In all likelihood, convicted murderer Paul Powell would have been sentenced to life in prison for his 1999 crime, but he could not resist gratuitously ridiculing the prosecutor. Powell's original sentence of death was overturned because of a technicality in Virginia law: The "aggravated" circumstance in a murder that warrants the death penalty must be committed against the actual murder victim (whereas the prosecutor had proved only that Powell had also raped the victim's sister). Powell assumed that the prohibition against "double jeopardy" thus ruled out the death penalty and so decided to gloat, calling the prosecutor "stupid" and taunting him with details of his crimes. For the first time, Powell admitted that he had also raped the murder victim. That was evidence of a new aggravated circumstance (i.e., no "double jeopardy"), and the prosecutor obtained a death sentence. In January 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Powell's appeal.

-- A Toronto restaurant, Mildred's Temple Kitchen, announced that its Valentine's Day promotion this year would not just be a romantic dinner but would also include an invitation for couples to have sex in the restrooms. Toronto Public Health officials appeared unconcerned, as long as there was no sex in food-preparation areas and as long as the restrooms were clean. "Bodily fluids" were not a concern, said one unruffled health official, because after all, that's what restrooms are for.

-- Women's rights activists in Uganda finally got the attention of the Western press in December, when London's The Independent verified the plight of Jennipher Alupot, who periodically for seven years had been forced to breastfeed her husband's hunting dogs as she was nursing the couple's own children. Farmer Nathan Awoloi of Pallisa explained that his dogs needed to eat, and since he was forced to send Jennipher's family two milk cows in order to win her hand, he felt his demands were reasonable.

-- In January, the Justice Department's Inspector General released a long-anticipated report detailing the FBI's post-9/11 corner-cutting in obtaining individual Americans' phone records. Federal law permits such acquisition only with a "terrorism" subpoena ("National Security Letter") unless the FBI documents emergency ("exigent") circumstances to a telecom company. The Inspector General found that, from 2002-2006, the FBI had representatives of three telecom companies set up in the FBI unit so that agents could request phone records orally, without documentation, and in some cases merely by writing the requested phone numbers on Post-it Notes and sticking them on the telecom employees' workstations. Some of the acquired records were uploaded to the FBI's database.

-- Police are still baffled by how Gregory Denny, 37, was able to "deport" Cherrie Belle Hibbard from her home in Hemet, Calif., in January back to her native Philippines. According to Hemet police, Denny, with a gun and fake U.S. Marshal's badge and shirt, knocked on Hibbard's door and convinced her that he was there to escort her to the airport and out of the country and that Hibbard's husband had to buy her the ticket. Denny then accompanied Hibbard through airport security and put her onto a flight. Upon questioning by police later, Denny apparently remained in character, continuing to insist that he is a Marshal. Denny was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping, impersonating a peace officer and several other charges.

-- Buffalo, N.Y., television meteorologist Mike Cejka was arrested in December after a brief police chase and charged with trespassing after he was spotted at 4 a.m. tinkering with the covering of a motorcycle in a stranger's yard. Cejka told police he was on his way to work at the station and had merely stopped to admire the motorcycle he had remembered seeing in that yard over the summer. He was wearing a dress shirt and shoes and leather chaps topped by a pair of sweat shorts.

-- A 27-year-old man was arrested for trespassing in January in Seattle's Lusty Lady peep-show arcade, whose layout is a strippers' dance stage surrounded by private viewing stalls for customers. According to police, the man climbed from his stall, through a ceiling panel, and navigated the overhead crawl space, which only allowed him to peep at the strippers from a different angle.

-- In December, British Columbia's District of Sechelt Council approved a bylaw making it illegal for licensed dogs to chase squirrels, seagulls and other wild animals. The councillors added a defense of "provocation" but left it undefined, which might be especially problematic in instances in which the dog is the only witness to the alleged provocation.

