Microsoft Loses Another $543 Million Online

http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-microsoft-online-operating-income-2011-1

via Byline

Jay Yarow and Kamelia Angelova:

Every quarter Microsoft reports earnings, and every quarter it reports a massive loss in its online operations. Today it reported a $543 million loss for its December quarter. This gives Microsoft a trailing-four-quarter loss of $2.5 billion. That’s simply astounding. We’ve asked it before, and we’ll ask it again: Has any company lost as much money online as Microsoft?

A Non-Explanation of The Dead Birds Of Arkansas

So they were struck by lightning, or hit the ground when cold, or something - but FIVE THOUSAND of them????!!!!!

 from www.msnbc.msn.com

BEEBE, Ark. — Preliminary autopsies on 17 of the up to 5,000 blackbirds that fell on this town indicate they died of blunt trauma to their organs, the state's top veterinarian told NBC News on Monday.

Their stomachs were empty, which rules out poison, Dr. George Badley said, and they died in midair, not on impact with the ground.

That evidence, and the fact that the red-winged blackbirds fly in close flocks, suggests they suffered some massive midair collision, he added. That lends weight to theories that they were startled by something.

Earlier Monday, the estimated number of dead birds was raised to between 4,000 and 5,000, up sharply from the initial estimate of 1,000.

Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, provided the new numbers.

Residents of the small town of Beebe awoke Saturday to find thousands of dead blackbirds littering a 1.5-square-mile area. The birds inexplicably dropped dead, landing on homes, cars and lawns.

Violent weather rumbled over much of the state Friday, including a tornado that killed three people in Cincinnati, Ark. Lightning could have killed the birds directly or startled them to the point that they became confused. Hail also has been known to knock birds from the sky.

The director of Cornell University's ornithology lab in Ithaca, N.Y., said the most likely suspect is violent weather. It's probable that thousands of birds were asleep, roosting in a single tree, when a "washing machine-type thunderstorm" sucked them up into the air, disoriented them, and even fatally soaked and chilled them.

"Bad weather can occasionally catch flocks off guard, blow them off a roost, and they get hurled up suddenly into this thundercloud," lab director John Fitzpatrick said.

Rough weather had hit the state earlier Friday, but the worst of it was already well east of Beebe by the time the birds started falling, said Chris Buonanno, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in North Little Rock.

If weather was the cause, the birds could have died in several ways, Fitzpatrick said. They could easily become disoriented — with no lights to tell them up and down — and smack into the ground. Or they could have died from exposure.

The birds' feathers keep them at a toasty 103 degrees, but "once that coat gets unnaturally wet, it's only a matter of minutes before they're done for," Fitzpatrick said.

Lightning or hail are also possibilities.

Karen Rowe, an ornithologist for the state commission, noted that in 2001 lightning killed about 20 mallards at Hot Springs, and a flock of dead pelicans was found in the woods about 10 years ago. Lab tests showed that they, too, had been hit by lightning.

Moreover, in 1973 hail knocked birds from the sky at Stuttgart, Ark. Some of the birds were caught in a violent storm's updrafts and became encased in ice before falling from the sky.

Rowe noted that birds of prey and other animals, including dogs and cats, ate several of the dead blackbirds and suffered no ill effects.

"Every dog and cat in the neighborhood that night was able to get a fresh snack that night," Rowe said.

Mike Robertson, the mayor in Beebe, said the last dead bird was removed about 11 a.m. Sunday in the town about 40 miles northeast of Little Rock. A dozen workers hired by the city to do the cleanup wore environmental-protection suits for the task.

Robertson said the workers wore the suits as a matter of routine and not out of fear that the birds might be contaminated.

"It started at 7 a.m., picking up birds on the street, in the yards, been run over. It's just a mess," Beebe Street Department supervisor Milton McCullar told WISC-TV. Read more at www.msnbc.msn.com

Government to sell/not sell national forests, yes, no, maybe

"xisting charities say they will not take on the heritage forests without long-term finance, and may not have the capacity to manage them, anyway. So the plans envisage a new charity, financed by the government – creating what looks suspiciously like a quango at a time when ministers are vigorously culling them."

 from www.telegraph.co.uk

Caroline Spelman loses her way in the woods

Forestry Commission sell-off might actually double the Government's bill

Mole – Kenneth Grahame tells us in The Wind in the Willows – approached the Wild Wood "with great cheerfulness of spirit" and at first found "nothing to alarm him". But soon, hostile creatures forced him off his path. Eventually, a rabbit rushed by muttering: "Get out of this you fool, get out." By then, he was utterly lost.

Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary – like Mole, a loyal, mild-mannered creature – seems to have retraced his steps. Cheerfully launching her plans to privatise England's woods and forests in October, she has since been driven off course by unforeseen (by her) opposition. No doubt some Westminster rodent has told her to cut her losses. But she may not find a way out.

Certainly, as Spelman admits, her plans – involving the biggest change of land ownership in Britain since the Second World War – have caused "great consternation". A quarter of a million people have signed a petition against privatisation, while groups determined to protect local woodlands have proliferated.

Eighty-four per cent of those questioned told an opinion poll that woods and forests should be kept in public ownership: only 2 per cent disagreed. Last weekend, almost 100 leading public figures, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to The Sunday Telegraph, calling the plans – which the newspaper revealed last October – "unconscionable" and "ill-conceived". And Lib Dem MPs have threatened to vote against them.

No wonder the hapless Spelman has mounted a damage limitation exercise, confessing that she has "been working incredibly hard" to "disabuse" any impression that she was "flogging off" the forests. But it is unlikely to get her out of the woods.

The consultation document launched on Thursday gives every sign of being cobbled together in a panic. Much of it, by officials' own admission, has yet to be thought out.

The new plan would divide the country's woodlands into three. The first group, "heritage forests" – such as the New Forest and the Forest of Dean – would be Read more at www.telegraph.co.uk

Are the changes to s44 a relaxation or an evasion of European law?

Reacting to the news, photojournalist Marc Vallée tells BJP: "The devil is always in the detail, and after reading the Home Office review it is clear that the coalition government is planning to give the police new stop-and-search powers to get around the European Court of Human Rights' ruling. I do not think for one minute that these new powers will protect photographers from harassment and abuse from the police on the streets of Britain, far from it."

 from www.bjp-online.com

Government to replace Section 44 with more limited powers [update 4]

In a statement made in the House of Commons, May said: "The government proposes to replace section 44 stop and search powers with a more tightly defined power allowing a senior police officer to make an authorisation for stop and search powers where they have reason to suspect a terrorist attack will take place and searches are necessary to prevent it."

However, BJP believes, the changes will only be minimal. The review recommendations are as follow: Read more at www.bjp-online.com

Fear of 'The End' global warming or whatever - is a red herring - we shouldn't need the threat of a cataclysm in order to behave better and end pollution.

from www.nomorepencils.com

Pollution Only Counts If The End Is Nigh – Discuss

We believe in the power of redemption, of being able to pull things back from the brink.

Experience teaches us that things will put themselves back on course if we take a long enough view.

But we also fear the cataclysmic end to everything.

I recall reading years ago during the time of the ‘Bomb’ that people simultaneously believed that their lives would improve and that the Bomb would end everything. Read more at www.nomorepencils.com

Trees Do Not Need To Justify Their Existence

Sign the petition to save Britain's national forests. ALL of them

 from www.nomorepencils.com

Trees Do Not Need To Justify Their Existence by David Bennett on January 26, 2011[edit] Trees do not need to justify their existence.  Trees feed the soul, the senses and the environment. The notion of selling national forests off to profiteers for profit is a national scandal and must not happen. It is being reported that Caroline Spellman will announce tomorrow that certain national forest will not be sold off after all. The government may still be bent on selling of some nationally owned forests. Now is the time to add your voice to the campaign to prevent any forest owned by the nation being sold off is reaping good results. Pressure works - Sign the petition at Save Our Forests Leave a comment Read more at www.nomorepencils.com

Where has your Wordpress Theme Been?

Seen in http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/any-thoughts-on-the-new-look/ and found via http://trunk.ly

 from wpmu.org

Why You Should Never Search For Free WordPress Themes in Google or Anywhere Else

A few months ago I wrote about WordPress Security. Now, armed only with the words “free WordPress themes,” builtBackwards’ Theme Authenticity Checker Plugin and Donncha O Caoimh’s Exploit Scanner, I’m going to take a look through the first page of Google to see just how safe pages ranking for “Free WordPress Themes” are. Read more at wpmu.org