Love Can Mess You Up: Before Arthur David Horn met his future bride Lynette (a "metaphysical healer") in 1988, he was a tenured professor at Colorado State, with a Ph.D. in anthropology from Yale, teaching a mainstream course in human evolution. With Lynette's guidance (after a revelatory week with her in California's Trinity Mountains, searching for Bigfoot), Horn evolved, himself, resigning from Colorado State and seeking to remedy his inadequate Ivy League education. At a conference in Denver in September, Horn said he now realizes that humans come from an alien race of shape-shifting reptilians that continue to control civilization through the secretive leaders known as the Illuminati. Other panelists in Denver included enthusiasts describing their own experiences with various alien races.

-- Health Insurance Follies: (1) Blue Shield California twice refused to pay $2,700 emergency room claims by Rosalinda Miran-Ramirez, concluding that it was not a "reasonable" decision for her to go to the ER that morning when she awoke to a shirt saturated with blood from what turned out to be a breast tumor. Only after a KPIX-TV reporter intervened in September did Blue Shield pay the claim. (2) National Women's Law Center found that the laws of eight states permit insurance companies to deny health coverage to a battered spouse (as a "pre-existing condition," since batterers tend to be recidivists), according to a September report by Kaiser Health News.

-- Child "Protection" Caseworkers: (1) In November 2008, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services returned an infant to her mother's care two weeks after the woman had, according to police, left her in a toilet bowl. (Three months later, following further investigation, the woman was charged with attempted murder, and the baby was taken away.) (2) Texas child agency caseworkers assigned a low priority (non-"immediate" risk) after a home visit in May in Arlington revealed that a violent, long-troubled mother routinely left three children, ages 6, 5 and 1, home alone all day while she was at work. In September, the 1-year-old was found dead.

-- On Aug. 28, a suicide bomber approached Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, intending to kill them both using a new, mysterious device that an al-Qaida video had earlier proclaimed would be impossible to detect. The terrorist blew up only himself, though, and security investigators concluded that his "bomb" was a 3-inch-long explosive hidden in his rectum. A Transportation Security Administration official downplayed the puny power of such a small device (but its effectiveness in bringing down an airplane is still an open question).

-- While state and local governments furiously pare budgets by laying off and furloughing workers, retired bureaucrats who receive defined-benefit pensions (rather than flexible 401(k) retirement accounts) continue to receive fixed payouts. According to a California organization advocating that government retirement benefits be changed from pensions to 401(k) accounts, one retired fire chief in northern California gets $241,000 a year, and a retired small-town city administrator's pension is $499,674.84 per year, guaranteed.

-- In September, Hadi al-Mutif, 34, who has been on death row in Saudi Arabia for the last 16 years, following his conviction for insulting the Prophet Muhammad, was given a five-year prison sentence after insulting the Saudi justice system in a TV interview.

-- Among the ramblings on the blog of George Sodini (the gunman who killed three women in a Pennsylvania health club, and then himself, in August) was his belief that, having once been "saved," he would enter heaven even if he happened to commit mass murder. Sodini attributed the belief to one of his church's pastors, and another church official, Deacon Jack Rickard, told the Associated Press that he personally believes Sodini is in heaven ("once saved, always saved"), though Rickard somehow split the difference: "He'll be in heaven, but he won't have any rewards because he did evil."

-- The San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals operates an assistance-dog program under a $500,000 grant and not only provides the trained dog but also yearly "refresher" sessions to keep the dog sharp. However, client Patricia Frieze told SF Weekly in September that the organization had asked her whether it could do the refresher course this year by telephone instead of a home visit by a trainer.

-- Landlords Prevail: (1) In July, Chuck Bartlett was finally granted legal possession of his house in Kenai, Alaska, overcoming a squatter's delaying tactics aided by local laws that frustrated eviction despite clear evidence of Bartlett's ownership. (Bartlett waited out the two-month standoff by pitching a tent in his own yard.) The squatter's final, futile challenge involved scribbling an obviously bogus "lease" that, even though Bartlett never signed it (or even saw it), the sheriff had to honor because only a judge, following a formal hearing, can rule it invalid. (2) In Raleigh, N.C., in July, Leslie Smith, 62, had no such problem. He was arrested after calling the police to report that he had shot a woman who had been living in his house. "She won't get out (of the house). So I shot her."

