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Correction: On the Feb. 16 entry, we erred in our characterization of Michelle Malkins book. It does not call for the internment of people of Arab descent in the war on terror.

Another year, another collection of weirdness, particularly involving our fellow primates. You figure out what it all means. We tried and we couldn't ... especially the part about (ew) politicians and bathrooms.

Jan. 1: You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Chief Justice John Roberts, in his second annual report on the state of the judiciary, says that pay for federal judges is now a "constitutional crisis." Those salaries range from $165,200 a year to Roberts' $212,100.

Jan. 3: And wearing skimpy clothing helps prevent osteoporosis.

Doing housework helps reduce the risk of breast cancer, the BBC reports.

Jan. 4: Yea, but notice how the simian is the one who gets the free lunch.

Fundamentalists Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron introduce a new board game called "Intelligent Design vs. Evolution" that includes a free DVD in which Comfort and Cameron take an orangutan to lunch and discuss the theory of evolution.

Jan. 7: "'Oops'? What do you mean, 'Oops?!?'" Two spacecraft that landed on Mars 30 years ago may have stumbled upon alien microbes and killed them by mistake, a scientific paper states.

Jan. 8: And he'd have gotten away with immortality, too, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids and their dog.

Animator Iwao Takamoto , creator of the "Scooby-Doo" cartoon series, dies at 81.

Jan. 8: Simian superbreeder.

A female chimpanzee at a rescue facility for former laboratory chimps in Louisiana gives birth despite the fact that the seven male chimps there all had had vasectomies.

Jan. 12: Two-headed frogs are so last year.

A calf is born in Villa Vieja, Colombia, with six legs and two udders.

Jan. 25: Aw, they'll be OK as long as you fry 'em good.

New Jersey warns squirrel hunters near a toxic waste dump in Ringwood not to eat the animals because they could be contaminated with lead.

Jan. 25: Won't the Rolling Stones be annoyed at losing this gig?

A song by the punk band The Buzzcocks is licensed for advertising by the American Association of Retired Persons.

Jan. 26: Just the thing to go with deep-fried cheeseburgers.

Durham molecular scientist Robert Bohannon announces the invention of the caffeinated doughnut.

Feb. 15: For 1,500 years, Western Europe knew intuitively that the sun revolved around the Earth.

Caldwell County officials admit they didn't run a full cost-benefit analysis on the incentives offered to Internet giant Google for opening a facility there because "we knew intuitively that the numbers were right."

Feb. 15: But it was the law he was using for toilet paper.

Former N.C. House Speaker Jim Black pleads guilty to having taken nearly $30,000 from three chiropractors while pushing legislation they supported. He met with them in restaurant bathrooms to receive some payments.

Feb. 16: How 'bout we start by taking away yours, then.

Columnist Michelle Malkin announces on Fox News, "I have to tell you, in general, I'm skeptical of anything that has Bill of Rights tacked on to it."

March 7: Apparently a blood-alcohol level in the room temperature range is not uniformly fatal.

A man arrested on drunken-driving charges in Billings, Mont., tells police a unicorn was driving the car.

March 8: They were going to get married, but then came that whole burning-sulfur thing.

Half of American high-school seniors think Sodom and Gomorrah were married to one another, USA Today reports.

March 26: At least she wasn't a suicide bomber.

A woman stopped at the Gaza-Egypt border is found to have three 20-inch live crocodiles under her robes.

April 9: That'll handle that class 5 full-roaming suicide bomber.

The CIA unveils a "terrorist buster" logo.

April 11: Inevitable headline: "So it goes."

Renowned author Kurt Vonnegut dies.

April 26: I suppose you're going to tell me that plumbers never get clogged sinks.

Fire destroys a storage shed belonging to the chief of the McLeansville Fire Department.

April 28: Because the war, health care and the economy are too trifling to mess with.

Delegates at a Utah county GOP convention debate whether immigrants are minions of Satan.

May 4: They were scary two generations ago, too, kids.

Bob Dylan has been singing "scary" songs at their school, children at a New York kindergarten report. Dylan's grandson attends the school.

May 11: If this van's locked and loaded, don't come knockin'.

Would-be thieves attempt to break into an unmarked, and occupied, Greensboro police van.

May 13: At least their response time was good.

High Point firefighters must respond to a burning police vehicle in the fire station parking lot.

May 22: Dial "B" for busted.

Four people are arrested in Greensboro after their cell phone falls into the car of a delivery person they allegedly were trying to rob.

