Government in action

Facing a state budget crisis in July, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fired about 10,000 temporary and part-time workers and ordered the 200,000 permanent employees to be paid only the minimum wage of $6.55 an hour until the Legislature passed a crisis-solving budget. However, a week later the State Controller John Chiang pointed out that state payroll records could not be changed to accommodate the cut because they were written in the antiquated COBOL computer language, and virtually the only state employees who knew the code were some of the part-timers Schwarzenegger had just fired.

High-tech lingerie

The Brazilian designer Lucia Lorio introduced women's lingerie in October containing a global positioning device to enable the wearer to be tracked by satellite. The creator said the password-protected lace bodice would make it easier for women kidnapped by thugs or terrorists to be located and rescued. Critics called it a virtual chastity belt, primarily of service to insecure males curious to know where their women are. (However, the wearer can manually turn the device off.) Another anti-terror lingerie product also may surface someday, based on a 2007 U.S. patent, issued to a Plainfield, Ill., company for a bra whose cups could also function as air-filtration systems in case of chemical attacks.

Making a living

London's Daily Mail profiled two 10-children British families in October to illustrate the inconsistencies of government benefit awards. Sean and Anne Tate and their children live on Sean's truck-driver salary of the equivalent of about $23,000 a year, plus the government's standard per-child benefit. Harry Crompton has been out of work for 15 years, and his wife, Tracey, has never held a paid job, yet they receive the equivalent of $48,000 in various government benefits, which The Daily Mail said would require a tax-paying family to earn the equivalent of $68,000 a year to draw. The Daily Mail reporter also noted that the Tate home is immaculate and the Cromptons' home, messy.

Oh, the irony

Two of Oregon's unique public health markers clashed dramatically for resident Barbara Wagner this summer when she was informed that the universal medical care available to everyone in the state (but with certain service restrictions) would not pay for her expensive lung cancer drug (because her five-year survival likelihood was poor), but was told, at the same time, that the state would pay for any necessary drugs under its Death With Dignity Law (i.e., suicide).

Holy ruckus

A restaurant owner in Rutino, Italy (near Salerno), told police in November that as he was negotiating over the building's lease with his landlords, one hit him in the head with a chair and two others kicked him repeatedly in the stomach. The landlords were not from La Cosa Nostra but were a priest and two nuns from the local Catholic order that owns the building.

Just couldn't stop himself

Bridgeport, Conn., police arrested Michael Smith, 47, in October for breaking into Holy Ghost Deliverance Church. Smith explained that he was passing the church, spotted a drum set through a window and could not restrain himself from trying it out. According to a Boston Globe report, officers found Smith "in a spirited solo after the church's alarm system went off."

Least competent people

Merle Sorenson, 48, had to be rescued from the Columbia River near Quincy, Wash., in October, where he nearly drowned after driving his Humvee off of a boat launch. He told the rescuers that he was trying to clean his tires and wanted to see how far he could drive the vehicle into the water but still be able to back out.

In August, an employment tribunal in Glasgow, Scotland, rejected the age-discrimination charge by 16-year-old Darren Mirren, whose complaint was that the Spotless Commercial Cleaning Co. in Glasgow, about a 20-minute ride from Mirren's home, had turned him down for a job because he didn't show up for a scheduled interview. Mirren implied that a person of his age could not be expected to find an address unless they gave him directions.

Seniors' wild rides

In October in Vancouver, Wash., a 74-year-old man actually succeeded in his mission to unclog, with his hands, the garbage chute from his 10th floor apartment, but then he pushed too far. When rescue workers arrived, only the man's feet and lower legs were visible, with his wife holding on for dear life.

In August, a 78-year-old woman apparently misread the signs at Arlanda airport in Stockholm, Sweden, and placed herself on a baggage belt, which led to a chute, but she was only slightly injured and did not miss her flight.