The whimsical premise of the iconic movie "Groundhog Day" (that someone can wake up every day believing it is the previous day) has largely come to life for a patient of a British psychologist writing recently in the journal Neurocase. Dr. Gerald Burgess' patient, following anesthesia and root-canal treatment, was left with a memory span of only about 90 minutes and awakens each day believing it is the day he is to report for the same root canal. He has been examined by numerous specialists, including neurologists who found no ostensible damage to the usual brain areas associated with amnesia. The patient is able to manage his day only by using an electronic diary with prompts. [University of Leicester press release, 7-14-2015]

Apparently, "uncooperative" child dental patients (even toddlers) can be totally restrained on a straitjacket-like "papoose board" without parental hand-holding, even during tooth-pulling, as long as the parent has signed a "consent form" (that does specifically mention the frightening practice). A recent case arose in Carrollton, Georgia, but a Georgia Board of Dentistry spokesperson told Atlanta's WSB-TV that such restraints are permitted (though should have been accompanied by an explicit warning of potential physical or psychological harm). The father of the "screaming" girl said he was initially barred from the exam room and was led to believe, when he signed the consent form, that he was merely authorizing anesthesia. [Georgia Newsday, 7-2-2015]

(1) A shortage of teachers led Howard S. Billings high school in Chateauguay (in the French-sensitive province of Quebec, Canada) to announce that 11th-grade French classes would this year be conducted using only the Rosetta Stone computer program. (2) Among the new rules proposed by California's Occupational Safety and Health Standards agency in May was one to require actors in pornographic movies (whose male actors OSHS has already ordered to wear condoms) to wear goggles -- lest bodily fluids splash into their eyes during scenes. (Further, all equipment and surfaces of sets must be decontaminated after each scene and at day's end.) [CTV News (Montreal), 2-24-2015] [Washington Post, 5-29-2015]

(1) The mayor of Whitesboro, New York, defending to a Village Voice reporter in July the 19th-century-based town seal that features a white settler appearing to push down an American Indian man, denied any racism and said the image is "actually" a typical "friendly wrestling (match) that took place back in those days." (According to Whitesboro's website, the Native American supposedly uttered, after the "match," "UGH. You good fellow too much.") (2) In April, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel ordered the Federal Bureau of Prisons to stop relocating whistleblowing employees to "offices" that were abandoned jail cells. The bureau had insisted that the transfers were not punishment for reporting agency misconduct -- even though one of the "offices" had no desk, computer or phone and required the employee to walk past prisoners' cells to get to work. [Village Voice, 7-7-2015] [Washington Post, 4-3-2015]

-- Lindsey Perkins pleaded guilty in June in Newport, Vermont, for an incident in which she joy-rode on the roof of a station wagon with her 5-year-old son while a 20-year-old man drove at 50 to 55 mph on the state's scenic Route 14 near Coventry. [Associated Press via WCAX-TV (Burlington), 6-22-2015]

-- In February, the Office of Residential Life at Wesleyan University (Middletown, Connecticut), intending to tout its dedication to inclusiveness and the creation of a "safe space" for minority students, posted a notice on its website inviting applications from the "LBTTQQFAGPBDSM" communities. The probable translation: the lesbian/gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, flexual, asexual, (vulgar word), polyamorous, bondage/discipline and sadism/masochism communities. [The Week, 2-25-2015]

-- Cosbying 2.0: A court in Castrop-Rauxel, Germany, fined a 23-year-old man in July after he admitted that, one evening last year, he put "four or five drops" of a sedative into his girlfriend's tea without her knowledge -- so that she would doze off for the evening and not bother him while he played video games. She had come home after a hard day at work, expecting peace and quiet, but began complaining about the boyfriend's machine-gun-fire game. [The Local (Berlin), 7-8-2015]

-- The Washington Post's running tally counts more than 400 people shot to death in the United States by law enforcement already this year with five months to go, but 2014 figures from Norway reveal that officers there shot at people only twice all year. Proportionally (64 times as many people live in the U.S.), American police would still have fired only 128 rounds last year if they showed Norway's restraint. (Bonus fact: Norway's cops missed their targets both times.) [Washington Post, 7-8-2015]

