(1) German Rolf Buchholz, who owns the Guinness Book world record for most body piercings (453), said he was upset to be denied entrance into United Arab Emirates in August to fulfill a performance of sorts at Dubai's Fairmont Hotel. Buchholz said officials gave no explanation, although in addition to the piercings (example: at least 50 beads stuck to his lips), he has also implanted horns in his forehead. (2) Caius Veiovis, 33, is similarly concerned about his forehead horns. While preparing for trial in Hamden, Massachusetts, in a gruesome 2011 triple murder, he has decided to freshen up somewhat by removing the spikes from his nostrils, but still needs the judge's help to warn prospective jurors not to presume guilt from his six horns. [NBC News, 8-17-2014] [The Republican (Springfield, Mass.), 8-18-2014]

-- After several contestants in the 2013 world swimming championships in Barcelona, Spain, remarked that the racers in lanes 5 to 8 seemed to swim faster than those in lanes 1 to 4, two researchers investigated further and concluded, in July, that there was a rogue current on the lane-8 side of the pool. In fact, most of the losers swam in lane 1, and the lane 8 swimmers produced a glut of medals, and, wrote the researchers, a current would be "the only cause that we can propose to explain these findings." [Wall Street Journal, 7-24-2014]

-- The New Normal: In America, TV pundits merely shout at each other, but twice recently in Middle East TV debates, discussants have roughhoused on the air. Journalist Shakir al-Johari was involved both times, on the Jordanian 7 Stars channel in May and on Dubai TV in July. In the first, the studio was wrecked, according to Al-Arabiya news service, and the latter incident was calmed only after al-Johari threw his chair at lawyer Saleh Khrais. [BBC News, 5-7-2014] [emirates247.com, 7-21-2014]

-- From the Foreign Press: (1) After police issued a plea for help in July to identify the perpetrators of a porn movie filmed inside an Austrian church and in which actors' faces were obscured, a serious fan of Austrian porn spoke up, naming the 24-year-old female lead. The nude breasts of the star, he said, were unmistakably those of "Babsi," a popular actress, and she was subsequently charged with trespassing in the church. (2) Wilfred Mashaya told a magistrate in Harare, Zimbabwe, in June that he wanted to divorce his wife because, when they sleep together, "She would not even make any sexual sound" -- which was, to him, unbearable. The magistrate took the case under advisement. [The Local (Vienna), 7-14-2014] [Bulawayo24.com (Harare), 6-29-2014]

-- Not Our Fault: In July, two of the four fertilizer manufacturers operating in the vicinity of the April 2013 massive explosion and fire in West, Texas, filed motions contesting the city's lawsuit against them. According to the companies, it was actually the city's ill-trained first responders and volunteer firefighters who caused many of the injuries. [Waco Tribune, 7-26-2014]

-- A Matter of Scale: (1) Police in Cologne, Germany, wrote a bicycle-equipment infraction against Bogdan Ionescu in April because his bike had no right-side handlebar brake. But since Ionescu has no right arm, he fought the ticket, and in July received a police apology. (2) David Rainsford, 44, is contesting the fee charged for a routine eye exam by Specsavers in Cramlington, England. He wants a discount because he has no right eye. (However, Specsavers says Rainsford's glass eye can pose risks for the good eye and that the area surrounding both eyes must be checked, as well.) [Agence France-Presse via Daily Telegraph (London), 7-1-2014] [The Chronicle (Newcastle upon Tyne), 7-21- 2014]

-- Despite all that has transpired in Ukraine this year, the country's defense industry manufacturers continue to sell military gear to Russia (including "key parts for ship engines, advanced targeting technology for tanks and upkeep for Russia's heaviest nuclear missiles," according to an August Washington Post dispatch). The Ukrainian government may be hostile to Russia, but workers at companies such as Motor Sich fear loss of jobs in an already deep recession. Said a Motor Sich spokesman, "We have our own (political) party, the party of Motor Sich." [Washington Post, 8-15-2014]

-- Dilemmas of the 1 Percent: In July, New York City approved construction of a 33-story condominium/apartment tower housing both luxury units (219, facing the Hudson River) and "affordable" units (55, facing the street) -- with separate entrances so the beautiful people could avoid the more downscale. (The developer, Extell, said it deserves credit for carving out the "affordable" units because the luxury units are more profitable.) [New York Post, 7-20-2014]

