News of the Weird
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
With dozens of puzzled beachcombers witnessing, a cow marched into the surf off the coast of Queensland in Australia in November and swam out as far as 300 yards for four hours (returning to shore twice but venturing out again) before drowning from swallowing water.
In October in Vancouver, Wash., a Doberman pinscher named Victoria jumped on an electric stove and accidentally nudged a switch that started a fire in her apartment, resulting in about $100,000 damage. It was the second time this year that Victoria had jumped on the stove and started a fire, but the first one did much less damage.
University of California, Irvine, professor Elizabeth Loftus, a prominent scholar on people’s overconfidence about memory, was turned down by the judge as an expert witness in November in the forthcoming trial of “Scooter” Libby (Vice President Cheney’s former assistant, who has been charged with lying to prosecutors about phone conversations, which Libby says weren’t lies but just forgetfulness). At a hearing on Loftus’ credentials, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald not only exposed some problems with her research but elicited from Loftus the confident assertion that the two had never before met. However, Fitzgerald then immediately refreshed Loftus’ memory, reminding her that he had cross-examined her in court once before.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD