The distress across the Western world in July over the big-game killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe was apparently misdirected, according to veteran "animal communicator" Karen Anderson of Elk, Washington, who told Facebook and Internet visitors (www.AnimalCommunicating.com) that Cecil and she had discussed his demise and that he was over it. Also, Cecil apparently speaks in formal, graceful English, as Anderson quoted him (according to London's The Independent): "Let not the actions of these few men defeat us," said Cecil, "or allow darkness to enter our hearts." "I am," he added, "grander than before as no one can take our purity, our truth or our soul." (Anderson's usual fee to speak with deceased pets is $75 for 15 minutes, but she did not disclose whether she had a client for Cecil's tab.) [The Independent, 7-31-2015]

-- In May, three Santa Ana, California, police officers who had just raided the unlicensed Sky High Holistic medical marijuana dispensary were caught on the facility's surveillance video eating supposedly seized cannabis-infused chocolate bars, and an "internal affairs" investigation was opened. However, in August, the Orange County Register reported that the cops went to court to have the video suppressed. Their familiar legal argument is that the video violates their right to privacy -- in that they had purposely disabled the cameras before they began munching the contraband and thus had the requisite "expectation of privacy" that triggers the right. (Possibly, they had missed a camera.) [Orange County Register, 8-3-2015]

-- The mother of three children in Grandview, Missouri, suspected that Dameion McBride, 22, had sexually molested her two daughters (ages 4 and 8) and son (age 3), but McBride indignantly denied it, claiming that he is a child-abuse survivor himself, and booked himself on the national "Steve Wilkos" TV show in May to take a lie detector test to clear his name. However, he failed the test as to each child and was subsequently arrested. (The Associated Press reported that McBride insisted on a police lie detector test -- and failed that, too.) [WDAF-TV (Kansas City), 7-15-2015]

On Aug. 1, one of the world's weirdest border disputes came to an end, as India and Bangladesh exchanged more than 160 "enclaves" -- sovereign territory completely surrounded by the other country's sovereign territory (in principle, making travel out of the enclaves impossible unless the enclave had an embassy or another office that issues visas). In fact, there was one Indian enclave (Dahala Khagrabari) completely within a Bangladeshi enclave that is completely inside an Indian enclave inside Bangladesh. [Washington Post, 8-1-2015]

-- The estate of Dr. Rajan Verma filed a lawsuit in July against the Tralf Music Hall in Buffalo, New York, after Dr. Verma fell to his death following a concert when he lost his balance sliding down the banister. The estate claims that there must have been a sticky substance on the railing. The estate's lawyers said that since alcohol was served at the concert, the promoters should have known to take extra safety precautions for banister-riders. [Courthouse News, 7-21-2015]

-- Who gets badly hurt playing musical chairs? Robin Earnest, 46, told an Arkansas claims hearing that she broke two fingers and was forced into "years" of surgery and physical therapy over a game that was part of a class at the College of the Ouachitas in 2011 and demanded at least $75,000 from the state. The July hearing was dominated by a discussion of the proper way to play musical chairs because the instructor had ordered three students to contest one chair -- with Earnest asserting that everyone knows it would be two chairs for three people. [Arkansas Online, 7-10-2015]

-- "Green-fingered residents" can show off their hard work each year at the Quedgeley Show in Gloucestershire, England, entering arrangements of colorful, plump garden-grown vegetables. However, attendance has been off in recent years, reported the Western Daily Press, leaving the show's future in doubt -- until organizers announced that this year, to increase the number of entries, supermarket-bought vegetables could be submitted. [Western Daily Press, 7-24-2015]

-- "Number Two, Turn to the Right and Growl": Magistrates in Ceredigion, Wales, fined Edward Davies the equivalent of about $1,130 in June, finding that it was his dog that bit a teenage girl last October, sending her to a hospital with swelling and bruising. Aberystwyth authorities had set up a formal police lineup of dogs from the neighborhood, and the girl had made a positive ID of Davies' dog as the perp. [Wales Online, 6-4-2015]

Judge Roger Barto, of Waterloo (New York) Village Court, was convicted in August of staging a fake assault on himself to convince doctors to prescribe him pain medication. Officers arriving at the scene found Barto lying on the ground with a shattered porcelain toilet tank lid nearby from (he said) being smacked on the head by a mugger. However, doctors found an apparent flaw in Barto's ruse: He had forgotten to actually hurt himself during the "attack" -- as medical personnel had found no mark, cut or bruise anywhere on him. [Syracuse.com, 8-10-2015]