-- Considering the height restrictions zoned into London's super-prime real estate, the only practical way for some owners to expand is to go underground (as deep as five stories' worth of "basement"), which requires heavy digging machines. However, by the time the excavation is finished, the machines are mired at the bottom of a huge pit with no easy way to bring the behemoths up. Consequently, on some jobs, reported the New Statesman in June, property owners have elected merely to leave the machines buried under what would be their sub-basement. [New Statesman, 6-5-2014]

-- The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species recently estimated that nearly 50,000 African elephants were killed for their tusks in the last two years, continuing the century-long drastic decline in wild pachyderms. The Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has thus proposed new rules to curb ivory imports into the United States, to discourage American buying. However, in July, the National Rifle Association warned that the FWS rules would be "disastrous" for America's collectors of antique pearl-handled guns and urged members to fight the regulations (even though, as NRA advocates acknowledged, few gun owners would be affected). [The Hill (Washington, D.C.), 7-12-2014]

In August, a criminology professor at Rome's La Sapienza University arranged a two-hour guest lecture on "emergency practices" by an "experienced" hand -- Francesco Schettino, the captain currently on trial in Italy for his role in the sinking of the cruise ship Costa Concordia in 2012, when 32 people died. Said the captain: "I was called to speak because I am an expert. ... I know what to do in these sorts of situations." (Schettino will have to refute alleged evidence that "what to do" included running straight for the nearest lifeboat.) [Associated Press via News.com.au (Sydney), 8-7-2014]

Bright Ideas: (1) Bradley Hardison, 24, on the lam in the Elizabeth City, North Carolina, area from two break-in charges, nonetheless decided to enter a newsworthy contest in August -- a public "doughnut-eating" competition, in which police officers and firefighters were his competitors. Hardison managed to win, downing eight doughnuts in two minutes, thus attracting even more attention. After one officer recognized him, he fled but was easily caught. (2) Recurring Theme: Raymond Betson became the most recent perp (in July in Swanley, England) to intend to break into a store (this time, a money-lending store) by ramming the wall with a digger -- but broke through the wrong wall (and then another wrong wall after that). Police were summoned by the commotion and arrested him. [Reuters, 8-8-2014] [ThisIsLocalLondon.co.uk, 7-21-2014]

(1) The tornado that ripped through Kingsport, Tennessee, on July 27 damaged Jerrod Christian's house, leaving furniture and tools strewn about his lawn. Unfortunately, according to police who filed four charges against him the next day, some of the items (an air compressor, a welder, a ratchet, an air hose, a weed trimmer) belonged to his neighbors, who had long suspected (without proof) that Christian had burglarized their homes. (2) Russian researchers launched several critters into space on July 19, including a male and four female geckos (to follow their mating capabilities), but by July 25 reported that they had lost contact with the satellite, drawing comical concern (most notably, from TV's Stephen Colbert). Although the communication link was restored several days later, with the geckos reportedly still copulating, ultimately only the mission's fruit flies survived the satellite's return to Earth. [ABC News, 7-30-2014] [New York Times, 9-2-2014]

Thanks This Week to Alan Magid, Suzi McCoy, Sarah Del Collo, Tracy Westen, and Christine Van Lenten, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

As summed up by a Vox.com writer: "The absurdity runs deep." America uses American military equipment to bomb American military equipment that ISIS captured (from inept Iraqi soldiers, inept in part since America disbanded Iraq's professional military in 2003). America's Kurdish allies, fighting ISIS, use inferior Russian weapons they captured in the 1980s. ISIS has a so-far-safer haven in Syria because America declined to arm moderate Syrian rebels, largely out of fear that radicals like the future ISIS would capture weapons America provided. "So now (America is) bombing the guns that (it) didn't mean to give ISIS because (America) didn't give guns to their enemies because then ISIS might get guns." [Vox.com, 8-8-2014]

-- Thomas Clark, 28, of Crawley, England, beat one of society's most foreboding charges in July when he was acquitted of voyeurism even after admitting that he had hidden that video camera in a workplace rest room, and even despite evidence that he formerly worked in the pornography industry. Clark persuaded a Horsham Magistrates Court judge that he suffered an extreme phobia of diarrhea and vomit and that, by hiding the camera, he was thinking only of ascertaining that the rest room was clean before he entered. [Crawley News, 7-25-2014]

-- In America, We're All Great Parents: (1) Kayla McKenzie, 22, was charged with DUI in Bismarck, North Dakota, a condition that led her to crash into five separate vehicles or structures on Aug. 12 -- while, according to police, three unsecured children were in her car, including a year-old infant riding in her lap. Nonetheless, said the 0.252 blood-alcohol driver, "I look like a bad mother, but I'm not. I'm actually a really good mom." (2) Rayvon Campos, 22, pleaded guilty in San Antonio in August to first-degree felony assault of his 1-month-old daughter that resulted in brain hemorrhaging. Nonetheless, he reassured the judge, "This is the first time I've ever been in trouble. ... I'm a real good dude." [Bismarck Tribune, 8-13-2014] [San Antonio Express-News, 8-14-2014]

