Like many in society's subgroups, people who work in "death" industries or professions in the U.K. may believe it difficult to reach "like-minded" suitors. Hence, Carla Valentine established Dead Meet earlier this year and told Vice.com in October that she has drawn 5,000 sign-ups among morticians, coroners, embalmers, cemetery workers, taxidermists, etc., who share her chagrin that "normal" people are often grossed out or too indiscreet to respect the dignity of her industry's "clients." We might, said Valentine, need a sensitive companion at the end of the day to discuss a particularly difficult decomposition. Or, she added, perhaps embalmers make better boyfriends because their work with cosmetics helps them understand why "many women take so long to get ready." [Vice.com, 10-28-2014]

-- A passerby shooting video in November outside the Lucky River Chinese restaurant in San Francisco caught an employee banging large slabs of frozen meat on the sidewalk -- which was an attempt, said the manager, to defrost them. A KPIX-TV reporter, visiting the precise sidewalk area on the video, found it covered in "blackened gum, cigarette butts and foot-tracked bacteria," but the manager said the worker had been fired and the meat discarded. (The restaurant's previous health department rating was 88, which qualifies as "adequate.") [KPIX-TV (San Francisco), 12-1-2014]

-- India's Orissa state has established "health camps" to facilitate mass sterilizations to help control the booming population, but procedures were halted in November when Dr. Mahesh Chandra Rout matter-of-factly told BBC News that camps routinely used ordinary bicycle pumps to inflate women's abdomens. Orissa's senior health official immediately ended the practice and ordered sterilizations only in hospitals. (Enlarging the abdomen helps the surgeon to operate, but the proper agent is carbon dioxide.) [BBC News, 12-3-2014]

-- The Food and Veterinary Administration of Denmark shut down the food supplier Nordic Ingredients in November after learning that it used an ordinary cement mixer to prepare gelatin products for nursing home and hospital patients unable to swallow whole food. An FVA official told a reporter: "It was an orange cement mixer just like bricklayers use. There were layers (of crusty remains) from previous uses." As many as 12 facilities, including three hospitals, had food on hand from Nordic Ingredients. [The Local (Copenhagen), 11-28-2014]

-- Questionable Judgment: Assistant Attorney General Karen Straughn of Maryland issued an official warning recently for consumers to watch out for what might be called "the $100 bill on the windshield" scam. (That is, if you notice a $100 bill tucked under your wiper, do not try to retrieve it; it is likely there to trick you into opening your door to a carjacker.) When questioned by WJLA-TV of Washington, D.C., Straughn admitted there were no actual reports of such attempts -- and that the story is a well-known urban legend -- but nonetheless defended the warning. [WJLA-TV (Washington, D.C.) via WABC-TV (New York City), 11-21-2014]

-- Lesson in Civics: North Hempstead, New York, enforces its dog-littering ordinance with steep $250 fines and street-sign warnings displaying the amount. However, insiders have long known that the signs are wrong -- that the written regulation calls for fines of only $25 -- and officials have been discussing how to correct their error while still discouraging littering. According to a November WCBS-TV report, now that residents know the actual amount, the debate is whether to replace the erroneous signs (expensive) or just raise the fine 1,000 percent (to $250) and save money. [WCBS- TV, 11-26-2014]

-- A November order from China's State Administration for Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television appears to impose a ban on the use of all idioms -- including puns -- as part of the government's crackdown on nonstandard language, especially since that discourages children from learning proper vocabulary and grammar. All mass media outlets must "avoid changing the characters, phrasings and meanings" of words -- even though, according to the Beijing reporter for London's The Guardian, Chinese culture is saturated with puns. [The Guardian, 11-28-2014]

-- As revealed in a spirited public meeting of the Huron Valley (Michigan) Board of Education in November, gun-carriers' freedoms in the state appear complicated, in that a person with training and who submits to state licensing to carry a concealed weapon may carry it even on school grounds (despite the federal Gun-Free Zones Act of 1990). Michigan's lawful exception to the act requires concealed permit-holders to carry the gun unconcealed, which many parents contend frightens younger children. Also, though it is illegal for anyone alcohol-impaired to carry a gun anywhere, the legal threshold for presumed impairment in Michigan is only .02 percent for a licensed permit holder, but probably .08 percent for unlicensed "open"-carriers (who are not covered by the "concealed" law). [Detroit Free Press, 11-8-2014]

