Renewing a debate, Czech scientist Jaroslav Flegr reported in September that human infection by Taxoplasma gondii (to which cat owners are vulnerable as they clean litter boxes) tends to make women "reckless" and "friendly" and men "jealous" and "morose." Though any mammal could pass the toxins, cats that handle dead birds, bugs or mice rather easily pass it in their stools, though only for a few days after their first infection. (A 2001 report by researchers from Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland had suggested that such infections might even cause schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.)

For a September report, an LA Weekly writer hung out with Benji Breitbart, 20, Doug Marsh, and several other "Disneyana enthusiasts," who spend hours nearly every single day at Disneyland; have almost total recall of the park's history and culture; rabidly collect memorabilia; and preach with intensity on which aspects of today's park Walt Disney would not have approved. DE's usually wear Disney-themed clothes; use the pronoun "we" as if the park were theirs; and are dismissive of the obsessives of "Star Trek." ("Trekkies are devoted to some stupid pop-culture fad," said Marsh, but "Disney fans believe in the magic.") Why, Breitbart was asked, was Disney such a central force in his life? "I tried to figure that out. I just ended up with no answers."

-- According to two maintenance workers on duty in Cleveland's Carver Park Estates in September, James Black, 49, either boldly or obliviously dragged a dead, bloody body out of his apartment house in broad daylight and laid it on the ground in plain sight of the two men, then calmly went back inside and emerged with a mop, which he used to swab blood from the sidewalk. The incredulous workers immediately called police, who arrested Black and the next day charged him with aggravated murder.

-- In June, a judge in Washington, D.C., sentenced Bernard Johnson to 12 years in prison for shooting D.C. Police Det. Anthony McGee three times. However, the judge immediately suspended five of the years, and of the remaining seven, five were mandatory for merely carrying a firearm during the crime, leaving the add-on punishment for actually shooting the cop to two years, or eight months per bullet hole.

-- The July amateur wrestling match in Tbilisi (former Soviet republic of Georgia), between Dzhambulat Khotokhov (123 pounds, from Russia) and Georgy Bibilauri (112 pounds, from Georgia) ended in a draw, and afterward, both wrestlers broke training briefly for ice cream and cake to celebrate Bibilauri's birthday. Bibilauri is now 5 years old; Khotokhov is 4.

-- A man fled the motor vehicles office in Leesburg, Va., after a September incident in which he, silently and calmly, presented a DMV employee with a postcard photograph of a banana being shot by a bullet, and the legend "banana=DMV." The man then hurried out, and when several employees got to the parking lot in pursuit, there were bananas strewn around the lot but no one in sight. Said the Leesburg police chief, "This (man) is a different (kind)."

-- After a guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge, FBI agent James Hanson III paid a $105 fine and $12,000 in restitution to the Barbary Coast hotel in Las Vegas for a May incident in which he, for some reason that he has yet to make public, fired two shots from his service weapon at a lobster in a walk-in cooler. It was a late-night incident, with no one in the vicinity, but Hanson was captured on a surveillance tape. Hanson was in Las Vegas for an accounting seminar.

-- In August, around the time that the Ten Commandments monument was moved out of the Alabama Judicial Building in Montgomery because of a federal judge's ruling that it was too much of a religious statement for government property, Ms. Blanca Castillo petitioned county commissioners in Fort Worth, Texas, to remove a statue in front of the county's administrative building because it was insulting of religion. The offending statue, of a sleeping panther, struck Ms. Castillo as too paganistically feline, and therefore "sinister," and she recommended a statue of something else, such as a steer.

Kevin French, 46, pleaded guilty to shooting his neighbor in the head with an air rifle because he mowed his lawn too often (Elmira, N.Y., April). An inmate (unnamed in an internal report by a psychiatric prison) went into a violent rage and took a therapist hostage after fellow prisoners laughed at his drawing of "toilet paper" in a game of Pictionary (Abbotsford, British Columbia, July). Walter Travis, 68, was arrested for shooting a neighbor several times after the neighbor's dog pooped on his lawn (Indianapolis, August). Danny Ginn, 46, was arrested for commandeering a garbage truck at gunpoint because he was tired of the truck's driver using Ginn's driveway to turn around in (Bedford, Ky., August).

