As the U.S. government's role in health care is debated, the French government's role was highlighted in February with a report on Slate.com about France's guarantee to new mothers of "10 to 20" free sessions of "la reeducation perineale" (vaginal re-toning to restore the pre-pregnancy condition, a "cornerstone of French post- natal care," according to Slate). The sessions involve yoga-like calisthenics to rebuild muscles and improve genital flexibility. Similar procedures in the U.S. not only are not government entitlements, but are almost never covered by private insurance, and besides, say surgeons, the patients who request them do so almost entirely for aesthetic reasons. The French program, by contrast, is said to be designed not only for general health but to strengthen women for bearing more children, to raise the birth rate. [Slate, 2-15-2012]

-- Drill, Baby, Drill: U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas may have been joking, but according to a February Washington Post story, he seemed serious at a Natural Resources Committee hearing when searching for yet more reasons why the U.S. should support oil drilling in Alaska. Caribou, he said, are fond of the warmth of the Alaskan pipeline. "So when they want to go on a date, they invite each other to head over to the pipeline." That mating ritual, Rep. Gohmert concluded, is surely responsible for a recent tenfold increase in the local caribou population. [Washington Post, 2-7-2012]

-- In assigning a bail of only $20,000, the judge in Ellisville, Miss., seemed torn about whether to believe that Harold Hadley is a terrorist -- that is, did Hadley plant a bomb at Jones County Junior College? In February, investigators told WDAM-TV that the evidence against Hadley included a note on toilet paper on which he had written in effect, "I passed a bomb in the library." However, no bomb was found, and a relative of Hadley's told the judge that Hadley often speaks of breaking wind as "passing a bomb." The case is continuing. [WDAM-TV (Hattiesburg, Miss.), 2-8-2012]

-- John Hughes, 55, was fined $1,000 in February in Butte, Mont., after pleading guilty to reckless driving for leading police on a 100-mph-plus chase starting at 3:25 a.m. After police deflated his tires and arrested him, an officer asked why he had taken off. Said Hughes, "I just always wanted to do that." [Montana Standard, 2-4-2012]

-- Melvyn Webb, 54, was acquitted in March of alleged indecent behavior on a train. An eight-woman, four-man jury in Reading (England) Crown Court found Webb's explanation entirely plausible -- that he was a banjo player and was "playing" some riffs underneath the newspaper in his lap. "(S)ometimes I do, with my hands, pick out a pattern on my knees," he said. (On the other hand, the female witness against him had testified that Webb "was facing me, breathing heavily and snarling.") [Daily Mail, 3-7-2012]

-- Earl Persell, 56, was arrested in Palm Bay, Fla., in February when police were summoned to his home on a domestic violence call. Persell's girlfriend said he had assaulted her and held her down by the neck, and then moments later, with his truck, rammed the car she was driving away in. The subject of the couple's argument was legendary singer Tina Turner and her late, wife-beating husband, Ike. [Florida Today (Melbourne), 2-3-2012]

-- U.S. military forces called to battle in Iraq and Afghanistan, including reservists and National Guardsmen on active duty, have their civilian jobs protected by federal law, but every year the Pentagon reports having to assist personnel who have been illegally fired or demoted during their tours of duty. Of all the employers in the United States who are seemingly ignorant of the law, one stands out: civilian agencies of the federal government. The Washington Post, using a Freedom of Information Act request, revealed in February that during fiscal year 2011, 18 percent of all complaints under the law were filed against federal agencies. [Washington Post, 2-19-2012]

-- Mark "Chopper" Read only wanted to help out his son's youth athletics program in the Melbourne, Australia, suburb of Collingwood in February, but was rebuffed. He had offered his assistance at track meets by, for instance, firing the starter's pistol for races, but officials declined after learning that Read had recently been released from prison after 23 years and had boasted of killing 19 people and once attempting to kidnap a judge at gunpoint. [The Mercury (Hobart), 2-14-2012]

