In addition to environmental considerations, those who care about humans and horrific treatment of each other can also revel in the way that Mall Fart throws it weight around to force manufacturers overseas to create more and more unsafe factories, often with the plant on the ground floor, supplies up a flight and humans on top, a severe fire hazard.

Their treatment of U.S. workers isn't much better. We've got an off-broadway show about them here in NYC called WallMartopia. If you're around the area, it's a quite good musical. If you have audience extras, the tix are often available on their site for the usual service fee.

Please don't shop at Mall Fart. You don't want to support this behavior to save yourself a couple of bucks.

The most conspicuous doubter in France is Claude Allegre, a former education minister and a physicist by profession. His new book, ``Ma Verite Sur la Planete'' (``My Truth About the Planet''), doesn't mince words.

He calls Gore a ``crook'' presiding over an eco-business that pumps out cash. As for Gore's French followers, the author likens them to religious zealots who, far from saving humanity, are endangering it. Driven by a Judeo-Christian guilt complex, he says, French greens paint worst-case scenarios and attribute little-understood cycles to human misbehavior.

Allegre doesn't deny that the climate has changed or that extreme weather has become more common. He instead emphasizes the local character of these phenomena.

While the icecap of the North Pole is shrinking, the one covering Antarctica -- or 92 percent of the Earth's ice -- is not, he says. Nor have Scandinavian glaciers receded, he says. To play down these differences by basing forecasts on a global average makes no sense to Allegre.

He dismisses talk of renewable energies, such as wind or solar power, saying it would take a century for them to become a serious factor in meeting the world's energy demands.

Good, the new gas cans are terrible. You can't use the damn things without spilling at least a little gas due to the way they are designed. So, honestly, the environmental impact is probably worse with the new cans.

Wal-Mart is a great company. Go do a story on a bad company. Leave the mighty and wonderful Wal-Mart alone.

Actually, a $250,000 fine seems like it should do the trick. Considering that they only sold 3,000 cans over three years, that's over $80 a can, which is probably many times the profit they made on those cans. So Walmart will certainly try not to make that mistake again. I don't think they like to lose money on anything.

United Kingdom-Energy-saving light bulbs are so dangerous that everyone must leave the room for at least 15 minutes if one falls to the floor and breaks, a Government department warned yesterday.
The startling alert came as health experts also warned that toxic mercury inside the bulbs can aggravate a range of problems including migraines and dizziness.

And a leading dermatologist said tens of thousands of people with skin complaints will find it hard to tolerate being near the bulbs as they cause conditions such as eczema to flare up.

The Department for Environment warned shards of glass from broken bulbs should not be vacuumed up but instead swept away by someone wearing rubber gloves to protect them from the bulb's mercury content.

In addition, it said care should be taken not to inhale any dust and the broken pieces should be put in a sealed plastic bag for disposal at a council dump – not a normal household bin.

None of this advice, however, is printed on the packaging the new-style bulbs are sold in. There are also worries over how the bulbs will be disposed of.