A 26-year-old man will be hospitalized "for months" in Illawarra, Australia, following an August accident that authorities speculate might have been inspired by the film "Jackass." The man was apparently walking across a room with a lighted firecracker between his posterior cheeks when he slipped and fell backward to the floor. The explosion resulted in a fractured pelvis, severe genital burns, hemorrhaging from the buttocks and ruptured urethra, leaving him incontinent and sexually dysfunctional.

Extreme body-piercing in Arizona was a subject fit only for the alternative newsweekly New Times Phoenix in 2001, but in August 2003, Tucson's mainstream press (Arizona Daily Star) followed an 18-year-old man, who was having four modified deep-sea (8-gauge) fishing hooks threaded into his back so that he could be hoisted toward the ceiling and suspended for 20 minutes of what the man said was the worst pain he'd ever felt (for the privilege of which he paid $150). Said the piercing shop's wrangler, Chris Glunt, "For some it's like a spiritual thing. I've suspended to clear my head. You can focus and concentrate on where you stand in life."

(1) Japanese scientists (Yokohama City University) said in September that they had created tumor-suppressing nerve stem cells that reverse the symptoms of Parkinson's disease in rats. (2) Wake Forest University researchers said in April that they had created a 700-mouse colony that could survive any number of direct cancer-cell injections. (3) University of Pittsburgh researchers said in April that they had developed a gene therapy in rats to restore surgery-damaged nerves needed for erections. None of the therapies has yet been successful with humans.

A 69-year-old man, on the job as an employee of a surveying company, stuck his head up from a manhole in the driveway of a residential development and was fatally hit by an SUV (Greenwich, Conn., September). A 16-year-old boy died from a punch in the chest during a game in which schoolboys take turns smacking each other to see who is the toughest (San Jose, Calif., July). A man lost control of his car and crashed into the O.R. Woodyard Co. funeral home and died at the scene (Columbus, Ohio, August).

Canadian military police seized 983 marijuana plants being grown by squatters on an active, 17-square-mile artillery range (Nicolet, Quebec). On the first day of a Philippine citizens' group's campaign to expose government officials who spend public funds on their mistresses, more than 500 tips came in to its hotline. And the New York Post revealed that among the 10 highest paid New York City municipal employees were three school psychiatrists and a gym teacher.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.)

Hurricane Isabel roared through Virginia Beach, Va., in September, inflicting serious property damage, despite public calls for prayer to keep it away by prominent resident Rev. Pat Robertson, whose Christian Broadcasting Network is headquartered there. (In 1998, Robertson condemned the city of Orlando, Fla., for sponsoring a Gay Days festival, and warned that the city could be torn up during the subsequent hurricane season, as God punishes those who promote homosexuality. Instead, the first hurricane of that season (Bonnie) made a direct hit on Virginia Beach.)

Alongside recent weight-loss and body-part-growth mass e-mails have been messages of Robert Todino, 22, of Woburn, Mass., who uses the spam (100 million messages so far) to locate time-travel hardware to buy because of his need to revisit his childhood, during which he believes a woman drugged him and implanted a device to give her followers the ability to monitor his every move. According to an August Wired magazine story, Todino has earnestly been seeking an "Acme 5X24 series time transducing capacitor with built-in temporal displacement" and an "AMD Dimensional Warp Generator module containing the GRC79 induction motor," among other gadgets, but that "the conspiracy" has subverted his attempts to acquire them.

