Horse show jumping is a longtime Olympics sport, but for the last 10 years, equestrians have been performing in "horseless" show jumping, in which horse courses are run by "riders" on foot (who, by the way, do not straddle broomsticks). According to an October report in The Wall Street Journal, an international association headed by retired pro equestrian Jessica Newman produces at least 15 shows a year, with between 40 to 130 competitors galloping over jumps that vary from two to four feet high (five feet in "Grand Prix" events), with the "riders" graded as if they were on horses (timed, with points off for contacting the rails). Explained Newman about the shows' success: "It's just fun to be a horse." [The Wall Street Journal, 10-8-2012]

-- Official Gaydar: Malaysia's Education Ministry has held at least 10 seminars recently to teach parents and teachers how to head off the pesky homosexuality that their kids may be in "danger" of developing. According to officials, sure signs are when boys wear "V-neck" or sleeveless shirts or carry big handbags. For girls, the most obvious sign is "having no affection for boys." Last year, according to a September Reuters report, the government set up camps specifically to teach "masculine behavior" to "effeminate" boys. [Reuters via Washington Post, 9-14-2012]

-- Championship eaters gobble down hot dogs on New York's Coney Island, but in August, when a Filipino restaurant in Brooklyn wanted a more ethnic contest, it offered plates of "baluts" -- the Philippine delicacy of duck fetuses. Wayne Algenio won, stuffing 18 down his throat in five minutes. Typically, the baluts have barely begun to develop, sometimes allowing a "lucky" diner to sense in his mouth the crackle of a beak or the tickle of a feather. Since baluts are exotic, they are considered to be (as is often the case in Asia) aphrodisiacs. [Huffington Post, 8-27-2012]

-- Surviving a cobra bite in Nepal is simple, some natives believe. If the victim bites the snake right back, to its death, the venom is rendered harmless. One confident farmer bitten in August in Biratnagar told BBC News that he went about his business normally after fatally biting his attacker and survived only after his family convinced him that perhaps the custom was ridiculous and hauled him to a hospital. [BBC News, 8-13-2012]

-- A September religious festival in Nanchang, China, is a favorite of beggars, as visitors are in a generous mood, but officials expressed concern this year about the increasing hordes of panhandlers harassing the pilgrims. Thus, town officials ordered all festival beggars to be locked up in small cages (too tiny to allow standing) to minimize the hustling. Beggars are free to leave, but then must stay away permanently. Most beggars chose to stay since they still earned more in festival cages than they would have on the street. [Daily Mail, 9-19-2012]

-- In August, schoolboy Charlie Naysmith of Christchurch, England, taking a nature walk near Hengistbury Head beach, came upon a rocklike substance that turned out to be petrified whale vomit -- which, to his surprise, proved worth the equivalent of from $16,000 to $64,000. "Ambergris," a waxy buildup from the intestines of a sperm whale, produces a foul odor but is valuable commercially for prolonging the scent of a perfume. (Actually, after floating in the sun, on salt water, for decades, the ambergris on the beach was smooth and sweet-smelling.) [Daily Echo (Bournemouth), 8-25-2012]

-- Tucker, an 8-year-old black Labrador mix, is the only dog in the world trained to detect the faint whiff of the tiniest specks of whale feces in the open ocean water (and from as far as a mile away!). A September New York Times dispatch from coastal Washington state noted that the 85 or so orcas that populate the area have been identified and tracked for decades, but locating them at any given time was always a problem until Tucker came along. One of his trainers explained that the dog's directional signals are accurate but often subtle (such as by a twitch of the ear). [New York Times, 9-1-2012]

-- The CIA and the National Security Agency may play roles, but Kentucky's homeland security law explicitly acknowledges "God" as the key to the war on terrorism. In August, the Kentucky Supreme Court declined to hear atheists' challenges to the state's 2002 "legislative finding" that the state's "safety and security" cannot be achieved without God's help. A lower court wrote that since the law did not "advance" religion but merely paid "lip service" to a belief in God, it did not violate the separation of church and state doctrine. [Louisville Courier-Journal, 8-19-2012]

