Indonesia's holy "Sex Mountain" on the island of Java is still performing its incomprehensible function of making Muslims feel prosperous and optimistic if they have intercourse with strangers, as reported in November by Australia's "SBS Dateline" TV program. A reporter journeyed to Mount Kemukus (near the heavily populated Surakarta) to observe the mass adultery whose origin dates to the 16th century. Otherwise-devout pilgrims pray, bathe and pair off with other worshippers (repeating the ritual seven times, 35 days apart) to bring themselves the good life -- except that the sex must be with people other than their spouses. Clerics generally denounce the Kemukus experience, but more so since prostitutes (collecting "offerings") are lately so plentiful at the site. [SBS, 11-18-2014]

-- Comprehensive Pentagon studies of America's nuclear missile infrastructure released in November (following disturbing reports of readiness failures) included the revelation that nuclear warheads had to be attached with a particular wrench, even though the Air Force owned only one with which to service 450 missiles housed at three bases. Consequently, one official told The New York Times, "They started FedExing the one tool" back and forth. No one had checked in years, he said, "to see if new tools were being made" -- typical of maintenance problems that had "been around so long that no one reported them anymore." [New York Times, 11-13-2014]

-- Autumn Canceled: London's Daily Telegraph reported in November that a gardener hired by the House of Commons had spent a day pulling color-changing leaves from trees on the Westminster Palace grounds -- because it would be more cost-effective than to rake them up after they fell. The gardener (whose name sounds right out of a James Bond adventure -- "Annabel Honeybun") said she had 145 trees to service. (A local environmentalist lamented denying autumn visitors "one of the few pleasures at this time of year." [Daily Telegraph, 11-14-2014]

Various cogs in South Korea's national machinery paused briefly on Nov. 13 so as not to distract the nation's high-school-age kids, as 650,000 of them were sitting for the decisive university entrance exams (which are several levels more important than the SATs or ACTs for American students). Large companies and government agencies told employees to commute later in the morning -- to keep traffic lighter for students traveling to the 1,257 test centers -- and "no-fly" zones reduced noise during the 40-minute period in which students tested aurally on the English language. [Daily Telegraph, 11-13-2014]

-- "Santa Muerte" (Our Lady of the Holy Death) might be described as a cynic's unauthorized byproduct of Roman Catholicism currently festering in drug-cartel-roiled Mexico and Central America and is, according to Vice Media, "the world's fastest growing" religion. "Saint Death" first appeared only 12 years ago, in the Mexico City barrio of Tepito, and is now a first line of protection for worshippers in danger zones. (Almost 80,000 Mexicans have been killed in drug-related violence since 2006, Vice reported.) Said an author who has studied the religion, "People feel more comfortable asking (Santa Muerte) for favors they probably shouldn't ask a Catholic saint for." [Vice.com, 11-13-2014]

-- Pope Francis ordered an investigation in October of the Italian Riviera diocese of Bishop Mario Oliveri, 70, who is known for giving "second chances" to wayward priests from across the country. Reports had surfaced that, among Mario's priests was one who openly published nude selfies on Facebook, another caught publicly flirting with the wife of a port captain, another dismissed from a cruise ship for molesting passengers, and another revealed to have a full-body "tribal" tattoo that he had exhibited while posing with the tattoo artist in the local newspaper. The manager of a church charity in the diocese estimated that about half of the bishop's 175 priests were delinquents. [Daily Telegraph (London), 10-25-2014]

(1) Mmmm, Omelets! A crash of three tractor-trailers on Interstate 24 near Chattanooga, Tennessee, on Nov. 9 left a pileup of one truck's load of eggs, another's pallets of cheese, and the other's boxes of meat. (2) "Drunken Trombone-Playing Clown Fires Gun From Garage, Police Say" (an Oct. 21 story on MLive.com from Grand Traverse County, Michigan, also reported that the man was wearing camo pants). [Times Free Press (Chattanooga), 11-9-2014] [MLive.com (Grand Rapids), 10-21-2014]

Parrots and Snakes: A November story from Leigh-on-Sea, England, reported that a Senegal parrot (apparently feeling restive with its owners on holiday) managed to pick two locks on its cage and fly away. The second lock had been installed as insurance after an earlier lock-picking escape. Also, a missing African gray parrot was returned to its Torrance, California, owner in October after a hiatus -- in which the parrot had learned to speak Spanish. On the other hand, a hungry 5-foot-long black rat snake in Verona, Pennsylvania, had to be saved by surgery after it failed to distinguish between chicken eggs in a coop (tasty) and a nearby ceramic egg (life-threatening organ failure). [BBC News, 11-10-2014] [Daily Telegraph (London), 10-14-2014] [KDKA-TV (Pittsburgh), 8-13-2014]

