University of Oregon professor Mark Carey produced a 10,300-word journal article in January proposing a new sensitivity to Earth's melting icecaps: a "feminist glaciology framework" to "generate robust analysis of gender, power and epistemologies" with a goal of more "just and equitable" "human-ice interactions." The jargonized, densely worded tract suggests that melting icecaps can be properly understood only with more input from female scientists since, somehow, research so far disproportionately emphasizes climate change's impact on males. (The New York Post reported that the paper was funded by a National Science Foundation grant of $412,930.) [Progress in Human Geography, 1-8-2016] [New York Post, 3-8-2016]

Trying to put (as a critic charged) "lipstick on a pig," Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder boasted in March that the lead-in-the-water crisis plaguing the city of Flint for months now had actually spurred job growth. Though Snyder has been heavily criticized for tight-fisted budgeting that enabled the crisis, 81 temporary workers have been recently hired -- to hand out bottled water so that residents would not have to hydrate themselves with poisoned municipal water. [PoliticsCentral.org, 3-3-2016]

-- A senior federal administrative law judge recently claimed (and then, for good measure, repeated and emphasized) that, in his experience, "3-year-olds and 4-year-olds" do not need the help of lawyers to advocate for them in immigration proceedings. Teaching those kids their rights, Judge Jack Weil said, "takes a lot of time" and "a lot of patience," but there is no need for government to provide lawyers. (Weil, a U.S. Department of Justice employee, was contesting an American Civil Liberties Union claim at a recent deposition in an immigration case in Seattle.) [Washington Post, 3-3-2016]

-- Homeless people frequently store their few possessions in commandeered shopping carts, but New Yorker Sonia Gonzalez, 60, became a legend recently on Manhattan's West Side by maneuvering a stunning, block-long assemblage of more than 20 carts' worth of possessions along the sidewalks. Among the contents: an air conditioner, a laundry hamper, shower curtain rods, a wire shelving unit, wooden pallets, suitcases and, of course, bottles and cans. She moved along by pushing carts two or three at a time, a few feet at a time, blocking entrances to stores in the process. (The day after a New York Post story on Gonzalez's caravan, Mayor DiBlasio ordered city workers to junk everything not essential, leaving her with about one cart's worth.) [New York Post, 3-9-2016, 3-10-2016]

Mexico's latest female accessorizing craze is shellacking tiny dead scorpions onto fingernails, using the second-most venomous species of the arachnid, selling briskly at the Miss Unas parlor in Durango. In fact, while in town (according to a London Daily Mail dispatch from Durango), shoppers may check out the Raices restaurant, which pioneered tacos filled with still-wriggling scorpions (that had been soaked in surgical alcohol to neutralize the venom). [Daily Mail, 3-8-2016]

Power of Prayer: (1) Businessman Induvalu Suresh cut off, and donated, the little finger of his left hand recently at the Hindu pilgrimage site Tirupati, India, as homage to the gods for the granting of bail to prominent India leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, who are charged with fraudulent business practices in a case heavily politically weighted. (2) In October, a regional court in Nizhegorodsky, Russia, decided that the Russian Orthodox Church could pay off part of a debt for its new boiler spiritually. According to an Associated Press dispatch from Moscow, the church can settle the remaining debt, equivalent to $6,585, to the boiler company by paying $2,525 in rubles and the remainder by prayer. [Times of India, 1-9-2016] [Associated Press via Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2-16-2016]

-- In a suburb of Newcastle, Australia, in February, workers using a crane extracted a 1-ton snake-like mass of sewage (mostly "wet wipes" unwisely flushed down toilets) from an underground pipe -- with the gummed-together sludge reaching a height of more than 20 feet when the crane finally yanked the whole thing up. Said a representative of the water company, "(Y)ou'll flush the toilet, and the wet wipe will disappear," and you think (wrongly) it's therefore "flushable." [Australian Broadcasting Corp. News, 2-25-2016]

-- Making Canada Great Again: Syrian refugees arriving at the airport in Vancouver, British Columbia, have been warmly greeted personally in a video by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but in March some were inadvertently booked into the same hotel that was hosting the fifth annual VancouFur convention of "furries." Anthropomorphic, full-suited tigers, dogs, bears, foxes, etc., roamed the hotel, leading London's The Independent to report that the child refugees loved every minute, playing with the furries and posing for pictures. [The Independent, 3-9-2016]

