In September, prominent California cardiologist Maurice Buchbinder had his privileges revoked at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla after he allegedly roughed up an unruly angioplasty patient during and immediately after the procedure. Buchbinder was so irritated by the patient's combativeness that he even (according to witnesses interviewed by state medical licensing officials) delivered a pair of what could be described as "Three Stooges" moves: bopping the patient in the head with the tip of his elbow and twisting the patient's nose until it turned "bluish."

(1) A Japanese clothing manufacturer, Kochou-fuku, announced in August a line of air-conditioned shirts, with two tiny battery-operated fans inside to evaporate perspiration (for the equivalent of about $95). (One drawback: The shirt billows out, suggesting that the wearer is overweight.) (2) Among the recent recipients of Marin County (Calif.) Green Business certificates of environmental awareness was Pleasures of the Heart, a sex-toy and lingerie store that sells, among other items, rechargeable vibrators and erotic undergarments made of organic bamboo fabric.

-- Noted Israeli plastic surgeon Eyal Gur said in August that he expects approval next year for his revolutionary breast-lift procedure ("an internal bra") in which an actual thin titanium bra-like frame is implanted just under the skin with silicone cups to hold the breasts up. Dr. Gur said the procedure will be quicker (40 minutes long), less invasive (local anesthesia only) and less expensive (no hospital stay) than today's breast lifts.

-- Voices: Last year, William McCartney-Moore, 9, was rushed to the hospital in York, England, following a seizure and, after surgery, was mute for several weeks, until he finally spoke, not in his strong "Yorkshire" accent but in "the Queen's English" as his mother described it (though his accent returned shortly). The outcome was similar for Czech race-car driver Matej Kus, 18, who was knocked out cold in a UK speedway accident in September, only to awaken speaking not in his habitually broken English, but with flawless diction. (His new "dialect" lasted only a few days, and Kus says that he remembers none of it.)

-- Endangered! (1) Biologists who have been studying "Lonesome George," the sole survivor of a species of Galapagos Island tortoises, told Reuters News Service in July that they are skeptical he will ever mate, even though he may live another 100 years. After so many abortive attempts to pair him with a female (even having randy young male and female tortoises demonstrate mating for him), they say George remains totally uninterested. (2) And in Australia, a turtle species named in 1990 for Steve Irwin is now thought to be growing endangered, according to an Australian Associated Press dispatch in August. The "Elseya irwini" is one of a few turtles that respirate through their excretory openings.

(1) Alex Baker, 96, told London's Daily Mail in May that he is very happy to have lived all his life in the same Portsmouth house in which he was born (although the neighborhood has certainly changed a lot since 1911). (2) David and Jean Davidson, who are retired and own an apartment in Sheffield, told the Daily Mail in September that they've actually been living at a TraveLodge motel for the last 22 years because they prefer the simplicity. (And of course during a holiday in the U.S., the Davidsons made sure to stay at TraveLodges.)

-- Contrary Thinking: (1) Three U.S. finance professors, working with business data provided to the government of Denmark, concluded that a company's profitability usually falls following a death in the CEO's immediate family. However, the professors found (according to a September Wall Street Journal report), that profitability slightly increased if the family death was that of the CEO's mother-in-law. (2) The Tata Group, a Mumbai, India, company that handles customer-service calls for several U.S. firms, has outsourced some of its work to a firm in Ohio (according to an August Fortune magazine report), on behalf of a client that insists on operators knowledgeable about American geography.

-- The makers of Veet Hair Removal Cream sponsored a survey this year for people to vote on which celebrity female has the sexiest walk and, to lend the promotion some respectability, hired Cambridge University professor Richard Weber to explain a strut's sexiness via measurable physical characteristics. Weber eventually quit the project, according to a September report in London's Guardian, in part because Veet named Jessica Alba No. 1 when the results he saw showed Angelina Jolie the winner. Weber used such calculations as waist-to-hip and thigh-to-calf ratios to explain Jolie's apparent success: Jolie's "slightly larger waist may give her the torso strength with which to produce a better angular swing and bounce to the hips than (smaller) stars such as Eva Longoria (and Alba)."

