Watercooler Sensation

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Looking for a Studio Apartment? Great — It’ll Cost You Your Soul

• Tough news for renters: in 2007, landlords are expected to raise rents for the third year in a row. Read between the lines: kiss that money you had stashed away to buy a home goodbye. [USA Today]
• The numbers: rents are supposed to increase by 5% this year. That means they’ll be 14% higher than they were in 2004. Meanwhile, paychecks are expected to rise 4%, adjusted for inflation.
• And now, the history: From 2000 to 2004, most landlords couldn’t raise rents because so many tenants were leaving to buy houses or condos. But oh, how the times have changed.
• So where can a renter get a break? Miami, LA, and San Diego. In these cities, investors bought thousands of condos, hoping to flip them for a quick profit. Since the market faltered in late 2005, many of those condos have been empty, and investors are seeking tenants to help pay the mortgage.

Ugh. Looks like we’ll have to move to Miami. Oh, the horror...the absolute *horror.*

The Next Line of Defense Against Terror: Llamas

• America’s Special Forces: Lethal. Cunning. Riding a llama. [Washington Post]
• Turns out a few years ago the Army put together a 225-page manual entitled “Special Forces Use of Pack Animals,” that provides a comprehensive overview on the care and feeding and uses of four-legged transportation.
• A bit of history: until the Korean War, pack animals were commonly used in the armed forces. The furry friends, though, lost their status to more, uh, effective modes of transportation like trucks and helicopters.
• The manual also works to put to rest some of the bad raps pack animals have gotten. Take camels, for instance: “camels are clumsy-looking, rather ugly animals, and have a lousy reputation because they are believed to spit and kick at people. This perception is not accurate because well-handled camels are safe to work with and be around.”
• Some other highlights: “Mules, we learn, “are intelligent and possess a strong sense of self-preservation.” You can’t “make a mule do something if [it] thinks it will get hurt, no matter how much persuasion” you use, the manual says, adding that people “confuse this trait with stubbornness.” (This also may explain why some spouses balk at taking out the garbage on extremely cold nights.) Llamas are just wonderful, the manual says. Elephants, however, “are not the easygoing, kind, loving creatures that people believe them to be. They are, of course, not evil either.”

Elephants aren’t easygoing: good to know.

We Said BRRRRR! It’s Cold In Here!

• There must be some Toros in the atmosphere![Bring It On]
• The Arctic Wave blowing across the country is bringing temperatures as cold as 38 below. Brrr! (We’re talkin’ about you, Northwestern Minnesota.) [ABC News]
• Schools in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota were closed to the children wouldn’t have to be out in bone-icing temperatures.
• Many parts of the country are also facing: Water mains breaking. Cars refusing to unlock. Stolen cars (left unattended to warm up.) Amtrack closure.
• You know it’s cold when Toledo, Ohio, has to close its ice-skating rink. Did you catch that? It’s too cold. To. Ice. Skate. [CNN]
• Silver lining? From the AP: “With wind chills around 30 below, Chicago emergency room doctor Sean Motzny said he was somewhat relieved the Bears lost the Super Bowl, because it meant fans weren’t out celebrating and exposing themselves to frostbite and hypothermia.”

We said o-e-o-e-o…ice ice ice…(Sorry, you can’t stop once you’ve started.)

World Candy Tycoons Decide Kids Are Fat Enough

• Citing child obesity concerns, Masterfoods, the ominously named global candy company, has decided to stop marketing their products to kids under 12. [CNN]
• Masterfood sells Snickers, Mars Bars, M&Ms, Skittles, Milky Way, Kudos, Starburst, Twix, Combos and 3 Musketeers.
• The company already had a policy barring targeting children under six, but concerns over plump and unhealthy tweens led them to change their policy. Well, maybe.
• It turns out that Ofcom, the EU’s version of the United States’ Food and Drug Administration is about to ban sales of junk food to kids under 16. This move is Masterfood’s attempt to pre-empt this regulation and show that “self-regulation” can work. Uh, no. [BBC]
• Says Jeremy Baker of LondonMetropolitanUniversity “they’re being forced to do this by Ofcom anyway and now they’re making a good PR gesture out of it.”

Somewhere in a shadowy room, a candy tycoon is maniacally laughing.

Your 10-Year-Old Digs Online Porn

• Awkward alert: Internet researchers are saying that more children and teens are being exposed to online pornography, mostly by “accidentally” viewing sexually explicit sites while surfing the web.
• Take a look at the numbers: Forty-two percent of Internet users aged 10 to 17 surveyed said they had seen online pornography in a recent 12-month span. 68% of those said that they “did not want to view the images and had not sought them out.”
• “It’s beyond the wild West out there. You’ve really taken away the age of innocence,” said Dr. Michael Wasserman, a pediatrician with the Ochsner Clinic in Metairie, La., who was not involved in the study.
• And then, you’ve got the bad kids: More than one-third of 16- and 17-year-old boys surveyed said they had intentionally visited X-rated sites in the past year. Among girls the same age, 8% had done so.
• So how are kids “unintentionally” stumbling across Internet porn? Mainly through file-sharing. But let’s face it: porn’s everywhere. Kids also came across it through innocent activities like chatting with friends and doing Internet research.

