Influx

Alert Reader Pete D. sends me this report*:

First Afrikaners granted refugee status due to arrive in U.S.

The U.S. government has officially granted 54 Afrikaans South Africans, white descendants of mainly Dutch colonizers, refugee status and they are expected to land in the U.S. on Monday May 12, three sources with knowledge of the matter have told NPR.

(Note the little “colonizers” snark — it’s NPR, after all.)

And further down:

States that have agreed to take in the South Africans include:  Alabama, California, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New York, Nevada, North Carolina and Iowa.

Not Texas, probably because we have enough / too many Seffricans here already.  And California and New York?  Wait till our newly-minted immigrants who choose those locations try to buy themselves a gun.  (Hint: it’s more difficult than in Seffrica.)

And lastly:

The UN’s International Organization for Migration had refused to be involved in the process.

Of course they would.  These refugees are whities;  only darkies qualify to be refugees because slavery (or something).

Anyway:  Welkom by die States, julle.  Veels geluk.


*Pete, buddy:  WTF are you doing reading NPR?

Thieves

I had to chuckle at this little piece of advice for dealing with this particular issue:

There’s even a handy-dandy little list:

It is, as they say, to laugh.

As I’ve stated so often before, seagulls don’t respond to defensive postures such as the above:  the little fuckers will sometimes attack you for fun, not just for food.  So ignore all the above, non-violent measures.

As with most animals, the best defense is attack.  Lo and behold Kim’s Ultimate Anti-Seagull Device (which I describe more fully here):

Instructions for use:  if you’re going into seagull territory — which is just about anywhere there’s a large body of water — carry one of these.  When you see one of these airborne rats approaching, wait till it’s in range, then take a full swing at it;  don’t just bat it away, you want to inflict massive pain on the fucker or else it will just come back for more.  In my experience, you’ll only have to do this twice or three times before the other airborne rats will get the message and leave you alone.  The goal is to leave the bird flailing around on the ground with broken limbs (wings, legs or neck), making an awful ruckus that will frighten others of its ilk away.

Don’t get put off by the anguished squeals of any bird-lovers in the scene because they’re irrelevant to your problem.  Just whale away at these rodents (the birds, not the bird-lovers, but be my guest).  Then relax and enjoy your snack.  When you leave the area, feel free to kick the carcasses out of the way.

Remember:  a tennis racquet is sports equipment, not a weapon.  Just remember to rinse the blood and feathers off the thing when you get home.

New Mouthpiece

I see that following the resounding flop of the ad campaign for their new line, Jaguar is now looking for a new advertising agency.

It comes after the company announced plans to shift to electric vehicles with a bizarre new advertisement featuring brightly dressed models but no cars.

The group also abandoned its iconic ‘growler’ cat badge, replacing it with a curved geometric J and L symbol.

Defending the campaign late last year, JLR’s Managing Director Rawdon Glover told the Financial Times: ‘If we play in the same way that everybody else does, we’ll just get drowned out.’

Well, maybe so.  But in every good ad campaign — especially so for cars — the product has to come front and center, especially when it comes to their features.

Back to Jaguar:  while everyone’s laughing their asses off about this latest development — me included — allow me to remind you all about the Great Advertising Truism:

“Behind every shitty ad and stupid ad campaign lies a client’s signature.”

Which means that not only the ad agency should be fired, but also the client executive (CEO Rawdon Glover) whose signature okayed the campaign.

My suggestion to the new guys:  ditch the stupid new gay logo and go back to the old snarling jaguar.

And for the clients (headed by a new CEO): go back to making cars that people might actually want to drive — you know, that “heritage” thing.  Hire someone like Gordon Murray or Pininfarina to design it, if you can’t find a decent designer already working at JLR.

I suspect, however, that they’ll be doing neither;  in which case, let’s everyone wave bye-bye to Jaguar.

Monday Funnies

So let’s get into the spirit of the thing:

And on a lighter note:

And speaking of Godwin’s Law, here are some things you would never have seen if Hitler had won the war:

 

Why?  He thought red hair was an evil genetic aberration, and needed to be exterminated.

Then again…

Now go and plunge into the rest of the week…

Classic Beauty: Jean Harlow

Considering that Jean Harlow died at age 26, her impact on cinema was enormous.  And honestly, I can kinda see why:

She absolutely oozed sex appeal — for the time, as much or more than Marilyn Monroe did some twenty years later — and certainly never posed nude, either.  It is said, with some justification, that she never wore underwear of any kind.  Jimmy Stewart later claimed that she kissed so beautifully that when doing a kissing scene with her, he deliberately flubbed the action so that they had to do several takes.  And as for Clark Gable… they did several movies together, and I’m pretty sure he wasn’t doing much acting, either.

Talk about setting the screen on fire…

Crap List Part Zwei

In keeping with last Saturday’s Crap List / Top 25 British cars, here’s my attempt at the top 25 greatest German cars of all time.

1) 1947-1982 VW Beetle:  Yeah, call it “Hitler’s Revenge” or “Porsche’s Abomination” or whatever, the Beetle sold in the jillions in almost every single country in the world — definitely the “People’s Car” in any language — and even today it has the ability to get a smile whenever it’s seen on the road.  Pretty much every model was iconic, from 1947 till the last variant made some sixty-five years later.

2) 1955 Mercedes 300 SL Gullwing:  I’m not sure that anyone can argue with this selection;  easily one of the greatest sports cars of the 1950s (and perhaps of all time), it won the Millie Miglia several times, and still commands top dollar in any sports car collection.

3) 1956 Mercedes W186 300 S Coupé (“SC”):  When the company’s top executive says that the engineers have to build him a car that can run all day on the autobahn at top speed without breaking down, but must still be luxurious… you get the 300 S line, and the two-door coupé was the best-looking.