-- Just Possibly Racist: One of the questions offered in testing by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg (North Carolina) school district for high school biology in November sought students' understanding of dominant and recessive genes with this puzzle: "LaShamanda has a heterozygous big bootie, the dominant trait. Her man Fontavius has a small bootie which is recessive. They get married and have a baby named LaPrincess. What is the probability that LaPrincess will inherit her mama's big bootie?" (Charlotte TV station WBTV was unable to confirm that the school system created the question, even though the question was apparently distributed with other system materials.) [WBTV, 11-14-2014]

-- Summer "comfort food" season is an opportunity for imaginative (and shameless) chefs to take caloric overload to the next level, annually extending themselves to build the sweetest (and, generally, the least heart-friendly) concoctions imaginable. Hence, Deep-Fried Candy Corn (in a base of crescent rolls) made its debut this year, along with the Double Donut burger (two beef patties piled with cheese and bacon between "buns" of glazed donuts (1,996 calories and 53 grams of saturated fat). [Grubstreet.com via Huffington Post, 10-22-2014] [Crawley News (Queensway, England), 11-12-2014]

-- Cry for Help: Mr. Jenya Bolotov, 26, a Russian, became an Internet sensation in November (on Facebook, YouTube and several news sites) by releasing photographs showing a seven-year obsession with modifying his face to resemble that of a platypus. He has stretched eight parts of his face to effect a duck-billed look, with holes on the sides of his nostrils and plugs extending his lips. "I can eat, talk and speak on the phone like everyone else," he insisted, but is happier now that he can "live differently." (Some Internet commenters complained that, while Bolotov's face is certainly "creepy," they cannot quite conjure up "platypus" from the look.) [Metro.co.uk, 11-18-2014)]

After consulting with the FBI, military and state law-enforcement and security agencies, the sheriff of Dickson County, Tennessee, concluded that his only option to rescue his departmental records database from malicious malware was to pay a $500 ransom to the creators of the CryptoWall "trojan," which had attacked and encrypted his files. A total of 72,000 files, including witness statements and other evidence in criminal cases, was temporarily inaccessible after a department computer user clicked on the wrong part of a screen in late October. (PC World reported in August that within the pervious six months, CryptoWall's developers were estimated to have "earned" $1 million in "ransoms.") [WTVF (Nashville), 11-12-2014] [PC World, 8-29-2014]

In the U.S.'s fourth reported case, a state issued a driver's license even though the applicant was photographed wearing a colander (as a "religious covering," the only "hats" legally permitted in such photos). Jessica Steinhauser said the motor vehicles office in Hurricane, Utah, simply shrugged at her affiliation with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (created in 2005 to offer the proposition that God's existence is no better "proven" than the FSM's). [Associated Press via KOVR-TV (Sacramento, Calif.), 11-18-2014]

Thanks This Week to Bruce Leiserowitz and Ken Thompson, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

(Read more weird news at www.WeirdUniverse.net; send items to WeirdNews@earthlink.net, and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)

November is tax-publicizing season in Finland, where, starkly unlike America, the government releases all individuals' tax records to help build public support for the country's vast welfare state. Thus, reported Foreign Policy magazine, Finnish society gets a "yearly dose of schadenfreude" ... "opening the door for a media frenzy of gossip, boasting and fingerpointing" about "fair share" and who's more worthy. A few, however, proudly pay high Finnish taxes as a "badge of patriotism," rejecting common tax shelters. "We've received a lot of help from society," said one homegrown (and wealthy) entrepreneur, "and now it is our turn to pay back." [Foreign Policy, 11-5-2014]

-- Steve Soifer, CEO of an international support group for people with "shy bladders," excoriated DirecTV in November for its series of commercials featuring Rob Lowe, whose "awkward" character in one ad stands at a urinal and says, "Fact: I can't go with other people in the room." Soifer says the ad ridicules a serious problem -- and compared it to "making fun" of a man missing an arm or leg. [Associated Press via New York Daily News, 11-4-2014]

-- The Power of One Sensitive Soul: (1) Lt. Col. Sherwood Baker was turned away from Adams High School in Rochester, Michigan, in September by a guard who said a school official sent word that Baker was not allowed in to discuss his daughter's class schedule until he changed to civilian clothes -- because "a student" might be offended by his military uniform. (The Rochester school superintendent later apologized.) (2) The British Embassy in Washington, D.C., apologized twice in August, first a tongue-in-cheek "apology" for England's War of 1812 attack on the White House and then for making that "apology" in the first place -- because of a backlash on Twitter from Americans complaining the jokey "apology" was "offensive." [Daily Mail (London), 9-11-2014] [Sky News (London), 8-25-2014]

