Sure we all have things we resent our parents for, but it takes a lot to truly be a bad parent, especially to be named as one of the top ten terrible parents. While many of the cases are heart-breaking stories of abuse, some are just sickening displays of poor parental values -like the mother who bought her seven year-old a boob job. It makes you wish for a change in child abuse laws.

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If you’ve ever been truly dedicated to a particular collection, then you know just how heart breaking it would be to lose it after putting in so much time and money. Now just imagine your collection transformed your entire apartment into a Star Trek ship only to risk losing it in a divorce. That’s what very well may happen to Tony Alleyne, whose wife wants to convert it back into a “normal” dwelling and sell the property to a presumably “normal” buyer. Read all about the sad news over at The Sun.

Link Via BoingBoing

If you’re a regular Neatorama reader, than you probably already know that Egyptian mummies were regularly burned as firewood in the past, but you might not be aware of some of the other tragedies befalling historical artifacts featured in this great Cracked article. If you couldn’t tell by the image, you might not want to read it right after eating lunch.

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While I am not one of those people who likes to call all instances of animals being dressed up in costume “animal abuse,” it’s certainly verging on the borderline of abuse when you dress your horse as a pinata and carry around a pinata stick. For pictures of 19 more depressing horses, check out this hilarious BuzzFeed article.

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Well, what else would you call an emo elephant? And he’ll never forget his angst, either. Link

This wouldn’t be nearly as sad if everyone who ever used YouTube couldn’t attest to the fact that it’s totally true.

Link Via Laughing Squid

I’m sure we can all agree that it’s important to keep kids safe from the big dangers of this world, but there is certainly a line between safety and stupidity and many schools these days have jumped right over that border. Cracked ha a great list of the most idiotic things schools are doing in the name of safety, including making them wear electric tracking bracelets, banning all photography and preventing all physical contact. Read about the rest over at the link.

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What do you think will cheer up the hairy-nosed wombat, which Environmental Graffiti has named the saddest looking marsupial in the world? Link

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the German superstar bear, Knut. He rose to stardom when his mother abandoned him at birth. A keeper at the Berlin Zoo stepped in and raised the cub from childhood, feeding him from a bottle, cuddling him, playing with him and otherwise rearing the little one. The issue really came into the public attention when PETA and other animal rights groups argued that the cub should have been left to die, as it was nature’s course and these activists believed animals shouldn’t be kept in zoos anyway.

Knut passed away on March 19 and while activists are still crying foul, blaming the zoo for Knut’s death, his fans will remember the adorable little bear that passed away far too soon -at only four years old. The zoo will be performing an autopsy, but results have not yet been released. In the meanwhile, we can console ourselves by remembering Knut kindly through this great memorial over at Cute Overload.

On a more positive note, the circle of life always continues and as the star of Berlin’s zoo passes on, Rotterdam recently introduced their newest addition to the public for the first time. Little Vicks (seen above) was born on December 6 and is every bit as cute as little Knut once was.

Photo Via Brennheit Bakst [Flickr]

M.J. was just found dead at the age of fifty, apparently from a cardiac arrest.He was scheduled to perform a number of comeback concerts next year.

“We’re told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back,” the entertainment website [TMZ] said.

Regardless of how you feel about his personal “issues” this is a sad day for pop music fans and weird art enthusiasts everywhere.

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Feeling sad or depressed?  Cross off shopping from your list. Researchers have just proven that sad people are big spenders:

In a recent experiment one group of people was shown a sad video clip about the death of a boy’s mentor, while another group viewed a non-emotional clip about the Great Barrier Reef.

Researchers then produced an insulated water bottle and asked how much of the $10 the participants were getting paid they’d be willing to give up in exchange for the bottle.

People who had seen the Great Barrier Reef video agreed to pay on average about 50 cents. People in the group that had been primed to feel sad offered up four times that price, more than $2 on average — but were unaware that the video had any impact on their spending.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

My sister suffers from seasonal affective disorder, also known as winter depression. A commonly prescribed therapy is light therapy – about thirty minutes of bright light in the morning. Bright in this context means more than 10 000 Lumens. You can of course buy commercial light-boxes, but I wanted to construct one by myself…

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Bettie was a beautiful woman and a wonderful icon, her work was influential to pin up girl pictures, art and women in general. She will be missed, but her legacy will not be forgotten.

The LA Times has a great biography with more information on her life and her influence on society.

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