The school district based in Elgin, Ill., decided in August that, although four new schools that cost $40 million were ready to be occupied, the district has no money to operate them and that they will thus stay locked up for the entire school year, at least. And a September General Accounting Office report described (based on undercover work in seven states) the customer-friendliness that motor vehicle offices display when people try to obtain driver's licenses fraudulently; clerks routinely give "applicants" back their bogus papers (instead of confiscating them) and cheerfully instruct them exactly how to "correct" the applications to assure that they'll get that license on the next attempt.

-- A July Wall Street Journal report revealed that some women's clothing stores in Tehran, Iran, do a brisk backroom business in tight, colorful, sheer, form-fitting robes that are severely frowned upon by the conservative Islamic government, which prescribes the formless hijab robe. One clerk showed one that was actually a "paper-thin beige tunic made of stretchy material with two slits on each side," "with a matching tank top." Other popular robes make strategic use of zippers for women who have to convert their flashy clothing into something conservative in a hurry.

-- In September, religious fundamentalists brawled in Brooklyn, N.Y., when the locally dominant Satmar sect of ultra-Orthodox Jews moved aggressively against slightly less-ultra-Orthodox Jews who were using a loophole to be able to push baby strollers and wheelchairs around during the Sabbath, when such activity is prohibited in public. "The (Satmars) were like animals," said a security guard who witnessed the incident. (The "eruv" loophole allows such labor inside a symbolic wall, which the more liberal ultras had constructed with sticks and string.)

-- State and local law-enforcement officials met in Salt Lake City in August to discuss the growing and seemingly intractable problem of the radical, Mormon-based polygamist community that reaches from Hildale, Utah, to Colorado City, Ariz., and which has been denounced by mainstream Mormons. Issues included not just religious freedom and forced marriage for young girls, but the $5 million annually in federal benefits that go to polygamist wives who say they are "single" mothers on their welfare applications.

-- In August, bookstores began selling Revolve, a glossy, 392-page softcover title that directs a thought-by-thought rendition of the New Testament to its target audience of teenage girls, alongside text on typical teen-magazine subject matter such as beauty, fashion secrets and dating. (For example, proper etiquette, according to Revolve founder Laurie Whaley, requires the boy to initiate a relationship: "There's no indication from Scripture that Mary Magdalene ever (called) Christ.")

-- Florida wildlife officials, suspecting that Israel A. Cervantes was illegally shooting at deer from his car in the Ocala National Forest in August, asked to inspect his home freezer for stored meat, and, professing innocence, Cervantes agreed. There was no deer meat, but apparently Cervantes forgot about the pound of marijuana in the freezer, and he was arrested.

-- William Penny was arrested in Greenwood, Ind., in August, putting a halt to his alleged identity-theft business. He was caught because, three times in a three-day period, he had aroused suspicion of several people in a neighborhood by approaching a certain ATM on foot, carrying a motorcycle helmet, donning the helmet as he neared the ATM's camera, making a withdrawal (with someone else's ID, allegedly), walking away, and then removing the helmet.

(1) "Man With Ear Ache Gets Vasectomy" (an August Reuters dispatch from Rio de Janeiro about a patient who answered the wrong doctor's call at a clinic and endured the procedure because he thought the ear inflammation had deep roots). (2) "Groups Fight Over Fate of Feral Chihuahuas" (an August Reuters report on 170 wild Chihuahuas taken from a breeder in Acton, Calif., and ultimately given to one animal rescue outfit rather than another). (3) "Woman With No Baby Given Caesarean" (a September Melbourne (Australia) Herald Sun report on an overweight woman who went into cardiac arrest at a hospital after telling doctors she was pregnant, motivating them to try to deliver the baby in case they couldn't save her). (She survived; the baby never existed.)

The Danish beer company Carlsberg announced it was relocating a plant from Stockholm, Sweden, to Gothenburg because there was too much uranium in the spring it uses near Stockholm. And the interior minister of the Netherlands, citing public concern, proposed to ban police officers from coffee shops that also legally sell marijuana. And authorities in Putnam County, W.Va., announced that someone had broken into a sheriff's deputy's home while he was away on vacation and set up a methamphetamine lab.

