According to the flabbergasted sheriff of rural Chesterfield County, South Carolina, "This has completely changed our definition of (what constitutes) an 'ass-load' of guns." Brent Nicholson, 51, had been storing more than 7,000 firearms (most of them likely stolen) in his home and a storage building on his property. Every room of the house was stacked with weapons, and it took four tractor-trailer trips to haul everything away, with help of 100 law-enforcement officers. Nicholson also had 500 chainsaws, at least 250 taxidermied deer, elk, and alligator heads, and more. No motive was obvious to deputies. (Nicholson would still be living in the shadows today if he hadn't run that stop sign on Oct. 21 with bogus license plates on his truck.) [WSOC-TV (Charlotte, N.C.), 11-11-2015] [Headlines & Global News (New York), 12-5-2015]

-- The Human Fanny Pack: Brandon Wilson, 26, was arrested in November in Cedar Rapids, Iowa -- his second bust of 2015 in which a substantial number of crack cocaine "baggies" were found in his rectum. Fifty-one were recovered this time (counting the ones with marijuana), down from the 109 discovered in his February arrest. Police in November also found $1,700 cash on him (but just in his pocket). [KCRG-TV (Cedar Rapids), 12-1-2015]

-- Following the release of Apple's yearly financials in October (and based on sales of its iPhone 6), the company announced that, apart from other assets, it was sitting on $206 billion in cash -- about like owning the entire gross domestic product of Venezuela, but all in cash. Another way of expressing it: Using only its cash, Apple could buy every single NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL team, plus the 20 most valuable international soccer teams -- and still have plenty left. Or, as the BGR.com blog also pointed out, it could instead simply give every man, woman and child in America $646 (coincidentally, about what a new iPhone 6 sells for). [BGR.com, 11-3-2015]

-- Even if Armageddon doesn't happen, the CEO of the massive online retailer Overstock.com believes there is a "10 to 20 percent" chance of a world financial meltdown in the next few years, and he is arranging to be back in business in the aftermath. Patrick Byrnes told the New York Post in November he has stashed away enough food in a well-fortified facility in Utah's Granite Mountain to serve his 2,000 employees for "30 to 60 days," along with several thousand other emergency preparations and $10 million in gold. But, he insisted, he's not a gun-toting "prepper"; the plan is only about tiding employees over until the Internet and banking systems are back up and running. [New York Post, 11-15-2015]

-- In November in Harare, Zimbabwe, Mison Sere, 42, was judged winner of the 4th annual "Mister Ugly" contest after showcasing his seemingly random dental arrangement (some teeth there, some not) and "wide range of grotesque facial expressions," according to an Associated Press dispatch. However, many in the crowd thought their favorite was even uglier and threatened to riot. "I am naturally ugly," said a jealous (former winner) William Masvinu; "He (Sere) is ugly only when he opens his mouth." [BBC News, 11-23-2015]

-- Cool Moms? (1) Jennifer Terry, 44, was charged with driving her daughter and several other minors around Riverdale, Utah, in August to facilitate their tossing eggs at 10 to 20 homes. Some damage was reported, but so far, Terry is the only one charged. (2) Mandy Wells, 32, told police that she thought "for a minute" that it was a bad idea, "but did it anyway" -- she invited 10 kids (aged 12 to 14) to her home for a party and served beer and marijuana. Wells, of Springtown, Texas, said her daughter, 14, smokes marijuana because the girl (go figure!) suffers from depression. [Ogden Standard examiner, 12-1-2015] [The Smoking Gun, 11-25-2015]

Kuala Lumpur International Airport took out ads in two Malaysian daily newspapers in December to find the owners of three Boeing 747-200Fs parked there for months (one for at least a year) and threatening to auction them off in 14 days if not claimed. Two are white, and one is "off-white" (if the reader is checking his inventory). The planes' last listed owner said it sold them in 2008. [CNN, 12-8-2015]

-- Russian artist Pyotr Pavlensky, 31, has devoted his career to getting on the government's nerves and succeeded once again in November. (News of the Weird last mentioned him in 2013 when he nailed his scrotum to the floor in Moscow's Red Square to protest police oppression.) In his latest event, he set fire to the front door of the headquarters of Russia's security service (the FSB, formerly KGB) and has been detained -- though from his cell, he demanded his charge of "vandalism" be changed to "terrorism." A member of the Russian band Pussy Riot called the door fire "the most important work of contemporary art of recent years." Pavlensky once sewed his lips together protesting arrests of Pussy Riot. [Global Post (Boston), 12-3-2015]