May 23: Because you can't be too careful.

A geocaching game piece left anonymously at a High Point Starbuck's coffee shop draws the attention of the Greensboro Police Department's bomb squad.

June 12: She only looked defenseless.

An 80-year-old great-grandmother in Asheboro fends off an attack by a rabid fox.

June 19: Attractive? Yeah. Arousing? Sure. But combustible?

A sewer line explodes in Middleton-St-George , England, after someone flushes a size-DD bra down the toilet.

June 20: Hunters or hunted?

Children on Greensboro's Pheasant Run Drive who have been trying to catch rabbits instead encounter at least one black bear.

June 21: Maybe the bear did it.

The Natural Science Center reports that vandals have decapitated its two sculptures of tortoises.

June 22: Can the bear account for his whereabouts during the hours the tortoise heads went missing?

Another bear is spotted in Guilford County, this one on Willow Place in High Point.

June 21: Dude, are you in the government, out of the government, or just a class 5 full-roaming vapor?

Vice President Dick Cheney has refused to give records to the National Archives because he believes the Office of the Vice President is not part of the executive branch of government, a House committee reports.

June 22: Why couldn't he just swallow goldfish like a normal kid?

A 15-year-old boy performed a Caesarean section in May under the supervision of his doctor parents, apparently in an attempt to win a place in the Guinness Book of World Records, officials in Manaparai, India, report.

July 4: Going downhill?

Al Gore III, son of the former vice president, is pulled over for driving more than 100 mph in a Toyota Prius hybrid car.

July 10: Who's the president again?

Richard Carmona, Surgeon General from 2002 to 2006, testifies to Congress that he was ordered to mention President Bush at least three times on every page of his speeches.

July 11: William Shatner, call your office.

The first planet outside our solar system to have water vapor in its atmosphere, considered a crucial ingredient for life, has been found, the British journal Nature reports.

July 19:

Just wait 'til the IRS audit.

Former state Rep. Coy Privette, a conservative activist in areas ranging from drinking laws to gay rights, is arrested on charges of paying a prostitute for sex acts by writing her a check.

July 31: And you thought misplacing your car keys was bad.

U.S. officials cannot account for more than 190,000 pistols and AK-47 assault rifles issued to Iraqi security forces in 2004 and 2005, a Pentagon report says.

Aug. 15: I, for one, welcome our new simian overlords.

A scientist in Rome has learned that capuchin monkeys can choose between different colors of chips to "buy" greater or lesser numbers of peanuts, NewScientist.com reports.

Aug. 16: Does the Federal Communications Commission know about this?

A former editor of the Reidsville Review is removed from Reidsville TV station WGSR by police after he storms into the studio during a live talk-show broadcast and shouts expletives at the host.

Aug. 22: Our Lady of Kleptomania.

A 5-foot statue of the Virgin Mary is stolen from next to Greensboro's Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church.

Aug. 27: Tell me again the difference between bloggers and journalists.

MSNBC attributes to the Rev. Al Sharpton a comment that actually appeared on the parody site NewsGroper.com.

Aug. 28: We didn't need that mental picture.

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, accused of using hand and foot signals in an airport men's room stall to signal the man in the next stall that he was interested in sex, claims that his behavior was misinterpreted in part because of his "wide stance."

Aug. 29: Pardon me while I take this out of your hand and hit you over the head with it.

A Rockingham County man whose political TV ad was used without permission on VH1's show "Web Junk 2.0" is accused of copyright infringement by VH1's parent company when he posts a copy of the show segment on YouTube.

Sept. 12: Good luck serving that failure-to-appear warrant.

Nebraska state Sen. Ernie Chambers sues God in Douglas County District Court in Omaha, seeking a permanent injunction against God for making terroristic threats, inspiring fear and causing "widespread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth's inhabitants."

Sept. 14: So, that's why he's in prison.

An inmate at the Guantanamo prison for suspected terrorists is caught with a Speedo bathing suit, The Associated Press reports.

Sept. 19: The defense also lists St. Michael the Archangel as a witness ... really.

God, or someone signing a response as God, responds to Ernie Chambers' lawsuit, arguing that the defendant is immune from some (only some?) earthly laws, that the court lacks jurisdiction and that blaming God for human oppression overlooks the gifts of free will and eternal life.

Oct. 2: That's not how they explained it on "Schoolhouse Rock."

An Ohio state representative making a presentation to a high school class on how a bill becomes law projects an image of a nude woman onto the screen.

Oct. 4: He got a bite, all right.

A Stoneville man doing some evening fishing hooks a bat as he casts his line. The bat then bites him.

Oct. 5: Let's see what happens when movies with men in leading roles bomb.

Jeff Robinov, Warner Bros. studio's vice president for production, has said the studio will make no more movies with women in leading roles because such movies haven't performed well at the box office, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Oct. 5: Paging the Red Army.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev promises to lead a "local revolution" in New Orleans if the city is not rebuilt by 2011.

Oct. 6: Now this is pit-bull politics.

A woman campaigning for the Lower Windsor Township, Pa., board of supervisors is attacked by a pit bull while campaigning door to door.

Oct. 15: This is true. I heard it from some guy.

People are more likely to believe gossip than truth, even when they know facts that contradict the gossip, British researchers report.

Oct. 19: We always thought it was filch.

"Harry Potter" series author J.K. Rowling reveals that Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of the wizarding school where most of the series' action takes place, is gay.

Oct. 23: Another heckuva job.

Michael Brown, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency who lost his job in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, announces that he is "available for interviews" regarding the Southern California wildfires.

Oct. 23: Well, at least now we know why the questions were about "commodities."

In other FEMA news, the agency holds a "news conference" on the California wildfires that is staffed only by FEMA employees posing as journalists.

Oct. 23: But we thought gun control meant being able to hit your target.

During a campaign appearance, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani says the Second Amendment right to bear arms extends to blind people.

Oct. 26: You call that diplomacy?

The State Department says it will begin ordering some diplomats to work in Iraq because too few have volunteered to do so.

Nov. 12: Dude, you're not helping yourself.

A German man accused of streaking at a girls' soccer match strips again during his court appearance, ananova.com reports.

Nov 14: The real "Da Vinci Code"?

An Italian computer technician reports that by laying the five lines of a musical staff across Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Last Supper," the loaves of bread and the hands of the apostles can be made to form "a soundtrack that emphasizes the passion of Jesus."

Nov. 21: It doesn't appear to have hurt his political career.

Centerton, Ark., Mayor Ken Williams says he was kidnapped and brainwashed by Satan worshippers almost 30 years ago.

Dec. 3: Geez. All we did in high school was go to beer bashes.

Two seniors at a Long Island high school split a $100,000 scholarship award for creating a molecule that helps block the reproduction of drug-resistant tuberculosis bacteria.

Dec. 3: And we're towing your sleigh and shooting your reindeer.

A department-store Santa in Australia is fired for saying "Ho ho ho!" instead of "Ha! Ha! Ha!" His employer had ordered its Santas to avoid the ho word because of its meaning in American slang.

Dec. 4: Our new simian overlords can count better than we can.

Young chimpanzees outperform human undergraduates in a mathematical memory test, the Daily Mirror reports.

Dec. 4: Can anyone account for Al Gore III's whereabouts?

A man in Geseke, Germany, is charged after his electric wheelchair reaches speeds of 40 mph on a city street.

Dec. 9: That crackling ain't chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

A Louisiana woman is booked on two counts of attempted murder after she allegedly shot two men whose dog damaged Christmas decorations at her home.

Dec. 11: Guess we know who's been naughty.

A Santa Claus appearing in a charity fundraising event in Sherburn-in-Elmet, England, is pelted with eggs and bottles.

Dec. 17: Forget our simian overlords. I, for one, welcome our new rodent overlords.

A new species of rat that is five times the size of a typical city rat has been discovered in the mountains of Indonesia, The Associated Press reports.

SOURCES: Staff writers Myla Barnhardt, Mark Binker, Amy Dominello, John Nagy, Janet Brindle Reddick, Gerald Witt; special correspondent Nicholas Graham; The Associated Press, 4029tv.com, ananova.com, bbc.co.uk, chron.com, cnn.com, FoxNews.com, GlennBeck.com, HeraldExtra.com, House.gov, LATimes.com, Metro.co.uk, News.Yahoo.com, NewScientist.com, NOLA.com, PostChronicle.com, Poynter.org, Reuters, RushLimbaugh.com, TParents.org, upf.org, Yahoo.com, YorkPress.co.uk and the blogs ACSBlog.org, AdFreak.com, Apostropher.com, DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com, TalkingPointsMemo.com, The Knight Shift, Thoughtcrimes.org and Wall Street Journal Washington Wire.

Contact Lex Alexander at 373-7088 or lex.alexander@news-record.com