In Somalia, which is without a central government to speak of and where very little functions beyond an Islamic resistance and individual warlords' fiefdoms, a robust "stock market" has emerged in the city of Haradheere for "investors" in the seagoing pirate "industry," to raise money and supplies for kidnappers in exchange for a share of the bounty once a ransom is paid. According to a December Reuters dispatch, 72 "companies" are listed on the exchange, enabling "venture capital" to fund greater piracy traffic and more sophisticated looting. There even seems to be a financial "bubble" at work, in that since the "exchange" opened, pirates' ransoms have doubled to about $4 million per ship.

Afghanistan's national game, buzkashi, is attempting a marketing transformation inspired by pro football's and basketball's growths in the United States over the last several decades, according to a November USA Today dispatch. The main hindrance is that buzkashi is often little more than violent anarchy. A team of 12 men on horseback tries to carry a goat carcass the length of a field, around a goal and back, through an opposing team "defense" that includes almost any tactic short of murder. Spectators are often trampled by riders disregarding boundaries, and horses have dropped dead on the field from abuse or fatigue. The head of the Buzkashi Federation said he aims to present the game for consideration to the International Olympic Committee.

-- Carried Away: (1) Since March 2008, the Cathedral of Christ the King in Phoenix has been ringing its bells every half-hour, 24 hours a day, enraging neighbors, and a showdown with city officials was looming at press time, according to ABC News. (2) Martina Rabess, 52, was sanctioned by Britain's Sevenoaks Magistrates Court in October after neighbors complained about her loud, continuous recitations of the Lord's Prayer in early morning hours around her apartment house. (3) Atlanta municipal bus driver Leroy Matthews was suspended in November for a recent incident in which he suddenly stopped the bus and refused to open the doors until the alighting passenger joined hands with him in prayer.

-- The Scranton (Pa.) Diocese, Needing Confession: Father Edward Lyman of the diocese was removed as a parish administrator in November after he inadvertently (using his personal computer during early Mass) clicked on photos of four bare-chested young men in provocative poses. Also in November, the diocese disavowed Father Virgil Tetherow's behavior for offering Mass at a breakaway church in York, Pa., and too-aggressively protesting at a Planned Parenthood clinic (incidents on top of Tetherow's 2005 conviction on a charge that was originally child porn possession but downgraded in a plea agreement). And yet another diocese priest, Father Robert Timchak, waived a preliminary hearing in November on charges of having child porn on his computer.

-- Aggressive Christianity: (1) Rev. Marc Grizzard, pastor of the Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Canton, N.C., staged an October book-burning of "Satan's" literature, including works by Mother Teresa and Rev. Billy Graham and any Bible besides the original King James version. (2) In October, Mikey Weinstein, a former military lawyer who served in the Reagan White House, filed a lawsuit against Gordon Klingenschmitt, head of a Dallas chaplains' association, to stop Klingenschmitt from publicly reciting Bible verses implying a smiting of Weinstein, along with Weinstein's family and descendants for 10 generations. Said Klingenschmitt: "I never prayed for anyone's death. All I did was quote the Scriptures."

(1) Shannon Broome, 15, of Jacksonville, Fla., with her leg in a cast and still laid up from a June rollover accident in an SUV, was hit again in December when another out-of-control SUV came through her bedroom wall and re-broke the leg (among other injuries inflicted). (2) Recently, at the Abergele Hospital in North Wales, Geraint Woolford, 52, was moved into a room to await a partial knee replacement and discovered that his roommate was Geraint Woolford, 77, who was awaiting a hip replacement. According to a December report in the Daily Mail, they are not related, but both are retired police officers.