Frederick Cronin is challenging the suspension of his New Hampshire driver's license, claiming that his blood-alcohol reading (0.13) was not properly obtained. State law calls for two readings, with the second 20 minutes after the first, and Cronin claims that his second test was administered too soon. During the 20-minute period, he said, he had burped, and state law requires the 20-minute delay to restart following any "vomit[ing], regurgitat[ing] or belch[ing." However, in June, a hearing examiner accepted the ticketing officer's testimony that Cronin never "belch[ed]" but rather emitted only a "dry burp," which the examiner described as air emanating not from the stomach but from closer to the mouth.

Convicted sex offender Paul D. Brunelle-Apley, 26, was arrested again, in Madison Township, Ohio, in September, when his attempt to make up with his 14-year-old girlfriend came to public attention. According to police, Brunelle-Apley was seeing another girl on the side (age 15), and in a display of remorse, he delivered flowers and a teddy bear to his main girlfriend while she was in class at Madison High.

According to police in Warsaw, Poland, novelist Krystian Bala might have gotten away with torturing and murdering a businessman in 2000 if only he had resisted writing about his crime in his 2003 novel, "Amok." The trail for the killer had been cold for several years until a tipster informed police of the book. In the plot, which authorities say bore a distinct resemblance to the 2000 murder, were details that police say could only have been known by the killer. After investigating, police found several other ties Bala had to the crime, including the fact that the victim was Bala's ex-wife's lover. Bala was sentenced in September to 25 years in prison.

Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Small-time drug operators, thinking they are keeping a low profile, continue to have their hideouts inadvertently discovered by police. In June, a single-engine plane crash-landed outside a home near Baton Rouge, La., and responding police discovered marijuana plants in the yard. In September in Escatawpa, Miss., Curtiss Coleman, 53, attempting to dial 411 directory assistance, mistakenly dialed 911, though he immediately hung up. However, police routinely investigate dropped-911 calls and discovered Coleman's methamphetamine lab.

Tall Buildings Claim Three More: A 27-year-old man who idolized the late singer Jim Morrison accidentally fell to his death from a New York City apartment building in July. (Morrison himself was known as a daredevil, with a fondness of walking on the ledges of buildings.) And in June, a man and a woman in their early 20s were found dead and naked next to a four-story building in Columbia, S.C., and police concluded that they had accidentally fallen. (The pair had apparently discarded their clothing on the roof and, said police, possibly had tumbled off while having sex.)

(Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com or www.NewsoftheWeird.com. Send your Weird News to WeirdNewsTips@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)

Ralph Whittington, 57, retired in 2000 as curator of the main reading room at the Library of Congress, but was better known as the "King of Porn" for his private collection that he recently sold (500 boxes' worth) to the Museum of Sex in New York City.

Whittington's home (which he shares with his mother, after his wife left him) was, before the sale, "packed to the rafters," said the museum's buyer to The Washington Post in August. "Downstairs, you had to walk sideways to get through the rooms." Said Mom, "It's something he loves. You see men his age going to bars or on dope. But he (was) home day and night (indexing and cross-referencing). That (gave) me peace of mind."

Ferruccio Pilenga recently turned out another class of graduates at his Italian Dog Rescue School, which he says is the only one in the world that trains canines (mostly Newfoundlands, with some Labradors) to jump out of helicopters into rough waters for rescues at sea. Pilenga told London's Independent in August that it takes about three (human) years to teach them, and that they are of the most use in treacherous waters near rocks, where a rescue boat would be shredded, but his dogs, on long leashes, can fight through flailing arms and get the victim to hold on while the dog is dragged to the rescue vessel.

