California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo has a huge, 350-student "viticulture and enology" program, preparing its majors for an industry critical to the state's economy (and with a venerable international cachet) -- but puritanical state law continues to hobble it. Many in Cal Poly's four-year wine-making program must arrange for a fifth year -- after they turn 21 -- because, otherwise, faculty and administrators could be felons for "furnishing alcohol to a minor" when they assign students to taste their own class creations. The current California legislative session is considering allowing underage wine-making students to sip and spit. [San Luis Obispo Tribune, 6-20-2014] [Arizona Capitol Times, 6-2-2014] [Arizona Republic, 6-17-2014]

-- On dairy farms across the country, cows bizarrely queue up, without prodding, to milk themselves by submitting to $250,000 robots that have recently become the salvation of the industry. According to an April New York Times report, this advance appears to be "win-win" (except for migrant laborers watching choice jobs disappear) -- more efficient for the farmer and more pleasant for the cow, which -- constantly pregnant -- usually prefers frequent milking. Amazingly, cows have learned the drill, moseying up to the precise spot to engage the robot's arms for washing and nipple-cupping. The robots also yield copious data tracked from transponders worn around the cow's neck. [New York Times, 4-22-2014]

-- Argentinian agricultural scientists in 2008 created the "methane backpack" to collect the emissions of grazing cows (with a tube from the cow's rumen to the inflatable bag) in order to see how much of the world's greenhouse-gas problem was created by livestock. Having discovered that figure (it's 25-30 percent), the country's National Institute of Agricultural Technology announced recently that it will start storing the collected methane to convert it to energy. In a "proof of concept" hypothesis, it estimates that about 300 liters of methane could power a refrigerator for 24 hours. [Fast Company, 4-15-2014]

-- Bioengineers who work with Dictyostelium slime molds held the "Dicty World Race" in Boston in May for a $5,000 prize and intellectual adulation in August at the Annual International Dictyostelium Conference in Potsdam, Germany. The molds oozed down the 800-micrometer (0.0315 inches) track, lured to the finish line by ordinary bacteria that the molds normally enjoy. A team from the Netherlands beat out 19 others for the coveted prize. (Among the other "games" scientists play, mentioned in the same Nature.com story is the "Prisoners' Smellemma," in which players mix obscure samples in a test tube and smell the result to guess what their opponent used.) [Nature.com, 5-7-2014]

-- Artist Diemut Strebe offered his 3-D-printed re-creation of the famous ear of Vincent van Gogh for display in June and July in a museum in Karlsruhe, Germany -- having built it partially with genes from a great-great-grand-nephew of van Gogh -- and in the same shape, based on computer imaging technology. (Van Gogh reputedly cut off the ear himself, in 1888, during a psychotic episode.) Visitors can also speak into the ear and listen to sounds it receives. [Wall Street Journal, 6-4-2014]

-- Researchers from the Polish Academy of Sciences, writing recently in the journal Zoo Biology, reported witnessing 28 acts of fellatio by two orphaned male bears at a sanctuary in Kuterevo, Croatia -- the first-ever report of bear fellatio and the payoff from 116 hours of scientific observation over a six-year period. In each case, the researchers wrote, the older male was the receiver, and the researchers speculated that the episodes were less sexual in nature than a reflection of the bears' "early deprivation of maternal suckling." [LiveScience.com, 6-17-2014]

(1) A black-and-white housecat, Lenny, was turned back to a shelter near Rochester, New York, in April, only two days after adoption because the new owner could not tolerate Lenny's flatulence. (A braver second adopter, even though "warned," has taken Lenny in successfully.) (2) When three parrots were stolen from a home in Saxilby, England, in June, the owner provided police with their descriptions, even though all three are African greys, quite talkative and look very much alike. One of the three, however, has asthma and is easily recognized by his chronic cough. (3) Miles Jelfs of Bristol, England, was seeking financial help in April to cover surgery for his hard-luck tortoise, Cedric, whose prolapsed penis (likely from a mating mishap) constantly drags on the ground, partially erect. [Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester), 4-9-2014] [BBC News, 6-8-2014] [Daily Mail (London), 4-18-2014]