-- Once again during a police raid of a suspected drug house (this time, in Wood River, Illinois, in July), with cops swarming the home and yard, confiscating evidence and arresting occupants, officers had to stop briefly from time to time to answer the front door (10 times during a 90-minute period) -- as the dealer's regular (oblivious) customers continually arrived to buy more heroin. [KTVI-TV (St. Louis), 7-29-2015]

-- In the face of a declining military budget, the Defense Ministry of the Netherlands issued confidential instructions to commanders in July that during training exercises, to preserve dwindling ammunition, soldiers should simply shout "Bang, Bang!" instead of firing their weapons. Said a soldiers' advocate, "Even if you have no bullets, you (still) have to train with your weapon." [Reuters via RT.com (Moscow), 8-3-2015]

-- Thinning the Herd: (1) When two men who had been drinking in the apartment of Brandon Thomas, 30, in Conyers, Georgia, on July 23 wanted to leave, Mr. Thomas objected. "If y'all are going to drink my alcohol, y'all are going to play my game," he said, announcing that his "game" was Russian roulette. Minutes later, after spinning the revolver's cylinder, Mr. Thomas lost the game. (2) Three days later in rural Bell County, Kentucky, John Brock, 60, asked the Lord once again to certify his righteousness by allowing him to safely handle a rattlesnake during services at Mossy Simpson Pentecostal Church. However exemplary Mr. Brock's faith had been previously, on that day, apparently, it was found wanting, and he is no longer with us. [Rockdale News, 7-23-2015] [WKYT-TV (Lexington, Ky.), 7-28-2015]

(1) Wallace Berg, 81, was charged with public indecency in Stratford, Connecticut, in July after a neighbor showed police a video he had made of Berg, naked and (according to an Associated Press report) "performing a sex act with some shrubbery." (2) "Where the sun don't shine" is now a standard hiding place for contraband, including for Matthew Smith, 36, arrested in Greendale, Indiana, in July. After he drew attention with a long restroom session at a Shell station, police confronted him about the white powder on his nose, and Smith sheepishly handed over the minutes-ago-removed pills and cocaine -- but he had also extracted, inexplicably, a fishing bobber, a screwdriver and an "open tire plug kit." [Associated Press via Hartford Courant, 7-29-2015] [EagleCountryOnline, 7-22-2015]

Louis Woodcock, 23, testified at his Toronto trial in March (2010) that he was not involved in the 2005 shooting of a woman, despite being seen on surveillance video approaching the woman with his hand inside his jacket until gunshots rang out. He said his hand was not on a gun but that he often kept his hand inside his jacket to keep from sucking his thumb, which is a habit he picked up in childhood and which did not go over well on the street. (The jury, apparently not seeing him as the thumb-sucking type, convicted him of manslaughter.) [CTV (Toronto), 3-9-2010]

Thanks This Week to Dan Bohlen, Dan Wasserman, Bryce Jackson, and Charles Smaistrla, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

"The worshipful treatment of pets may be the thing that unites all Americans," wrote an Atlantic Magazine blogger in July, describing the luxury terminal for animals under construction at New York's JFK airport. The ARK will offer shower stalls for traveling horses, "conjugal stations" for ever-horny penguins, and housing for nearly 200 cows (that might produce 5,000 pounds of manure every day) -- and passengers traveling with dogs or cats can book the Paradise 4 Paws pet-pampering resort. The ARK is a for-profit venture; said one industry source, quoted in a July Crain's New York Business report, "You hear stories about the crazy money that rich people spend on their (animals) ... they're mostly true." [Crain's New York Business, 7-13-2015] [CityLab.com, 7-20-2015]

-- Officially, now, it is "unreasonable" for a federal agency (the Bureau of Land Management, in this instance) to fail to say yes or no for 29 years to a drilling permit application. (Before July's federal court decision, BLM had been arguing that 29 years was not too long.) A company had requested to drill just one exploratory well in Montana for natural gas in 1985, but the bureau had delayed the proceeding six times since then. The judge ordered the bureau to set a deadline for deciding. [Washington Post, 7-29-2015]

-- Georgia, one of six states that make taxpayers shell out huge fees to access its databases of public records, tries so relentlessly to control its archive that, recently, in a federal lawsuit, it said opposition to its policy was basically "terrorism." Activists (Public.Resource.org) have been establishing workarounds to free up some databases for citizen use, and Georgia demands that they stop. Georgia even claims "copyright" protection for one category of important legal documents that were initially drafted by state bureaucrats, audaciously calling them "original" and "creative" works. [Los Angeles Times, 7-27-2015]

