Stirling Energy Systems (SES) recently filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which further complicates California's big push toward 33% renewable energy by 2020, as two massive solar thermal projects had been approved using the company's technology.

The average age of farmers and ranchers in America is increasing, and rural populations are in decline. This is why the U.S. Department of Agriculture is acting to plant a new crop of much needed agricultural producers here in California and across the nation.

Wall Street isn't the only place where popular unrest has been fomenting. Here on the West Coast, inmates of the California prison system are protesting their conditions in a hunger strike that now has thousands of participants in at least eight California prisons, and has entered its tenth day.

For a state that's supposed to be a progressive leader, California sure does like to build prisons, lots of them too. Thirteen prison and jail expansion projects are currently in progress, with more coming, all due to AB 900 in 2007 which authorized over $7.4 billion for construction and expansion in California's extensive penal system.

Americans across the political spectrum still give higher marks to their state and local governments compared to the federal government- reflecting a possible libertarian sentiment that could become a factor in the near future.

This is one of those unfathomable stories where you wonder if we're all living on the same planet or if anything can be gleaned from it to ensure that it never happens again. Shannon Palmer