Furious at a rush-hour accident that blocked traffic in the Boston suburb of Weymouth, motorist (and software engineer) Anna Gitlin, 25, went ballistic at a police officer and then allegedly bumped him with her car, screaming, "I don't care who (expletive deleted by the Boston Globe) died. I'm more important" (June). And Joseph DiGirolamo, 43, distraught over domestic problems, allegedly barricaded himself inside an ex-girlfriend's home in Boston and hurled household items (TV set, room air conditioner, broomstick, a pot of boiling water) at police officers, threatening to kill them, before he was subdued (May).

A 20-year-old man was killed in Denver during afternoon rush hour on Sept. 1 when he jumped from a car going about 40 mph; according to friends, he had been planning a nonfatal jump for a while because he wanted to endure some trauma in order to muster the courage to get a tattoo. And a 15-year-old boy in Maryland Heights, Mo., who had been demonstrating his pain tolerance by clobbering himself on the head with his skateboard, invited a pal to take a shot, too; the first blow knocked him out, and he died four days later.

A 47-year-old man was arrested for allegedly trying to steal a woman's backpack, his 177th arrest (Boulder, Colo.). A 36-year-old man was captured by a SWAT team after holding off police for 10 hours in a hotel room, in an incident begun when he threatened to kill hotel workers because there was no ice (Houston). And absolutely no one voted in a school board election in Mississippi County, Ark., on Sept. 16, not even Carl Miner, who was the only person on the ballot.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.)

A man, so far unidentified, created a frenzy in London in September when he began offering a free call-in service in which he (dressed in a full "superhero" costume of colorful tights, cape and mask), armed with a metal-cutting circular saw, would dispatch himself to help motorists whose cars had been immobilized by unpopular, police-installed wheel clamps (called in many American cities the "Denver boot"). "Angle Grinder Man," with a Web site and hotline number, said he had freed 12 cars so far and doesn't mind breaking the law because it's a "public service." "And I like wearing the costume."

Matthew Long was acquitted of assaulting his girlfriend, Vicki Smith, in Cincinnati in September. Smith (250 pounds) had accused Long (116 pounds, one leg) of choking her with their dog's leash (although before the leash could be introduced as evidence, the dog reportedly ate it). Long testified that what really happened was that he grabbed Smith in a desperate attempt to prevent her from walking out, clinging to her as she dragged him through the house. ("Love does that," Long added.) When Smith admitted that she could throw Long around "like a rag doll," the judge found him not guilty. Both Smith and Long are married to other people.

The Cambodian government is planning a tourist attraction (museum, theater complex, food service) at the site of the cremated ashes of Pol Pot, the dictator who directed the "killing fields" murders of 2 million people. And several established, online gambling parlors ran full betting boards in August on this year's Little League World Series, according to Editor & Publisher magazine. And Derrick and Patricia Cogan of Devon, England, still managed to enjoy a scheduled September holiday in their mobile home, despite the fact that just days before, it sustained about US$3,400 in damage after being hit by a flying cow that fell off of a 30-foot cliff.

-- Easy Collars: Pamela J. Reardon was arrested in Monroe, Ohio, in August and charged with buying groceries using a stolen check; she was easy to track down because she had tried to save even more on her purchase by using her own Marsh Supermarket discount card. And Mr. Lem Lom was arrested in Janesville, Wis., in August after he had allegedly stolen an electronic gadget from the front yard of a home; it turns out that the device was the base station for the pre-trial-release ankle monitor worn by the home's resident, and removal of the base station automatically signals the police, who can track its whereabouts easily.

-- Lyle Hartford Van Dyke Jr. was convicted in July in Portland, Ore., of trying to pass US$3 million in bogus currency that featured a photo of the Queen of England. And in September, Michael Christopher Harris, 24, was arrested after he tried to pass a $200 bill with a photo of George W. Bush at a Blue Flame convenience store in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., but then police found out that before that, he had actually gotten a cashier at a Food Lion in town to accept one, and give him back change.

