Nobody is that "stupid" in those departments.

The question should be what was the quid pro quo?

We can imagine what the PLA got out of it but what favor did Microsoft get?

And how high up the chain did it go? Who specifically approved the arrangement?

At least Microsoft probably has Windows 11 "backups" of the hard drives of anyone who might think of bringing charges.

Not sure if that strategy can be called stupid. Lots of other words apply.

"One Nation Under Blackmail" is a popular phrase.

Yeah, so if this is the cover story what other heat signatures might they be looking for?

It's not immediately obvious to me but something we should understand.

Detecting Zizians would help prevent these forest fires but it would be quite hard for a satellite to do that.

Yes, Europe has fewer than one major outage per month.

I'm in the UK, I've personally seen three. One took a friend's trampoline and deposited it in the street!

Small tornadoes are actually quite frequent, they just tend to be small.

Parts of Europe absolutely do have ice storms. It may not have as many tornados, but it does have them. It doesn't have hurricanes, but there are still severe storms (I had to have my roof repaired last year as a chunk of metal was ripped off someone's garden shed and impacted my roof). Europe is large (very slightly larger than the USA in terms of area, 10% greater east-west, and very much more north-south) and has large lengths of power lines.

etc

EU average is around $0.32

USA: estimated 12,000 per year due to heat.

Evidence for that assertion?

No, because the US grid is heavily segmented and the population of Europe is larger than that of the USA.

Major ones are very uncommon, though.

I must say, I speak very highly of this research.