-- Damien Bittar of Eugene, Ore., turned 21 at midnight on March 15 and apparently wanted to get a quick start on his legal-drinking career. By 1:30 a.m., his car had been impounded, and he had been charged with DUI, reckless driving and criminal mischief after he accidentally crashed into an alcohol rehabilitation center. [KVAL-TV (Eugene), 3-15-2012]

Internal Revenue Service is battling the estate of art dealer Ileana Sonnabend over the value of a Robert Rauschenberg stuffed bald eagle that is part of his work "Canyon." IRS has levied taxes as if the work were worth $65 million, but the Sonnabend estate, citing multiple auction-house appraisals, says the correct value is "zero," since it is impossible to sell the piece because two federal laws prohibit the trafficking of bald eagles, whether dead or alive. (Despite the law, IRS says, there is a black market for the work, for example, by a "recluse billionaire in China (who) might want to buy it and hide it.") [Artinfo, 2-23-2012]

(1) Maureen Reed, 41, was charged with DWI in March in Lockport, N.Y., after arriving at a police station inebriated. She had gotten into an altercation with two others at the Niagara Hotel and left to go press charges. The police station is about 200 feet from the hotel, but Reed unwisely decided to drive her car there instead of walking. (2) Two men were robbed in a motel room in Bradenton, Fla., in February by Cedrick Mitchell, 39, who pulled a handgun on them, but lost it in a struggle when the men started to fight back. One of the men pepper-sprayed Mitchell, sending him fleeing. He returned a few minutes later and begged to buy the gun back for $40, but all he got was another pepper-spraying. Police arrested Mitchell nearby. [Lockport Journal, 3-13-2012] [Bradenton Herald, 2-23-2012]

Dr. Peter Trigger, 62, apparently suffered a relapse in Thorplands, England, in February. Dr. Trigger violated his Anti-Social Behavior Order (the one reported in News of the Weird in 2009) by standing passively alongside the grounds of the Woodvale Primary School as parents dropped kids off for classes. As before, he was wearing a thigh-length gray skirt and a blue Northampton Academy Blazer even though forbidden to be near a school while dressed in either a skirt or a school uniform. His lawyer said that Dr. Trigger desperately wants to be a woman. [Northampton Chronicle, 2-29- 2012]

(1) Asian News International, citing a March China Today report, disclosed that a 68-year-old woman from the countryside, visiting her son in the city of Dalian, China, for the first time, used an unheard-of (for China) 98 tons of water over a two-month period because she was apparently mesmerized by the wonder of seeing her first flush toilet (which she continually engaged approximately every five minutes). (Her use breaks down to 391 gallons a day, somewhat higher than the average U.S. household.) (2) In Port Harcourt, Nigeria, in March, police finally straightened out the street confrontation between several men and a wheelchair-using man who, they thought, was making their penises disappear. According to National Network Newspapers, the police brought all parties to the station and ordered pants to be pulled down. All organs were said to be intact, but one man still complained that his had been made "lifeless." [China Today via ANI, 3-28-2012] [National Network Newspapers (Port Harcourt), 3-21-2012]

Like most states with active trade associations of barbers and beauticians, Iowa strictly regulates those professions, requiring 2,100 hours of training plus continuing education -- but also like many other states, Iowa does not regulate body piercers at all (though it forbids minors from getting tattoos). Thus, the puncturing of body parts and insertion of jewelry or other objects under the skin can be done by anyone, with or without formal training, under no one's watchful eye except the customer's. (A few cities' ordinances require a minimum age to get pierced.) Said one professional piercer to the Des Moines Register for a March report, "The lack of education in this industry is scary." [Des Moines Register, 3-11-2012]

-- Controlling the Waters: (1) A February bill in the Wyoming legislature to prepare the state for possible secession authorized a task force to consider establishing a state army, navy, marine corps and air force, and one amendment added the consideration of purchasing an aircraft carrier. Wyoming is, of course, landlocked, but it does have the 136-square-mile Yellowstone Lake, though that body of water is high up in the Teton mountains. (The aircraft- carrier amendment was defeated even though 27 representatives voted for it.) (2) Texas announced in February that it would deploy six gunboats to patrol the Mexican border's Rio Grande river. Said a state Department of Safety official, "It sends a message: Don't mess with Texas." [Billings Gazette, 2-27-2012] [CNN, 2-29-2012]

