I don't know...

I don't know, not being a structural or materials engineer, but I suspect the reason the foam insulation on the Space Shuttle's exterior fuel tank keeps breaking off is that it doesn't have sufficient structural integrity to withstand the launch stresses.
But then, I'm not a structural engineer.

Blair is "Shocked!...Shocked!"

Tony "The Poodle" Blair is shocked to find out that there are people in England who act just like people do in the rest of the world.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Prime Minister Tony Blair has expressed his shock that the four men believed to have carried out last week's deadly terrorist attacks on London's transit system were British nationals.

As shocked, I presume, as were Americans when we found out that the "Arab Terrorists" who blew up the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City were named Timothy McVeigh.
Meanwhile, some of the cast-of-thousands of "Terrorism Experts" are happily bloviating about what a large and sophisticated al Quaeda cell it must have taken to have performed such a coordinated attack on the London underground. Piffle! How sophisticated do you have to be to call your friends on your mobile phone when it's time to set off an explosive? How sophisticated do you have to be to look up how to make a bomb, in a book or online? How many disaffected suicidal bipolar adolescents are going to take direction from anybody? Believe it or not, McVeigh did not have an al Quaeda handler teaching him how to blow up a building.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, did not have an al Quaeda handler when they shot the hell out of Columbine HS

Sven Jaschan, did not have an al Quaeda handler when he created the Sasser Virus. Only "experts" who have managed to avoid learning anything about what real people are really capable of can manage to claim a huge complex monolithic doomsday cult is responsible for every explosion that happens in the world. Excepting, of course, the explosions set off by the United States military in the furtherance of peace and democracy. Those explosions are, I suppose, being set off by a huge complex monolithic doomsday cult - a cult that believes it can install its neocolonialist vision of society throughout the world. Or, at least, the oil-bearing part of the world.

That Rascal Rove!

Apparently (according to all the president's men that is), Karl Rove, the jovial White House assistant chief of staff, has done no wrong in the Valerie Plame case.

The reasoning? He didn't mention her by name! What he seems to have told several reporters is that the wife of former U.S. diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV was the CIA undercover agent who got him sent to Niger to check out the yellowcake uranium story.

Imagine his shock that anyone could figure out who he was talking about from such sparse information! It's also being said that, while he might have mentioned all this in passing, it may have been another person who leaked the story. In other words, while Karl tried like hell to leak the story, he might not have succeeded before another source managed the trick.

I think pretty soon we'll see that he in fact is completely innocent.
In the same sense that Henry (will no one rid me of this troublesome priest) II was innocent of the murder of Thomas Beckett. In modern terms, "Plausible Deniability". The Bush White House is big on deniability. Or is it just big on denial?
When Sherman Adams was found out (he was flat out selling access to President Eisenhower; hey, it was a simpler time), Ike fired him without comment, without fuss. I would urge the same for this president, except that I like to watch the hullaballoo. Remember this? I will restore honor to the White House; G. W. Bush, 2000.

Whilst We Fight This Heroic War...

It might be good to remember that not everybody enjoys the combat as much as the President and his warhawks seem to. Heres the original of the rousing Revolutionary War marching song that the President seems to be marching to. With, of course, God On His Side...

"With a peculiarly American style of optimism, the tune of Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye was played at a quicker tempo, and the words changed to portray the homecoming that every soldier and his loved ones would like to experience: When Johnny Comes Marching home Again, hale, hearty, and victorious, honored by the entire population of his hometown. Ah, if only 'twere always so!" Quoted from:

Songbook

You can listen to the tune here

Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye

While goin' the road to sweet Athy, hurroo, hurroo
While goin' the road to sweet Athy, hurroo, hurroo
While goin' the road to sweet Athy
A stick in me hand and a drop in me eye
A doleful damsel I heard cry,
Johnny I hardly knew ye.With your drums and guns and drums and guns, hurroo, hurroo
With your drums and guns and drums and guns, hurroo, hurroo
With your drums and guns and drums and guns
The enemy nearly slew ye,
Oh my darling dear, Ye look so queer,
Oh Johnny, I hardly knew ye.
Where are your eyes that were so mild, hurroo, hurroo
Where are your eyes that were so mild, hurroo, hurroo
Where are your eyes that were so mild
When my heart you so beguiled,
Why did ye run from me and the child?
Oh Johnny, I hardly knew ye.
Where are your legs that used to run, hurroo, hurroo
Where are your legs that used to run, hurroo, hurroo
Where are your legs that used to run
When you went for to carry a gun?
Indeed your dancing days are done,
Oh Johnny, I hardly knew ye.
I'm happy for to see ye home, hurroo, hurroo
I'm happy for to see ye home, hurroo, hurroo
I'm happy for to see ye home
All from the island of Sulloon,
So low in flesh, so high in bone,
Oh Johnny, I hardly knew ye.
Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg
Ye're a helpless shell of a man on a peg,
Ye'll have to put with a bowl out to beg,
Oh Johnny, I hardly knew ye.
They're rolling out the guns again, hurroo, hurroo
They're rolling out the guns again, hurroo, hurroo
They're rolling out the guns again
But they never will take our sons again,
No they never will take our sons again,
Johnny I'm swearing to ye.

Those Terrorists ~ Them!

When bombs go off in London, it's a terrorist attack.


When bombs go off in Baghdad, it's us defending ourselves against the evildoers.

Don't mistake me; I am very well aware that the methods used by al Quaeda and its fellow travellers are intended to harm and kill innocent (well, uninvolved) civilians. Our interest is to harm and kill armed opponents. The uninvolved civilians we kill are just the unfortunate "collateral damage" any war creates.
Do you believe the people in Iraq understand that difference? Or the people in the middleast who get their news from al Jazeera? I think what they see is people who look and sound like them attacking people who look and sound different and who invaded and are occupying their country. I think that most Americans would probably side with American "insurgents" who would take up arms against an invading and occupying foreign army. Except possibly people like Dick "Other Priorities" Cheney and likeminded archcons, or neocolonialists.
I was watching Newshour a little while ago. At the end of each newscast they spend a few moments in silence while showing photos of the American servicepeople killed that day in Iraq and Afghanistan (remember Afghanistan?). I was struck by the sense I felt of how my country had betrayed the trust of those dead soldiers. The way we cynically and unjustifiably sent them to Iraq to pursue an unjust cause. A cause, furthermore, that cannot succeed. I recall a recent presidential candidate, whose name I believe was George W. Bush, who pledged not to engage in "nation building". I wonder how things would have gone had he been the one appointed to the presidency?