Paul Stenstrom, 62, lived comfortably in his Palm Harbor, Florida, home from 2002-2014 without paying a penny of his $1,836 monthly mortgage bill, exploiting federal bankruptcy law that forces foreclosing creditors to back off once a debtor files for protection. Stenstrom and his wife filed 18 separate petitions in that 12-year period, according to an April Tampa Bay Times report, until a judge recently cut them off. The Stenstroms were spotted recently preparing to relocate -- but Stenstrom said he was considering buying the Palm Harbor house back (since the price has dropped because of the foreclosure). [Tampa Bay Times, 4-12-2014]

-- Several "professional organizers" in New York City told a New York Post reporter in May that this summer is far busier than in years past for clients who need help packing their kids' trunks for summer camp. One consultant, who charges $250 an hour, said it is as if moms fear that the slightest change from home life will stress out their little darlings. Some mothers' attention to details include packing the same luxury bedding the campers sleep on at home, along with their special soap and candles and even separate plastic boxes to provide the cuties more storage space. [New York Post, 5-23-2014]

-- First-World Sales Launches: (1) Daneson (an Ontario "purveyor of fine toothpicks") recently introduced $35.99 "Artisanal Toothpicks" (that's per dozen, in "Single Malt" and other exotic flavors) for the discriminating dental raker. The lemon-flavored picks are a bargain at only $19.99, yet are made from the same "finest quality Northern White Birch," "prepared according to exacting recipes." (2) The Skin By Molly salon in Brooklyn (and by now, perhaps, competitors) offers "facials" for the derriere (occasioned by a recent social-media fascination with "bum selfies.") Molly's is the "Shiney Hiney Facial" ($65 for a 30-minute treatment), important because, she says, "Acne can flare up anywhere." [Gothamist, 5-22-2014] [Huffington Post UK, 5-23-2014]

(1) A "stocky" man in his 30s wearing a Cincinnati Reds baseball cap was sought in New York City in June after holding up five banks in the space of about three and a half hours but earning a total of only $449 (still, an average of $128 an hour). (Actually, $399 came from one Chase branch and $50 from another; three banks had shooed him away empty-handed.) (2) Notorious San Diego tagger Francisco Canseco, 18, was present in a downtown courtroom in June for a hearing on 31 misdemeanor paint-vandalism charges and apparently could not contain his boredom. While waiting (as officials discovered only the next day), Canseco managed to tag numerous chairs in the courtroom, along with benches in the hallway. (Vandalism of a courthouse is a felony.) [New York Daily News, 6-17-2014] [San Diego Union-Tribune, 6-17-2014]

It turns out (contrary to a report in News of the Weird on April 20th) that Dayton, Ohio, transit driver Rickey Wagoner was not saved by the religious book in his pocket that absorbed a bullet from an attack by "three black teenagers." After a thorough investigation, the Dayton police chief told reporters in June that Wagoner's allegations were "unfounded" and "fabricated." The chief reported that Wagoner was under financial stress at the time but declined to speculate further, though he did reassure the community that no such attackers were being sought. [Dayton Daily News, 6-20-2014]

Plant City (Florida) High School near Tampa announced that its 2014 valedictorian, Ms. Dhara Patel, had graduated with a grade-point average of 10.03. She not only vanquished the students who had fought for the formerly coveted 4.0, but she aced her heavy load of the ultra-competitive "advanced placement" courses for extra credit. [WTVT (Tampa), 5-13-2014]

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

Scott Fistler, twice a loser for electoral office in Phoenix, Arizona, as a Republican, decided in November 2013 that his luck might improve as a Democrat with a name change, and legally became "Cesar Chavez," expecting to poll better in a heavily Hispanic, Democratic congressional district. ("Cesar Chavez" is of course the name of the legendary labor organizer.) Furthermore, according to a June report in the Arizona Capitol Times, "Chavez's" campaign website features photographs of frenzied supporters holding "Chavez" signs, but which are obviously scenes from the streets of Venezuela at rallies for its late president Hugo Chavez. (At press time for News of the Weird, a judge had removed "Chavez" from the ballot, but only because some qualifying signatures were invalid. "Chavez" promised to appeal.) [Arizona Capitol Times, 6-2-2014] [Arizona Republic, 6-17-2014]

