The picture of the unhappy-looking individual on the right shows of course the world’s number one golfer Tiger Woods.

Woods talked for more than 13 minutes Friday from the clubhouse at the TPC Sawgrass, home of the PGA Tour. About 40 people were in the room, including his mother. The event was tightly controlled, with only a few journalists allowed to watch Tiger live.

He said: “I was unfaithful. I had affairs. I cheated. What I did was not acceptable,” said Woods, looking composed and speaking in a steady voice. His wife, Elin, was not present in the room.

Tiger Woods also informed the public that he has undergone therapy for 45 days and that he will return for some more.

This is, as far as we are concerned the gist of the issue. Officially, the therapy was for so-called “sexual addiction”. The way we look at this is that if Tiger needed therapy for sex addition, the same kind of therapy should probably be administered to almost every man on the planet and some women as well.

What in the heck is “sex addiction”? Isn’t that the natural sexual drive which most of us have? It is also patently obvious that it is easier to enjoy this so-called affliction if one is famous, rich and successful. Not that we are being too permissive here, but that is simple, unadorned reality.

What is also pretty obvious is that Tiger’s wife Elin is pretty hot indeed, probably much hotter that any of his casual squeezes.

Yes, newness, excitement and all that do play an important role in sexual attraction, but since most of our sexual feelings appear to be centered in our brains, rather than crotches, we firmly believe that the therapy needed here would be one that would help enhance the subject’s thinking ability, rather than something called a “sexual addiction”.

There is a saying out there that:  “there is no cure for stupidity”. There is also probably no viable cure for what our social rule makers and the mental health industry label as “sexual addiction”.

Technorati Tags: apology, Cheating, golf, sexual addiction, therapy, tiger woods

In public, Toyota is running apologetic TV ads, vowing to win back customer trust. Behind the scenes, the Japanese carmaker is trying to learn all it can about congressional investigations, maybe even steer them along if it can.

It is all a part of an all-out drive by the world’s biggest automaker to redeem its once unassailable brand – under siege now as Toyota’s global recall expanded to some 8.5 million cars and trucks. The recall of 440,000 of its flagship and very trendy Prius and other hybrids, plus a Tokyo news conference where the company’s president read a statement in English pledging to “regain the confidence of our customers,” underscored a determination to keep buyers’ faith from sinking to depths from which it might not be able to recover again.

Facing U.S. congressional inquiries and government investigations, Toyota through its army of lawyers and lobbyists is working full-tilt to salvage its reputation. The confidential strategy – as Toyota will say little publicly about it – includes efforts to sway upcoming hearings on Capitol Hill and is based on experiences by companies that have survived similar consumer and political crises – and those that haven’t.

It was recently revealed that State Farm, the largest U.S. auto insurer, said it had informed federal regulators late in 2007 about growing reports of unexpected acceleration in Toyotas. That raised new questions about whether the government missed clues about the problems.

Federal safety officials said they were examining complaints from Toyota Corolla owners about steering problems.

Some say that the best strategy for Toyota would be apology, openness, details about a specific fix – plus a little help from friends on Capitol Hill.

Friendly legislators can limit the duration of congressional hearings and ask convenient questions that would give Toyota officials a chance to tell their side of the story. The goal would to limit unfavorable news stories about the hearings to as few days as possible, while making sure the company avoids being confrontational.

The Toyota recalls are the highest-profile congressional probe of the auto industry since a series of deadly accidents prompted the Firestone tire recall in 2000. Most of the tires were on popular Ford Explorer sport utility vehicles. Although the tires might have been defective, few other vehicles besides the Ford Explorer rolled when the Firestones blew out. Funny that Firestone seemed to take most of the blame for these design and manufacturing defects.

