Animated U.S. Unemployment Map: A Horror Film

Check out this animated map that depicts the U.S. unemployment rates by county from January 2007 through May 2010.

You can watch as the unemployment spreads from both coasts inward, eventually engulfing the Great Plains. (Apparently Nebraska is the safest place to be right now.) The map turns red, purple and then black as unemployment hits record levels. The colors are reminiscent of a black eye, which is what this economy has given us.




The map is courtesy of The American Observer, the graduate journalism magazine published through American University's School of Communication.

Respect for the Elderly Day

In preparation for "Respect the Elderly Day," Japanese officials were updating their list of centenarians. Police helped them break into the room of a man who was supposedly 111, only to find his mummified body. They believe that he actually died 30 years ago, but his relatives kept his death a secret so that they could collect his pension. Way to respect your elders!

In these tough economic times, even crime doesn't pay what it used to

A man who robbed a Wendy's restaurant called the restaurant twice to complain about the amount of money in the cash drawer that he stole. He reportedly said that "next time there better be more than $586."

The glass ceiling (windshield) in the auto theft industry: not an Equal Opportunity Employer

Car thievery is an industry like any other, with mentors ("technical advisors") who train new thiefs in the art of hot-wiring. And, like so many industries, women are not given equal access to the career ladder. Researchers have found that women are equally adept at actually stealing the cars, but their careers are stunted by a lack of access to social networks of criminals and chop shops. Without a lucrative way to dispose of the merchandise, the car theft business doesn't provide an acceptable ROI.

Winner of the "It's Not My Job" Award

Workmen striping a road painted around a dead badger because they said it "wasn't their responsibility" to clean up the road kill. They left a big gap in the white lines on the road where the badger was.

Duct tape fashion

Prom dress to expensive? No problem! Just make a dress out of duct tape.

Get Paid to Get Dressed

A German policeman convinced judges that the 15 minutes he spends getting dressed each day amount to overtime. He will be reimbursed via extra vacation or extra pay. This officer is not alone: 120 other German police officers are filing the same grievance. I just have a few questions:

(1) Why does it take him 15 minutes to get dressed? What do police officers in Germany wear? Astronaut gear?
(2) Can I get paid to get dressed? Would I have to show up at work in my pajamas, and then get dressed after punching the clock?
(3) How does this apply to exotic dancers, who normally get paid to undress?

Bank Robbery is Back in Style

Bank robbery is once again a popular pursuit. Check out these three recent robbery (attempts).

• Dennis Hawkins thought fake breasts and a blonde wig would be a good disguise...no one would guess he's really a man, except maybe he should have shaved off his beard first.
• Peter Lawrence, a 71-year-old in a wheelchair, actually wanted to get caught after robbing a San Diego bank. He told police he wanted to go to prison because the healthcare was good. (Healthcare reform can't come soon enough!)
• Edward Pemberton was quite a success, robbing two New York banks without even a gun. His weapon of choice: a bouquet of flowers. Police were able to arrest him after canvassing the Flower District.

Man's Best Friend: Not!

Check out this headline: Man Shot by Dog. The man was shot in the backside when his dog "accidentally" stepped on the trigger of a loaded rifle. The police are saying it was accidental, but I think it was revenge for making Fido chase after a stick for the 1,000th time.

Shark Attack

"Magic Carpet Ride," a statue of a surfer in Cardiff, California, is a target of much mischief. The locals call it the "Cardiff Cook" and regularly dress it in seasonal attire.

The most recent prank was to have a shark eat the surfer.

The best part is that the shark circled the statue before moving in for the kill. Paper mache shark fins appeared on the other side of the highway, and then moved closer to the statue over a couple of days. Locals have started a "Save the Shark" campaign to keep the shark, which they feel is a dramatic improvement to the statue. However, city officials plan to remove it this week.

Entertaining legal opinions

Today Google Scholar is highlighting entertaining legal opinions. Apparently, some U.S. judges have time to write their opinions in verse, sometimes even to the tune of LeAnn Rimes songs.

My favorite is from a case where a man sued the woman who wrapped a car around his oak tree:

We thought that we would never see
A suit to compensate a tree.
A suit whose claim in tort is prest
Upon a mangled tree's behest;

A tree whose battered trunk was prest
Against a Chevy's crumpled crest;
A tree that faces each new day
With bark and limb in disarray;

A tree that may forever bear
A lasting need for tender care.
Flora lovers though we three,
We must uphold the court's decree.

--The Honorable Judges Bronson, Brennan and Gillis of the Michigan Court of Appeals, January 10, 1983.