-- (1) Douglas Jones, 57, was cited by federal park rangers in September for having, over the course of a year, littered Joshua Tree National Park in California with more than 3,000 golf balls. Jones explained that he tossed the balls from his car, believing he was thus honoring deceased golfers. (2) John Manley, 50, breathed pain-free in September for the first time in two years after surgeons discovered the source of his coughing and discomfort. Manley said he "like(s) to take big gulps of drink," which is his only explanation for why a 1-inch piece of a plastic utensil was lodged not in his stomach but in his lung. Duke University surgeon Momen Wahidi recalled the scene in the operating room as they tried to make out what the fragment was: "We started reading out loud, 'a-m-b-u-r-g-e-r'" (for Wendy's Old-Fashioned Hamburgers).

-- Two men were arrested in a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, in September after allegedly scamming four local businessmen out of a total of $160,000, but the scam may reflect worse on the victims than the perpetrators. The victims (who might have considered themselves savvy entrepreneurs to have earned that much money) were somehow persuaded by the alleged scammers that bills of currency can duplicate themselves if soaked in a secret chemical overnight. The perpetrators "demonstrated" the chemical's power by a sleight-of-hand, probably involving a hidden $100 bill that, after soaking, appeared alongside an original $100 bill. (Readers who want to try chemically doubling their money thusly will need bleach, baby powder and hair spray, which the perpetrators had recently purchased.)

-- More Examples of Miracle Drugs: (1) Mitchell Deslatte, 25, drove in and parked at a Louisiana state trooper station in Baton Rouge in July, staggered inside, and asked the man behind the desk for a room, thinking he was in a hotel. He was arrested for DUI. (2) Terence Loyd, 32, pleaded guilty in Mansfield, La., in August to possession of cocaine. He had been arrested in March when construction workers saw him on his hands and knees, rolling in (and eating) mud and growling like a dog.

-- From a Legal Notice of a Name Change in the Honolulu Advertiser, Aug. 24, 2005: change name from "Waiaulia Alohi anail ke alaamek kawaipi olanihenoheno Kam Paghmani" to "Waiaulia Alohi anail ke alaamek kawaipi olanihenoheno Kam."

Beneath the luxury hotels on the Las Vegas Strip is a series of flood tunnels that are home to dozens of people who work odd jobs such as hustling leftover change in casino slot machines. A correspondent for London's The Sun gained the trust of a few and even photographed their "apartments" for a September dispatch, showing well-stocked quarters, with scrounged appliances and furniture and even one makeshift shower rigged from a water cooler. "Amy," who has lived in the tunnels with her husband, "J.R.," for two years, said she "love(s)" the Vegas lifestyle and appears in no hurry to leave her setup. "Kathryn" (who lives with boyfriend "Steven") also appears content except, she says, for the fragrance, the black widow spiders, and the periodic rush of water through their home (threatening any "valuables" not stacked on crates).

-- David Cerullo came to prominence after purchasing the television studios abandoned by Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and established what is perhaps the boldest of all Christian "prosperity gospel" ministries (that pays him an annual base salary of $1.52 million). With his father, semi-retired Pentecostal preacher Morris Cerullo, they assure followers that the more they give, the more God will return to them. In a recent TV spot, Morris, speaking first in tongues and then addressing the currently credit-challenged: "When you (donate), the windows of heaven ... open for you ... 100 fold." "Debt cancellation!" (The on-screen message: "Call now with your $900 offering and receive God's debt cancellation!")

