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WTC Fell Due To Sprinkler, Fireproofing Failure

Sad after-the-fact report here by FEMA, concluding that the airplane impact and jetfuel fireball wasn’t enough to cause the Twin Towers to fall. The sprinkler system had little redundancy and its feeds were cut by lots of shrapnel, and the new fireproofing was dislodged from the steel columns.

Chu Mei-Feng Disappoints

So in a followup to the Chi Mei-Feng story, I finally came across (quite by accident!) a clip, on this weird Danish/Swedish/Norge (?) version of Stile. Good technique but no stamina, limited staying power it seems.

Another Fat Lady

Taliban preparing spring attacks in what’s quickly becoming just another routine civil war in Afghanistan with the Taliban recruiting Pashtun to fight against the Uzbeks and Tajiks. Fighting vaguely conventional soldiers is one thing that the Pantagon is good at. Fighting a guerilla war is something no army is good at. It proved too much for the Marines. It’s tough to defend against people willing to sacrifice their lives.

Meanwhile, US troop numbers have doubled again. There are now four times as many US troops there as when they ousted the Taliban. And they still won’t acknowledge the Q word – quagmire.

Pampered, privileged and such an affront to decency

I read one American’s comment on this: She was the one of the last of the old-style, if you will, royals. She had grace, and elegance, and charm

The ability of US citizens of a republic to have such fascinated affection for the last vestiges of the despotism they rebelled against never ceases to amuse me, but makes some weird kind of post-colonial psychoanalytic sense.

She was certainly in favour of the ancien regime all right: she was an obstacle to reform: a fan of pomp and circumstance who bitterly opposed the notion that members of the royal family should pay tax … adored Margaret Thatcher and apartheid-supporting South African PW Botha, disliked Europe, the unions and middle classes, was against immigration and regretted the loss of imperial possessions in Africa.

From a slightly less reputable source, I learn that she liked the Gee Gees and prompted even the Daily Mail (slightly to the right of the BNP) to call her Pampered, privileged and such an affront to decency.