The collapse of the economy in 2008 might have reached the far corners of Earth, but evidently not to Planet Calypso, the make-believe asteroid containing make-believe real estate in the multiplayer online game Entropia Universe, where resort entrepreneur Jon Jacobs recently cashed out his properties for $635,000 -- in real (not make-believe) U.S. dollars. Since Jacobs' original 2005 investment was $100,000 (a record at that time), he thus has earned an average 35 percent annual return. As players landed on Jacobs' properties, to hunt or to mine precious substances, they paid fees, and Jacobs' buyers are obviously optimistic they can maintain that income stream. A recent study by the marketing firm In-Stat estimated that online players will spend $7 billion in 2010 on make-believe property and goods.

-- In September, the U.K.'s coalition government announced the imminent consolidation of anti-discrimination laws known as the Equality Act -- despite critics' warnings that it could stunt economic growth by tying up the workplace in a morass of lawsuits in which workers could sue for almost any perceived offense. Under the new concept of "third-party harassment," for example, an employee who merely overhears another person -- even a customer of his employer -- say something he finds offensive could sue the employer. Critics also complained that the law adds to the traditional group of specially protected, oppressed people the minorities vegans, teetotalers, Gypsies and "travelers" (grifters).

-- In October, Freddie Mac (the government-sponsored but privately owned home mortgage financier -- whose massive debts have been assumed in a federal "bailout" administered by the Treasury Department) filed a claim in Tax Court against the Internal Revenue Service, denying IRS's claim that it owes $3 billion in back taxes from 1998-2005. Should taxpayers care? If Freddie Mac wins, IRS (which is also housed in the Treasury Department) loses out on the $3 billion in alleged back taxes. If IRS wins, it gets its $3 billion, which will undoubtedly be paid with taxpayer bailout money. Lawyers for both sides seem to think that pursuing the lawsuit is important.

-- In November, patrons using rest rooms at City Hall in Chandler, Ariz., were stunned to see wall signs warning users not to drink out of the urinals and toilets. (Actually, as officials explained, the environmentally friendly facilities flush with "reused" water -- from the building's cooling system -- which must normally be colorized to discourage inadvertent drinking, and if it is not so harshly colored, must, by regulation, be accompanied by warning signs.)

-- After Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005, Congress underwrote $7.9 billion in tax-free bonds that Louisiana could sell in order to rehabilitate the area. According to an August status report in Newsweek, $5.9 billion in bonds have been sold by the state, but only $55 million of that (1 percent) is for projects inside New Orleans (and none in the devastated Lower Ninth Ward). By contrast, $1.7 billion (about 29 percent) is going to projects that benefit the state's oil industry.

-- One of New York City's (midtown Manhattan's) favorite meet-up spots, according to an October report in The New York Times, is Colombian artist Fernando Botero's 12-foot-tall "Adam" statue at Time Warner Center. However, since Adam is nude and the statue is so pedestrian-friendly, maintaining it has become a problem, according to the center's general manager. As the Times described it, "Most of Adam is deep dark brown," but the easily-accessible penis "is worn golden from extensive handling." (The Times also noted that "(a)t the Botero" is a less-popular meet-up suggestion than "(u)nderneath the penis.")

-- Artist Noam Braslavsky's life-size sculpture honoring the great Israeli army general and prime minister Ariel Sharon went on display in Tel Aviv in October. However, Braslavsky chose to depict Sharon (who he said is "kind of an open nerve in Israeli society") not in battle nor as a international statesman -- but in his hospital bed, where he has been confined, in a medically induced coma, since suffering a massive stroke in January 2006.

-- Sheriff's deputies in Manatee County, Fla., arrested two men in October after a traffic stop when, following a thorough search of the car's trunk, they found marijuana. In fact, the search of the messy trunk was so thorough that they also turned up a bong, which driver Mark Fiasco said he had lost and been looking for for seven years.