-- David Van Vleet asked for certain supposedly public records in Tacoma, Washington, and was forced into federal court when the city turned him down. Van Vleet wanted data from the city licenses of strip club employees (dancers' stage and real names, date of birth, etc.) so that he could pray for them individually, by name, to make his appeals more effective. (In October, Judge Ronald Leighton denied Van Vleet a temporary restraining order against the city.) [KING-TV (Seattle), 10-23-2014]

-- The Washington, D.C., restaurant Second State recently added an accessory to its bar menu -- "hand-cut rock," i.e., "artisanal" ice, for $1 extra (but free in premium drinks). The local supplier Favourite Ice assures that its frozen water contains no calcium to cloud it and, with a heavy-duty band-saw blade, "hand-cuts" 200-to-300-pound blocks into the cubes that ultimately wind up in the glass. A Favourite Ice founder said his frozen water resists drink-weakening longer than ordinary cubes do. [NPR, 10-21-2014]

Daniela Liverani, 24, of Edinburgh, Scotland, and British singer Katie Melua recently survived inadvertent, grotesque ordeals hosting, respectively, a three-inch leech and a spider. The leech had found its way into Liverani's nose during an Asian backpacking trip and had poked part-way out several times (though Liverani had assumed it was a nosebleed clot and "sniffed (it) back up"). When she finally saw a doctor in October, she said, the leech played peek-a-boo for a half-hour until the doctor grabbed it with tweezers. Melua's tiny spider apparently lived in her ear for a week, creating a constant "rustling" noise until her doctor vacuumed it out. She guessed that it came in through old earbud headphones on an airline flight. (Her spokesperson said the singer had no hard feelings and had released the spider into her garden.) [Daily Record (London), 10-12-2014] [The Guardian (London), 11-2-2014]

-- The law finally caught up, partially, to squatter Darrell Beatty in September, as he was charged with grand larceny for forging a deed to a home owned by Jennifer Merin, 70, in Laurelton, New York. However, he bailed out of jail on Oct. 22 and immediately returned to the house. In fact, Beatty's two sons had remained "at home" even while Beatty was locked up. The home has been in Merin's family since 1930. "Mind-boggling," she said. [New York Daily News, 11-4-2014]

-- The Law Works in Strange Ways: (1) The Gothamist news site reported in October that bicyclist John Roemer, who was rear-ended by a driver in Brooklyn in May (and whose intensive-care bill was paid by the driver's insurance company), is now being sued by the driver in small claims court for $2,000 damage to her car. (2) In November, a civil court in Lindau, Germany, ordered Rory Gray to pay Dr. Daniel Ubani for calling Ubani "an animal" (for having injected Gray's father with 10 times a drug's safe dose in 2008, which led to his death). The court found the epithet unwarranted and ordered Gray to help pay Ubani's legal expenses. [The Gothamist, 10-16-2014] [BBC News, 11-7-2014]

-- The owner of the world's largest corn maze (63 acres), at Cool Patch Pumpkins in Dixon, California, told Sacramento's KOVR-TV in October that "several" times this season, visitors have called 911 to come get them out of the maze. Said owner Matt Cooley, "When it's dark, all you see is corn." (Also, two months earlier, an emergency crew in Braintree, England, was forced to use special equipment to find and rescue an elderly woman who had fallen while inside the 10-acre Blake House Craft Centre maze.) [KOVR-TV, 10-30-2014] [Essex Chronicle, 8-20-2014]

-- Cliches Come to Life: (1) In a $460,000 police-brutality settlement with the city of Birmingham, Alabama, in October, plaintiff Anthony Warren will receive $1,000, with the rest going to his lawyers. (The un-angelic Anthony is serving 20 years for running over an officer during a high-speed car chase in 2008; he took a beating once officers caught him.) (2) Condemned California inmate Steven Homick, 74, finally took his last breath on Nov. 5 -- more than 29 years after committing the two murders that put him on death row. However, Homick died of natural causes (the 65th condemned California man to go that way in the last 35 years). [Reuters, 10-22-2014] [Associated Press via KPIX-TV (San Francisco), 11-5-2014]

