An Arizona appeals court ruled in February that someone can be guilty of driving under the influence of marijuana even though its psychoactive ingredient has long left his system. Since tests of marijuana measure both active and inactive ingredients, and since the active substance vanishes quickly but the inactive one remains in the body for weeks, a marijuana consumer may test "positive" even though not the least bit impaired. (In fact, since neighboring Colorado recently legalized some marijuana possession, a Colorado driver motoring through Arizona weeks later could be guilty of DUI for a completely legal, harmless act, as could the 35,000 Arizona medical-marijuana users.) The appeals court majority reasoned that since the legislature did not distinguish the inactive ingredient from the active, neither would the court. [Associated Press via azfamily.com (Phoenix), 2-13-2013]

-- Richard Blake took the witness stand in Ottawa, Ontario, in January to deny that it was he who had invaded a home and stabbed two people numerous times. With a straight face, he had an answer for all of the incriminating evidence. He had the perp's car because "a stranger" had just handed him the keys; he didn't recall what the stranger looked like (but guessed that he probably resembled Blake, because for some reason Blake got picked out of the lineup); he donned the stranger's bloody knit cap (abandoning his own cap); he handled the stranger's knife and bloody glove, and that's why his DNA was on them; he fled at the first sight of police, ramming a cruiser to escape (even though he had "done nothing wrong"); he fled on foot after the collision and hid in a tree (but only to get away from a swarm of black flies). After deliberating politely for a day, the jury found him guilty. [Ottawa Citizen, 1-28-2013, 2-1-2013]

-- A 61-year-old man in southern Sweden beat a DUI charge in February even though his blood-alcohol was five times over the legal limit. The man told the judge he is a hearty drinker and normally starts in even before work every day, with "no effect" on his performance. According to the Skanskan newspaper, that must have impressed the judge, who was so awed that he tossed out the charge. [TheLocal.se, 2-6-2013]

-- A longtime high school teacher of French and Spanish is suing the Mariemont, Ohio, school district for having pressured her to resign in the face of what she calls her phobia, a "fear of kids" disorder, which she says should be protected by disability-discrimination law. Maria Waltherr-Willard, 61, had been reassigned to teach some junior high students, but doctors said she suffered hypertension, nightmares, chest pains and vomiting when around the younger-age children. [Cincinnati.com, 1-13-2013]

-- Lisa Biron's recent biography shows her to be a licensed lawyer in two states, practicing in Manchester, N.H., and also affiliated with a group of volunteer lawyers that advocates "religious liberty, the sanctity of life, and marriage and family," and issues warnings about the "homosexual agenda." (She recently represented a church in Concord, N.H., and served on the board of directors of a Christian school in Manchester.) In January, Biron was convicted in federal court in Concord on nine counts involving taking her teenage daughter to Canada and creating child pornography. [Union Leader (Manchester), 1-20-2013]

-- In September 2010, a speeding, intoxicated driver ran a stop sign near Dade City, Fla., careened off a highway, and rammed two trees along a private road, instantly killing himself and his passenger. In January, the estate of the passenger filed a lawsuit for wrongful death, charging the residents along the private road with letting the trees grow in a dangerous location where they could be easily hit, especially since the residents had failed to light the area adequately. "How it's our fault, I have no idea," said one surprised resident, who noted that the entire neighborhood had mourned the strangers at the time of the sad, traumatic collision. [Tampa Bay Times, 2- 10-2013]

-- Keith Brown and four other inmates at Idaho's Kuna prison filed a lawsuit in December against eight major beer and liquor manufacturers for having sold them alcohol at an early age without warning of its addictiveness -- and are thus responsible for the men's subsequent lives of crime. Brown, 52, said he personally has been locked up a total of 30 years and is now serving time for manslaughter. (The Oglala Sioux tribe has sued beer distributors and the state of Nebraska for enabling easy access to nearby beer even though it was banned on the reservation. The lawsuit was dismissed on jurisdictional issues, but the tribe may refile soon.) [Idaho Statesman, 1-2-2012]

-- Jason Starn, formerly a law student at the Laurence Drivon School of Law in Stockton, Calif., filed a lawsuit recently against three Stockton-Modesto-area "head shops" that had sold him Whip-It nitrous oxide, which led him to overindulge and eventually suffer spinal-cord degeneration. Starn's attorney told the Sacramento Bee, "At first, he felt a little embarrassed about" filing the lawsuit (but managed to overcome the shame in order to warn all the other nitrous-oxide abusers). [Sacramento Bee, 1-3-2013]