Pharmaceutical companies justify huge drug price markups on the ground that the research to develop the drug was, itself, hugely expensive. In February, a Canadian company, Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, decided to raise the price of two heart-saving drugs (Nitropress, Isuprel) by 212 percent and 525 percent, respectively, even though it had conducted no research on the drugs. That was because, reported The Wall Street Journal, all Valeant did was buy the rights to the already-approved drugs from another company (which, of course, had thought the drugs -- research and all -- had been fairly priced at the lower amounts). Said a Valeant spokesperson, "Our duty is to our shareholders and to maximize the value" of our products (even, apparently, if it owned the product for less than a day before jacking up the price as much as five-fold). [Wall Street Journal, 4-26-2015]

At a charity event in Philadelphia in July, in the course of attempting to set a Guinness Book record for pogo-stick workouts, Jack Sexty, 25, bounced 88,047 straight times (over a 10-hour, 20-minute session) -- to add to his several previous Guinness records. Sexty, who said he was physically uncomfortable at times during the 10-hour ordeal, suggested that he may have "inadvertently" set yet another pogo record -- as maybe the only person ever to answer a "number two" call of nature while pogoing. He explained that a guy had offered to hold a pot underneath him as he jumped and did his business -- but Sexty confessed, "I couldn't be very accurate (aiming for the pot)." [Bristol Post (Bristol, England), 7-4-2015]

But A Successful Parent: Scott Birk, 31, was arrested in New Berlin, Wisconsin, in July, thanks to a big boost the police got from his 6-year-old daughter. A Wal-mart security guard noticed, on video, someone breaking into a jewelry case and pocketing earrings, and approached Birk as a suspect, in time to overhear the girl tell her dad "several times" to stop breaking into jewelry cases. Officers running an ID check found no driver's license and asked how he had gotten to the store, and he said they walked. But Daddy, she said, we came in our car, and she cheerfully pointed it out to police. A search turned up more items stuffed in Birk's shorts, and he was charged with theft and violating a previous bail condition. [WISN-TV (Milwaukee), 7-3-2015]

Summer is state-fair season, i.e., the time of sugar- and fried-fat-based comfort snacks that rarely appear anywhere except at state fairs. Recent samplings: caviar-covered Twinkie (Minnesota), mac-and-cheese cupcake (Minnesota), deep-fried Oreo burger (Florida), deep-fried gummy bears (Ohio), deep-fried beer (Texas) -- and old favorites such as chicken-fried bacon (Texas), spaghetti ice cream (Indiana), Krispy Kreme chicken sandwich (California) and the hot-beef sundae (Indiana, Iowa). [Yahoo Food, 6-29-2015; GrubStreet.com, 6-24-2015]

Playboy magazine has long published an audio edition, and the Library of Congress produces a text edition in Braille. However, as a Houston Chronicle reporter learned in August (2010), a Texas organization (Taping for the Blind) goes one step further, with volunteer reader Suzi Hanks actually describing the photographs -- even the Playmates and other nudes. "I'd say if she has large breasts or small breasts, piercings or tattoos," said Hanks. "I'll describe her genitalia. I take my time describing the girls." "Hey, blind guys like pretty, naked girls, too!" [Houston Chronicle, 8-12-2010]

Thanks This Week to Kenny Saxe and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Among the protesters at New York City's Gay Pride Parade on the Sunday after the Supreme Court's historic gay-marriage decision was a group of men outfitted in Jewish prayer garments and representing the Jewish Political Action Committee, carrying signs reading, for example, "Judaism prohibits homosexuality." However, the men were very likely not Jewish, but in fact Mexican laborers hired for the day. A representative of the committee told The New York Times that the men were "supplemental" -- necessary because the committee's rabbis would not permit their students (who normally staff such protests) to be exposed to the sights of same-sex exuberance typical for the parade. [New York Times, 6-28-2015]

-- WOOD-TV of Grand Rapids, Michigan, seemingly uncovered an antiquity -- if not a potential vulnerability -- in the Grand Rapids public school system in June when it reported that the heating and cooling systems at 19 schools are controlled using a Commodore Amiga computer (released in the 1980s, about the same time as Windows 2.0), operating on an early Internet modem. It had been installed by a computer-savvy student and, according to the maintenance supervisor, still works fine. Fortunately, the supervisor said, the student still lives in the area and is available if problems arise. [WOOD-TV, 6-11-2015]

-- Recurring Theme: Government officials who insist on such "bells and whistles" as redesigning their department's logo are often ridiculed for wasting taxpayer money (yet design consultants continue to sell the illusion that a new logo can give a bureaucracy a refreshing rebirth). In May, Tennessee officials unveiled a new state logo (which cost only $46,000 -- not counting the expense of changing signs, cards, stationery, etc.), which consists of the letters "TN" in white inside a red box with a blue trim underneath. (A Watchdog.org critic suggested a contest to design a superior one, but open only to kids age 12 and under, with the prize a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate.) [WSMV-TV (Nashville), 5-22-2015]

