offensive to some readers.)

LEAD STORY

Businesses typically resist government regulation, but in March Florida's interior designers begged the state House of Representatives to continue controlling them, with a theatrically ham-handed lobbying campaign challenging a deregulation bill. Designers righteously insisted that only "licensed professionals" (with a minimum six years of college and experience) could prevent the nausea Floridians would suffer from inappropriate color schemes (affecting the "autonomic nervous system" and salivary glands). Also, poorly designed prison interiors could be turned into weapons by inmates. Furthermore, deregulation would contribute to "88,000 deaths" a year from flammable materials that would suddenly inundate the market in the absence of licensing. Said one designer, addressing House committee members, "You (here in this chamber) don't even have correct seating." (If deregulation is successful, competition will increase, and lower fees are expected.)

-- The longstanding springtime culinary tradition of urine-soaked eggs endures, in Dongyang, China, according to a March CNN dispatch. Prepubescent boys contribute their urine (apparently without inhibition) by filling containers at schools, and the eggs are boiled according to recipe and sold for the equivalent of about 23 cents each. Many residents consider the tradition gross, but for devotees, it represents, as one said, "the (joyous) smell of spring."

-- The port town of Kumai, Borneo, consists of low-rise shops and houses serving a population of 20,000 but also many tall, windowless box buildings perforated with small holes. The structures are actually birdhouses, for the town's chief industry is harvesting the nests of the hummingbird-like swiftlet, constructed of its own saliva, which, properly processed, yields a sweet-tasting paste with alleged medicinal qualities and highly revered throughout Asia, according to a January BBC News report.

-- In January, while the Texas Legislature debated budget cuts that would almost certainly cost Allen High School (just north of Dallas) at least $18 million and require layoffs of teachers and other school personnel, construction was continuing on the school's new $60 million football stadium. Noted a New York Times report on the stadium (which 63 percent of voters approved in a 2009 bond referendum), "(O)nly football supersedes faith and family (among Texans)."

-- Former stripper Crystal Deans, who said she learned the trade at age 18 but later retired and turned to God for help through a rough patch of her life, now offers free pole-dancing classes in Spring, Texas, near Houston, expressly for Christian women. Her gyrations may be the same as when she was working, she said, but now everyone is clothed, and she dances only to "Christian music."

-- Youth pastor Brent Girouex, 31, was urged to confess by his minister in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in February to an apparently lengthy series of sexual experiences with boys and young men, which he initiated by suggesting that ejaculating would help the victims gain "sexual purity" by (as he explained to detectives) "getting rid of the evil thoughts in their mind." Eight victims reported multiple purification sessions, with one estimating as many as 100.

-- For Career Day in April at Shady Grove Elementary School in Henrico, Va., kids heard a local plastic surgeon describe his specialty, but not until afterward did parents learn that the surgeon had brought along as props saline breast implants (which he passed around for the kids to handle). Many parents were outraged, and even one calmer parent commented, "Career Day sure isn't what it once was."

-- The End Is Near, But How Near? In March in Owensboro, Ky., James Birkhead, 52, was sentenced to 5 1/2 months in jail for making survivalist bombs to protect his family after he became alarmed by the movie "2012," which portrays the chaos expected next year when the world ends (as supposedly foretold by the Mayan calendar). By contrast, Edwin Ramos of Vineland, N.J., is busy traveling the East Coast in his RV trying to warn people that the end will not be in 2012 but actually this month -- May 21, 2011. (The discrepancy would not exist if there had been a biblical year "0" after B.C. and before A.D.) Ramos' father apparently does not share his son's view because he accepted ownership of Ramos' successful construction business as Ramos concluded that it had no future.

-- Marie Stopes International is a prominent London charity that robustly promotes a woman's right to choose abortion, but a whimsical public service campaign in January has created unusually savage criticism. The organization partnered with the British comedy music band The Midnight Beast to produce a video suggesting anal sex as a contraceptive of choice. Among the lyrics of one song, "One up the bum, and it's no harm done/One up the bum, and you won't be a mum."