(1) "Dwarf Stripper Gets Bride Pregnant on Her (Bachelorette) Night" (an October report from the LasCincoDelDia website in Spain after the husband was surprised that "his" wedding-night consummation resulted in a baby born with dwarfism). (2) "Man's 'Drugs Test Trick' Foiled by Pregnancy" (a November report from Egypt's Al-Yawm al-Sabi website on a male bus driver who tried to game a drug test by using his wife's urine, only to inadvertently discover that he would soon become a father). [Daily Telegraph (London), 10-13-2014] [BBC News, 11-4-2014]

Employees of the Marshalls department store in Longmont, Colorado, said they had been hearing noises but were unable to locate the source for several days until finally, on Nov. 10, they summoned firefighters, who tore out an interior wall and freed a weak, injured Paul Felyk, 35, who had been trapped between that wall and an exterior wall after falling through the roof. A scrawled note near him was three days old. Burglary charges were filed against Felyk, who has a substantial rap sheet. [KDVR-TV (Denver), 11-14-2014]

The desert sands of the Arabian Peninsula are fine-grained and smooth -- unable to be used in manufacturing or, especially, the concrete industry, which is crucial to the massive upscale developments in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and other countries. Nor does desert sand work for beach restoration in the United States and other areas -- because it blows away so easily. The resultant "sand crisis," with various countries bidding against Middle Easterners for the Earth's sea sand (described in a November New York Times essay), sounds much more severe than the first time News of the Weird mentioned (in 2007) how relatively easy it is, contrary to cliche, to sell sand to Arabs. [New York Times, 11-4-2014]

Thanks This Week to Elaine Weiss, Peter Burkholder, Gary Goldberg, Charles Hamilton, Jim Weber, and Russell Bell, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

(Read more weird news at www.WeirdUniverse.net; send items to WeirdNews@earthlink.net, and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, FL 33679.)

In October, another premier world sports event reached its climax, with one team left standing, rewarded for months of grueling practices, to the cheers of adoring, frenzied fans. The "world series" of professional team computer games was settled on a stage in a packed, 40,000-seat stadium in Seoul before three gigantic TV screens and an Internet audience of millions. The powerhouse Samsung White team out-moused and -keyboarded the Chinese champions at "League of Legends" (which 27 million gamers worldwide play every day), using its fantasy characters to destroy opponents' bases. The winning team took home $1 million of corporate money, but future earnings should escalate when idolized world-class players unionize and swing merchandising endorsement deals. [New York Times, 10-19-2014; Playboy, November 2014]

-- Carnell Alexander at one point owed about $60,000 in child support for a kid he did not father (according to a DNA test) and knew nothing about, but despite "successfully" challenging the claim 20 years ago, he still owes about $30,000. The mother who accused him long ago admitted lying (in that naming a "father" was necessary to get welfare benefits), and while a judge thus wiped out Alexander's debt to her, the state of Michigan nonetheless still demands that Alexander repay benefits it had paid to the mother. [WXYZ-TV (Detroit), 10-27-2014]

-- America's largest pornography website, PornHub.com, decided recently to erect a public billboard prominently encouraging the use of its service, first selecting as its location the New York City neighborhood formerly the smut epicenter of the city, Times Square. However, that area is now respectably tourist-friendly, and the billboard had to be relocated -- to Los Angeles' West Hollywood, near the headquarters of PornHub's parent, MindGeek. The sign features a person's two thumbs and fingers forming a rough version of a heart, beside the message (inspired by a Beatles song), "All You Need Is Hand." [LA Weekly, 10-31-2014]

(1) Literature professor Thomas Docherty was back at work in October following his nine-month suspension from the University of Warwick for "inappropriate sighing" during meetings with a senior colleague, along with "making ironic comments" and "negative body language." (2) In October, Andrew Davies, 51, was ordered by magistrates in High Wycombe, England, not to lie down in public places anymore (unless genuinely stricken by emergency). Previously, he had a habit of making bogus "999" (911) calls to get attention, and when police confiscated his phone, he began compensating by lying in roads until compassionate passersby called for ambulances. [Daily Telegraph, 10-24-2014] [Daily Mirror, 10-30-2014]

More than 6 million students have downloaded the new iPhone app PhotoMath to solve Algebra I and Algebra II problems by pointing the phone's camera at a printed equation. The answer, and the explanation, quickly appear on a screen, as a teaching tool -- or for the students to show "their" work if PhotoMath is used on exam questions. The Croatia-based developer told the Quartz website in October that it is working on upgrades for higher-level math equations (though no relief is in sight for those chronically pesky "word problems"). Meanwhile, the debate has been triggered over whether PhotoMath is a dynamic technological advance in education -- or a cheating-enabler. [Quartz, 10-31-2014; CultofMac.com, 11-7-2014]

