Top Five Sweeps Week

Very Little News

It's Sweeps Week on the blog. You know what that means. In a shameful effort to boost blog membership, I am bringing out the big guns. That's right - lots of sex, violence, and weird news. Don't worry. This is actually very critical research to find the intellectual interests of the public -- that is, those people who spend at least ten minutes a day reading such things as blogs. I see I'm already at a disadvantage. Anyway, here are some top fives in various subject categories for your entertainment.

The Top Five Nasty Lawsuits

Thanks to the following site for the information in this section. ("Fifteen Strange Lawsuits,"www.all-top-10-lists.com) You may view more at  http://www.all-top-10-lists.com/15-strange-law-suites-bizzare-stupid-lawsuite-lists/2010/02/

1. While apparently trying to steal a soft drink from a vending machine in 1998, 19-year-old Kevin Mackle was rocking it dangerously. Suddenly, the weight shift was too hot to handle and the contraption fell on him. The man died following the accident. His relatives sued Coca-Cola Co., two other companies, and Bishop’s University in Lennoxville, Quebec (for about $660,000 US in damages and funeral costs) alleging that the machine was not secured and bore no warning signs.

2. 27-year-old man from Michigan was involved in a rear-end collision. Four years later, he sued the owners of the truck that was responsible for the accident. Having suffered minor injuries, he stated that from then on, his sexual relationship with his wife deteriorated, as he was unable to maintain their sex life. He claimed that he had been so affected by the crash that his personality had been forever changed. In fact, he maintained that the accident turned him into a homosexual. He left his wife, moved in with his parents, began hanging out in gay bars, and became a fervent reader of gay literature. He won his case and was awarded $200,000, while his wife received $25,000.

3. An inmate filed a $5 million lawsuit against himself (he claimed that he violated his own civil rights by getting arrested) — then asked the state to pay because he has no income in jail. He said, “I want to pay myself $5 million dollars, but ask the state to pay it on my behalf since I can’t work and am a ward of the state.” The judge was not impressed by his ingenuity, and dismissed the suit as frivolous.

4. A woman went to her friend’s house and asked for a haircut. Unhappy with her new look, she claimed her friend had willfully, intentionally and maliciously cut her hair without her consent … and sued him for $75,000.

5. A college student in Idaho decided to “moon” someone from his 4th story dorm room window. He lost his balance, fell out of his window, and injured himself in the fall. Now the student expects the University to take the fall — he is suing them for “not warning him of the dangers of living on the 4th floor."

The Top Five Nasty Deaths

Thanks to the website Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List of unusual deaths for the information on these stories of untimely demise.

1941: Sherwood Anderson, writer, swallowed a toothpick at a party and then died of peritonitis.

1976: Keith Relf, former singer for British rhythm and blues band The Yardbirds, died while practicing his electric guitar. He was electrocuted because the amplifier was not properly grounded.


1991: Edward Juchniewicz, a 76-year-old man, was killed when the ambulance stretcher he was strapped to rolled down a grade and overturned. The ambulance attendants, while speaking to a doctor's staff, had left the stretcher unattended.

1996: Sharon Lopatka, an Internet entrepreneur from Maryland, allegedly solicited a man via the Internet to torture and kill her for the purpose of sexual gratification. Her killer, Robert Fredrick Glass, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for the homicide.

2006: Sean Caselli, a 22-year-old New Milford, Connecticut man, was struck with pieces of shrapnel in the neck and chest after an empty keg that had been thrown into a fire exploded at a party.

The Top Five Nasty Pick-up Lines

1. "Pardon me, but does this smell like chloroform to you?"

2. "Why don't we go back to my place and do all the things I'm going to tell my friends we did anyway?"

3. "You're the spitting image of my dead girlfriend."

4. "I've had quite a bit to drink, and you're beginning to look pretty good."

5. "Didn't anyone tell you that you wanted to sleep with me? I thought you knew..."

The Top Five Dirty Divorce Tricks

1. This trick is very common. Either the husband or wife takes money out of a joint bank account and puts it somewhere safe where the other party can not access it.

2. Some people have been known to go out the day before the settlement hearing and use their spouse's credit card to purchase all kinds of items that they might need when building up their new life.