As young professionals have embraced urban neighborhoods, locally grown produce has proliferated in community (and even backyard) gardens and is thought to be healthier than pesticide-laden commercial produce. However, the New York Post revealed in November (based on state Health Department data) that such gardens in construction-dense New York City are vulnerable to astonishingly high levels of lead and other toxic metals. One community garden in Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant, for example, showed levels of lead nearly 20 times the safe level. [New York Post, 11-16-2014]

In November, a clothing store on Yabao Road in Beijing came under criticism for posting a sign, "Chinese Not Admitted," on its door. An employee told the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper that no one should believe that "we Chinese look down upon ourselves. But some Chinese customers are too annoying." (A legal scholar told the newspaper that China, except for Hong Kong, has no law against racial or ethnic discrimination.) [South China Morning News (Hong Kong), 11-26-2014]

(1) Unclear on the Concept: A 34-year-old man was arrested at a Tesco supermarket in Bar Hill, England, on Nov. 12 when he entered the store and threatened employees -- by showing them a photograph of a gun. (2) Recurring Theme: Two men were arrested easily in Silver City, New Mexico, in December. Thieves had broken into Javalina Coffee House downtown and dragged away the ATM behind their truck. With the help of a witness -- and especially the gouge marks in the street running from the Javalina directly to the nearby residence of the men -- police nabbed the two and were still searching for a third. [Cambridge News, 12-19-2014] [Albuquerque Journal, 12-2-2014]

Won't Make That Mistake Again: (1) Ralik Hansen, 28, suspected in a dramatic New York City jewelry robbery, heard a knock at the door of a Brooklyn home in October, squeezed down under a couch and accidentally shot himself to death. (He thought he was hiding from police; it was a delivery man.) (2) Dennis Emery, 57, according to neighbors a frequent gun-brandisher at home in Pinellas Park, Florida, accidentally mishandled one during a November domestic argument and fatally shot himself in the face. (3) A 26-year-old woman in St. Louis, who had recently purchased a handgun to protect against potential violence in Ferguson, was waving it around while riding in a car with a friend, causing him to grab for it, and a shot fatally struck her. (However, police still have not closed that case.) [WCBS-TV, 11-14-2014] [TBO.com (Tampa), 11-25-2014] [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 11-28-2014]

Two hundred boredom "activists" gathered in London in December (2010) at James Ward's annual banal-apalooza conference, "Boring 2010," to listen to ennui-stricken speakers glorify all things dreary, including a demonstration of milk-tasting (in wine glasses, describing flavor and smoothness), charts breaking down the characteristics of a man's sneezes for three years, and a PowerPoint presentation on the color distribution and materials of a man's necktie collection from one year to the next. Another speaker's "My Relationship With Bus Routes" seemed well-received also. Observed one attendee, to a Wall Street Journal reporter: "We're all overstimulated. I think it's important to stop all that for a while and see what several hours of being bored really feels like." [Wall Street Journal, 12-29-2010]

Thanks This Week to Bear Albrecht and Melanie Farley, 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.)

LEAD STORY -- TMI

Kansas lawyer Dennis Hawver was disbarred in November for his comically bad (24 separate deficiencies) defense of double-murder suspect Phillip Cheatham in 2005 (which led to a new trial for Cheatham). Hawver had admitted to the jury that his client was a "shooter of people" (a previous manslaughter conviction) who, as an "experience(d)" criminal would never have left that third victim alive with multiple gunshot wounds. A confident Hawver had virtually invited the jury to execute "whoever" the killer was. (At a September hearing to keep his license, he dressed as Thomas Jefferson, banging the lectern and shouting, as reverse psychology, "I am incompetent!" -- leading the blog Lowering the Bar to muse that by then, the argument was wholly unnecessary.) Cheatham told the Topeka Capital-Journal that Hawver is "a good dude (but) just in over his head." [Topeka Capital-Journal, 11-14-2014] [Lowering the Bar, 9-18-2014]

