Toyota

Last January, Toyota was wrapping up what must qualify as its worst month ever. The Japanese automaker had just added "sticky gas pedals" to "loose floor mats" as its explanation for hundreds of complaints that vehicles were accelerating when drivers weren't stepping on the gas - a problem first brought to light by a fiery fatal crash in California a few months earlier. Toyota Motor Corp. recalled 2.3 million vehicles to solve the pedal problem, on top of 5.4 million recalled because of the floor-mat issue.

Libia Martinez approached the church secretary at Our Lady of Fatima in North Bergen, N.J., shortly before the Spanish-language Mass last Sunday and handed her a note. "My husband disappeared," Martinez explained. On the paper, the deeply devout woman beseeched her fellow parishioners at the Roman Catholic church to pray for her spouse, Martin Caballero, missing since May 21 from the parking lot of the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort in Atlantic City. Miles away, in Atlantic County, police believed they already had located Caballero.

A career criminal recently released from prison and his young accomplice were arrested in Atlantic County on Friday morning and charged in connection with the May 21 disappearance of a North Jersey tourist from a garage at the Trump Taj Mahal casino. Craig Brian Arno, 44, of Atlantic City, and Jessica Kisby, 24, of Egg Harbor Township, face first-degree counts of kidnapping and carjacking. Each was jailed with cash bail set at $400,000, Atlantic County Prosecutor Ted Housel said.

MAYS LANDING, N.J. - A career criminal recently released from prison and his young accomplice were arrested in Atlantic County on Friday morning and charged in connection with the May 21 disappearance of a North Jersey tourist from a garage at the Trump Taj Mahal casino. Craig Brian Arno, 44, of Atlantic City, and Jessica Kisby, 24, of Egg Harbor Township, face first-degree counts of kidnapping and carjacking. Each was jailed with cash bail set at $400,000, Atlantic County Prosecutor Ted Housel said.

"The whole aim of practical politics," wrote H.L. Mencken, "is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. " Last year's hobgoblin was swine flu. The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology warned of as many as 90,000 excess flu deaths, and the federal government declared two national emergencies. Yet, with the U.S. flu season ending, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate we've had perhaps a third the usual number of flu deaths.

By Michael Fumento 'The whole aim of practical politics," wrote H.L. Mencken, "is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. " Last year's hobgoblin was swine flu. The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology warned of as many as 90,000 excess flu deaths, and the federal government declared two national emergencies. Yet, with the U.S. flu season ending, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate we've had perhaps a third the usual number of flu deaths.

What could pit bulls possibly have in common with Toyotas? Pit bulls, after all, tend to be smaller and furrier. And whatever you do, never try to wash and wax a pit bull. Still, there is a connection. Both have been at the center of "misinformation cascades," in which false "facts" roll downhill until they become avalanches, sweeping away everything in their path. During the 1970s and early '80s, pit bulls maimed about 80 people a year and killed about seven. That compares to about 58 lightning deaths a year.

Amazingly, the congressional hearings on Toyota were relatively civilized. Apart from some inevitable theatrical hectoring, the questioning was generally respectful, the emotions controlled. This was all the more remarkable given the drama of some of the testimony, such as that offered by a tearful Rhonda Smith, who recounted how, in her runaway Lexus, she had called her husband because she "wanted to hear his voice one more time. " Such wrenching and compelling stories might impel you to want to string up the first Toyota executive you find.

As recalls and manufacturer defects continue to raise questions about Toyota vehicle safety, owners may worry that auto-insurance premiums may be affected, too. Not necessarily, experts say. Yes, insurance companies are closely monitoring the developments that led Toyota's chief global executive to testify before Congress on Wednesday. But experts say the ongoing drama may not result in either markedly higher, or lower, insurance premiums for Toyota owners. There is still too little known about the true extent of problems afflicting the vehicles, including popular versions of the Camry, Lexus, and Prius.

Toyota has been running apologetic TV ads and vowing to win back customers' trust. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the company is busy doing damage control. Toyota has hired two crisis management/lobbying firms to join a mini-battalion of 32 lobbyists Toyota already has working on Capitol Hill. The beefed-up public-relations and lobbying effort will help buttress Toyota's sizable political- campaign and charitable giving. More than 40 percent of the 125 members of Congress on the three committees investigating Toyota have received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations over the last 10 years from a network of sources tied to the carmaker, according to an analysis by the Washington Post.