Baseball milestone, glowing pups and more!

Hi there, Pug Lifers. It's Wendell at your service once again, wondering when the ministry is going to update my photo. I feel like one of those newspaper columnists who runs the same mug shot for 20 years, and then when he finally reshoots it, you wonder if his dad took over the job from him. But Big Brother Mugsy calls the shots, so I'll leave that up to him.

As I've gotten older and matured somewhat, I've been taking on a bigger role with Pug Life Ministries. I've been spending less time chasing my tail and more time learning from the master. A while back, Mugsy assigned me to work on a special project developing a canine-centric news wire service. He says this could be critical to the success of the ministry's planned cable news network. I don't think Mugsy has filled you in on this, but basically it's been a dream of his for a few years now. When he first pitched the idea for a 24-hour network to cable and satellite providers, they deemed it too extreme. But with the ongoing radicalization of the Fox Newses and MSNBCs of the world, we believe that the Dog News Network's stance on strictly enforced sharia law and canine suffrage could now be considered almost moderate. Keep your fingers and paws crossed for DNN -- I think it's an idea whose time has come.

Anyway, even though we don't yet have a network to air these stories on, I'm constantly compiling information for Mugsy. Here's a sampling of what I've found recently:

• Leading off, we have a history-making tale about Master Yogi Berra. This modern-day Jackie Robinson has broken baseball's long-standing species barrier, becoming the first canine to be ejected from a baseball game. The mascot for the Greensboro Grasshoppers was tossed by home plate umpire Jason Hatchings for "relieving himself" on the field. Thankfully, the owner of the North Carolina team, Donald Moore, is sticking by his pooch. "When you gotta go, you gotta go," he said.

• The dog-training company Bark Busters has embarked on a search for the naughtiest dog in America. The winner of the National Naughty Dog Contest will win free training. I'm sure that nobody in the congregation would qualify for this, but just in case, you can find details by clicking here.

• A dog in Thailand is now the proud owner of a $4.2 million jewel-encrusted tiara, courtesy of caretaker and jewelry designer Riwin Jirapolsek. The Thai man now plans to create a jeweled hair clip for his 15-year-old Maltese, to help keep the fur out of his beloved pet's eyes. And they say we're in the midst of a global economic recession!

• And finally, researchers say they have created the world's first fluorescent cloned dogs. The four beagle puppies, including Ruppy (pictured below), glow red under ultraviolet light. The researchers say this experiment that mixed canine cells with a gene from a sea anemone could aid in the study of human diseases, but I think their motives are more nefarious. A glowing race of merbeagle supersoldiers, anyone? The ayatollah has made clear his thoughts on canine cloning, so I suggest that you scientists stick with your night lights.