Take that, PHP 5.0.5. Good riddens. see #14160.

git-svn-id: https://develop.svn.wordpress.org/trunk@18110 602fd350-edb4-49c9-b593-d223f7449a82

wp-includes/wp-db.php

@@ -1365,7 +1365,7 @@ class wpdb {
 			// Return an array of row objects with keys from column 1
 			// (Duplicates are discarded)
 			foreach ( $this->last_result as $row ) {
-				$key = array_shift( $var_by_ref = get_object_vars( $row ) );
+				$key = array_shift( get_object_vars( $row ) );
 				if ( ! isset( $new_array[ $key ] ) )
 					$new_array[ $key ] = $row;
 			}