-- Seventy people, including 20 children, were discovered in August in an eight-story-high, all-underground bunker in Kazan in the Russian Republic of Tatarstan, and authorities said the quasi-religious sect had probably been there for nearly 10 years without heat or forced ventilation -- or sunlight. The group is nominally Islamist, but according to a dispatch by London's The Guardian, the sect is more likely under the individual control of 83-year-old, self-described prophet Fayzrahman Satarov. [The Guardian, 8-9-2012]

-- The Tax on Worship: When the Roman Catholic Church in Germany warned in September that too many Catholics were opting out of paying the country's "religious tax," many Americans got their first-ever notice that some European democracies actually tax worship. The Catholic Church made it official that anyone backing out of the income tax surcharge would be ineligible to receive Holy Communion or religious burial (although the tax avoider could still receive Last Rites). (Under the German constitution, a church can directly recoup its expenses from members or choose to allow the government to collect the levy on the church's behalf, minus a collection fee. Two German states add 8 percent to whatever the church member's tax bill is, and the other states add 9 percent.) [BBC News, 9-24-2012]

-- The Bronx, where nearly one-third of the population lives in poverty, is the poorest of the five New York City boroughs, with per-capita income 70 percent lower than neighboring Manhattan's. Yet among the city's most ambitious public works projects under construction is an 18-hole golf course in the Bronx's Ferry Point Park, estimated to cost the city $97 million, according to a September New York Times report. Furthermore, golf may be losing popularity. The Times reported that rounds of golf in New York City have dwindled (from 880,000 on 12 municipal courses in 1966 to 561,000 on 13 courses in 2011). From the city's standpoint, it gets a course to be operated by a Donald Trump company and is hoping to build a waterfront esplanade adjacent to the course. [New York Times, 9-29-2012]

-- Update: As News of the Weird mentioned in July, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found 11 instances since 2000 in which ultra-Orthodox circumcision priests (mohelim) had passed along the herpes simplex virus from their saliva when they used the ancient method of blood-removal from the wound by sucking it clean. Responding in September, New York City's Health Department ordered the mohelim to warn parents of the danger and to require written consent for the ritual, but in October, three rabbis and three Jewish organizations challenged the order in federal court, arguing that Jewish law "requires" that particular method of blood removal. (According to the CDC, in 10 of the 11 cases, hospitalization was required, and two boys died.) [Associated Press via Knoxville News-Sentinel, 10-11-2012]

(1) Todd Kettler, 37, was arrested in October in Kalamazoo Township, Mich., and charged with robbing a Southfield, Mich., bank five days earlier. The manager of a strip club in the Township had noticed that Kettler was handing women money saturated with red dye, and called the police. (2) Two men, ages 45 and 42, were arrested in Toronto in September after they walked into a neighborhood money-transfer store with $520,250 in a duffel bag and attempted to wire that amount to an address in Los Angeles. Police charged them in connection with an ongoing money-laundering investigation. [WDIV-TV (Detroit), 10-9-2012] [Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News, 9-24-2012]

Thanks This Week 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).

For September's Digital Design Weekend at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, artists Michiko Nitta and Michael Burton commissioned soprano Louise Ashcroft to sing, altering pitch and volume while wearing a face mask made of algae. According to the artists, since algae's growth changes with the amount and quality of carbon dioxide it receives, Ashcroft's voice, blowing CO2 against the algae, should vary the growth's "taste" as to bitterness or sweetness. After the performance, the audience sampled the algae at various stages and apparently agreed. The artists said they were demonstrating how biotechnology could transform organisms. [V&A Museum press release via io9.com blog, 9-27-2012]

-- Jordan and Bryan Silverman's start-up venture, Star Toilet Paper, distributes rolls to public restrooms in restaurants, stadiums and other locations absolutely free -- because the brothers have sold ads on each sheet. (Company slogan: "Don't rush. Look before you flush.") Jordan, with 50 advertisers enlisted so far, told the Detroit Free Press in August that he came up with the idea, of course, while sitting on the can at the University of Michigan library. [Detroit Free Press via USA Today, 8-21-2012]

