• Whittle hand-carved busts of your family and friends out of found lumber. Not only will the DIY works of art be an attractive addition to any living room or mantle, but when times get really tough, the sculptures can be thrown in the fireplace or wood stove to heat one’s home.
• Give both Mother Earth and your wallet a gift by keeping that Chevy Suburban of yours in your garage for a week while you carpool with your mother-in-law in her Geo Prism.
• Dumpster dive for that Playstation One (PS1 circa 1995) that your neighbor just threw out, or that Cabbage Patch doll that your creepy cousin Duane was storing in his crawlspace.
• You’ve been a good dooby and have been faithfully composting for the last 12 years – give each of your lovely relatives a 30-gallon trash bag of your black gold for Christmas, accompanied by a bonus gift of a classic bong from your cherished college bong collection and get them jump-started on growing their own…
• Give each of the attendees at your holiday gathering a lovely handmade wreath made of recycled toilet bowl brushes.  The thoughtful decoration can also be used to address bathroom touch-ups during post-holiday cleanup activities…

Please don’t hurt yourself rushing to buy this piece of crappy Chinese solar technology.

This collapsible traffic cone presumably fits in one’s trunk. The little built-in solar panel charges a rechargeable battery that powers red LED bulbs.  Add some reflective ‘material’ and you have a supposedly green highway safety gadget.

No info on how a it gets solar-charged while stored in the dank, dark trunk of your Smart car…do Smart cars even have a trunk?

$55 @ gadget.brando.com.hk

This is so wrong I just don’t know where to begin.

Bursting out of the frigid north country of Sarah Pallin comes a concept with absolutely no redeeming social value.  Hit the water in one of these animal pelt swimsuits and you’ll exit the surf looking like a wet muskrat in search of some flea & tick spray.

Appealing solely to those with a ‘Daniel Boone’ sense of fashion, these fur suits give a whole new meaning to that 70′s compliment, ‘that’s one foxy chick’.  Perhaps the design was inspired by Raquel Welch in that film classic, “One Million Years B.C.”.  At least those are mannequins and not live models.

alaskrafts.com

We dogs don’t get Halloween. Please leave your pets with a shred of self respect by leaving them out of your wacky costume festivities.  Don’t give in to your compulsion to: shave your pet Maltese, Mel’s, head, dress him in some freshly minted low-riding jeans and parade him around as “Joe the Plumber Dog.”

Speaking of the Presidential dog fight…I see where Barack and Michelle Obama have promised their girls a dog after the race for the White House is over.  In anticipation of this ‘event’ the AKC’s website took a poll of its readership and came up with the poodle as the ideal companion for the Senator’s clan.  Hopefully, Senator McCain doesn’t realize that’s a ‘French’ poodle and the info gets transformed into an attack ad…Oh, Senator McCain does have 4 dogs of his own.  Wonder if Senator Cranky Pants can name them all?

the frightening costumes pictured above can be found @ spoiledrottendoggies.com

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble…

5 Ways to Brew Yourself a Frighteningly Green Halloween

• Show solidarity with unlicensed plumbers, aerial wolf hunters and big oil, while putting a fright into left-wing media types, caribou, treehuggers and assorted liberals when you strap-on the ghoulish-ous Sarah Palin mask (L, above).  We suggest accessorizing with a natural fur bikini (C, above), an automatic weapon and/or your grandfather…
• Be the envy of all the green devil worshipers at your Hallowgreen Pagan Fest by illuminating your eco-crypt or graveyard with either the Solar-Powered Corpse Light or the energy efficient Solar Skull (R, above).
• Put a dent in the sugar-high of those fiendish kids clawing at your door by giving them each a nice assortment of organic carrot sticks, celery and cauliflower along with a copy of your favorite recipe for homemade organic humus printed with soy ink on recycled paper. Hmmm good!!
• Run out of candy corn?  Give those little devils frantically ringing your doorbell a head start on growing their own local produce by hand out re-usable bags full of dark, aromatic compost from your whiff-y kitchen compost.
• And an ‘oldie but goodie’…Every Mischief Night you fill your lovely neighbors’ trees and shrubs with toilet paper. This year, make an eco-statement by adorning their greenery with 100% recycled toilet tissue from Seventh Generation.