-- A man stole Waltham, Mass., student Mark Bao's notebook computer in March, but Bao used his automatic online-backup service to access the hard drive while the thief was using it, to discover a performance video of a man (presumably the thief) dancing (lamely, thought Bao) to a pop song. Bao uploaded the video to YouTube -- where 700,000 viewers showed it the proper disrespect -- and also tracked down the thief's e-mail address and informed him of his new Internet "stardom." Shortly afterward, the still-unidentified thief turned in the notebook to Bentley University police with an apology to "Mark," begging him to take down the video.

-- Apple's iPad 2 is in short supply worldwide, and so, coincidentally, are paper models of the device demanded by those of Chinese heritage at the Qingming Festival in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Confucian tradition promises good fortune to the dead if their relatives burn impressive-enough offerings at graveside during the festival (as News of the Weird mentioned in 2006). Though local vendors offer paper models of first-generation iPads to burn, and paper Samsung Galaxy Tabs, some families fear that misfortune will ensue if they fail to burn the most advanced version of the iPad. (Low-tech families burn paper copies of money or paper shirts or shoes.)

-- Arrested in Aurora, Colo., in January and charged with stalking his wife: Joseph Moron. Appointed to a senior executive position in January in the global communications firm Alcatel-Lucent: George Nazi. Arrested for dealing marijuana in March in Fairfax County, Va.: Kevin Lee Cokayne. Appointed as interim chief medical officer of Newhall Memorial Hospital in Santa Clarita, Calif., in March: Dr. Richard Frankenstein. Arrested for DUI in April by a California Highway Patrolman ("CHiP"): Eric Estrada (not the actor). Posthumously rejected as the namesake for the new government office center in Fort Wayne, Ind., in March: former Fort Wayne Mayor Harry Baals (pronounced "bales" by his descendants but always "balls" by Mr. Baals, himself).

-- Among the Republicans swept into office in November (1994, a banner year for the GOP) was Steve Mansfield, elected to Texas' highest criminal-appeals court. Among Mansfield's campaign lies or exaggerations (freely admitted in a post-election interview in the publication Texas Lawyer) were his claims of vast criminal-court experience (he is an insurance and tax lawyer), that he was born in Texas (actually, Massachusetts), that he dated a woman "who died" (she is still alive), and that he had "appeared" in courts in Illinois (never) and Florida (advised a friend, but not as a lawyer). During the interview, Mansfield said that he lived in Houston as a kid, but when the reporter asked him if that was a lie, Mansfield reluctantly admitted it was. Mansfield said he planned to stop "exaggerate(ing)" now that he is one of the highest-ranking judges in Texas. (Update: He served one six-year term.)

A tank and several armored vehicles with dozens of SWAT officers and a bomb robot rolled into a generally quiet Phoenix neighborhood on March 21, startling the residents. Knocking down a wall, deputies raided the home of Jesus Llovera, who was "suspected" of running a cockfighting business, and, indeed, 115 chickens were found inside, but Llovera was alone and unarmed, and his only previous connection to cockfights was a misdemeanor conviction in 2010 for attending one. "We're going to err on the side of caution," said Sgt. Jesse Spurgin. Adding to neighbors' amazement was the almost-fanciful sight -- riding in the tank -- of actor Steven Seagal, who had brought his "Lawman" reality TV show to Phoenix.

-- Product Giveaways: (1) New sign-ups for higher-end Dish satellite TV systems at the Radio Shack in Hamilton, Mont., also receive free Hi-Point .380 pistols or 20-gauge shotguns (after passing a background check, paid for by the store). The owner said his business has tripled since introducing the premium in October. (2) Bobblehead dolls may be popular baseball giveaways, but as part of the local "Green Sports Alliance" demonstrating concern for the environment, the Seattle Mariners announced in March that for several games this season, fans would get free bags of compost (made from food and other items discarded at Mariners games).

