A Verizon risk team, looking for data breaches on a client's computers, discovered that one company software developer was basically idle for many months, yet remained productive -- because he had outsourced his projects to a Chinese software developer who would do all the work and send it back. The employee earned several hundred thousand dollars a year, according to a January Los Angeles Times report, but paid the Chinese worker only about $50,000. The risk team eventually learned that sensitive company information was flowing to and from Chinese terminals, leading the company to suspect hackers, but that traffic was merely the U.S. employee (obviously, "ex-employee" now) sending and receiving his workload. The U.S. man showed up for work every day, but spent his time leisurely web-surfing. [Los Angeles Times via Tampa Bay Times, 1-20-2013]

-- One of Britain's most famous "madams" announced in January that she was coming out of retirement to set up a brothel exclusively catering to disabled people and the terminally ill. An ordinary brothel would be illegal in the town of Milton Keynes (45 miles from London), but Becky Adams insists that the government could not shut hers down without illegally discriminating against the disabled. [Milton Keynes Citizen, 1-11-2013]

-- Advances in the Service Sector: (1) In January, the Japanese marketing firm Wit Inc. began hiring "popular" young women (judged by the extent of their "social network" contacts), at the equivalent of $121 a day, to walk around with advertising stickers on their thighs. (The stickers would be placed on the erotic "zettai ryouiki" -- the Japanese mystical area between the hem of a short skirt and the top of long socks.) The women must be prepared to endure men hovering closely to read the ads. (2) According to news reports in November, New York City physician Jack Berdy was doing a brisk business administering Botox injections (at up to $800) to poker players who were hoping to prevent facial expressions that might tip their hands. [Daily Telegraph (London), 1-17-2013] [Fox News, 11-21-2012]

-- Ingenious: (1) London's The Independent reported in January that Dean Kamen (who famously invented the Segway, a standing, battery-powered scooter) had developed, along with a Pennsylvania medical team, what appears to work as a "reverse feeding tube" that will vacuum out up to 30 percent of any food in the stomach before it is digested and converted into calories. After installation of the stomach "port," the diner could operate the device without daily medical help. (2) The Polish cosmetics company Inglot announced in January a nail polish ideal for Muslim women, in that it can withstand the five-times-daily hand-washing required for prayers. (Normally, devout women wear nail polish only during their menstrual periods, when the hand-washing is not required, but polish thus signals menstruation and therefore embarrasses modest women.) [The Independent via The Register (London), 1-8-2013] [New York magazine, 1-23-2013]

-- Scientists from Sweden's Lund University, reporting in a recent issue of Current Biology, explored the burning question of why dung beetles appear to be "dancing" on the tops of the dung balls they roll away. The answer is that the beetles need to roll their treasures away from the heap as quickly as possible (lest competitors swipe them) and that they can best maintain a straight line away by celestial navigation. To test the hypothesis, researchers actually outfitted some beetles with tiny visors to block their view of the sky, and those beetles mostly rolled their balls in irregular routes, whereas the sky-searching beetles moved in straight lines. [Los Angeles Times, 1-24-2013]

-- Intelligent Design: Japanese researchers learned recently that a species of sea slug may lose its penis after copulating, but then grow another one and use it the next time the occasion arises. Writing in the British journal Biology Letters, the scientists also found that the slugs have both male and female organs and in effect copulate with each other through a simultaneous hook-up. A final breathtaking finding of the team was that the sea slugs' penis has the ability to remove competitors' sperm from the female openings of its mate. [BBC News, 2-12-2013]

-- In January, the National Hockey League labor dispute ended and players returned to work, but as usual, some owners resumed claiming that players' high salaries were killing them financially. The Phoenix Business Journal reported in December that the Phoenix Coyotes, for example, stood to turn a profit for the 2012-2013 season only if the lockout had continued and wiped out all the games -- indicating that, based on the team's projections, the only way for it to make money was to never play. [Phoenix Business Journal, 12-26-2012]

-- In the Czech Republic, per-capita beer consumption is twice that in the United States, and competition is such that some beers are priced lower than any other beverage, including water. (The brewery Pizensky Prazdroj delivers beer in tanker trucks that in the U.S. might deliver gasoline, and delivers it to pubs' storage tanks just as U.S. gas station have storage tanks.) Recently, concerned about overconsumption, the country's health minister proposed to prohibit restaurants and bars from offering a beer as the lowest-priced drink, per ounce. [Wall Street Journal, 1-24-2013]

-- In January about 1,000 workers at Shanghai's Shinmei Electric Co. held 18 managers captive at the plant from Friday morning until nearly midnight on Saturday in protest of recent employee rules. The workers dispersed when parent company officials promised to reconsider the policies, which included a fine of the equivalent of about $8 for being late and a limit of two minutes per toilet break. [Associated Press via Yahoo News, 1-21-2013]

Willie Merriweather, 53, was detained in February by police in Aiken, S.C., after an employment agency reported that, when he was sitting for an interview, he exposed himself (allegedly telling the interviewer that "it fell out," that he "must have forgotten" to zip his pants). Police said Merriweather had been accused of a similar incident at a different employment agency a few days earlier. [Aiken Standard, 2-6-2013]

(1) On Jan. 27, Pope Benedict XVI released two doves in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican's end-of-prayers ceremony, but almost immediately, a gull flew over and attacked one. (The faithful were rewarded, though, as the dove, though wounded, managed to elude the irreligious predator.) (2) On Feb. 11, only hours after Pope Benedict had announced his imminent retirement, a rare winter thunderstorm hit Vatican City, and an Agence France-Presse photographer snapped a photo of one powerful lightning bolt from the heavens appearing to strike St. Peter's Basilica (as if offering a dissenting opinion to the pope's decision). [MSN.com, 1-28-2013] [USA Today, 2-12-2013]

(1) A Palm Bay, Fla., police officer was sent to the hospital in February after a supposedly highly trained K-9 bit him in the crotch during a burglary investigation. A trainer attributed the lapse to the dog's natural "intensity" during searches. Apparently, all was forgiven, and both "officers" returned to work. (2) In Cottages Row, England, firefighters were called in January when a metal lamppost was reported as smoking because of an electrical short, which was discovered when a Labrador retriever lifted his leg. That species is regarded as quite intelligent, but the dog, after being knocked back by the shock, moments later attempted to engage the lamppost a second time, with the same result. [WFTV (Orlando), 2-12-2013] [Sunderland Echo, 1-25-2013]

A 31-year-old woman, seven months pregnant with twins, suffered a heart attack arguably because St. Thomas More Hospital in Canon City, Colo., delayed in treating her. The woman and the twins died, and the family is suing church-affiliated Catholic Health Initiatives, the owner of the hospital. CHI's lawyers, until January, were defending the malpractice lawsuit as to the twins' death by using Colorado law, in which a "person" is not created until birth. After church officials in Colorado and the Vatican learned of CHI's strategy, they ordered it abandoned, in that it is of course contrary to the teachings of the church. [ColoradoIndependent.com (Denver), 1-23-2013]

Thanks This Week to Roy Henock, Bruce Leiserowitz, Eric Prebys, Marshall Pixley, and Russell Bell, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

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.