-- In September, a judge in Stuart, Fla., was about to sentence pastor Rodney McGill for real estate fraud, but McGill was undaunted, addressing a courtroom prayer for his enemies: "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, for every witness called against me, I pray cancer in their lives, lupus, brain tumor, pancreatic cancer." The judge then sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

-- The cheap-drink Tuesday night special at the Attic bar in Newcastle, England, in early September was a money-back guarantee at the end of the night to anyone who could still legally drive (measured by the bar's breathalyzer), with the evening's most-alcohol-saturated customer drinking free the following week. The Newcastle City Council soon convinced the bar it was a bad idea.

-- The Department of Homeland Security (relying on a study later termed by the Government Accounting Office to have been rushed and flawed) decided in January that the best place for its new $700 million research facility on infectious diseases would be in Kansas, which happens to be in the heart of America's "tornado alley." The GAO report, leaked to The Washington Post in July, claimed the risk of accidental release of dangerous pathogens is far greater than the department assumed.

-- Canadian medical appliance manufacturer X4 Labs, which sells a penis-elongating traction device for around $400, disclosed in August that it is making a solid gold version on contract for a Saudi businessman. The buyer claimed he required gold only because of allergies, but then also ordered it ornamented with diamonds and rubies, according to an August Agence France-Presse report. X4's cachet as a medical-appliance supplier is expected to get the device past Saudi customs, which normally bans sex toys.

-- Four apparently quite bored people in their early 20s were arrested in September in Bennington, Vt., after a Chili's restaurant burglar alarm sounded at 4:30 a.m. According to police, the four intended to remove and steal the large chili on the restaurant's sign, using a hacksaw and power drill. However, not possessing a battery-operated drill, they had strung extension cords together running to the nearest outlet they could find, which was 470 feet away, across four lanes of highway and through a Home Depot parking lot.

(1) Marine Sgt. Michael Ferschke was killed in Iraq in 2008, but his wife and their son, both Japanese citizens, cannot enter the United States. The couple exchanged vows under Japanese law by long-distance proxy, as Michael was about to deploy, but immigration law does not recognize such unions, unless subsequently "consummated." (The Ferschkes had conceived their child before they were married.) (2) Marine Lance Cpl. Josef Lopez took the Corps' advice and received a smallpox vaccination just before deploying to Iraq, but after nine days in country, he went into a coma with a rare adverse reaction that has left him permanently, seriously disabled. However, since he was felled by the vaccine and not "combat," he is ineligible for special disability funds to help seriously wounded troops (for such expenses as modifying a home to accommodate a disability).

In September, police in Bonney Lake, Wash., were seeking "Dale," who had been reported hanging around the high school, trying to befriend male athletes. In the most recent incident, he lured a boy to the library, offering help on a term paper project, but when the boy declined and walked away, "Dale" jumped on his back and asked for a piggyback ride. (Fondness for piggyback rides is not a widely practiced obsession, though the legendary illustrator R. Crumb liked to receive them in lieu of sex, according to an ex-girlfriend in the 1994 movie "Crumb.")

Failure to Keep a Low Profile: (1) Angel DeLeon, 30, admitted to police in May that he was the one who had just robbed the National Penn Bank in Reading, Pa. Police originally started after DeLeon's car when he raced by them with his radio blaring. (2) Ricky Dale Ford was jailed in September in Conway, Ark., accused of stealing an all-terrain vehicle. While joyriding, Ford had accidentally hit a beehive, and when police found him in nearby woods, he was "barely breathing," one officer said, having been stung more than 100 times.

Britain's local councils are notoriously fearful of lawsuits arising from the garden "allotments" they rent to residents. For example, in September, the Southampton Council barred residents of recently vandalized property from installing barbed wire, lest a trespasser get hurt and sue. Meanwhile, in Michigan, Scott Zeilinski, who is serving eight years in prison for armed robbery, filed a lawsuit against the store he had robbed because an employee (whom Zeilinski had just threatened with a knife to the throat) had pulled out his gun and shot Zeilinski.