-- It started as a class project at Brown University, but after a launch party on March 19 (and a sold-out first run of 500), Julie Sygiel's Sexy Period menstrual-leak-fighting panties are on sale ($32 to $44, depending on the style -- "cheeky," "hipster" or "bikini"). Sygiel said "sexy" is less to suggest sensuality than to help women cope with the time of the month when they feel "not at (their) best. We want to banish that moment."

-- A Chinese Capitalist's Learning Curve: In the early hours of the destruction at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant in March, rumors abounded that millions of people might need iodine products to fight off radiation. A restaurateur named Guo in Wuhan, China, seeing the price of iodized table salt rise dramatically, cleverly cornered a market with 4 1/2 tons of it, trucked to his home, where it filled half the rooms. According to a March 25 China Daily report, the price has returned to pre-Fukushima levels -- much less than what Guo paid, and he can neither return the salt (lacking documentation) nor sell nor transport it (lacking the proper licenses).

-- From a March Discovery.com report: "Forty million years ago, a female mite met an attractive partner, grabbed him with her clingy rear end, and began to mate -- just before a blob of tree resin fell on the couple, preserving the moment for eternity." The resin-encrusted mites were discovered recently by researchers from the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology (who noted that, in those days, the female dominated mating, but that evolution has reversed that role).

-- Medical Marvels: (1) Supatra Sasuphan, 11, of Bangkok, was recently noted as the world's hairiest girl by the Guinness Book of World Records for her wolf-like facial hair as one of only 50 people in history to be recorded with hypertrichosis. Though she has of course been teased and taunted at school, she told a reporter in February that the Guinness Book recognition has actually increased her popularity at Ratchabophit school. (2) According to a team of University of Montreal psychologists, a 23-year-old man, "Mathieu," is the first documented case of a person wholly unable to feel a musical beat or to move in time with it. The scientists report for an upcoming journal article that Mathieu sings in tune but merely flails with his body, bouncing up and down much more randomly than do people who are merely poor dancers.

-- From the September 2010 issue of the journal Endoscopy, reported by three physicians at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia: A 52-year-old woman undergoing a routine colonoscopy was shown on the screen to have a cockroach in her traverse colon. A literature review revealed no previous cases of cockroaches (but, e.g., ants, wasps, bees). Though the cockroach was not welcome, the doctors acknowledged that in some other countries, they are delicacies.

-- Scientists Just Wanna Have Fun: A team of whimsical researchers at the University of Osaka (Japan) Graduate School of "Frontier Biosciences" has produced a strain of mice prone to "miscopying" DNA -- making them susceptible to developing sometimes-unexpected mutations, such as their recently born mouse that tweets like a bird. Lead researcher Arikuni Uchimura told London's Daily Mail that he had expected to produce, instead, a mouse with an odd shape, but the "singing mouse" emerged. Previously, the team produced a mouse with dachshund-like short limbs.

-- People With Too Much Money: (1) During New York City's Fashion Week in February, "fanny packs" made a comeback (though certainly not under that name), according to a Wall Street Journal report, ranging in price from a $325 Diane von Furstenberg to an Hermes "Kelly Bandeau" model, expected to sell for $4,675. (2) An unidentified "coal baron" in northern China purchased an 11-month-old, 180-pound red Tibetan mastiff recently from a breeder in Qingdao for the equivalent of about $1.52 million. "The price is justified," said breeder Lu Liang. "We have spent a lot of money raising this dog, and we have the salaries of plenty of staff to pay."

-- What Federal Cutbacks? In March, DailyCaller.com, combing federal government job announcements, found more than 1,000 in Washington, D.C., including a Facebook manager for the Interior Department ($115,000 annually), a student internship at the Housing Finance Agency ($48,000) (the same salary as being offered by the Pentagon for mailroom clerks), and managers of equal-opportunity employment programs at the Peace Corps ($155,000) and the Transportation Department (almost $180,000).