-- In February, the Board of Trustees of Saugatuck Township, Mich., scheduled a May referendum asking voters for an increase in the property tax in order to cover unanticipated new expenses. The budget overrun was due to the mounting costs of defending lawsuits by people and companies complaining that the Township's property taxes are too high.

-- University of Montreal School of Social Work professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse, intending to research the effects of pornography on men's relationships with women and needing a control group for comparison, advertised in the local community for up to 20 nonusers of pornography, but he was forced to radically alter his research model when no one signed up. Concluded Lajeunesse, in December: "Guys who do not watch pornography do not exist."

-- Poorly Conceived: (1) Travis Copeland, 19, bolting from a courtroom in Waukegan, Ill., in January, ran down a hallway and then lowered his shoulder and thrust himself at a window, intending to crash through it to freedom. Courthouse windows are bulletproof, and Copeland merely bounced off, staggered away and fell to the floor in pain. (2) Chamil Guadarrama, 30, was arrested in Springfield, Mass., in February after a store security guard spotted him with 75 bottles of lotion stuffed down his pant legs (which were tied off at the ankles), making him look like a nearly immobile Michelin Man. Said a cop: "(We) could not fit Mr. Guadarrama into the cruiser because ... he could not bend over."

-- Rathkeale, Ireland, July (Mary on a tree stump). Apia, Samoa, September (Mary on the outside wall of a church). Velyky Berezny, Ukraine, September (Jesus on the outside wall of a factory). Ravena, N.Y., September (Jesus in a coffee stain on a mason jar). Bishopville, S.C., October (Jesus on a kitchen curtain). Southampton, England, November (Jesus in a flatbread at an Indian restaurant). Methuen, Mass., November (Jesus in a stain on the bottom of an iron). Florissant, Mo., December (Jesus on a splotch in a sink). Jonesborough, Tenn., November (Jesus, morning after morning, in window condensation on a pickup truck). (Apparently, only the three foreign sightings have drawn significant pilgrimage to the sites.)

-- Least Competent Circus Knife-Thrower: News of the Weird reported twice on staffing problems of British circus knife-thrower Jayde Hanson. One assistant walked off the job in 2001 after being nearly hit in the foot, which would have been her third wound that season (equaling the number of injuries a previous girlfriend had suffered as Hanson's assistant before she quit the year before). In April 2003, Hanson was performing with his new girlfriend, Yana Rodianova, 22, live on Britain's "This Morning" television show, displaying his world-record form as a speed knife-thrower, when one knife hit Rodianova in the head, drawing blood.

White People in Turmoil: (1) April Gaede, who four years ago guided her teenage daughters, Lynx and Lamb (performing as "Prussian Blue"), to a brief music career singing neo-Nazi songs, announced a new project recently on the white nationalist Web site Stormfront.org. She offers a no-fee matchmaking service to fertile Aryans, hoping to encourage marriage and baby-making -- to help white people keep up with rapidly procreating minorities. (2) Don "Moose" Lewis announced plans in January for a 12-city pro basketball league composed only of white players (natural-born U.S. citizens, whose parents are both Caucasian). Lewis denied any "racism," explaining to the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle that whites simply like "fundamental" basketball and not "street ball" ("flipping you off or attacking you in the stands or grabbing their crotch").

-- Computer-obsessed Japanese nerds' latest fancy is Love Plus, a Nintendo DS dating simulation that allows them a young, attractive, mouthy, teenage digital "girlfriend" who begs for attention. The touch-screen lover demands hand-holding, kissing and having sweet nothings whispered in her ear. How can men so easily become addicted to such vicarious experiences? Said one reluctant player, "Koh," to the BoingBoing blog,"(It) comes down to the fact that men are simple." (In December, Reuters reported that Japanese player SAL9000 had eloped to the Philippines with his Love Plus girlfriend, had himself photographed with her at romantic sites -- clutching the screen showing her image -- and then took her through a marriage ceremony.)

