Everyone's Above Average: Ask Americans how they stand compared to their fellow countrymen, and in survey after survey, the vast majority rank themselves "above average" in such areas as driving skill, sexual prowess, and general honesty. A recent study of English prisoners, published in the British Journal of Social Psychology, revealed that those miscreants think they, too, are in the upper half. They rate themselves above average (whether compared to Britons in prison or in society at large) in compassion, generosity, dependability, trustworthiness and honesty. In fact, the only trait on the University of Southampton survey on which the criminals failed to rank themselves as better than the typical Brit was "law-abidingness." On that trait, the inmates rated themselves merely as "average." [Pacific Standard magazine, 1-7-2014]

-- Pastor Ray Scott Teets, 66, of Fallen Timbers Community Chapel in Springhill Township, Pa., arrested in November for alleged "inappropriate contact" with an 11-year-old girl (daughter of parishioners) on at least three occasions, denied to police that the meetings were inappropriate. The girl, he said, requested counseling with him and suggested that the sessions take place in the storage shed in back of the chapel. (The girl said there were six meetings, lasting about 15 minutes each, and denied initiating them.) [WTAE-TV (Pittsburgh), 11-22-2013]

-- Robert Bourque, 55, was convicted of DUI in Sarnia, Ontario, in October, but continued to deny the charge. He admitted he had four beers on the day of the traffic stop but said the Breathalyzer result was misleading because he had recently poured alcohol into his ears to test his theory about how Jesus healed the sick. (Bourque was acting as his own lawyer.) Toronto Sun, 10-11-2013]

-- The mother and other relatives of William Medina, 24, said they felt hurt by the public's comments suggesting that Medina and his partner in the November Reading, Pa., armed robbery were "thugs." William was a "family man" -- "no big hard criminal," his mother said. The two robbers, armed and wearing masks, were gunned down by a Krick's Korner customer who said he feared the worst when he saw the robbers leading a store employee at gunpoint into a back room. A Medina cousin said he deplored people's taking the law into their own hands. [WFMZ-TV (Allentown, Pa.), 11-5-2013]

-- Celebrity Ironies: (1) In December, a California appeals court endorsed actor Tippi Hedren's victory suing the lawyer who had earlier failed to win compensation for her from a 2006 studio accident. In Hedren's most famous movie role, she was attacked by birds in Alfred Hitchcock's iconic film, and in 2006 had been clobbered by falling scenery caused by birds nesting in an attic over a stage. (2) A man who won a Hollywood raffle to watch the finale of "Breaking Bad" with cast members was arrested in Fort Myers, Fla., in January and faces his own intent-to-sell drug charges. Two weeks earlier, unrelated to the show or the raffle, a man with the same name as the show's protagonist (Walter White) was sentenced in Billings, Mont., to 12 years in prison on drug charges. [Hollywood Reporter, 12-16-2013] [Naples Daily News, 1-1-2014] [Billings Gazette, 12-16-2013]

-- Too Much Information: Arvind Kejriwal, fresh from his electoral victory as chief minister of the state of New Delhi, India, was to report to work on Monday, Dec. 30th, to begin fulfilling his anti-corruption administration -- one that promised unprecedented "transparency" to make government visible to constituents. However, the transparency of his first public announcement was perhaps over-the-top -- that he was taking the day off because of a bout of diarrhea. Said a colleague, "When the chief minister gives you a minute-by-minute update on his bowel movements, hail democracy." [Agence France-Presse via South China Morning Post, 12-30-2013]

-- Officials in Taiji, Japan, announced in October they would build a tourist attraction to publicize a nearby annual dolphin cull in which thousands are killed. Park planners hope to attract visitors to swim and cavort in pools among the lovable, captured dolphins -- and also to dine on dolphin meat (and rare whale meat) scored from the culls. Conservationists are of course disgusted by the project. [Japan Daily Press, 10-7-2013]

