From Cork to Toronto

Gwynne Dyer's latest in NOW, the filing of which surely, surely, predated the Glasgow airport attack: It's safe to say that the driver of the car packed with explosives that was found in central London early Friday morning (June 29) was not a very impressive terrorist. Driving erratically down Haymarket at 1:30 in the morning in a big, shiny Mercedes, crashing it into a garbage bin, getting out and running away: it all suggests that he didn't pay proper attention back in terrorist school. Maybe he was just overcome by the fumes, but the other terrorist didn't do much better. He managed to park his explosives-packed car on Cockspur Street but he parked illegally, so it was ticketed and towed away. Well, Glaswegians didn't have to wait long for someone to at least try to make a better go of it. However, Scotland was not found wanting . A bit of a stretch to say this was Glasgow's " United 93 " moment but his decision to run towards rather than away see...

This news story , which relates to serious operational issues on the Liverpool-Knock-New York route, does not paint a pretty picture of Globespan operations, which is disappointing as Ireland-Canada services need the shake-up an Air Canada/Air Transat competitor would bring. The low-cost revolution usually means a minimum number of spare aircraft - if any at all - and the upswing in the aviation market means that fill-in charter aircraft are already busy. Force majeure is understandable given the troubles at Glasgow, a Globespan base. But given those troubles and the seriousness of the damage to their New York 757, if Delta had spare seats on the New York-Shannon flight, Globespan should have been booking as many of their passengers on it as possible and not leaving them sit in New York indefinitely or be forced to pay Delta what was likely to have been a pricey one-way fare. This is how Ryanair behaves in Europe but being stuck in another continent is a bit more serious again and ...

Disaster being relative - the same kind of stuff at Microsoft would rate "minor inconvenience" compared to their disasters. Apple have just pushed out 7.3 (as always use Software Update not web download! ) but it seems to be mostly updates for iPhone and reports are appearing of some problems involving rolling back to 7.2. Activation issues abound too but given the unprecedented use of iTunes to activate phones, the volume of Day 1 activations and the porting of numbers from other carriers, that shouldn't be too surprising. If you don't have an iPhone it might be best to hold on 7.2 for a while if you haven't yet done so. 7.3 adds yet another stupid Windows process that many users won't use, to go with iTunesHelper and iPodService we now add AppleMobileDeviceService and another couple of Mb out of my Windows memory. I don't get why Apple can't just have one service for iTunes which invokes the iPod/iPhone services only if such devices are install...

When you view content online you don't pay a subscription for, it has to be paid for somehow - the money you pay for your DSL or cable subscription doesn't go to the people who created it.  Web ads are a fact of life, which some people get around using Adblock or other utilities.  But what if you were reading a subscription site promising ad-free content, and suddenly you notice that there are ads appearing.  If you assumed that the content provider was trying to make money both ways you might be wrong. My daily UserFriendly.org cartoon alerted me to a story (also covered by Slashdot ) that Internet Service Providers (such as Redmoon/MoonOverAddison ) are starting to use transparent web proxies  and ad agencies like Fair Eagle to add advertising to content without the knowledge of the website you are accessing, despite the fact that you are already paying the ISP a fee to access the internet.   This is yet another reason why Net Neutrality is important - to allow consumers ...

Given the events of the first few days of his premiership, I've wanted to ask Gordon Brown: "all the waiting, all the manoeuverings via briefings and proxies - was it worth it?" This morning Paul Wells points out Janet Daley's column in the Telegraph in which she argues that these events could shape people's perceptions of PM Brown, much to David Cameron's disadvantage: In a time of national threat we don't want cuddly; we want serious and stern. Charm might be nice when politics is becalmed and day-to-day living is secure, but gravitas is a whole lot better when there are unknown numbers of people in your midst ready to commit random mass murder. When a nation is in danger, it judges its leader (or potential leader) by his character, rather than his personality. So if the contest between Mr Brown's governing style and David Cameron's opposition is really to be, as my colleague Boris Johnson wrote on this page last week, between humourless Labou...

For Canadians, that's about $0.32 for every plastic bag, which has reduced bag distribution by 90% since 2002 .  The tax had been EUR 0.15 (C$0.22) but an upward bump in plastic bag sales led to this further hike.  No fear of that happening in Ontario or Toronto, as the plastic lobby's frequent wailings in the press seems to head it off any time it's proposed.

Via Slashdot , an interesting ZDNet blog post which points to a Google staffer's a marketing pitch to the health care industry to counteract, through advertising, the possible impact that Michael Moore's Sicko will have on their business. While legislators, litigators, and patient groups are growing excited, others among us are growing anxious. And why wouldn’t they? Moore attacks health insurers, health providers, and pharmaceutical companies by connecting them to isolated and emotional stories of the system at its worst. Moore’s film portrays the industry as money and marketing driven, and fails to show healthcare’s interest in patient well-being and care. I'm not sure it's Evil, exactly (as in Don't Be Evil ) but I'm not sure it's "not Evil", either.