A country-and-western radio station in Benson, Arizona (near Tucson), owned by Paul Lotsof, has periodically run "public service announcements" about one of Lotsof's pet peeves: the harsh sentences usually given to mere "collectors" of child pornography. Many, he believes, are non-dangerous, daydreaming hermits -- but often imprisoned for long stretches. Thus, his PSAs publicize tips for avoiding the police, such as saving child porn only on an external computer drive (and hiding the drive securely). Despite recent community outrage (causing Lotsof to retire the announcements), he remains defiant that, since he personally avoids child porn, he is merely exercising a free-speech right. [Washington Post, 5-11-2017]

-- The inexplicable ease with which foreign hackers attack U.S. computers and security systems is finally grabbing the attention of officials. In a March Washington Post report, a technology expert from Britain's King's College London told a reporter of his astonishment to realize that the "security chips" on Congressional staff members' identification badges are fake: The badge "doesn't actually have a proper chip," he said. "It has a picture of a chip." Apparently, he added, "It's (there) only to prevent chip envy." [Washington Post, 3-31-2017]

-- Suzette Welton has been in prison in Alaska for 17 years based almost solely on now-debunked forensic evidence, but the state's lack of a clemency process means she cannot challenge her life sentence unless she proves "complete" innocence. Evidence that the fire that killed her son was "arson" was based not on science but on widely believed (but wrong) folklore on how intentional fires burn differently than accidental ones. (The bogus arson "trademarks" are similar to those used to convict Texan Cameron Todd Willingham, who suffered an even worse fate than Welton's: Willingham was executed for his "arson" in 2004.) [Alaska Dispatch News, 5-14-2017]

-- Reverence for the lineage of asparagus continues in epic yearly Anglican church festivities in Worcester, England, where in April celebrants obtained a special blessing for the vegetable by local priests as a costumed asparagus pranced through the street praising the stalks as representing "the generosity of God." Critics (including clergy from other parishes) likened the parades to a Monty Python sketch, and "an infantile pantomime," with one pleading plaintively, "Really, for (God's) sake," can't the Church of England offer "more dignified" worship? [Daily Telegraph, 4-25-2017]

(1) Andrew Bogut, signed as a free agent by the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers in March and expected to be a key player in the team's quest to defend its league championship, checked into his first game and played 58 seconds before crashing into a bench and breaking his leg. For that 58 seconds, the Cavs owe Bogut $383,000. (2) Jose Calderon signed as a free agent with the Golden State Warriors in March, but the NBA-leading Warriors changed their mind (for unforeseen reasons) two hours after the deal and released Calderon. For his 119 minutes as a Warrior (6:06 p.m. to 8:05 p.m.), Calderon was paid $415,000. [Cleveland.com, 3-7-2017] [San Jose Mercury News, 3-2-2017]

-- In May, as Taunton, Massachusetts, police were about to arrest Amy Rebello-McCarthy, 39, for DUI after she left the road and crashed through several mailboxes (with the crash causing all of her tires to deflate), she, laughing, told officers there was one other thing: She had a bearded dragon in her bra (where it was riding while she drove). The lizard was turned over to animal control. [Providence Journal, 5-16-2017]

-- Felicia Nevins complained to reporters in May that the Pasco County (Florida) Sheriff's Office had improperly drawn attention to her on a matter of a purely personal nature -- that she had called for help, concerned that the sperm she was storing for in-vitro fertilization (kept under liquid nitrogen in a thermos) might explode. Deputies had placed the details (but not her name) on the office's Facebook page, but the Tampa Bay Times deduced her name from public sources. [Tampa Bay Times, 5-20-2017]

In a legislative battle waged since a 1979 state court decision, some North Carolinians tried once again this year to change a state law that explicitly states that once a person (almost always, of course, a "female") has "consented" to an act of sexual intercourse, that consent cannot be withdrawn -- even if the encounter turns violent. (The violence might be prosecuted as an "assault," but never the more serious crime of "rape.") Said state Sen. Jeff Jackson, whose bill to change the law failed in April to get a legislative hearing, "We're the only state in the country where 'no' doesn't mean 'no.'" [WRAL-TV (Raleigh-Durham), 5-2-2017]