-- Responding to a domestic-dispute call at the I-77 Motor Inn in Fairplain, W.Va., in October, sheriff's deputies encountered Melissa Williams naked from the waist down and holding a knife. Two men in the room (one, her estranged husband) said Williams had threatened them. "(S)omebody," she reportedly said, "is going to eat my (vulgar anatomical reference) or I'm going to cut your (expletive) throat." The sheriff's report also noted that one of the men approached Williams to comply but was repelled by Williams' "horrible vaginal odor." In November, Williams was sentenced to 90 days in jail.

-- Irresistible: In September, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing appointed Ralph Godbee police chief -- a job he had held on an interim basis for several months. Godbee had ascended to the job when Warren Evans was fired for, among other things, having an affair with a subordinate, Lt. Monique Patterson. Before turning to Evans, Patterson had had an affair with Godbee, also.

(1) "Service" Animals: In July, Wayne Short's iguana was certified by the National Service Animal Registry and thus allowed to attend to him on the Boardwalk in Ocean City, Md., where she had previously been barred. Mayor Rick Meehan, eyeing the NSAR card, asked Short what sort of "service" Hillary provided, but Short declined to answer. (2) Wandering Kids: In October, firefighters were once again called to a claw-toy vending machine to extract a boy who had crawled up the toy-release chute -- this time at a Walmart in Sun Prairie, Wis. As is often the case, the boy appeared to be joyously in his element among the toys and not immediately receptive to coaxing from firefighters or his parents.

When law enforcement officials staged a "Safe Surrender" program in Franklin, N.J., in November (inviting fugitives to give up in exchange for lighter punishment), 3,900 came in over four days, but it turned out that 550 of them were not wanted on any warrant. Said a parole officer, "For some people, this seemed to be a way to check." A few days later, in Wayne, N.J., hospital pharmacy manager Leonardo Zoppa, 34, was summoned to a meeting with the hospital's security director but arrived noticeably nervous, inquired about the agenda, and eventually volunteered that it was he who had set up that secret surveillance camera in a men's rest room -- and that he has "a problem." The security director said he was taken aback because the only purpose of the meeting was to advise Zoppa of routine security code changes.

Dave "The Dragon" Lockwood and his tournament-tested sons Max, 16, Jon, 13, and Ben, 10, of Silver Spring, Md., might become to competitive tiddlywinks what the Manning family of quarterbacks is to football, according to a January (2006) Washington Post story. Dave was previously ranked No. 1 in the English Tiddlywinks Association (and is currently No. 8, with Max No. 52). "Tiddlywinks doesn't sound very serious," said Max, but "(t)here's so much strategy." (For the uninformed: You mash a "squidger" down on a "wink" to propel it either into the "pot" or to "squop" it onto an opponent's wink to temporarily disable it.) Dave said he plans to get Britain's Prince Philip, a winker, to suggest tiddlywinks as a demonstration "sport" at London's 2012 Summer Olympics.

-- Librarian Graham Barker, 45, of Perth, Australia, casually revealed to a reporter in October that his hobby of 26 years -- harvesting his own navel lint daily, just before he showers -- has now won acclaim in the Guinness Book of World Records. His three-jar collection (a fourth is in progress) has been sold to a local museum. His pastime, he told London's Daily Mail in October, "costs nothing and takes almost no time or effort so there is no compelling reason to stop." Barker, who also collects McDonald's tray liners, said he once did a "navel lint survey," and "a handful of respondents" "confessed" to the hobby. "One guy might have persisted, but he got married, and his wife ordered him to stop."

-- Bolivia's president Evo Morales, the former union leader and coca farmer known for hard-nosed political combat, is also a fanatical soccer player and drew worldwide video attention in October for an incident during a supposedly friendly match between his pals and a team headed by the mayor of La Paz. After absorbing a vicious foul five minutes into the contest (resulting in a leg gash), President Morales confronted the offender and kneed him in his (as local media described it) "testicular zone," leaving the player curled on the ground. Afterward, Morales' bodyguards briefly threatened the gasher with arrest.

