In October, a Harvard University debate team (three-time recent champions of the American Parliamentary Debate Association) lost a match to a team of prisoners from the maximum-security Eastern New York Correctional Facility. Prison debaters "are held to the exact same standards" as college debate teams, according to the director of Bard College's Prison Initiative, which coaches the inmates. Prisoners took the "pro" side of public schools having the right to turn away students whose parents had entered the U.S. illegally (though team members personally disagreed). The Bard trainers pointed out that the inmates perfected their presentation despite (or perhaps because of) the prison prohibition on Internet access. [Washington Post, 10-7-2015]

A black alleged gang member, Taurus Brown, 19, under arrest in Clearwater, Florida, in September for having a marijuana cigarette casually tucked behind his ear as he talked politely to a white police officer, tried to flee on foot but was quickly taken down. Asked why he ran, Brown replied (according to the police report): "I don't like white people touching me. White people do weird stuff." [The Smoking Gun, 9-4-2015]

-- The Merit Systems Protection Board is (wrote The Washington Post) "a personnel court of last resort" for federal employees unfairly punished by demotion or firing -- which is just what employee Timothy Korb needed when his federal agency suspended him in 2013, allegedly for revealing at a staff meeting that the agency's actual case backlog was much worse than it was letting on. Korb's employer, ironically, is the Merit Systems Protection Board, and in September 2015, an administrative law judge upheld his claim of unfairness. [Washington Post, 10-2- 2015]

-- Philosophy professor Anna Stubblefield (Rutgers-Newark University) was convicted of aggravated sexual assault against a severely disabled man she was discovered having sex with on the floor in a locked office, but at trial in September, she testified that the man had "consent(ed)" and that the two were "in love." The victim, 34, has cerebral palsy and other ailments, wears diapers, requires assistance for nearly all activities, is intellectually disabled, and does not speak, "except for making noises," according to a brother. Stubblefield had been working with him on the controversial practice of "facilitated communication," in which a facilitator reads a patient's mind via subtleties such as eye movement and articulates the words for him. However, a jury failed to appreciate that facilitated "consent" and quickly convicted her. [NJ Advance Media via NJ.com, 9-25-2015; Inside Higher Ed, 10-5-2015]

In rare bipartisan action, the U.S. Senate is preparing a bill to ban taxpayer funds for those military salutes at sporting events. Teams (the legislators believe) already benefit from the fan-friendly staging of heartwarming patriotic displays. (The Pentagon had paid $5.4 million just to the National Football League over the last four years.) An NFL spokesman, finally playing catch-up, said in September, "(N)o one should be paid to honor our troops." [NJ Advance Media via NJ.com (Newark), 9-30-2015]

-- In a recent resolution, Blount County (Tennessee) Commissioner Karen Miller called for her fellow commissioners and state officials all the way up to the governor to prepare for "God's wrath" for recent national policies (same-sex marriage, etc.) she disagrees with. Though other states might be in for a smiting, Miller's resolution calls on God to spare Blount County (by the "safety of the Passover lamb"). In October, the commission tabled the resolution, 10-5, but she promised to reintroduce it. [WBIR-TV (Knoxville), 10-7-2015]

-- By September, Cindy Gamrat and Todd Courser were finally out of the Michigan Legislature -- Gamrat by guard-escorted removal after her formal expulsion and Courser by pre-emptive resignation -- following the pair's months-long "secret" sexual affair and clumsy handling of its revelation. Courser's original defense strategy was to plant a bogus story of a gay-sex scandal, hoping to discredit as hysteria any news about his actual affair, but when that failed, he issued a 1,900-word plea, liberally quoting the Bible, acknowledging his hypocrisy and hoping for salvation from his colleagues (who failed to come through). [Associated Press via New York Times, 9-11-2015]

