Governor Chalupa?

Ray Wolf of Mount Shasta Live! seems to have broken a very juicy, spicy, and crunchy news story concerning the California recall and a certain fast food chain's marketing gimmick in a story entitled "Taco Bell Attempts to Subvert Democracy".

Here's how Taco Bell's specious poll works. A nutritionally challenged customer that wants to participate in the poll can make a choice by buying a particular menu item. A Beef Crunchy Taco translates to a vote for Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. If they want to vote to support Democrat Governor Gray Davis, the customer can buy a Chicken Soft Taco. If the customer wants to support any of the other candidates, they have to buy a Grilled Stuft Burrito. If a customer supports someone other than Davis or Schwarzenegger, the poll provides no way to designate who the purchaser's specific choice is.

In between the loony rhetoric he makes some thoughtful points and does some light investigative work. I myself am going to make a write-in vote for a Taco Supreme.

TMQ Returns

Tuesday Morning Quarterback is back with NFL previews and he's still as lecherous as ever. This week he previews the NFC (the AFC preview was last week) with detours to Marianne, the symbol of French liberty, crop circles, and the Fox-Frankensuit debacle. I don't know of any other columnist that can get away with using words like rodomontade and demulcent and intersperse obscure references to Russian battleships with cheesecake photos.

And on the subject of the NFL, Businessweek had a really intersesting cover story in January.

Maybe one reason for Tagliabue's championship season in the face of a stubborn downturn is that the NFL is not exactly a model of capitalism. The commissioner has made it his mission to distribute equally as much of the league's revenues as possible among the teams of the National Football Conference and the American Football Conference. "We're 32 fat-cat Republicans who vote socialist," Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell quipped recently. It doesn't hurt that players have agreed to a hard cap on salaries and few guarantees. "I don't see this as us vs. the owners, but instead it's us vs. all the other entertainment choices out there: the movies, music, theater," says Gene Upshaw, the former Oakland Raider and Hall of Famer who represents 2,000 players as executive director of the NFL Players Assn.

Fighting Drugs With Drugs

In some of the funniest parts of the book Fear and Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72, Hunter S. Thompson speculated that democratic presidential candidate Edwin Muskie might be addicted to Ibogaine. Now, the potent hallucinogen is becoming known as a treatment for addiction.

Dr. Cube Has a Posse

Kaiju is like the grotesque, hybrid offsrping of Vince McMahon, Godzilla, Pokemon, Ultraman and your lunch. Here's a brief explanation.

Who is the sphincter mouth of depth-perception irrelevant monster? Sky Deviler most high ugliness the dive-bomb swoop. Special appetite skill combine with brain lentil size create the deadliest! What goes in does having not come out? During ponder, perhaps Sky Deviler starving to death, or eat delicious red horns? Only little tail to chase. Danger like a starving dog!

(via gammatron)

From Rumor to Headline

The life cycle of a news story. (via LA Observed)

Beating the System

This is the story of how a bunch of MIT students figured out how to consistently make money in Vegas.

Last Words

A collection of transcripts and some mp3s of cockpit voice recordings from planes. (via Metafilter)

No WAMYS

Maybe one reason Bush and Co are so hesitant to declassify material in the congressional 9/11 report is that people may start asking serious questions about why the administration put the kibosh on pre-9/11 investigations into Saudi Arabian support for terrorists.

Well, well, well. President George was in one hell of bind this week when it turned out that Saudi Arabia funded Al Qaeda, not Iraq. Realizing we'd invaded the wrong country, Bush did the honorable thing: he's come out against gay marriages.
...
Furthermore, in the summer of 2001, Mr. Bush disbanded the US intelligence unit tracking funding of Al Qaeda. What is it our G-men were uncovering? According to two separate sources speaking to BBC, the funders of Al Qaeda fronts include those who have previously funded Bush family business and political ventures.

Northern Lights

The Aurora Borealis of Iceland. (via gammatron)

Osama bin Forgotten

Remember that guy? Our government shifted a significant number of resources from the hunt for bin Laden to the invasion of Iraq according to a long New Yorker article. There are a lot of great sections including this surprising expletive-filled example of quality leadership by former president Clinton. (via Metafilter)

Clinton authorized a lethal attack. The target date, however—August 20, 1998—nearly coincided with Clinton’s deposition about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Clarke said that he and other top national-security officials at the White House went to see Clinton to warn him that he would likely be accused of “wagging the dog” in order to distract the public from his political embarrassment. Clinton was enraged. “Don’t you fucking tell me about my political problems, or my personal problems,” Clinton said, according to Clarke. “You tell me about national security. Is it the right thing to do?” Clarke thought it was. “Then fucking do it,” Clinton told him.