May 18: Bye Bye McGwire, Counting Dogs, and Bra Contests

• Study: Global Warming Could Wipe Out All Lizards.  Team of biologists from UCLA says if current climate trends aren’t reversed, all lizard species face extinction.  Sobering news for Goldman Sachs executives, top echelon management at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac; all members of Capitol Hill banking/finance committees; BP’s CEO.  Oh, and Matt Lauer. 
• Sports: Mark McGwire Highway becoming history. Stretch of I-70 had been named in honor of McGwire after his 70-home-run season in 1998.  Bill now on Governor’s desk cancels name of  “performance-enhanced” star…while campaign opens to move “McGwire identification” to another stretch of Missouri roadway; St Louis’ Maryville Centre Drive, location of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals’ Research and Development labs.
• Are You Smarter than an Australian Shepherd? Los Alamos, Cal. dog, “Sydnee,” barks from one to ten…any number…forward or backward…randomly called out by owner Maxine Davis.  Already under consideration by Obama administration as possible replacement for way-too-weird Director of Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag.
• More utterly useless information: Hard on the heels of research showing nutritional supplements may either help prevent cancer or cause cancer, this: 10-year study by World Health Organization’s Agency for Research on Cancer – the payoff regarding cell phones and brain cancer.  The envelope please?  Agency’s director, Christopher Wild announces, “The results really don’t allow us to conclude that there is any risk associated with mobile phone use, but…it is also premature to say that there is no risk associated with it.”  Shoot me.
• Perhaps why Comedy Central caved?  Iraqi police say assailants wearing Iraqi military uniforms beheaded a Sunni cleric who’d spoken against al-Qaida, and displayed his head atop an electricity pole in the town where he preached.   All righty, then.  No problem.  Message received.  We’re good…
• The Lord helps those who help themselves.  Well, yes and no.  Police in Georgia nail two thieves who they say had broken into no fewer than nine churches and “helped themselves” to $100,000 worth of musical equipment.  Suspects?  Deshawan Thomas and Rico Blackshear, both 28, and both locally well-known gospel singers.   Everybody now, “Shallll We Get Sent Up the Riiiiiver….”
• Indian Home State Minister, Tako Dabi, known for advancing novel ideas...suggests New Delhi establish a regiment of eunuchs to guard nation’s leading politicians citing eunuchs “loyalty and integrity.”  Suggestion is controversial as skeptics wonder – with apologies to The Godfather – whether a regiment of guards who have been shorn of their testicles would still be able to…“act like a MAN!!”
• Guangzhou, China:  Mall stages stunt in which competitors were invited to see how quickly they could unhook women’s bras, one hand.  Anyone who could do eight in under a minute got shopping voucher.  Shoppers who were not amused – but still watched -- said event was the “brainwave of a dirty old man.”  Organizer argued it was merely a means of “promoting underwear awareness.”  Exactly.  A public service.  Science for the greater good.  Noble.