"Officially" declaring oneself not subject to the laws of any jurisdiction (i.e., a "sovereign") opens a wide range of career choices. The FBI and Las Vegas police say that in Rick Van Thiel's case, once his porn industry career ended (because someone stole his video equipment), he "decided to go into the medical field," becoming "Dr. Rick" with expertise performing dozens of abortions, circumcisions and castrations (plus cancer treatments and root canals). Proudly avoiding actual licensing, Van Thiel promoted "alternative" remedies, with an office in a Nevada compound of trailers that one hesitant "patient" described as something out of a horror movie. Van Thiel, arrested in October, nonetheless staunchly defended his ability (acquired, he said, by watching YouTube medical videos). (Bonus entertainment: In court, he will be acting as his own lawyer.) [Las Vegas Review Journal, 10-9-2015]

In June, Tennessee's much-publicized program to kick drug users off of welfare rolls (and only from welfare rolls, among all people receiving any type of state subsidy) wound up its first year cutting off fewer than 40 people out of 28,559 people on public assistance ("temporary assistance to needy families"). Nonetheless, the sponsoring legislators said they were pleased with the program and planned no changes. The state paid a contractor $11,000 to conduct 468 drug tests, but did not disclose staff costs of processing applications, deciding who to test and managing cases. [WMOT Radio (Murfreesboro, Tenn.), 10-6-2015]

-- Not Ready for Prime Time: It was at 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 8 that, according to Dallas police, Kristopher Jones, 18, and a buddy decided it would be Joy's Donut shop they should rob. As they exited the store (one carrying the shop's cash register), a uniformed, off-duty officer (who apparently had pulled up to the store -- for doughnuts) saw the whole thing and arrested Jones (though his partner was able to flee). [WFAA-TV (Dallas-Fort Worth), 10-8-2015]

-- I'm Da Man! John Morgan, 28, and Ashley Duboe, 24, were charged in September with robbing the Savings Bank in Ashville, Ohio -- with their apprehension made easier by Morgan's Facebook photos of himself riffling through (and with a mouthful of) his newly acquired stack of bills (a "McStack," he wrote) and describing his current elation: "I got six bands bra ... I'm doing rrree=aaaalll good." (Police were quick to find the Facebook page because Morgan was already on parole from a 2010 bank robbery.) [The Smoking Gun, 9-24-2015]

More Men Who Accidentally Shot Themselves Recently: A 16-year-old boy, in the leg -- for the second time in three months (same leg) (Tulsa, Oklahoma, September). A road-rager waving a gun at a motorist, jarring his trigger finger as he subsequently crashed (Estero, Florida, September). Christen Reece, 23, shot in the head demonstrating to friends the gun's "safety" (Navajo County, Arizona, September). A man celebrating his 21st (and, alas, final) birthday (Dallas, July). A 49-year-old man who failed the "removing the magazine does not clear the chamber" test (Mims, Florida, June). Martin Hoyer, 51, who failed the "waistband is not a holster" test (Wenatchee, Washington, September). Thomas Javier, 26, trying to hide his gun (after being caught urinating in the street) and fumbling it, accidentally shooting himself in the vicinity of the organ in question. (Brooklyn, New York, September). Donald Watson, 43, slipping a for-sale gun into his pocket and somehow firing on his penis (Sioux Falls, South Dakota, September). [Tulsa: Tulsa World, 9-14-2015] [Estero: WINK-TV (Fort Myers), 9-16-2015] [Reece: White Mountain Independent (Show Low, Ariz.), 9-3-2015] [Dallas: New York Daily News, 7-18-2015] [Mims: WTVJ-TV (Miami), 6-15-2015] [Hoyer: Wenatchee World, 9-24-2015] [Javier: New York Daily News, 9-27-2015] [Watson: Sioux Falls Argus Leader, 9-25-2015]