Related: previously on altCon
Happy Hallowgreen (10.26.07)

Humor…

Let’s help our friends on the Republican Presidential ticket get more support for some of their less appealing environmental positions.

Some ideas for new programs:

• Senator McCain loves his nuclear power.  He is hellbent on building “a bunch” of nuke plants all across our nation.  Once Johnny Mac gets those nuke plants humming, we’ll need a program to dispose of all the pesky spent nuclear material that the naysayers harp about.  Solution: a federal mandate that every homeowner bury, let’s say something like… 5 pounds of nuclear waste, in their back yard in exchange for a half-point reduction in their  mortgage rate…call it “Project Glowing Home.”
• Photos of her moose hunting prowess indicate Governor Palin is a much better shot than the now hard-to-find Dick Cheney. We suggest she create a national  ‘hunt til you drop’ program that would offset skyrocketing food prices by encouraging hockey moms and grandmothers to put food on the table the the old fashioned way, by killing it themselves. We could call it ‘Local Harvest‘ or the ‘Gotcha Project.’ (more…)

Let’s have a little fun with the less-than-green Alaskan Governor…

1. The governor will mandate that all Alaskan state correspondence be delivered by dog sled.
2. She will cut down the amount of fuel consumed in the aerial hunting of wolves and bears by restricting the shooting of the predators from the air to: hot air balloons, gliders and State of Alaska planes on official government business.
3. She pledges to cut down on the family use of air polluting snowmachines to under 20,000 miles per year – a net drop of 10%.
4. The governor will issue polar bear fur parkas to all state employees and mandate that they be worn indoors, allowing the state to set thermostats to 55 degrees in all state office buildings.  This will also help mitigate that pesky polar bear ‘problem’ by reducing the number of endangered bears that can be photographed by do-gooders and the lefto media.
5. Sarah pledges to stop using her electric carving knife when hacking up those moose carcasses.
6. She will open up restricted wildlife preserves like Anwar by utilizing the remaining cash from the “Bridge to Nowhere” pork allotment to pay to ship all endangered wildlife across the border to Canada.
7. Mrs. Palin will reduce our reliance on foreign oil and create a new renewable energy source by authorizing the harvesting of whales and seals for their energy-rich fat and blubber which can be processed into bio-fuel.
8. The Palin family will stop riding with the windows down on their daily commute from Wasilla and pledge to regularly check the tire pressure on their 300 hp SUV.

related:
13 ways to spot an eco-poser
5 steps to effective greenwashing
9 signs you may be an energy hog

File under: What the hell were they thinking?  Some genius designer in China wasted his valuable brain-power creating this solar gadget, when he could have been investing his time and energy in solving the world’s energy crisis. 

Put this head-swiveling little solar-powered owl on your desk or dashboard and be the envy of all your less-than-totally-evolved geekazoid friends.  These folks also sell solar-powered chickens, pigs and dancing pandas.  For those who shun the sun, this little bugger swivels perfectly well on the energy from indoor lighting fixtures.

$16 @ gadget4all.com

via: coolestgadgets.com

What’s wrong with those pictures?  Support working canine models by hiring real dog’s for your ads and promotions.  It’s tough enough making a living in the doggie modeling biz without having to compete with scary fake dachshunds.  Please don’t make all my hard work on the casting couch go for naught.

Now about those Pete & Baily Jackets…organic cotton and hemp, nicely fitted with adjustable velcro fastener, fully lined, sustainably harvested buttons, a matching collar and a plantable hang tag…trés eco-fashionable.

Pete comes in pistachio and Baily comes in pink — extra small through large sizes.

$40  @  earth’s best friend