-- With a National Institute of Justice grant, the Houston Police Department was able to learn precisely how embarrassingly bad it had been in investigating rape cases. In February it conceded that, as of December, it had on hand 6,663 untested rape kits (some from the 1980s) taken from rape victims at the time of the crime but then apparently ignored. (Not all are significant: In some rapes, a perpetrator has already confessed or been convicted, and still other victims recanted, and in still others, the statute of limitations has run out.) [KPRC-TV, 2-14-2012]

-- After every snowfall in recent years, Doug Rochow of Ottawa, Ontario, has routinely taken his shovel and cleared two paths in a park near his home (since the park is apparently a low priority for municipal snow-clearing), but in March, the city ordered him to stop. Rochow said his aim was to keep people from hurting themselves on uncleared paths (thus perhaps saving the city money on lawsuits). The city's reverse-logic position, according to a Toronto Star report, was that if Rochow cleared the paths, more people would be encouraged to use them, increasing the city's exposure to lawsuits. [Toronto Star, 3-5-2012]

-- It wasn't on a scale with an infinite number of orangutans using an infinite number of iPads, but the conservation group Orangutan Outreach has begun to supply certain zoos with iPads, hoping to encourage apes' creativity and social networking. At the Milwaukee Zoo, a handler holds the device while an orangutan operates a painting app with its fingers. ("Orangutans like to paint, and they're capable of using this (tablet)," he said, adding the benefit that "there's no paint to eat.") At the Memphis Zoo recently, said an Outreach official, the apes seem happy when they recognize images of other apes on the iPad. The Toronto Zoo's iPad is expected soon. [Toronto Star, 2-29-2012]

-- In March came word from Taiwan that the prominent Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts had awarded a prize worth the equivalent of $13,500 to student Wong Tin Cheung for creating the face of a man by using the artist's own urine. His piece, "Blood Urine Man," presented to judges in a toilet bowl, used urine of different colors, supposedly to match the pigments of the Marvel Comics superhero Iron Man. [Newser, 3-19-2012]

-- Difficult Fact-Check: According to the Utah Highway Patrol, a one-car crash in February left the following injured in serious condition: Ms. Me Htwe and Mr. Hsar Kpaw Doh and Mr. W.T. Htoo, along with the driver, Mr. Tar Eh. (Ms. Mula Er, 14, died of her injuries.) All were from Heber City, Utah. [Salt Lake Tribune, 2-28-2012]

-- "(E)very single cop in the state has done this. Chiefs on down." That practice, referred to by the unidentified Minnesota law enforcement officer, is the personal use of the police database that is supposedly off-limits for all except official business. According to an imminent lawsuit (reported by the weekly City Pages in Minneapolis), former officer (and apparently still a "hottie") Anne Marie Rasmusson, 37, learned that 104 officers in 18 different agencies in Minnesota had accessed her driver's license record 425 times. Rasmusson's lawyer said the reality is that officers tend to treat the confidential database more like a "Facebook for cops." [City Pages, 2-22-2012]

(1) In January, police in Bridgeville, Pa., investigated a series of vehicle break-ins, including one of a car belonging to Kathy Saunoras, who reported that only her dentures were taken. (2) Two weeks later, health worker Marlene Dupert, 44, was charged with yanking dentures out of the mouth of one of her charges at a nursing home in Selinsgrove, Pa. (3) Also in February, Evelyn Fuller, 49, was charged with robbing the First National Bank in Waynesburg, Pa. -- a crime necessitated, she told a police officer, because she needed money for new dentures. [Associated Press via WPVI-TV (Philadelphia), 1-26-2012] [Daily Item (Sunbury, Pa.), 2-18-2012] [Observer-Reporter (Washington, Pa.), 2-1-2012]