-- U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf of Omaha, Nebraska, trying to be helpful, he said, advised female lawyers appearing in his courtroom to lower their hemlines and cover their cleavage because males, including Judge Kopf himself, are "pigs." Writing in his personal blog in March, he said, "I have been a dirty old man ever since I was a very young man" and that the women in his office are similarly contemptuous of daringly dressed female lawyers. The lifetime-tenured judge later said he regretted any harm to the judiciary that his remarks might have caused. [Slate.com, 3-27-2014]

-- Almond Upton, 60, charged with murder for "intentionally" striking a New York state trooper in May with his pickup truck, denied everything. He told reporters following his first court appearance that he is bewildered by the accusation: "I was (close to) the Connecticut border, and all of a sudden, I'm in Binghamton, New York (about 140 miles from Connecticut), and this cop got killed, I don't know how it happened. It had to be a time warp." [United Press International, 5-30-2014]

-- The National Security Agency admitted in a June court filing that it had disobeyed two judicial orders to stop deleting accusatory evidence in its databases (which judges had ordered preserved to help determine if the NSA was illegally violating privacy laws). The NSA's reasoning for its chutzpah: Its data-gathering systems, it claims, are "too complex" to prevent the automatic deletions routinely programmed into its data, and it cannot reprogram to preserve the data without shutting down its entire intelligence-gathering mission. The challenging party (the Electronic Frontier Foundation) called the NSA's explanation disingenuous and, in fact, further proof that the NSA is incapable of properly managing such massive data-gathering. [The Daily Caller, 6-10-2014]

-- Michael Adrian, 26, was arrested in Lakeville, Minnesota, in June for frightening officials at Lakeville North High School by skateboarding in front of the school, in military dress, face covered by a bandana, with an arrow strapped to his arm, and concealing knives, a box-cutter, a slingshot and pepper spray. Adrian told police he was merely "testing" the school's security system by "looking like an a

-- At an April press conference on a train station platform in Milford, Connecticut, to critique the allegedly shoddy safety record of the Metro-North rail line, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut set up a chart on an easel to illustrate the problem. Suddenly, a train roared through the station and, according to news reports, "nearly" clipped Sen. Blumenthal, who was standing on the yellow platform line that passengers are admonished to stand behind. [WTNH-TV (New Haven), 4-18-2014]

-- In June, a jury in Fresno, California, decided that Bobby Lee Pearson, 37, was guilty of burglary -- but they accidentally signed the "not-guilty" form, instead, and by the time Judge W. Kent Hamlin caught the error, he could not change it (because of "double jeopardy"). Pearson walked out a free man, went to his sister's home, got into a fight hours later, and was stabbed to death by the sister's boyfriend. [Associated Press via OregonLive.com, 6-12-2014]

-- The animosity between Brevard County (Florida) judge John Murphy and public defender Andrew Weinstock festered over the lawyer's refusal to waive his client's right to a speedy trial, but came to a head on June 2, when the judge told Weinstock, "Stop pissing me off. Just sit down." Weinstock persisted: "I have a right to stand and represent my client." The judge responded: "If you want to fight, let's go out back, and I'll just beat your a

-- Robert Wallace, 32, a Houston software developer, filed a lawsuit in May to get back some items after a failed romance. According to Wallace, he had loaned a laptop computer, $2,000 cash and his Harry Potter DVDs to his sweetheart, Ms. Nomi Mims, a local stripper. Wallace said the loans were made only because he thought she was in love with him and that they were "building a future together," but now realizes he was wrong. Mims calls the items "gifts" and noted, "I've given him gifts, too. You know, how do I get my booty back?" [KRIV-TV (Houston), 5-16-2014, 5-19-2014]

-- (1) Authorities somehow could not prevent an inmate serving life at a North Carolina prison from arranging, via a contraband cellphone, to have the 63-year-old father of his prosecutor kidnapped and tortured. (The FBI managed to rescue the man five days after his abduction.) (2) The U.S. State Department somehow cannot arrange safe haven for Afghan interpreters who risked their lives daily serving U.S. combat troops and who face almost certain retaliation by militants once Americans have departed. Even the coordinator of the interpreter program, who applied for a U.S. visa in 2012, has not been approved (according to a March 2014 New York Times dispatch). [New York Post, 4-14-2014] [New York Times, 3-25-2014]