Ironies: (1) A 77-year-old woman in Heaton Mersey, England, who was described by friends as an enthusiastic shopper whose home was crammed to the ceiling with purchases, died in January of natural causes, but rescuers made five passes through the clutter before locating her body under stacks of goods that had fallen on her. (2) A 45-year-old devout Catholic was killed recently in Vienna, Austria, shortly after a harrowing experience on a stuck elevator. The man had been so traumatized that, following his rescue, he went straight to the Weinhaus Church to give thanks. However, as he approached the altar, an 850-pound stone pillar fell and crushed him.

"Pain is the sensation of weakness leaving the body," Phoenix "artist" Steve Haworth told a Phoenix New Times reporter in May 2001, while he was arranging scenes for associates of his Church of Body Modification, including a horizontal full-body suspension (hanging for five minutes by rings in body piercings); a tug of war (full-force pulling contest using a rope held taut through rings on various body piercings); free-moving implants just below the skin that appear to be, say, a living bracelet; and various body alterations such as "Vulcan" ears, a ribbed penis and a filleted male urethra. Haworth won't amputate anything, though (too "destructive," he said), thus displeasing his girlfriend, who wants to lose two toes in order to fit into smaller shoes.

What is believed to be the world's only commercial lounge openly serving cocaine operates in La Paz, Bolivia, though the owners of "Route 36" have to change locations from time to time, depending on the moods of the bribed authorities. An August dispatch in London's The Guardian reported that a nearly pure gram costs the equivalent of about $14 ($22 for "premium"), served by waiters in an empty CD case, with straws, but bar drinks are also available. Route 36 is well-known to backpacking tourists. Recalled one waiter, "We had some Australians; they stayed here for four days. (T)he only time they left was to go to the ATM."

-- Small Town: In Jericho, Ark., alleged harassment by cops got so bad, according to an Associated Press report, that the fire chief went to court twice in the same day in August to complain about speed traps. The chief's charge angered the seven officers attending the hearing, and a courtroom scuffle ensued, resulting in the chief's being shot in the back and hospitalized. WMC-TV reported that the shooter has not been charged but that an arrest warrant has been issued for the chief, who was then fired by the mayor. The police force has been disbanded by the Crittenden County sheriff, and all firefighters have resigned.

-- Big City: George Vera, who weighs nearly 600 pounds, was booked into jail in Houston in August and was in custody for more than 24 hours before he casually informed cops that they had missed finding the 9 mm handgun and two clips that were hidden in his rolls of fat.

-- Questionable Business Model: In September, in downtown Longview, Wash., a 23-year-old man held up a sign offering to be kicked in the groin for $5. He made one sale before police, acting on a complaint, made him move on.

-- Fierce Competition: (1) Police in Broome, Australia, reported in September that a five-year feud between two rival camel-ride vendors in the Cable Beach resort area had erupted again, this time involving allegations of camel theft and tossed camel dung. (2) In July, as the legal brothel business declined precipitously in Germany, owners adopted such gimmicks as free shoe-polishing and discounts for retirees. However, when several brothels began offering flat-rate plans (based on restaurants' all-you-can-eat model), police cracked down, judging them as a little too excessive.

-- Questionable Products: (1) The Spanish toymaker Berjuan has introduced a doll that suckles from a halter worn by young girls who want to mimic their breastfeeding mothers. The Bebe Gloton is not expected to be available in the U.S. until 2010 but is being shown worldwide on YouTube. Americans appear to regard breastfeeding, in general, as much more provocative than Europeans do. (2) The Brazilian company Petsmiling has created a prototype DoggieLoveDoll in three sizes, designed as a "mountable," anatomically correct sex partner for male dogs. It was introduced at the Pet South America fair in Sao Paulo in July, according to Associated Press photos.

