Jess Nobert | Senior Staff Writer

During the last week, I have been doing a lot of settling, rather than reading the news. However, I have found a solid handful of seriously ridiculous stories.

To start off, I’ve been following my Twitter a lot more closely since there isn’t any American news in English on the TV in Sweden. I got this first story from a CNN tweet. The White House has been hit in the housing crisis. According to a story on CNN.com, the property value has “dropped 5.1 percent—from $308 million to $292.5 million, according to the real estate Web site Zillow.” I guess America’s dream house isn’t immune to its own economy.

But the article had a more interesting point. Though 14 percent of Americans would want to share their back yard with the Obamas, second place was to be neighbors with the Palins. Seriously? What is it about this family that holds such appeal to Americans? There is no celebrity who I would want to be neighbors with. Can you imagine all the press who would end up on your property? And the constant need to have your lawn perfectly manicured? No thanks.

Going along with the national leader trend, this next story was the biggest shocker of the week, by far. Apparently Hugo Chavez is saying the U.S. has an “earthquake machine” that we used to cause the earthquake and aftershocks in Haiti. I don’t know how much press this crazy theory is catching at home, but I had to get it from Fox News, and most people remember how much I trust their “Fair and Balanced” reporting.

According to the article, “the 7.0 magnitude Haiti quake was caused by a U.S. test of an experimental shockwave system that can also create ‘weather anomalies to cause floods, droughts and hurricanes.’” Wow. The story went on to say the same machine caused a 6.0 quake in Eureka, Calif., just a few days before. Now this can’t possibly be true, and if it were, I guess the best way to defend against it would be to attack your own country first? Does that make any sense?

In other earth-shaking news, I come back to Lane Kiffin. I was going to write about how he wrecked his leased Lexus and the crash was practically shrugged off, but then I saw something better.

When I went back to the article about the wreck on ESPN.com, I found this interesting, and very ridiculous snippet:

“A Knoxville attorney has filed paperwork seeking to rename a local waste water treatment plant in honor of Lane Kiffin.

“Drew McElroy paid $262 and filed an application with the Knoxville City Council Public Properties and Facilities Naming Committee to rename the Kuwahee Wastewater Treatment Plant as the Lane Kiffin Sewage Center.”

McElroy, who is filing for this change, told WBIR-TV, a local NBC affiliate, “It dawned on me—Lane Kiffin told us that he hoped the fans would understand. I thought, ‘Well, naming the wastewater plant for him would let him know, I think very clearly, we do understand.’”

Though the group who will approve the name change hasn’t met yet, McElroy does intend to follow-up according to the article.

And finally, for my ridiculous news from Sweden: On MTV here, they actually show music videos, but that’s not the news.

During the running of this foreign programming, the network lets viewers text in with two names to this call center and then they broadcast if the two are compatible, in true love or what their perfect baby name would be. Seriously? I could not believe my eyes when I saw it for the first time, I could not believe it.

If you’re texting for a baby name, the lower part of the screen says something, roughly translated to, “the perfect name for Julia and Drake’s baby is…” and then there is a really bad cartoon baby with a little speech bubble with some, I assume, randomly generated name.

If you’re asking if you’re in true love, a heart separates the names. If the heart pulses for several seconds and it doesn’t break, it’s for real. But if it does, so sorry; not true love. I just couldn’t believe it. Think about it, the average audience for MTV is still teenagers, right?

The compatibility option just gives you a percent. But what is a truly compatible number? I don’t know, I still can’t speak much Swedish.