What's Next? A Plague Of Frogs? Well, Stavros, yes.....

Debt crises, near-collapse, riots.....

Stuff's getting Biblical in Greece, where now frogs are swarming over a major highway, causing accidents, forcing closures and....well, getting squished.

VIDEO: NBC Nightly News Monday (3/15) on Jim "Runaway Prius" Sikes

After a week of media hyperventilation, it's nice to see solid reporting that prioritizes the salient facts.

NBC Nightly News' coverage of Monday's Toyota news conference played up the most telling fact...that instead of braking as hard as he could, the evidence suggests Jim Sikes may have been riding the brakes on his Prius...off and on the gas and brakes as much as 250 times during his alleged unintended acceleration incident a week ago.

And, they actually interviewed someone who knows something about cars and drivers...former Car and Driver editor-in-chief Csaba Csere.

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ABC has grasped the significance of the 250 applications of the brake pedal, too...CBS makes no mention of it.

Jim "Runaway Prius" Sikes: The Mainstream Media Finds Neutral, Hunting For Reverse

The wide-eyed breathless mainstream media acceptance of Jim Sikes' claim that his Toyota Prius accelerated unintentionally on a San Diego County freeway a week ago is evaporating...and all it took was a look at the facts (something we've been doing for.....oh, a week), and the release of a memo detailing the inspection of Sikes' Prius, which, in a nutshell says what he says happened...couldn't have.

The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) broke the story first on Saturday...quoting "three people familiar with the investigation" who say investigators found a particular pattern of wear on the brakes inconsistent with Sikes' story.

CBS followed up Sunday, reporting on a memo that says investigators "can't replicate the problems Sikes said he encountered."  ABC News said essentially the same thing.

But if you want the full story, it's new media all the way. Jalopnik not only is reporting about the memo, it's published the entire thing....and its headline doesn't pull any punches either.

NY Times Op-Ed: Unintended Acceleration Usually Foot On Wrong Pedal

Those of a certain age will remember that in the mid-1980s Audi had its own unintended acceleration problem...onto which gasoline and a whole boxful of matches was thrown by Morley Safer and the gang at CBS' 60 Minutes.

The story was that the Audi 5000 would roar off by itself, hurting and killing people.

Ultimately, it was shown that the drivers were stomping on the accelerator when they thought (or at least said) it was the brake. But Audi very nearly didn't survive the controversy.

Well, Professor Richard A. Schmidt was one of those who dug past the hype and found the truth 24 years ago...and in an op-ed piece in The New York Times on Wednesday (hat tip to The Truth About Cars for pointing it out), he says history may be repeating itself. Just substitute 2010 for 1985, Toyota for Audi, Prius for 5000.

Read it here.