-- (1) A 53-year-old Rosenheim, Germany, postal worker was relieved of criminal charges in January when a judge ruled him innocent of discarding mail (as jealous "whistle-blowers" had charged) after concluding that the carrier finished routes early simply because he worked faster. Although the charge was dropped, he was reprimanded for taking unauthorized (i.e., simpler) routes. (2) After a 400-pound woman broke both arms accidentally falling through a sidewalk in New York City in January, doctors told her that a thinner woman might have died from the same fall. "Thank God, they said that my size was the only thing that saved me." [TheLocal.de (Berlin), 1-3-2013] [New York Post, 1-13-2013]

-- Faith healer Ariel Ben Sherman, 78, died in November in a South Carolina hospital after suffering respiratory arrest while being treated for small-cell cancer. He had been found guilty in May 2012 of neglect in the cancer death of a 15-year-old girl (of whom he had accepted the title of "spiritual father") for his insistence that the girl's mother reject medical care and treat the girl only with prayer. [Knoxville News-Sentinel via WEWS-TV (Cleveland), 1-7-2013]

Australian researchers recently uncovered a minor prison phenomenon in that country that might shed light on isolated cases reported in southwest U.S. prisons (mentioned in News of the Weird in 2012): inmates inserting objects underneath the skin of their penises, somehow under the impression that (a) it doesn't hurt and (b) it provides sexual pleasure and virility. Among the items discovered in Australia: buttons, dice, deodorant roller balls. The apparent favorite among the several Hispanic men discovered in the U.S. Southwest: shaved dominoes. In many cases, infections resulted and sometimes required major surgery. [PLOS ONE (journal) via The Atlantic, February 2013]

From a tag on an item of clothing offered recently at a new-item price by the retailer Urban Outfitters: "This unique found item was hand-selected for you from a yard sale or flea market. Any tears, holes, paint stains or other 'defects' we consider a virtue and not a flaw. Wear it well." Consequently, an item that might have been donated overseas or to a Goodwill or Salvation Army store is sold to "urban" clotheshounds at "new" prices. Urban Outfitters defended the practice, calling any such items "curated" by their expert store buyers, "hand-picked" for their "uniqueness," and sometimes "truly one-of-a-kind, which means that once they're gone, they're gone." [BusinessInsider.com, 12-7-2012]

In December, a 38-year-old male worker at the Social Security office in Baltimore was issued a formal reprimand after coworkers complained that he prodigiously passed gas at his desk. He had been counseled informally in the summer of 2012, and to satisfy "due process," a log was made later listing 60 specific emissions on 17 separate dates, with, for example, nine blasts on Sept. 19. Seven days after the letter of reprimand was issued, "senior management" at the agency learned of it and withdrew it, without comment, according to a Washington Post report. [The Smoking Gun, 12-21-2012] [Washington Post, 1-10-2013]

Officials at England's 12th-century St. Peter's Church in Seaford, East Sussex, which is renowned for its eerie quiet, created a 30-minute CD recently of near-total silence, first as a small-scale fundraising project, but later for general sales (since word-of-mouth had attracted orders from as far away as Ghana). Those who have heard it said they could make out only the occasional squeaking of footsteps on the wooden floor (and the very distant hum of passing cars). Said one admiring parishioner, "People sometimes like to sit down and just have a bit of peace and quiet." [Daily Mail (London), 1-27-2013]

-- France has seen its wolf population gradually increase from near-extinction in the 1930s, but still classifies the predator as a "protected" species. However, sheep farmers increasingly complain that wolves' attacks are reducing their herds. Therefore, in a recently proposed "National Wolf Plan," the government boldly gave headline-writers around the world material for rejoicing: a national program to "educate" the wolves. Individual wolves known to have attacked sheep would be caught, marked and briefly detained, with the hope that they would learn their lesson from that trauma and from then on, pass up sheep and turn instead to rabbits, boar and deer. (Said one critic, "You might as well try to educate a shark.") [TheLocal.fr (Paris), 2-7-2012]

-- Updates: The Treasury Department's inspector general for tax administration revealed in January that twice as many fraudulent income tax refunds were paid to inmates in 2011 (173,000) as for the tax year 2010. However, the IRS claimed that the fraudulent returns it did manage to stop totaled $2.5 billion (almost half of which was disingenuously claimed by two inmates). Also, the Department of Health and Human Service's inspector general revealed in January that Medicare was illegally billed for $120 million from 2009 to 2011 for services used by inmates and illegal immigrants -- neither category of which is authorized to use Medicare. [Associated Press via Tampa Bay Times, 1-18-2012] [Associated Press via New York Times, 1-25-2013]

