Check Your Head

People tease your Lightning Round editor about his long hair, which he is attempting to style into an 18th Century-appropriate ponytail without a wig. It's a minor distraction, however, compared to the taunting some ladies are in for now.

DUMBING DOWN. A French study finds merely looking at blondes drive down intelligence in men... and women, too.

As Cox News Service reports:

Thierry Meyer, joint author of the study and professor of social psychology at the University of Paris X-Nanterre, said that the study proves a general phenomenon.

"There's a decrease in performance after an unobtrusive exposure to a stereotype about people who have the reputation to be cognitively impaired," he said.

In plainer language, blonds might make people act in a less intelligent manner because the people believe -- whether they want to admit it or not -- that they are in the presence of someone who's not very smart.

Our crack Lightning Round researchers have another term for it: adaptation to habitat. Theories aside however, we recently uncovered strong evidence to back up the French theory, and it comes from a news broadcast on WESH in Orlando, Florida:



Listen children and you shall hear the sounds of remotes clicking.

CONQUER YOUR IGNORANCE! Read/WriteWeb offers "A Big List of Sites That Teach You How To Do Stuff." Throw this one in your bookmark closet. In case of stupidity, click.

THAT WASN'T IN THE SCRIPT... OH, MAYBE IT WAS. TMZ.com, that tabloid site which is more reliable than many would like to admit, claims Marie Osmond's much-gawked-about faint on "Dancing With The Stars" was planned and scripted. But here's what raised our eyes:

Our moles say Marie has a writer on set at all times, prompting her with witty conversation. One on-set source says he was in position when Marie went down -- and didn't miss a beat.

Marie's handler denies this, of course, but we all know the long tradition of entertainers using outside writers. The late great Bob Hope had a staff of joke writers on retainer. Marie, if this is true, cut the chain. You didn't need a writer to become famous, and you certainly don't need one to dance. Besides, there's a strike going on... you wouldn't be employing a scab, now, would you?

THANK YOU AND GOODBYE. Is this the job an American wouldn't take? An illegal immigrant is lauded for helping a 9-year-old boy after a car accident near Nogales, Arizona. He couldn't save his mother, but he did help keep the boy warm until help arrived. Authorities praised him, but they still deported him.

From the AP:

"I am a father of four children. For that, I stayed," Manuel de Jesus Córdova Soberanes said in Spanish from his home in Magdalena de Kino, Sonora. "I never could have left him. Never."

Authorities said Cordova may have saved the life of 9-year-old Christopher Buchleitner, whose mother was killed when their van ran off a cliff in a remote area north of the Mexico-Arizona border on Thanksgiving Day.

Accosted by the media in the past few days, Córdova has become a bit of a hometown celebrity. Contacted Wednesday, Córdova asked about the whereabouts of the boy. "I'd like to know how he is, how he feels," Córdova said.

The Mexican Consulate's office in Nogales is trying to get Córdova a visa so he can come back across the border legally for some measure of formal appreciation. The Minuteman Project plans to give Córdova the "Git Yer Butt Back To Mexico" award.

THE BIG FALLDOWN. With people discussing your Lightning Round editor's recent game-show exploits, our closing moment of mirth comes from an episode of that 70's game show "The Big Showdown" where host Jim Peck got the slip.