Rajeev Kumar of Calcutta, India, is well-known locally for playing the harmonica, specifically, using only his right nostril. For added show, Kumar plays two harmonicas simultaneously, with nostril and mouth. A BBC News reporter watching him (for a December dispatch) said Kumar's strain was obvious. "(T)he veins running through his nose and neck bulge, his eyes pop out, and his face looks red and stretched." And at Britain's West Midland Safari Park, the African elephant "Five" spends portions of almost every day puffing away at a harmonica she found in her enclosure. Said a park spokesperson, "Five was making tunes within a few weeks." (The talented Five also paints on canvas.)

-- Michael Sampson, who was in court in Salina, Kan., in November merely on charges of littering and driving with a suspended license, was arrested after a judge spotted him at the defense table, making threatening gestures to witnesses. Sampson was seen holding his thumb and fingers in the shape of a gun, "firing" at a witness, and making a slashing motion across his neck.

-- In November, Father Joe Vetter, head of Duke University's Catholic Center, criticized a research team seeking student volunteers on female attitudes toward sex toys and paraphernalia. Father Vetter said the project would affect students "in this development phase (of their lives), and I don't think it's a good developmental practice to just tell somebody to just sit around and masturbate."

Sara Foss, 39, the mother of 13 in Derby, England, who is scheduled to deliver No. 14 in March, told the Daily Mail in November of her vow to continue getting pregnant until she fulfills her desire to have twins. Her longtime, live-in boyfriend works as a boat-builder, but their main income is government benefits worth the equivalent of about $80,000 annually. (Foss, apparently also a fan of literature and movies, has kids named Artemus, Morpheus, Voorhees, Baudelaire, Blackbird, Echo, Malachai and Frodo.)

Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) Andre Stoltzfus, 17, was arrested in Saugerties, N.Y., in October after he allegedly counterfeited a $1 bill that a family member later used toward the purchase of a pack of cigarettes. (2) Bandanna-clad Jason Zacchi, 27, was arrested in Dearborn Heights, Mich., in November after, according to police, pointing a shotgun at a Wendy's employee at the drive-in window and demanding money. Moments later, the shift manager angrily approached the window and yelled at Zacchi, "What the hell are you doing?" (The manager had recognized Zacchi through his bandanna. Zacchi is her son.)

Ragnar Bengtsson, 26, the male Swedish student who vowed in September to pump milk from his nipples every three hours for 90 days, drop by drop, to show that it could be done, quit in November, concluding that it can't. Said a TV producer following Bengtsson around, "All he got was sore breasts."

In April 2002, the U.S. Patent Office awarded patent number 6,368,227 to Steven Olson, age 7, of St. Paul, Minn., whose father had filed to help him protect a method of swinging on a swing. The Olsons' discovery: While seated, if you pull alternately on one side's chain/rope and then on the other side's, while gradually introducing a forward-backward thrust, you can swing in an oval-shaped arc, as long as the side-to-side motion is greater than the forward-backward motion. According to the Patent Office, licenses to use the patented method are available from the inventor.

But What If the Device Falls Into the Wrong Hands? A 55-year-old British man whose bowel was ruptured in a nearly catastrophic traffic accident has been fitted with a bionic sphincter that opens and closes with a remote controller. Ged Galvin had originally endured 13 surgeries in a 13-week hospital stay and had grown frustrated with using a colostomy bag until surgeon Norman Williams of the Royal London Hospital proposed the imaginative operation. Dr. Williams, who was interviewed along with Galvin for a November feature in London's Daily Mail, wrapped a muscle transplanted from Galvin's leg around the sphincter and attached electrodes to tighten or loosen the muscle's grip.

The Wisconsin Department of Corrections decided in October that it (i.e., taxpayers) should fund complex facial reconstruction surgery for inmate Daryl Strenke, who is serving 30 years after pleading guilty to murdering his girlfriend. Strenke had shot himself in the face in apparent remorse for the killing, severely disfiguring his mouth and jaw and making it nearly impossible for him to eat or speak normally.