Ugly Sofa Contest

Quick, take a picture of your sofa and submit it for this contest. The winner of the Ugly Sofa Contest gets a free sofa. Runners-up get 50% off a sofa. The deadline is July 31, 2010.

108-year-old Woman Wants a Baby

This article is so priceless, I'm going to quote it word-for-word:

"A 108-year-old woman and her former drug addict husband want to adopt, and they'll even take an out-of-wedlock child. They sound like ideal candidates, no? Good luck to them."

Teenagers are bad for your wallet

Everyone knows teenagers are expensive...they want to spend your money. But did you know that they can actually decrease your income as well? Using data from the 2003 National Survey of College Graduates (from the U.S. Census Bureau), researchers have shown that having children ages 12 to 18 has a statistically significant correlation with earnings. Specifically, librarians earn 19.9% less per teenager. So if
you have 5 teenagers, you should just quit your job since you will only be earning 0.5% of your coworker's salary, which is surely below minimum wage. This study focused on librarians, but the trend may apply to other occupations as well.

Sweeper, D., & Smith, S. A. (2010). Assessing the impact of gender and race on earnings in the library science labor market. College and Research Libraries, 71, 171-183.

Federal judge rules that cheerleading is not a sport

Judge Stefan R. Underhill says in his 95-page opinion, "I hold that the University's competitive cheerleading team does not qualify as a varsity sport for the purposes of Title IX."

Quinnipiac University (in Connecticut) was trying to include cheerleaders in its tally of female athletes to show that it had provided equal athletic opportunities to women and men. The judge didn't buy it and ruled that the University had "discriminated on the basis of sex during the 2009-10 academic year by failing to provide
equal athletic participation opportunities for women."

To those cheerleaders who feel that cheerleading is a sport, the judge provides this bit of hope: "Competitive cheer may, some time in the future, qualify as a sport under Title IX; today, however, the activity is still too underdeveloped and disorganized to be treated as offering genuine varsity athletic participation opportunities for students."

Dirty Dr. Potti

Dr. Anil Potti would be a great subject for this blog just for his name. But, it gets even better: Cancer genomic researcher Dr. Anil Potti falsely claimed to be a Rhodes scholar in a grant application to the American Cancer Society, which awarded him $729,000 in research funding.

So he lied on the grant application. Maybe he also falsified research data. Thirty-one of his colleagues recommended ending three cancer trials based on his work because of "serious errors" in his science. The other researchers were not able to reproduce his results in their own labs. Enrollment in the trials has been halted and Dr. Potti has been suspended as an associate professor at Duke University.

News flash: Being a student involves attending class

If you want to pass your classes, it helps if you read the syllabus and actually show up for class. You would think that this student would have figured that out, given that his past classes have often had attendance policies (and syllabi). He must be a slow learner.

Actual email from a college student to a professor:

It has come to my attention that you have an attendance policy for our class of which I did not know because I did not read all of the syllabus before now. I object to this policy as it will hurt my grade and I want to protest that to you in very strong words. This has happened to me many times before that these policies exist and I do not read about them until I have skipped to many classes which is why I am so upset that this has happened to me again. It feels like all the teachers at this school are out to get me because everyone has the policies and it always sticks it to my grade in the end. So in this case I would hope that you would think of me the student and not use this policy on me since its been used so many times before already in other classes with other teachers. Its just not fair to keep it up on me.

A Happy Couple: Peter and Dicky

This PhD student dedicated his dissertation to his parents, Peter and
Dicky. What a couple! Apparently her name is Dicky Marie. If your
name was Dicky Marie, would you go by Dicky or Marie? Use the
comments to vote.

Booty Pop is Stranger than Fiction

This is an actual product called Booty Pop. For $19.95 (plus $6.95 shipping and handling) you can buy a pair of panties that makes your butt look bigger. You can see the TV commercial on YouTube. "Strategically placed pads" add bulk to your derrière. They shamelessly advertise it as "a padded bra for your backside."

Photo courtesy of DemocraticUndergroud.com

No thanks, my butt is big enough already.

Real Estate is Scarier than Fiction

Las Vegas has been named the #1 Riskiest City for Homeowners in the U.S.  In Las Vegas, 8.70% of the homes are in foreclosure. That's terrible enough, but what's worse is the additional 9.86% of home loans that are 90+ days delinquent. That's more than double the average delinquency rate (4.4%) in the 100 biggest cities in the U.S. Almost 1 in 5 homes in Las Vegas is in foreclosure or soon will be. The real estate double dip is officially underway.