We're a little short-staffed down here at the AtAT compound this week, and frankly, the manpower shortage is taking its toll; we just spent an hour trying to think of that word which means "catlike" before we finally realized that the word we were looking for was, well, "catlike." After that we spent half an hour trying to remember why we needed it in the first place. And then we blacked out for twenty minutes. Something tells us that we're not winning the Society for Profound and Blinding Efficiency Award anytime soon-- but then again, it's not like we'd ever have time to dust it anyway, so screw 'em.

Anyway, given our fatigue level and our need to finish production of this episode sometime before the earth is overrun with large feral catlike (a-ha!) things evolved from the modern-day Turkish Angora, we're taking the "fish in a barrel" approach and harping on the latest Microsoft security holes. Faithful viewer zman tipped us off to an Associated Press article about Redmond admitting the presence of still more "serious new flaws" in Windows-- but this time there's even more of a sense of déjà vu than usual. It seems that security experts have characterized the new holes as "nearly identical" to the one that led to all that Blaster fun last month; "they're as close as you can be without being the same," according to Marc Maiffret of eEye Digital Security.

Unfortunately, though, they aren't the same, which means Microsoft is once again urging customers "to immediately apply a free repairing patch" to plug the holes. (Because, as we all know, that approach worked so freakin' well the last eighty times it's tried it.) Still, there's no problem, claimed Microsoft Senior Security Strategist Phil Reitinger as he briefed Congress on what his company was doing to improve security in its products. We can only assume that Phil didn't talk for very long. He did, however, make the very reassuring assertion that "there is no such thing as completely secure software." (Oh, yeah, buddy? Well, I've got a HelloWorld.c right here that says otherwise! So there!)

Quick side note: does anyone else find it noteworthy that Microsoft's security bigwig used to work for the very same Justice Department that successfully nailed the company for antitrust violations and then mysteriously caved like a Twinkie with the cream filling sucked out during settlement talks? Verrrrry interesting.

Anyway, back to them thar flaws. The bottom for us, of course, is that as Mac users, pretty much the only thing we need to prepare ourselves for is yet another onslaught of stories about how the SonOfBlaster worm is costing the world umpteen billion dollars in lost productivity. Gee, now which monstrously enormous corporation whose sievelike products are responsible for all this damage in the first place just happens to have umpteen billion dollars in the bank, just sitting there when it could be used to make reparations? Don't tell us-- another hour and a half and we'll remember...