3. Even though it is a very serious crime to make false accusations of such events, cruel spouses sometimes make claims that their spouse abused them and/or their children.

4. If one party in the divorce has moved out of the family home and is the primary source of income for the family, he/she should refuse to pay any household bills or send any support until forced to do so by the court. This is one of the steps in a routine called "Starve Out The Other Spouse."

5. A party should refuse to speak with a spouse about anything, including arrangements for him/her to have parenting time with children. This falls into the category of a tactic used by some lawyers to create conflict, create issues that don't need to exist, increase legal fees, and wear the other side down.

The Top Five Nastiest Pitches In Baseball

1. The splitter by Bruce Sutter:  Bruce's success to learning this pitch originated in the Cubs' minor league system after having blown out his elbow. "After he threw it, his fastball looked like it was coming 100 mph,'' Gary Matthews said. "He could throw it for a ball, he could throw it for a strike. It was such a devastating pitch. If you stayed off of it, he'd get a called strike. If you swung, you would miss. He perfected something, [it was] something new on the scene."

"If it wasn't for that pitch, Bruce Sutter would be tending bar in Mount Joy, Pa.,'' Mike Krukow, Giant's broadcaster said. "A lot of guys tried to throw that pitch, but no one threw it better than Bruce. No one.''

2. The curve ball by Sandy Koufax:  Sandy's curve would break straight down, forcing hitters to beat it into the ground. His numbers seem almost unbelievable by today's standards, with three of his last four seasons yielding at least 25 victories, together with three Cy Young Awards- in a time when only one was given out in all of baseball..

3. The cut fastball by Mariano Rivera:  Rivera's cutter breaks so hard to the left that it routinely breaks the bats of left-handed hitters. In 2004, ESPN.com ranked his cutter as the best "out pitch" in baseball. Buster Olney, Moneyball author, described his cut fastball as "the most dominant pitch of a generation"  .

4. The slider by Steve Carlton: Steve's slider was one of the most unhittable pitches in history. It broke sharply down and in and, if the batter got the bat on it at all, he'd probably ground it foul.

5. The knuckleball by Hoyt Wilhelm:  Hoyt had only 778 walks in more than 2,000 innings. He is also one of the oldest players to have pitched in the major leagues; his final appearance was 16 days short of his 50th birthday. "He knew where it was going when he threw it, but when he got two strikes on you, he'd break out one that even he didn't know where it was going." - Brooks Robinson.

The Top Five Funny/Nasty Video Clips

1. Boobies and Kittens

Boobies and Kittens - watch more funny videos

2. Printer Paper Commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb9KeQ6HdiM

3. Miss America Wardrobe Malfunction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqNz61-jneo

4. Miss Teen U.S.A.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WALIARHHLII

5. How To Get Rid of a One Night Stand

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ojDQ4s5Tn8

Cohabiting

In Blessed Union?

In the United States, cohabiting unions formed in the early 1900s were usually transient as cohabiting couples rapidly married or separated. (L. Bumpass and and H. Lu, Population Studies 54, 2000) Always a short-lived state, cohabitation became less stable and less tied to marriage as it spread as just over half of all cohabiting couples married within 10 years.Cohabitation without marriage began to bloom as old beliefs and practices changed.

Christine Bachrach (C. Bachrach et al., 2000:3) explained sexual unions in the Western world used to follow a normative sequence: the couple fell in love, the couple married, and the couple had children. As this trend changed, couples began to cohabit before or instead of marrying, and, of course, they had children in relationships from marriage to casual sexual partnerships. Plus, today, those couples who do choose to marry often do so at historically late ages, often after having become parents. The decision to delay marriage vows produced some natural complications.

Ken Dempsey and David de Vaus de Vaus , said (Journal of Psychology, June 1 2004) until the early 1970s, separated and divorced men and women were the principal cohabitants. At that time cohabiting was largely statistically invisible and it was also socially invisible beyond the local community (Kiernan, 2000).