-- (1) Stephen Peterson, 42, went back to court in Sydney, Australia, in August to challenge the "not guilty/insanity" decision against him nearly 10 years ago, claiming that he should have been allowed to call as defense witnesses certain "higher beings" who had ordered him to bash the victim. Those entities included the "sun god," Spacedust, and the "plasma being," Kadec. The court turned him down. (2) British physician Stuart Brown, 37, was sentenced in August only to a small fine after a conviction for brutally beating his wife. Brown had explained the fight by saying that a "red mist" had descended on the room, causing him to lose control.

-- Not Our Fault: Dennis and Betty Hager filed a lawsuit in Wilmington, N.C., in July against the school system for causing them emotional pain and suffering by not stopping the love affair between their 16-year-old daughter and the school's married, 40-year-old track coach. However, the Hagers have already signed a form (to satisfy state law) to allow the daughter to marry the coach.

-- Helene de Gier filed a lawsuit earlier this year against the National Postcode Lottery of the Netherlands, claiming emotional distress from not winning, even though she never entered. That particular lottery picks a geographic postal code at random and awards prizes to all of its residents who have entered that lottery. Since so many of her neighbors were flaunting prizes, she felt particularly humiliated, she says. (Seven people on her street won the equivalent of about $18 million each, according to a June Associated Press dispatch.)

-- "Zero Tolerance" Is Just for the Kids: (1) One Alabama teacher, already fired but awaiting trial on a charge of raping a student, has not only received his regular paychecks for nearly two years, and will continue to until the trial is over, but has also been awarded two routine raises, based on a 2004 state law boosting teachers' rights (according to an August Associated Press review of records). (2) The largest school district in Montreal, Quebec, was ordered by an arbitrator to rehire a teacher whom it had fired in 2004 for illegally failing to disclose a conviction for killing his wife. The arbitrator ruled the firing improper, in that homicide is unrelated to the teacher's classroom work.

-- It's Good to Be a British Prisoner (cont.): Britain's chief inspector of prisons, Anne Owers, included in a recent inspection report of facilities her advice that prison wardens try to improve respect for inmates by having guards address prisoners by their preferred names and knock on cell doors before entering. A guards' association spokesman said the suggestion lacked even a "modicum" of sense.

-- Louisiana prosecutors want the death penalty in the first trial for accused serial killer Sean Gillis, but to get that for an individual murder, state law requires an "aggravating circumstance" beyond the murder, such as kidnapping or robbery. At an August hearing, a prosecutor said Gillis had actually "robbed" his first victim, in that he had absconded with one of her arms and part of a leg. Gillis' lawyer argued that that was not "robbery," in that those parts were merely "left over" from the homicide.

-- In Abbotsford, Wis., in August, Harvey Miller, 43, and Edwin Marzinske, 55, were both ticketed for DUI while driving the same car. Miller has no legs but was steering; Marzinske was operating the foot pedals. Hence, both men argued to police that neither of them was, by himself, "operating" the car.

Fetishes on Parade: A 50-year-old man was detained by police in August after complaints at Disneyland near Paris. Witnesses said the man had sprinkled itching powder on young children so that he could video-record them scratching themselves. And in September, Norman Hutchins, 56, was again jailed after incidents at England's Bradford Royal Infirmary, where he faked an illness to gain entrance so that he could steal equipment for his sexual gratification. Police records showed Hutchins as obsessed, since 1970, with oxygen masks, gowns and syringes, among other items.

According to the Internet security firm CardCops Inc., online credit-card hacking brokers appear to have stolen the identity of a "Herman Munster," whose "personal data" appeared in chat rooms frequented by such thieves. CardCops told reporters in June that in all likelihood, an international hacker, preparing a list of accounts to sell to identity thieves, and unfamiliar with the 1960s TV show "The Munsters," probably fell for a bogus MasterCard application under Herman's name and TV address, 1313 Mocking Bird Lane.