-- The sailing events at the 2016 Summer Olympics will be held on Rio de Janeiro's Guanabara Bay, but dire warnings have been issued about the filthy, squalid condition of the bay and the near impossibility of a timely cleanup. A New York Times reporter, in a May dispatch, cited car tires, floating mattresses, dog carcasses, a partly submerged sofa and free-flowing untreated raw sewage. A Brazilian competitive sailor admitted that he had personally seen four human corpses in the bay. (By comparison, for the Beijing Olympics, 1,000 cleanup boats were dispatched just to remove algae from the sailing venue, but only three cleanup boats are operating on Guanabara now, with merely several dozen planned.) [New York Times, 5-19-2014]

-- Arachnophobes (and their snake-fearing cousins, the ophidiophobes) may be in for an interesting 2016 Summer Olympics, in that Brazil seems to be one giant incubator of the scariest insects and vipers on the planet. Chief among them, reported the Wall Street Journal in June, are the Brazilian wandering spider -- the world's most poisonous and, in addition, the size of a dinner plate -- whose venom at least owns the "redeeming" value of momentarily giving bitten men erections. Off the coast of Sao Paulo is the uninhabited (and barred to visitors) Ilha de Queimada Grande, overrun by the super-deadly golden lancehead pit viper (whose population may be as many as five snakes per square meter of land area). [Wall Street Journal, 6-10-2014]

-- (1) A British National Health Service hospital in Stockton, England, apparently failed to learn from a 2012 tragedy at Scarborough Hospital when, in May, a patient caught fire during surgery. (Tip for Next Time: Either no alcohol sterilizers or no electricity-made incisions.) (2) In the latest creative image-enhancer by a municipal sewage plant, Seattle's Brightwater Treatment facility is offering to rent its indoor rooms ($2,000 for eight hours) as a wedding venue. According to an official, there is space for 260 guests, including full kitchen -- and the plant is reputed to be a "zero odor" facility. [BBC News, 5-23-2014] [KIRO-TV (Seattle), 4-9-2014]

Marking Japan's latest unfathomable social trend, two paperback photo books -- both consisting only of portraits of the rear ends of hamsters -- have experienced surprising and still-growing printing runs. Japanese society has long seemed easily captured by anything considered "kawaii" (or "cute"), according to a May Wall Street Journal dispatch, and a representative of one book's publisher called his volume "delightfully cute." "I can't stop smiling," he said, "when I see these butts." The two books in print are "Hamuketsu" (hamster buttocks) and "Hamuketsu -- So Cute You Could Faint." A third, "The Original Hamuketsu," was set to debut in June.

-- Another driver died after being unable to dodge his own vehicle. A 58-year-old man was hit by his SUV in New York City in June after he double-parked and was opening the door on the passenger side and realized that the vehicle was still in reverse gear. He tried to jam one foot onto the brake but hit the gas instead, causing the car to jump backward, ejecting him, and pinning him between the SUV and a van parked alongside. The man suffered a heart attack and died as his vehicle broke free and drifted across the busy Manhattan intersection of Madison Avenue and East 49th Street.

-- Dead or just in "deep meditation"? A renowned Hindu guru, Shri Ashutosh Maharaj, in his 70s, passed away in January (so concluded police in Jalandhar, India), but His Holiness' disciples have refused to release the body, keeping it in a commercial freezer, contending that he has merely drifted into the deeper form of the meditation for which he is well-known -- and will return to life when he is ready. (The guru's religious order, not coincidentally, is a real estate powerhouse in the Punjab region and on nearly every continent, and the guru's family is certain the "meditation" is a ruse to allow the Ashram's continued control of the financial empire.)

-- After the U.S. Postal Service finalizes its purchase of "small-arms ammunition," it will become only the most recent federal agency to make a large purchase of bullets for its armed agents (who are perhaps more numerous than the public realizes). In the last year or so, reports have surfaced that the Social Security Administration ordered 174,000 hollow-point bullets, the Department of Agriculture 320,000 rounds, Homeland Security 450 million rounds (for its 135,000 armed agents), the FBI 100 million hollow-points, and even the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 46,000 rounds. (In May, the Department of Agriculture added an order of submachine guns and body armor.)

-- Unclear on the Concept: Robert Kiefer, 25, was arrested in Akron, Ohio, in February after losing his composure over an expected check that had not yet arrived in the mail. Rather than complain to the check issuer, Kiefer did as several others have done in News of the Weird's experience -- attack the letter carrier. Kiefer pepper-sprayed the postman (with his own canister that he carries for protection), and in the ensuing struggle, bit the carrier on the leg.

