Take Me To Your Leader

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The Pizza Meter

Shortly after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, stories like the following started popping up in the press:

Net.rumor has it that Domino's Pizza in Washington DC always knows when the military brass is gearing up for action. The tip-off: a sudden surge of late-night orders from the Pentagon.

Wired, July/August 1993

Unknowable: You can tell if a big op. is happening at US gov't by level of pizza orders.

The claims are largely the work of Frank Meeks, owner of several Domino's Pizza franchises in the D.C. area. All of the claims are ex post facto. Neither Meeks or the delivery boy has tipped off the Washington Post before the event.

Short of comparing Pentagon and White House duty rosters with Domino's sales receipts, it's impossible to whether there really is a reliable correlation. There are several factors that argue against Meeks's claims, however.

- The duty staffs at the Pentagon and the White House are small.

- Meeks made all his claims after the fact. The crises that he says pizza deliveries predicted were more or less well known.

- Some free publicity wouldn't hurt Meeks business.

References:

• http://tafkac.org/politics/pentagon_pizza.html