The Odd Truth, Oct. 26, 2004

The Odd Truth is a collection of strange but factual news stories from around the world compiled by CBSNews.com's Brian Bernbaum.

Paid In Pennies

LOS ANGELES - Sometimes $1,000 is more than it seems.

That's what Stefanie and Myron Roth found out when a Paramount producer paid them $1,000 to stop trimming their trees while he filmed an outdoor scene in their Brentwood neighborhood.

But instead of writing the Roths a check, producer Ronald Schwary sent over 100,000 pennies in 20 bags - two weeks later.

The Roths say the bags weighed about 30 pounds each.

Paramount has apologized for Schwary's stunt.

The couple says the studio has also agreed to pay the couple $1,000 - not in pennies - and donate $1,000 to their favorite charity.

Paramount Network Television was filming for the upcoming show "Medium."

World's Oldest Man A Sox Fan

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - Fred Hale Senior has seen something most Red Sox fans haven't - his favorite team winning the World Series. Hale is the world's oldest man and Boston's oldest fan. He'll turn 114 on December first. The Sox last won a World Series in 1918. Even though the Sox are up two games to none - Hale has lived through enough Red Sox history to know nothing is a sure thing. He says we'll have to wait and see. Hale even remembers when Babe Ruth played in Boston - more than 80 years ago. He says Ruth was a great pitcher. Of course it was the Sox infamous sale of Ruth to the Yankees that supposedly gave rise to the "Curse of the Bambino."

Bush Relatives: 'Please Don't Vote For Our Cousin'

BOSTON - Seven distant relatives of President Bush have created a Web site encouraging voters to support John Kerry.

Bushrelativesforkerry.com urges visitors: "Please, don't vote for our cousin."

The Bush relatives say they've never met the president but disagree with his policies ranging from the war in Iraq to the environment.

Bush second cousin and co-creator Sheila House says she doesn't believe the effort is a betrayal.

The people behind the Web site are all grandchildren of Mary Bush House, the sister of Prescott Bush, who was the father and grandfather of the two Bush presidents. That makes them second cousins of the president.

The Bush campaign hasn't commented.

Police Bust Elderly Shoplifting Ring

LYTHAM ST. ANNES, England - Police cautioned two female old-age pensioners for receiving stolen goods after a shoplifting operation involving boxes of chocolates was traced to a local political club, police said Tuesday.

Rose Fitzsimmons, 70, and Jeanie Duckworth, 66, were later expelled from the Lytham St. Annes Conservative Club for tarnishing its name, said a spokeswoman for the association, which groups together local supporters of Britain's main opposition party.

Officers arrested the pair in this quiet north England coastal resort on Oct. 20 after catching an alleged shoplifter who said he was taking his haul to the Conservative Club, Lancashire Police said.

"It was going on on our premises," the club's Secretary Treasurer June Wood said.

The two women were cautioned and police charged Robert Kay, 37, with shoplifting, a spokeswoman for the force said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity. She didn't name the two women.

The spokeswoman said that boxes of chocolates were involved in the sting but added she wasn't sure if property that police recovered at the club was stolen.

Taiwan Lawmakers Burst Into Food Fight

TAIPEI, Taiwan - They've fought with fists. They've thrown paper at each other. And on Tuesday, Taiwan's rowdy lawmakers had an old-fashioned food fight.

Legislators began chucking white cardboard takeout lunch boxes full of rice, meat, hard-boiled eggs and vegetables at each other during a heated debate over whether Taiwan should spend billions on weapons sold by the United States.

It was difficult to figure out who started the battle. Local TV showed the legislators yelling at each other as they sat at long tables in a committee room during a lunch meeting.

Opposition lawmaker Chu Fong-chi stood up and began shouting at ruling party lawmakers when she appeared to duck to avoid being hit by an object. She picked up a lunch box and flung it across the room at legislator Chen Chong-yi of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

Chen grabbed a lunch box and tossed it back at Chu, who had what appeared to be food stains down the back of her blouse. "My whole body smells like a lunch box!" she shrieked to TV cameras covering the melee.

The food fight, which lasted just minutes, left tabletops, chairs and the floor littered with rice and chunks of hard-boiled eggs.

Fisticuffs were common in the legislature during the late 1980s and early '90s in the newly democratic Taiwan. But in recent years, lawmakers have become less violent, although tempers flare almost daily. Yelling, insults and other uncivil behavior is part of the political culture.

'Free Hannes'?

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Apparently inspired by the movie "Free Willy," a group of activists has apparently stolen a young seal that earlier escaped from a German zoo to set it free, a Dutch seal shelter said Monday.

The seal, nicknamed Hannes, escaped from the zoo in the German city of Nordhorn, near the Dutch border, in late August. The male seal, then 11-weeks-old, was soon spotted swimming in a nearby Dutch river.

"Hannes's pen had a low barrier, and he was able to jump it and then swim through an open gate," said spokeswoman Simone Schuls of the Netherlands' Pieterburen Seal Asylum, which helped recapture the animal on Sept 3.

Pieterburen wanted to release the adolescent seal into Dutch coastal waters rather than return it to the zoo, but the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture was still deliberating on his fate when Hannes disappeared on the night of Oct. 22.

Schuls said a person claiming to be part of an activist group called "Free Hannes" placed an anonymous call from a German telephone booth on Monday claiming to have released Hannes "by daylight, into open salt water," apparently in the North Sea.

Schuls said that although the telephone conversation was short, the person who placed it revealed "confidential information" that proved they knew the seal well. She would not elaborate.

Deer Hunters' Gum-O-Flage

DEERBROOK, Wisconsin - A deer hunter in Wisconsin is marketing a new type of chewing gum he claims can mask human-smelling breath and help hunters move closer to their prey.

Neil Bretl says his Gum-o-Flage helps fool the animals' hypersensitive noses to human scent.

Hunters already can use special soap, shampoo and clothing detergent to eliminate human smell. Some even pay $300 for scent-control coveralls or rub themselves with horse manure.

Now, for $4.99, hunters can get 12 olive green, Chiclet-style tablets in a blister pack. "Its sugar-free, by the way," said Bretl, 35, whose license plate reads "GUM GUY."

The idea came seven years ago when Bretl, a gun hunter since boyhood, began going after deer with a bow and arrow. That meant hunting at closer range, and Bretl took precautions to eliminate his human odor, including wearing carbon-lined clothing that was kept sealed in plastic bins with pine boughs.

Deer still picked up his scent. He turned to his brother and then-dental student Nicholas, who suggested the problem might be his breath.

Bretl contacted an organic chemist friend and began cooking gum recipes in a microwave. "My first few batches were hideous," he said. "It was tough chewing."

But he kept experimenting and ultimately settled on a formula that incorporates anti-microbial agents, chlorophyll and three kinds of pine oil.

Bretl has no clinical evidence the gum works and hasn't done any official studies. But he says he and his associates used it after smoking cigarettes, drinking beer and eating onions and found it erased the odors.