-- Adding to the list of stories that were formerly weird but which now occur with such frequency that they must be retired from circulation: (83) The frustrated taxpayer who thinks he's punishing the government if he makes his large payment in only small change, such as Cary Malchow, who paid off his property tax bill in Muncie, Ind., in August by making employees count $12,656.07 in coins and $1 bills. And (84) blood-alcohol testing machines that show, with alarming frequency, death-defying results of around .40 and higher, even though each instance is reported in the press (based on "medical texts") as nearly lethal, such as cases two months apart this year in Washington, in which Deana Jarrett, 54, scored .47, and Rebecca Lingbloom, 45, registered .50. (Neither died or even became seriously ill.)

-- The category of stories of people keeping deceased relatives' bodies around, based either on fear of losing the relationships or a psychotic belief that the deceased will regenerate (or sometimes, to conceal the death so that government checks keep coming), has been retired. But that was before this: A funeral parlor in London told The Times in September that it was finally time to bury Annie Lamas, who died 10 years ago but whose body has been kept in the parlor's cold storage unit by her two adult daughters, who visit almost weekly to chat with her and touch her up. Elder daughter Josephine, 59, was said to make sure Mom's lipstick is fresh (on a body that has wasted to the point of leathery skin stretched over bones) and place fresh padding on her stomach cavity.

(Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com or www.NewsoftheWeird.com. Send your Weird News to WeirdNewsTips@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)

In August, a Roman Catholic bishop in the Netherlands, Martinus Muskens, suggested that Christians start referring to God as "Allah" as a way of relieving world tensions. "Allah is a very beautiful word . ... What does God care what we call him? It is our problem." A priest in Rome said Muskens' intentions were good, "but his theology needs a little fine-tuning." Muskens said he spent eight years in Indonesia, where Catholic priests used "Allah" during Mass.

-- Bookkeepers Wanted: (1) Pentagon investigators discovered in August that a small South Carolina company fraudulently collected $20.5 million in shipping costs, including one invoice of $999,798 for sending two washers (cost: 19 cents each) to a base in Texas. According to Bloomberg News, the Defense Department was said to have a policy of automatically and unquestioningly paying shipping bills labeled "priority." (2) The Senate Finance Committee found in April that more than 450,000 federal employees and retirees owe back federal income taxes (totaling about $3 billion), including almost 5 percent of the employees and retirees of the U.S. Tax Court.

-- Bureaucrats Being Bureaucrats: (1) About 30 Iowa school districts had their funding applications for preschool grants tossed out in September, the state Department of Education said, because the paperwork was not double-spaced, as required. (2) In August, the Palestinian Authority admitted that, after Hamas violently split from the government in mid-June, civil servants nonetheless failed to act quickly and thus in July continued to pay the salaries of about 3,000 Hamas security officers (who were formerly PA employees, but who by then were fighting the PA).

-- Jane Balogh, 66, was informed in September that she will not be prosecuted for defrauding elections officials in Seattle, despite having illegally registered her dog, Duncan M. MacDonald, to vote. Balogh, protesting how easy officials have made it for people to vote illegally, put her home phone account in Duncan's name, which is all the proof required for registration, then signed him up, and when an absentee ballot arrived, she went public about her scheme. However, despite the public confession, Duncan continued to be sent official absentee ballots for the two subsequent election cycles.

-- Just Say No: In September, police in Hertfordshire, England, stood fast under criticism for their program of placing posters around the area reading, "Don't Commit Crime." Said a police spokeswoman, "If stating the obvious helps to reduce crime or has any impact at all, we will do it." (The police also installed signs at gas stations: "All Fuel Must Be Paid For.")

