by producers was unhealthy. The ban has been lifted, but Russian consumers don’t seem to like American birds.