-- Michael Robertson, 31, argued via a lawyer before Massachusetts's highest court in November that his arrest for taking "upskirt" photographs of a woman on the subway should be tossed out -- asserting that he has a constitutional right to take pictures of anything that is not covered up in public. Said his lawyer (a woman), noting that the victim's skirt provided only partial covering, "If a clothed person reveals a body part whether it was intentional or unintentional, he or she cannot expect privacy." (Robertson's case had been suspended at the trial court while he seeks a ruling on his legal interpretation.) [Eagle Tribune (North Andover, Mass.), 11-4-2013]

-- Legislation, Not the Constitution, Is the Supreme Law of the Land: The December federal court decision, by Judge William Pauley, dismissing a challenge to the National Security Agency's phone surveillance program, suggested that even if a citizen might prove that his constitutional right to privacy was being violated, that person could never know it in the first place and thus never challenge, because Congress purposely made the NSA program secret. In fact, wrote Judge Pauley, the alleged constitutional violation that created the current lawsuit only came to light because of the unauthorized leaks by Edward Snowden. Therefore, if Congress never amends its secret laws, citizens will never get to find out whether their rights are being violated. [Washington Post, 12-27-2013]

For nearly 30 years, until 2007, the U.S. national symbol, the bald eagle, was endangered and protected, but officially they (along with golden eagles) are now so insignificant that the government is willing to endure dozens of them being chopped to death annually in the blades of "clean energy" wind turbines. An Associated Press investigation in December revealed that the federal government is purposely ignoring the eagles' attrition out of fear that outraged conservationists' campaigns will hinder development of wind power as an alternative to coal-produced electricity. (Another recent AP investigation revealed a similar painful choice in the continued commitment to ethanol as a cleaner alternative fuel even though that cleanliness is being increasingly questioned, and even though ethanol production requires the massive diversion of corn that could inexpensively feed millions of hungry people worldwide.) [Associated Press via Philly.com, 12-6-2013]

Love the One You're With: (1) Lydell Coleman, 36, was charged with felony indecent exposure in Seattle in December. He had allegedly dropped his pants outside the Sub Shop at Westwood Village and begun "humping" the front window. (2) Edwin Tobergta, 34, was sentenced to 11 months in prison in November after his earlier guilty plea in Hamilton, Ohio, to "having sex," naked, with a rubber pool float, in front of children. (3) An inebriated Andrew Davidson, 25, was arrested in July on a train between Aberdeen, Scotland, and Glasgow after foisting himself on a beverage cart and "humping" it, shouting "I want to kiss you, I want to (have sex with) you." [KOMO-TV, 12-25-2013] [WXIX-TV (Cincinnati) via WMC-TV (Memphis), 11-5-2013] [Metro (London), 1-7-2014]

According to a police report, Tevin Monroe, 31, walked into a McDonald's in Norfolk, Va., in December to inquire about a job, asked a manager for an application, and was told that the form was available online and that he should go download it. The manager's response left Monroe dissatisfied, and he lifted his shirt to show the manager the gun in his waistband. The manager quickly located a paper application for Monroe (but also discreetly summoned police, who arrived and arrested Monroe while he was still filling out the form). [WVEC-TV (Norfolk), 12-17-2013]

University of Alabama football fan Adrian Briskey, 28, was charged in December with the fatal shooting of a 36-year-old woman (also a Bama fan) at a postgame gathering in Hoover, Ala., to commiserate over the team's last-second loss to arch-rival Auburn. According to the victim's sister, Briskey was angry at the woman because she was insufficiently distraught at the game's outcome. [WBRC-TV (Birmingham), 12-9-2013]

