One of the many decisions greeting Pope Francis, as Salon.com pointed out, is whether to officially recognize a Patron Saint of Handgunners -- as urged by a U.S. organization of activists for more than 20 years. According to legend, St. Gabriel Possenti rescued an Italian village from a small band of pillagers (and perhaps rapists) in the 19th century by shooting at a lizard in the road, killing it with one shot, which supposedly so terrified the bandits that they fled. No humans were harmed, activists now point out, signifying the handgun was obviously a force for good. The head of the St. Gabriel Possenti Society has noted that, however far-fetched the "lizard incident" may be, it was rarely questioned until U.S. anti-gun activists gained strength in the 1980s. [Salon, 2-21-2013]

-- Though Americans may feel safe that the Food and Drug Administration approves a drug only for certain specific uses, the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York ruled in December that drug company salespeople have a First Amendment right to claim that drugs approved for only one use can be marketed for nonapproved uses, as well. Doctors and bioethicists seemed outraged, according to the Los Angeles Times, generally agreeing with a University of Minnesota professor who called the decision "a complete disgrace. What this basically does is destroy drug regulation in the United States." [Los Angeles Times, 12-7-2012]

-- Denials of disability allowances in the town of Basildon, England, near London, are handled at the Acorn House courthouse, on the fourth floor, where afflicted people who believe they were wrongly rejected for benefits must present their appeals. However, in November, zealous government safety wardens, concerned about fire-escape dangers, closed off the fourth floor to wheelchair-using people. Asked one woman, turned away in early February, "Why are they holding disability tribunals in a building disabled people aren't allowed in?" (In February, full access resumed.) [Yellow Advertiser Today (Basildon), 2-6-2013]

-- Among the helpful civic classes the city government in Oakland, Calif., set up earlier this year for its residents was one on how to pick locks (supposedly to assist people who had accidentally locked themselves out of their homes), and lock-picking kits were even offered for sale after class. Some residents were aghast, as the city had seen burglaries increase by 40 percent in 2012. Asked one complainer, "What's next? The fundamentals of armed robbery?" (In February, Mayor Jean Quan apologized and canceled the class.) [San Jose Mercury News, 2-28-2012]

-- We Must Kill This Legislation Because Too Many People Are for It: In February, the North Carolina House of Representatives Rules Committee took the unusual step of pre-emptively burying a bill to legalize prescription marijuana (which 18 states so far have embraced). WRAL-TV (Raleigh-Durham) reported Rep. Paul Stam's explanation: Committee members were hearing from so many patients and other constituents (via phone calls and emails) about the importance of medical marijuana to them that the representatives were feeling "harassed." [WRAL-TV, 2-20-2013]

-- Two teachers and three student teachers at a Windsor, Ontario, elementary school somehow thought it would be a neat prank on their eighth-graders to make them think their class trip would be to Florida's Disney World, and they created a video and PowerPoint presentation previewing the excursion. The kids' exhilaration lasted only a few days, when they were informed that plans had changed and that they would instead be visiting a local bowling alley. Furthermore, the teachers captured the students' shock on video, presumably to repeatedly re-enjoy their prank. (When the principal found out, she apologized, disciplined the teachers, and arranged a class trip to Niagara Falls.) [Windsor Star, 2-21-2013]

-- Solutions to Non-Problems: (1) Illinois state Rep. Luis Arroyo introduced a bill in March that would ban the state's restaurants from serving lion meat. (2) Georgia state Rep. Jay Neal introduced legislation in February to ban the implantation of a human embryo into a nonhuman. Rep. Neal told the Associated Press that this has been a hot issue in "other states." [WMAQ-TV (Chicago), 3-9-2013] [Associated Press via Athens Banner-Herald, 2-27-2013]

-- Imprisoned British computer hacker Nicholas Webber, 21, serving time for computer fraud, hacked into the mainframe at his London prison after officials allowed him to take a computer class. Like most prisons, the Isis facility attempts to rehabilitate inmates with classes to inspire new careers, but apparently no one made the connection between the class and Webber's crime. (One prison staff member involved in the class was fired.) [The Register (London), 3-4-2013]

