As the sun slowly settled into the West the clouds glowed bravely

This photo was taken by Carl Young of Fortuna from his front porch. Thanks Carl …

Monster calls suit over mouse in can a 'shakedown'

If I drank this crap, which I don’t, I’d be resting easy now. The drink maker says it was impossible for a rodent to enter the manufacturing process to get in the can. They think the guy left the can open for a long period of time...

Probably right after this photo was taken…

 Story here.

photo source

Top 10 US Corporate Tax Avoiders Named on Senate Floor

While you’re making out your taxes due April 15th, corporate America is laughing all the way to the bank!

Despite the Supreme Court 's finding that corporations are basically people in the eyes of the law, corporations themselves cannot be moral or immoral -- they are entities, not sentient beings. We have a system that rewards the gamers, where winners take all, and influence peddling is rife; where the defense for a highly profitable company not paying taxes is that it is within the law.

“Despite complaints about the U.S.'s burdensome 35% corporate tax rate, two-thirds of American corporations pay no taxes in a given year. In a speech last week on the Senate floor, Senator Bernie Sanders (pictured here) (I) of Vermont called out the top 10 corporate tax avoiders:

Among those actually getting money back from the Feds:

• ExxonMobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009, paid no federal income taxes, received a $156 million rebate

• Bank of America received a $1.9 billion IRS refund despite $4.4 billion of profits

• General Electric had $26 billion in profits, and $4.1 billion refund (GE made it onto another top 10 list of top corporate lobbyists in 2010, spending $39 million)

• Chevron nabbed a $19 million refund after making $10 billion in profits

Wall Street made the list as well; the Senator's office notes,"Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department." Full Story.

The cow jumped over the...

Now here’s a real cowgirl!

I never heard of riding cows before, but that just shows you how little I know. Apparently there was a time when it was common to ride cows in Europe!

“When Regina Mayer's parents dashed her hopes of getting a horse, the resourceful 15-year-old didn't sit in her room and sulk. Instead, she turned to a cow called Luna to make her riding dreams come true.”  Story Here

Now you too can be an expert on radiation exposure…with this

H&P Industries Inc: Wipe-maker shuts doors after U.S. Marshals arrive

For months now, FDA officials have been aware H & P Industries has had a problem with contaminated Povidone Iodine Prep Pads, but just fooled around playing politics instead of instantly taking them off the market.

How does this kind of thing happen? Can you say Lobbyists? Bribe, bribe, and more bribe.They’ve probably been aware for a long time, but it’s become so public lately they had to perform a “dog and pony show” and send in some U.S. Marshals in a dramatic attempt to sooth the public outrage. Only in America…

“A Wisconsin firm accused of making contaminated medical pads and wipes is closed after U.S. Marshals on Monday arrived at H&P Industries Inc. with orders to seize products.”  Story here  image source

Family dog kept missing boy alive, sheriff says

A mixed Labrador retriever was being hailed as a hero after it was found with a 22-month-old boy who had gone missing the night before.

"That dog is what kept him alive," Kershaw County Sheriff Jim Matthews told The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C.

Wearing only a T-shirt and diaper, Tyler Jacobson had gone missing from his Elgin, S.C., home on Friday night. His mom and her boyfriend told police that he vanished after leaving the family bedroom, where they were watching TV, to get some juice, The State reported.

Temperatures had dipped into the 40s overnight, and while police searched with bloodhounds and a helicopter until midnight, they couldn't find the boy.

The search resumed the next morning, when the boy's crying led rescuers to him. He and his family's dog were behind a neighbor's home across the street.

Linda Harr, who lives in the house near where Tyler was found, said she had heard the helicopter and thought a criminal was on the loose. "So I locked the door," WIS TV reported her as saying. "The last thing I was gonna do is go outside."

"I just wish I'd have known, I could have warmed him up, called the cops," she said.

Emily DuBose, another neighbor, called it surreal. "Just thinking that a dog would watch a baby over the night, it's kind of like a movie instead of real life," WIS TV quoted her as saying.

Matthews noted that living conditions in the boy’s home were “deplorable" and that the state Department of Social Services had been notified, The State reported.

Story source  photo source

As It Stands: Peak Oil: It's not if it will happen, but when

By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard

Posted: 04/03/2011 09:12:51 AM PDT

While filling my car's gas tank the other day I had a sense of foreboding. Watching the dollars add up as each gallon registered, I suspected $4.25 a gallon was going to look good by this time next year.