Arrested in October for burglary of a Kohl's department store in Alhambra, California: Ms. Josephine Crook, 49. Passed away on Oct. 15 in Marietta, Georgia: Ms. Ida Gbye, 81. Arrested in October and charged with stabbing two men in Regina, Saskatchewan: Ms. Danielle Knife, 24. Charged in Mississauga, Ontario, in October with sexually assaulting three male patients: psychologist Dr. Vincent Hung Lo. Arrested in November in Gainesville, Florida, on sexual assault charges but then exonerated three days later when accuser Jeremy Foster was caught lying: Mr. Phuc Kieu, 58. [KNBC-TV (Los Angeles), 10-26-2014] [Marietta Daily Journal, 10-23-2014] [CTV News (Regina), 10-16-2014] [The Star (Toronto), 10-7-2014] [First Coast News (Jacksonville), 11-26-2014]

-- The Creative Class: To spark interest in the new leisure center opening in spring 2015 in Selby in North Yorkshire, England, the management company WLCT sponsored a contest to name the center, with the prize a year's free membership. On Nov. 5, General Manager Paul Hirst announced that Steve Wadsworth was the winner, proclaiming, "Well done to Steve on winning the competition." The winning entry: "Selby Leisure Centre." [Selby District Council press release, 11-5-2014]

-- A German woman who identifies herself only as "Anna Konda" described to Vice Media in October her Female Fight Club in Berlin, now three years old, for women to test themselves in all-out wrestling matches. While some are fetish-motivated dominants, others display no particular sexuality -- like Anna herself, who, she admits, simply likes to "crush" men's and women's skulls between her massive thighs. Anna says she is a product of East Germany's cliched development of tough, muscular female athletes. [Vice.com, 10-20-2014]

-- Those Frightening Alabama Schools: (1) In October, a mother charged that officials at E.R. Dickson School in Mobile, Alabama, first detained her daughter, 5, for pointing a crayon at another student as if it were a gun, and then pressured the girl to sign a paper promising not to kill anyone or commit suicide. "What is suicide, Mommy?" the girl asked when her parents arrived. (2) In a 2010 incident at Sparkman Middle School near Huntsville, Alabama, an administrator coaxed a special-needs girl, 14, into a boys' bathroom to "bait" a 16-year-old boy who had previous sexual misconduct issues into committing a prosecutable offense -- and then failed to protect the girl. (The girl's family sued and won a summary judgment, but the school board appealed, and in September 2014 the U.S. Justice Department formally endorsed the family's lawsuit.) [WPMI-TV (Mobile), 10-10-2014] [Al.com (Huntsville), 9-18-2014]

-- The West Briton newspaper reported in October that a darts team composed of blind men was ready for its inaugural match at an inn in Grampound, England, sponsored by the St. Austell Bay Rotary Club. The inn's landlord acknowledged that the game-room door would be closed "just in case" a dart strays off course. (The blind darters would be aided by string attached to the bull's eye that they could feel for guidance.) [West Briton (Truro), 10-21-2014]

Twice in September, police in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, reported that women had complained of a motorist who would stop female strangers on the street to tell them jokes about blond women. The jokes were not sexual, but still made the women "uncomfortable." A high school girl told her mother of a similar episode. Based on a license plate number, police visited the man at home, and he agreed to stop. [Patch.com (North Kingstown), 9-12-2014]

-- In some developing countries, a sex "strike" organized by women is often the only hopeful tactic for convincing husbands and lovers to take grievances seriously. However, in November, Mr. Nderitu Njoka, head of a Global Men Empowerment Network in Nairobi, Kenya, announced that his organization would commence a "sex boycott" for five days, denying men's "services" to their wives -- to protest "tyrannical" female domination. According to Njoka, hundreds of Kenyan men are physically assaulted by females every year (including at least 100 whose wives vengefully castrate them). (Referring to a notorious U.S. incident, Njoka offered support to the singer Jay Z after he was punched by his sister-in-law Solange Knowles.) [Washington Post, 11-14-2014]

-- First, Do Harm: In November, according to the deputy police commissioner in Calcutta, India, a group of student doctors at Nilratan Sarkar Medical College cornered, beat, maimed and eventually killed a man they suspected of rummaging through their belongings and stealing their mobile phones. The incident followed a series of phone and laptop thefts, and some of the enraged medical students slashed the man's genitals before leaving him to die. [Agence France-Presse via BBC News, 11-17-2014]