A suspicious wife (who lives apart from her husband because of work requirements) flew to the couple's principal home in Wilmette, Ill., on March 4 and, finding her husband's new girlfriend's clothes hanging in their closet, scissored out the crotch area of all her pants, doing about $2,000 in damage, and leaving the remnants in the driveway before returning to her East Coast home. According to police, neither the husband nor the girlfriend chose to file complaints, and the case is closed.

Clever, But Didn't Think It All the Way Through: (1) Daryl Davis, 30, was arrested in Springfield, Pa., in March and charged with stealing a pickup truck off of a dealer's lot. According to police, Davis had carefully forged an owner's credential for the truck at another dealership and obtained a "duplicate" key, allowing him to drive the truck off the second dealer's lot. However, when he made the original bogus credential, he had used his own name and photograph and was easily tracked down. (2) LaShay Simmons, 22, was charged in March in Houston with theft of about 250 Sprint phones by (according to police) ordering 10 to 20 phones at a time under the names of legitimate businesses, but then calling Sprint back later to change the delivery location. However, she always made the callbacks using her own easily traceable Sprint phone.

In June (1995), Barbara Ricci was voted by fellow contestants as "Mrs. Congeniality" in the Mrs. New York State pageant, receiving 22 of the 28 votes. However, six months earlier, she had gone to trial in Mount Vernon, N.Y., on charges that she tried to run down with her car the 11-year-old daughter of a neighbor with whom she had been feuding (resulting in a hung jury). And two years before that, a police officer had charged her with punching and kicking him at a school board meeting (and she pleaded guilty to harassment).

WEEK OF APRIL 17, 2011

LEAD STORY

Laney Wallace, 16, won the beauty contest at the 53rd Rattlesnake Roundup in Sweetwater, Texas, in March and the next day fulfilled the first duty of her reign: to behead and skin a western diamondback. "You have to make sure you don't pop the bladder," the 2011 Miss Snake Charmer said shortly after taking a few swipes with a machete. "That (would be) a huge mess." (Three years ago, News of the Weird informed readers of the annual beauty-contest/muskrat-skinning festival in Maryland's Eastern Shore region, in which the "beauty" part and the "skinning" part are separate -- but in which that year, two teenage girls entered both, with Dakota Abbott edging out Samantha Phillips for the crown.)

-- Record companies have enjoyed recent successes in court by suing individuals who have shared music by trading files through specialized websites that avoid paying copyright licensing fees, including Lime Wire (which shut down last year). Thirteen record companies won a summary judgment last year, and, applying a formula they believe was set out in federal law, the companies demanded that Lime Wire pay damages of up to $75 trillion -- an amount more than five times the entire national debt. In March 2011, a federal judge said the companies should modify the formula and lower their expectations.

-- Waterloo, Iowa, schoolteacher Larry Twigg was arrested for "lascivious conduct" with a teenager, a crime that requires proof of "sexual motivation." Though Twigg allegedly had a teenage boy strip, take a chocolate syrup "bath," make a "snow angel" while in his underwear, and play a video game nude, his lawyer said in March that the court-appointed psychiatrist would testify that Twigg had no sexual motivation.

-- Convicted heinous Minnesota sex offender John Rydberg, 69 and still detained after having served his sentence because he is still a "danger," exhibited an upbeat demeanor for a three-judge panel in March, hoping for release. He said his number of victims was far fewer than the "94" he previously admitted to, explaining that he offered a purposely high number because he was afraid underplaying his crimes might make it appear that he was lying. "What can I say?" offered Rydberg. "I'm a work in progress."

-- On March 30, several hours before addressing the nation on TV about Libya, President Obama received a prestigious open-records award presented by five freedom-of-information advocate organizations for running a commendably "transparent," accessible administration. However, news about this award came about only because the presenters leaked it to the press. As noted by The Washington Post the next day, there was no White House notice to the press; the presentation was not on the president's calendar; no photos or transcript were available; and the award was not mentioned on the White House website.