-- Recurring Theme: As of January, New York City music teacher Aryeh Eller, 46, has almost reached a milestone in his battle with the Board of Education. Soon, he will have earned a million dollars in salary and benefits since the board removed him from the classroom 13 years ago and dispatched him to a light-duty "rubber room" after complaints of fondling and sexual harassment in the one year that he actually taught. An arbitrator had found insufficient evidence for his termination, but the board refuses to let him back in the classroom, fearing he is a danger to students. [New York Post, 1-27-2013]

-- Not Expected to Fly Off the Shelf: Iceland's menswear designer Sruli Recht's autumn/winter 2013 collection, debuting in Paris in January, included a ring made from a four-inch slice of his own skin (removed during recent abdomen surgery, then salted and tanned to give it sturdiness). The ring (called "Forget Me Knot") carries a price tag of $500,000 -- considering that the rest of the ring is 24k gold. [Huffington Post, 1-22-2013]

-- In Russia's coldest region (the Siberian republic of Yakutia), artist Mikhail Bopposov created a massive, nearly 900-pound cobra statue (honoring the Chinese Year of the Snake) -- made entirely of cow dung. Though at this time of the year the sculpture freezes, Bopposov plans to sell it when it melts, since fertilizer is a valuable commodity during the region's short summers. (Actually, this is Bopposov's second foray into dung art, after last year's winged serpent he created for the Chinese Year of the Dragon.) [RIA Novosti (Moscow), 1-11-2013]

-- Hard Times: According to police in Idaho Falls, Idaho, Mark Carroll, 18, masked and armed with a handgun, is the one who threatened and robbed the night-shift clerk at the Maverik convenience store on New Year's morning. The clerk was Donna Carroll, Mark's mother, but police said that it was not an "inside" job and that she still does not believe the man behind the mask was her son. [KIDK-TV (Idaho Falls), 1-23-2013]

-- Major Crimes Unit: (1) Sheriff's deputies in Tampa were searching in January for the thief who stole a wallet from a car and used the victim's debit card three times -- once at a gas station and twice to wash clothes in the laundry room of the Countrywood Apartments. (2) Edward Lucas, 33, was arrested in Slidell, La., in November and charged with theft from the sheriff's department headquarters. Lucas reportedly had walked in and requested a file, and while he was waiting (as surveillance video later confirmed), he furtively swiped three ball-point pens from the reception area. [WTSP-TV (St. Petersburg), 1-10-2013] [Associated Press via Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Miss.), 11-21-2012]

-- Judges in Danger: (1) Sheriff's deputies in Ozaukee County, Wis., identified Shelly Froelich, 48, as the woman who allegedly called the jail in January and asked if Judge Thomas Wolfgram was in, and when informed that he wasn't but that he'd be in court the following morning, said, "Good. Tell him I have a hit on him." Deputies said Froelich's son was in lockup and that his mom had several times before issued threats to judges after her son had been arrested. (2) James Satterfield, 58, was arrested in Cobb County, Ga., in December after police said he wrote a letter to the wife of Judge Reuben Green vowing to eat the couple's children after "cook(ing) them first to make them more palatable." [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 1-23-2013] [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 1-14-2013]

Michael Selleneit, 54, pleaded guilty in January to several charges including attempted murder in an October 2011 attack on a neighbor, who Selleneit had declared was raping Selleneit's wife -- "telepathically." In fact, police said, Selleneit had been making that claim "for years," though he had not taken action until October 2011. His wife, Meloney, was also charged, as she allegedly goaded her husband on, telling him to "go for it," and even supplying the gun. Both spouses have been extensively examined by mental health professionals, and it turns out that Michael is the saner of the two. He had been ruled "competent" to stand trial, but Meloney has so far not been. [Deseret News (Salt Lake City), 1-14-2013]

Joint findings of Great Britain's Ministry of Justice, Home Office and Office for National Statistics, published in January, revealed that 99 out of every 100 recent sexual offenses in England and Wales have ultimately gone unpunished. According to the report (covering 2011), 473,000 sexual offenses occurred, with 53,700 recorded by the police and 5,600 resulting in convictions. The lack of official reporting by victims is even less understandable than in the United States, since government compensation is available to certain victims under British law. [Justice.gov.uk, 1-09-2013]