-- As vultures approach extinction in South Africa, they grow in value among local "traditional" communities for their magical abilities. Specks of a vulture's brain, sprinkled on mud and smoked, can supposedly ward off evil and bring winning lottery numbers. One Johannesburg vendor told Agence France-Presse in December that the specks even work when daubed on dogs' noses, enabling them to extend their already formidable scenting power.

-- A Montana-based sect is fighting to remain viable, six months after the death of its "Mother," the Jesus-channeling Elizabeth Clare Prophet. Several aspirants have tried to claim her mantle, but the sect's council of elders found them all to be charlatans, and membership rolls have dwindled. The church was similarly challenged in 1990, when Mother forecast nuclear doomsday and financed the construction of large underground bunkers on a mountainside north of Yellowstone National Park (which are still available). The council is having trouble, especially, finding volunteers to transcribe the 22,000 hours of video and audio in which Mother set out the justifications for the sect.

-- Televangelist Rod Parsley informed his flock in December that he urgently needed several million dollars because of financial problems attributed directly to Satan. According to a report in the Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, Parsley's World Harvest Church was facing a $3 million deficit for the quarter ending in December after earlier in the year paying $3.1 million to settle a lawsuit over its day-care center's having too brutally spanked a boy. Wrote Parsley, "Will you help me take back what the devil stole?"

-- Crimestopper: (1) In Frisco, Texas, in January, boutique owner Marian Chadwick, who was about to be robbed at gunpoint by a hooded intruder, pointed her finger at him and said: "In the name of Jesus, you get out of my store. I bind you by the power of the Holy Spirit." The man appeared stunned, then turned and walked out empty-handed, cursing. (2) A 20-year veteran Houston cop who wears badge number 666 told the Houston Chronicle in a December profile that once, 17 years ago, a dangerous perp who had been defiant that he would not be captured suddenly dropped to his knees and surrendered. He had glanced at the badge. Said he, "I ain't fighting the devil."

-- In Thailand, the endangered status of crocodiles and elephants is largely ignored by the public, who are instead enthralled with the giant pandas and their cub on loan from China. (There is even a 24-hour cable TV "panda channel.") At several of the country's zoos, officials now regularly paint their crocodiles and elephants in panda colors (with harmlessly washable paint) to call attention to their plight. Even though the paint must be reapplied daily, "It's impossible not to do it now," said one croc handler for a December Wall Street Journal dispatch. "People expect it."

-- Only four days after the January earthquake hit Port-au-Prince, two Royal Caribbean cruise ships made a port call at a private enclave about 60 miles up Haiti's coastline from ground zero, turning loose hundreds of frolickers for "jet ski rides, parasailing and rum cocktails delivered to their hammocks," according to a report in London's The Guardian. Haitian guards employed by the cruise line manned the resort's 12-foot-high fences, but about a third of the passengers still declined to leave the ships, too upset by the unfolding disaster nearby to enjoy themselves. Royal Caribbean said it had made a large donation to the rescue effort and promised, also, to send proceeds from the port's thriving craft stores.

-- The Need for Parental Licensing: In January, as punishment for her 12-year-old son's bad grade in school, a Warm Springs, Ga., mother allegedly forced the boy to club his pet hamster to death with a hammer. Lynn Middlebrooks Geter, 38, was arrested after the kid told his teacher, who called the state children's services agency.

Unless Stephen Gough, 50, changes his mind about wearing pants, he risks spending the rest of his life behind bars, according to a January ruling of Scotland's Perth Sheriff Court. Gough, Britain's "naked rambler," is a freelance nudist who for years has roamed the United Kingdom countryside, interrupted by numerous jail stints for violating public decency. He was released from Perth Prison in December after his latest stay, but seconds later shucked his clothes and was re-arrested. (In his most recent trial, Gough acted as his own lawyer and somehow persuaded an overly fair judge to let him be naked in court.)