-- Police in Lincoln, Nebraska, tracking down a call about a missing 3-year-old boy downtown, managed to locate him in the type of place where other toddlers have turned up after briefly escaping the sight of their parents: inside a toy vending machine. The boy had crawled up through the toy-release slot of the Bear Claw and was safely, joyously playing among the bin of colorful stuffed animals at Madsen's Bowling & Billiards.

-- In the second such incident reported here in four months, an overenthusiastic police officer handcuffed and detained a firefighter working a 9-1-1 call, ostensibly because the firefighter refused to stop work and go move his fire truck to the officer's satisfaction. Like the earlier incident in California, the unequivocal state law in Louisiana makes it illegal for anyone to interfere with a firefighter on an emergency call, and the officer from the New Roads, La., Police Department in principle faces a stiff fine and possible jail sentence.

-- Orthodox Judaism requires a divorcing spouse to obtain the permission of the other via a document called a "get," leaving much power in the hands of the responding spouse -- and leading to an occasional resort to trickery or violence to persuade an uncooperative spouse. In May, Lakewood, N.J., Rabbi Mendel Epstein, his son and three other men were indicted for scheming to use electric cattle prods on behalf of wives against recalcitrant husbands. (Four other men in the alleged scheme have already pleaded guilty.) According to prosecutors, Rabbi Epstein has been implicated in other over-the-top efforts to obtain gets, in 2009 and 2010, and the indictment charges the 2013 episode also involved kidnapping, surgical blades and a screwdriver.

-- Emergency crews in the U.K. once again came under criticism in June when dozens of police and firefighters, in three trucks and using a cherry-picker, blocked off a busy street in Cheltenham for an hour so they could rescue and release a bird (a "rook") caught in netting on top of a small apartment building. (Bonus irony: The building's owner had installed the keepaway netting for the sole purpose of discouraging rooks from roosting and nesting, as they were soiling neighborhood rooftops.)

-- An historic, decades-old snit ended in May in the state of Tabasco, Mexico, where two men (now in their 70s) who were the very last living speakers of their village's Ayapaneco language resumed talking to each other, and through the efforts of Stanford University anthropologist James Fox, their language may now be sufficiently recorded for a preserved historical record. The cause of their falling out was not reported.

-- If tiny Iceland has a worldly cultural showcase, it is the Icelandic Phallological Museum, founded in Reykjavik in 1997 and housing 300 penises and penile parts from 93 different animals. So far, however, it lacks an exhibition-worthy human penis. That omission is about to be remedied, as Mr. Jonah Falcon, a New York City D-list celebrity with an organ that measures 13 1/2 inches, has accepted an invitation to donate (presumably not in the flesh until he dies). Falcon notably refuses to appear in pornography, but said he regards this mission, for what Huffington Post called the Louvre of penises, as a higher calling.

-- Former NYPD officer Gilberto Valle, 30, was convicted in 2013 of conspiring to kidnap and torture -- and then cook and eat the corpses of -- an unspecified number of women he had listed on a website called DarkFetishNet.com, even though he insists that he was merely a harmless fantasy storyteller. Now, as he awaits sentencing at a New York City prison, officials have allowed him to train as a chef, preparing breakfast and lunch for inmates and guards. Although his wife divorced him and took their one child, other family members and friends support him, according to a May report in New York Daily News (including fellow prisoners, who joke with Valle about the irony). Said his mother, "The only thing he's guilty of is being stupid enough to be on that website."

-- Winston-Salem, N.C., surgeon Stuart Meloy and associates recently won their patent for an "orgasm machine" (first mentioned in News of the Weird in 2001), allowing patient trials to begin soon by a Minnesota company. The often-described birth of the device came as Dr. Meloy was treating a woman for excruciating back pain by running electrodes to the spinal column when he "accidentally" brushed the nerve apparently responsible for the female orgasm. Eventually, Dr. Meloy developed a pacemaker-type device to be implanted in a buttock, with a push-button "pain reliever" that the woman uses to charge the electrodes. (He emphasizes that the surgery is so invasive as to be improper for all except women with "serious" orgasmic dysfunction.)

Thanks This Week to Gary DaSilva, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.