-- First-World Problems: After an international trade association reported that women bought 548 million pairs of shoes in 2011 (not even counting those used exclusively for sports), the manufacturer Nine West has decided to start its own cable TV channel with programing on "various aspects of footwear," according to an August New York Times report. Programs will feature celebrities rhapsodizing about their favorite pair, women who hoard shoes (purchasing many more than they know they'll ever wear even one time), tips on developing one's stiletto-walking skills and shoe closet designs. It's about a "conversation," said a Nine West executive, "not about a shoe." [New York Times, 8-21-2012]

-- Habersham Funding of Georgia and its competitors make their money by buying terminally ill clients' life insurance policies for lump sums, then continuing to pay the policies' premiums so that they collect as beneficiaries upon death. The companies' business model therefore depends on those clients dying quickly; a client who outlives expectations turns the investment sour. Thus, according to an August report by the New York Times, the companies run extensive background checks on the illnesses and lifestyles of potential clients and employ sophisticated computer algorithms that predict, better than doctors can, how long a client will live. Supposedly, according to the report, the companies are nonchalant about erroneous predictions. No company, they claim, has an official policy of hoping for early death. [New York Times, 8-11-2012]

-- Scorpion antivenom made in Mexico sells in Mexico for about $100 a dose, but for a while over the last year, the going rate in the emergency room of the Chandler (Ariz.) Regional Medical Center was $39,652 a dose, charged to Marcie Edmonds, who was stung while opening a box of air-conditioner filters in June. She received two doses by IV and was released after three hours, to later find a co-pay bill of $25,537 awaiting her (with her Humana plan picking up $57,509), according to the Arizona Republic newspaper. The Republic found that Arizona hospitals retailed it for between $7,900 and $12,467 per dose -- except for Chandler. Following the newspaper's report, Chandler decided to re-price the venom at $8,000 a dose, thus eating a $31,652 "loss." [Arizona Republic, 9-4-2012, 9-20-2012]

-- Among the least-important effects of last summer's drought in the Midwest: Officials overseeing the annual Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw said there would be fewer high-quality cow patties. Said chairperson Ellen Paulson: "When it's hot, the cows don't eat as much. And what was produced, they just dried up too quick." A few patties had been saved from the 2011 competition, but, she said, "It's not like you can go out and buy them." [Wisconsin State Journal, 8-23-2012]

-- The ongoing feud between two Warwick, R.I., households has intensified, according to an August complaint. Kathy Melker and Craig Fontaine charged that not only has neighbor Lynne Taylor been harassing them with verbal insults and threats, but that Taylor has now taught her cockatoo to call Melker, on sight, a nasty epithet (which rhymes with "clucking bore"). "I'm 53 years old, and I've never been called (that phrase) in my life," Melker said. [RhodyBeat.com (Providence), 8-16-2012]

-- At least two teams of Swiss researchers are developing tools that can improve farmers' efficiency and reduce the need for shepherds. The research group Kora has begun outfitting sheep with heart rate monitors that, when predators approach, register blood-pressure spikes that are texted to the shepherd, summoning him to the scene. Another inefficiency is cow farmers' frequent needs to locate and examine cows that might be in heat, but professors at a Bern technical college are testing placing thermometers in cows' genitals, with text messages alerting the farmer that a specific cow is ready for mating. (Since most insemination is done artificially, farmers can reduce the supply of bull semen they need to keep in inventory.) [New York Times, 10-2-2012]

-- Researchers writing in the journal Animal Behaviour in July hypothesized why male pandas have sometimes been seen performing handstands near trees. They are urinating, the scientists observed, and doing handstands streams the urine higher on the tree, presumably signaling their mating superiority. A San Diego Zoo researcher involved in the study noted that an accompanying gland secretion gives off even more "personal" information to other pandas than the urine alone. [Live Science, 8-28-2012]

