Salon’s article about McDonald’s and mad cow disease really turned my stomach. For the past year and a half I’ve been congratulating myself on not giving in to paranoia and fear (I bought some hamburger just last night to make chili… yum!), but even I begin to crack when faced with phrases like “mechanically recovered meat.” Tell me again why I should be a vegetarian, Brigita?

No free taco. My dad will be disappointed.

My dad e-mailed me raving about some Taco Bell promotion to give everybody in the United States a free taco if Mir hits a target in the South Pacific. I figured he’d picked it up from some bogus e-mail forward. Turns out I was wrong. Now I wonder, how do they determine who’s eligible for this? Is it everybody physically located in the U.S.? What about tourists? What about illegal immigrants? In other words, how do I (theoretically, of course) get my taco??