Norwegian public television (NRK), which introduced the now-legendary continuous, live log-burning show (12 hours long, with "color commentary" on the historical and cultural importance of fire), scheduled a new program for this week in its appeal to serenity (labeled "Slow TV"). On Nov. 1, NRK was to televise live, for five hours, an attempt to break the world record for producing a sweater, from shearing the sheep to spinning the wool and knitting the garment (current record: 4:51, by Australians). (In addition to the log, NRK viewers have been treated to live cams on a salmon-fishing boat and, for five days, on a cruise ship.) Said an NRK journalist, "You would think it's boring television, but we have quite good ratings for these programs." [Los Angeles Times, 10-4-2013]

-- Extract of cockroach is a delicacy among some Chinese, believed able to miraculously reduce inflammation, defy aging and cure tuberculosis, cancer and cirrhosis. Quartz reported in August that Yunnan province is a Silicon Valley-type business center, where pulverized roaches can sell for the equivalent of about $89 a pound, and five pharmaceutical companies have contracts with ranches that have formed the Sichuan Treasure Cockroach Farming Cooperative. (In August, a start-up farm in Jiangsu province was, police suspect, vandalized, allowing at least a million cockroaches being prepared for market to flee to adjacent neighborhoods.) [Quartz (qz.com), 8-27-2013] [Agence France-Presse via Daily Telegraph (London), 8-25-2013]

-- When entrepreneur Michelle Esquenazi was asked by a New York Post reporter in September why her all-female crew of licensed bounty hunters (Empire Bail Bonds of New York) is so successful at tricking bail-jumpers into the open, she offered a five-letter vulgar euphemism for a female body part. "It's timeless," she continued. "Of course he's going to open his door for a nice piece of (deleted). ... The thing about defendants is no matter who they are (of whatever color), they're all dumb. Every single last one of them is stupid." [New York Post, 9-27-2013]

-- Hipster Haven: Two fearless entrepreneurs inaugurated services recently in faux-fashionable Brooklyn, N.Y. Lucy Sun, a Columbia University economics major, began seeking work as a $30-an-hour "book therapist," to help readers find the "right" book to read or give as a gift, with attention to clients' "specific situations." In Brooklyn's Greenpoint neighborhood in September, the stylish Eat restaurant began reserving certain nights' meals to be experienced in total silence. On opening night, a Wall Street Journal reporter noted one throat-clearing and a muffled sneeze, but barely any other human sound. Some diners were won over; another said it felt like "being 50 and married." [Gawker, 9-23-2013] [Wall Street Journal, 9-17-2013]

-- It's expensive to go broke in America. Detroit, which most acknowledge acted wisely in filing for bankruptcy protection in July (in the face of debts estimated to be at least $18 billion), will nonetheless be on the hook for bankruptcy legal fees that could total $60 million under current contracts (according to an October New York Times report), plus various expenses, such as the $250,000 to Christie's auction house to price and sell some assets. A fee examiner has been hired to keep the expenses in line, but he charges $600 an hour. [New York Times, 10-8-2013]

-- The Horror: A recent medical journal reported that a 49-year-old man in Brazil said he had recovered from a stroke except that the damage to his brain (in a "subcortical region" associated with higher-level thinking) has caused him to develop "pathological generosity" toward others. A Duke University neurologist told London's Daily Mail that stroke-induced personality changes (such as hoarding) are common, but that this particular change appears unique. Doctors reported in the journal Neurocase that even with medication, this patient's beneficence was unabated after two years. [Daily Mail (London), 9-7-2013]

-- Blood clots can be especially dangerous, often requiring urgent, harshly invasive open-heart surgery to remove the clot before it can be fatal, but a team from UCLA Medical School reported breathlessly in September that a "minimally invasive," cutting-edge machine worked just as well: a vacuum cleaner. When a 62-year-old man arrived at an emergency room with deep vein thrombosis, AngioVac lines were inserted in the leg and neck and sucked out the 24-inch-long clot. The patient was back home and full of energy a week later. [UCLA Medical School press release, 9-18-2013]

-- A "scatological force field" is how a Reuters reporter in September described the way ordinary house termites are able to increasingly resist extermination. They use their own feces to build their nests, and the pathogens seem to form a protective shield that attacks unfriendly bacteria trying to invade the nests. [Reuters, 9-25-2013]