-- People Who Are Messes: (1) Tommy Tester, 58, minister of Gospel Baptist Church in Bristol, Va., was arrested in July after he allegedly urinated at a car wash, in front of children and police officers, while wearing a skirt. (Police said alcohol was involved.) (2) Catherine Delgado, 35, was arrested in Annapolis, Md., in August after she appeared, smudged with fudge, in a hotel lobby around midnight with "large slabs of fudge bulging out of her pockets" (according to a Washington Post story). A police officer later checked a nearby Fudge Kitchen store and found the door inexplicably open and a large display quantity missing from the front window. (Police said alcohol was involved, along with fudge.)

At about 9 p.m. on Aug. 23, a fire broke out in the Comedy Zone nightclub in West Knoxville, Tenn., right in the middle of an act in which a hypnotist had just placed 10 audience members into a trance. However, despite an "everyone for himself" attitude that typically marks such emergencies, the 10 hypnotized subjects somehow managed to make it out of the club safely.

The adolescent offspring of some well-to-do parents are serious art collectors, according to a September Wall Street Journal report, and their interest appears not to be motivated solely by parents' strategies to shield income from the tax collector. Ms. Dakota King, 9, for example, owns 40 pieces and specializes in animals and "happy colors." Ms. Shammiel Fleischer-Amoros, 10, who admitted, "I'm really scared, but Daddy told me I have to negotiate," succeeded in getting $200 knocked off of a $3,200 sculpture she really wanted. An 11-year-old last year "waved a paddle" to win a $352,000 Jeff Koons sculpture.

Just when Internet newspaper sites appear to be gaining ground as replacements for printed editions, a 70-year-old woman identified only as Maggie told the Edmonton (Alberta) Sun in September that her paper edition of the Sun is a crucial part of her daily diet, literally. She eats it, in strips, and has, she said, for the past seven years because it tastes good. "I can't explain it," she said, and it was only when she recently experienced a blockage of her esophagus, and doctors found a ball of paper, that she revealed her obsession. Doctors cited by the Sun said that except for the blockage danger, newspaper eating is not unhealthful.

Too Puny for a Life of Crime: Keith Bellanger, 20, failed in his attempted burglary in Duluth, Minn., in September when homeowner Wayne Boniface, age 69, walked in and beat him up so thoroughly that Bellanger had all his clothes ripped off trying to get away. And in Bay Shore, N.Y., in September, a 32-year-old man wielding a tire iron, who was attempting to mug Bruce Ferraro, 74, on the street, was forced to abandon the job and run for it when Ferraro, after a struggle, took the iron away from him. (The mugger was captured by police nearby when his car stalled.)

Some Americans continue to prefer to "do it themselves" to get rid of pests on their property, with tragic results. In June, Mike Harstad of Jamestown, Calif., attempting to eliminate a wasps' nest with a can of Pledge and a cigarette lighter, ultimately burned down his mobile home and contents and destroyed an outbuilding, a truck, a boat and a trailer. In August, a Whitehall, Pa., man, William Sekol, 82, attempting to destroy a yellow jackets' nest beneath a storm sewer grate in his front yard, put a dried tree over the grate, doused it with gasoline, and lit it (supposedly to suffocate the yellow jackets underneath). However, some gasoline ran into the sewer, where its fumes combusted. In the resulting explosion, Sekol's mustache and eyebrows were singed.

Surprisingly Complicated: A 24-year-old woman in Lawrenceville, Ga. (in July), and a 59-year-old woman in Lincolnton, N.C. (in August), were killed after failing to negotiate driver's-side devices allowing them entrance to, respectively, a gated parking lot and an automatic car wash. The Georgia woman had leaned out her window to insert a card into the gate-opening machine when her car lurched forward and pinned her head between the car and the door. The North Carolina woman had reached out her open car door to punch in a code for the wash when her car lurched forward, similarly pinning her head. (Police in both cases said that the cars should have been in Park.)

(Visit Chuck Shepherd daily at http://NewsoftheWeird.blogspot.com or www.NewsoftheWeird.com. Send your Weird News to WeirdNewsTips@yahoo.com or P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)