From the 1970s onwards what had been the behavior of a small minority transformed into the behavior of the majority. Now, many consider it is almost a deviant act to marry without first cohabiting. Cohabitation has expanded to half of all women ages 15-44 in 2002. (A. Chandra et al., National Center for Health Statistics, 2005)

As a result of this change in social behavior, direct marriage as opposed to cohabiting and then marrying is now becoming the behavior of a minority of couples in society. R. Kelly Raley, (Demography, Volume 38, Number 1, February 2001) stated, "Cohabiting before first marriage has become the norm." Today the practice has become much more socially acceptable as a "trial" alternative to marriage partly as an effort to cut significant divorce rates.

Some New Reality About Cohabitation

Julie Scelfo of Newsweek reported (December 2, 2004), "Living with your boyfriend is fun. It also can be practical, meaningful and a sign of deep commitment. But as if to confirm the fears of nervous parents around the country, a new study in the Journal of Family Issues says that couple who live together are much less likely to wed than they used to be. That's right, Mom: according to the study, entitled "First Comes Cohabitation and Then Comes Marriage?"  two thirds of (all) cohabiting couples in the 1970s married within three years. Now only half as many women (all cohabiting) walk down the aisle with their live-in mate that quickly. Among all cohabiting women, one out of four says she doesn't ever expect to marry ..."

And a similar study, according to AScribe Health News Service, a relatively new study (Ohio State University, February 2 2004) found that couples who live together before marriage may be less likely to eventually marry than previously believed. The study confirms that only about 40 percent of all cohabiting couples studied ended up marrying within four to seven years. And 42 percent of all cohabiting couples disagreed about the future of their relationship, the study found. Moreover, contrary to popular belief, men with the best economic prospects and couples who were the most similar were not more likely than others to marry after living together. (AScribe
Newswire, 2004)

 
Some Findings Relating to Cohabitation

Thanks to a lengthy research report, some interesting findings have come to light as they relate to cohabitation. (M.D. Bramlett and W.D. Mosher, "Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the United States," National Center for Health Statistics, 2002) Here is some food for cohabitation consumption:

1. For all women, the probability of a first premarital cohabitation becoming disrupted in 39% within 3 years of cohabitation and 49% withing 5 years of cohabitation.

2. For all women, the probability of a first premarital cohabitation becoming a marriage is 58% after 3 years of cohabitation, and 70% after 5 years of cohabitation.


3. For first marriages, marriages are more likely to succeed if the female grew up in a two-parent home.

4. The probability of marriage is lower for non-Hispanic black women than for other women.

5. Early marriage is more likely for women in communities with higher male unemployment, lower median family income, higher poverty and higher receipt of welfare.

6. The probability than an intact first premarital cohabitation becomes a marriage is higher among white women and lower among black women. and higher for couples with higher incomes than for couples with lower incomes.

7. The probability that an intact first premarital cohabitation becomes a marriage is higher for women with any religious affiliation than for women with no religious affiliation, especially among white women.

8. Women with no children at the start of the second marriage are the least likely to experience second marital disruption.

Divorce Rates In America -- You Decide the Best Bond

Here is some recent information on the divorce rate in America. According to Dan Hurley of the New York Times (April 19, 2005), "Part of the uncertainty about the most recent trends derives from the fact that no detailed annual figures have been available since 1996, when the National Center for Health Statistics stopped collecting detailed data from states on the age, income, education and race of people who divorced."

Hurley stated the divorce rate in the United States has never reached one in every two marriages, and new research suggests that, with rates now declining, it probably never will. So read this information without the knowledge that it may not be credible and view it with some skepticism.

Current divorce statistics in America are estimated at 50%. This data is not accurately correct, however, it is "reasonably close to actual" according to the source.The following information is from http://www.divorcerate.org/.


Age at marriage for those who divorce in America

Age	Women	Men
Under 20 years old	27.6%	11.7%
20 to 24 years old	36.6%	38.8%
25 to 29 years old	16.4%	22.3%
30 to 34 years old	8.5%	11.6%
35 to 39 years old	5.1%	6.5%

The divorce rate in America for first marriage, vs second or third marriage
50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce.
According to enrichment journal on the divorce rate in America:
The divorce rate in America for first marriage is 41%
The divorce rate in America for second marriage is 60%
The divorce rate in America for third marriage is 73%
* Source of this Divorce Statistics: Jennifer Baker, Forest Institute of Professional Psychology,Springfield