Weird But True

[mrmoshe]

WEIRD BUT TRUE

March 28, 2008 -- You can lead a horse to water, but can you get a fish to catch itself?

Scientists are trying to train fish to swim into a net when they hear a tone signaling feeding time.

"It sounds crazy, but it's real," said Simon Miner, a researcher at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass.

If it works, it would allow bass to be released into the ocean to grow to market size and then have them return to be harvested.

We've heard of dumb crooks, but here's one that leaves us dumbfounded.

A thief walked into a Chicago muffler shop and when he was told the safe was locked and no one had the combination, he left his cellphone number and asked them to call him when their boss returned with the code.

So they did, but when Ruben Carate returned, cops were waiting.

A British couple whose $2 million house got flooded have been unable to repair the damage and return home because endangered newts may have taken up residence.

This has left owners John and Margie Histed dumbfounded.

"I know it's the law, but it's very frustrating and bordering on the ridiculous that the fate of newts takes precedence over humans," Margie said.

It was like the 2000 presidential election all over again - except in Australia they don't need the Supreme Court to settle things.

Residents of the Outback town of Winton chose its new mayor by drawing a name from a trash can after the vote ended in a 423-to-423 tie.

In the end, Ed Warren beat out Butch Lenton. Provincial law allows for such ties to be broken by drawing a name or flipping a coin.

In other electoral shenanigans, Zimbabwe showed once again why free elections are really the way to go.

Goons aligned with President Robert Mugabe's political party forced opposition supporters to tear down posters for their candidates and eat them.

Mugabe has ruled the moribund country thuggishly for nearly three decades.