Copyright 2012 by Chuck Shepherd.  All rights reserved.

 Lead Story

* Chinese media reported that on May 4th, at the Xiaogan Middle
School in Hubei province, high school students studying for the all-
important national college entrance exam worked through the
evening while hooked up to intravenous drips of amino acids to
fight fatigue.  A director of the school's Office of Academic Affairs
reasoned that before the IVs were hung, weary students complained
of losing too much time running back and forth to the school's
infirmary for energy injections.  After the media reports, there was a
public backlash, but less against the notion that China was placing
too much importance on the exams than against reports that the
government was subsidizing the cost of the injections. [South China
Morning Post (Hong Kong), 5-9-2012]

Can't Possibly Be True

* Desmond Hatchett, 33, was summoned to court in Knoxville,
Tenn., in May so that a judge could chastize him for again failing to
make child-support payments.  Official records show that Hatchett
has at least 24 children (ages 14 down to "toddler") by at least 11
women.  He said at a 2009 court appearance that he was "through"
siring children and apparently has taken proper precautions since
then. (In Milwaukee, Wis., in April, Sean Patrick was sentenced to
30 years in prison for owing more than $146,000 for 12 children by
10 mothers, and the city's Journal Sentinel newspaper reported that,
before being locked up, two convicted pimps, Derrick Avery and
Todd Carter had fathered, respectively, 15 kids by seven women
and 16 children with "several" mothers.)  [Los Angeles Times, 5-
18-2012] [Journal Sentinel, 4-3-2012]

* The Associated Press reported in May that Kentucky prison
officials were working behind the scenes to resolve the thorny
question of whether inmate Robert Foley deserves a hip
replacement.  Normally, a prisoner in such extreme pain would
qualify.  However, Foley, 55, is on death row for killing six people
in 1989 and 1991, and since he has exhausted his appeals, he is still
alive only because a court has halted all executions while the state
reconsiders its lethal-injection procedure.  Furthermore, all local
hospitals queried by the prison to perform the procedure have
declined to take Foley because the prison considers him dangerous.
[Associated Press via AzCentral.com (Phoenix), 5-17-2012]

* Chilean artist Sebastian Errazuriz recently created "Christian
popsicles" made from wine that Errazuriz obtained by trickery after
a priest consecrated it into "the blood of Christ."  The popsicle's
stick is actually a figure of Jesus on the cross, as sort of a reward for
finishing the treat.  (Also, the Icecreamists shop in London,
England, recently began offering a popsicle made with absinthe--
and holy water from a spring in Lourdes, France, which many
Catholics revere for its healing powers.  The "Vice Lolly" sells for
the equivalent of about $29.) [CNN, 5-17-2012] [DigitalSpy.com
(Hearst Publications), 5-31-2012]

* The official class photo of Eileen Diaz's second-grade kids at
Sawgrass Elementary School in Sunrise, Fla., was distributed this
spring with the face of the front-and-center child replaced by a dark-
on-white smiley face.  Apparently there was miscommunication
between the school and the photographer about re-doing the photo
without the child, whose parents had not given permission for the
shot.  (Another child without parental authorization was easily
edited out of the photo, but the front-and-center student could not
be.)  [WPLG-TV (Miami), 4-3-2012]

Fine Points of the Law

* In May, the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled, 3-0,
that it is not necessarily improper under federal law for Minute
Maid to name a beverage "Pomegranate Blueberry" even though
those two ingredients constitute only 0.5 percent of the contents.  A
competing seller of pomegranate juices had sued in 2008, pointing
out that 99.4 percent of the Minute Maid beverage was merely apple
and grape juices.  Minute Maid's owner, Coca-Cola, called the
competitor's complaint "baseless."  [San Francisco Chronicle, 5-18-
2012]

* Almost all companies that collect customer data publish their
policies on how they keep the data "private" (even though those
"privacy" policies almost always explain just precisely the ways
they intend not to keep the data "private"--and are not required to by
law).  Researchers writing in the journal I/S (Journal of Law and
Policy for the Information Society), and summarized in an April
post to the blog TechDirt.com, found that if typical consumers
bothered to read all of the detailed privacy policies they
encountered, it would take from 181 to 304 hours per year (22-38
workdays), depending on shopping habits.  (If every consumer in
America did it, it would take from 40 billion-67 billion hours a year,
or 5 billion-8.3 billion workdays a year.) [TechDirt.com, 4-23-2012]

