Free Dr. Pepper! and related musings.

From AP:

Dr Pepper is making good on its promise of free soda now that the release of Guns N' Roses' "Chinese Democracy" is a reality.
The soft-drink maker said in March that it would give a free soda to everyone in America if the album dropped in 2008. "Chinese Democracy," infamously delayed since recording began in 1994, goes on sale Sunday.
"We never thought this day would come," Tony Jacobs, Dr Pepper's vice president of marketing, said in a statement. "But now that it's here, all we can say is: The Dr Pepper's on us."
Beginning Sunday at 12:01 a.m., coupons for a free 20-ounce soda will be available for 24 hours on Dr Pepper's Web site. They'll be honored until Feb. 28.

This is just great news for Dr. Pepper on the heels of a terrible 3rd quarter earnings report:

On Thursday, the company said net earnings in the third quarter dropped 31.2%, to $106.0 million, or 41 cents a share, from $154.0 million, or 61 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. Sales fell 2.0%, to $1.51 billion, from $1.54 billion a year ago and were just below the $1.52 billion expected by analysts.
The company now expects sales growth of 1.0% and adjusted earnings between $1.83 and $1.86 a share. Analysts have been projecting annual earnings of $1.95 a share.

Way to go, Dr. Pepper. That Texas-sized ego of yours just made a bad situation worse. Not only are you in fiscal freefall, but now you've got to give away millions of gallons of product FOR FREE because you decided to shoot off your mouth about something that has nothing to do with the beverage business. That's just the kind of stuff that's gotten Texas booted out of Washington leadership for the first time in...forever:

When President Bush turns the Oval Office over to Barack Obama, he might as well dump the Lone Star of Texas into the bed of his pickup and haul it off with him. The 28th state has loomed large over Washington for much of the past century — think the president, his father, Lyndon Johnson, Sam Rayburn, John Tower, Dick Armey and Tom DeLay.
But at noon on Jan. 20, Texas becomes — please don't throw things — just another state. Currently, only two Texas Democrats chair committees in the House — Silvestre Reyes (Intelligence) and Gene Green (Ethics) — and neither of them is standing.
Without a Texan in the White House or in a top-level leadership spot, members from the state may have to work across the aisle if they hope to bring home the bacon like they did in days of yore.

Seems we're on our way to saying, "So long, Texas!" Say hi to Alaska out there in the land of Obscurity. Coincidentally, the Texas-Alaska connection was established last week, in another Dr. Pepper related story. Quoth one Sarah Palin:

I never asked for anything more than a Diet Dr. Pepper once in a while.

Now, we can blame guilt by association with those pesky Alaskans, or chalk it up to a general Texan malaise, but I know the truth. The real reason for the demise of Dr. Pepper? Unleashing this unpardonable monstrosity on an inexplicably trusting public:

How do you expect the American people to respect you after you do something like that to them?