-- Dustin Coyle, 34, was charged with domestic abuse in Oklahoma City in January, but it was hardly his fault, he told police. His ex-girlfriend accused him (after she broke up with him) of swiping her cat and then roughing it up, punching her, elbowing her and sexually assaulting her. Coyle later lamented to police that she and he were supposed to get married, but for some reason she changed her mind. "If she would just marry me, that would solve everything," but, according to the police report, he would settle for her being his girlfriend again -- or a one-night stand. [The Oklahoman, 1-24-2013]

Gary Ericcson, 46, was distraught in January at being charged with animal cruelty in shooting to death his beloved pet snake. He told the Charlotte Observer that he is not guilty, as the dear thing had already passed away and that he shot it only "to get the gas out" so that other animals would not dig it up after he buried it. He said he was so despondent (fearing that a conviction will prevent him from being allowed to have even dogs and cats) that in frustration he had shot up and destroyed a large cabinet that housed his Dale Earnhardt collectibles. [Charlotte Observer, 1-3-2013]

First-World Products: The DogTread Treadmill is a modification of the familiar exercise machine in homes and health clubs, with special features for dog safety -- a helpful invention in a nation in which over half of all pet dogs are too fat. (A somewhat higher percentage of cats is overweight, but it is unlikely that marketing a cat treadmill has ever been considered.) The Association for Pet Obesity Prevention points out that pets can develop type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and osteoarthritis, and that the problem stems from insufficient exercise and overindulgent owners. (The DogTread Treadmills sell for $499 to $899.) [Mother Nature Network, 2-11-2013]

(1) Teri James, 29, filed a lawsuit recently in San Diego against San Diego Christian College because it fired her for being pregnant and unmarried -- a violation of specific employee rules. She said the firing was obviously illegal gender discrimination because her job was quickly offered to the next-most-qualified candidate -- James' fiance, who was openly cohabiting with James all along and is the baby's father. (2) In a Philadelphia courtroom in February, alleged assault victim John Huttick was on the witness stand tearfully describing how miserable his life has become since he lost his left eye in a barroom fight with the defendant. Right then, however, his prosthetic eye fell out. The judge, certain that it was an accident, quickly declared a mistrial (especially since two jurors, seated a few feet away, appeared sickened). [NBC News, 2-28-2013] [Philadelphia Inquirer, 2-7-2013]

Among the Americans (all males, as usual) who accidentally shot themselves recently: A 19-year-old man, with the AR-15 assault weapon he had just stolen (Independence, Ore., March)*. An angler, shooting salmon (Thurston County, Wash., October). An 18-year-old man, shot in the "groin" while cleaning his gun (Port St. Lucie, Fla., September). A 59-year-old poor-multitasker, who tripped and fell holding his shotgun while talking on the phone to his girlfriend (St. Matthews, S.C., September)*. A police officer serving an arrest warrant (shot in the buttocks) (Mercer Island, Wash., November). A 54-year-old man at a gun show, mistaken about whether his gun was loaded) (Des Moines, Iowa, January). A 22-year-old man, showing off and flummoxed by whether a bullet was still in the chamber (Stamford, Conn., September)*. An 18-year-old man, similarly flummoxed (and suffering the same fate) (St. Petersburg, Fla., January)*.

(* indicates people who will never make that mistake again, or any other) Independence: [KGW-TV (Portland, Ore.), 3-4-2013] Thurston: [The Olympian (Olympia, Wash.), 10-1-2012] Port St. Lucie: [WTSP-TV (St. Petersburg, Fla.), 9-10-2012] St. Matthews: [Associated Press via WYFF-TV (Greenville), 9-21-2012] Mercer Island: [KOMO-TV (Seattle), 11-29-2012] Des Moines: [Des Moines Register, 1-25-2013] Stamford: [Stamford Advocate, 9-14-2012] St. Petersburg: [Tampa Bay Online, 1-10-2013]

Thanks This Week to Bruce Leiserowitz, Kristina Rasmussen, David Swanson, Jeffrey Manfull, Tom Hundley, Mel Packer, Dave Leister, Mark Gorman, Richard Schneider, Yvonne Wiliams, and Kev at arbroath.blogspot.com, 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).