-- Neighbors in the Mandarin neighborhood of Jacksonville, Florida, complained to the city recently about a resident who scattered hundreds of mothballs -- over 400 now, at least -- around her front yard, even driving over them in her car to crush them open and extend their noxious odor. The National Pesticide Information Center warned that the mothballs were hazards to plants, wildlife, water and air, but the female resident (unnamed in a report by First Coast News) said she was forced into the tactic in order to prevent neighborhood dogs from defecating in her yard. [First Coast News (Jacksonville), 10-27-2014]

-- Celebrity Musicals: In September in Hamburg, Germany, "Charles Manson: Summer of Hate -- The Musical," opened at the Thalia Theater, covering the influences and failed musical career of the man convicted in the notorious 1969 Sharon Tate murders. And "I Am Stephon Marbury," a musical featuring the former star NBA basketball player, ran for 11 nights in September in Beijing, where the popular Marbury has led the Beijing Ducks to national basketball championships the last two seasons. Marbury has a role onstage in what is described as a parable about pursuing one's dreams. [Los Angeles Times, 10-1-2014; New York Times, 8-28-2014]

-- The most challenging toys this holiday season might be the series of furry human innards from the U.S. firm I Heart Guts -- not just the soft and cuddly pancreas, brain and prostate, but especially the rectum. Each part is packaged with a cheekily written educational description explaining its importance (the rectum being "the butt of many jokes" yet with "a serious role" in waste disposal as the "fecal loading dock"), and each sells for about $20. [Yahoo News, 11-6-2014]

(1) Richard Shear, 28, was arrested in Muskegon County, Michigan, in October after an apparent violent episode with his mother and girlfriend. Shear had allegedly threatened the two, slashed an SUV tire, and tried to burn down their home with gasoline and a lit candle -- but when it was time to flee the premises, hopped on his moped, ensuring his flight from police would be a short one. (2) A woman (described only as "robust") in Darmstadt, Germany, fled with the equivalent of about $125 from a pharmacy in October and is still at large. According to the police report, she swiped money from two cash registers by twice lifting her shirt and squirting breast milk at a clerk as a diversion. [WXMI-TV (Grand Rapids, Mich.), 10-27-2014] [The Local (Berlin), 10-28-2014]

The Washington, D.C., school system last year declared Avery Gagliano, 13, a habitual truant whose parents somehow require special training to ensure her attendance. The eighth-grader was a straight-A student at Alice Deal Middle School, but also a piano prodigy selected for prestigious world exhibitions -- which caused her to exceed the maximum 10 "unexcused" absences that trigger the assignment of a truancy officer and a series of relentless threats against the parents (which ultimately provoked them to withdraw Avery and this season to home-school her). (In October, following a Washington Post account, D.C.'s governing council honored Avery in a public ceremony, and the D.C. schools chancellor overnight began begging the Gaglianos to bring Avery and her suddenly "excused" absences back to school.) [Washington Post, 9-8-2014, 10-7-2014]

(1) Sean Johnson, 19, was arrested in Brooksville, Florida, in October at the Wal-Mart after he was spotted at about 3 p.m. taking a toy stuffed horse into the bedding department and masturbating with it. (2) Paul Mountain, 38, pleaded guilty to burglary in Darwen, England, in October -- accused by a homeowner whose shed was vandalized. Among the damaged items was a teddy bear streaked with semen. Mountain told officers that he was coming down off of an amphetamine high and felt an "overwhelming need for sexual relief." [WFLA-TV (Tampa), 10-14-2014] [Lancashire Telegraph, 10-11-2014]

-- Daniel Rice, 21, on the lam from jailers in Muscatine, Iowa, found himself in nearby Rock Island, Illinois, according to his 911 call to emergency personnel there. Rice had made his way to the Loud Thunder Forest Preserve, where he thought he could safely hole up, but reported that he was being chased by a pack of wild coyotes and begged for help. [WQAD-TV (Davenport, Iowa), 10-24-2014]

-- Jamie Brown, 29, stole a fish tank from a hardware store in Leeds, England, in August (thus violating a previous hardware-store stayaway order) and made a run for it, but had to be rescued by police and emergency personnel after he stopped to urinate in a bush -- and, inadvertently, directly onto a wasps' nest. Police said he later spent six very unpleasant hours at Leeds General Infirmary. [Daily Mirror (London), 8-12-2014]

Thanks This Week to Robert Zimmer and Cindy Hildebrand, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.