Happy Fourth of July to Ecollo's American friends! We hope you enjoy some barbecues, parades, picnics, baseball or whichever activity you choose to commemorate Independence Day.

The Muppets can't seem to decide whether it's the Fourth of July or Christmas, but regardless, Hal Linden showed up to help them celebrate the occasion in the clip below. Enjoy the video and your long weekend!

» YouTube

Here's some fun Friday morning humor for all of you faithful golfers hitting the links this weekend. As it turns out your recreational activity is more eco-friendly then you might have realized, even if you enjoy a drink while teeing off. Happy Weekend!

Stand proud you noble swingers of clubs and losers of balls..........
 
A recent study found the average golfer walks about 900 miles a year.
 
Another study found golfers drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a year.
 
That means, on average, golfers get about 41 miles to the gallon..
 

Kind of makes you proud. Almost feel like a hybrid.

» Wikipedia

Say hello to the newest pitfall of climate change: environment-related despair. ERD (as we're choosing to call it) is the disorder Lisa Simpson was diagnosed with on a recent episode of The Simpsons entitled "The Good, the Sad and the Drugly."

Poor Lisa is assigned a paper for which she must describe what her hometown of Springfield will be like in 50 years. Apparently Lisa also gets some seriously advanced editions of local papers, because she is able to search (using an engine that strongly resembles Google) and generate future headlines such as "Water Gone: People Drink Soap," "World War Over Last Drop of Oil" and "Last Polar Bear Hangs Self in Prison."

Needless to say her glimpse into the dismal future is enough to send eight-year old Lisa is an downward spiral, which leads to her shrink coining the phrase "environment-related despair" to sum up the cause of such emotions. The prescription in this case? A happy drug called Ignorital which has Lisa seeing even the grimmest of images as hundreds of yellow happy faces.

Obviously this is the Simpsons' tongue-in-cheek response to all of the earth-related issues making headlines these days. However, environment-related despair actually sounds legitimate, what with the constant barrage of negative news surrounding climate change and the resulting food crises. What do you think? Do you suffer from ERD, and if so, is it serious enough to warrant drug therapy?

Watch the full clip of Lisa dealing with her ERD after the jump!

» Jezebel

If you or someone you know is under the age of 19, where's the coolest new spot to hang out on the Internet?

The KidGurus social networking site is where young people of all ages are flocking to submit poems, essays, videos and stories they've created themselves. While there you can also take or write your own quizzes and puzzles. And if there's a special occasion coming up, create a greeting card from your photos, drawings or poems for something unique and special.

And if you're a bit wary about the sites your children are visiting, be rest assured that all photos and videos are manually verified before being posted live to ensure no sexual, violent or otherwise inappropriate content makes its way onto the site.

Members under 19 can join at no cost, and receive free email, chat rooms and a profile page upon signing up.

While Kid Gurus isn't a site specifically devoted to eco-friendly topics, it's a great place for green kids to spread the word to their peers about environmental consciousness using their own creative strengths and resources.

Hit the jump to check it out!

» Kid Gurus

» The Calgary Sun

World scientists believe that they have finally discovered the source of the increased asteroid activity around earth and the results are surprising. As it turns out, it has nothing to do with the rapidly increasing warming of the earth's surface, as previously thought. Today a group of leading astronomers who make up the Frontier Orbiting Observatory Laboratory group announced their findings at their annual conference being held in Geneva, Switzerland this week.

"It seems that the rapid increase in recognization and accolades for Al Gore has caused his head to swell to an enormous size," said Dr. Acula. "In fact, it's gotten so large that its gravatational pull has started to pull in asteroids and space junk from neighbouring orbits."

While. Dr. Acula and his team initially believed their findings to be erroneous, further comprehensive study of the situation has left no doubt as how and why the phenomenon is occurring. 

"After 'An Inconvenient Truth' was released, we began noticing a gradual increase in asteroid movement ," says Acula. "However with the annoucement last week that Mr. Gore will release a book sequel titled 'Our Choice,' suddenly it's become much more extreme."

Acula cited the flash of bright light spotted along the Mid-Atlantic coastline this past weekend as just one example of the problem, which is feared to become worse closer to the new book's release date later this year.

Says Acula, "The U.S. government can create a massive cover-up and blame the Russians for orbiting space junk all they want, but sooner or later astronauts will actually be able to identify Gore's head from space. What are they going to do then?"

» Frontier Orbiting Observatory Laboratory (Official Site)