-- "Pig Drinks 18 Pints and Has Fight With Cow" read one August headline from Port Hedland, West Australia, after rampaging wild pigs stole and drank 18 beers from a campsite. International Business Times, summarizing recent research in September, noted that moose, especially, are attracted by fermenting apples; that prairie voles are prominent social drinkers (consuming much more available alcohol when other voles are around); and that African elephants often turn violent to secure the fermenting fruit of the marula tree (although the elephant would require 1,400 pieces of fruit to generate the seven gallons of alcohol that -- if consumed all at once -- would match humans' legal limit for driving). [International Business Times (New York), 9-10-2013]

Americans frequently cite the rigorous, above-board testing of prescription drugs as one of government's most important functions, and health insurance companies use such seals of approval in policy-coverage decisions. However, some consumers seem to prefer unorthodox, untested, unregulated products and, backed by lobbyists for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), are challenging insurers for "discriminating" against these "drugs," especially in the game-changing rules of the new Affordable Care Act. A Forbes.com columnist explained in August what would happen if CAM prevails: "You could start offering dried bird poop for arthritis, call it 'avian nature therapy,' and if an insurer won't pay for it, you can sue." [Forbes.com, 8-26-2013]

-- The NASA space agency reported an intruder on its Ames Research Center website in September, emanating from a site in Brazil manned by someone perturbed by the U.S.'s (and, also, by the way, the Illuminati's) eavesdropping. "Stop spy on us!" and "Obama heartless! Inhumane!" were just two of the messages on the 14 NASA sites taken down temporarily. A Slate.com blogger surmised that the hacker intended to target the National Security Agency -- NSA -- instead of NASA. [Slate.com, 9-19-2013]

-- Criminals Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) Tony Taylor was arrested in Chicago in October after driving off with a woman's SUV by convincing her he was a valet parking agent and handing her a claim check. He was detained shortly afterward at a nearby Nordstrom only because he tried to get cash refunds for items that had been in the woman's back seat. (2) A woman notified police in Fremont, Calif., in September that a thief had rummaged through her vehicle at night but had taken only a low-end gift-shop item -- leaving behind a checkbook, some money and an expensive pillow. The item, she said, perhaps looked like a small bag of marijuana, but in reality was a novelty-store bag of dried elephant dung. "It's a great gag gift," she said. [DNA Info Chicago, 10-1-2013] [San Jose Mercury News, 9-18-2013]

Angela Pusateri, 79, may be unconventional, but, according to Jenna, 13, "She really is a cool grandmother." The Hallandale Beach, Fla., woman is a rap-music singer with a new CD ("Who's Your Granny?") and occasional playdates, where she shows up in hockey jersey, jewels, sunglasses and baseball cap. Sample rap: "I can bring the noise better than P-Diddy / I am older and wiser, I ain't a disguiser / I am condo commando in a high-riser, Who's your granny?" Also, "Move over, Trick-Daddy, 'cause this is my town / I gotta shuffleboard posse and we're known to get down." Actually, conceded Jenna to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in September (2008), "Sometimes it's embarrassing." [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9-8-2008]

Thanks This Week to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Land developers for the iconic Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colo. (famous as the inspiration for the hotel in Stephen King's "The Shining") announced recently that they need more space and thus will dig up and move the hotel's 12-gravesite pet cemetery. Neighbors told the Fort Collins Coloradoan in September that they feared the construction noise, but somehow ignored the potential release of departed spirits (though an "Animal Planet" "dog psychic" who lives in Estes Park seemed to volunteer her services to calm the pets' souls). [Fort Collins Coloradoan via USA Today, 9-26-2013]

-- Teach Our Children Well: (1) Officials at Milford Haven School in Pembrokeshire county, Wales, punished Rhys Johnson, 14, in October for violating the dress code against shaved heads. He was helping raise money for an anti-cancer charity after a third relative of his contracted the illness. (2) North Andover (Mass.) High School punished honor student and volleyball captain Erin Cox in October for giving a drunk classmate a ride home. Cox was clean-and-sober, but violated the school's "zero tolerance" attitude toward alcohol users (even though more student drunk-driving might result if sober friends feared school punishment). [BBC News, 10-4-2013] [WBZ-TV (Boston), 10-13-2013]

-- Walter Dixon knew that he was about to be relocated in December 2012 from a Joliet, Ill., correctional facility to begin serving a new federal drug conspiracy sentence, but instead, state officials mistakenly freed him. Dixon protested, but said he was aggressively dismissed from the premises. It was not until September that he was finally re-arrested and began his new sentence. (Dixon was easily located because, though free, he had met regularly with his parole officer and was taking several vocational courses.) [Chicago Sun-Times, 10-4-2013]