4) 1966 Porsche 911 S:  Quite possibly the greatest sports car model ever made.  Its shape was (and still is) iconic, and despite the rear-engined layout being a nightmare for handling, it’s a wonderful car.  Alone among “performance” (as opposed to “touring”) sports cars, the average 911 has been driven more miles than any other brand, which says everything about its reliability and fun-to-drive ethos.  Second only to the Beetle in terms of longevity (September of this year will mark its sixtieth consecutive year of production).

5) 1976 VW Golf:  Speaking of Beetles:  you’re tasked with designing the Beetle’s successor and now, some 35 million cars later, it’s still selling like hot cakes.  And speaking of “hot”, its GTI variant set the standard for the “hot hatch” concept across all manufacturers.  Oh, and you can till fit a grand piano in the back. [some hyperbole there]

So that’s my top 5.  Let’s look at the rest.

6) 1958 BMW 507: Definitely one of the best-looking sports cars ever made (and certainly the best-looking BMW sports car ever made), the 507 gained infamy as the car that nearly bankrupted BMW.  In today’s world, the 507 would be a rival to any other sports car;  in the late 1950s, its stratospheric price — higher than any Ferrari — was death to sales.

7) 1979 Audi Quattro:  Took full-time four-wheel drive out of off-road and into passenger cars.  Also killed the rally car scene for other manufacturers until they too went 4WD.

8) 1964 Mercedes 230 SL “Pagoda”:  The shape was different from anything out there, and it lasted through two engine upgrades (250, 280) for the next six years.  Then there’s the fact that the pagoda top was removable — and its removal made the 230 SL a sexy little drop-top instead of just a handsome mini-coupé.

9) 1952 Porsche 356:  Rather underpowered at first, the 356 added “reliability” to the “fun” of the British sports cars of the time and still has a place in the hearts of all Porsche fans.

10) 1969 Mercedes 280 SEL 6.3:  If the base 280 SE was a good car (and it was), the blown-out 6.3-liter-engined W109 SEL monster was the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing.  Like its 50s-era 300 S parent, the 6.3 combined blistering speed, handling and luxury in a single model, and was the fastest saloon car in the world for many years.

11) 1938 BMW 328:  Even though the Nazis were forcing BMW to make aircraft engines for the coming little disturbance in 1939, the Bavarians still managed to create a little sportster that was the best of the breed until the late 1950s.

12) 1988 Porsche 959:   The world’s fastest street-legal production car when it was released, the 959 was also the most complex car of its time, the first to use several computers to manage the engine and stop the car from killing the driver (not always successfully).


13) 1976 BMW M3 E30:  Some 50 years since its introduction, the E30 still competes with all the modern cars, and wins.  The entire 3-series has been BMW’s most successful model, but the E30 is the best.

14) 1932 Horch 670 V12:  One of Mercedes’s principal competitors in the interwar years, the Horch set standards for all European luxury tourers.  (Apparently, Audi is planning on using the “Horch” name for its ultra-luxury competitor to the Mercedes Maybach line.)  And speaking of luxury:

15) 1936 Mercedes 540K:   …brought the concept of “much more than 100mph” into everyday car-speak forever.  The supercharged 5-liter engine was, for its time, the equivalent of a Saturn-V rocket.  It was the car that announced that its owner Had Arrived.

16) Audi R8:  With V10 power (or V8 for the wussies / cheapskates), it doesn’t matter that the R8 shares a platform with its cousin, the Lambo.  It means business, and it’s instantly recognizable.

17) 1936 Auto Union Wanderer W25:  Its nearest competitor would have come from England (the MG TA), but the mid-market Wanderer was more powerful, more reliable and cheaper.  And it looked (and still looks) fantastic.

18) 1959 Mercedes 190 SL:  When the 300SL proved to be too expensive and too powerful for the mass market, Mercedes toned everything down a bit, but went a little too far in the power department.  The smaller 190 SL was actually better looking than the Gullwing, but it was hopelessly underpowered by comparison.  So despite the price, the beautiful 190 SL’s sales were underwhelming.

19) 2011 Wiesman GT-3:  The German equivalent to Clarkson’s “a man in a shed called Ken”, and an answer to the question:  “What would a 1935 Bugatti Atlantic look like in the modern era?”

21) 1970 Opel GT:  Proof that even if you’re a division of General Motors (where good car designs go to die), you can still make a small, fun and beautiful sports car.

22) 1972 Mercedes G500:  Yeah, it started off as a .dotmil Bundeswehr  jeep, but its civilian incarnation is sublime.  It makes a statement, that statement being “Yes, I know it costs way too much, gets crap gas mileage, has the style quality (and aerodynamics) of two stacked bricks, and its earlier diesel engine had less power than a Pekinese — but I don’t care.”

23) 2010 Mercedes SLS AMG C197:  Any resemblances between the SLS and the 1950s 300 SL  are completely intentional.  Now add less weight and blistering pace…

24) 1938 Maybach SW 38:  Their engines powered almost all of the WWI German Luftstreitkräfte aircraft and airships, but after that they also made some cars before the little 1939-45 adventure (during which their engines powered almost every Wehrmacht tank).  The SW 38 model made Mercedes sit up and take notice, and MB later bought Maybach in 1960 to turn it into their upscale brand.

25) 1992 Porsche 928 GTS:  Porsche’s first entry into the “luxury family car” market started  in 1978 with a front-mounted (!) 4.7L V8, and ended in 1992 with an absolute rocket, powered by a 5.4L V8.  All the models had room for luggage, unlike any other Porsche before (and arguably since).

There are others, but these 25 are the greatest.