-- Spending on health care for pets is rising, of course, as companion animals are given almost equal status as family members. In Australia, veterinarians who provide dental services told Queensland's Sunday Mail in August that they have even begun to see clients demanding cosmetic dental work -- including orthodontic braces and other mouth work to give dogs "kissable breath" and smiles improved by removing the gap-tooth look. [Courier-Mail (Brisbane), 8-12-2012]

Endangering the "Presumption of Innocence": (1) Roy Mullen, posing for his most recent photo to be posted on the Tennessee sex offender registry in September, showed up wearing a t-shirt reading "Love Sucks / True Love Swallows." (2) Hubert Leverich, 40, was arrested in Danville, Va., in September and charged with sexual abuse of an underage girl. Leverich's permanently tattooed forehead reads "Felon Thoughts" and (in English gothic lettering) "Insane." [The Smoking Gun, 9-18-2012] [News & Advance (Danville), 9-6-2012]

-- Pathetic: (1) Kalpeshkumar Patel, 40, failed in June to carry out his longstanding threat to burn down the Chevron station in High Springs, Fla. After dousing his car with gasoline in front of the store, he realized he had no lighter or matches and had to ask several customers, without success, to help him out. He was arrested before he could do any damage. (2) Ignatius "Michael" Pollara, 46, and his mother, 70, were arrested following what police said was a 10-year shoplifting spree that might have spanned 50 states. They were nabbed in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., because, said sheriff's Sgt. Rich Rossman, Pollara could not resist using a "rewards" card traced to him, which he used to get credit for some of the purchases he had switched for more expensive items. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 8-10-2012]

Recent, apparently dramatic public appearances of Jesus: Beeville, Tex.; August (Jesus in a breakfast taco). Belfast, Northern Ireland; August (Jesus on a tree stump in the Belfast City Cemetery). Sunderland, England; June (Jesus among the peeling paint on the door of a Chinese-food takeout stand). Port St. Lucie, Fla.; May (Jesus on the television show "The Bachelor" -- at least as per a woman's photo of the TV screen during the show). Splendora, Tex.; May (mold on a bathroom wall). New Orleans; April (Jesus in a shadow cast through a chandelier in the Ursuline Academy Chapel). Charleston, S.C.; April (Jesus on the back of a dead stingray). Clermont, Fla.; March (Jesus on an electric company meter at the Torchlite RV Park). Beeville: [KENS-TV (San Antonio), 8-6-2012] Belfast: [UTV New Media (Belfast), 8-9-2012] Sunderland: [Sunderland Echo, 6-28-2012] Port St. Lucie: [WPBF-TV (West Palm Beach), 5-15-2012] Splendora: [KTRK-TV (Houston), 5-31-2012] New Orleans: [WWL-TV via KTHV-TV (Little Rock, Ark.), 4-3-2012] Charleston: [Beaufort Gazette, 4-2-2012] Clermont: [WKMG-TV (Orlando), 3-21-2012]

Thanks This Week to Bruce Leiserowitz and the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisers.

Modern Warfare: China, Japan and Taiwan each claim ownership of the uninhabited South China Sea islands of Senkaku or Diaoyu, and the controversy heightened in September when Japan announced that it had formally "purchased" the islands from a private company that reputedly owned them. China countered by "launching" its first-ever aircraft carrier (a vessel junked in 1998 by Ukraine), which it hopes will intimidate its neighbors even though it is useless to planes. Days later, patrol boats from Taiwan and Japan had a confrontation near the islands -- drenching each other in a military-grade squirt-gun fight. (Japan won.) [New York Times, 9-25-2012] [Daily Mail (London), 9-25-2012]

-- A 14-year-old boy was hospitalized in critical condition in Churchill, Pa., in August after allegedly swiping a Jeep Grand Cherokee and leading the owner's boyfriend on a brief high-speed chase before rolling the Cherokee over on Interstate 376. The boy's mother, according to WTAE-TV, blamed the Cherokee's owner: A vehicle with the keys in it, she said, "was an opportunity that, in a 14-year-old's eyes, was ... the perfect moment." Also, she said, the boyfriend "had no right to chase my son." The boy "could have just (wanted) a joyride down the street. Maybe he (merely) wanted to go farther than he felt like walking." [WTAE-TV (Pittsburgh), 8-13-2012]