In a related story, 68% of teens also lie.

By the Numbers

BRAIN DRAIN

Remember JFK’s famous “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”? You might be the only one; recent graduates aren’t taking those words to heart the way their parents and grandparents did. According to the Council on Excellence in Government, the federal government is facing a huge, looming Brain Drain crisis – as more and more of the Boomers get set to retire from federal government work, the kids of Generation Next aren’t exactly lining up to take their places. Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of PrincetonUniversity’s WoodrowWilsonSchool of public and international affairs: “Students don’t see the government as a place you can make a difference. The common perception is that if you go into the private sector, you’re an economic entrepreneur, if you go into the non-profit sector you’re a social entrepreneur, but if you go into government you’re a bureaucrat.” [Financial Times]

90%

Percent of senior managers in the federal government who will be eligible for retirement in the next decade

40%

Percentage of all federal employees who will be elibible for retirement by 2010

73%

Percent of the graduating class of ColumbiaUniversity’s School for Public Affairs who went to work for federal, state or local government in 1979

36%

Percent of the graduating class of ColumbiaUniversity’s School for Public Affairs who went to work for federal, state or local government today

Celebrities: Unfiltered

“As such, it too has Jesus Christ, not some nebulous and neutered god, as its head.”

— Star of such godly films as “Hellbound,” “Hitman,” “Forced Vengence,” and “Silent Rage,” Chuck Norris, on how Jesus is the true president of the United States. [World Net Daily]

Speed Round

AUDIO: CHARLIZE THERON HAS INTERESTING TASTES

Her interview with Rick Sanchez takes an interesting turn. Namely, she wants to make out with him.

AUDIO: FOX NEWS KNOWS ITS EXPERTS

And Danny Bonaduce knows fame.

AUDIO: TIM GUNN HEARTS OPRAH

The Tim and The Oprah join forces, promise to have world peace and cancer’s cure by FY08.

BOUNCING IN THE STREET

Philly considers installing rubber sidewalks. [AP]

PSA

Just so you know: coke-snorting, pole-dancing, crotch-flashing celebutantes *might* be bad influences for your 12-year-old daughter. [Newsweek]

BEATLES ON ITUNES?

Apple Inc. (iPod makers) and Apple Corps Ltd. (The Beatle’s production company) have settled a trademark squabble that could “pave the way for the band’s songs to be available on the iTunes music store.” [Bloomberg]

AQUA TEEN TERROR FORCE

Turner Broadcasting to pay the city of Boston $2 million over the ad campaign gone wrong. Or right, as it were. [ABC News]

TOMKAT ATTACKS

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes grind atop tables in Miami while everyone else awkwardly looks elsewhere. [Molly Good]

NEW MUG SHOT GOODNESS

Actor Ryan O’Neal is arrested for assaulting his son over the weekend. Oh yes, shots were fired. [CNN]

WE ARE HEARTBROKEN

Joss Wheedon, mastermind behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer, pulls out of directing the new Wonder Woman movie. We knew it was too good to be true. [Official Statement]

YOU MIGHT AS WELL JUMP (JUMP!)

It’s official: Hell is a cool 29 degrees, bacon just flew past your window and David Lee Roth is back with Van Halen. Look for the tour coming to a stadium near you. [USA Today]

GRANDPA’S STASH

British Customs officers seize cocaine hidden in Prunes. And who says drugs are a youth problem? [BBC]

GORBACHEV’S PLEA TO GATES

In Soviet Russia, software pirates you. [CNN]

AT HOGWARTS, E-BOOKS ARE FOR MUGGLES

Author J.K. Rowling has announced that the latest Harry Potter novel will not be available as an e-book. Online witches have announced their disgust. [MSNBC]

THE CAPTAIN AND INDICTMENT

A Captain whose boat capsized, killing 20 elderly tourists, is indicted on misdemeanor charges. [CNN]

CAN I GET A WHOOPING CRANE?

After storms in Florida, at least one Whooping Crane remains. Its neighbors aren’t so happy. [CNN]

RECORD SPACEWALK

U.S. Astronaut Sunita Williams set the women’s record for longest spacewalk. Longest moonwalk record still held by non-Astronaut Michael Jackson. [MSNBC]

A PUBLIC AFFAIR

Jessica Simpson says watching Nick Lachey date was as painful as running her fingers through John Mayer’s greasy hair. [AP]

IF YOU DO ONE THING TODAY, WATCH THIS

SNL’s Amy Poehler as a Thomas Pynchon, Michiko Kakutani-referencing Dakota Fanning. So. Brilliant. [Jossip]