Watercooler Stories

PEPSI PULLS PLUG ON RAPPER'S ADS

After comments by Bill O'Reilly on Fox News that rapper Ludacris was spouting profane, vulgar and obscene lyrics, Pepsi-Cola announced that it's severing ties with the "singer" and taking his ads off the air. The Atlanta Journal and Constitution says that the Georgia-based artist was given a pink slip by Pepsi just a day after O'Reilly's on-air comments.

While making his personal assessments of Ludacris's style of "music," O'Reilly urged his viewers who drink Pepsi to change to Coke to protest the tie-in.

O'Reilly told his audience that it appears that Pepsi cares nothing about the lives of unsupervised children. He added that Ludacris might be "harmless to mature adults," but his possible effect on kids could not be denied.

Ludacris was one of several performers hired by Pepsi in a new "multi-cultural" set of TV commercials aimed at minority groups.

MIT ADMITS IT COPIED COMIC BOOK

When the Massachusetts Institute of Technology won the bid recently to help the Pentagon design a new high-tech fighting soldier, it was not noticed at the time that some of the designs should have looked slightly familiar. According to published reports, the school -- which won a $50 million grant to work on the project -- now says that it copied some images from a science fiction comic book called "Radix" in working up its winning bid for the contract.

Now the Canadian creators of the character are, in the words of the New York Post, "crying foul and weighing their options."

When MIT won the grant some months ago many in international media used one of the pieces of artwork submitted with the original proposal to publicize the event. It showed a masked female soldier, nearly a carbon copy of the Radix character, in demonstrating what one of its futuristic proposals looked like.

BUT THE SENATOR WASN'T THERE AT THE TIME!

Popular Arizona GOP Sen. John McCain is well known for his speechmaking. He is a sought-after after-dinner speaker and a frequent guest on talk shows. Now, according to the Arizona Republic, it would appear that the senator's off-the-Hill appearances have begun to show up in his attendance record.

The latest check of official documents on Capitol Hill show that McCain has the second-worst attendance record in the U.S. Senate. The leader in missed votes is a fellow Republican, Jesse Helms of North Carolina. But Helms is in failing health and retiring soon. And it was only in recent months, as Helms began to spend less and less time at his desk, that McCain was nudged from a virtual tie with Helms into second place in the no-show department.

The publication says that in the past two years McCain has missed one out of every five votes on the floor of the Senate.

But, in defense of McCain, he has had to take time off for medical reasons and did spend some time seeking his party's nomination for the White House two years ago.

AIRTRAN INCREASES PRESENCE IN ATLANTA

The quickly growing East Coast airline AirTran (the "son" of ValuJet) says it's increasing its presence at the sprawling Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta. According to the company on its Web site, AirTran will build a new maintenance hangar at the jetport to keep up with its quickly growing fleet.

The carrier say the new facility will include a two-story office complex. It will also be home to the company's 120 Atlanta-based mechanics.

The facility will also create about 100 new jobs.

Under the agreement negotiated between airline officials and the managers of the Atlanta airport, Hartsfield will retain ownership of the property and will lease it to AirTran.

The cost of construction and taxiway improvements necessary for the project will be paid back to the city over a 20-year period through AirTran's rent payments.

AirTran and Delta are the largest "hubbers" at the international gateway.