A veteran University of Colorado administrator is on forced leave after her sideline made news in December. Resa Cooper-Morning, 54, "cultural diversity coordinator" in the ethnic studies department at CU Denver, also ran a phone-sex business for which she took calls ($1.49 a minute, "phone sex that will rock every part of your body," according to her website) during hours she worked for the university. Said her daughter-in-law: "I've been in her office, and she's said, 'Oh, let me be right back, I have a phone call.' She takes them very discreetly, shuts her door." A KCNC-TV investigation found that the phone-sex hours listed on the website had recently been cut back, from "7:30 a.m. until late at night" to "weekdays after 3 p.m." [KCNC-TV, 12-12-2013]

-- Florida's second-most populous county, Broward, announced in December it was removing the agricultural tax break for 127 properties because it appeared their "farming" work was a sham. Broward's property appraiser estimated the county had lost "hundreds of millions of dollars" over the years granting the bogus reductions -- as landowners were blatantly housing just a few cows (in some cases, merely renting them) to graze and calling that "agricultural." The appraiser's office, after auditing only a few of the exemptions, found, for example, that land occupied by a government-contract prison was "agricultural" (with a rent-a-cow arrangement). [WPLG-TV (Miami), 12-17-2013]

-- The Ontario College of Trades ministry, finally implementing a long-ago reclassification of about 300,000 professionals, announced in November that barbers would immediately face fines if they had not acquired new licenses demonstrating proficiency with perms and highlighting and other aspects of women's hairstyling. Even barbers who had cut men's hair for decades and with no desire to accept female customers would probably need a costly study program for the upgrade, which one barber estimated at 2,000 hours and $5,000 or more. Said one exasperated old-timer, "We're barbers, not neurosurgeons." [CBC News, 11-2-2013]

-- Suspicion Confirmed: A September report from the National Bureau of Economic Research revealed that almost 9 percent of all federal government spending occurred during the last week of the government's fiscal year, as agencies scrambled to buy things they previously had not needed but suddenly did -- because the money would otherwise disappear. Further, the report found that contracts made during that perhaps-frenzied final week were from double to more than five times as likely to be poorly executed as contracts made earlier in the fiscal year. [Foreign Policy (December 2013) via Chicago Tribune, 12-18-2013; Social Science Research Network, 9-22-2013]

-- The Army Corps of Engineers said in December that it "continuously strives to implement lessons learned from its work in the extremely challenging Afghan environment" -- apparently its primary response to an inspector general's report that it wasted $5.4 million on trash incinerators for a forward operating base that were late, in disrepair, dysfunctional even if working properly, health hazards for troops, and ultimately abandoned on site, unused. The project was termed "a complete waste," but the corps pointed out that money was actually saved by not repairing expensive equipment that would not have worked anyway. [Fox News, 12-16-2013]

-- South Africa, still transitioning to freedom after apartheid, has been slow to embrace the "performance art" that is a staple of American and European popular culture, but artist Anthea Moys is creating her own space, according to a December Wall Street Journal dispatch from Johannesburg. Recently she played an exhibition soccer game -- alone against an 11-player lineup. Her "team" quickly fell behind, but sympathetic spectators wandered onto the pitch to help her, and she managed to lose by only 12-0. Before that, she had entered a 60-mile bicycle race in Johannesburg and, dressed properly in helmet and Spandex, she mounted a stationary bike at the starting line and began pedaling furiously as the other cyclists took off. "I'm not very competitive," she said. "I'm interested in the joy of games and how people view them." [Wall Street Journal, 12-27-2013]

-- Australian performance artist Casey Jenkins admits that her signature engagement is "confining" and "slightly uncomfortable," but that "Casting Off My Womb" is nonetheless an important work. Jenkins spends 28-day cycles knitting cloth from wool that has been inserted into her vagina -- symbolizing the creation of "life" emerging from the natural female cycle. The output, she said, records a female life in all its natural states. (Jenkins' work is perhaps borrowed from classic performance work by the artists Carolee Schneeman, in 1975's "Interior Scroll," and Yoko Ono, in 1965's "Cut Piece.") [The Independent (London), 12-17-2013]