(1) Shane Williams-Allen, 19, was arrested in Tavares, Fla., in January and charged with burglarizing an unmarked police car and stealing several items, including handcuffs and a Taser gun. Eventually, Williams-Allen called the police for help after he accidentally cuffed himself, and officers believe he also accidentally Tasered himself. (2) Police in Oakland, Calif., called off their manhunt for fleeing home-invasion suspects in January when officers encountered four of the men wedged between two buildings they had tried to squeeze through.

The Whole Truth and Nothing But: Last August, an applicant for the police force in Montgomery, Ala., following directions to be truthful during the job interview, admitted that he owned child pornography. He was of course not hired, but arrested. In January 2010, 170 miles to the south in Pensacola, Fla., another law-enforcement applicant, Clarence Burnette, 25, admitted to owning child pornography -- during his interview to be a sheriff's deputy. He also was not hired, but arrested. (The Montgomery applicant, who also confessed to having sex with an underage girl, is now serving 30 years in prison.)

The death of a 49-year-old woman in Scotland in September 1999 brought to three the number of no-food, no-water, "breatharian"-diet followers of Australian Ellen Greve who have died of starvation in two years. Greve claims 5,000 disciples, charges over $2,000 (U.S.) per ticket for her seminars, and sells her only-sunlight-and-air philosophy ("liberation from the drudgery of food and drink") to guilty Westerners in part as conferring spirituality on Third World hunger. Nutritionists quoted by The Times of London said, of course, that there is no scientific basis for Greve's teachings.

In January, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers confiscated a live, jeweled beetle that a woman was wearing as an "accessory" on her sweater as she crossed into Brownsville, Texas, from Mexico. Blue jewels were glued onto the beetle's back, which had been painted gold, and the mobile brooch was tethered by a gold chain attached to a safety pin. Even though the woman orally "declared" the animal, the beetle was confiscated because she had not completed the bureau's PPQ Form 526, which is necessary to bring insects into the country. Reportedly, such jewelry is not that rare in Mexico. A spokesperson for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals was, of course, appalled.

-- Economic Recovery in Denver: As of early January, at least 390 new Denver businesses had applied for sales-tax licenses as dispensaries for legal (medicinal) marijuana. By comparison, Starbucks coffee shops number 208 in the entire state of Colorado. Among the first cannabis-centered businesses to open, in December, was the Ganja Gourmet on South Broadway, featuring lasagna, pizza, jambalaya, paella, flavored cheesecakes and other delicacies, all "spiced" appropriately for customers with doctors' prescriptions.

-- Jeweler Colin Burn, of Broome, Australia, announced in October at the Asia Adult Expo in Macau that he will make the world's most expensive "personal vibrator," in 10 limited editions, out of smooth platinum, each with 1,500 white diamonds. He said he planned to shoot for a price of $1 million (U.S.) and noted that he currently offers a similar sex toy with only 450 diamonds (but with a handle made of rare conkerberry wood) that he sells for $38,000.

-- Professor Yevgeny Moskalev of Russia's St. Petersburg Technological University announced in November that he had perfected a somewhat-useful powdered version of Russia's favorite drink (vodka). However, after much experimentation, he had found that the only way to preserve the alcohol was by mixing the liquid vodka into a special wax and letting it harden. According to a November report in the English language version of Pravda, the resulting shaved chips could then be flavored to counteract the wax's insipidness, and might be used for cooking or medicine. "Instant vodka" mix for straight drinking does not appear to be in professor Moskalev's plans.

-- In 2008, Sweden, one of only seven countries with embassies in North Korea, began trying to coax that country into the global economy by encouraging the manufacture of jeans, which Sweden in turn would arrange for sale in high-end stores. After a series of awkward missteps (e.g., a textile manufacturer, unfamiliar with the concept of "jeans," said no, but the director of a mining company decided to accept the project), 1,100 pairs were finally shipped and priced at the equivalent of about $215 a pair, according to a December Reuters dispatch from Stockholm. (The "NoKo" jeans were initially given shelf space in at least one store, but now are offered only on the store's Web site.)