A massive, fraudulent test-taking scheme spanning three Southern states came to a halt in 2009 after going undetected for 15 years. In February 2012, Clarence Mumford Sr., 59, pleaded guilty as the mastermind of the syndicate that charged schoolteachers thousands of dollars to have proxy test-takers sit for them in mandatory qualifications exams. The 2009 incident that brought the scheme to light was when one hired proxy (Memphis, Tenn., science teacher Shantell Shaw) decided to take both a morning test for one teacher and an afternoon test for another teacher, at the same location, while wearing the same pink baseball cap. [New York Times, 2-2-2013]

Overachievers: (1) Cheyenne Labrum, 39, was arrested in Provo, Utah, in December, and charged with robbing a man in a motel room of $14 cash and a 12-pack of beer. Police records show it as the 66th time Labrum has been booked into the local jail. (2) Scott Morris, 40, was arrested for speeding and suspicion of DUI in Boulder, Colo., in November. It was only the 44th time Morris had been traffic-stopped -- although Morris might be held to a different standard, in that he is a Boulder police detective. [Provo Daily Herald, 12-14-2012] [Denver CBS, 12-7-2012]

Thanks This Week to James Hoban, Sandy Pearlman, and Annie Thames, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

An estimated 3.2 million kids aged 5 to 12 take mixed-martial arts classes, training to administer beatdowns modeled after the adults' Ultimate Fighting Championships, according to a January report in ESPN magazine, which profiled the swaggering, Mohawked Derek "Crazy" Rayfield, 11, and the meek, doll-clutching fighting machine, Regina "The Black Widow" Awana, 7. Kids under age 12 fight each other without regard to gender, and blows above the collarbone are always prohibited (along with attacks on the groin, kidneys and back). "Crazy" was described delivering merciless forearm chest smashes to a foe before the referee intervened, and the Black Widow won her match in less than a minute via arm-bar submission. Parental involvement appears to be of two types: either fear of their child's getting hurt or encouragement to be meaner. [ESPN The Magazine, 1-7-2013]

-- Breaking Bad (and Quickly!): Tyrone Harris, 26, reported for his first shift at Dunkin' Donuts in Morristown, N.J., in January and received his name tag. Seven minutes later, according to police, he was on his way out the door with $2,100 from his supervisor's desk. (Apparently, the supervisor had opened his drawer a little too far when reaching for the name tag, giving Harris a glimpse of the cash.) [NJ.com (Newark), 1-21-2013]

-- In a January submission to India's Supreme Court, an association of the country's caste councils begged for greater sympathy for men who commit "honor killings" of wayward females. The councils denied encouraging such killings, but emphasized that fathers or brothers who murder a daughter or sister are usually "law-abiding, educated and respectable people" who must protect their reputations after a female has had a "forbidden" relationship -- especially a female who intends to marry within her sub-caste, which the councils believe leads to deformed babies. [Daily Telegraph (London), 1-15-2013]

-- Aubrey Ireland, 21, a dean's-list senior at the University of Cincinnati's prestigious college of music, went to court in December to protect herself from two stalkers -- her mother and father, who, she said, had been paranoiacally meddling in her life. David and Julie Ireland put tracking devices on Aubrey's computer and telephone and showed up unannounced on campus (600 miles from their home), telling officials that Aubrey was promiscuous and mentally imbalanced. A Common Pleas Court judge ordered the parents to keep their distance. [Cincinnati.com, 12-27-2012]

-- Medium-Tech Warfare: (1) The mostly rag-tag army of Syrian rebels fighting the Assad regime unveiled its first jerry-built armored vehicle in December. The "Sham II" is an old diesel car with cameras for navigation, a machine gun mounted on a turret with a driver looking at one flat-screen TV and a gunner another, aiming the machine gun via a Sony PlayStation controller. (2) Video transmissions from drone aircraft rose stiflingly to more than 300,000 hours last year (compared to 4,800 in 2001). With input expected to grow even more, Air Force officials acknowledged in December seeking advice from a private-sector company experienced in handling massive amounts of video: ESPN. [The Atlantic Wire, 12-9-2012] [USA Today, 12-19-2012]

-- Dog trainer Mark Vette showed off his best work in Auckland, New Zealand, in December: dogs driving a Cooper Mini on a closed course. Using knobs fitted to the dogs' reach, Vette taught mixed-breed rescue dogs "Monty" and "Porter" 10 discrete actions, including handling the starter, steering wheel, gearshift, and brake and gas pedals, and then put them behind the wheel on live television. Monty handled the straightaway flawlessly, but Porter, assigned to steer around a bend, ran off the road. [Australian Broadcasting Corp. News, 12-11-2012]