What's happening? Why are prices steadily going up? You can thank oil speculators for that. Those daring, greedy gluttons are making us dance like puppets at the pumps. But there are other things going on that drive up oil prices.

Have you ever heard of Peak Oil? I won't attempt to go into the whole subject in this limited space, but I will share some points on this controversial subject with you.

M. King Hubbert, a Shell geoscientist, correctly predicted in 1956 that the United States would pass its peak oil production between 1965 and 1970. Since then, U.S. production has dropped steadily, and we've become more dependent on foreign oil.

Fast forward to an April 2009 meeting in Washington where Department Of Energy (DoE) bigwigs discussed the growing demand for liquid fuels. Glen Sweetnam, who heads the publication of DoE's annual International Energy Outlook, told his peers the decline of liquid fuels production between 2011 and 2015 could be the first stage of the “undulating plateau” pattern, which will start “once maximum world production is reached (Peak Oil).”

A hint of worry there, but the DoE dismissed the controversial Peak Oil theory, which assumes that world crude oil production should irreversibly decrease in the near future.

Lauren Mayne, responsible for liquid fuel prospects at the DoE, recently told the French newspaper Le Monde, “Once maximum world oil production is reached, that level will be approximately maintained for several years thereafter, creating an undulating plateau. After this plateau period, production will experience a decline.” The Obama Administration goes along with this line of thought.

Sweetnam's warning was followed by warnings from The Wall Street Journal, The Houston Chronicle (main daily newspaper of the world capital of crude oil trade), the CEO of Brazilian oil company Petrobras, former Saudi national oil company Aramco and an International Energy Agency (IEA) “whistleblower” on Nov. 9, 2009.

The whistleblower was a senior IEA official who claimed the U.S. was influential in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields and overplay the chances of finding new reserves.

Today, the U.S. fears that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices from rising. In a Feb. 8 article in the Guardian, U.K., cables released by WikiLeaks urged Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive, al-Hussenini, that the kingdom's oil reserves have been overstated by as much as 300 billion barrels -- nearly 40 percent.

The U.S. consul warned Washington, “While al-Hussenini fundamentally contradicts the Aramco company line, he is no doomsday theorist. His pedigree, experience and outlook demand that his predictions be thoughtfully considered.”

Here's the thing: Everyone agrees we will run out of oil someday. It's when we will run out that predictions vary. Now I'm going to throw in another factor. It's not just how much oil is left -- it's also how much oil can be extracted at a significant energy profit. The bottom line.

Howard Odum wrote in the early 1970s, “The true value of energy to society is net energy, which is that after the energy costs of getting and concentrating that energy are subtracted.”

That net energy is what powers our world, from cars to planes and everything in between. In 2005, the DoE commissioned a report to examine the impact of Peak Oil. The Hirsch Report, named for its lead author, energy advisor Robert Hirsch, put the problem in stark terms. It recommended 10 to 20 years of “accelerated effort” to implement alternative fuels before Peak Oil hits and causes a “major economic upheaval.”

The general consensus is we will have big problems in an undetermined future, starting in 10 to 50 years (depending upon who you talk to), unless we change our fuel habits quickly and convert our economy to alternative energies. So who should we believe? How close are we to reaching Peak Oil and economic disaster?

As It Stands, it doesn't take a seer to see $4.25 a gallon will actually seem cheap sooner rather than later.

Websites carrying this column:

Energy Shortage – World Wide Energy Shortages

The PowerSwitch Peak Oil Daily – scroll down to Business

Peak Oil News - Exploring Hydrocarbon Depletion

A view of the Eel River Valley taken on April 2nd…

This photo was taken by a local veteran activist, Fortuna resident, and my buddy, Carl Young. He likes to roam around taking photos in Humboldt County with his fancy camera, and often shares them with me. In turn, I’m sharing one with you now… 

Corporate Scumbag for April: Transocean gives safety bonuses despite Gulf spill deaths

I’m establishing the first “As It Stands Corporate Scumbag of the Year Award” and Transocean Ltd. is the first entry.

Company filing calls safety record 'exemplary' for meeting internal goals…

“Transocean Ltd. gave its top executives bonuses for achieving the "best year in safety performance in our company's history" — despite the explosion of its oil rig that killed 11 people, including nine of its own employees, and spilled 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.”

Story here.