Month: February 2021

Screwing Up The Brand (2)

Marketing / Advertising

Following on from yesterday’s post about Stella Artois peeing in their own soup comes yet another example of marketing silliness:

Country star Luke Combs has apologized for appearing with Confederate flags, saying he is now aware of how painful that flag is.

Ummm Luke, bubba:  the Confederate flag may be painful to some, but it is not painful to your audience.

And just so we’re clear on the concept:  that “audience” would be the folks who buy your albums, attend your concerts and wear your T-shirts;  and in a pure head count they probably outnumber the flag-hating weenies by 25,000 : 1.

Now I don’t know if continuing to display the Stars and Bars at your concerts would disenchant folks in the crowd — just in passing, I bet your next concert will reveal an absolute sea of Confederate flags in the audience — but I’m pretty sure that a whole bunch of your fans are going to be mightily pissed off that you took a knee towards the Politically-Correct Set.

And the problem with doing that is that these woke bastards are never satisfied, especially after you do it once.  Expect your lyrics to come under scrutiny from now on:  references to cheating women will be labeled “gender-hatred”, singing about booze will be considered as encouraging alcoholism, and forget your pickup truck, that gas-guzzling ozone-destroying monster.

And if a country singer can’t sing about love, booze and trucks, there’s fuck-all left for him to sing about.

Oh, and a postscript:  just wait till the vegans see this pic…

I should also point out that until I wrote this post, I’d never heard of Luke Combs.

Fracture Lines

Gummint, Mocking Furriners

Looks like the Euros are having a problem or two:

The French blame the Germans and the Germans blame the French.  The Eastern Europeans blame the Western Europeans.  The Southern Europeans blame the North.  And everyone blames the officials in Belgium.

As Douglas Murray adds:  “In other words, business as usual.”

Once again, we see proof (if any were needed) that massive bureaucracies don’t respond well to a crisis.  In this case, the Euros thought that they could get both research and supplies of Chinkvirus vaccines from the UK, but when the Brits told them to shove it — all hail Brexit! — the Euros were left holding the short end of the stick, and squabbling ensued.

The lesson is well learned Over Here, for all those who think that Big Gummint is the answer to our woes.  In a crisis, it seldom is.

 

Quote Of The Day

QOTD

From Peter Hitchens, brother of the late Christopher:

“Officials and politicians dare not relax the measures they took in a panic, in case they are blamed if anything ever goes wrong afterwards. And millions genuinely believe they are safer as a result.”

What that means is that a series of panics will inevitably cause our freedoms to be ratcheted into oppression via the “concern for security”.  And the ratcheting goes one way, irreversibly.

Monday Funnies

Funny Stuff

Please excuse the theme for today’s post.

…which means:

My feelings about it:

Others feel about the same:

And the last word:

So to warm us all up, a little look at more salubrious climes:

Now climb down off that roof and get to work.

Letters, I Get Letters

Bad News

From our apartment complex management:

Needless to say, my building is neither 4, 10 nor 13.  And forget water.

On a related note:  we had movers come and shift all our possessions into the (one-car) garage on Saturday.  It took a depressingly short time, and there’s still plenty of space.  Now building management can dry the place out and replace carpets etc. , which they assured me [eyecross]  would take place soon.

But as I paid the movers with some of the money y’all sent to me, I said a quiet thank-you.  (And yes, I will eventually get it back from the insurance, but I needed it right then, and you guys made it possible.)

Best news of all:  my books were in perfect shape, untouched by the water and the resulting humidity.

And in other news:  normal blogging service should resume tomorrow with the usual mixture of guns,  rants, booze, invective and boobs.  Try to contain your excitement.