-- Mandatory Inaction: In July, the mayor of the town of Ador, Spain (pop. 1,400), officially enacted into law what had merely been custom -- a required afternoon siesta from 2 to 5 p.m. Businesses were ordered to close, and children were to remain indoors (and quiet). [The Local (Madrid), 7-16-2015]

-- At a traffic stop in Rockingham, Vermont, on July 26, both driver and passenger were charged with DUI. Erik Polite, 35, was the driver (clocked at 106 mph on Interstate 91 and, according to police, with drugs in the car), and while he was being screened for intoxication, passenger Leeshawn Baker, 34, jumped behind the wheel and peeled off in reverse across the highway, nearly hitting the trooper, who arrested him. [WCAX-TV (Burlington), 7-29- 2015]

-- Nathaniel Harrison, 38, was arrested in July in a Phoenix suburb on several charges, including possession of a deadly weapon during a felony, but he escaped an even more serious charge when a second "deadly weapon" failed to engage. Harrison reportedly intended to retaliate against a "snitch" and arrived at the man's home carrying a rattlesnake, which he supposedly pointed at the man, hoping it would bite him. However, the snake balked, and Harrison's attempted payback failed. [KPHO-TV (Phoenix), 7-28-2015]

-- Lame Defenses in Lake County, Florida: (1) Daniel Baker, 40, and Robert Richardson, 19, were arrested in Altoona, Florida, in August after getting caught loading appliances from a vacant house. According to the arrest report, both men appeared incredulous to learn that items in a vacant house aren't just "free." (2) Six days earlier about 20 miles away in Tavares, Florida, Corey Ramsey, 23, was arrested for burglary when a police officer caught him sitting on a toilet in a vacant, for-sale house attending to a need. Ramsey's extensive petty-crime rap sheet belied his explanation for being there -- that he was contemplating buying the $299,000 house and wanted to try it out first. [Daily Commercial (Leesburg), 8-4-2015] [Daily Commercial, 7-30-2015]

Zoologists at the University of Basel in Switzerland, publishing recently in a prestigious British journal, reported the likelihood that a certain flatworm species has overcome the frustration of not finding a mating partner in its lifetime. The scientists believe the flatworm exploits its hermaphroditic qualities and injects its sperm into its own head, from which the sperm sometimes migrates to its reproductive facilities. (Flatworm researchers are aided on their projects by the species' transparent bodies, facilitating the tracking of the sperm.) [World-Science.net, 6-2-2015]

-- About 200 protesters gathered in front of Hong Kong police headquarters on August 2 to denounce the 3 1/2-month jail sentence given to Ms. Ng Lai-ying, 30, who was convicted of assault for shoving a police officer with her chest. Women (and some men) wearing bras as outerwear chanted, "Breast is not a weapon." (Ng was originally protesting the hardly sexy issue of import-export abuses between Hong Kong and mainland China cities.) [South China Morning Post, 8-2-2015]

-- The Joy of Protest: An August 1 demonstration outside Britain's Parliament protesting legislation to curb until-now-legal psychoactive drugs drew about 100 people -- consuming their drug of choice, nitrous oxide. As organizers distributed gas-filled balloons for demonstrators to take hits from, "the group erupted in fits of laughter," according to The Guardian. [The Guardian, 8-1-2015]

-- Construction on a $1.7 million therapeutic equestrian facility in St. Cloud, Florida, expressly for use by wounded U.S. service members, was delayed in August when a bald eagle nest was discovered on the grounds. Federal law requires at least 330 feet of clearance for the nest, plus additional monitoring to assure the birds' tranquility. Said one neighbor, "The very animal that symbolizes freedom is delaying therapy for those who fought for it." [Bright House Cable (Orlando), 8-5-2013]

The Welsh language is such a severe mutation of the original English spoken in the Middle Ages that, to the inexperienced eye, it is barely distinguishable from, say, Klingon. In fact, in July, the Welsh government, responding to queries about a possible UFO sighting near Cardiff airport, playfully issued its galaxy-friendly response in Klingon -- "jang vlDa je due luq," meaning that further information will be provided. (In Welsh, for example, "I cannot understand Welsh" is "nad oes modd i ddeall Cymraeg.") (Recently, in Swansea, Wales, alleged drug dealer Dwaine Campbell, 25, adamantly refused to leave his cell for a court hearing because he feared being judged in Welsh -- until authorities promised to transfer the case to Campbell's native England.) [BBC News, 7-10-2015] [Wales Online, 7-27-2015]