The Cash Economy: China's Peoples Daily reported in January that Mr. Cai Zhanjiang (described as "tuhao," or "uncultured but still well-off") had just purchased a new truck from a dealer by driving another truck to the showroom and unloading 100,000 renminbi (about $15,300 U.S.) entirely in small bills -- a stash weighing about a half-ton. Shanghaiist.com also noted a story from June 2015 in which a man (likely also tuhao) bought a new vehicle with the equivalent of $104,670 -- almost all in coins. [Shanghaiist, 1-14-2016]

(1) The Tennessee senate voted in February to make its official state rifle the .50-caliber Barrett M82 rifle (big in the sniper community, with a range of 1.1 miles). (2) The Lance Toland Associates insurance company of Georgia said in February that it has issued Taurus handguns to each of its 12 employees as a required-carry for apparently dangerous aircraft insurance work. (3) University of Houston recommendations for faculty on the imminent extension of the right to open-carry firearms on state campuses included admonitions that professors "be careful discussing sensitive topics" and "not 'go there' if you sense anger." [Times Free Press (Chattanooga), 2-24-2016] [Associated Press via WNCN-TV (Goldsboro, N.C.), 2-21-2016] [USA Today, 2-24-2016]

In rural China, the black market for female corpses -- even already-buried corpses -- thrives still (as mentioned years ago by News of the Weird). According to legend dating back 30 centuries, men who die as bachelors will spend eternity alone, and thus their families arrange "ghost weddings," in which a corpse (presumably freshly buried) is stolen and relocated alongside the man. (Perhaps more important to the surviving family is the other part of the legend -- that any bachelor corpse will "return" to haunt the family.) [Daily Telegraph (London), 2-27-2016]

An option for suicide "with elegance and euphoria" is how Lithuanian-born Ph.D. candidate Julijonas Urbonas (London's Royal College of Art) described his "Euthanasia (Roller) Coaster," currently (2011) on the drawing board. Urbonas' model of "gravitational aesthetics" would be a one-third-mile-long, 1,600-foot-high thrill ride engineered to supply 10 Gs of centrifugal force (a spin at about 220 mph) to induce cerebral hypoxia, forcing blood away from the head and denying oxygen to the brain. Euphoria (and disorientation and anxiety, but not pain) would likely precede the brain's shutdown. Urbonas insisted that users would have the option through the first two minutes of the three-minute ride to rethink their decision and bail out (or else to push the final "FALL" button). [2016 Update: The Coaster remains a "concept"; rendering suicide "euphoric" is still not a societal priority.) [Discovery News, 9-19-2011]

Updated March 21, 2016: This column originally contained a story revealed to be a hoax that has been removed.

Seattle's ambitious Office of Arts & Culture has allocated $10,000 this year to pay a poet or writer to create a work while present on the city's Fremont Bridge drawbridge. The office's deputy director told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in January that the city wants to encourage "public art" and that the grant will oblige the recipient to create a work of prose or poetry from the bridge's northwest tower, to help the people of Seattle understand the function of art in the city. (The artist will not be "in residence," for the tower has no running water.) [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1-14-2016]

The dominant-submissive lifestyle soared to higher-brow status in February when The New York Times reported on the recent marriage of the celebrated composer of "moody, queasy" works (and compulsive dominant) Georg Friedrich Haas to Mollena Williams, who blogs introspectively about her own kinky bondage as "The Perverted Negress." Friedrich had introduced himself to her on a dating site with the note, "I would like to tame you," and credits her acceptance for his improved productivity -- because, he said, "I am not (any longer) disturbed by unfulfilled thoughts." Although Williams-Haas is a black woman submitting to a white man, she explained that, "To say I can't play my personal psychodrama out just because I'm black, that's racist." [New York Times, 2-24-2016]

-- Exasperated, Columbia County (Pennsylvania) District Judge Craig Long felt the need to post a sign outside his courtroom in January informing visitors that they should not wear pajamas to court. However, even Judge Long acknowledged that his admonition was not enforceable and that he was merely trying to encourage minimal standards. [WNEP-TV (Moosic, Pa.), 1-29-2016]

-- "Microaggression": In its brand-new communications stylebook this year for city workers, San Diego officials noted that the city's then-upcoming Presidents' Day announcements should, to be bias-free and inoffensive, never refer to America's "Founding Fathers" -- even though they were all males -- but only to "founders." [Pacific Justice Institute press release, 2-8-2016]