-- Following prosperous news reported here (from New York, the Czech Republic and Massachusetts), the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster of New Zealand announced on Dec. 10 that the country's official records now recognize the Church as a legal sanctioner of marriages. The Church must now nominate an "official marriage celebrant" (who will be known as "His Noodly Honour"). [Stuff.co.nz (Wellington), 12-15-2015]

-- Matthew Riggins had told his girlfriend earlier that he and a pal were planning to burglarize some homes around Barefoot Bay in Brevard County, Florida, and was apparently on that mission on Nov. 23 when an alert resident called 911, and the men scrambled. The accomplice was caught several days later, but Riggins himself did not survive the night -- having taken refuge in nearby woods and drowning trying to outswim an apparently hungry 11-foot alligator. [WFTV (Orlando), 12-8-2015]

-- According to police, Ryan Liskow, 36, badly violating the crime-novel "rule" about not returning to the scene of the crime, is now awaiting trial for robbing the Sterling State Bank in Rochester, Minnesota, on Dec. 14 --and 15. An on-scene reporter for KIMT-TV was on the air on the 15th describing the first robbery, unaware that Liskow was inside robbing it again, and as Liskow emerged on foot with a bank employee in pursuit, reporter Adam Sallet helped point out Liskow, who was soon arrested. [KIMT- TV (Mason City, Iowa), 12-15-2015, 12-16-2015]

Arrested for burglary, in Porthcawl, Wales, November: Christopher Badman. Charged in two shootings in Medina County, Texas, November: Shane Outlaw. Arrested for allegedly having sex with a child, in Springfield, Massachusetts, December: Mr. Long Dinh Duong. Arrested for trespassing at a Budweiser brewery in St. Louis, Missouri, December: Mr. Bud Weisser, 19. Credited with rescuing two women from a man who was terrifying strangers on the street in Toronto on Nov. 22: the local professional clown Doo Doo (Shane Faberman). (Bonus: Doo Doo was in costume when he made the rescue.) (Also in the news was a "Vietnamese man" supposedly named Phuc Dat Bich, who had trouble getting Facebook to register his name. Despite having several mainstream-media outlets gullibly cover his complaint in mid-November, he admitted a week later that the name is bogus.) Badman: [BBC News, 11-10-2015] Outlaw: [MySanAntonio.com, 11-22-2015] Duong: [The Republican (Springfield), 12-5-2015] Weisser: [KTVI-TV (St. Louis), 12-4-2015] Doo Doo: [Washington Post, 11-24-2015] Bich: [CNN, 11-25-2015]

Parents of the 450 pupils (aged 3-11) at Applecroft primary school in Welwyn Garden City, England, were given individualized yearbooks recently (2010) with all the children's faces obscured by black bars over the eyes (except for photos of the recipient's own children, which had no obstructions). The precautions (described by one parent as "creepy," like kids were "prisoners") were ordered by headmistress Vicky Parsley, who feared that clear photos of children would inevitably wind up in child pornography. The year before, Parsley had prohibited parents from taking photographs during school plays -- of their kids or any others -- for the same fear. [Daily Mail, 11-27-2010]

As if 2015 weren't bad enough for the Department of Homeland Security (e.g., in June, internal DHS tests revealed that its Transportation Security Administration failed to stop 67 of 70 guns passing through airport screeners), a U.S. congressman revealed in December that, based on a congressional staff investigation, 72 DHS employees currently appear on the FBI's terrorist watch list. He admitted to Boston Public Radio that DHS's record makes him squeamish about our ability to vet Syrian refugees. (Being on the FBI list is not a prohibited category for buying guns, either, and in fact, the Government Accountability Office reported that 91 percent of listees' attempts to purchase guns in the last 10 years succeeded.) [WGBH Radio (Boston), 12-6-2015] [Washington Post, 11-16-2015]

-- The vice president of human resources at the Washington Post issued a formal memo in December to reassure female employees in its sleek new office building that people in the seveth floor's central "hub" could definitely not see up their skirts as they walked on the indoor eighth-floor balcony overhang, even through the clear glass barriers. The memo cited HR's "multiple" futile attempts, from many viewing angles, to see no-no's, and thus concluded that the ladies are safe. Nonetheless, the memo encouraged all employees, when in the seventh floor "hub," not to look up. [Washingtonian, 12-9-2015]