Only the Lonely: Adrian Baltierra, 51, was charged with solicitation in February in Bradenton, Fla., after, according to police, he approached an undercover female officer, who was posing as a prostitute, and agreed to a transaction. In exchange for $15, Baltierra would be accorded the opportunity to take a whiff of the "prostitute's" genital aroma (although street slang was used in the negotiation). [The Smoking Gun, 2-27-2012]

(1) Didn't See It Coming: Canadian Jasmin Klair pleaded guilty in federal court in Seattle in March to smuggling nearly 11kg of cocaine into the U.S. She had been arrested upon arrival at a bed and breakfast called the Smuggler's Inn, located about 100 feet from the border in Blaine, Wash. (2) Greedy: According to police in Lake Ariel, Pa., alleged burglar Christopher Wallace had loaded his van with goodies from a home's first floor, but instead of calling it a night, he re-entered to check out the second floor. Wallace was later rushed to the hospital after accidentally falling out a second-floor window, resulting in a broken back, hip and arm. [News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.), 3-20-2012] [Wayne Independent (Honesdale, Pa.), 3-19-2012]

Fathers of Our Country: News of the Weird has reported on several prolific men who sell their sperm to sperm banks, to be selected from catalogs by multiple mothers-to-be seeking high-quality breeding (and also one case of a middle-aged physician who collected women's money to find donors but then decided to self-supply his clients). Fremont, Calif., computer-security worker Trent Arsenault, 36, is America's most notorious "rogue" donor, offering his output absolutely free to same-sex and low-income clients who have difficulty procuring through sperm banks. He is so far the father of at least 15 children. Since 2010, the federal Food and Drug Administration has been trying to shut him down as an unregistered "manufacturer" of body tissue who must therefore adhere to federal safety regulations. Arsenault, according to a profile in New York magazine in February, is the son of disapproving parents (father, a Pentecostal minister), and in addition, is a virgin. [New York Daily News, 12-9-2011; New York magazine, 2-13-2012]

On March 3, police in Kantale, Sri Lanka, found the body of Janaka Basnayake, 24, who with the help of friends had buried himself in a 10-foot-deep trench for an attempt to set a "world record" for the longest time buried alive. Clearly, his 6 1/2 hours underground was too ambitious. An Associated Press report noted that it was "unclear" whether an "official" record exists in this category. [Associated Press via Huffington Post, 3-5-2012] 

Thanks This Week to John Cohen, Steve Dunn, Brian Bjolin, Gary Locke, John Connell, Pete Randall, Skip Mendler, and John Votel, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

In a world of advancing technology and declining map-reading skills, some GPS navigator users blindly over-rely on the devices, and News of the Weird has reported enough of their predicaments to mark the category "no longer weird." However, three Japanese students on holiday near Brisbane, Australia, in March created a new standard for ignoring common sense. Bound for North Stradbroke Island (about eight miles offshore), the driver (according to authorities cited by the local Bayside Bulletin) apparently put maps and eyesight aside, in favor of the all-powerful Navigator, which had instructed him to proceed. As news spread on the Internet, photographers rushed to capture the car, half-buried in sand. (In the students' defense, the beach seemed to extend to the horizon at low tide -- although the word "island" might have deserved more respect.) [Bayside Bulletin (Cleveland, Australia), 3-15-2012]

-- The entire village (almost!) of Sodeto, Spain, shared the grand prize in the country's huge Christmas lottery in December, earning each of the 70 households the equivalent of at least $130,000. The joint buy-in of tickets is a town ritual, but one resident missed the canvassing: filmmaker Costis Mitsotakis, who said he was happy that everyone else was happy. (The dark side of winning: Hucksters flooded the town from all over the country.) [New York Times, 1-31-2012]