-- From the Homer (Alaska) Tribune: On Nov. 11, police were called at 2 a.m. by Robert Tech, 47 (better known as "Turkey Joe"), who said he was assaulted by Charles Young, 61 ("known in town" as "Yukon Charlie"). Joe was talking too much, Charlie told officers, and he had to keep hitting Joe because he would not shut up. Joe, whom officers found inside the bus he has been living in, said he declined to fight back because "I've been a leader of men all my life." Charlie was arrested. [Homer Tribune, 11-19-2013]

-- Low-Tech Thief: Kevin Cook, 25, told police that he was mugged in New York City's Central Park on Dec. 28, but that the thief had grabbed only his cellphone. Since it was a flip phone, the thief took a bemused look at it, asked, "What the (expletive) is this," threw it back to Cook and walked away empty-handed. Cook, perhaps a bit defensive, pointed out that it was a new-style flip phone. [New York Post, 11-29-2013]

-- Disability or Disguise? Police in Denver said the same man (still on the loose), in his 50s and about 5-foot-8, robbed three banks in the area in December and faces up to 60 years in prison if caught. Either he employs a finely detailed disguise, or he is robbing banks under a significant disability, for in each job he wears a "medical mask" and lugs around a portable oxygen supply. [KMGH-TV (Denver), 12-31-2013]

Medics and excessively confident law enforcement officers are facing federal lawsuits after, first, David Eckert, in New Mexico, and then a 54-year-old woman in El Paso, Texas, were repeatedly anally examined in ultimately fruitless searches for ingested drugs. Search of Eckert began when a traffic officer thought he was "clenching" his buttocks during a stop; search of the woman began at the Mexico border when she was selected randomly for "additional screening" and a police dog gestured toward her. Both victims endured hours of detention and bodily invasions, as officers and medics, continually finding nothing, used different tests to justify their initial suspicion. (Eckert received three enemas and a colonoscopy.) Not a single trace of drugs was found on either victim, and both have sued for the trauma and because both medical centers, in Silver City, N.M., and El Paso, billed the victims personally for the forced procedures. [KOB-TV (Albuquerque), 11-5-2013] [Reason, 12-19-2013]

-- Two men broke into a home in the Lincoln Heights section of Los Angeles in December, unaware that the resident had moments earlier called 911 after glimpsing them on his surveillance camera. When police arrived outside, the perps asked the resident to tie all three of them up so that all would appear to be "victims" of the invaders, who had supposedly fled. The resident complied, but when police entered the home, the resident of course immediately squealed on the tied-up perps, ensuring their arrest. Two associates, who were outside standing lookout, were also arrested. Said one officer, "That's what you call felony stupid." [Los Angeles Times, 12-28-2013]

-- From the Nov. 11 weekly report of the Dakota County (Minn.) Sheriff came word from the Hastings Police Department that a sergeant arriving to investigate a fight in a store's parking lot in fact encountered only a single car with several young men inside. The sergeant said he strolled up to the car to ask about a fight, but was pre-empted when one of the men said, "I know why you're here," and pulled three pairs of pants, shoplifted from the store, from inside his shirt. He was arrested. [Dakota County Sheriff Report, 11-11-2013]

Thanks This Week to Mark Dubbin, Robert Jay, Craig Cryer, and Kent Harris, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

At least two U.S. medical schools so far are early adopters of Dr. Benjamin Lok's and Dr. Carla Pugh's "Robot Butt" for teaching doctors-in-training to properly (and compassionately) administer prostate exams. The robot, bent over a desk to simulate the patient profile, has sensors to alert the students if they dig too deeply or quickly for comfort. Other sensors enable a check on eye contact to evaluate "bedside manner." (News of the Weird reported a similar innovation in 2012 by Nobuhiro Takahashi, whose model's "sphincter" has the ability to "clench up" if the probing becomes too distressing.) [Huffington Post, 11-13-2013]