-- After consulting with a lawyer, Evan Dobelle, president of Massachusetts' Westfield State University, accused of billing the state for unauthorized travel expenses, is reportedly considering claiming that he actually "self-reported" the violations as soon as suspicions turned up. Dobelle says he would thus be entitled to the protection of the state "whistleblower" statute, which shields inside informers when they expose wrongdoing. (Dobelle was placed on paid leave in October.) [The Republican (Springfield, Mass.), 9-24-2013, 10-17-2013]

-- In September, landlord Elwyn Gene Miller, 64, went on trial in Iowa City, Iowa, for spying on tenants in the small apartment building he owns -- after apparently having constructed peepholes allowing him views into bathrooms and other areas, and having been spotted climbing from a crawl space after accessing one peephole. Nonetheless, as Miller's lawyer pointed out, the law applies only to peeping for "sexual gratification," and there is no "first-hand knowledge or observation" that Miller was "aroused" at the time he was spotted. (At press time, the judge was mulling a decision.) [Iowa City Press-Citizen, 9-25-2013]

-- William Woodward of Titusville, Fla., awaiting trial on two murder counts in September, might normally have a weak defense under the state's "stand your ground" law (which requires an "imminent" threat of a forcible felony) because evidence indicates that any threats against him were made previously and not at the time of the shooting. However, in a court filing, Woodward's lawyers justified the pre-emptive ground-standing by referring to the "Bush Doctrine" employed by the U.S. in invading Iraq in 2003 (the U.S. "standing its ground" against Iraqi weapons of mass destruction). (The judge promised a ruling by November.) [Florida Today (Stuart, Fla.), 9-4-2013, 9-25-2013]

-- Perfect Sense: A 77-year-old motorist told police in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan, that he was going the wrong way on the Takamatsu Expressway only because he had missed his exit 1 km back and thought it best just to turn the car around and retrace the path back to the ramp. Police said his short September jaunt had caused a collision, not affecting the man's own car. [Yomiuri Online via Japan Today, 9-26-2013]

-- Lame: (1) In October, Jeffrey Laub, 39, was sentenced on several traffic charges, including leading police on a 111 mph, "Dukes of Hazzard-style" chase through Logan Canyon near Logan, Utah, with the explanation only that he needed an emergency restroom because of something he ate. Judge Thomas Willmore called the excuse "one of the worst" he had heard, since Laub had passed several public toilets during the chase. (2) Riverview, Fla., schoolteacher Ethel Anderson, 31, was convicted in September of having sex with a 12-year-old boy she was tutoring, despite her attempt to explain away the key evidence -- "hundreds" of sexual text messages -- as mere "rewards" to get his attention and encourage progress in math. [Herald Journal (Logan, Utah), 10-9-2013] [Tampa Bay Times, 9-19-2013]

In September, an appeals tribunal reinstated Gwent, Wales, police officer Shaun Jenkins, 36, who was fired in 2010 for having sex with a woman while on duty. The head of a police court concluded that Jenkins was on an authorized break at the time -- no more improper than stopping for "a spot of tea." (Investigators originally found it appalling that Jenkins was out of uniform during the escapade, but he pointed out that his gun remained on his person at all times, albeit down around his ankles.) [BBC News, 9-16-2013]

The city council in Washington City, Utah, recently approved the construction of a firing range next to the Dixie GunWorx shop, even though the firing range's neighbor on the other side is a women's domestic-abuse shelter (whose officials fear that gunfire might retraumatize some of the victims who had sought refuge). Dixie's CEO hinted to KSTU-TV that if the shelter victims had been armed in the first place, they could have prevented the abuse. [Salt Lake Tribune, 9-3-2013]

Among the many arrested recently for having solitary sex in public was Philip Milne, 74, ultimately convicted in the U.K.'s Bedford Magistrates' Court of touching himself on a transit bus although he claimed he was merely "shampooing" his troubled genital area and resented "being treated like a hardened criminal." Also, Stuart Clarke, 48, of Provo, Utah, had explaining to do after an incident on Delta Air Lines in 2012. He said that he was rubbing his exposed penis only because it burned from accidental contamination with peppermint oil (which so distressed him that, upon landing, he left behind a checked bag). The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force found that out and is currently investigating whether there is more to the "peppermint oil" story than embarrassment-avoidance. [MK News (Milton Keynes, England), 9-30-2013] [The Smoking Gun, 8-15-2013]

