Tiger takes another hit, cows invade an Arkansas home and ABBA as a sign that you current strategy is doomed to fail

- Tiger Woods doesn’t appear poised to return to the golf course any time soon and by the looks of it, he’s not going to be returning to the top of most companies’ “gotta get” product endorsers in the near future either. Showing that scripted apologies read in front of a room of handpicked media members, friends and family members, refusing to take questions and sounding as robotic as possible while doing so aren’t enough to make you a suitable corporate pitchman, Gatorade joined the ever-growing line of companies jettisoning Woods as their spokesman. A representative for Gatorade, sold by PepsiCo Inc., confirmed Friday that it had severed its relationship with the Woods just a week after his contrived, staged, lame-o public apology. "We no longer see a role for Tiger in our marketing efforts and have ended our relationship," a Gatorade spokeswoman said. "We wish him all the best." Yeah, you wish him all the best, you just want nothing to do with him. I’m not blaming Gatorade; I would have done the exact same thing. What’s bizarre is that Gatorade plans to continue its relationship with the Tiger Woods Foundation, which is essentially Tiger Woods. I suppose that keeping ties only with Woods’ charitable organization allows Gatorade to say that it still cares about the kids it helps while not condoning or supporting Woods’ personal behavior. What cracks me up is a Gatorade spokesperson refusing to say whether his contract was terminated early because of trouble with his public image. Not that we don’t all know the answer to that, but don’t insult our intelligence. The decision itself was a few months in the making, as Gatorade discontinued its Woods-brand drinks in November. The company joins AT&T Inc. and Accenture, both of which dropped Woods in the weeks following his Thanksgiving Day one-car accident that led to the exposure of his habit of chasing as many skanks as possible any time he had the chance. Some companies have stuck by Woods, most notably Nike Inc. and Electronic Arts Inc., but there is no doubt that his value as an endorser has declined significantly and it shows no signs of rebounding any time soon……………

- Having never had the feeling of returning home to find a herd of cows wandering unattended through my home, I can’t say for certain how Latisha Francis of Pike County, Ark., felt Monday when she pulled into her driveway and was greeted by a cow sticking its head out the front door. Of course, when one lives in such a rural area as Pike County, cows are an omnipresent part of life. However, seeing cows in the fields or in pens on your neighbor’s property is one thing; having one greet you at the door and several others inside your house is something else entirely. In addition to the cow at the door, Francis also found another cow hanging out in the living room and a third one chillaxin’ in the master bedroom. As you would expect, the inside of the house was a ginormous mess in the aftermath of the bovine invaders. They found a 50-pound bag of dog food in the kitchen and helped themselves, scattering food all over the floor and forgetting to be courteous visitors and clean it up. Additionally, the trio of cows had difficulty walking on the home's wood floors, slipping and falling repeatedly and crashing into/destroying one piece of furniture after another. The best part of the entire story is how the cows came to enter the house in the first place. No, they didn’t go MacGyver and pick the lock on the back door. Their saga began when they managed to escape their enclosure and were subsequently chased by several dogs. Rather than put their obvious size advantage to use, the cows fled and forced their way inside the house. While there, they also deposited a large yield of cow droppings, which I’m sure will give Brown’s home a lovely odor for the foreseeable future. The lesson, as always: cow-proof your home just to be safe…………

