Who would want to camp in a National Park right in the Mojave Desert WITHOUT electric Christmas lights???
These folks wrapped their trailer with fairy lights at Ryan Campground in Joshua Tree NP. Happy New Year!

(photo: Backhouse Images)

In the rural town of Springdale, Utah, the month of December has brought change of a special kind: Oversized, menacing plastic monsters illuminate the quiet streets at night. Residents say the strange figures started to appear shortly after Thanksgiving. People in this close-knit community at the gateway to idyllic Zion National Park now fear that the abominable snowman and his henchmen might have chosen Springdale as their permanent headquarters. Whence the monsters hail from has not been determined yet.

(photos: Backhouse Images)

They have a blinding effect from about 80 meters (about 87 yards) away. Fascinated, I braved the onslaught of photons and, squinting, checked out the display from up close. The secret of its insane brightness seems to lie in a layer of shiny metal to reflect the glow of oldfangled mini light bulbs (see pic below).
There is a little back story to this display. Before it appeared, a McCain/Palin sign adorned this front yard in South Pasadena, California. In late November, the sign was replaced with these lights.
Now, is that good or bad?

(photos: Backhouse Images)

Oh, the beauty of plastic! We thank the owners of this soulful and humble arrangement for making this photograph possible. We send our love out to them in Springdale, Utah.

(photo: Backhouse Images)

Who’s best for America? We used the scientific method to figure it out.
We developed an experimental setup that would allow us to test the candidates ability to respond to a simple everyday-situation: An email was sent on January 4, 2008 to the press rooms of both campaigns, posing two simple questions. They were:
Does candidate X own a bicycle? And if so, when has he last used it?
Here are the results:
We are still waiting to hear from John McCain. We don’t actually think he’ll ever write back. Which is o.k., since he has since admitted to not owning a computer. But none of his campaign PR henchmen responded either, which is really quite upsetting, because they specifically mentioned on their webpage how they invited bloggers to contact them. So, John McCain, that’s lame. Also, we read a few weeks ago that you own 13 cars. Come on…
Barack Obama has not answered our questions, either. But nevertheless, his staff had the wherewithal to put us on their mailing list. So they have sent us about 562 (estimate) emails since. And quite successfully so: They raked up several donations that way. Smart.
We cannot help but endorse Barack Obama for his superior skills of dealing with emails from bloggers.

PS: Our experiment also works really well in hindsight: It has shown Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee to be totally unqualified to be president, for they, too, failed to transfer our email address to their spamming list, let alone get back to us.

Foto: Matt Carman via Flickr

This is why: I asked for a coffee at the counter. The woman behind it wordlessly passed me a paper cup. And the paper cup had these words printed on it:

I repeat: For a sustainable future.

What a nice touch to write this on a disposable item. This is one of the most elegant greenwashing jobs Ecomorons.org has witnessed so far. Congrats, De Young Café!

There is more. While sipping my drink I noticed signs on all the tables. Under the headline “The capacity of our planet is not limitless” they stated:

We are very mindful of the impact we are making on our environment and our intention is to tread lightly on our planet. (…) In the café, we use china every day to serve you and we encourage you to use paper only when you are eating outside of the café.

I looked around and saw that all guests who had sat down indoors with drinks were using paper cups. Then I looked around even more and my eagle eyes detected a neat row of porcelain mugs on a shelf in the staff-only area behind one of the counters. I assume they keep them up there as decoration. Which is a wise decision, because that way they’ll never break.

(photos: Marshall Astor via Flickr, Backhouse Images)

Hahaha.
Love your great sense of humor, guys. Especially, since you demonstrate such a firm grasp of environmental and energy issues by leaving your door wide open on a winter day when the outdoor temperature is 55 Fahrenheit / 13 Celsius. Thank you so much for heating the mall at Paseo Colorado in Pasadena, CA. All the people who hid their heads under woolen scarves that day (see pic below) certainly appreciated your efforts.

Note to Store Manager: When we first saw what you do, we were really pissed off. Then we tried to find explanations. Because there just must be some kind of reason for this. We finally came to the conclusion that you have obviously been held hostage in a mountain cave in Uruguay for the last, say, twelve years. Hence you were cut off from all news sources that luckier people like us had readily available. We are sorry about that. And now please get a newspaper subscription. Connect to the Internet. And shut that fucking door.

(photos: Backhouse Images)

Seen in: Twentynine Palms, CA
Climate zone: arid desert climate
Official lawn name: Roadrunner Dunes Golf Course
Note to owner: Do not give way to the Mojave! Sprinkle it! Green it! Squash the dusty bastard!

(photo: Michael R. Swigart via Flickr)

I looked for a bicycle stand and found the above nothingness.
Where: Whole Foods Market, Pasadena, CA. “The largest Whole Foods Market west of the Rockies”, according to a company press release. It also states that “this new 2 story, 76,770 square foot store will be the next evolution of Whole Foods Market, designed to exceed its customers’ expectations (…)”
Sounds great.
These are the options for customers who arrive by bike:
1) Park in spot pictured above.
2) Park at (usually already taken) bus stop sign, thereby half blocking the sidewalk.
3) Park at cunningly hidden sub-standard bike stand 137 steps away from the front door, next to the parking garage entrance. If you can’t see it at first – look harder. Look BEHIND THE TRASHCAN. Happy shopping!

(photo: Backhouse Images)

This is the nicest sign we’ve seen in a long time. Our reporter snapped this pic a few days ago in Burbank, CA. Ikea started charging money for their plastic bags in the US in March 2007. In the UK, the company managed to reduce plastic bag consumption at their check-outs by 95 percent.

Today, the L.A. Times printed an editorial that is in favor of governments putting a fee on plastic sacs – which is currently illegal in California, due to an idiotic bill passed in 2006 (AB 2449) that was meant to promote in-store recycling. As long as that weird provision is not repealed, discouraging customers from using disposable bags is up to the stores. Go, Ikea!

Read why plastic bags are worse than you ever thought here and here (PDF from Healthebay.org). And here:

A recent staff report for the L.A. County Board of Supervisors (PDF) about carryout bags in L.A. County mentions the hidden costs of plastic bags for consumers. The average shopper makes the store spend $18 per year to provide him with free plastic bags. And the store will make sure to get those $18 back via increased product prices. In other words, we all pay 18 bucks per year for this nation’s bad bagging habit. What a mess.

(photo: Backhouse Images)