(1) A Tucson, Ariz., man apparently escaped a traffic stop in August, but not unscathed. After fleeing to a dead-end street, he climbed out the passenger window, but his foot got caught, and his still-moving car's back tire ran over his sprawled torso. The motorcycle officer was not able to catch the injured man, who staggered off into the neighborhood. (2) Lucas Burke, 21, and Ethan Keeler, 20, attempting to break into a safe at New Yard Landscaping in Hopkinton, N.H., in October, possibly seeking drug money, unwisely chose to use an acetylene torch. Included in the safe's contents was a supply of consumer fireworks, and, according to the police report, the resultant explosion "blew their bodies apart." [Arizona Daily Star, 8-8-2013] [Union Leader, 10-10-2013]

It's the "holy grail" of beers, said a Boston pub manager, but still, only 60,000 cases a year of Westvleteren are brewed because the Belgian Trappist monks with the centuries-old recipe refuse to expand their business (and even take to the phones to harass black- marketers). Westvleteren is sold only at the monastery gate, by appointment, with a two-case-a-month limit, at a price that's reasonable for retail beer, but anyone who gets it from a re-seller will pay 10 times that much. Producing more, said Brother Joris, to a Wall Street Journal reporter in November (2007), "would interfere with our job of being a monk." Furthermore, said Brother Joris, referencing the Bible, "(I)f you can't have it, possibly you do not really need it." [Wall Street Journal, 11-29-2007]

Thanks This Week to T.C. Hollingsworth, David Swanson, David Schneider, Rich LeVinus, and Cindy Hildebrand, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

A 61-year-old Texas man admitted to a hospital not long ago appearing to be falling-down-drunk, even though denying having had even a single drink, was discovered to be unintentionally manufacturing beer in his stomach. With "auto-brewery syndrome," stomach-based yeast automatically ferments all starches (even vegetables or grains) passing through, converting them into ethanol. Normally, natural stomach bacteria control the yeast, but if, for example, antibiotics had inadvertently eliminated the bacteria, the yeast would prevail. The case was reported in a recent International Journal of Clinical Medicine. [NPR, 9-17- 2013]

-- Update: As several additional states debate permitting marijuana use by a doctor's prescription, Irvin Rosenfeld presented his own experience in August to a packed house at Kentucky's state capitol. Rosenfeld suffers from painful bone tumors (diagnosed, with a poor prognosis, in 1963) and began smoking dope in the federal government's Compassionate Investigational Drug program in 1982 -- since then consuming 130,000 government-supplied joints (12 per day, carefully measured), which he said absolutely had prolonged his life. "I didn't ask for my bone disease," he said. "All I asked for is the best medicine possible." [WLKY-TV (Lexington, Ky.), 8-20-2013, 8-21-2013]

-- While Congress struggled recently to pass a budget or an increase to the national debt limit, one program made it through rather easily, according to a September New York Times report: farm subsidies for inactive "farmers." The subsidies were renewed, based on a 2008 law, virtually assuring that more than 18,000 in-name-only farmers (who received $24 million last year) will not be cut off. Included, according to a 2012 Government Accountability Office report, were recipients at 2,300 "farms" that had not grown a single crop in five years (including 622 without a crop in 10 years). [New York Times, 9-10-2013]

-- "Close Enough for Government Work": The security contractor USIS, which does $2.45 billion worth of background checks for the National Security Agency and other departments (and had cleared file-leaker Edward Snowden and the Washington Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis), gets paid only for completed files. However, full background checks often require months of work, and at some point, reported The New York Times in September, when USIS needed cash, it would "flush" still-open files, treating them as completed, and submit them for payment -- as happened with the files of Snowden and Alexis. In both cases, reported the Times, subsequent, crucial information failed to make it into the flushed files. [New York Times, 9-28-2013]

(1) In separate incidents of suspected thefts in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in January (all within about a month), police arrested John Lennon Ribeiro Siqueira, John Lennon Fonseca Ferreira and John Lennon Camargos Gomes. (2) Convicted for drug possession in May in Rockland County, N.Y.: Mr. Genghis Khan, 23. (3) Charged with carjacking in July in Hilo, Hawaii: Mr. Alkapone Cruz-Bailes, 19. (4) Mr. Beezow Doo-doo Zoppitybop-bop-bop, featured in News of the Weird after his December 2011 drug arrest in Madison, Wis., was arrested in August on drug charges in Washington County, Iowa. [Daily Mail (London), 2-5-2013] [Nyack Patch, 5-7-2013] [KHNL-TV (Honolulu), 7-20-2013] [Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee), 8-17-2013]