Leaders of the ice-fishing community, aiming for official Olympics recognition as a sport, have begun the process by asking the World Anti-Doping Agency to randomly test its "athletes" for performance-enhancing drugs, according to a February New York Times report. However, said the chairman of the U.S. Freshwater Fishing Association, "We do not test for beer," because, he added, "Everyone would fail." Ice-fishing is a lonely, frigid endeavor rarely employing strength but mostly requiring guile and strategy, as competitors who discover advantageous spots in the lake must surreptitiously upload the hauls lest competitors rush over to drill their own holes. Urine tests have also been run in recent years on competitors in darts, miniature golf, chess and tug-of-war, and in 2011, one chess player, two minigolfers and one tugger tested positive. [New York Times, 2-24-2013]

-- A frequent sight on Soweto, South Africa, streets recently is crowds of 12-to-15-year-old boys known as "izikhotane" ("boasters") who hang out in their designer jeans, "shimmering silk shirts, bright pink and blue shoes, and white-straw, narrow-brimmed fedoras," according to a February BBC News dispatch. Flashing wads of cash begged from beleaguered parents, hundreds may amass, playing loud music and sometimes even trashing their fancy clothes as if to feign an indifference to wealth. Since many izikhotanes' families are working-class survivors of apartheid, they are mostly ashamed of their kids' behavior. "This isn't what we struggled for," lamented one parent. But, protested a peer-pressured boaster, "(Y)ou must dress like this, even if you live in a shack." [BBC News, 2-1-2013]

-- India's annual "Rural Olympics" might be the cultural equivalent of several Southern U.S. "Redneck Olympics" but taken somewhat more seriously, in that this year, corporate sponsorships (Nokia and Suzuki) helped fund the equivalent of about $66,000 in prize money for such events as competitive pulling using only one's ears or teeth. "We do this for money, trophies, fame and respect," one ear-puller told The Wall Street Journal in February. This year, in the four-day event in Punjab state, the 50,000 spectators could watch a teeth-lifter pull a 110-pound sack upward for about eight seconds and an ear-puller ease a car about 15 feet. [Wall Street Journal, 2-5-2013]

-- Weird Japan: (1) A generous local businessman recently graced the city of Okuizumo with funding for replicas of two Renaissance statues ("Venus de Milo" and Michelangelo's "David") for a public park. Agence France-Presse reported in February that many residents, receiving little advance warning, expressed shock at the unveiling of "David" and demanded that he at least be given underpants. (2) Fax machines, almost obsolete in the U.S., are still central to many tech-savvy Japanese families and companies (who bought 1.7 million units last year alone), reported The New York Times in February. Families prefer faxes' superiority to e-mail for warmly expressing Japan's complex written language, and bureaucrats favor faxes' preserving the imperative of paper flow. [Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News, 2-6-2013] [New York Times, 2-13-2013]

-- The 14 guests at a jewelry party in Lake City, Fla., were initially incredulous that home-invader Derek Lee, 24, meant to rob them, but when they saw that he was serious (by putting his gun to the head of one woman), the hostess went into action. "In the name of Jesus," she shouted, "get out of my house now!" Then the guests chanted in unison, "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" over and over. Lee, frightened or bewildered, sprinted out the door empty-handed and was later arrested. [WJXT-TV (Jacksonville), 1-27-2013]

-- The president of the National Black Church Initiative told the Associated Press in January that its pastors are generally free to ordain new pastors as they wish, and that consequently Bishop Wayne Jackson of Detroit did nothing wrong in his ordination ceremony (which was surreptitiously video-recorded and uploaded to YouTube), even though it consisted of Jackson in robes, praying while lying on top of the new bishops, who were also praying. (The AP noted that Bishop Jackson had been the target of that's-so-gay YouTube comments.) [Associated Press via WJBK-TV (Detroit), 1-17-2013]