-- The town of Betws-y-Coed, Wales, holds the distinction of having its name likely butchered by more misspellings on Internet search inquiries than any other. Website managers told BBC News in February that they have compiled a list of 364 different spellings from people ostensibly looking for the town. The most common references were to "Bwtsy Code" and "Betsy Cowed." [BBC News, 2-16-2012]

-- Anthony McDaniel, 47, voluntarily returned to North Carolina from his new home in Texas in February after being charged with embezzlement by his old employer. The owner of Fayetteville's Skibo Skillet (now out of business) accused McDaniel of having pocketed meatballs, corn on the cob and anchovy dip while he worked there. [Greensboro News-Record, 2-23-2012]

-- Make Yourselves at Home: (1) Keith Davis, 46, was caught red-handed in Ashley Murray's house in South Bend, Ind., in February and charged with burglary. Murray, though, said she had mixed feelings because, while there, Davis had folded Murray's clothes and vacuumed the house. (Police said that some drug or other had made Davis believe he was in his own home.) (2) Officials at the county courthouse in Charlotte, N.C., were startled to learn in January that Paul Frizzell, 30, had commandeered a vacant office in the building and for two months had been running his business out of it (with telephone, copy machine and bulletin board, among other trappings). [WNDU-TV (South Bend), 2-10-2012] [Gaston Gazette, 1-12-2012]

-- What Christmas gift would be appropriate for the 7-year-old daughter of Britain's notorious specimen of plastic surgery known as the "Human Barbie"? For little "Poppy" Burge, it was a gift certificate worth the equivalent of about $11,000 for future liposuction (redeemable beginning at age 18). Mom Sarah had already given her a voucher for breast augmentation. (Poppy, developing her early-onset need for attention: "I can't wait to be like Mummy with big boobs. They're pretty.") Mom, who recently turned 51, celebrated with about $80,000 worth of additional plastic surgery to run her lifetime total to the equivalent of (depending on source consulted) $800,000 to $1 million. [Daily Mail (London), 1-4-2012]

-- Sheriff's detectives told the Everett, Wash., Daily Herald in January that they had recently tracked down a 21-year-old man who confessed to stealing checks from the Money Tree store in Lynnwood, Wash., and forging signatures. According to the detectives, the man was clear about his motive: "I don't have an addiction. I don't need to use drugs. I (was) doing this to show my parents that I can make it on my own, without them." [Daily Herald, 1-25-2012]

In October, Robbie Suhr, 48, of Pleasant Prairie, Wis., sought the affections of the young exchange student living with Suhr and his wife and children, but she had so far declined. According to police, a disguised Suhr snatched the woman one night, intending to tie her up, leave, and then return undisguised to "rescue" her. However, she fought back, sending the masked man fleeing. (Suhr got off easier than Jordan Cardella, 20, of Milwaukee did several months earlier. To win back his girlfriend, Cardella convinced a buddy to shoot him, hoping for the girlfriend's sympathy and a change of heart. Although he requested three shots in the back, he wisely settled for one in the arm. Alas, the girlfriend continued to ignore him.) [WTMJ-TV (Milwaukee), 10-30-2011] [Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee), 7-26-2011]

(1) Two ministers in the Indian state of Karnataka were pressured into resigning in February after allegedly being spotted watching pornography on a cellphone in the state legislature. Minister Laxman Savadi said he was actually doing research on the dangers of "rave" parties. (2) A 54-year-old court clerk at Inner London Crown Court was caught by his judge looking at pornography during the victim's testimony at a notorious rape trial. He said he was just "bored" and admitted previously browsing porn in court. [BBC News, 2-8-2012] [Daily Mail, 2-7-2012]

Now in its third season, the TLC cable channel's series "My Strange Addiction" continues to raise the bar for News of the Weird stories. This season's highlights include the man sexually attracted to his car, plus women who surround themselves with mothballs or eat cat food or drink nail polish or dig into their ears or eat adhesive tape. In one episode, "Ayanna," 54, who has not cut her fingernails in three decades, reports that she has recently been cultivating her toenails, which are now 4 inches long and hampering her use of shoes. Another episode this season features Sheyla Hershey, mentioned in News of the Weird four weeks ago after she credited her gigantic breast implants with cushioning her body during a recent car crash. [ABC News, 2-10-2012; Daily Mail (London), 3-6- 2012]