Despite repeated assurances by Olympic officials, it appears more certain than ever that 2016 boating and surfing events in Brazil's Guanabara Bay and Rodrigo de Freitas Lake will be conducted in water so polluted with human sewage that every athlete will almost certainly be struck with fever, vomiting and diarrhea. An August Associated Press report revealed the waters' virus levels (of fecal coliform and other viruses) are as high as 2 million times the level that would close down a California beach. (Olympic and local officials continue to insist that the water will be safe by next summer, but, as the AP pointed out, their protocols test only for bacteria and not viruses. One U.S. water-quality expert advised all athletes to move to Rio ahead of the games -- to try to build up an immunity.) [Associated Press via The Guardian (London), 8-1-2015]

In mid-April (2010), senior Iranian cleric Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi warned that recent earthquakes in Haiti, Chile and elsewhere were caused by women's loose sex and immodest dress. Immediately, Australian Jennifer McCreight responded on Facebook by urging women worldwide to dress provocatively on April 26 (2010), to create a "boobquake" and test the cleric's theory, and at least 90,000 women promised they would reveal serious cleavage on that date. On April 26, following a several-day absence of earthquakes, a quake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale hit just south of Taiwan. (Slight advantage to the ayatollah, since a Purdue University seismologist observed that a 6.5 quake was not uncommon for that region). [Courier-Mail (Brisbane)-AFP, 4-17- 2010; Indianapolis Star, 4-28-2010]

Thanks This Week to Bruce Leiserowitz, Kathryn Wood, and Crystal Hipkins, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Ran'dell Busch, 27, was in serious condition after being shot on July 26 near the corner of 18th Street and Emmet Street in Omaha, Nebraska. He was also shot in 2014 around the intersection of 18th and Emmet, and in 2012 was shot in a scuffle after running from the corner of 18th and Emmet. [WOWT-TV (Omaha), 7-30-2015]

-- Failed European Business Models: (1) Grande Hotel San Calogero, the planned centerpiece of a Sicilian tourist renaissance, is still nowhere close to opening -- 61 years after construction began. It took 30 years to build, but then developers fought for 10 years over its management, and only later was a serious drainage deficiency discovered (repair of which Rome's news site The Local reported in July remains unfunded). (2) Construction of the ultra-modern Don Quixote airport (in Ciudad Real, Spain, about an hour from Madrid) was finished in 2006, but the $1 billion facility never opened, and in July, was sold to a Chinese investor for the equivalent of $11,000. (Bonus: Fictional character Don Quixote was, himself, noted for delusions of grandeur.) [The Local (Rome), 7-16-2015] [Quartz (qz.com), 7-21-2015]

-- Unclear on the Concept: Overlooked by the roundup of "state fair" foods listed in News of the Weird two weeks ago was the debut in June, at California's San Diego County Fair, of the deep-fried Slim-Fast bar. A 200-calorie "diet bar" is breaded in pancake batter, fried, dusted with powdered sugar and drizzled with chocolate. [Huffington Post, 6-8-2015]

-- A woman in a suburb of Beijing filed a lawsuit against the China Dragon Garden graveyard recently over her shock to find that not only was her own name affixed to a headstone in gold lettering but about half of the 600 plots were eerily marked for prominent (and still living) people to move into. It was a marketing plan, according to cemetery workers, to convince customers of the upscale neighbors (such as basketball star Yao Ming) waiting for them in the afterlife. (China's aging population, and Beijing's land scarcity, have driven up prices, intensifying competition and corrupt practices, according to a Los Angeles Times dispatch.) [Los Angeles Times, 7-23-2015]

Texas' highest criminal appeals court agreed on July 17, hours before Clifton Williams was to be executed, to a postponement until they could consider the significance of perhaps-faulty higher math presented to his jury in 2006. Prosecutors had claimed at his trial that the likelihood of another black man having Williams' DNA profile was 1 in 43 sextillion (43 followed by 21 zeros, or 43 billion trillion). Texas officials have recently recalculated the FBI-developed database and concluded that it was somewhat more likely that a second black man had Williams' profile -- 1 in only 40 billion trillion. [Associated Press via WLS-TV (Chicago), 7-17-2015]