-- (1) In November, the Solihull Council in Britain's West Midlands county ordered a flooring store to remove the festive balloons it had pinned out front to attract business, calling them hazards. One councilor explained that drivers may be distracted by the colors, and another was concerned that if a balloon came loose, it might possibly float into traffic and lure a child to follow it. (2) In October, Britain's Association of Chief Police Officers prepared a guidebook of instructions for bicycle-duty officers on how to ride a bike. The book was 93 pages long, containing such assistance as a diagram on how to turn left or right ("deployment into a junction"). (Following widespread ridicule, the association decided in November not to release it.)

-- Examiners from Britain's Health and Safety Executive, inspecting bowling alleys for hazards, considered recommendations (according to a November Daily Mail report) that included erecting barriers over the lanes to prevent bowlers from wandering the alleys and perhaps getting caught in pin-setting machines or, feared one inspector, bowlers injuring themselves trying to knock over pins by hand. The barriers would leave space for the ball to roll under.

-- Wake Forest University's Institute of Regenerative Medicine, which has successfully grown human bladders in the lab using only a few extracted cells sprayed onto a chemical frame that mimics the body's tissues, has so far been unsuccessful at regenerating penises because of the organ's complexity. However, it announced in a November journal article a success with rabbit penises. Four of the 12 rabbits with lab-grown phalluses successfully impregnated females, and in an unexpected finding, the new penises appear not to lessen sexual desire, in that all 12 of the rabbits began mating within one minute of meeting females.

-- Occasionally, people lose their short-term memory following vigorous sex, according to doctors interviewed for a November CNN report on "transient global amnesia." The condition occurs because blood flow to the brain is restricted by the strenuous activity, temporarily disabling the hippocampus from recording new memory. One sufferer, "Alice," recalled her experience, recounting how she initially cracked a joke about being unable to remember how good the sex was that she just had, and then supposedly repeated the joke over and over, each time as if she had just thought of it.

(1) Three men were convicted in August in Kansas City, Mo., of having convinced "numerous" customers to buy 3-inch-by-4-inch laminated "diplomat" cards that, promoters said, would legally free them from ever having to pay taxes or being arrested for any crime. According to the FBI, customers ponied up fees ranging from $450 to $2,000 to get the cards. (2) Dr. Yehu Azaz, a wealthy, respected physician, gave up his career in 1991 and gave away all of his possessions, coming under the spell of guru Rena Denton's spiritual healing center in Somerset, England. In a 2009 lawsuit to recover his wealth, Azaz said that despite being an educated professional, he did not realize what he had done until 2003 because he had been brainwashed ("unduly influenced") by the aged guru. (A judge tossed out his lawsuit in July.)

-- After six years of total obstinacy, Janet and Lowell Carlson finally agreed in October to upgrade their farm's septic system in Camden Township, Minn. Until then, the couple had ignored numerous inspections, sheriff's visits and court orders even though a new system had already been paid for (by escrow funds left by the owner who sold them the farm). The Carlsons' inspiring principle throughout the six years of living with failed plumbing was to challenge the county for its "inconsistent" enforcement of septic upgrades.

-- Scottish pig farmer Peter Roy, 72, is embroiled in a long-standing dispute with the Perth and Kinross Council over who has the responsibility for repairing the sewage system on his farm in Craigmuir, but has taken a more hardcore approach than the Carlsons. He has saved his sewage in oil barrels stored on his property (now numbering about 80) to the outrage of neighbors. Roy has also periodically stepped up his protests to include leaving full barrels around town.

After Nicolas Cage filed a lawsuit against him for mismanaging the actor's money, Cage's former business manager Samuel Levin filed his defense in November, charging Cage with creating his own problems by disregarding Levin's budgetary advice. According to Levin, Cage's 2007 purchases included three houses (costing $33 million), 22 cars (including nine Rolls-Royces) and 47 works of art. By 2008, said Levin, Cage owned 15 houses, four yachts, a Gulfstream jet and an island in the Bahamas.