-- Dr. Raymond Schinazi was a federal government employee when he led the team that discovered sofosbuvir, which completely cures hepatitis C patients with an 84-pill regimen, but, as he recently told CBS News, he only worked for the government "7/8th's" of the time -- and, conveniently, it was during the other 1/8th that he found sofosbuvir. He admits now that he made $400 million selling his sofosbuvir company in 2012 to Gilead Sciences, which famously set sofosbuvir's price for 84 pills to $84,000. Now, the Department of Veterans Affairs, with 233,000 war vets with hep-C, tells Congress that it needs much more money, even though Gilead has "cut" the VA's price in half (to $42,000 per treatment, or $9.66 billion). (In a 2013 medical journal, Dr. Schinazi revealed that sofosbuvir could be manufactured for about $17 a pill, or $1,400 for an entire treatment.) [CBS News, 12-1-2015]

-- Famously, of course, no central characters from big banks went to jail for crashing the economy and causing thousands to lose their homes and jobs, but the U.S. Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission seem rather proud that at least they pressured several banks to pay the government billions of dollars in civil-case settlements. However, the activist group U.S. PIRG revealed in December that of the 10 largest such federal settlements, where banks and corporations paid a total of $80 billion, more than half was characterized as tax-deductible. (In addition, of course, all of the $80 billion was ultimately paid by the banks' and corporations' stockholders rather than by wrongdoing employees.) [New York Times, 12-3-2015]

-- "It may be the most confusing traffic light you've ever seen," wrote The Boston Globe in December, describing a pedestrian crossing in Cambridge, Massachusetts. If the three clusters of three lights each are dark, drivers proceed. If a pedestrian comes along, one light will blink yellow, then solid yellow, then two solid yellows, then two reds, until two flashing red lights in each cluster appear -- and in Cambridge (and only Cambridge!), flashing red lights mean ... go (unless pedestrians are actually present). The city has prepared a 12-diagram pamphlet to explain the whole thing, and officials say they have statistical proof from tests that the system enhances safety. [Boston Globe, 12-4-2015]

-- It was Nick Silvestri, 19, of Seaford, Long Island, who, seated in the orchestra section of the Broadway comedy "Hand to God" on July 2, left his seat to plug his iPhone into an "electrical outlet" on the stage set. Actors, patrons, and management went nuts, but Silvestri ultimately was allowed to stay, and the show resumed. The set designer Beowulf Boritt said later he was proud that he had created a stage set so realistic that the electrical outlet (which of course was attached to nothing) looked so authentic. [Playbill, 7-9-2015, 7-8-2015]

The Angelina County Sheriff's Office (Lufkin, Texas) reported responding to a 911 call about shots fired at a home on Nov. 8, but made no arrest. The male resident was sitting in his pickup, admittedly drunk, and having listened to a "sad song" on his favorite station, he of course pulled his .22-caliber pistol and shot the radio. According to the report, "Suspect's wife took possession of the handgun and suspect." [KTRE-TV (Lufkin), 11-11-2015]

Sweet: (1) As deputy leader of Scotland's South Lanarkshire Council, Jackie Burns was instrumental in the budgetary closing of all 24 public toilets in the area. In November, Burns was fined (the equivalent of about $60) after he, out on the town, could hold it in no longer and urinated in the street. (2) Hector Segura, 29, in town for a Washington, D.C., conference on drug policy reform (with most attendees certain that the "war on drugs" has failed) was found by police naked in a flower bed in a neighborhood near his hotel in Arlington, Virginia, with (according to police) "bath salts" the culprit. It required two Taser shots to subdue him as he pounded on a squad car. [New York magazine, 11-12-2015] [WRC-TV (Washington), 11-23-2015]

China's love of beef, plus a regulation requiring that live animals imported for food be slaughtered within 55 miles of entry port, has created big business for the Australian cattle exporter Elders, which uses double-deck Boeing 747s whose only main-deck passengers "moo" instead of complain about leg room. (Business-class humans still travel upstairs.) Without the flights, the 55-mile rule could be met only by coastal Chinese cities, thus ignoring inland gourmets demanding fresh meat. Unlike the well-fed upper-deck passengers, the cattle get minimal food -- for obvious reasons. [Business Week, 11-23-2015]

Not Ready for Prime Time: (1) Kenneth Rogers, 45, was arrested in November and charged with breaking into a home in Cape San Blas, located in the Florida panhandle. A burglar alarm notified police, who found Rogers still in the house because he had accidentally locked himself in a room. (2) In Gloucester, England, Jamie Sharp, 25, stole a Porsche and was in the process of telephoning friends to brag when he crashed, pinning himself inside until rescuers (and police) arrived. In December, he was sentenced to four years in prison. [The Star (Port St. Joe), 11-30-2015] [Press Association via The Guardian (London), 12-1-2015]