-- The roadside billboard giant Clear Channel Outdoor Americas announced in February that it would soon be recording the cellphone locations of drivers who pass the company's signs in 11 cities in order to give advertisers more information on how to pitch products to people with those particular travel patterns and behaviors. Clear Channel asserts that no individual identifications would be sought, but privacy advocates fret about potential abuses, and even a Clear Channel executive acknowledged that the program "does sound a bit creepy." (On the other hand, as Clear Channel pointed out to The New York Times, cellphone users' locations and characteristics are already being extensively monitored by advertisers.) [New York Times, 2-28-2016]

-- "Medical" marijuana will take on a new meaning soon if the Food and Drug Administration approves Foria Relief cannabis vaginal suppositories for relieving menstrual pain (from the California company Foria). Currently, the product is available only in California and Colorado, at $44 for a four-pack. The company claims the inserts are targeted to the pelvic nerve endings, but International Business Times, citing a gynecologist-blogger, noted that the only studies on the efficacy of Foria Relief were done on the uteruses of rats. [International Business Times UK, 2-2-2016]

-- A then-married couple, both graduates of elite California law schools, were convicted of felonies and went to jail briefly two years ago for a criminal scheme inexplicably tawdry -- and in February 2016 lost a resultant civil lawsuit for $5.7 million to the scheme's victim. A woman at their child's school had referred to the lawyers' son as "slow," enraging Kent Easter (University of California at Berkeley) and then-wife, Jill (UCLA), who retaliated by planting drugs and paraphernalia in Kelli Peters' car and then, a man identified via circumstantial evidence as Kent (with an accent as if from India), called in a DUI tip to police, resulting in Peters' arrest. According to Peters, neither perpetrator has ever expressed remorse, and although Kent admitted to "stupidity," he now complains that Peters does not deserve her windfall (like a "Powerball winner," he said). [Orange County Register, 2-6-2016]

-- The online-pornography colossus Pornhub's charity fundraising promotion during February benefited the Moclips Cetological Society ("Save the Whales") in honor of World Whale Day on Feb. 13. Its news release celebrated whales' sexuality -- that they, like humans, do not limit their horniness to procreation. The company said it would, from Feb. 8 to Feb. 29, donate a penny for every 2,000 videos played on its ubiquitous free websites. (That offer might appear modest, but a Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporter noted, over the first two days, the world's porn consumers had played 532 million videos -- earning the charity $2,660.) [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 2-10-2016]

Vicky Leyton, 72, announced her retirement recently in Benidorm, Spain, over health concerns, but the lady's 30-year run in her one-of-a-kind, "Sticky Vicky" magic show can hardly be forgotten by the 6 million fans who have witnessed it. Trained as a ballerina but emulating magicians who pull rabbits out of top hats, Vicky extracted an impressive array of items, also -- from the body cavity that is occasionally the subject of News of the Weird stories. One review in Spain's El Pais newspaper described a typical inventory: fluffy flags, flowers, ping-pong balls, sausages, eggs, a string of razor blades, a bottle and a light bulb (that was aglow!). [The Local (Madrid), 2-22-2016]

Additional Details Needed: (1) Andrew McNeil, 34, was arrested in Lincoln, Nebraska, in January and charged with disturbing the peace. According to the police report (and lacking follow-up reporting by local news outlets), McNeil was found around 11 p.m. naked and "covered in sawdust." (2) Rob Moore, 32, was arrested for misdemeanor drug possession in Marathon, Florida, in February, but he had only come to police attention when an officer heard him banging on the trunk of his car from the inside. Without follow-up reporting, Moore's story was that he was looking for something in the trunk, fell in, and couldn't get out. [KETV (Omaha), 1-22- 2016] [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 2-4-2016]

-- Perps Who Needed to Hit the Gym: (1) Anthony Nemeth, 26, seeking pain medication but lacking a prescription, leaped over the pharmacy counter of a Walgreens in Bradenton, Florida, in February and demanded a supply. Customer David West, 25, standing at the counter with his girlfriend, ended the "robbery" with four quick punches, sending Nemeth to the floor. (West is a competitive boxer and reportedly a former state champion.) (2) Wheelchair-user Betty Jeffery, 76, was briefly the victim of a purse-snatching in Pitsea, England, in February. She appeared vulnerable, but in fact is a former national arm-wrestling champion and slugged the young female thief in the face, slowing her down and leading her to drop the purse as she fled. [WFLA-TV (Tampa), 2-17-2016] [Braintree & Witham Times, 2-18-2016]