Better Planning Needed: (1) Brier Cutlip, 22, and Paul Bragg, 25, who were on parole and prohibited from possessing firearms, were re-arrested in December in Elkins, W.Va., when they showed up for a parole appointment. However, they had just come in from a day of hunting and were still wearing orange vests, alerting the parole officer to the fact that they had been firing guns all day. (2) Grandville Lindsey, 30, on probation in Beaumont, Texas, after a child-sex conviction and prohibited from visiting any "social" Web sites, was re-arrested in November when he sent a Twitter alert to a woman he had met while in the probation office, asking to include her as an online "friend."

British Museum officials announced in September that the hoard of 7th-century Anglo-Saxon gold and silver treasure discovered on land in Staffordshire (at least 1,500 pieces, including crosses and parts of helmets and daggers) would take a year to evaluate fully but could be worth "many times" the 1 million pounds ($1.6 million) archaeologists initially estimated. The treasure was discovered by an unemployed 55-year-old man using one of the widely ridiculed, hand-held metal detectors that beachcombers favor to recover loose coins in the sand.

Hillsborough, England, was the site of a soccer stadium disaster in 1989, in which 96 fans were crushed to death. In March 2001, the government revealed that a police officer who worked at that site beginning in 1998 nonetheless acquired post-traumatic stress disorder from continually imagining the 1989 carnage and for that received a disability settlement from the government of the equivalent of about $560,000. That amount, according to a report in London's Guardian, is more than 100 times what was paid to any of the families of the 96 people who were killed at the site.

-- Spare the Rod: In September, engaging in a 300-year tradition of the Dussera holiday in India's Tamil Nadu state, Hindu priests ritually whipped 2,000 young women and girls over a five-hour period as penance for a range of sins, from insufficient studying to moral impurity. Said one sobbing yet inspired lash recipient, to an NDTV reporter, "(W)hen we are whipped, we will get rid of our mental and physical ailments and evil spirits." (And in November, Pope John Paul II was revealed to have periodically atoned for sins by privately whipping himself, according to a nun who worked with him and who was cited in the Vatican's ongoing consideration of John Paul II for sainthood. The nun said she heard him distinctly several times from an adjacent room.)

-- From a police report in the North Bay (Ontario) Nugget (Nov. 7): An officer in line at a traffic light, realizing that cars had not moved through two light changes, walked up to the lead car to investigate. The driver said she was not able to move on the green lights because she was still on the phone and thus driving off would be illegal. The officer said a brief lecture improved the woman's understanding of the law.

-- The inspector general of the National Science Foundation revealed that on-the-job viewing of pornography Web sites was so widespread at the agency that the resultant ethics investigations hindered his primary mission of investigating fraud on grant contracts. The agency report, obtained by the Washington Times in September, said the heaviest user was a senior executive who logged on to pornography at least 331 days in 2008. He subsequently retired, but before leaving defended his habit, claiming that his Web site visits actually helped impoverished women in Third World countries to earn a decent living (by posing for pornography).

-- Fine Lawyering: Jacob Christine, 21, acting as his own lawyer at an October hearing, denying charges that he severely slashed a fellow inmate at an Easton, Pa., prison, offered his own view of whoever the perpetrator was: "Whoever attacked (the victim) had a high regard for life," said Christine, because the cut "isn't deep at all. It's on his neck. It's not on his face."

-- When Minnesota's Riverview Community Bank opened for business in 2004, founder Chuck Ripka claimed divine inspiration -- that God had told him to "pastor the bank" and, in exchange, that He would "take care of the bottom line," leading Ripka to use "prayer" as a theme in the bank's promotions. In October 2009, Riverview became only the sixth bank in the state to be shut down by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Riverview acknowledged that it had invested aggressively in real estate.