-- Yet Another Fatwa: Saudi cleric Sheikh Abdullah Daoud, in an interview in February on al-Majd TV, decreed that female babies should wear full-face veils (burkas) to help shield them from sexual advances. (According to a former judge at the Saudi Board of Grievances, Saudi authorities have issued standards for fatwas, thus urging people to ignore "unregulated" ones such as Skeikh Daoud's.) [al-Arabiya, 2-3-2013]

-- In January, Lhokseumawe City, Indonesia, drafted new ordinances, including one that prohibits women from riding motorcycles with their legs straddling male drivers, since that would tend to "provoke" them. A proponent said the ban "honor(ed)" women "because they are delicate creatures." Immediately, some authorities denounced the legislation, pointing out that riding "side saddle" is much more dangerous in cases of sudden swerves and collisions. As of press time, the mayor had not decided whether to implement the ordinance. [New York Times, 1-15-2013]

-- In February, an off-duty Tampa police officer and an off-duty sheriff's detective from nearby Hernando County were awarded the sheriff's office's highest honor, the Medal of Valor, for exemplary bravery in an October incident in which a 42-year-old naked woman was shot to death by the officers. The woman was holding a gun and had made threats, and a 5-year-old boy was inside a truck that she wanted to steal. However, even though a neighbor had simply wrestled the woman down earlier, the officers still thought their only move was to shoot to kill. Said the woman's brother, "They shot a mentally disturbed, naked woman. Is that valor?" [Tampa Bay Times, 2-14-2013]

-- In 2011, Julian Pellegrino pleaded guilty to DUI involving serious bodily injury to Mark Costa in Chicopee, Mass., and was sentenced to serve 18 months in jail, but that did not deter Pellegrino from filing a lawsuit in December, demanding $1.1 million for Costa's somehow "caus(ing)" his car to collide with Pellegrino's. Pellegrino (with a broken neck) was actually more seriously injured than Costa, who sued back, asking nearly $200,000. (In 2010, while Pellegrino was awaiting disposition of the case with Costa, he pleaded guilty to another DUI.) [Springfield Republican, 2-12-2013]

Paul Jamrozik, 63, was arrested in Upper Darby, Pa., in January and charged as the man who lured a 12-year-old boy into his home and, under the guise of pretend-podiatry, spritzed his feet with athlete's-foot spray and tickled them before performing an exam of his ears and nose with medical equipment. When the kid asked to leave, according to the police report, Jamrozik withheld his shoes until he promised to bring his friends by the next day to be examined. [Philadelphia Daily News, 1-18-2013]

Lee Wildman, 35, and Adrian Stanton, 32, pleaded guilty in connection with a burglary at Durham (England) University's Oriental Museum, in which they heisted artwork worth the equivalent of about $2.7 million and hid it in a field in April 2012. However, they have been unable to help authorities locate the bounty (even with the reward of sentence-reduction) -- because they have forgotten exactly where they stashed it. Eventually, hikers unconnected with the case discovered it and notified police. Said Judge Christopher Prince, "This is not an offense that can be described as sophisticated." [BBC News, 2-8-2013]

(1) Two brothers, celebrating a winning lottery ticket in Wichita, Kan., in February, bought a stash of marijuana, but then, attempting to light a bong using butane lighter fluid, one accidentally blew up the family home. That brother was hospitalized with second-degree burns, and the other was arrested for marijuana possession. (2) Megan Thode, 27, went to trial in February in Easton, Pa., suing Lehigh University, accusing a professor of illegally discriminating against her with a C-plus grade in a class in 2009 in the school's graduate counseling program, in which a B was the minimum required to continue. Thode demanded $1.3 million for future damage to her career (but not a tuition refund -- as she had matriculated for free because her father is a Lehigh professor). Four days after the trial began, the judge ruled against her. [Wichita Eagle, 2-16-2013] [Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.), 2-14-2013]

Thanks This Week to Richard Schneider, Harold Gaines, Don Ball, Joan Rohrbach, and Peter Smagorinsky, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

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.