-- A fire hydrant at 393 University Ave. has brought in more parking ticket revenue (since 2008) than any other hydrant in Toronto -- $289,620 on 2,962 violations, according to an August Toronto Star report. While hydrants are usually located at curbside to facilitate fire-engine access, the one at 393 University Ave. was placed about 20 feet from the curb, in the middle of a sidewalk, and obscured by a tree in a planter about 8 feet long. (Nonetheless, the law's wording treats the hydrant, for illegal-parking and revenue-earning purposes, as if it were curbside.) [Toronto Star, 8-11-2014]

-- A woman hiking in Down Valley Park near Placerville, Colorado, told Denver's KUSA-TV in August of her narrow escape from a mountain lion that had stalked her for a half-hour (crouching menacingly each time she attempted to retreat). At the closest point, recalled Kyra Kopestonsky, it was about 8 feet away. At that point, she told the reporter, "I don't know why," but "I just started singing opera really loud." The mountain lion "sort of put its ears down and ... backed away." (Only then was she able to call a friend, who alerted rescuers.) [KUSA-TV, 8-5-2014]

-- Arrest Him at Your Peril: In July, a jury in Brooklyn, New York, awarded Kevin Jarman, 50, $510,000 from the city for the broken ankle he suffered during his arrest for shoplifting in May 2011 (a charge to which he eventually pleaded guilty). Among his other New York City income: a $20,000 settlement for false arrest on a drug charge in 2013 and another, for $15,000, in 2005. [New York Post, 7-17-2014]

-- I Know the Feeling, But: (1) Gloria Baca-Lucero, 48, was arrested in Albuquerque in July after allegedly holding a Comcast cable installer's tool bag at gunpoint in her home. She said she believed that her service call was free, but the installer told her otherwise, and she apparently decided to detain the tool bag. (2) German truck driver Michael Harry K., 58, went to trial in August in Wuerzburg, Bavaria, charged with firing his gun in the direction of drivers more than 700 times in five years out of displeasure with their poor road habits. He never actually hit anyone (but police said he caused at least one serious injury by frightening a driver into a collision). [Albuquerque Journal, 7-30-2014] [Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News, (London), 8-11-2014]

-- Immature: (1) Princeton University professor John Mulvey, 67 (who teaches financial engineering applications), was charged in July with stealing 21 yard signs around the town of Princeton -- signs for a computer repair business owned by a man with whom he was feuding. (2) Nathan McCoy, 21, sought by police near Boise, Idaho, in July on a probation violation, took off running, forcing officers to chase him onto the Eagle Hills Golf Course. McCoy sought "refuge" in a pond, standing waist-deep as deputies tried to coax him out, but even with the pond surrounded, it still took McCoy a half-hour of standing there to conclude that he did not have a Plan B. [Daily Princetonian, 7-14-2014] [Idaho Statesman, 7-23-2014]

Walker Harnden, 19, a sophomore at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, was recognized in April for a Guinness Book record for the highest note ever whistled (B7). Harnden, who told the Raleigh News & Observer that he has "irritated his parents and friends for years," admits that he whistles "all the time" -- up to four or five hours a day. [News & Observer, 4-18-2014]

In 2010, the village of West Lafayette, Ohio, barred residents from keeping fowl and farm animals, but Iraq war veteran Darin Welker, 36, believes his post-war depression and trauma are unusually well-assisted now that he has befriended 14 pet ducks that he keeps at home. The Department of Veterans Affairs, which paid for Welker's back surgery, stopped short of providing physical therapy and counseling, causing him more than ever to rely on the ducks, which he says motivate him to get out of the house and provide them with caretaking services. Village officials, however, cited him in June for misdemeanor fowl-housing. [Associated Press via KOMO-TV (Seattle), 7-20-2014]

"Streamers," according to workers at the state-of-the-art solar plant in California's Mojave Desert, are birds that cross the path of the 300,000 garage-door-sized mirrors that magnify the sun's rays on their way to producing steam to power 140,000 homes. Those birds, instantly fried, vanish in plumes of smoke at the rate of perhaps one every two minutes, according to an August Associated Press dispatch from Ivanpah Dry Lake near the Nevada border. According to federal wildlife officials, the plant's bright light attracts insects, which then attract even more birds. The operator, BrightSource Energy, said there is no feasible way to protect the birds. [Associated Press, 8-18-2014]