The Power of Love: Before Arthur Horn met his future bride Lynette (a "metaphysical healer") in 1988, he was a tenured professor at Colorado State, with a Ph.D. in anthropology from Yale, teaching a mainstream course in human evolution. With Lynette's "guidance" (after a revelatory week with her in California, searching for Bigfoot), Horn resigned from Colorado State and began seeking to remedy his inadequate Ivy League education. Lecturing at a conference in Denver in September (2009), Horn said he now realizes that humans evolved from an alien race of shape-shifting reptilians that continue to control civilization through secretive leaders. [Rocky Mountain Collegian, 9-28-2009]

Thanks This Week to Joan Condell, John Baker and Bruce Leiserowitz, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

Two suburban Minneapolis elementary schools this fall hired a consulting firm to advise officials on kids' recess, and the leading recommendations (promoting "safety" and "inclusiveness") were elimination of "contact" games in favor of, for example, hopscotch. Some parents objected; recess, they said, should be more freestyle, unstructured. (More consultants' advice: De-emphasize refereed "rules" games in favor of monitors who simply praise effort.) One Minnesota principal noted improvement -- fewer fights and nurse visits now -- but as one parent said, her child feels that recess is no longer really "playing." [Star Tribune, 10-5-2015] [Mercer Island Reporter, 9-24-2015]

Unapparent Problem, Solved: Vladimir Laurent (an insurance executive in Coral Springs, Florida) received his U.S. patent on Sept. 29 and can proceed mass-producing "The Shield" -- his brainstorm to keep men's genitalia from dragging on the inside of toilet bowls while they're seated. Laurent told the South Florida Business Journal that his device was something he "needed, personally" (though he's aware that not all males experience the sensation). The Shield is basically a cup attached to the bowl by suction that allows movement via a ball-and-socket joint. [South Florida Business Journal, 9-30-2015]

Kentucky's government ethics law bars gifts from lobbyists to legislators, but state Sen. John Schickel filed a federal lawsuit in September claiming that he has a constitutional (First Amendment) right to receive them. (The laws were passed after the FBI found several Kentucky politicians selling their votes.) And in May, officials of the American Gaming (gambling) Association and the Association of Club Executives complained to the Pentagon that a threatened prohibition of the use of government credit cards at casinos and strip clubs violated card users' constitutional rights, in that protected activities (such as business strategy meetings) take place at those venues. [TheIntercept.com, 9-24-2015] [Government Executive, 5-21-2015]

Florida Justice: Orville "Lee" Wollard, now 60, was convicted of aggravated assault in 2008 after he fired one "warning shot" into a wall of his home during an argument with his daughter's boyfriend. Believing his shot defused a dangerous situation (the boyfriend had once angrily ripped sutures from Wollard's stomach), Wollard had declined a plea offer of probation and gone to trial, where he lost and faced a law written with a 20-year minimum sentence. Florida has since amended the law to give judges discretion about the crime and the sentence, but Gov. Rick Scott and the state's clemency board have refused to help Wollard, who must serve 13 more years for a crime he perhaps would not even be charged with today. [Miami Herald, 9-30-2015]

Christopher Hiscock, 33, got only a year's probation after his guilty plea for trespassing on a ranch in Kamloops, British Columbia, in September -- because it was a trespass with panache. Since no one had been home, Hiscock fed the cats, prepared a meal, shaved and showered, took meat out of the freezer to thaw, made some coffee, started a fire in the fireplace, did some laundry, put out hay for the horses, and even wrote some touchingly personal notes in the resident's diary ("Today was my first full day at the ranch." "I have to remind myself to just relax and take my time.") In court, he apologized. "I made a lot of mistakes." "Beautiful ranch. Gorgeous. I was driving (by) and I just turned in. Beautiful place." [Kamloops This Week via National Post, 9-30-2015]

Low-benefit (but Internet-connected!) devices now on sale (from February MacLife magazine): HAPIfork (Bluetooth-connected, alerts you if you're eating too fast); iKettle (heat water at different temperatures for different drinks, controlled by phone); an LG washing machine that lets you start washing while away (provided, of course, that you've already loaded the washer); Kolibree "smart toothbrush" (tracks and graphs "brushing habits"). Also highlighted was the Satis "smart toilet," which remotely flushes, raises and lowers the seat, and engages the bidet -- features MacLife touts mainly as good for "terrorizing guests." [MacLife, February 2015]