-- Skills: (1) In May, the British tribunal dealing with student cheating rejected the appeal of a law student who was caught taking an in-class exam with her textbook open (permitted) but containing handwritten notes in the margins -- not permitted, but written in invisible ink legible via the UV light on her pen. (2) On testing day in March for Romania's 14- and 15-year-olds, administrators of the country's popular DEX online dictionary, acting on suspicion, changed the definitions of two words likely to be improperly looked up by cheaters during the exam. "(H)undreds" of school searches for the words took place that morning, but administrators were still mulling an appropriate punishment for the cheaters (who were, of course, easily identified by their misapplication of the suspect words). [NBC News, 5-6-2017] [BBC News, 3-16-2017]

-- With limited trade, investment and ownership rights, many Cuban producers are forced to improvise in order to bring products to market -- like Orestes Estevez, a Havana winemaker, who finds condoms indispensable, according to an April Associated Press dispatch. The "most remarkable sight" the reporter saw was "hundreds of (open) bottles capped with condoms," which inflate from gases as the fruit ferments. When fermentation is done, the condom goes limp. (The AP also noted that fishermen use condoms to carry bait far from shore and which also increase tugging resistance when nibbling fish fight the line.) [Associated Press via Virgin Islands Daily News, 4-4-2017]

-- India's Supreme Court approved an order recently that forced bars and liquor stores to close down if they were located less than 500 meters (1,640 feet) from state or national highways. India Times reported in April that the Aishwarya Bar in North Paravoor, Kerala, is still (legally) operating at its old location even though it is clearly within the 500-meter restricted area. The owner explained that since he owns the land behind the bar, too, he had constructed a "serpentine" wooden maze in back and front that requires any entering customer to take the equivalent number of steps it would take to walk 500 meters. (A tax office official reluctantly accepted the arrangement.) [India Times, 4-8-2017]

-- Canadian Anton Pilipa, 39, who suffers from schizophrenia, was discovered -- safe -- in the Amazon rainforest state of Rondonia, Brazil, in November 2016, which was the first sighting of him since his disappearance in March 2012. He was unable to communicate well and had no ID or money, but his family has actively been searching for him and believe the only way he could have traveled from the family home in Scarborough, Ontario, to Brazil (6,300 miles) was by hitchhiking or walking. (Bonus: The area in which he was found is noted for alligators and snakes.) [CTV News, 2-9-2017]

Secrets of Highly Successful Business Owners: When Michelle Esquenazi was asked by a New York Post reporter in September (2013) why her all-female crew of licensed bounty hunters (Empire Bail Bonds of New York) is so successful at tricking bail-jumpers into the open, she offered a (five-letter-long) euphemism for a female body part. "It's timeless," she counseled. "Of course he's going to open his door for a nice piece of (deleted)." "The thing about defendants is no matter who they are (of whatever color), they're all dumb. Every single last one of them is stupid." [New York Post, 9-27-2013]

Jordan Haskins, 26, was sentenced to probation and sex counseling in May after pleading guilty to eight charges arising from two auto accidents in Saginaw, Michigan. Prosecutors said Haskins described "cranking," in which he would remove a vehicle's spark-plug wires to make it "run rough," which supposedly improves his chances for a self-service happy ending. Haskins's lawyer added, "(Cranking) is something I don't think we understand as attorneys." [MLive.com, 5-9-2017]

-- Le Plat Sal (The Dirty Plate) restaurant in the Marais district of Paris features specialties actually containing dirt -- or as Chef Solange Gregoire calls it, "the mud of the earth that caresses our toes, the sand kissed by the sun, and rocks." Mused a Food Network host in April, "What's left? People are already eating snout-to-tail, leaves-to-roots...." Gregoire extolled her four-star dishes, including pastry crust a la Mont Lachat rock and a Boue Ragout stew simmered with silt from the River Seine. (NPR also noted that the founder of The Shake Shack was "quietly" planning a new American chain, Rock in Roll.) [NPR, 4-1-2017]

-- Goldman Sachs analyst Noah Poponak's 98-page paper (leaked to Business Insider in April) touted the wealth obtainable by capturing the platinum reputed to be in asteroids. The costs to mine the stone (rockets, launch expenses, etc.) might have dropped recently to about $3 billion -- a trifle next to the $50 billion worth of platinum Poponak said a single asteroid might contain. (On the other hand, experts point out, such abundance of platinum might crash the worldwide price.) [Business Insider, 4-6-2017]