Villagers in Betul, India (in Madhya Pradesh state), celebrate on the day following Diwali -- the huge "festival of lights" -- a good-luck practice of dipping their children into a pool of cow dung, which they view as so "pure" that it will help bring them a life free of ailments. (The cow, of course, is viewed as sacred by India's Hindus, and its dung and urine have long been thought to have medicinal qualities.) The latest series of videos depicting the ritual appeared on India Today in December. [India Today, 12-4-2015]

Drugs -- Is There Nothing They Can't Do? Brandon Terry and Ms. Casey Fowler were detained after calling 911 five times to report possums jumping out of their refrigerator and microwave, worms from their floor, and midgets in camouflage. They denied any drug use, but police said it was likely "bath salts." (Spartanburg, S.C., November) [WYFF-TV (Greenville, S.C., 11-10-2015]

"Tall, slim, facial symmetry" and "good teeth," along with classic makeup and dress and graceful movement, might comprise the inventory list for any beauty contest winner, and they indeed are also the criteria for victors in Niger's traditional "Gerewol" festival -- except that contestants are males and all judges are females. A side benefit for the judges, according to a January (2011) BBC News report, is that whomever a judge selects, she is allowed to marry him (or have a fling), irrespective of any pre-existing marriage of either party. [BBC News, 1-20-2011]

In November, lawyer Michael Petersen of Appleton, Wisconsin, was ordered by county judge Philip Kirk (in a sentence for contempt of court) to inform every client he acquires in the following 12 months that Petersen is a "crook," "cheat," "thief" and "liar." Kirk concluded that Peterson had lied about a plea deal with the prosecutor and created phony documents for backup, leading a client to plead guilty to armed robbery when the prosecutor said there was never such a deal. According to the Appleton Post Crescent, Kirk (after dressing down Petersen in colorful language) told him, "I want you to have as much business as a pimp in a nursing home." [Appleton Post Crescent, 11-19-2015]

-- Pastor Thom Miller, 60 (of the United Christian Ministries International in Mansfield, Ohio), told an international news crew recently that he had "married" his 19-year-old pregnant girlfriend (Reba Kerfoot), but that some in his congregation disapprove -- because Miller is already married (though his incumbent wife, Belinda, 44, apparently does approve). Said Belinda, "Thom is the love of my life and Reba is the blessing of my life, so it all works." Said Miller, "Sexually I have no preference and look forward to my time alone with both wives." (Bonuses: (1) Miller was an enforcer for organized crime in Cleveland until he "found God" in prison. (2) He is annoyed that Ohio recognizes same-sex marriage but not polygamy. (3) The local Mansfield News Journal was apparently scooped on the story but is now catching up.) [Mansfield News Journal, 12-1-2015]

-- Mexican artist Renato Garza Cervera's work usually involves realistic-looking figures created to startle (e.g., a "piggy bank" as a scowling hog of a man down on all fours), but his recent "gang member" floor rugs seem a career peak. Rejecting bear rugs and lion rugs, Cervera's "Of Genuine Contemporary Beast" project features exquisitely constructed, life-size, snarling, naked, heavily tattooed men's bodies (as if skinned) as rugs, representing "modern" beasts -- Salvadorean gang members. Actually, Cervera told Vice.com he intended sympathy: "Societies always invent new beasts in order to make others responsible for their problems." [Vice.com, 9-3-2015]

-- Las Vegas police continue to investigate Kimberly Knight after a video surfaced on her fetish pornography website purporting to be of a medical doctor performing a breast-enlargement procedure and then immediately having sex with the patient. KTNV-TV has questioned Knight on the authenticity of the claims, and she seemed to back off slightly, describing the surgeon as a "medical student," then characterizing the whole thing as a "mistake." As of early December, Knight had not been charged with a crime. [KTNV, 11-7-2015]

-- Justice! In September, federal judge Cathy Seibel ordered the town of Liberty, New York (100 miles from New York City), to stand trial for failure to teach police and prosecutors proper free-speech law -- thus giving plaintiff Willian Barboza revenge for his arrest for writing a "crude" message on the speeding ticket he paid three years ago. Seibel ruled that Barboza's phrase (urging intercourse upon the manure-like town) posed no "imminent" threat and, besides, was obviously just a complaint about government services. Seibel also raised the possibility that money damages will come from the prosecutor's own pocket. [Associated Press via Yahoo News, 9-16-2015]

