tomo,
leopard and spots indeed. My firewall rules forbid most direct network connections; browsers have to go via a proxy. This blocks an impressively large number of "phone home" packets from applications on Windows boxes (to Microsoft, Adobe, or whoever), but Windows Update is an exception and its path through the firewall gives Microsoft an inside running for sneaking other things through. Not much risk to me — I only have Windows as a testing environment — but I feel uneasy for people who store important data on Microsoft boxes (let alone "the Cloud"). Quis custodiet.

The Mike Benz stuff was interesting, but as I've said before, I agree there are bad actors, but I don't think they're all that organised.

I was never too keen on Dame Edna; IMO Sir Les Patterson was Barry Humphries's best character. And his best line was "No, no, it's not a conflict of interests — not at all — it's a convergence of interests". I think we're living in times of a great convergence of interests...

This article on the charities industry was depressingly believable: we're making good money out of the disease, why would we want to see a cure?

Mr Bates vs the Post Office aired here last week (on a commercial channel, so ABC viewers will have been spared). Pretty well done, and no wonder its airing in the UK caused a sensation. I followed up watching it with this overview of "progress" since the show aired. Has all the hallmarks of the blob applying healing balms of process and time. Most irritating for me were the interviews with the PO Minister. Usual politician stuff of ignoring the question and responding with hollow pieties. If no culprits have been charged yet, how about *he* gets a few days in the pillory?

tomo,
I'm sure Microsoft just wishes things could go back to they way they were in the '90s. The Internet shook up the monoculture of Windows. Most people have no reason to feel attached to the operatiing system nowadays; the browser is the "operating system" for the web.

Microsoft saw it coming and tried their standard strategies. For a while they resisted support for standard networking at all. That slowed uptake, but didn't kill it. Then they did their let's embrace the new paradigm approach, releasing their own incompatible browser and constantly defining new "extensions" to try to addle web compatibility. That worked pretty well for a while, but now browsers have become so hideously complicated that, rather than specify standard behaviours, the standard has grown to be whatever the hell the browser engine does (more or less). The well is already so poisoned that Microsoft's poison the well strategy isn't much chop anymore. Microsoft's browser now uses the same engine as Google's.

Which is a long way of saying that Microsoft has struggled against the web at every turn. They were right to see it as a threat, but the game was going to change whether they liked it or not. The recent security failures are just another sign that the tide is on the ebb for Microsoft.

The baggage-handler-to-pilot promotion path reminds me of a Not the Nine O'Clock News sketch, watching a surgical operation unfold. The surgeon delegates to one of the gowned-up men huddled around the table to make the initial incision. The man demurs, saying he's a reporter from the Financial Times. The surgeon looks a bit disgusted, then hands the scalpel to the next man along: "You do it". The guy takes it eagerly, and starts getting lined up when the reporter says "No, no, he's my cameraman". Once again, 40 year old comedy is present reality.

Ross Lea,
Thanks. Nicely put together video. Mind you, I can't fault the alarmists for telling us there will be 6 billion dead by the end of the century. There are over 7 billion alive at the moment, and 76 years to the end of the century. A goodly number won't make it.

This from Spiked

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AY4jUPQ4fBo

Failed Climate predictions.

tomo,
Yes, the DC court was a strategic choice on Mann's side. I suspect it was ultimately an unwise choice. In that forum, Steyn was always going to go on the attack, and he had *plenty* of ammunition. Mann came out of it smelling more of fertiliser than roses, and his bullying nature and weak science are now verified as sworn testimony.

Microsoft may be addressing that security hole, or maybe they're replacing it with another. Very hard to know, very hard to trust. Jo Nova mentioned Snopes defending Microsoft against scurrilous accusations in a comment at her blog. I'm not a big fan of the no smoke without fire dictum, but it seems applicable here.

Paul Homewood has challenged the Met Office to back up its claim of climate change having led to more severe storms. No useful response, so he's stepped it up to a complaint. I wish him the best of British...

Tomo,

Didnt Mann and co go shopping for a friendly court? I dont think Mann is a native to the area is he?