Scientists have somehow determined that rats dream about where they want to go in the future. Dr. Hugo Spiers of University College London (and colleagues) inferred as much in a recent eLife article based on how neurons in the rodent brain's hippocampus fire up in certain patterns. They discovered similar patterns when a rat is asleep just before conquering a food "maze" as when he awakens and actually gets to the food (as if it plotted by dream). (Buried Lede: Rats have dreams.) [New Scientist, 6-26-2015]

The Power of Prayer: (1) Two men with handguns walked through an open door of a Philadelphia home in July and demanded drugs and cash from the three women inside, threatening pistol-whippings. According to a Philly.com report, a 55-year-old woman in the home immediately burst into loud prayer, causing the gunmen to flee empty-handed. (2) Police in Bellevue, Ohio, initially believed that texting behind the wheel was what caused Marilyn Perry, 62, to crash and badly injure another driver. However, in July, she and her lawyer convinced a judge that she was "looking down" as she drove only because she was praying over "personal problems." [Philly.com, 7-12-2015] [WJW-TV (Cleveland), 7-21-2015]

A year-long investigation by GlobalPost revealed in September that at least five U.S. or European Catholic priests disciplined for sex abuse have surfaced in South America, ministering unstigmatized in impoverished parishes. In Paraguay, Ecuador and Peru (all with softer law enforcement and media scrutiny than in the U.S., and where priests enjoy greater respect), dioceses have accepted notorious priests from Scranton, Pennsylvania, Minneapolis and Jackson, Mississippi, and Catholic facilities in Brazil and Colombia now employ shamed sex-abusers from Belgium and San Antonio, Texas. (The Belgian priest had been allowed to start an orphanage for street kids.) GlobalPost claims the Vatican declined "repeated" phone calls for comment. [GlobalPost via USA Today, 9-17- 2015]

(1) Miami-Dade (Florida) police arrested Eddy Juan, 52, two weeks after someone matching his description was reported at a library at Florida International University, crawling under tables and sniffing women's feet. He was charged with violating a previous sex-offender registration order. (2) In what was originally a domestic disturbance case, Britain's Cambridge Magistrates' Court handed Nelson Nazare, 45, a six-week suspended sentence in September -- for the photo on his seized cellphone of a man having sex with a large fish (plus two woman-dog sex photos). [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9-15-2015] [Cambridge News, 9-3-2015]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/ct-florida-library-foot-sniffer-20150915-story.html

Let the Punishment Fit the Crime: (1) In September, convicted flasher Mark Thompson, 48, of Wimbledon, England, was given a four-month suspended jail term and also banned from wearing shorts on public transportation (since his modus operandi involved "adjusting" them while seated). (2) The Coventry, England, Magistrates Court sentenced Christopher Johnson, 46, in September for outraging public decency. He received a three-year "Criminal Behavior Order" and was banned from going anywhere that has a slide (after his arrest for simulating a sex act on one). [Wimbledon Guardian, 9-23-2015] [Coventry Telegraph, 9-21- 2015]

http://www.wimbledonguardian.co.uk/news/13779217.Train_flasher_banned_from_wearing_shorts_on_public_transport_as_part_of_his_sentence/

Paul Neaverson, 61, was convicted in September in England's Maidstone Crown Court for a robbery his own lawyer called "ridiculous." He had gone to a NatWest bank in Rainham, pointed a knife at a cashier, and demanded that money be placed "on the table" or "into his account" at NatWest, according to the police report. Earlier, he had walked out of an HSBC bank when the teller balked at his robbery demand. He was sentenced to two years in prison. [KentOnline, 9-9-2015]

