Bits & Pieces

• Mark McGwire admits to using steroids. Now there’s some breaking news...

“I wish I had never touched steroids,” McGwire said. “It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never played during the steroid era.”

Well, at least we’ll never hear Keith Richards say “I wish I’d never played rock-and-roll during the heroin era.”

• Sarah Palin joins Fox News as a contributor. Didn’t see that one coming...

• From the L.A. Times: “Peter Robinson, Northern Irelands first minister, said he was giving up his post for six weeks in order to concentrate on clearing his name and on caring for his wife, Iris, (60) an influential lawmaker whose spectacular fall from grace has rocked the province’s political scene.

The revelation last week of her affair with a 19-year-old youth and allegations that she solicited secret loans to help him open a coffeehouse have left her career in ruins and put her in need of “acute psychiatric treatment,” Peter Robinson said.

She may have Tiger Woods beat...

• Never mind unemployment, terrorism, home foreclosures...

(CNN) — James Cameron’s completely immersive spectacle “Avatar” may have been a little too real for some fans who say they have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film because they long to enjoy the beauty of the alien world Pandora.

Oooookaaaayyy...

• Harry Reid has retired from the Senate and will take a job as a spokesman for the NAACP.

(I just made that last one up. I think...)

Jim Cornelius, Editor