-- Fathers of the Year: (1) Real Father: In September, a judge in Kent County, Mich., finally ordered Howard Veal, 44, to prison to serve at least two years for failure to pay child support. He is more than $500,000 behind in payments to 14 mothers for the 23 children he has fathered. Authorities suspect there are even more. (2) Fake Father: French officials arrested a 54-year-old immigrant in September on suspicion of welfare fraud. They had recently begun to notice the man applying for government benefits for 55 children by 55 different mothers. (He may have fathered none at all.)

-- Swiss artist Gianni Motti has been displaying (through the end of November) a bar of soap at Zurich's Migros Museum of Contemporary Art, claiming it was made from fat that had been liposuctioned from Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Motti said a clinic employee had surreptitiously given him the fat following Berlusconi's treatment in 2004, but the clinic has denied any involvement.

-- David Rees draws the political cartoon "Get Your War On," but in his new day job, he is an artisan -- of pencil-sharpening. "With an electric pencil sharpener, a pencil is meat," he complained to the Los Angeles Times in August. For $15 (postage paid), Rees will lovingly, painstakingly sharpen a customer's favorite pencil or one of his own classic No. 2's and ship it in a secure tube to protect its newly super-sharp point. Rees also gives periodic exhibitions, wearing safety goggles and apron, to demonstrate his guarantee of "respect" for the instruments -- "an authentic interaction with your pencil."

-- The investigative journalism website ProPublica.org, curious about the workers being hired in the mortgage industry's massive, rushed re-examination of home loans previously foreclosed upon but which may have been processed illegally, began scouring the classified ads in October and November. Result: Though most employers "preferred" college graduates with credit-industry experience, it was clear from the entry-level wages offered that many were accepted only with high school educations, with at least some barely familiar with the concept of mortgages. (One staffing agency, offering $10 to $12 an hour, sought a "Supervisor of Foreclosure Department," but that position, also, required only a high school diploma.)

-- Life Imitates 100 Sci-Fi Movies: At a conference in Vancouver in October, University of California, San Francisco researcher Charles Chiu disclosed that a never-before-detected virus that partially wiped out a monkey colony in a lab in Davis, Calif., recently appeared to have "jumped" from its species onto a human scientist at the facility. However, Chiu and his research team said there is "no cause for alarm at this time."

-- Smooth Reaction: In November, after her fourth-grade son was allegedly slapped by his teacher at a Kansas City, Mo., elementary school (son, black; teacher, white), Lisa Henry Bowen submitted a 40-page list of reparations she expects from President Obama and two dozen other officials. Included in the many demands: $1.25 million in cash, $13,500 in Wal-Mart gift cards, free college education, Disney World vacations, private tennis lessons, an African safari, her mortgage paid off, home remodeling, nine years of free medical and dental coverage, and a nine-year "consulting contract" with the school district at $15,000 a month. Anticipating criticism that she had gone too far, she added that opponents can "kiss my entire black ass!!!!!! I haven't begun to go far enough!!!!!!!"

-- Centuries ago, women who devoted themselves to the Hindu goddess Devadasi were priestesses from upper castes, but over time, the temples began to use "Devadasis" merely as prostitutes to raise money, according to a new British documentary by Sarah Harris, who was interviewed in September by London's The Independent. As before, girls are offered to the temples by their parents by age 3 and perform chores, but nowadays, at puberty, the temple begins to cash in on them. India made this practice illegal in 1988, but it endures, largely because the "Devadasis" (now, almost exclusively from lower castes) have, as career alternatives, only farm labor and latrine-cleaning.

-- Incoming University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley told reporters in September of encountering one unexpected problem: staph infections caused by "the worst shower discipline of any team I've ever been around." He said he had recently run a clinic on "application of soap to the rag" and "making sure you hit all your body."

-- Formulas: (1) In July, researchers at University of Manchester devised a mathematical formula for the perfect handshake. Said psychology professor Geoffrey Beattie, "(U)ntil now there has not been a guide showing people how they should shake hands." Professor Beattie's work incorporates 12 key measures, including cool, dry palms; firm wrists; strong grips; eye contact; and using "three shakes." (2) Researchers from the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Canada and the University of Portsmouth in England, in a journal article released in May, "proved" by "flotation dynamics" and "rotation dynamics," altered for "external surface area," that giraffes can swim -- although they are probably terrible at it because of their odd shape.

