The fastest growing American city is New Orleans, with 13.8% growth in the year ending in July 2007. But since that is a special case, it's worth looking at the second fastest: Victorville, California, with 9.5% growth.

What's so special about Victorville? Nothing, except for the fact that it is the only city in the top ten to be in a blue state. That's right - all nine others are in red states. Coincidence? I think not.

See the list here.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary has added new words again. Some are the typical suspects, which are technology and internet-related.  Another is "pescatarian," meaning a vegetarian who eats fish. My favorite, however, is mondegreen:

In a category of its own, it describes words mistaken for other words. A mondegreen most often comes from misunderstood phrases or lyrics.

It comes from an old Scottish ballad in which the lyric "laid him on the green" has been confused over time with "Lady Mondegreen."

Among the best-known modern examples: "There's a bathroom on the right" in place of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "There's a bad moon on the rise" and "'Scuse me, while I kiss this guy" in place of "kiss the sky" in the 1967 Jimi Hendrix classic "Purple Haze."

Even Sokolowski, a word expert by trade, has a favorite mondegreen: "Lucy in the sky with diamonds," as sung by the Beatles in 1967, made obvious sense to the preteen Peanuts comic fan as "Lucy in the sky with Linus."

Yeah that word was much needed.

Americans' Life Expectancy has reached a new record: 78.1 years.

Sometimes I wonder if it'll ever stop rising? 

What I love about the web is the unlimited range of random ideas people can succeed with. Take GetMortified.com:

Witness adults sharing their own adolescent journals, letters, poems, lyrics, home movies, stories and more. After all, where else can you hear grown men and women confront their past with firsthand tales of their... first kiss, first puff, worst prom, fights with mom, life at bible camp, worst hand job, best mall job, and reasons they deserved to marry Jon Bon Jovi.

Who would have thought there's actually a market for this? Would you share the stuff from your teenage shoebox with the world? Wow.

This CNN video tells an absolutely ridiculous CPS horror story.

You can take it here. I got 13 out of 20, or 65%.

HT: Andy Roth at the Club for Growth

... because of weak rivets. Maybe.

Just in case it's been keeping you up. 

I want one of these (video)...

... or maybe not.

The U.S. Census Bureau has the World Population Clock. It's pretty neat. Right now it's almost at 6,662,000,000 and according to Matt Drudge, will hit 6,666,666,666 on May 10.

Check out this Wikipedia article on World Population too. It's incredible how fast world population has grown. Did you know that more people live today than during all of human history, combined?

The credit goes to the prosperity brought about by free markets and trade.

There are many difficult choices parents have to agree on for their children:

Harvard or Yale?

Catholic or Protestant?

Crips or Westside Ballers?

Not much more I can say...

CNN has the video 

It's so over for MySpace.

CNN has an interactive map showing where Martin Luther King Jr. died, where members of his entourage were, and descriptions of the sequence events by several people.

From Laura Martinez:

In a perfect world, our loved ones wouldn’t die leaving us terribly saddened and alone. But in an “Absolut World,” wonderful things can happen, including getting the U.S.-Mexico border straight once and for all. (This print ad was taken from the current issue of Quién magazine, in Mexico City.)

 

I'm really not ok with this. Until Absolut gives a good enough explanation, I'm switching to Skyy.

Thankfully, America fights back against the Swedes at Absolut, here.

Someone find this guy a girl. (video)