-- The Twisted Ranch restaurant in the Soulard neighborhood of St. Louis, saw crowds swell in March after it revamped its menu with more than two dozen items made with ranch dressing (including ranch-infused Bloody Marys). As one satisfied visitor put it, "Ranch is everyone's guilty pleasure." [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 3-29-2017]

Yale University graduate students (well, at least eight of them), claiming "union" status, demonstrated in front of the Yale president's home in April demanding better benefits (beyond the annual free tuition, $30,000 stipends and free health care). Some of the students characterized their action as an "indefinite fast" while others called it a "hunger strike." However, a pamphlet associated with the unionizing made it clear that strikers could go eat any time they got hungry. [Chronicle of Higher Education, 5-9-2017]

(1) Police in Cleveland are searching for the woman whose patience ran out on April 14 awaiting her young son's slow haircut at Allstate Barber College. She pulled out a pistol, took aim at the barber and warned: "I got two clips! I'll pop you." (She allowed him to finish up -- more purposefully, obviously -- and left without further incident.) (2) Barbara Lowery, 24, was arrested for disorderly conduct in Cullman, Alabama, in May after police spotted her standing on a car, stomping out the windshield and smashing the sun roof. She said it was a boyfriend's car, that she thought he was cheating on her, and that she had spent the previous night "thinking" about what to do, "pray(ing) about it and stuff." (However, she said, "I did it anyway.") [WOIO-TV (Cleveland), 4-28-2017] [AL.com (Birmingham), 5-2-2017]

-- The Drone Economy: (1) A Netherlands startup company announced in March its readiness to release drones capable of tracking freshly deposited dog poop (via an infrared glow from the pile) and, eventually, be guided (perhaps via GPS and artificial intelligence) to scoop up the deposits and carry them away. (2) Potentially Unemployed Bees: Researcher-inventor Eijiro Miyako announced in the journal Chem in March that he had created a drone that pollinates flowers (though requiring human guidance until GPS and AI can be enabled). Miyako's adhesive gel lightly brushes pollen grains, collecting just enough to touch down successfully onto another flower to pollinate it. [The Register (London), 3-29-2017] [CNN, 3-9-2017]

-- Social critics and futurists suggest that the next great market for computerization (already underway) will be selling "human improvement" (alas, perhaps merely helping already successful people to even greater heights). Some sports teams are experimenting with "transcranial direct current stimulation" as a way to put athletes' brains into constant alert, and KQED Radio reported in May that about a third of the San Francisco Giants players have donned weak-current headsets that cover the motor cortex at the top of the head. The team's sports scientist (bonus name: Geoff Head!) said players performed slightly better on some drills after the stimulation. (One the other hand, at press time, the Giants were still next-to-last in the National League West.) [KQED, 5-8-2017]

(1) Recent alarming headlines: "UK woman who urinated on Trump golf course loses case" (London). "Fish thief on unicycle busted by DNR (Department of Natural Resources)" (Battle Creek, Michigan). And, from the Northwest Florida Daily News (Fort Walton Beach), all on the same day (5-16-2017): (1) "Man throws fork at woman in fight over dog poop." (2) "Senior citizen punches husband for taking Lord's name in vain." (3) "Two people busted for creating fake football league, lawmen say." (4) "Man denies defecating in parking lot despite officer witnessing deed." [Associated Press (London) via U.S. News & World Report, 4-5-2017] [MLive.com (Battle Creek, Michigan), 5-5-2017] [via Orlando Sentinel, 5-17-2017]

Clearing the Conscience: (1) In February, a 52-year-old man who, arrested for DUI and taken to a police station in Germany's Lower Saxony state, wound up spontaneously confessing to a 1991 cold-case murder in Bonn. Police confirmed that, after reopening the files, they found details matching the man's account, though the man himself was "not quite clear" why he had confessed. (2) A game warden in Titus County, Texas, reported in December arresting a man for possessing a shotgun (the man's third arrest as a convicted felon with a firearm). The warden had spotted the weapon only because the man "out of the blue" approached him and asked if he wanted to inspect his hunting license (which, it turns out, was in order). [The Local (Berlin), 3-2-2017] [Beaumont Business Journal, 12-16-2016]

A 22-year-old Los Angeles makeup artist who calls himself Vinny Ohh has, according to his several TV and YouTube appearances and much social media presence, transformed himself into a "genderless," extraterrestrial-looking person via around 110 bodily procedures (so far), costing him at least $50,000. He says his appearance is merely an "all-in" representation of how he feels inside. (The "genderless" Vinny has yet to specify a pronoun preference.) [Metro News (London), 3-6-2017]

