Britain's National Health Service acknowledged in November that, because of a shortage of healthy lungs and other organs available for transplant, it was offering those on waiting lists the option of receiving them from former smokers, drug addicts, cancer patients and the elderly. "You have to say," said an official with the NHS's Blood and Transplant unit, "do you get a lung with more risk, or do you get no lung (at all)?"

-- French farmer Michele Rouyer, who was discovered by police with about 11 pounds of packaged marijuana and a dozen plants, said the weed was not for himself but for the 150 ducks he raises -- in that a specialist had suggested that marijuana is an effective dewormer and fever-preventer. (Rouyer did acknowledge that, well, yes, maybe he smoked a little of it himself.) In November, a court in Rochefort fined him the equivalent of about $700 -- even though he insisted, proudly, that his ducks are, indeed, worm-free.

-- Lame: (1) Former Groveland, Mass., police officer Aaron Yeo, who was fired in 2009 for sleeping on the job and lying to dispatchers about his locations, challenged the termination in October 2010, claiming through his lawyer that he had declined to reveal his locations only because he was "watching for terrorists." (2) Body armor company CEO David H. Brooks, charged with tax fraud and insider trading, argued at his trial in August in New York City that his company's hiring of prostitutes for staff and board members was a legitimate corporate expense because it could "make (employees) more productive."

-- In recent years frisky Britons have popularized "dogging" -- strangers meeting for outdoor sex in remote public parks -- and U.K. government agencies appear to be of two minds about it. Local councils want to see it stopped, but the police chiefs' association in Scotland recognizes that doggers have rights. (The Surrey County Council, for example, recently considered bringing wild bulls into one park to discourage doggers, although one critic said romping bulls "will probably make (doggers) even more excited." The chiefs' association issued a 60-page "hate crimes" manual in October that urged officers to be sensitive to "outdoor sex" practitioners, in that they are vulnerable to hate crimes just as are other disadvantaged minorities.)

-- In November, the California Supreme Court ruled unanimously that some illegal immigrants are entitled to enroll in the state's universities at the in-state residents' rate (saving as much as $23,000 a year) even though U.S. citizens at the same schools may have to pay higher fees as non-California residents. Though federal law prevents special benefits to illegal immigrants, California's law grants anyone who has attended the state's high schools for at least three years, and graduated, to pay resident rates -- irrespective of their parents' legal residency.

-- Chadwick St.-OHarra, 59, and Steve Righetti, 59, filed lawsuits in small claims court in San Rafael, Calif., in November against the Seafood Peddler restaurant for "injuries." Cutting into the escargot at dinner in June, both men were squirted in the face by streams of hot garlic butter. Still, the men finished the meal and admitted that only later did they grow to resent the restaurant staff's insufficient remorse. Said St.-OHarra, "It was the friggin' rudeness" that provoked them to sue.

(1) Joe Druce, serving life in prison in Massachusetts for one murder (and who subsequently murdered fellow inmate and former pedophile priest John Geoghan), popped the question recently to Christian minister Shirl Borden, who agreed to marry him in October after five years of being pen pals. Borden said the pair's relationship turned romantic over their mutual love of NASCAR. (2) Harvey Westmoreland of Lawrenceburg, Ky., maintains that the $250 price he was asking for his tractor was reasonable, but the potential buyer felt cheated and, with a friend, attacked Westmoreland. Said Westmoreland, "(T)hey cut my beard and forced me to eat it." In November, the two men pleaded guilty to assault.

A Website for Everything: When a female New York City subway rider recorded video (on her cell phone) of a male exhibitionist flaunting himself at her recently, and posted it to the Internet, the regulars at one specialized website largely defended the man. Some visitors at DickFlash.com (evidently a favorite hangout for flashers) tore into the woman for being too sensitive. (Wrote one, "If she doesn't want to see it, she can just look away." And another: "She should be thankful he flashed his dick at her.") Others merely offered advice for the flasher on technique. (Wrote another, "OK, lets (sic) point out his mistakes: Subways or local buses must be done with sweats or some form of elastic band so that when u did (sic) get busted it's easy to slip back up.")

(1) Police in Gumperda, Germany, arrested a 64-year-old retired do-it-yourselfer in November after he drilled through a neighbor's wall in their duplex home. The man had spent two days trapped in his own basement, where he had laid bricks and mortar for a room but apparently forgot to leave himself an exit. (2) Sheryl Urzedowski, 38, was cited in September for DUI in Orland Park, Ill., after failing a field sobriety test to walk a straight line. According to the officer's report, Urzedowski put her hands on her hips and strutted to and fro "as if she were a (runway) model," after which, apprehensive about being arrested, she asked the officer to read her "the Amanda rights."

People Who Have Run Over Themselves Recently: (1) A 20-year-old man trying to push his car up a steep hill on Levering Street in Philadelphia lost control and was crushed and hospitalized (September). (2) Jackie Long, 52, crashed her car into a tree in Chipping Campden, England. Her door burst open just as the car went airborne, and she fell to the ground and was run over by the rear driver's-side wheel, requiring hospital treatment (September). (3) A 51-year-old woman was killed in Francis, Okla., by her riding lawnmower. She hit a pothole, was thrown about 14 feet ahead of the still-advancing machine, and could not move out of the way fast enough (September).

-- Jamie Riley, 27, was arrested in November for endangering her 3-month-old son by holding him "like a football," according to police, who had spotted Riley carrying on raucously while "celebrating" her recent "victory" over the state's Department of Children and Family Services, which had been investigating her for neglect.

-- Wrong Place, Wrong Time: In September, a tractor-trailer crashed on Interstate 70 near Terre Haute, Ind., and precipitated a traffic jam when the cargo caught fire. The truck was hauling a load of fire extinguishers. And in October in Macomb Township, Mich., a 22-year-old man was killed when he accidentally ran into the path of a passing hearse.

Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre made News of the Weird in 2004 and 2007 because of continued petty territorial fighting among the six Christian denominations that share management of the church, which is home to some of Christianity's holiest sites, including that of Jesus' resurrection. As Easter approached in 2007, three of the groups that control one 10-stall rest room could not agree how to divide responsibility for repairing it, leading to inaction and a pervasive stench in the building. Furthermore, the path of the outflow sewage pipe (which needed enlarging) passes under property of a fourth denomination, which has resisted helping with the problem unless it is granted exclusive control of one of the 10 stalls.

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.)