-- The missing element in obtuse doctoral dissertations in science is that they cannot be danced to, according to writer John Bohannon and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which has established an annual "Dance Your Ph.D" video competition, and this year's finalists were being selected at press time. Sarah Wilk was an entrant, featured in a Wall Street Journal report using glowing green balls and a flaming Hula-Hoop to help illustrate her "Odd-Z Transactinide Compound Nucleus Reactions Including Discovery of 260-Bh." So was Peter Liddicoat, using a chorus line of a juggler and a ballerina and others for "Evolution of Nanostructural Architecture in 7000 Series Aluminum Alloys During Strengthening by Age-Hardening and Severe Plastic Deformation." [Wall Street Journal, 9-24-2013]

-- Steven Cohen, eager to make a point that his country of residence, France, is more oppressive to artists than his native South Africa, staged a one-man demonstration at the Eiffel Tower in September. Wearing a bird outfit, tights and a garter, he had for some reason tethered a live chicken to his exposed penis with a long ribbon. After Cohen was arrested for indecent exposure, his lawyer complained that her client had been kept in custody too long for such a minor charge. "France," she exclaimed, "is throwing artists in prison." [The Local (Paris), 9-11-2013]

-- Use What You Have: (1) Abbott Griffin, 57, was arrested in Toledo, Ohio, in August and charged with robbing a Circle K convenience store, during which he had allegedly grabbed the clerk and bashed him repeatedly with a Bible. (2) One resident of a shelter in Seattle was charged in August with assaulting another in a dispute over TV-set volume, using a tub of butter-substitute. (3) Ms. Honesty Keener, 37, was convicted in Gloucester County, N.J., in August of a 2011 break-in during which she demanded money from the female resident under threat of rubbing her open sores over the resident's skin. [Toledo Blade, 8-31-2013] [KOMO-TV (Seattle), 8-27-2013] [South Jersey Times, 8-23-2013]

-- New Kinds of Field Sobriety Tests: (1) Deaaron Hearn, 22, was arrested in Iowa City, Iowa, in October after the traffic officer told him to summon a friend to drive his car home, and Hearn responded by reaching into his pocket, clumsily placing a $20 bill to his ear, and attempting a phone call. (2) In October, with her two children waiting in the car at a Holyoke, Mass., Shell gas station, Brenda Diaz, 26, allegedly attacked the store's Slushie machine, naked (before police arrived to taser, pepper-spray and arrest her). [Iowa City Press-Citizen, 10-4-2013] [WWLP-TV (Springfield, Mass.), 10-7-2013]

-- Surely, most shoplifting occurs because the thieves wish merely to obtain goods without paying. Occasionally, as with the arrest of Christopher Wiener, 26, in Fargo, N.D., in July, an alternative theory suggests itself and raises the question: Would it be more embarrassing to be seen actually purchasing an artificial vagina (from the Romantix adult bookstore) than to be arrested for shoplifting it? [Fargo Forum via Grand Forks Herald, 7-3-2013]

"We Treat Them Like Family": (1) Deborah Cipriani, 55, of North Ridgefield, Ohio, runs from her home America's only rescue center for skunks, and naturally, she told London's Daily Mail in October, some of her companions like to sleep with her in bed (which is reportedly fine with partner Kevin). (2) Diane Westcott and her husband (also named Kevin), of Layton, Utah, have four cats and a dog, but since 2003 also at least one goose, who of course also sleeps with her. "Gladys" wears diapers because, as Diane explained (with understatement), it is "not possible" to potty train a goose. [Daily Mail, 10-7-2013] [KSTU-TV (Salt Lake City), 10-5-2013]

(1) A 68-year-old hiker with a broken ankle was killed in Mansfield, Australia, in August following his "successful" lift from the bush by an Ambulance Victoria helicopter. Moments after he was raised, airborne, about 30 yards off the ground, he fell to his death. (2) A 52-year-old man was killed in an explosion in Rowan County, Ky., in July when he lit a cigarette while hooked up to an oxygen supply. The man had already survived three explosions under the same circumstances. [Australian Broadcasting Corp. News, 8-31-2013] [WKYT-TV (Lexington, Ky.), 7-25-2013]

Leading Economic Indicator: Rising prices of synthetic fertilizers and organic foods have intensified the collection of bird droppings on 20 climatically ideal islands off the coast of Peru where 12-inch-thick seabird guano coats the land. In the 19th century, China fought with Peru on the high seas for the right to mine the guano, which at that time was 150 feet high in places. Said an official of the Peruvian company that controls guano production (to a New York Times reporter in May (2008)), "Before there was oil, there was guano, so of course we fought wars over it." The exceptionally dry climate means that 12,000 to 15,000 tons of guano are available yearly. [New York Times, 5-30-2008]