-- Neuroscientist James Fallon, fascinated by the brains of serial killers, experienced a seminal career moment in 2005 when he realized that his own brain scan was a dead-on match for the typical psychopath's. Subsequent self-examination revealed him to be, he said, a "pro-social psychopath," displaying traits similar to a killer's (aggressiveness, low empathy) and different ("killing" opponents only in games and debate, with little compassion for their haplessness). "I'm kind of an asshole," he admitted, according to a November report by The Smithsonian, "and I do jerky things that piss people off." Fallon failed to break bad, he guesses, because he "was loved (growing up), and that protected me." He figures he has not kicked his pathology but rather strives "to show to everyone and myself that I can pull (this balancing act) off." [Smithsonianmag.com, 11-22-2013]

-- Sucker's Game: (1) Homeless man James Brady had his New Jersey state benefits cut off in October for "hiding" income. He had found $850 on a sidewalk in April and turned it in; when no one came forward, it was returned to him, though he was unaware that he needed to report it as "income." (2) A 16-year-old Fox Chapel, Pa., boy realized at a football game in September that he was inadvertently carrying a pocket knife and conscientiously turned it in to a security guard -- which earned him a 10-day school suspension. The school's "zero tolerance" rule, said the boy's father, "sends a message (that) you should probably lie." (3) Betty Green was fired as clerk at the Speedway gas station in Lexington, Ky., in November when she "just said no" to an armed robber, who smiled and walked out. Company rules require always giving up the money. Said Green, "I don't think anybody knows what you are going to do until it happens to you." [Associated Press via ABC News, 11-10-2013] [KDKA-TV (Pittsburgh), 9-16-2013] [WLEX- TV (Lexington), 11-6-2013]

-- In November, the senior class president of Northwest Christian University in Eugene, Ore., "came out" -- as an atheist. Eric Fromm, 21, is apparently popular on campus, and an ABC News report revealed that he was under no pressure to resign or drop out. Said the director of university relations, "All of our students are on a journey. ... We as an institution meet students where they are at." Fromm said he was impressed with the school right from his initial visit. "No one was speaking in tongues or handling snakes, so I decided to stay." [ABC News, 11-11-2013]

-- Not the Usual Modus Operandi: (1) The vandalism of Marion County High School in Jasper, Tenn., on the eve of a big football game in November was not, after all, the work of arch-rival South Pittsburg -- notwithstanding the clues. The South Pittsburg markings were apparently made by Marion County teacher-coach Michael Schmitt, who was arrested. He told officers he was only trying to inspire the team (which lost anyway, 35-17). (2) Police in Urunga, Australia, charged teacher Andrew Minisini in December with taking three female students to a motel, giving them alcohol and seducing them -- not into sex, but into vandalizing the residence of one of Minisini's former colleague rivals. [Times Free Press (Chattanooga), 11-13-2013] [Sydney Morning Herald, 12-6-2013]

-- A government-subsidized, foundation-supported program for alcoholics in Amsterdam announced a "welfare"/"work" program offering the city's drunks the equivalent of about $14 a day -- and five free cans of beer -- for several hours of street-cleaning. Some beneficiaries told London's The Independent, in a November dispatch, that, of course, they intended to use the cash to buy even more beer. [The Independent, 11-20-2013]

In November, Dave Wilson, a white conservative candidate for the board of the Houston Community College System, pulled off an astonishing victory over the African-American incumbent, by distributing campaign materials that made him -- Wilson -- appear to be black and thus the favorite of African-Americans. Wilson's brochures depicting black "supporters" were all, he later said, copied from the Internet. [KHOU-TV, 11-10-2013]