-- Dr. Bilgin Ciftci was fired in October from Turkey's Public Health Institution and later charged with violating one of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's favorite laws -- against "insulting" the president (which carries a maximum four-year prison term) -- because Ciftci had joined a Turkish Facebook thread that was denouncing Erdogan with facial images comparing him to the "Lord of the Rings" character Gollum. The judge, admitting his unfamiliarity, appointed a five-person group of experts to advise him whether the Erdogan-Gollum comparison was "insulting." ("The Lord of the Rings" film director Peter Jackson immediately protested that the images depict not Gollum but his benign alter ego Smeagol, making the comparison obviously uninsulting.) [Washington Post, 12-2-2015; The Guardian (London), 12-3-2015]

-- Scientists from Australia's University of Queensland have developed "swimsuits" to act as diapers for six giant loggerhead turtles as they study their diets by examining their feces. "To our great surprise," said one researcher, they "worked perfectly." The suits were easy to put on, comfortable for the sea turtles to wear (according to the researchers, not the turtles), looked great (ditto), and we were "able to collect the entire fecal sample," he bragged to a London Daily Telegraph reporter in Sydney. [Daily Telegraph, 10-2-2015]

-- After all, leeches are interesting and thus someone has to study them, and Mark Siddall, curator of invertebrates at the American Museum of Natural History, is that person. These leeches are easily found, but only in the rear ends of hippopotamuses, he noted, and told Wired.com in August that if a creature can exploit a niche others cannot, it has a monopoly on food. "The only part on the hippo that's vascularized enough to get a good blood meal (is) the rectal region." (Making life worse for these leeches, they lack the strong jaws of other leeches and must instead use a nose-like organ that, writes Wired, it "snakes" into the vascular tissue.) [Wired.com, 8-28-2015]

Damon Matthews, 19, surrendered to police in Bay City, Michigan, in November and confessed to robbing a 7-Eleven. His sister had convinced Matthews that police would soon arrive to apprehend him because, even though he wore a ski-mask "disguise," Matthews is 7-foot-4 and a former high school classmate of the clerk. It was left unreported why Matthews thought the mask would help him. [The Smoking Gun, 12-1-2015]

-- Once again, someone minding his own business here became royalty elsewhere. This time, it was a 32-year-old Vancouver, British Columbia, man with a wife and baby, working as a gardener -- until he learned that a 6,000-person tribe in Ghana wanted him for their king. Thus, Eric Manu, a nephew of the king who died in 2013, was asked in July 2015 to come take over (part-time, at least), and by tradition, Manu's Canadian wife will join him as queen ("mother of all mothers"). Eric said the couple will do whatever they can to improve lives in their village. [Global News (Vancouver), 11-20-2015]

-- Achan Agit presents a worst-case scenario for the weirdness in how some state governments over-regulate professions, and she is currently suing the Iowa Board of Cosmetology Arts & Sciences for burdening her right to make a living. As Forbes.com reported in October, Achan was a war refugee from what is currently South Sudan and is now a permanent resident of the United States -- and skilled in braiding hair, which she learned from elders when she was 5. However, a licensed braider in Iowa (maximum penalty if caught unlicensed: prison, plus a $10,000 fine) needs a high school diploma or equivalent and 2,100 hours of cosmetology coursework -- more than the combined training for dental assistants, bus drivers, EMTs, child care workers and security guards -- and for which Iowa's 27 cosmetology "schools" might charge up to $22,000. [Forbes.com, 10-28-2015]

-- Undignified Death: On Dec. 2, a 48-year-old woman in Alicante, Spain, who according to neighbors had suffered from depression and was likely trying to commit suicide, leaped from her seventh-floor balcony -- but failed. She was hospitalized in stable condition after landing on an elderly gentleman sitting on a bench (who did not survive the collision). [The Local (Madrid), 12-3-2015]

Scientists Just Wanna Have Fun: A team of whimsy-loving researchers at the University of Osaka (Japan) Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences has produced a strain of mice prone to "miscopying" DNA -- making them susceptible to sometimes-unexpected mutations, such as the recently born mouse that tweets like a bird. Lead researcher Arikuni Uchimura told London's Daily Telegraph that he had expected to produce, instead, a mouse with an odd shape, but the "singing" mouse emerged. Previously, the team produced a mouse with dachshund-like short limbs. [Daily Telegraph, 12-10-2010]

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