The impending retirement from public life of Britain's Prince Philip, announced in May, has likely quashed any slight chance he will visit the Imanourane people on Tanna (in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu) -- tragic, of course, because Tanna's Chief Jack and his followers continue to believe Philip descended from their own spiritual ancestors and has thus dominated their thoughts for the last seven decades. In fact, when Tanna was in the path of Cyclone Donna in May 2017, the Imanourane were quickly reminded of Philip's continuing "powers." (Philip has never visited, but Tannans have long prayed over an autographed photograph he sent years ago.) [Reuters, 5-6-2017]

The story of Kopi Luwak coffee has long been a News of the Weird staple, begun in 1993 with the first reports that a super-premium market existed for coffee beans digested (and excreted) by certain Asian civet cats, collected, washed and brewed. In June (2013), as news broke that civets were being mistreated -- captured and caged solely for their bean-adulterating utility -- the American Chemical Society was called on for ideas how to assure that the $227/pound coffee beans had, indeed, been expelled from genuine Asian civets. Hence, "gas chromatography and mass spectrometry" tests were finally developed to assure drinkers, at $80 a cup in California, that they were sipping the real thing. [USA Today, 9-11-2013]

Officials in charge of a Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal heritage site recently installed "speed bumps," similar to those familiar to Americans driving residential streets -- but on a pedestrian walkway, with row upon row of risers to resemble a washboard. A Western travel writer, along with editors of People's Daily China, suggested that officials were irked that "disorderly" tourists had been walking past the ancient grounds too rapidly to appreciate its beauty or context. [Daily Telegraph (London), 5-4-2017]

"Marine mammologist" Dara Orbach's specialty is figuring out how bottlenose dolphins actually fit their sex organs together to copulate. When dolphins die of natural causes, Orbach, a post-doctoral fellow at Nova Scotia's Dalhousie University, is sent their genitals (and also those of whales, porpoises and sea lions) and fills each one with silicone to work from molds in understanding the sex act's mechanics. Dolphins' vaginas are "surprising" in their "complexity," she told Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News in April, for example, with the ability to twist inner folds to divert the progress of any sperm deposited by undesirable mates. [CBC News, 4-26-2017]

-- Compared to busy coastal metropolises, Indiana may evoke repose, and entrepreneur Tom Battista is suggesting the state's largest city capitalize on the sentiment by reserving a destination site on a low-lying hill overlooking the chaotic merge lanes of two interstate highways -- affording visitors leisurely moments watching the frantic motorists scrambling below. He plans three rows of seats and a sunshade for the relaxed gawkers to take in the "ocean"-like roar and imagine overwrought drivers' rising blood pressure (while their own remains soothingly calm). [WTHR-TV (Indianapolis, 4-25-2017]

-- Several treatments are available to combat the heart arrhythmia "atrial fibrillation," but all require medical supervision, which John Griffin, 69, said he tried to acquire at the emergency room at New Zealand's Waikato Hospital in April, only to be met with delay and frustration. Griffin went home that day, took notice of his neighbor's 8,000-volt electric security fence and, with boots off, in a fit of do-it-yourself desperation, nudged it with his arm. He got quite a jolt, he said, but he walked away, and his heart returned to natural rhythm. The medical director of the Heart Foundation of New Zealand said that Griffin was lucky and sternly warned against the "procedure." [New Zealand Herald, 5-2-2017]

Medical researchers have been frustrated for years at failures in getting certain cancer-fighting drugs to reach targeted areas in women's reproductive tracts, but doctors in Germany announced in April a bold technique that appeared to work: sending the drugs via sperm cells, which seem to roam without obstruction as they search for an egg. The process involves coating active sperm cells with an iron adhesive and magnetically steering them to their internal targets. [Phys.org, 4-14-2017]

-- Sean Clemens, now awaiting trial in Liberty, Ohio, in the death of an 84-year-old woman, allegedly confessed his guilt to a co-worker after telling the man that something was bothering him that he needed to tell someone about -- but only if the co-worker would "pinkie-swear" not to tell anyone else. (The co-worker broke the code.) [WKBN-TV (Youngstown), 4-25-2017]

