This is the blow by blow mission report for the shuttle.

Spaceflight Now | STS-107 | Mission Status Center

] Space shuttle Columbia's astronauts briefly interrupted
] their science work on the 17th anniversary of the
] Challenger disaster to remember their fallen comrades.
]
] NASA's work force, in orbit and on Earth, observed a
] moment of silence Tuesday at the exact time that
] Challenger exploded in the sky Jan. 28, 1986. They
] honored not only on the seven Challenger astronauts, but
] also the three who were killed by a fire in their Apollo
] spacecraft at the pad Jan. 27, 1967.

Astronauts Remember Challenger Disaster Durring Illfated Mission

This URL should be good for following the article flow related to the Columbia Shuttle Disaster for the next few hours.

Google Search Cluster of Shuttle Columbia Disaster Artices

Shuttle Columbia has been lost durring reentry.

Update: That is now confirmed by NASA. A large explosion has been reported in the Dallas FtW area. NASA is saying to say away from any wreckage found.

] But as debate continues about the U.S. role in the Middle
] East, a growing chorus of voices is asking why an
] incident as central to our current involvement in the
] region as the attack on the Liberty continues to be
] shrouded for "national security" after so many years.

The Attack On Liberty (washingtonpost.com)

] The Bush administration is preparing to release
] supersensitive electronic intercepts obtained by the
] National Security Agency that officials say prove that
] Iraq has repeatedly lied to United Nations inspectors,
] plotted among themselves about how to conceal weapons
] material and even appeared to boast afterward at their
] success in doing so.

It is being said this will be the meat of Powell's presentation to the UN.

SF Indymedia: The Smoking Gun (Iraq)

] Sell one operating system to every citizen in China and
] you could make some real money. But in China software is
] pirated, not sold legitimately. What's a producer of
] intellectual property to do?

Ahh, this makes me think back to the days when I had a real job. My company's world HQ was located two floors below Forbes's Burlingame, CA outpost, while on the other side of the globe in Taipei, Taiwan, my companys regional office was two floors above Microsoft's Taipei outpost. When I made my first visit to this office, my first trip over to Asia, I thought Microsoft's office appeared to be forgotten.. There only because when you are as big as Microsoft, you have to have a presence everywhere. Clear evidence of this to me was the very large "Windows 95" banner strung across their lobby area, mind you, this was less then two years ago. Months later, durring another visit to this Taipei office, rennovations were under way.. It was clear that someone in Redmond had decided that they needed to get their shit together in the region. This lined up with what I was reading in all the industry rags. The slightly drab appearence of their office, chararistic of Taipei, was being replaced with the earth-tones-sprinkled-with-primary-colors Microsoft style that one becomes very familiar with when they swallow a company you work at.. Ahh, memories of another real job I had once. Anyway, I smoked many cigerettes with the Decius staring at that "Windows 95" banner..

I wouldn't be living up to my reputation unless I spun this little story into an advocacy pitch for Open Source. So here it comes.. I remember a discussion I was having with someone, in some corner in some random club in Hong Kong.. This person, was explaining to me how the average factory in the Guangzhou area in China operated. While just like in the US and most other places, factories only make particular components of final products. The overall process of creating a given mouse or keyboard may be spread across several companies/factories, but there were stark differences in how many of the factories managed their machine infrastructure. It was not only common, but normal, for most companies to actually manafacture the machines themselves that they use to build their products. That is not the norm most places. You don't build a lathe unless lathes are part of your core business, you buy a lathe. Well, apparently thats not the way it works in China I'm told.. Aparently, its likely you build the hardware you use to manafacture your products. At least, thats the way it had been, its changing as their tech and manafacturing industry matures. Taking that into account, these people are going to love Open Source Software. There is a certain degree to which that kind of approach is the one you need to take with (certain) software in the enterprise. When you are talking about things like Operation Support Systems (The other application of the OSS acronym), its rare you find a program suite that fits your needs exactly. There is always a degree to which you wind up inventing your own wheels, abet based off the wheels of others. I think this, along with China's attitude to IP, is going to play into things in the long run.

Forbes.com: Microsoft's Long March (into China)

] Dystopian visions of the future explore the power of
] virtual communities.
]
] Most cultures preserve their traditions and transmit
] values by telling stories about their past. Americans
] used to do the same, back when the Western was perhaps
] our most popular genre. Yet, somewhere around the
] mid-twentieth century, we began to examine our most
] cherished values and deepest questions through exploring
] the future.
]
] Science fiction is a genre about discontinuities rather
] than continuities, change rather than tradition, and
] about open questions rather than tried-and-true wisdom.
] It could only emerge at the moment when cycles of
] cultural and technological change could be viewed within
] a single lifetime. Today, the rate of change has
] accelerated to the point where we only need to go "twenty
] minutes from now" to envision radical cultural shifts
] and extraordinary technological advances.

MIT Technology Review - Science Fiction and Smart Mobs

] Italian police have arrested 28 Pakistani terror suspects
] they say formed "an al-Qaeda terrorist cell" in the
] southern city of Naples.
]
] "The men have been charged with association with
] international terrorism, illegal possession of explosive
] material, falsification of documents and receiving stolen
] goods" - Italian police statement
]
] The men were found with enough explosives to blow up a
] three-storey building in a routine check for illegal
] immigrants, officials said.
]
] Maps identifying local US and Nato targets were also
] seized during the raid.
]
] The suspects were later charged with terrorist offences,
] but Pakistan dismissed the accusations as baseless.

Looks like they were plotting to go after NATO's southern European command.

BBC NEWS | Pakistani 'al-Qaeda' suspects held in Italy

] If recent rumours are to be believed, AOL is getting
] ready to add blogging to the homepage services it offers
] users in the next month or so. It's a sign of how far
] these regularly updated pages of web links with personal
] comment have come in the past five years.
]
] When they first got started, these real-time online
] diaries were the preserve of the techno-literate. The
] advent of easy-to-use publishing services such as
] Blogger, launched in August 1999, began to bring it into
] the mainstream. In the past year or so, blogging has
] bloomed, becoming one of the most interesting and popular
] online phenomena. It's mass market enough for AOL, but
] still innovative, thanks to software such as Moveable
] Type, which adds feedback and networking to the basic
] formula, turning weblogs into places where ideas can be
] developed by groups of like-minded friends and
] colleagues.

Guardian Unlimited | Online | New biz on the blog