DAILY MUESLI: Hot Cross 'Buns'

1.) WITH ALL THE ATTENTION in Virginia focused on the gubernatorial race between Jerry Kilgore and Tim Kaine, there is another, albeit smaller, race that is just as interesting: Sheriff of the state capital, Richmond.

You see, the current top law enforcement officer in the city, Michelle B. Mitchell, is known for being considerably more attractive than, let's say, this guy. From MemeFirst, I see that a columnist at the Richmond Times-Dispatch has uncovered her e-mail address: MissBuns@aol.com.

"From now on, obviously, Mitchell will be referred to as Sheriff Buns," Sterling writes at MemeFirst. Think of all the campaign puns for Miss Buns ...

>> "Ass Candy Sheriff" [MemeFirst]

2.) GOOGLE IS CAUGHT somewhere between the "One China" philosophy and a hard place. On Google Maps, Taiwan is listed as a province of China. That has, not entirely unexpectedly, riled the feathers of people who support Taiwan as its own entity, free of Beijing. Google's been inundated with e-mail and formal requests from Taiwanese officials to rectify the situation.

>> "Taiwan protests over Google map" [BBC]

3.) BLOGGERS PAY ATTENTION. Harriet Miers. Harriet has a double-r combination and one t. As for the last name, the i-before-e rule applies here. Here is a current rundown of alternative spelling for Harriet Miers in the world of blogs, via Technorati.
- Hariett Miers
- Hariet Miers
- Harriet Meirs
- Harriet Meyers
- Harriet Myers
- Herriet Miers

(For all the copy editors out there, let's hope there is never another Condoleezza Rice: note, there are two e's, two z's.)

4.) NEWS FROM WARD 8: Marion Barry is being investigated for tax troubles.

>> "Marion Barry the Focus of Federal Tax Probe" [The Washington Post]

5.) GAWKER RAISED A GOOD QUESTION on Monday: Is Natasha Lyonne still alive? Remember all the reports back in August that the former "American Pie" actress was on her death bed with Hepatitis C, a heart infection and a collapsed lung (perhaps two)?

I hope where ever Ms. Lyonne might be, she is either on a speedy path to recovery or is at peace. Back when "American Pie" was in production, I gave a Universal Studios set designer a tour of my high school (the trilogy is based on East Grand Rapids, Mich., where I grew up; the town in the move is East Great Falls, Mich.). I feel an odd attachment to those characters. (I have always disliked apple pie, just for the record.) And to my knowledge, the people who inspired Lyonne's character in "American Pie" never were heroin junkies, or alleged junkies for that matter. (Under its "L" listings, The Dead People Server currently does not list Ms. Lyonne as being dead.)

>> "90% Of New Yorkers Boring As Hell" [Gawker]

-- Image of pork bun from the Flickr site of roboppy.