One of the largest methamphetamine busts in U.S. history was made in March by police in Palo Alto, Calif., who used the popular Find-My-iPad app. Apparently, someone at the drug house had stolen the iPad, and police turned on the owner's global-positioning "app," pointing to an apartment complex in Santa Clara County. Almost 800 pounds of meth was confiscated, with a street value of about $35 million. Said the father of the iPad owner, "They have $35 million, and they can't go out and buy an iPad?" [Mercury News (San Jose), 3-3-2012]

News of the Weird reported in 2006 and 2008 on precocious 5-year-old boys who, according to their parents, were certain they wanted to live the rest of their lives as girls (that is, were not just "going through a phase"). In Essex, England, recently, Zach Avery, then 4, made British medical history when the National Health Service diagnosed him with gender identity disorder and endorsed his desire to live as a girl. Zach was so unhappy as a boy that he once tried to dismember himself. [Daily Telegraph (London), 2-20-2012]

Arrested recently and awaiting trial for murder: Justin Wayne Green, 30, Clay County, Texas (March). Kenneth Wayne Thompson, 28, Doniphan, Mo. (March) (arrested in Arizona). Gerald Wayne Little, 60, Princeton, W.Va. (March). Michael Wayne Lindsay, 48, Baileyton, Ala. (March). Keith Wayne Johnson, 19, Buna, Texas (February). Ryan Wayne Koebel, 17, Holts Summit, Mo. (January). Derrick Wayne Hunt Jr., 18, San Antonio (October). Ronald Wayne MacDonald, 50, Reno, Nev. (September) (charged in a 33- year-old cold case). Jeremy Wayne Manieri, 31, Baton Rouge, La. (July) (arrested in Florida). Christopher Wayne Dixon, 25, Sanford, N.C. (August). Indicted for murder: Mark Wayne Thibodeaux, 52, Lake Charles, La. (March). Re-sentenced for murder: Carl Wayne Buntion, Houston (March) (once again sentenced to death). Murder conviction overturned on appeal: Michael Wayne Hash, Richmond, Va. (February). Green: [Times Record News (Wichita Falls, Tex.), 3-20-2012] Thompson: [Associated Press via St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 3-17-2012] Little: [Bluefield Daily Telegraph (Bluefield, W.Va.), 3-21-2012] Lindsay: [The Arab Tribune (Arab, Ala.), 3-22-2012] Johnson: [Beaumont Enterprise, 3-20-2012] Koebel: [Associated Press via Columbia Tribune, 1-22-2012] Hunt: [San Antonio Express-News, 10-16-2011] MacDonald: [Sky Valley Chronicle (Monroe, Wash.), 9-24-2011] Manieri: [New York Daily News, 7-13-2011] Dixon: [Fayetteville Observer, 8-7-2011] Thibodeaux: [KPLC-TV (Lake Charles, La.), 3-22-2012] Buntion: [KHOU-TV (Houston), 3-6-2012] Hash: [Associated Press via Washington Post, 2-29-2012]

Thanks This Week to John Connell, Barbara McDonald, Dorothy Rosa Durkee, Steve Ringley, Matt Rushing, Nelson Waller, and Neil Gimon, and to the News of the Weird Senior Advisors (Jenny T. Beatty, Paul Di Filippo, Ginger Katz, Joe Littrell, Matt Mirapaul, Paul Music, Karl Olson, and Jim Sweeney) and Board of Editorial Advisors (Tom Barker, Paul Blumstein, Harry Farkas, Sam Gaines, Herb Jue, Emory Kimbrough, Scott Langill, Steve Miller, Christopher Nalty, Mark Neunder, Bob Pert, Larry Ellis Reed, Rob Snyder, Stephen Taylor, Bruce Townley, and Jerry Whittle).