The Moral Maze on Radio 4 last night, subject - multiculturalism, discussion triggered by Cameroon's speech.

Long introductory voice-over, saying that in the past people who questioned multiculturalism were often considered to be racists, and of course the most hated groups in society are: racists, paedophiles, and **climate change deniers**

http://nofrakkingconsensus.wordpress.com/2011/02/07/climategate-2-0/

is this going to be interesting. What a smorgasbord of stories we have at the moment!

Climate change fuelled by pursuit of economic growth, says Prince of Wales

The Prince of Wales warned today against the pursuit of economic growth at the expense of the environment - and condemned climate change sceptics for their ''corrosive'' impact on public opinion.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/8313302/Climate-change-fuelled-by-pursuit-of-economic-growth-says-Prince-of-Wales.html

@Bishop Hill: Thanks. Here's hoping.

@Cumbrian Lad: True, but angels on the head of a pin, IMO.

@Jerry: I apologize for being so intemperate in my response and for the name calling. In my defence:

I have spent (too) many years developing applications for commercial clients. My paymasters wanted websites that worked on every browser. I never had the luxury of telling someone to get a better browser.

Bishop Hill will not thank me for starting one of these interminable browser discussions, but the fact is, though, that all the major browsers are much of a muchness. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. A new version of a particular browser gets an advantage for a short while, until the competition overtakes it - also for a while. The differences between them are miniscule.

The free market is indeed a wonderful thing. For example, before IE8, Firefox had a really cool DOM viewer that made its use almost de rigeur for web developers. IE 8 now has its own version. In the foreseeable future at least, IE, Firefox, Opera and co. are not going to fade away, so developers have to build websites that work well on all of them. You should just be able to choose a browser and stick with it.

Nor is Firefox intrinsically more secure than IE8 (IMO). Now that Cumbrian Lad has alerted the bad guys to how popular it is, just watch the number of attacks on it rise. And if you are incautious enough to visit websites that are run by people masquerading as clerics and that track your every action... well, you have been warned.

That's not quite the full picture Mr Czerna. IE is still the browser with the largest share worldwide, but in fact it's share is less than half, meaning that more people do not use it, than do. (i.e. most people don't use IE). In Europe, in Jan 11, Firefox has replaced IE as the largest share browser. In the US, IE still leads.

http://gs.statcounter.com/press

@Jerry

I was expecting a Firefox fanboi to pop up, and expecting the same tired old twaddle to be trotted out. Firefox/Opera/Chrome/Konqueror/Safari - name your poison - are more standards compliant/secure/virus proof/bla bla bla.

IE is more popular than all of them. Whether you like it or not, worldwide more people browse with IE than any other browser.

Why should I change from using the most popular browser in the world just because squarespace (and, seemingly, ONLY squarespace) runs a pile of tracking code, e.g.
http://www.squarespace.com/features/: "Detailed visitor logs. See every single click on your website, and what your website visitors are doing minute by minute." Whatever they are doing, it affects all instances of IE. I have to close every open browser instance to clear this rubbish.

As I already wrote, I can avoid the problem by creeping up on this website in 'Privacy' mode. But why should I? I flagged this problem up because it may be happening to other people and they may be blaming their internet connection.

BTW. In IE I can block ads and still see Josh's cartoons.

"I can't help with IE8", you write, to which my polite response is "keep quiet, then".

Peter Czerna.

I can't help with IE8, but it has been my experience that using firefox is an awful lot easier and safer.
I've had no slowdown problems at this site at all.

If you install the firefox add-ons adblock and flashblock your internet experience will be immensely improved. (but be sure to unblock the bish on adblock because otherwise you can't see josh's cartoons)

Bishop Hill

A visit to your blog causes me consistent problems when visiting subsequent sites. Is anyone else having this problem?

I can visit a few sites from my favourites in IE8, but once I have visited your blog loading all further sites is so slow that it becomes practically impossible.

If I don't visit your blog, all the other sites load just fine. Once I have visited your blog everything just grinds to a halt.

Remarkably, clearing the cache, cookies etc. makes no difference. The only solution is to close the browser completely and then open it afresh.
I can visit all other sites in any order without problems. As soon as I visit your site, all subsequent sites consistently refuse to load. Any site. For this reason, you are now the last on my list of favourites.

I suspect that squarespace is doing some interesting tracking to deliver your visitor statistics.
My evidence for this is that if I visit your site using the IE 'InPrivateBrowsing' function, there appears to be no longer a problem.

I'm not paranoid about tracking, but I really would like squarespace to stop messing up my browsing.

A new Topical Storm, formed in late 2009, developed somewhat in 2010, and perhaps about to intensify and achieve landfall in the UK in March: http://www.climateweek.com/. Or will it be an ordinary rather dull depression, on the one hand dampening our spirits by its very existence, but on the other raising them by its failure to astroturf the sceptred isle?

Time will tell, but it may well serve as a barometer of public interest, and as a showcase for the latest wheezes of the climate establishment in their battle against reason, rationality, and level-headedness.