In 2001, German computer repairman Armin Meiwes captured world attention when he was convicted of killing, and then sauteeing and eating parts of a Berlin engineer of particularly low self-esteem, who had offered himself on a German cannibal-fetish website. In November 2013, police in the German state of Saxony were investigating human body parts found at a bed-and-breakfast run by "Detlef G.," suggesting the parts were from "Wojciech S.," who frequented a cannibal-fetish website and who had traveled to meet Detlef -- and that the parts had been found in an area of the grounds used for "grilling." The investigation is continuing. [Spiegel Online, 11-29-2013, 12-4-2013]

Selfies: Cornelius Fergueson, 45, a psychologist for the Philadelphia Family Court System, was arrested in December for allegedly masturbating in front of his office window. Edward Alvin, 34, was arrested on a similar charge in November, in the lobby of the DMV office in West Palm Beach, Fla. Brian Hounslow, 37, was arrested in November (similar charge) in the ladies' room at a Tulsa, Okla., Walmart. (Asked the bewildered woman who called security: "Who gets up at 8:30 in the morning and decides they're going to go to Walmart, take off all their clothes, and masturbate in the woman's bathroom?") [Philly.com, 12-5-2013] [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 11-12-2013] [KJRH-TV (Tulsa), 11-20-2013]

-- A condominium association in Niles, Ill., is debating whether to pursue Norman Kazmierski since he has now moved. As a resident, he was accused of keying cars, egging hallways, disabling the emergency sprinkler system, and leaving several pounds of excrement in buildings in protest of alleged mistreatment. The association said it all started when one resident asked Kazmierski to please park his car between the lines so that parking spaces could be used more efficiently. [Chicago Sun-Times, 11-23-2013]

-- Police in Mayville, Wis., arrested John Grant, 42, in November for shooting his wife, Nicole, three times with a Taser gun. The couple tried to explain that Nicole (Green Bay Packers fan) had bet John (Chicago Bears fan) on the game, with the winner getting to Taser the loser (although she sheepishly said later that she didn't think John would actually shoot her). (According to breath tests, neither of the Grants could have lawfully driven a car.) [KARE-TV (Minneapolis), 11-6-2013]

During the September Guantanamo Bay trial of five people charged in connection in the 9/11 attacks, defense lawyers continued to complain that their "confidential" client information was being leaked from the poorly secured "classified" Pentagon computer network. Said the lead defense counsel (Air Force Col. Karen Mayberry), the normal Department of Defense "classified" network is so porous that she has been forced to use the Wi-Fi at the local Guantanamo Starbucks, which she regards as more secure. [Reuters via DigitalOne.com (Singapore), 9-20-2013]

Americans who accidentally shot themselves recently: A 31-year-old man, showing off his high-powered rifle to friends, shot off part of his face, Waterville, Maine (November). A 22-year-old woman, handing her brand-new assault rifle to her husband, shot herself (fatally) in the head, Federal Heights, Colo. (May). Two police chiefs shot themselves (Medina, Ohio, in April and Washington, N.H., in June). A 66-year-old firearms instructor, Winona, Minn., shot his finger while explaining to his wife that it was impossible to pull the trigger while the gun is holstered (April). Awkward Wounds: A Columbia, Mo., man shot in the "posterior" while removing his gun from his back pocket (May); a 23-year-old man, Charleston, W.Va., shot in the groin while holstering his weapon (August); a 43-year-old driver, Norfolk, Va., shot in the groin while waving his gun at bystanders who objected to his speeding (August). Waterville: [Morning Sentinel (Waterville), 11-8-2013] Federal: [KMGH-TV (Denver), 5-16-2013] Medina: [Medina Gazette, 4-18-2013] Washington: [WMUR-TV (Manchester), 6-3-2013] Winona: [Winona Daily News, 4-30-2013] Columbia: [KMIZ-TV (Columbia), 5-30-2013] Charleston: [Charleston Daily Mail, 8-28-2013] Norfolk: [WTKR-TV (Norfolk), 8-7-2013]

Thanks This Week to Ernest Isaacs and Gerard Zavaski, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.