Do something like
set NNTPSERVER=msnews.microsoft.com
souper -m
and patiently wait for the connection to go through. The news server
may be heavily loaded because it is the single access point on the
Internet for the microsoft.* newsgroups. Some ISP's suck articles
from msnews.microsoft.com and store them on their own local news
server so their users can avoid delays in reading those newsgroups.
You might also want to use the -N option to specify a different newsrc
file which lists the microsoft.* newsgroups.