-- Stress Relief for Students: (1) In November, students at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, ordered three therapy dogs and set up a room for "super stressed" final-exam studiers. The dogs typically are loaned to hospital patients and senior citizens. (2) In December, Cornell University staff installed a patch of grass inside the Olin Library (trucked in from the Adirondack mountains) because, said an employee, the sight of it has a "cognitive relaxing effect." [National Post, 11-29-2012] [Cornell Daily Sun, 12-3-2012]

-- Jorge Sanchez, 35, was arrested in Burbank, Calif., in February after walking into a Costco store, brazenly stuffing 24 quart cans of motor oil under his clothing (some affixed with bungee cords), and heading for the exit. A security guard noticed him, but Sanchez fled and actually outran the guard (though some of his cargo came loose). Still carrying 15 cans, he made it eight blocks before police overtook him. Sanchez said he services cars part-time and that motor oil prices were just too high. [KCBS-TV (Los Angeles), 2-1-2013]

Gregory Bruni, 21, was arrested in North Fort Myers, Fla., in January after allegedly breaking into a residence at about 7 p.m. (first scurrying across the roof and jumping on one resident who came to investigate). According to police, Bruni was naked, ran maniacally around screaming in gibberish, failed to be intimidated when the female resident fired three "warning shots" with a handgun, fell to the floor after the third shot and began masturbating, and defecated near the front door and in a hallway. Police soon arrived and Tasered him. [Fort Myers News-Press via WTSP-TV (St. Petersburg), 1-25-2013]

The issue of "background checks" for gun purchases occupies center stage in the current gun-regulation debate, even though, ironically, current federal law on such checks is apparently half-heartedly enforced. In the latest data available (from 2010), nearly 80,000 Americans were denied the right to purchase guns because their applications contained false information (even though applicants swear, under penalty of law, that all information is true). However, The New York Times reported in January that of the nearly 80,000 applicants, only 44 were prosecuted for lying, and federal officials said the practice, well-known among applicants with shaky backgrounds, is known as "lie and try." [New York Times, 1-14-2013]

Lawrence Adamczyk, 49, was arrested in Riverside, Ill., in January after reports that he was loitering at Riverside Brookfield High School during a swim meet. Police said he was quite talkative in custody, admitting that he was at the school to leer at boys (after being tipped off via "brainwave" messages from the singer Justin Bieber) and that moments before police arrived, he had been engaged in a solo sex act while ogling the swimmers. Amazingly, police found that Adamczyk was not on any sex offenders' registry even though he had been arrested (with at least one conviction) for similar incidents in 2005, 2009 and 2011, and was on parole at the time of the Riverside arrest. [WBBM-TV (Chicago), 1-13-2013]

(1) After a 51-year-old man was found dead in Everett, Wash., in January with his heavier girlfriend (192 pounds) lying face down on top of him, sheriff's deputies attributed cause of death as his having been smothered by the 50-year-old woman's breasts. Neighbors said they had heard the man screaming for the woman to get off of him. (2) In January, New York City police, arriving to check out an altercation and a death on the tracks at the East 125th Street subway station, found that the two incidents were unrelated. The man who was killed had actually fallen off of a train near the station while he was squatting between cars, defecating. [KIRO-TV (Seattle), 1-14-2013] [New York Times, 1-15-2013]

(1) Sophie Laboissonniere pleaded guilty in January to participating in the 2011 street riot in Vancouver, British Columbia, as part of a crowd that broke into a drugstore following the hometown Canucks' loss in the Stanley Cup finals. Months before the riot, in the Miss Coastal Vancouver beauty pageant, she had been voted Miss Congeniality. (2) On Nov. 4, "Holly" -- Jacob and Bonnie Richter's 4-year-old cat -- fled the couple's motor home (apparently frightened by fireworks) parked at the Daytona International Speedway and did not return. Searches were futile, and the Richters drove home to Palm Beach Gardens, about 190 miles away. Two weeks later, Holly appeared, disheveled with paws rubbed raw, about a mile from the Richters' home, and the finder returned her to the Richters based on Holly's microchip ID. [Associated Press via CBS News, 1-9-2013] [WPBF-TV (West Palm Beach), 1-7-2013]

Thanks This Week to Derek Costello, Jon Johnson, Bruce Leiserowitz, Annie Thames, Perry Levin, John McGaw, and Rich Heiden, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.