The mayor of the Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret, faced with an overcrowded highway D909 through town, "solved" the problem (according to a September 2009 BBC News dispatch) by making the street one-way, sending traffic speedily into the adjacent town of Clichy-la-Garenne. That city's mayor (a political rival of the Levallois-Perret mayor) reacted by making his portion of D909 one-way back toward Levallois-Perret, thus "stranding" all D909 motorists, from either direction, at the city limit. Other officials are working to resolve the impasse. [BBC News, 9-1-09]

Thanks This Week to Pete Randall and Alex Boese, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

The bold, shameless leering of David Zaitzeff is legendary around Seattle's parks, and more so since he filed a civil complaint against the city in September challenging its anti-voyeurism law for placing a "chilling effect" on his photography of immodestly dressed women in public. Though he has never been charged with a crime, he roams freely (and apparently joyously) around short- skirted and swimsuit-clad "gals" while himself often wearing only a thong and bearing a "Free Hugs and Kisses" sign. Zaitzeff's websites "extol" public nudity, wrote the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and explain, for example, that a woman who angles her "bod" to offer a view of "side boob" is fair game for his camera. Zaitzeff's complaint -- that the law criminalizes photography of a person's "intimate areas" (clothed or not) without explicit permission -- is distressing him. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer via SFGate.com, 9-17-2015]

Randy Richardson, 42, vying unopposed for the Riceville, Iowa, school board (having agreed to run just because he has two kids in school) failed to get any votes at all -- as even he was too busy on election day (Sept. 8) to make it to the polls (nor were there any write-ins). To resolve the 0-0 result, the other board members simply appointed Richardson to the office. Riceville, near the Minnesota border, is a big-time farming community, and registered voters queried by The Des Moines Register said they just had too much fieldwork to do that day. [Associated Press via U.S. News & World Report, 9-20-2015]

Researchers recently came upon a small community (not named) in the Dominican Republic with an unusual incidence of adolescent boys having spent the first decade or so of their lives as girls because their penises and testes did not appear until puberty. A September BBC News dispatch referred to the boys as "Guevedoces" and credited the community for alerting researchers, who ultimately developed a drug to replace the culprit enzyme whose absence was causing the problem. (The full shot of testosterone that should have been delivered in the mother's womb was not arriving until puberty.) [BBC News, 9-20-2015]

The serpentine queue extended for blocks in September in Lucknow, India, after the state government of Uttar Pradesh announced 368 job openings (almost all menial) -- eventually resulting in about 2.3 million applications, 200,000 from people with advanced degrees (even though the $240/month positions required only a fifth-grade education, according to an Associated Press dispatch). About 13 million young people enter India's job market each year. [Associated Press via Yahoo News, 9-18-2015]

-- At a September convention on ethical issues involving computers, a researcher at Britain's De Montfort University decried the development of devices that might permit human-robot sex. Though no human would be "victimized," the researcher warned that such machines (some already in service) will exacerbate existing "power imbalances" between men and women and pave the way for more human exploitation. One critic challenged, offering that such robots would be no more demeaning to women than, say, vibrators. However, the researcher ominously warned that there may someday be robots resembling children, marketed for sex. (A September USA Today dispatch from Tokyo reported that the company SoftBank had banned sex, via its user agreement, with its new 4-foot-tall human-like robot -- even though "Pepper" features nothing resembling genitalia.) [Washington Post , 9-15-2015] [USA Today, 9-29-2015]

-- Thailand's "Last Resort Rehab" at the Wat Thamkrabok Temple about 100 miles north of Bangkok resembles a traditional drug-detox facility (work, relaxation, meditation) -- except for the vomiting. At the "Vomit Temple," Buddhist priests mix a concoction of 120 herbal ingredients that are nasty, according to the temple's methamphetamine addicts interviewed for a recent Australian TV documentary. Said one, of the rehab agenda: "Vomiting is at 3 p.m. every day. Foreigners must vomit for the first five days. The vomiting is intense." [International Business Times (London), 9-29-2015]

-- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals filed a federal lawsuit in California in September on behalf of an endangered crested black macaque that wandered up to an unattended camera on a tripod and clicked a selfie. The camera belonged to photographer David Slater, who claimed copyright to the photo even though "Naturo" actually snapped it. The shot might be valuable to Naturo since it has become viral on the Internet. (Though the photo was taken in Indonesia, Slater's publisher is based in California.) [CNN, 9-23-2015]

-- Jose Banks, now 40, filed a $10 million lawsuit in 2014 against the federal government because jailers at Chicago's high-rise Metropolitan Correctional Center failed to guard him closely enough in 2012, thus enabling him to think he could escape. He and a cellmate had rappelled 17 floors with bed sheets, but Banks was re-arrested a few days later. Still, he claimed that the escape caused him great trauma, in addition to "humiliation and embarrassment" and "damage to his reputation." (In September, the U.S. Court of Appeals turned him down. Wrote the judges, "No one has a personal right to be better guarded.") [Associated Press via Fox News, 9-26-2015]

Many in conservative Jewish communities still practice the tradition of Kaporos on the day of atonement, but the critics were out in force in New York City's Borough Park neighborhood in September to protest the ritual's slaughter there of 50,000 chickens. (A synagogue raises money by "selling" chickens to members, who then have butchers swing the chickens overhead three times, thus transferring the owners' sins to the chickens. Ultimately, the chickens are beheaded, supposedly erasing the humans' sins. Protesters ask why not just donate money.) A judge refused to block the ritual but ordered police to enforce the sanitation laws governing the beheadings. [New York Daily News, 9-18-2015]

"London Zoo Monkey-Keeper and Meerkat-Keeper 'Fought Over Llama-Keeper'" (a British human love triangle, September, The Guardian). "Man Suffering From Constipation for 10 Years Has 11-Pound Stool Removed" (Chengdu, China, August, Central European News). "Naked Spanish Clowns Anger Palestinians" (a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Jerusalem backfired, September, YNet News). "Swedish Porn Star Jumps Into Spanish Bullfighting Ring to Comfort Dying Bull" (Malaga, Spain, September, The Local). [The Guardian (London), 9-25-2015] [Central European News via Fox News, 8-31-2015] [YNet News (Tel Aviv), 9-17-2015] [The Local (Stockholm) via Fox News Latino, 9-22-2015]

(1) In August, Che Hearn, 25, who police said had just shoplifted electronics items from the Wal-Mart in Round Lake Beach, Illinois, was picked up while on foot near the store. Police found that Hearn had actually driven his car to the Wal-Mart but that while he was inside shoplifting, a repo agent (who had followed him to the store) had confiscated it. (2) Astronaut Edgar Mitchell (the sixth man to walk on the moon) told a reporter in August that "my own experience talking to people" has made it clear that extraterrestrials are trying "to keep us from going to war" with Russia and that U.S. military officers have told him that their test missiles are "frequently" shot down "by alien spacecraft." [Lake County News-Sun, 8-7-2015] [Fox News, 8-15-2015]

Peter Frederiksen, 63, a gun shop owner in Bloemfontein, South Africa, was detained by police in September pending formal charges after his wife discovered 21 packages labeled as female genitals in their home freezer. There was no official explanation, but one officer called them the result of "mutilation of private parts of a woman, cut out and kept as trophies." One was marked with the name of a woman, "2010," and "Lesotho" (a kingdom within South Africa). [Associated Press via Huffington Post UK, 9-22-2015]

New Zealand's Waikato National Contemporary Art Award in September (2009) (worth the equivalent of $11,000) went to Dane Mitchell, whose installation consisted merely of the discarded packaging materials he had gathered from all the other exhibits vying for the prize. Mitchell named his pile "Collateral." (Announcement of the winner was poorly received by the other contestants.) [Waikato Times, 9-8-2009]

Thanks This Week to Gerald Sacks, Maria Nilles, Dave Kanofsky, Robin Daley, Chuck Hamilton, and Gary Goldberg, and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.