-- Judgment-Challenged: (1) Tommy Riser of Blaine, Wash., had a rough Sept. 13. After a bout of drinking, he crashed a truck into a utility pole, and a few minutes later, crashed his wife's car into a guardrail trying to drive away. Later, he retrieved his personal tow truck and drove it back to the scene, intending to tow the two crashed vehicles home. However, a sheriff's deputy was on hand and, noting that Riser was still tipsy, charged him with three separate DUIs. (2) Theodore Davenport Jr., 53, who was wanted for robbing the same PNC Bank branch in Harrisburg, Pa., twice in the previous month, was arrested in November when he approached a teller at that bank to inquire about the balance in his own account.

-- Bedford, Pa., district judge Charles O. Guyer was charged in August (1991) with improperly favoring a defendant in his courtroom. Police said Guyer privately offered a lenient sentence to a 21-year-old man on the condition that the man would allow Guyer to shampoo his hair. The defendant reported the offer to authorities, and two undercover police officers, claiming to be friends of the defendant, allowed Guyer to wash their hair to gather evidence. (Guyer went on to resign in May 1992 after apologizing for his conduct and agreeing to forfeit his pension benefits.)

Surreal Estate: Sixty-two percent of the 12 million people of Mumbai, India, live in slums, but the city is also home to Mukesh Ambani's 27-story private residence (37,000 square feet, 600 employees serving a family of five), reported to cost about $1 billion. According to an October New York Times dispatch, there are "terraces upon terraces," "four-story hanging gardens," "airborne swimming pools," and a room where "artificial weather" can be created. Ambani and his brother inherited their father's textile-exporting juggernaut but notoriously spend much of their time in intra-family feuding. A local domestic worker told the Times (after noting that both she and Ambani are "human being(s)") that she has difficulty understanding why the Ambanis have so much while she struggles on the equivalent of $90 a month.

-- Stacey Herald, 36, of Dry Ridge, Ky., is 28 inches tall, with a rare condition called Osteogenisis Imperfecta, which causes brittle bones and underdeveloped organs -- provoking doctors' warnings that childbirth could cause the fetus to crush Stacey's lungs and heart (and produce a baby susceptible for life to broken legs and arms). However, to the delight of husband Wil, 27 (and 69 inches tall), Stacey recently gave birth to baby No. 3 and promised more. The middle child, 2, without OI, is already a foot taller than Stacey, but the other two are afflicted, with the recent one (according to a July ABC News report) 5 inches long at birth, weighing 2 pounds, 10 ounces.

-- Prolific: (1) In October, police arrested a man arriving at the Madras, India, airport from Sri Lanka, bringing precious stones into the country in his stomach. After employing laxatives, police recovered 2,080 diamonds. (2) William Wright, 54, was arrested in St. Petersburg, Fla., in October and charged with using a hidden camera in a ladies' room to photograph a young girl. Charges are still pending from 2009 when police said Wright had taken "upskirt" photos of more than 2,300 women.

-- Safari World, the well-known and controversial zoo on the outskirts of Bangkok, has previously stupefied the world (and News of the Weird readers) by training orangutans to play basketball, ride motorbikes and kickbox (while outfitted in martial-arts trunks). In a photo essay in November, London's Daily Mail showcased the park's most recent success -- training elephants to tightrope-walk (where they prance on a reinforced cable for 15 meters and then, displaying astonishing balance, turn around on the wire).

(1) Ms. Rajini Narayan's lawyer told the court in Adelaide, Australia, in September that she killed her husband by accident after intending only to torch his penis for alleged infidelities. The lawyer said she might have lost control of the gasoline she was holding when her husband said, "No, you won't (burn me), you fat dumb bitch." (2) In May, when a fox terrier answered a call of nature in the yard of notoriously lawn-fastidious Charles Clements, 69, in Chicago, Clements confronted the dog's 23-year-old owner. That led to mutual bravado, which continued even after Clements pulled a gun. The dog-walker was killed immediately after shouting (according to witnesses), "Next time you pull out a pistol, why don't you use it."

