Henley-On-Thames, Oxfordshire (2005)

Don’t be fooled by the sunny skies; it was freezing cold.
Henley-On-Thames, Oxfordshire (2005)

Don’t be fooled by the sunny skies; it was freezing cold.
…Volkswagen, who are taking that extra step towards eventual self-immolation:
Auto Express reports that German automaker Volkswagen has introduced a subscription-based model for unlocking the full potential of its ID.3 electric car, a new model available in the UK. While the ID.3 Pro and Pro S models are listed on the configurator as producing 201 horsepower, buyers must pay a monthly subscription fee of £16.50 ($22.29) to access the car’s maximum output of 228 horsepower.
Considering that sales of the ID.3 outside Yurp can probably be measured in single figures per month, nobody Over Here should care about this. (And if this lawsuit succeeds, well…)
But in this case of bastardy, it’s very definitely the principle of the thing that matters.
Fuck them, and the batteries that power their accountants’ laptops.
Gotta say that it’s this kind of chiseling that makes me want one of these oh so badly:

Anything without a chip or batteries will do, come to think of it. Even a replica with a (non-electric carburetor-fed) VW Beetle engine.

…from me, upon seeing pics of the Euro leaders in Washington D.C.:

Over There, Richard Littlejohn asks the question:
Why do Americans care more about Britain than Labour?
On everything from Net Zero and defence to immigration and crime, they make a great deal more sense than most of the Westminster Bubble’s arrogant, out-of-touch political class.
The latest was a report from the US State Department accusing Britain of backsliding on human rights – especially freedom of speech and the frightening rise in anti-Semitism.
First out of the blocks was Vance with his damning speech in February, not just about the erosion of civil liberties but the contempt for popular democracy among the political elite.
Addressing his remarks to Europe as a whole and Britain in particular, he said: ‘No one on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants.
‘But you know what they did vote for? In England, they voted for Brexit. And agree or disagree, they voted for it.’
As Trump warned on his recent visit to Scotland, if we don’t get a grip on immigration we’re not going to have a country any more. Who, outside of the far-Left and the yuman rites brigade, could argue with that?
The President has also ordered the National Guard to take back control of the streets of Washington, America’s capital city.
In London, the police have withdrawn from the streets, leading to a surge in stabbings, shoplifting and violent phone thefts. How many people in our capital city would object to a few squaddies on the streets if it crushed crime and saved lives?
Trump reserves some of his harshest criticism for Britain’s suicidal Net Zero nosedive. He maintains that our War Of The Worlds windmills, as well as being a hideous blot on the landscape, are the ‘worst form of energy, the most expensive form of energy’.
And he simply can’t fathom why Labour refuses to exploit our vast reserves of oil and gas, which would produce great wealth for the country, support tens of thousands of jobs and slash energy bills.
As for the “why?” part of the question, it’s quite simple. Despite all the efforts of Leftists on both sides of the Pond to sabotage the Special Relationship between us, I believe that many Murkins still feel some vestiges of affection to the Old Country.
And why not? We inherited the concepts of parliamentary government and of human rights, to name but two, from Britain. We share a common language and many cultural ties (once again, despite efforts of the Left to destroy them). These are not small things; they are the ties that bind.
But it pains us to see that despite that shared heritage of, say, free speech, we see British police arresting people for posting “anti-social” statements or “hate speech” on the Internet.
Of private ownership of guns, we will not speak — even though that same concept is a key part of why Americans aren’t being arrested for posting “anti-social” statements or “hate speech” on the Internet.
So, as I say so often on these pages, we look on happenings in the UK with something approaching dread, because we ask: if the famously-tolerant Brits allow this shit to happen to themselves, why could it not happen Over Here too?
Back in the 1940s, Americans supported Britain in their war against tyranny. Nowadays? If Russia invaded Western Europe and the UK, I’m not so sure we’d raise a finger to help them. Why should we, when those shared ties of freedom have been tossed aside unilaterally?
“Come on, Kim,” the emails wail, “enough of the skinny little ones. Can’t you find a BBC-TV totty of more substance?”
How about Coronation Street’s Catherine Tyldesley, then:






I hope this puts an end to the complaining…
Here’s the back story, and it’s time for an update.
There is no update. The fucking ASUS is still dead, unresponsive to all blandishments and tricks (such as suggested in Comments originally) and a trip to Geek Squad up the road to see if someone perchance could go “Aha! We know that problem!” and fix the thing (Best Buy does sell ASUS laptops).
I have a warranty — and an extended one as well — except that the details thereof are safely installed on the hard drive of the ASUS itself. So I’ll have to contact ASUS through their website [groan] and try to get the situation resolved that way, somehow.
In case you’re wondering, Best Buy does do warranty repairs on ASUS laptops… but only on machines purchased from Best Buy.
Doubleplusfucked, I am.
As I said in the previous post, blogging is going to be light because trying to function on the old HP laptop is akin to taking a covered wagon from coast to coast instead of flying the friendly skies NYC-LAX. There was a reason I quit using it, after all, and replaced it with the shiny new… brick.
Raw, unadulterated suckage.
Wish me luck as I try to get this issue taken care of.