-- Irresistible: (1) David Thompson, 27, was arrested in August and charged with stealing a bag of marijuana from the Charleroi (Pa.) Regional police station. While talking to an officer about an unrelated case, Thompson noticed an evidence bag on a counter and swiped it. Caught moments later, Thompson profusely apologized, telling the officer, "I just couldn't help myself. That bud smelled so good." (2) Aaron Morris was charged in August with battery in North Lauderdale, Fla., for groping the buttocks of a woman at a Walmart. According to the arresting officer, Morris explained, "Her booty looked so good, I just couldn't resist touching it." [Observer-Reporter (Washington, Pa.) via NBC News, 8-15-2012] [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 8-10-2012]

First-World Problems: (1) Ohio death-row inmate Ronald Post, 53, asked a federal court in September to cancel his January date with destiny on the grounds that, despite almost 30 years of prison food, he's still too fat to execute. At 480 pounds, "vein access" and other issues would cause his lethal injection to be "torturous." (2) British murderer-sadist Graham Fisher, 39, is locked up in a high-security hospital in Berkshire, England, but he, too, has been eating well (at about 325 pounds). In August, he was approved for gastric-band surgery paid for by Britain's National Health Service at an estimated cost, including a private room for post-op recuperation, of about $25,000). [Associated Press via Google News, 9-17-2012] [Daily Mail (London), 8-19-2012]

-- Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Ali Beheshti was hospitalized in the town of Shahmirzad in September, allegedly after being roughed up by a woman. According to Iran's Mehr news agency, the cleric was merely performing his "duty," warning an allegedly immodestly dressed woman to cover herself better. She suggested, instead, that he should "cover (his) eyes," and when he continued admonishing her, she, unladylike, pushed him away and kicked him. [Bloomberg News, 9-20-2012]

-- Arrested in September and charged with aggravated indecent exposure (making continued obscene gestures to female kayakers on Michigan's Pinnebog River while nude): 60-year-old TV producer William H. Masters III -- the son of pioneer 1960s sex researcher William Masters (who, with Virginia Johnson, wrote the landmark books "Human Sexual Response" and "Human Sexual Inadequacy"). [New York Post, 9-5-2012]

-- In August, the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Gerber Legendary Blades company of Portland, Ore., announced a recall of Gerber machetes. According to CPSC, the machetes might have a defect that could cause the handle to break, making the machete, said CPSC, a "laceration hazard." [CPSC News Release, 8-16-2012]

-- Challenging Races: (1) Richard Wagner Jones, running for a school board seat in Granite, Utah, told reporters in June that since the job is mainly about taxes and budgets, he would not have to make site visits to schools. That is fortunate, for Jones is barred from schools as a registered sex offender based on a 1990 conviction. (2) Mike Rios, a former school board member in Moreno Valley, Calif., said in August that he was still considering running for the town's council despite his March arrest for attempted murder and April arrest for pimping (allegedly caught with several underage recruits). (3) Verna Jackson Hammons said in August that her candidacy for mayor of Cullman, Ala., should not suffer by her having appeared 10 years earlier as "the other woman" in a love triangle on an episode of "The Jerry Springer Show." [KSL- TV (Salt Lake City, 6-6-2012] [KCBS-TV (Los Angeles), 8-1- 2012] [Associated Press via al.com (Birmingham)]

-- Brazil has a robust democracy but with very few controls on what candidates may call themselves on ballots. Among those running for offices this election season, according to a September New York Times dispatch from Rio de Janeiro: "John Kennedy Abreu Sousa," "Jimmi Carter Santarem Barroso," "Ladi Gaga," "Christ of Jerusalem," a "Macgaiver," five "Batmans," two "James Bonds," and 16 people whose name contains "Obama." "It's a marketing strategy," said city council candidate Geraldo Custodio, who apparently likes his chances better as "Geraldo Wolverine." [New York Times, 9-16-2012]