Adultery is illegal in Japan -- except, as a Tokyo District Court judge ruled in a "psychological distress" lawsuit filed by the jilted wife, when it is done by a company to retain a good customer. A night club hostess who had carried on with the married man proved that she did so only as "makura eigyo," or "pillow sales tactic." Said the judge, "As long as the intercourse is for business, it does not harm the marital relationship at all." (The ruling, from 2014, was first publicized this year.) [Japan Times, 6-10-2015]

In 1993, the owner of the iconic 5Pointz building in New York City began allowing graffiti artists to use the walls for their masterpieces, but by 2013 had grown weary of the building's look and had the walls whitewashed. In June 2015, nine of the artists filed a federal lawsuit demanding that the owner compensate them, substantially, for destroying their creations -- and they stand a good chance of collecting (under the Visual Artists Rights Act) if they prove their particular works are of "recognized stature" and not merely art of an "ephemeral nature." At its height, 5Pointz attracted more than 350 artists' works from around the world. [New York Daily News, 6-12-2015]

-- A June entry in Wired.com's "Absurd Creature of the Week" series warned of the Beaded Lacewing that preys on termites by first immobilizing them with a "vapor-phase toxicant" released from its anus. The silent-but-deadly gas is reportedly powerful enough to disable six ordinary termites for up to three hours (plenty of time for a sumptuous meal of termite) and weaken several more that might get caught in the backdraft. Wired.com also learned of the related species Chrysoperla comanche, whose anal weaponry is in solid form, wielded by "master contortionists" who lift their abdomens in order to directly contact their victims' head. [Wired.com, 6-24-2015]

-- Suspicion Confirmed: In June 2015 research, scientists from Britain's University of Exeter and Queen Mary University of London warned that owners of "domestic" cats seem not, on average, to appreciate what vicious killers their pets are and urge, for instance, that they be kept indoors more often lest they decimate the neighborhood's bird and small-mammal populations. Estimates of the yearly death toll generated by housecats are "in the magnitude of millions" in the United Kingdom and "billions" in the United States. [Ecology and Evolution, 6-19-2015]

-- The "parasitic ways" of the cuckoo bird were remarked upon "as far back as Aristotle," wrote a Wall Street Journal book reviewer in May, but some biologists may not have believed the behavior because it was so cold-blooded. The bird, according to Nick Davies' book "Cuckoo: Cheating by Nature," lays its eggs in other species' nests to trick those birds into incubating the cuckoos, who then hatch and kick the eggs of their host out of the nest. The mother cuckoo, it is said, times her mating schedule so that her eggs mature just before the victims' eggs would. Hence, according to Davies, she is "nature's most notorious cheat." [Wall Street Journal, 5-30-2015]

To cover various general expenses (such as helping the indigent), the average hospital mark-up for patient care in the United States is about 3.4 times costs (according to a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health report in June), but 50 of the nation's 5,000 hospitals charge more than 10 times the cost, with the North Okaloosa Medical Center near Pensacola, Florida, billing at 12.6 times costs. According to the co-author, professor Gerard Anderson, the 50 "are marking up the prices because no one is telling them they can't." (Forty-nine of the 50 are for-profit hospitals, and 20 are in Florida.) [Washington Post, 6-8-2015]

Former British Navy sailor Alan Reynolds, 55, of Porthleven, England, was convicted in April of a burglary in which he stole items from the home of a colleague to pursue his fetish for waterproof clothing -- to enrich his fantasy, he told a judge, of imagining himself a prisoner of war. Photos and videos taken from his home show him in bright yellow waterproof trousers and green waterproof poncho, removing layers of clothing from underneath and "smelling" them. [Western Morning News (Plymouth), 4-9-2015]

Confused: (1) Christopher Furay, 33, pleaded guilty in Pittsburgh in April to six bank robberies -- the first four in which surveillance video revealed him to have a reddish beard and the last two in which the video revealed him to be wearing a fake red beard covering his reddish beard. Furay did not explain. (2) In June, police in Roseville, Minnesota, quickly located J&J Construction's missing equipment trailer (stolen from a work site) -- parked near the Washington County Courthouse, where the thief apparently had left it while he answered a court summons. WCCO-TV reported that the man was soon jailed on a separate charge. [Associated Press via WTAE-TV (Pittsburgh), 4-21-2015] [WCCO-TV (Minneapolis), 6-30-2015]