-- Convicted sex offender David Parkhurst, 27, was arrested in October in Palm Bay, Fla., and charged with sexual contact with a 15-year-old girl. According to police, when they asked her about any "physical characteristics" of Parkhurst's body so that they could substantiate her story, she said only that he had a "Superman-shaped shield" implant on his genitals (which was later verified).

-- More than 4,450 activities are federal crimes, and 300,000 federal regulations carry potential criminal penalties, according to an October feature by McClatchy Newspapers, and to illustrate its point that Congress has gone overboard in creating "crimes," McClatchy pointed to a Miami seafood importer. Abner Schoenwetter, 64, just finished a six-year stretch in prison for the crime of contracting to purchase lobster tails from a Honduran seller whom federal authorities learned was violating lobster-harvest regulations.

-- DNA evidence has exonerated 261 convicted criminals (including 17 on death row), but more interesting, according to professor Brandon Garrett of the University of Virginia Law School, more than 40 such exonerations have been of criminals who falsely confessed to "their" crimes. "I beat myself up a lot," Eddie Lowery told The New York Times in September. Lowery had falsely admitted raping a 75-year-old woman and served a 10-year sentence before being cleared. "I thought I was the only dummy who did that." Lowery's (nearly logical) explanation was typical: Weary from high-pressure police interrogation, he gave up and told them what they wanted to hear, figuring to get a lawyer to straighten everything out -- except that, by that time, the police had his confession on video, preserved for the jury.

-- Acting on a citizen complaint, officials in Plymouth, England, ruled in October that Army cadets (ages 12 to 18), who practice precision drills with their rifles, could not handle them during the public parade on Britain's Remembrance Day (Veterans Day). Officials said they did not want to be "glamorizing" guns.

-- In June, the roller coaster at the Funtown Splashtown in Saco, Maine, unexpectedly came to a halt, stranding riders for all of 15 minutes. A reportedly "furious" Eric and Tiffany Dillingham said later that their 8-year-old daughter was so frightened that she had to be taken to a hospital and had nightmares constantly since then. (Since the purpose of a roller coaster is to induce fright, it was not known whether the girl would also have required a hospital visit if the ride had been working perfectly.)

Clownmania: (1) Performers in New York's traveling Bindlestiff Family Cirkus protested in October against political campaign language referring to Washington, D.C., as a "circus. Said Kinko the Clown, "Before you call anyone in Washington a clown, consider how hard a clown works." (2) "Tiririca" ("Grumpy"), a professional clown, was elected by resounding vote to the Brazilian Congress from Sao Paulo in October under the slogan "It Can't Get Any Worse." (3) In June, Britain's traveling John Lawson's Circus announced a series of counseling sessions for people who avoid circuses for fear of clowns. "Coulrophobia" is reportedly Britain's third-leading phobia, after spiders and needles.

Recurring Themes: (1) John Stolarz, 69, became the latest just-released prisoner to return immediately to his criminal calling, by attempting a holdup of a Chase Bank in New York City instead of reporting to his halfway house on the day after his release. (The robbery failed because the "bank" was actually just a Chase customer-service branch, with no money.) (2) The Phoenix convenience store robber escaped with the money in September, but like many others, inadvertently stuck his face directly in front of the surveillance camera. He had entered the store with a plastic bag pulled tight over his face to distort his features and foil the camera, but halfway through the robbery, he unsurprisingly began laboring for breath and yanked off the bag, revealing his face.

Kourosh Bakhtiari, 27, went on trial in July (1989) for masterminding a three-man escape from a New York City correctional center after having hoarded, then meticulously braided, more than 15 rolls of unwaxed dental floss to make a rope strong enough to support a 190-pound man going over a wall. However, he had neglected to plan for gloves. From gripping the floss, Bakhtiari had to be hospitalized with severed tendons and ligaments in both hands.