-- Sharron Thornton had been blinded nine years ago from a severe reaction to medication that caused her mucus membranes, including the eye's lens, to die and shed (and caused her also to lose hair, skin and nails, though the latter three grew back). In a revolutionary procedure, the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute at the University of Miami (Fla.) had the bright idea to shore up her eye with a piece of her tooth and jawbone (the cuspid, or "eye tooth") so that a prosthetic lens could be implanted. That was only part of it: The tooth portion, with the implanted lens, had to be micro-sculpted and implanted first into Thornton's chest for access to nutrients. Thornton's vision is now 20/70 without eyeglasses.

-- Recent Inexplicable Side Effects of Brain Injury: (1) Malcolm Darby, 70, awoke from surgery following a stroke in Oakham, England, last year to find that he had near-perfect vision (after having worn eyeglasses since age 2) but later discovered that he no longer spoke or understood French. (2) A 37-year-old German woman, who had been treated for epileptic seizures in 2006, reported recently that among the side effects were occasional feelings that she had undergone a sex change and was a man.

-- Calvino Inman, 15, is not part of the gothic subculture at his high school in Rockwood, Tenn., but he would be a natural. He has an annoying case of what one opthalmologist called "haemolacria," or bloody tears. The boy seems to bleed uncontrollably from the eyes, up to three times a day, according to a September ABC News report, but so far, specialists, employing ultrasound, an MRI, and a CT scan, are unable to determine the cause.

-- (1) Britain's National Farmers Union issued a general alert in August, after four fatal attacks on people by cows, that dogs should not be walked near grazing fields. "The cattle are interested in the dog, not the walker," said an official. (2) During a three-day period in August near the village of Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland, "dozens" of cows killed themselves by leaping off of a particular cliff. Officials discounted accidents as the cause since cows in the area generally become familiar with the dangers of cliffs.

-- (1) Japan's principal organized-crime Yakuza gang, the Yamaguchi-gumi, was reported in September to be giving written tests to its members to improve their knowledge of the law. The leaders were said to be trying to reduce the number of lawsuits against the group. (2) A prominent British Catholic organization recently issued a 64-page book of spousal prayers targeted to various marital events and even has one pre-coital offering emphasizing that the act to follow must be selfless and not undertaken for personal pleasure.

-- Recurring Themes: (1) Broward County (Fla.) Sheriff's Office is looking for the man who robbed the Citi Trends store in Oakland Park in September and has released the surveillance video, showing the man removing his mask. However, the man continued trying to shield his face, using only his hands, but the video makes him appear to be playing peek-a-boo, according to a WFOR-TV report. (2) David Perticone, 46, was arrested in Severn, Md., in August and charged with stealing about $25,000 worth of items from a woman's house just down the block. The woman discovered the items in Perticone's front yard, part of a yard sale he was conducting.

-- Charged recently with murder and awaiting trial: Michael Wayne Limley, St. Joseph, Mo. (August); Timothy Wayne Sanders, Suffolk, Va. (September); Marcus Wayne Barber, Port Arthur, Texas (September); Robert Wayne Howell, Longview, Texas (September); Barney Wayne Keizer, Salmo, British Columbia (September). Murder trial ordered: Bryan Wayne Hulsey, Glendale, Ariz. (charged in 2007, trial rescheduled for October 2010); Benjamin Wayne Holcroft, Goulburn, Australia (September); Billy Wayne Hall, Sparta, Mo. (trial site changed, September). Sentenced for murder: David Wayne Alexander, Pittsburgh (September); Benjamin Wayne Watta, Seal Beach, Calif. (January). Committed suicide after (according to police) murdering his girlfriend: Jason Wayne Strickland, Gilbert, S.C. (August). Confessed to murder: Billy Wayne Wallace, Fort Worth, Texas (confessed to police in August in cold-case murders from 1986 and 1994 but had not yet been charged at press time).

-- Golf Imitates Miniature Golf: In May 1998 at Beaver Brook Golf Course in Haydenville, Mass., Todd Obuchowski was credited with a hole-in-one on a par 3 hole after his tee shot went over the green and onto a highway, hit a passing Toyota driven by Nancy Bachand, ricocheted back to the green, and rolled into the cup. At least eight golfers witnessed the shot.