-- Didn't Think It Through: (1) Simon Chaplin, 62, thought he had cleverly evaded police near Hebron, England, recently (thus avoiding a speeding ticket) by employing a do-it-yourself, James Bond-style smokescreen device on his Peugeot sedan, facilitating a smoggy getaway. Initially, baffled police officers were forced to hang back, but of course as the haze broke, they merely followed the smoke trail up ahead and caught Chaplin (who was convicted in Swansea Crown Court in February). (2) The man who tried to vandalize a cafe in the Richmond suburb of Melbourne, Australia, in February, got away, but surveillance video showed that, in dousing the outside of the building with fire accelerant, he had also doused his own shoes and was spotted running off with his feet on fire. [Daily Mail (London), 2-16-2016] [9News.com (Melbourne), 2-18-2016]

Unclear on the Concept: A Singaporean army draftee caused a public stir in March (2011) when he was photographed by a visitor as he underwent physical training in army fatigues but with his maid following behind him carrying his backpack on her shoulders. (Army officials told reporters the draftee had since been "counsel(ed).") [BBC News, 4-5-2011]

In February, New York's highest court finally said "enough" to the seemingly endless delays on a multimillion-dollar judgment for negligence that occurred 23 years ago. Linda Nash had sued, among others, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for injuries she suffered when trapped in an underground parking garage during the World Trade Center terrorist act. (No, not the one in 2001, but the bombing eight years before that, which killed six and wounded more than 1,000). Nash was 49 that day and 72 now, and after winning a $5.4 million jury verdict in 2005, endured 10 more years of appeals. In its final, unsuccessful motion in the case, the Port Authority said it had spotted a technicality and that Nash should start over. [New York Post, 2-21-2016]

"Nostalgia," Gone Too Far: Retired engineer Harry Littlewood, 68, watching workers tear down outdated public housing in Stockport, England, recently, rushed over to ask the local Stockport Council about recovering a "souvenir" since the teardowns included his residence growing up. The council agreed, and Littlewood was awarded the toilet he had used as a boy. "I never thought I'd see it again," he mused. He said he would probably turn it into a planter. [Manchester Evening News, 2-1-2016]

-- Evangelicals Applaud Sexual Predator: The Jacksonville (Florida) City Council was addressing a proposed amendment to its Human Rights Ordinance (one that would specifically protect gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders) in January when Roy Bay, 56, stood during the comment period and insisted that those kinds of lifestyle protections are what led him on a 20-year history of molesting one little boy after another. Gasps in the audience turned into cheers, however, when he reported that he had abandoned his bad self after becoming a "born-again child of God," and realizing that it was not "acceptable" to assault kids even though he was raised in such an environment himself. (Conveniently, the crimes are not prosecutable because of the statute of limitations. Fact-checkers, including FloridaPolitics.com, are still investigating Bay's claims.) [Folio Weekly (Jacksonville), 1-20-2016]

-- Local governments in Taiwan's Southwest Coast National Scenic Area in Chiayi province recently put the finishing touches on a 55-foot-high "church" in the form of a shoe made from more than 300 glass panels (and costing the equivalent of about $680,000). According to a BBC News dispatch, no religious services will be held there; rather, the church will be a destination for weddings and feature other events tailored for glass-slipper-obsessed females. [BBC News, 1-15-2016]

-- Prosecutors in Spain finally filed charges this year against three women for a May 2014 protest that was apparently aimed at religious intolerance of homosexuality, and are asking that the charges against the women be labeled anti-Catholic "hate" crimes. One judge particularly noted the anti-Catholic props -- rosary beads, prayer lace, canonical hoods, and a 6-foot-high plastic vulva constructed to resemble the well-known representation of the Virgin Mary. In January, judges called police to court to help identify the women in videos of the protest. [Daily Mail (London), 2-4-2016]