Questionable Decisions: (1) Ryan Mullins, 22, was arrested in Swansboro, North Carolina, in August when he came to an officer's attention at 5:30 a.m. Police said he had broken into a pharmacy, had stolen the 100-pound safe, and was dragging it behind his car when the officer routinely pulled in front of him. Nonetheless, Mullins decided to try and pass the officer. (2) Robert Haught Jr., 42, was captured after a high-speed chase through Burlington, Massachusetts, in August, with police recovering "stacks" of stolen credit cards and suspected- stolen high-end electronics from the car. Haught had attracted police attention by parking his car (with a mismatched license plate), unattended, with engine running, in a handicapped parking spot. [WCTI-TV (New Bern, N.C.), 8-12-2014] [WCVB-TV (Boston), 8-12-2014]

Briton Robert Dee, feeling humiliated at being called the "world's worst tennis pro" by London's Daily Telegraph (and other news organizations) sued the newspaper for libel in 2009. After taking testimony in February 2010, the judge dismissed the lawsuit, convinced by Dee's having lost 54 consecutive international tour matches (each in straight sets). Fearful of an opposite result, 30 other news organizations had prematurely apologized to Dee for disparaging him, but the Telegraph had stood its ground (and was, of course, humble in victory, titling its story on the outcome, "'World's Worst' Tennis Player Loses Again.") [The Guardian (London), 4-28-10]

Thanks This Week to Craig Cryer, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

(1) Up-and-coming Sicilian mobster Domenico Palazzotto, 28, was outed in August by Italy's L'Espresso magazine as the owner of an ineffectively pseudonymous Facebook page showing off his muscled, bare-chested body and perhaps recruiting members. One fan asked, "Do I need to send a (resume)?" "Yes, brother," came the reply. "We need to consider your criminal record. We do not take people with clean records." Palazzotto operates out of Palermo and listed among his "likes" the singer Kenny Loggins. (2) Similarly young, body-obsessed Egyptian jihadist/gym member Islam Yaken, according to his postings on Facebook-type social media sites, is a law school graduate fluent in English, French and Arabic, allowing him to describe the particular viciousness that he and his brothers and sisters will wreak upon infidels. [Daily Telegraph (London), 8-3-2014] [Daily Telegraph (London), 8-6-2014]

-- A jury's murder conviction, and the 15-to-life sentence it carried, against Daniel Floyd in Brooklyn, New York, for a 2008 killing went for naught in July when the Brooklyn Supreme Court ordered a retrial (with witnesses forced to testify all over again). The sole reason the court cited was a decision by the trial judge on the first day -- to seat the potential jury pool and not Floyd's mother, who, because she was temporarily left standing that first day, argued successfully that her son's right to a "public" trial had been violated. [New York Post, 7-28-2014]

-- I (Heart) Strangers: Two age-30ish men knocked on the door of a Sebastian, Texas, woman at 12:30 a.m. on Aug. 3, asking for water and if they could please come inside to charge their cellphone -- and the woman apparently cheerfully invited them in, later offering them use of her backyard shed to grab some sleep. She did not learn until a short time later, when a law enforcement manhunt widened into her neighborhood, that they were wanted for murdering a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Officers arrested the pair inside the shed. [KRGV-TV (Weslaco, Texas), 8-5-2014]

-- A team of researchers from the University of Texas at Arlington announced recently that they had developed a prototype of a wind turbine that might deliver electricity in tiny bursts to devices like smartphones -- since it is about half the size of a grain of rice. (Tiny solar backpacks already exist.) [National Geographic, 6-19-2014]

(1) The ubiquitous "sexting" phenomenon continues to flourish. A Washington state agency suspended the license of anesthesiologist Arthur Zilberstein in June after finding that he had exchanged sexually explicit text messages -- during surgeries. (2) One of the emerging occupational skills for Emergency Medical Technicians, according to first responders interviewed in a June Wall Street Journal feature, is merely holding up blankets at accident scenes -- to block onlookers from their apparently uncontrollable urge to take gruesome photos to send to their friends. [KIRO-TV (Seattle), 6-9-2014] [Wall Street Journal, 6-24-2014]