-- After the New York Post reported in December on the 175-square-foot Manhattan apartment recently purchased by Christopher Prokop and his wife (for $150,000, with $800 monthly in maintenance fees), residents of even smaller Manhattan digs told the Post they were unimpressed. For instance, Felice Cohen, 39, rents a 90-square-foot apartment ($700) with a loft bed, but admits that she must sit sideways on the toilet. Freelance event-planner Eddie Rabon rents a 55-square-foot palace for $800 a month (closer to midtown than Cohen's). He can almost touch both side walls simultaneously and cannot easily turn around while showering. Commented the residents, respectively: "We love it," "I love it," and "It's fantastic."

-- He's a man of distinction, but that is of little comfort in the tight economy. Actor Jonah Falcon, 39, is out of work and living once again with his parents in New York City, according to a January report on AOL News. A 1999 HBO documentary touted Falcon as possessor of the world's longest penis (13 1/2 inches, aroused). He has appeared in mainstream film and TV roles ("Law and Order," "Melrose Place," "The Sopranos"), but has refused to do pornography. "If I did porn, nobody would take me seriously." However, he added, "I wouldn't be opposed to doing a nude scene (in a mainstream film) if I got the right part."

-- The recent Christmas bonus season was rough at the RF Brookes pizza-ingredient factory in Wigston, England. Workers received only gift containers of pudding ("plum duffs") with a use-by date of March 2009, but accompanied by a letter from management assuring them that food technicians had certified the product as safe to eat in January 2010. (After numerous employee complaints, the company apologized and offered fresh plum duffs.)

A team of researchers led by a University of Connecticut professor, writing recently in the ornithology journal The Auk, declared the local saltmarsh sparrow to be America's most promiscuous bird, in that 95 percent of the females hook up with more than one male during a mating season. The likelihood that any two chicks in a nest had the same father was only 23 percent, and in one-third of the nests, all chicks had different fathers. The researchers hypothesized that the frequent flooding of Connecticut's marshes destroys so many nests that non-choosy females have gained evolutionary advantage. (A wren in Australia and a parrot in Madagascar are said to be comparably promiscuous.)

A seven-point buck was found dead in Viroqua, Wis., in November, apparently after losing a head-butting contest with a cement-statue buck. Ramming contests are common during mating season, and the cement buck was about the same size as the dead one (but weighs about three times as much).

-- Two partners in crime were sentenced to four years in jail between them by England's Manchester Crown Court in December. Ali Abdullah, 28, and Muqtar Nuren, 22, had offered to take driver's license tests for people (both driving test and written test), but on contingency payment only for passing. Between them, they had 35 clients, took 43 tests and failed 33 (passing only seven driving tests and three written). Although they did not charge for their failures, it is of course illegal to take a driver's license test for another person.

-- Recurring Themes: (1) Brandon Stepp, 27, and two companions were arrested in Parkersburg, W.Va., in December after they became the most recent alleged drug runners to hide their marijuana unsuccessfully in their car's engine compartment. (The engine got hot; the dope caught fire.) (2) A man fled without money from a Taco Bell in Haverstraw, N.Y., in October after being the most recent robber to conduct his transactions out of order. He first announced the robbery, but before the cashier could gather money for him, he asked the store manager for a job application. When the manager refused, the man walked out, empty-handed.

The French performance artist Orlan made News of the Weird in 1993 when she underwent surgery in a New York City art gallery as part of a multiple-surgery transformation of her face according to five icons of Renaissance and post-Renaissance beauty (at that time, implanting small horns to simulate the bumpy forehead of Mona Lisa). During a Chicago show in December 1998, Orlan raised money for further operations by selling posters and videos of her surgeries and digitally enhanced portraits of her face incorporating features that ancient Mayans had found attractive but which are ugly in this society (huge noses, crossed-eyes). She also sold souvenir tubes of her liposuctioned fat.