-- In the course of pursuing claims against Alaskan dentist Seth Lookhart for Medicaid fraud, government investigators found a video on his phone of him extracting a sedated patient's tooth -- while riding on a hoverboard. (He had apparently sent the video to his office manager under the title "New Standard of Care.") Lookhart had been indicted in 2016 for billing Medicaid $1.8 million for patient sedations unnecessary for the procedures they received. [Alaska Dispatch News, 4-21-2017]

In April, Tennessee state representative Mike Stewart, aiming to make a point about the state's lax gun-sales laws and piggybacking onto the cuddly feeling people have about children's curbside lemonade stands, set up a combination stand on Nashville's Capitol Hill, offering for sale lemonade, cookies -- and an AK-47 assault rifle (with a sign reading "No Background Check," to distinguish the private-sale AK-47 from one purchased from a federally licensed dealer). (In fact, some states still regulate lemonade stands more than gun sales -- by nettlesome "health department" and anti-competitive rules and licensing, though Tennessee allows the stands in most neighborhoods as long as they are small and operated infrequently.) [WKRN-TV (Nashville), 4-5-2017]

(1) The Wall Street Journal reported in February that among the most popular diversions when Syrian households gather to escape the country's bombs and bullets is playing the Hasbro war board game Risk (even though the game's default version contains only five armies -- not nearly enough to simulate the many Syrian factions now fighting). (2) The parliament of Australia's New South Wales, entertaining a February citizen petition to cut societal "waste," admitted that the petition's required 107,000 signatures (already on a USB stick) would, by rule, have to be submitted in hard copy (4,000 pages), even though the pages would immediately be electronically scanned into a format for data storage. [Wall Street Journal, 2-16-2017] [Sydney Morning Herald, 2-26-2017]

In March, an electrician on a service call at a public restroom in Usuki, Japan, discovered a crawlspace above the urinal area, which had apparently been a man's home (with a space heater, gas stove and clothing). Investigators learned that Takashi Yamanouchi, 54, a homeless wanderer, had been living there continuously for three years -- and had arranged everything very tidily, including the 300-plus plastic two-liter bottles of his urine. (It was unclear why he was storing his urine when he resided above a public restroom.) [Rocket News, 4-24-2017]

Not Ready For Prime Time: (1) In March, WTTG-TV in Washington, D.C., broadcast surveillance video of a 7-Eleven armed robbery in the city's northeast sector -- since some footage offered a clear picture of the suspect's face. Moments into the robbery, the man peered upward, caught sight of the camera and, shocked, reached for his apparently forgotten ski mask on top of his head, where (better late than never) he pulled it into place. (2) In November, three teenagers were arrested after stealing superfast Dodge cars in the middle of the night from a dealership in St. Peters, Missouri. (After driving less than a mile, police said, the three had lost control of their cars, crashing them, including "totaling" two 700-horsepower Challenger Hellcats.) [WTTG-TV, 3-28-2017] [KTVI (St. Louis), 11-16-2017]

News that was formerly weird but whose patterns more recently have become so tedious that the stories deserve respectful retirement: (1) On May 5, an elderly woman in Plymouth, England, became the most recent to drive wildly afield by blindly obeying her car's satellite navigation system. Turning left, as ordered, only to confront a solid railing, she nonetheless spotted a narrow pedestrian gap and squeezed through, which led to her descending the large concrete stairway at the Mayflower House Court parking garage (until her undercarriage got stuck). (2) Police in East Palestine, Ohio, said the 8-year-old boy who commandeered the family car and drove his sister, 4, to the local McDonald's for a cheeseburger on April 9 was different from the usual underaged drivers in that he caused no problems. Witnesses said he followed traffic signals en route, which the boy attributed to learning from YouTube videos. [DevonLive.co.uk, 5-5-2017] [WFMJ-TV (Youngstown), 4-12-2017]

Imminent Swirling Vortex of Damnation: Land developers for the iconic Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado (the inspiration for the hotel in Stephen King's "The Shining") announced recently (2013) that they need more space and thus will dig up and move the hotel's 12-gravesite pet cemetery (another Stephen King trope). Neighbors told the Fort Collins Coloradoan in September (2013) that they feared the construction noise more than the potential release of departed spirits (though an "Animal Planet" "dog psychic" who lives in Estes Park volunteered her services to calm the pets' souls). (Update: Apparently, it worked.) [Fort Collins Coloradoan via USA Today, 9-26-2013]