The City Council of Jersey City, N.J., voted in September to settle a lawsuit filed by Joshua Lopez, who had driven his car directly at a police officer during a 2009 traffic stop, trapping the officer against his own squad car, and thus forcing the officer to fire at him. Lopez suffered only an injured hand, but the city has now agreed to give him $26,500 out of fear of "litigation risk." [The Jersey Journal, 9-13-2012]

(1) Yak herders in Tibet and farmers in the Indian Himalayas are becoming relatively prosperous, according to recent reports by National Geographic and London's The Guardian, by harvesting rare caterpillar fungi. In Tibet, "yartsa gunbu" supposedly cures ailments ranging from back pain to HIV, from hair loss to asthma and more, and often sells in local markets for twice its weight in gold. In India, "kira jari" is believed to be an aphrodisiac and energy booster, but the government is trying to control the market because insufficient new larvae means the land might soon be picked clean. (2) Swiss researcher Francis W.M.R. Schwarze announced in September that he will manufacture 30 violins out of wood treated with certain fungi that, in music-appreciation tests, made a lesser-grade violin sound like a Stradivarius. [National Geographic, August 2012] [The Guardian, 7-30-2012] [Wall Street Journal, 9-22-2012]

Arrests were made in July of two men who had openly chatted on the Internet about torturing, cooking and eating children, but investigators have searched in vain for evidence of any such crimes by the men. Jason Scarcello, 42, who wrote, "(A)ctually (seeing) a child cooking would be a dream come true," is under arrest in Anderson, Calif., and Ronald Brown, 57, who suggested carving and cooking body parts for an "Easter meal," in Largo, Fla., was detained for possessing child pornography, but, regarding the Internet chats, both claimed a First Amendment right to their un-acted-upon imaginations, however disgusting. [Redding Record Searchlight, 7-27-2012] [Tampa Bay Times, 7-25-2012]

Arrested recently and awaiting trial for murder: Jarrod Wayne Rudder, Elkville, Ill. (April); Dustin Wayne Kimrey, Albemarle, N.C. (October); Jeffrey Wayne Finney, Jr., Riverside, Ala. (October); Garrette Wayne Bunch, Clemmons, N.C. (September). Indicted for murder: Daniel Wayne Harmon-Wright (aka Daniel Wayne Sullivan), Gainesville, Va. (May). Conviction for murder upheld by Texas Court of Appeals: Phillip Wayne Harris, Houston (March). Arrest warrant for murder issued: Jeffrey Wayne Powell II, Lakewood, Wash. (October). On trial for murder at press time: Curtis Wayne Bonnell, Miramichi, New Brunswick (September). Trial for murder postponed: David Wayne Laws, Manassas, Va. (October). On the other hand, Michael Wayne Hash, Culpeper, Va., was exonerated of his murder conviction in March after serving 12 years in prison. Rudder: [The Southern (Carbondale, Ill.), 4-24-2012] Kimrey: [The Stanly News and Press (Albemarle), 10-1-2012] Finney: [Daily Home (Talladega, Ala.), 10-2-2012] Bunch: [The Stokes News (King, N.C.), 9-20-2012] Harmon-Wright: [InsideNoVa.com (Manassas, Va.), 5-29-2012] Harris: [Harris v. State (No. 14-10-00977-CR), 3-20-2012] Powell: [Tacoma News Tribune, 10-2-2012] Bonnell: [Canadian Press, 9-19-2012] Laws: [InsideNoVa.com (Manassas, Va.), 10-1-2012] Hash: [Star Exponent (Culpeper, Va.), 9-30-2012]

Thanks This Week to Kathryn Wood, Adam Orbell, Bruce Leiserowitz, Gary daSilva, Phil Kanegsberg, Sandy Pearlman, and Karen Seavers, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.