-- Go Figure: (1) The author of most of the text of The New York Times obituary on Elizabeth Taylor, published on March 23, was Times reporter Mel Gussow, who passed away almost six years before Taylor. (2) At George Washington University's men's basketball game on March 5, accountancy department professor Robert Kasmir was honored at halftime for being one of the elite financial donors to the university, but he was not around for the end of the game. He was ejected from the stands in the second half for harassing a referee about the officiating.

-- According to a February 2011 analysis of 2007 IRS statistics by a columnist for Tax Notes, the average taxpayer residing in New York City's posh Helmsley Building (owned before her death by Leona Helmsley, who once reportedly said that "only the little people pay taxes") paid only 14.7 percent of his income in federal taxes while New York City janitors and security guards (such as those employed by the Helmsley Building) paid about 24 percent. Helmsley residents were taxed less for Social Security and Medicare, and much of their $1.17 million average income was in capital gains, which are taxed at the same rate as the wages of modestly paid (up to $34,000 a year) workers.

-- In February, Wisconsin state Rep. Gordon Hintz was caught up in an ongoing investigation of prostitution at the Heavenly Touch Massage Parlor in Appleton that resulted in six arrests. Police merely issued Hintz a municipal citation (indicating that he might just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time). Nonetheless, Hintz refused to discuss the matter. "I am willing to take responsibility for my actions," he said, but "(m)y concern right now" is not to be "distract(ed) from the much more important issue" of "stand(ing) up for Wisconsin's working families."

-- People With Too Much Money: The average sale price of a home in Aspen, Colo., in 2010 was about $6 million, and as of early March 2011, the lowest-price single-family home on the market there was listed at $559,000, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The home is located in a trailer park.

-- The family of the late Roger Kreutz filed a lawsuit in St. Louis in March over the fatal head injuries he received when a car knocked him down in a Starbucks parking lot in 2008. The driver was Aaron Poisson, who was trying to get away from Kreutz, but Poisson was not sued. According to the lawsuit, the cause of the fatal injury was negligence by Starbucks -- because it had mindlessly placed its tip jar in full view on a counter, thus (according to the theory of the lawsuit) goading Poisson into snatching up the money and running out the door, and inspiring Kreutz, as a good Samaritan, to chase Poisson and try to retrieve the employees' tips.

-- News of the Weird reported in November on the studly senior Shigeo Tokuda, 76, the still-reigning star of Japanese "elder porn" that features older men performing with women young enough to be their granddaughters. In April 2011, "Dave Cummings," 71, the best-known older American porn actor, was scheduled for induction into the X-Rated Critics Organization's Hall of Fame (along with eight younger stars). Like Tokuda, Cummings, a former U.S. Army officer who changed careers at age 54, claims almost never to need Viagra for his movies (except, he says, for back-to-back scenes or when working with a difficult director). Said one industry insider (describing Cummings' style), "He bridges the gap between 'creepy uncle' and the person the creepy uncle wanted to be."

-- Lucas Kocab, 31, was arrested in Medina, Ohio, in February and charged with "persistent disorderly conduct" after an incident that he attributed to having snorted "bath salts." Kocab had called police to help him evict the "30" intruders in his home, and although none were found, Kocab insisted that the intruders were merely making it seem like they were not there and that they were actually blending into the surroundings, disguised as chairs or trees. Police said they were forced to Taser Kocab because he would not stop running in circles and yelling. The police examined the "bath salts" and determined that the substance is not illegal in Ohio.

-- Dee Dee Jonrowe, leading the Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon in January (1991) in northern Minnesota, took a wrong turn and went 300 yards before recognizing her error. The mistake cost her only a few minutes, but stopping to calculate where she was allowed her team to have an unsupervised rest, and by the time she was ready to turn the sled around, two of her dogs had begun to copulate. She was forced to wait on them for 25 minutes and lost the lead.