Despite a 70-year-old U.S. Supreme Court decision to the contrary, six states still have laws exempting parents from homicide charges when they deny a child life-saving medical care because they trust no remedy except prayer. Even among those states, all of the deaths since 1994 under those circumstances have occurred in Idaho, where (according to a November report by Vocativ.com) no prosecutor seems willing to put a trust-in-God parent before a jury. Children in Idaho have died when simple medical treatments were available (e.g., insulin and fluids for Type I diabetes). Neighboring Oregon, by contrast, now vigorously prosecutes parents who let their children die, including a 13-year-old girl's parents convicted in November in Albany, Oregon. [Vocativ.com, 11-17-2014]

Police in Murfreesboro, North Carolina, announced in November that they had intercepted a shipment of 30 pounds of marijuana that had been loosely packaged and shipped from California by U.S. Mail, and an investigation was underway with arrests expected. Police Chief Darrell Rowe told WTKR-TV that the scent of the packages was so vivid that, even though he had summoned the department's K-9 unit, "the dog kind of looked at us (as if to say), 'Do you really need me for this?'" [WTKR-TV (Hampton Roads, Va.), 11-11-2014]

(1) Most recent drunk driver to hit a pedestrian with the victim's body then lodging in the windshield -- and the driver's traveling on, seemingly oblivious: Marcos Ortega, 33, in Ocean Township, New Jersey, in November (whose 66-year-old victim did not survive). (2) Most recent report of birds in the wild consuming fermenting berries -- and then comically crashing into trees and making goofy-looking landings: Bohemian waxwings in Canada's Yukon, in November (where the Environment Yukon organization set up an "avian drunk tank"). [WPVI-TV (Philadelphia), 11-12-2014] [Canadian Broadcasting Corp. News, 11-17-2014]

Arrested recently and awaiting trial for murder: Jason Wayne Autry, Holladay, Tennessee (April); Dennis Wayne Brooks, Robertsville, Missouri (November); Jimmy Wayne Estes, Charlotte, North Carolina (June); Jestin Wayne Hooker, Lubbock, Texas (July); Walter Wayne Howard, Portland, Oregon (November, for 1988 cold case); John Wayne Mackay, James City County, Virginia (indicted January); Thomas Wayne Martin, Huntsville, Alabama (indicted November). Convicted of murder: Allen Wayne Densen Morgan, Munford, Alabama (June); Darrell Wayne Frederick, Oklahoma County, Oklahoma (November). Sentenced for murder: Gregory Wayne Hill, Sydney, Australia (June); Stephen Wayne Jamieson, Sydney, Australia (November); Christopher Wayne Robin, Beaumont, Texas (March). Execution for murder imminent, pending clemency hearing: Robert Wayne Holsey, Baldwin County, Georgia (November). [Autry: The Tennessean, 4-30-2014] [Brooks: Sullivan Independent News (Sullivan, Mo.), 11-25-2014] [Estes: Charlotte Observer, 6-17-2014] [Hooker: KJTV (Lubbock), 8-26-2014] [Howard: KOIN-TV (Portland, Ore.), 11-13-2014] [Mackay: [Williamsburg Yorktown Daily, 1-16-2014] [Martin: Al.com (Huntsville), 11-7-2014] [Morgan: CBS News, 4-15-2014] [Frederick: The Oklahoman, 11-12-2014] [Hill: Sydney Morning Herald, 7-31-2014] [Jamieson: The Age (Melbourne), 11-25-2014] [Robin: Beaumont Enterprise, 3-19-2014] [Holsey: WMGT-TV (Atlanta), 11-25-2014]

Thanks This Week to Harry Thompson, Chris Krehbiel, Charles Congre, Chuck Hamilton, Jane Meadus and Scott McDaniel, and to the News of the Weird Senior Advisors (Jenny T. Beatty, Paul Di Filippo, Ginger Katz, Joe Littrell, Matt Mirapaul, Paul Music, Karl Olson, and Jim Sweeney) and Board of Editorial Advisors (Tom Barker, Paul Blumstein, Harry Farkas, Sam Gaines, Herb Jue, Emory Kimbrough, Scott Langill, Bob McCabe, Steve Miller, Christopher Nalty, Mark Neunder, Sandy Pearlman, Bob Pert, Larry Ellis Reed, Peter Smagorinsky, Rob Snyder, Stephen Taylor, Bruce Townley and Jerry Whittle).

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

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.)