Sy Allen, arrested in March in Colchester, England, on suspicion of possessing drugs with intent to sell, relied on a fairly common strategy: As officers burst into the room, he swallowed the "evidence." As in the other cases, police decided to wait for nature to take its course in order to recover the suspected drugs. Unlike in the other cases, Allen managed to hold out, with no bowel movement, for 23 days -- but not a 24th. He was arrested. [East Anglican Daily Times, 5-13-2015]

In November (2010), after her fourth-grade son was allegedly slapped by his teacher at a Kansas City, Missouri, elementary school (son, black; teacher, white), Lisa Henry Bowen submitted a 40-page list of reparations she expects from President Obama and two dozen other officials, including: $1.25 million cash, $13,500 in Wal-mart gift cards, free college education, Disney World vacations, private tennis lessons, an African safari, her mortgage paid off, home remodeling, nine years of free medical and dental coverage, and a nine-year "consulting contract" with the school district at $15,000 a month. Anticipating criticism that she had taken it too far, she added that opponents can (original punctuation) "kiss my entire black (rear end)!!!!!! I haven't begun to go far enough!!!!!!!" [Pitch Weekly (Kansas City), 11-11-2010]

Thanks This Week to Rob Zimmer and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

The enormous compensation CEOs of large corporations receive is justified in part by their bringing prosperity to their shareholders, but last year (an excellent one for most investors), two of the nation's best-paid chief executives "earned" handsome raises despite presiding over losses: Philippe Dauman of Viacom Inc. (paid $44.3 million, stock lost 6.6 percent) and Jeffrey Immelt of General Electric (an 88 percent raise to $37.3 million, stock lost 6.7 percent). CEO Steven Newman of Transocean earned only $14.2 million, according to a June Wall Street Journal report, but that was a 2.2 percent boost -- for stewardship that resulted in one of 2014's biggest flops -- Transocean's 59.9 percent loss for its shareholders. [Wall Street Journal, 6-25-2015]

-- The Japanese, especially, report a decline of intimacy (for instance, a recent estimate found that about a quarter of 30-year-olds had never had sex with another person) -- convenient for a Kyoto research institute's announcement in June that it had developed a huggable, human-sized, featureless pillow (resembling Casper the Friendly Ghost), with skin-like texture, to serve as an embraceable intimacy substitute. For people with actual lovers, the "Hugvie" (retailing for the equivalent of $80) has a mouth slot for a cellphone to enable running sweet talk with a remote "companion." [phys.org, 6-5-2015]

-- Redneck Marketing Challenges: (1) Scotty and Beverly Franklin of Springfield, Missouri, are trying to tempt cowboys to actually wear leather boots retrofitted to be open-toed sandals. KHOU-TV (Houston) reported that the Franklins would sandal-up your favorite pair for $75. (2) One of the more reviled consumer products of 2015 is a gun-shaped iPhone case, which so alarms police that it suddenly in early July became hard to find, even at the online Japan Trend Shop, which previously offered models from $5 to $49. Asked one officer, "Why would you want to make yourself look like a threat (to cops)?" [KHOU-TV (Houston), 6-23-2015] [CNN Money, 7-1-2015]

In a recent BBC documentary, the son of renowned cosmologist Stephen Hawking (Tim, now 36) revealed that his dad is "hugely competitive" and showed him "no compassion at all" when he was growing up. Tim said two of his few avenues of coping with such a famous, oblivious father were when he used to race around in his dad's specialized (and expensive) wheelchair (pretending it was a go-kart) and, for those deliciously awkward moments, adding cuss words to his father's synthesized speech software. [Mother Nature Network, 6-17-2015]

-- Jihadists governing ISIS' Euphrates province recently outlawed the popular hobby of breeding pigeons and threatened violators with flogging and imprisonment. The ban was initially thought to be aimed at frustrating pigeon-messaging to the outside world, but the published prohibition mentions other justifications -- the hobby's frivolity (wasting time that could better be spent praying) and the special offense to God (because pigeons are "uncovered," with exposed genitals). [Daily Mail, 6-2-2015]

-- God Is Love: (1) In a June YouTube video reported by various news sites, Tempe, Arizona, pastor Steven Anderson (Faithful Word Baptist Church) prayed for God to "rip out the heart" of Caitlyn Jenner, for whom Anderson expresses "a perfect hatred" for announcing she was no longer Bruce. (2) On his "700 Club" TV program in June, Pat Robertson patiently explained to a grieving mother why God could have allowed her 3-year-old son to die of illness -- that God saw the big picture and knew, for instance, that the kid could have become a serial killer or contracted a hideous disease, and that she should be relieved that God took him early. [YouTube via RawStory, 6-10-2015] [Mediate, 6-9-2015]