(1) A 40-year-old man's throat was fatally slashed in August in Laurel, Montana, in a fight with an acquaintance over which military service -- Army or Marines -- is better. (News reports failed to identify the "winning" branch.) (2) A 37-year-old man survived, but with multiple bullet wounds, in New York City in August after a 1 a.m. dispute during the making of a rap music video. (The dispute was over who, exactly, would be the "star.") (3) Roger Harris, 63, and Bryan Bandes, 42, brawled in August on the 7th tee at the Springdale Golf Course near Uniontown, Pennsylvania, while arguing the rule for playing a ball in a rain puddle. Harris apparently 3-wooded Bandes in the head; Bandes landed punches causing a swollen jaw, a fat lip and a scratched eye. [Billings Gazette, 8-4-2014] [New York Daily News, 8-2-2014] [KDKA-TV (Pittsburgh), 8-7-2014]

In Multnomah County, Oregon, in July, a Romanian princess pleaded guilty to cockfighting. Irina Walker, 61, was born in Switzerland where her father, King Michael I, lived after abdicating the throne. She came to Oregon in 1983, where, in a second marriage in 2007, she fell in with former deputy sheriff John Walker, who had moved on to the gambling and cockfighting business, and, according to a USA Today report, she was assisting him. [USA Today, 7-16- 2014]

(1) Chung-Ang University in South Korea announced in April that its traditional-sport Department of Sport Science would begin accepting -- as legitimate "student athletes" -- video gamers. (2) Also in April, Berlin's Lutheran Georgen Parochial cemetery inaugurated a 4,300-square-foot area of its grounds as reserved exclusively for lesbians -- for women who, said a spokesman, "want to be buried among other lesbians." [AsiaOne (Singapore), 4-3-2014] [Associated Press, 4-1-2014]

-- Japan is noted (as News of the Weird has reported in 1997 and 2008) for several traditional fertility festivals and theme parks at which explicit, oversized male genitalia are revered by joyous visitors, including children. In July, on the other hand, police quickly arrested the artist Megumi Igarashi after she scanned her vulva and then distributed the data online to allow others to create 3-D printed reproductions. That effort was the most conspicuous of several attempts she has made as an artist/designer to call attention, she said, to the underrepresentation of female genitals in Japanese society compared to males'. [TheWeek.co.uk, 7-15-2014]

-- Who Knew? Researchers from England's University of Lincoln revealed in July that red-footed tortoises are not only "inquisitive" but make decisions in their brain's "medial cortex" region, associated with "complex cognitive behavior" (because they have no "hippocampus," which is a typical decision-making area). The tortoises thus pecked-out (and learned) touch-screen decisions (for rewards of strawberries), and in fact, said researcher Anna Wilkinson, learned as quickly as rats and pigeons and faster, actually, than dogs. [LiveScience.com, 8-1-2014]

(1) In July, officials at the Djanogly City Academy in Nottingham, England, broke up an attempt by five students (aged 11 to 14) attending a daytime-locked-down school to escape by tunneling under a security fence. They had discovered the boys' metal cutlery hidden at the scene. (A World War II tunneling escape from a Nazi prison was partially successful and became the story for the 1963 movie "The Great Escape" starring Steve McQueen.) (2) In a deadly ending reminiscent of scenes in several crime movies, a 22-year-old man fleeing police in Brooklyn, New York, in June crashed his car at a high speed into the back of a flatbed truck and was decapitated as the body of the car (but not the part above the dashboard) continued on under the truck. [BBC News, 7-7-2014] [New York Daily News, 6-25-2014]

Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) A 40-year-old man (not named by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer) was arrested in that city on July 31 after a several-hour, epically inept, crime spree. Attempting to rob a restaurant, he was turned down by employees and customers, then turned down by two potential carjack victims (the first of whom added insult by pulling out her cellphone camera and shooting video), before giving up just as police arrived. (His only take was the $15 he had swiped from the restaurant's tip jar.) (2) Joshua Pawlak, 27, entered a total of four businesses in Woodbridge, New Jersey, on July 27 and similarly met resistance and/or indifference to his money demands -- and came away from the four with only $2, also from a tip jar. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 8-1-2014] [NJ.com (Newark), 8- 6-2014]

Ironies: (1) An airborne banner being towed by an airplane came loose in Fremont, California, in July and floated down, landing on a house, frightening the residents. The sign advertised GEICO insurance. (2) A 10-foot-tall pine tree in Los Angeles's Griffith Park, dedicated in 2004 with a plaque to the late musician George Harrison, was recently destroyed by an infestation, and another will be planted in its place, according to a city councilman. The infestation was by beetles. [KNTV (San Francisco), 7-23-2014] [CBS News, 7-22-2014]

Thanks This Week to Kyle Payton, Gerald Sacks, Ron Weir, Mel Birge, Robin Daley, and Kathryn Wood, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.