The first Earth day was declared by the UN for March 21, 1970 but for the US, the date of April 22 was established by then Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson. I do not really recall anything from either of the “Earth Days” from 1970.

This is Exxon’s second spill in a week, highlighting the utter stupidity and horrendous environmental danger of the Keystone XL pipeline project currently under consideration by U.S. State Department. This leakage occurred under a housing subdivision, it has not yet reached the nearby Lake Conway. The earlier spilled happened Wednesday, a train carrying Canadian crude derailed in Minnesota, spilling 15,000 gallons of oil.

Chris Stewart, a Republican from Utah, was recently appointed Chair of the House subcommittee on Science.

This means that Congressman Stewart now has dominion over the EPA, climate change research, and “all activities related to climate.”

Unlike for his first Inauguration, Obama has chosen to allow unlimited corporate contributions to fill the fund-raising coffers of the entity legally known as the Presidential Inaugural Committee. Last time around the block, Obama refused corporate contributions for the Inauguration Ceremony as “a commitment to change business as usual in Washington.”

MCW Enterprises Ltd., a Canada-based corporation, announced on Nov. 19 that it has received all necessary permits to streamline tar sands extraction at its Asphalt Ridge plant located in Vernal, Utah starting in December.

How can we protect ourselves from Oligarchy when every institution has been perverted to serve only their interests?

You know things are bad when Paul Craig Roberts, one of the founders of Reaganomics, says about deregulation and the current state of the economy:

It’s gone too far.

With Heist: Who Stole the American Dream, directors Frances Causey and Donald Goldmacher trace the roots of today’s current economic crisis back to a 1971 memorandum written by Lewis F. Powell Jr.– a Virginia lawyer and representative of the tobacco industry who later became an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. The Powell Memo, written for the Chamber of Commerce, lays out a very solid, point by point plan for corporations to loosen regulations and gain greater and greater control of the economy for their own benefit at the expense of of the American people.

The people here can and have lived through just about anything but losing the ability to fish, and on that note everyone in the bar ordered another round. “We have always had the water but now we have nothing.” We should all write our representatives and let them know we want BP to be held accountable for they’re actions and make sure that the businesses and communities affected by this disaster are properly compensated as well as the wildlife and coastline rehabilitated.

Our love affair with our cars has also been fueled by the devious actions of a few major corporations. The once ubiquitous electric streetcar was driven into the ground by colloboration of Big Oil and Big Auto. It wasn’t a fair fight.