-- In August, scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division, traveling by boat on a research mission to attach satellite-tracking devices to whales to study their habitats, managed to capture what they believe is a historical first photo: the water pattern that results from the bubble when a huge whale releases flatulence. Said researcher Nick Gales, "We got away from the bow of the ship very quickly. (I)t does stink."

-- Scientists working out of the Lawn Hill (Queensland) National Park in Australia announced in June that they had found a male Lavarack's turtle, which was thought to be extinct but has apparently survived relatively unchanged for thousands of years. The turtle's primary distinction is that its sex organs and its breathing apparatus are located in the anus.

-- Awesome: In August, surgeons in Beijing successfully removed a year-old baby's third leg, which was growing in her back and was actually her undeveloped twin's leg. And in June, a 26-year-old woman gave birth to a baby girl with one body and two heads at the Abu al-Reesh hospital in Cairo, Egypt. And in Rensselaer County, N.Y., two unrelated groups of girls out hiking discovered a turtle with two heads (Poestenkill, N.Y., May) and a frog with no eyes (Raymertown, N.Y., July).

-- The New York Post reported in August that some corporate meeting planners in New York and Los Angeles are scheduling upscale gourmet buffets in which the food (sushi is the favorite) is served on the body of a young nude or semi-nude woman who lies on the buffet table for up to three hours. Raw Catering (New York) and Global Cuisine (both cities) charge up to $700 per guest.

-- An August New York Daily News report on Manhattan's housing scarcity revealed these recent offerings: a 250-square-foot condo near Gramercy Park, $167,500; a 240-square-foot walkup on West 10th Street, $179,500; and a 160-square-foot co-op in the West Village for $135,000 (quickly taken). Said one agent, "It's owning a piece of Manhattan."

-- In July, retired developer Bill Martin, 65, announced that he has agreed to buy a dilapidated park near Hudson, Fla., and convert it from its former use as a racially segregated nudist camp into a nonsegregated, Christian-themed nudist resort. Said Martin, "Body shame is an indicator of our alienation from God, self and others. It is a bondage from hell and, according to the Bible, a direct result of Satan's deception."

At press time, Chicago police detective Janice R. Govern was scheduled for a dismissal hearing based on a 2001 incident in which, allegedly, she nonchalantly continued to shop in a Dominick's store even after a customer told her that the bank branch inside the store was being held up. According to a witness, she told the fellow customer to call 911 but that she resumed shopping and in fact was waiting in a checkout line when uniformed officers arrived at the store.

At least nine child-care centers in Melbourne, Australia, have banned all stories about crime-fighting superheroes, lest it encourage aggressiveness (August). A primary school in Birmingham, England, banned parents from its annual sports day so that the kids who did not win contests and races would not feel so bad (May). The British Health and Safety Executive decided that a European Union standard for multi-story buildings should also apply to mountain climbers, thus requiring ice and snow warnings posted on mountainsides and the use of an additional safety rope for all climbers (August). An Irish government minister encouraged churches to investigate whether burning incense during services might violate the law on secondary smoke (August).

New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg (whose net worth is estimated at nearly $5 billion) was rejected for a Sears credit card as he shopped in Queens (and after the error was rectified, his approved card arrived with a $4,000 spending limit). President Lucio Gutierrez of Ecuador commenced a campaign to rid the nation of its notorious indifference to punctuality, starting with an interview over Teleamazonas TV, but he showed up late. A 42-year-old salesman for Tires Plus in Athens, Ga., was charged with offering a female customer four tires for sex.

Thanks this week to Thomas Shultz, Kathleen Tibbetts, Bill Daniels, Matthew Rushing, Michael Memmo, Nick White, Tim Farley, Michael Hughes, David Swanson, David Savage, Chris Suver, Dawn Albrecht, Daniel Withrow, Jan Wolitzky, Craig Oakley, Gary Abbott, Jamie Anderson, and Emerson Dameron, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or WeirdNews@earthlink.net or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.)