(1) Jason Patterson, upset that New Zealand's health care administration has rejected paying for gastric bypass surgery, announced in July that he will protest publicly by going on a hunger strike. "The first two to three days (will be) really hard," he told Channel 3 News. (2) Local officials in China's Xinjiang region informed Muslim shopkeepers and restaurateurs in May that they will henceforth be required to sell alcohol and cigarettes (even though Islam forbids their consumption). An official told Radio Free Asia that the government aims to weaken religion. [TV3News (Auckland), 7-6-2015] [Washington Post, 5-5-2015]

Some owners may be petting their cats all wrong, cautioned recent research in issues of the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science by scientists from University of Lincoln in England and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For example, felines seem to prefer face-caressing, especially between the eyes and ears, and are especially aroused, negatively, by tail-petting, especially at the base. Cats appear to be pickier about how their owners pet them than strangers, according to a Washington Post review of one article. The Wisconsin research revealed that cats better appreciate (or are annoyed less by) music written especially for their pitch (an octave higher) and tempo (mimicking purring) than traditional classical music. [Washington Post, 6-30-2015] [Sci-news.com, 3-15-2015]

-- Careless Governing: (1) Maine enacted legislation in July to make immigrant asylum-seekers eligible for the state's General Assistance fund -- contrary to Gov. Paul LePage's aggressive promise to veto the bill. The governor had misunderstood state law and believed legislation would be regarded as vetoed if he merely failed to sign it for 10 days. LePage appeared stunned on the 11th day, according to press reports, that he had had the veto law backward and that asylum-seekers are now eligible for benefits. (2) News reports from Georgetown, Texas, politely did not identify the councilman by name, but Mayor Pro Tem Rachael Jonrow confirmed that the man neglected to turn off his mobile microphone during a May meeting as he excused himself for a restroom break. Jonrow said she stoically ignored the men's room sounds on the PA system -- until the noise from a toilet's flushing seemed to release the councilmembers' pent-up laughter. [Maine Beacon (Portland), 7-7-2015] [Fox News, 5-5-2015]

-- Epic Clumsiness: (1) A guest at the upscale W Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, had to be rescued by firefighters in July when he fell off of one machine in the hotel's exercise room and got his head caught in the one next to it. Rescuers arrived with torches and saws, but managed to pull and push and manipulate the man's head free (though he had "significant" injuries). (2) A 27-year-old man, entertaining friends at his home in Colmar, France, on the country's National Day on July 14, suffered serious injuries when he fell from his third-floor balcony -- while, said his friends, leaning over to spit on police officers below. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 7-22-2015] [The Local (Paris), 7-17-2015]

Michael Crawford, 68, was arrested when he arrived in Phoenix in July expecting, according to the sheriff's office, to have sex with a horse. Crawford had allegedly posted an online ad seeking horse owners who would allow him access for brief flings. In arranging the meeting with the undercover deputy, Crawford had volunteered that he would be bringing five shirts with him for the horse to urinate on, as memories of the trip. [AzFamily.com (Phoenix), 7-12-2015]

Irresistible Self-Promotion: Jason Stange, 44, who became a fugitive last year by walking away from a Spokane, Washington, halfway house while on probation for bank robbery, was re-arrested in July in Olympia, Washington, after featuring himself in an extensive newspaper pictorial about a local movie he was starring in. Stange could have chosen a more veiled stage name, but (since it was a horror movie) billed himself merely as "Jason Strange" -- making detection easier for U.S. Marshals. [News Tribune (Tacoma), 7-21-2015]

Earlier, even Norway's world's-friendliest prison system had refused to honor the educational rehabilitation demands of Anders Behring Breivik, the mass-murderer of 71 (mostly children) at a camp in 2011. Breivik had been sentenced to 21 years in prison -- the country's maximum, or less than four months per victim -- but he was subsequently turned down when he sought to register, behind bars, as a political science student at Oslo University. However, in July, prison officials relented and will allow the enrollment -- although he will still be subject to his prison restrictions against Internet and email use. [BBC News, 7-17-2015]

In a 2009 traffic accident, retired Montgomery County, Maryland, county judge Edwin Collier and his wife, both in their 80s, were severely injured by driver Rene Fernandez, 45, who pleaded guilty to DUI-caused injury (in 2010). Judge Collier had met Fernandez earlier, in 1998, when Fernandez appeared in his courtroom to answer for his three DUI-related arrests in the previous three-month period -- but Judge Collier let him off with probation instead of a more meaningful punishment that might have had greater effect on his future DUI behavior. (Update: The 2010 judge gave Fernandez 18 months.) [Washington Post, 4-10-2010, 4-14-2010]

Thanks This Week to Chuck Hamilton and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.