Unclear on the Concept

* In April, the Federal Communications Commission announced
that it was fining Google for deliberately impeding the agency's
investigation into the company's collection of wireless data by its
roaming Street View vehicles and that the agency had decided,
based on Google's "ability to pay," that it needed to double its staff-
proposed fine in order to "deter future misconduct."  Hence, it
raised Google's fine from $12,000 to $25,000.  (As pointed out by
ProPublica.org, during the previous quarter year, Google made
profits of $2.89 billion, or $25,000 every 68 seconds.)  [ProPublica,
4-16-2012]

* In April, police in Newtown Township, Pa., searched
(unsuccessfully, it turns out) for a "skinny" black male, between
ages 35 and 45, wearing a black track suit.  He had indecently
exposed himself at a place of business--the offices of the Bucks
County Association for the Blind (although, obviously, at least one
sighted person reported his description). [PhillyBurbs.com, 5-1-
2012]

* District of Columbia Councilman Marion Barry initially was
scorned in May for criticizing the influx of "Asian" shopkeepers
into the ward that he represents.  "They got to go.  I'll say that right
now."  Later, after re-thinking the issue, Barry announced that his
ward should be "the model of diversity," and issued an apology to
Asian-Americans.  But, he lamented, America has always been
tough on immigrants.  "The Irish caught hell, the Jews caught hell,
the Polacks caught hell." (The preferred terms are "Polish" or
"Poles.") [WTOP Radio (Washington, D.C.), 5-24-2012]

Bless Those Researchers' Hearts!

(1) A team of scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
following up on a Harvard study that found dramatic weight-loss
qualities from eating yogurt, did their own yogurt study.  The
results, summarized in Scientific American in May, noted that
yogurt-eating male mice have 10 times the follicle density of other
mice (producing "luxuriantly silky fur") and had larger, outward-
projecting testicles that made them far more productive
inseminators.  (2) British researchers from the University of
Liverpool and the University of Bristol concluded in an April
journal article that caterpillars of the large white butterfly, which
often attempt to defend against predators by vomiting on them, are
less likely to do that when the caterpillars live in groups.  The
researchers hypothesize that promiscuous vomiters are seen as poor
mating risks.  [Scientific American, 5-4-2012] [Science Daily, 4-12-
2012]

Recurring Themes

* The most recently reported morbidly obese person who required
that her home be partially torn apart by firefighters so that she could
be lifted out to be taken to a hospital was teenager Georgia Davis in
Merthyr Tydfil, Wales.  Davis, 19, weighs nearly 800 pounds, and
40 people were involved in extricating her in May from her upstairs
bedroom, via scaffolding.  (Several years ago, Davis enrolled in a
weight-loss camp in the U.S. and got down to about 250 pounds,
but she quickly gained it back.)  [WalesOnline.com, 5-24-2012]

No Longer Weird

* A time-honored defense used by many older men when charged
with having sex with underage girls is now so common that it must
be retired from circulation.  In February in Bridgeport, Conn.,
Norberto Millet, 60, denied raping the 9-year-old girl, accusing her
of actually attacking him--and said he had to fight her off.  In fact,
Millet told police, a lot of girls 8- to 10-years old try to have sex
with him.  And in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in May, Lyle Moodie, 47 at
the time, said much the same about his 16-year-old accuser, who he
said was the predator.  "She just suddenly grabbed me by the pajama
bottoms.  I pulled back and said, 'No, stop.'"  "I didn't know what to
do." [Connecticut Post, 2-10-2012] [Canoe.ca, 5-16-2012]

     Thanks This Week to Gary Goldberg and David Henshaw,
and to the News of the Weird Board of Editorial Advisors.

                   * * * * *
WeirdNews at earthlink dot net, http://www.NewsoftheWeird.net
(daily), and P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679.