Esteban Rocha, 51, was arrested in June in Placerville, California, and charged with exposing himself to a woman -- about 25 minutes after Rocha had left the Placerville Police Department, where he had dutifully gone to register his location so that police could keep track of him. [Sacramento Bee, 6-23-2015]

Sweden has unemployment issues, like most countries, but, still, the Oliver & Eva sex shop was not prepared for the deluge when the nation's Employment Service website posted its opening to hire a "sex toy tester." Until the service was forced to pull the announcement, applications were coming in at the rate of one every 20 seconds, with 14,000 emails greeting the employer the first morning. The sex shop emphasized that the tester must be "driven," "methodical" and "with patience" and a knowledge of Microsoft Excel. [The Local (Stockholm), 6-25-2015]

News of the Weird tracks the "armed and clumsy," who can't avoid shooting themselves accidentally, but then there are these guys: (1) Adam Hirtle, 30, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, checked into a hospital on June 10 after intentionally shooting himself in the foot with a .22-caliber handgun -- twice, "curious" to see how it felt (with and without his boot to compare pain levels). (2) Jeremiah Raber, 38, recently commenced a crowdfunding campaign for a kids' sports version of his "Nutshellz" jockstrap -- according to Raber the strongest such apparel in the world, made from breakthrough "Dyneema" (supposedly half the weight of Kevlar but twice as strong). Recently, using a ".22 long rifle," Raber had business partner Matt Heck shoot him directly in the delicate area, but according to Raber, he felt just a "tap." [Denver Post, 6-11-2015] [Riverfront Times (St. Louis), 5-11-2015]

(1) A 79-year-old woman in Markgroeningen, Germany, hit a ditch coming down a hill and flipped through a wall into the second floor of a storage depot, resulting in only minor injuries (June). (2) A woman driving 100 mph on a freeway near Leicester, England, lost control of her car, which somehow wound up in a tree about 20 feet above the roadway. She and a passenger climbed down and walked away (May). (3) A car speeding over a ramp sailed off a road in Durban, South Africa, crashing back-end-first through the roof of a one-story home, resting with the front end pointing straight up. Neither driver nor resident was hurt (July). [NBC News, 6-1-2015] [Leicester Mercury, 5-26-2015] [ER24 via BBC News, 7-2-2015]

One Flaw in the Game Plan: Gary Elliott, 19, was arrested shortly after someone had ripped a hole in the ceiling of Al's Army Navy store in Orlando, Florida, and -- expertly shimmying down a rope, then back up -- made off with about 70 guns in a bag. ("It must be Spider-Man," was proprietor Neal Crasnow's first thought.) However, minutes after the burglary, Elliott came to a police officer's attention on the street, bleeding, carrying the large bag -- and pedaling away on his "getaway" vehicle, which was a genuine tricycle (yes -- three wheels!). [Orlando Sentinel, 7-1-2015]

(1) While a custom fitting is being prepared, Alyeska Pipeline is "servicing" a leak in the trans-Alaska Pipeline by sending an employee twice a day in June to mop up the oil with rags. (2) A man was spotted and photographed on a riverbank in Nanyang, China, carefully (and oblivious to onlookers) bathing his inflatable doll. (3) In May, at the very moment police in Akron, Ohio, had begun (with a warrant) searching the home of Andrew Palmer, 46, for evidence of drug-dealing, a UPS driver appeared at the door to make a routine delivery -- of four pounds of marijuana. [Alaska Dispatch News, 6-23-2015] [Shanghaiist, 5-14-2015] [Cleveland.com, 5-16-2015]

Fine Points of the Law: Things looked grim for Carlos Simon-Timmerman, arrested by U.S. border agents in Puerto Rico for bringing a child-sex video home from a holiday in Mexico. The star of "Little Lupe the Innocent" looked very young, and federal prosecutors in April (2010) called an "expert witness" pediatrician, who assured the jury, based on the girl's underdevelopment, that she was a minor. However, Simon-Timmerman's lawyer had located "Lupe" via her website, and she cheerfully agreed to fly in from her home in Spain with her passport and other documents to prove, at a dramatic point in the trial, that she was 19 (and "legal") when the video was made. Simon-Timmerman was acquitted. [New York Post, 4-24-2010]

Thanks This Week to Josh Levin and Steve Sidell and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.