Both companies suffered damage to their reputations, but both bounced back. Ford was proactive, briefing officials with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Congress and stressing that the safety of their customers was paramount. Firestone offered to replace its tires for free. Everything was pretty much forgotten and neatly swept under the carpet. We wonder if Toyota will manage to come out of this smelling like a rose…

Technorati Tags: accelerators, brakes, congress, hybrids, lobbying, recalls, reputation, steering, Toyota

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker wants to prohibit commercial banks from some high-risk trades, saying that this should be an essential component of broader financial regulations and would cut back on institutions deemed “too big to fail.”

That’s seems eminently reasonable to us and we are glad to see Paul Volcker brought to the front of the regulatory battle.

President Obama has embraced Volcker’s idea to prohibit large financial companies that have both commercial and investment functions, such as Goldman Sachs, from engaging in speculative trading.

Large banks have already said that they oppose the idea. Do you blame them? These guys had the best deal around, since mobsters built Las Vegas and they don’t want to give any of that up.

Volcker said commercial banks, whose deposits are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation,  should not be allowed to engage in speculation that does not benefit their commercial customers.

The ban would distinguish between commercial and investment banks – a separation that had existed until 1999 when Congress, Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and President Bill Clinton repealed major provisions of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act.

This wasn’t exactly the beginning of the wild ride on Wall Street, but most likely the beginning of the mortgage derivative schemes, the irresponsible lending practices and so forth – all leading to our present economic quagmire.

It appears that Paul Volcker has the right idea – to roll back some of the deregulatory schemes, which have turned the financial mills into legalized gambling houses.

One thing we wonder about, though… Why wasn’t he allowed to speak publicly before Scott Brown won the Massachusetts senatorial race?

Technorati Tags: banks, gambling, las vegas, regulations, Volcker, wall street

Polaroid recently named Lady Gaga as its new creative director.
Polaroid says that the pop singer possesses five essential qualities, which make her a natural partner:

1- Fan of Polaroid
2- Inspirational
3- Creative
4- Connected to fans
5- Empowering

Lady Gaga expressed her enthusiasm about her new role, saying: “…what I’m excited about doing is working with Polaroid and taking the iconic image of the Polaroid instant film photo and bringing it into the digital age of cameras.”

New products (whatever they might be) from the partnership between Polaroid and Lady Gaga should be available by the end of this year.

Good luck to both.

Technorati Tags: creative director, Lady Gaga, Polaroid

The  Republican gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia, along with Scott Brown taking over Ted Kennedy’s seat in the U.S. Senate have sprouted all kinds of suppositions, ” I told yous” and even a bit of a reshuttle at the White House.

There is no doubt that the Democrats have screwed up on many fronts. Having a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate should have given them the opportunity to take care of many, long-overdue issues, but considering the fact that too many of them – Christopher Dodd comes to mind among others – were really taking care of somebody else’s business, things simply didn’t get done and the American electorate, including a whole slew of liberal Democrats felt downright betrayed.

There is the definite possibility that the Obama voters were really under the impression that the movement created around the candidate actually represented the man. Surprisingly, the man was and is different from what the voters imagined him to be. Just look at the bailouts of the messed up financial mills, which were ostensibly “too big to fail”. Now the biggies are paying multi-million-dollar bonuses, possible only because of the taxpayer-funded bailout.

Let’s not forget that in 2009 the U.S. has reportedly printed more money than in the entire 20th century…successfully bailing out the Wall Street shysters, called by some bonus-happy executives  “their best people”. Wouldn’t these “best people” be more appropriately employed producing our license plates for the next 20 years in some federal penitentiary?

In any case, practically exit Tim Geithner and finally re-enter Paul Volcker, who seems to have saner ideas. We also welcome the return of David Plouffe,  Obama’s campaign manager. As expected Obama’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod says that there is no major White House shakeup in the works. Why not, we wonder?

In closing, enjoy another excellent cartoon by Washington Post’s Tom Toles. If one picture is worth 1,000 words, these two combined must be worth quite a bit more

Technorati Tags: democrats, Health Care reform, obama, politics, republicans