Progressives' Anxiety Disorder: Several students at the Ivy League's Brown University complained (quoted in a February story in the student newspaper) that classroom work (ostensibly what Brown charges $50,000 a year in tuition for) was increasingly a burden, distracting them from their more important calling: organizing and protesting against various "injustices" on campus. Students were underperforming academically (and suffering health problems and anxiety issues) because, said the students, Brown still expects them to complete course requirements even though they are busy denouncing racist columns in the student newspaper and challenging the weakness of Brown's "diversity" policies (among other targets). [Washington Post, 2-23-2016] [Brown Daily Herald, 2-18-2016]

-- According to a former spy for the Soviet Union, dictator Josef Stalin so distrusted his Communist China counterpart Mao Zedong during the 1940s that when Mao visited the USSR, Soviet engineers arranged to capture his bowel movements so that Stalin's scientists could examine them chemically to form a psychological profile. Spy Igor Atamanenko found evidence that other world leaders received similar treatment. Among the indicators: High levels of the amino acid tryptophan signaled the person was calm and approachable, and lack of potassium portended nervousness and insomnia.) [BBC News, 1-28-2016]

-- Williams Lake, British Columbia, has the most violent crime per capita for its size (pop. 10,800) of any town in Canada, and in February the city council unanimously passed a dramatic action plan: to inject "high risk" criminals with "GPS tracking" devices. The program was immediately denounced by privacy advocates, but that challenge is almost beside the point -- since injectable GPS tracking does not even exist. (Councilors likely confused implantable microchips, which contain data but do not track, with GPS transponders, which track but only via sight-line contact with a satellite.) [CTV News (Vancouver), 2-25-2016]

-- The three young men charged so far in the Feb. 17 murder in a South Carolina bowling alley made their first post-crime courtroom appearances memorable ones. According to a WYFF-TV (Greenville, South Carolina) report, Albert Taylor, 22 (and labeled as the shooter by police), seemed indifferent to the charges, but questioned the judge about courtroom cameras, appearing preoccupied. As he was being ushered out, he turned to address the camera and barked, "What's up, y'all? You can follow me on Twitter, follow me on Instagram, Snapchat." [WYFF-TV, 2-19-2016]

-- Alex Smith, 38, asked a sheriff's deputy in Limestone County, Alabama, at 3 a.m. on Feb. 19 for a "courtesy ride" to a nearby Wal-Mart, and the deputy agreed, but following procedure, said he'd have to search Smith before letting him into the patrol car, and according to the subsequent arrest report, Smith, needing the ride, consented. The deputy then turned up a veritable drug supply store in Smith's pockets, his backpack and his duffel bags: drugs (meth, marijuana and black tar heroin), two syringes, a drug cooking spoon, two marijuana pipes, a meth smoking pipe, and a supply of baggies of the type frequently used for drugs. Smith was charged with drug possession and trafficking. [Al.com (Birmingham), 2-22-2016]

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen (who left the company early, and like Bill Gates, became known for his philanthropy, which has been directed toward conservation projects including coral reef restorations) is the owner of the 300-foot yacht whose anchor in January accidentally crushed 14,000 square feet (about 80 percent) of the Cayman Islands' precious West Bay coral reef. Harm to the islands' ecosystem, world-famous for its diversity, will not quickly be repaired, said officials. The MV Tatoosh's business in the area was not reported, but Allen was not aboard. Cayman Islands is a popular Caribbean vacation and diving spot (and, of course, tax haven). [The Guardian (London), 1-28-2016] [National Geographic, 1-16-2016]

Australian Neville Sharp brought his "A" game to a pub in the Darwin suburb of Humpty Doo in February and, in a Guinness World Record attempt, expelled a 110.6-decibel belch (which, if certified by Guinness book officials, beats the old record of 109.9 by a gentleman in the U.K.). Sharp gives all credit to his sister for teaching him, as a child, proper belching technique. [Australian Broadcasting Corp. News, 2-23-2016]

When Tattoos Aren't Nearly Enough: In some primitive cultures, beauty and status are displayed via large holes in the earlobe from which to hang heavy ornaments or to insert jewels or tokens, and BBC News reported in November (2011) that an "increasing" number of counterculture Westerners are getting their lobes opened far beyond routine piercing, usually by gradually stretching but sometimes with a hole-punch tool. The hard core are "gauge kings (or queens)," showing a "commitment" to the lifestyle by making holes up to 10mm (3/8 inch) wide. (Cosmetic surgeons told BBC News that they're already preparing procedures for the inevitable wave of regretted decisions.) [BBC News, 11-21-2011]