-- Dr. Hulda Clark, 80, passed away in September of multiple myeloma, an advanced cancer of the plasma cells. Before she was stricken, she had authored three books touting her eccentric remedies as cures, first, for "all diseases," and then, especially, cancer. In her books "The Cure for All Cancers" and "The Cure for All Advanced Cancers," she urged those diagnosed to immediately stop chemotherapy and embrace her quixotic regimens, to subdue the "parasites" that cause cancer.

-- Albert Freed's lawsuit for defective underwear against Hanes was dismissed in October by a Pensacola, Fla., judge, even though Freed had complained that the briefs had caused severe pain and ruined his vacation. Freed said the garment's flap had inexplicably failed to close, allowing his penis to protrude and rub against swim trunks that contained sand from the beach, irritating the sensitive skin. However, Freed delayed diagnosing the problem -- by declining to inspect his organ. He explained that he cannot easily peer over his "belly" (and wouldn't even consider, he said, examining his naked self in a mirror or asking his wife to inspect). Consequently, he had endured increased irritation before recognizing the source of the chafing.

-- According to a November Chicago Sun-Times report, county officials in Chicago have agreed to pay a $14,000 injury claim to janitor Mary Tait, of the sheriff's department. The amount covers two incidents, in 1997 and 1998, in which she hurt her back in the same way -- while "reaching around to pick up a piece of toilet paper."

-- In November, a judge in Somerville, N.J., overruled a local police chief who had rejected a firearms license for hunting enthusiast James Cap, 46. The judge ordered the chief to grant the license, even though Cap is a quadriplegic and will need to mount the gun on his wheelchair and fire it by blowing into a tube. (Cap was an avid hunter before a football injury incapacitated him.)

-- (1) In July, Charles Diez was charged with attempted murder for his angry reaction to a bicyclist who was carrying his 3-year-old son on the bike unsafely, on a busy Asheville, N.C., street. According to police, Diez was so anguished that he pulled his gun and fired at the bicyclist, grazing the man's helmet. (2) In October, just as Pennsylvania federal judge Lawrence Stengel was launching into his explanation for the sentence he was about to impose, bank robber Trammel Bledsoe grew impatient. "Can you hurry this up? I don't have time for this. Just sentence me. ..." ("You'll have all the time in the world," responded Stengel, who gave Bledsoe 41 years.)

-- Great Expectorations: (1) Charles Hersel, 39, was arrested in Thousand Oaks, Calif., in November after police investigators overheard him offer $31 to a Westlake High School boy to spit in Hersel's face. Several boys had complained to police that a man (allegedly Hersel) had approached them, offering money for expelling saliva and other bodily fluids on him. (2) Also in November, Patrick Girard, 29, a member of the City Council in Plattsburgh, N.Y., apologized to the constituent in whose face Girard had spit at the height of a barroom argument about the Boston Red Sox. Said the constituent, "It got in my eye, on my face, on my jacket."

-- Could've Planned Better: (1) Vincent Salters, 46, was arrested in East Knoxville, Tenn., in November after having shoplifted shoes the day before from the Shoe Show store. He had dashed out hurriedly with several display shoes, but an employee said they were all for the left foot. Salters was arrested outside the store the next day, perhaps having come to pick up right-foot shoes. (2) Travis Himmler, 22, was charged with burglary in November after allegedly stealing the cash register from the Golden Wok restaurant in Bloomington, Minn., and carrying it away on his bicycle. He was found down the street, injured, after taking a bad tumble when the dangling cash register cord got caught in the bike's spokes.

-- Las Vegas body modifier Nathan McKay, 24, complained in November 2000 about the difficulty of getting proper medical care, namely, further surgery to prevent his already surgically forked tongue from fusing back together and removal of all teeth (and replacement with platinum implants). Said McKay, who also has 1-inch-stretched holes in his earlobes (for holding ebony disks): "I want my tongue split ... as far back as possible, to the uvula, so I have two separate strands in my mouth." The original surgeon was a family friend, but he has balked at any follow-up. Said McKay, "I'm not trying to turn myself into anything except someone to remember."