- Here’s a good rule for any walk of life, especially politics: If your strategy for success in any given situation involves the music of ‘70s disco/poppers ABBA, you need a new strategy. I say this partially for the benefit of everyone reading this, but largely for Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Perry is fighting hard in the Texas Republican gubernatorial primary and with only two days remaining, he unveiled a tactic that just may be the worst in political history, which is saying something for a guy who hails from the same state as W., our worst president ever. Perry needs to fire every last one of his advisors because they undoubtedly were part of his decision to use a modified version of ABBA's 1976 hit "Dancing Queen." The poorly made video targets challenger Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and casts her as the "Earmark Queen." Worse still – and how can one possibly make an ABBA song worse? – is the fact that in place of ABBA’s crap-tacular lyrics are new ones sung by…….wait for it…….wait for it……..keep waiting……..yup, a former American Karaoke contestant! That would be former AK karaoke-er Stephanie Daulong. Now I have no idea who Daulong is, but by virtue of his having been an AK contestant, I know he is an absolute tool, a musical hack and someone I would definitely punch in the face if I ever had the misfortune of meeting him. "You are the Earmark Queen, Spend and spend wasting our money, Earmark Queen spend and spend, From the Treasury oh no!" Daulong warbles. He is backed by a video showing reminders of what the Perry campaign refers to as "Hutchison's fiscally irresponsible 17 years in Washington." The video is also in response to Hutchison's campaign producing its own set of Web videos as the primary heats up. What would be great about Perry’s video if I were a Texas voter is that I wouldn’t need to know his or Hutchinson’s positions on any of the issues. No, I would just base my vote entirely on Perry’s ABBA ripoff and know that my only option was voting for anyone but him…………

- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Okay, so it’s not an actual riot and it’s more of a protest, but dammit, this is everyone’s favorite overview of social dissidence ‘round the world and we’ll talk about hundreds of Jordanian politicians and trade union members staging a sit-in at the Trade Unions Complex in Amman on Saturday if I so decide. The protest was meant to denounce Israel's addition of two West Bank holy sites to a list of Jewish heritage centers. Let me first say that I’m not supporting or denouncing the addition of those sites; I am merely commenting on the protest itself. Whether I agree with someone’s position on an issue or not, I can always find a way to enjoy a good act of social dissidence in support of that position. Included in the protest were groups including Muslim Brotherhood figures and leading trade unionists. Those assembled dissenters chanted slogans and hoisted signs calling for decisive action against Israel, the declaration of jihad (why does it always have to be jihad, y’all?) and the total dissolution of ties with Israel by all Muslim countries. The decision that caused the protest came earlier this week, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the inclusion of the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and the Tomb of Rachel near Bethlehem on the list of Jewish heritage sites. That’s how those sites are known in non-Islamic circles, while inside those circles the sites are referred to as the Haram al-Ibrahimi and the Bilal Mosque, respectively. "The response to this crime should not be confined to the issuance of denunciation statements, but must go beyond to express backing for the resistance option, the cancellation of all peace pacts and the suspension of all forms of normalization with Israel," Chairman of the Jordan Doctors Association Ahmad Armouti said. Oh, and what would any Islamic-themed protest be without a little lashing out at the United States? And rest assured, that happened here when several speakers during the function chided the U.S. and other world powers for failing to condemn Israel’s actions. This is a tough protest to enjoy after taking all of that into account, so let’s keep moving…………

- Not that Facebook needed the hammer in its hand any more than it already has it, but now Mark Zuckerberg and friends have additional ammo to keep themselves at the top of the social networking heap. This week, the company awarded a patent relating to streaming "feed" technology -- more specifically, "dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network." Basically, the patent would allow Facebook to pursue action against other social-media sites that potentially violate this patent. That could spell trouble for Twitter, which is basically just one ginormous news feed (filled will all sorts of inane info because 99 percent of Twitter users simply aren’t interesting enough to merit a Twitter feed in the first place). Even though traces of Twitter’s influence can be seen in the way Facebook has developed its own news feed technology, it is Facebook which now has a patent on the technology. Critics and observers in the social media field are already fretting about the wide-ranging implications of the patent and looking across the landscape of social media, I can definitely see why they are concerned. If Facebook so chooses, it could literally make life miserable for a lot of other social networking sites out there. The entire situation is incredibly ironic because way back in the fall of 2006, Facebook users ripped the introduction of the news feed concept so viciously that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg posted an apology note on the company blog in response. The word most used at the time by news feed haters was "stalkerish," but the concept was eventually embraced and now is an essential part of Facebook to the extent that the site now holds a patent on it. Other social networking sites, beware…………