Odd Panel Problem with Odd Solution

[drew einhorn]

Every now and then my gnome panels break.
All the icons and menus are visible.
But nothing happens when I click on them.
I was tired, not thinking to clearly, when I stumbled on the solution:

rm -rf ~/.mozilla

It solves the problem, but makes no sense to me.  And it has undesired
side effects.

The latest episode immediately followed the reboot after installing
the latest karmic kernel upgrade 2.6.31-20,

-- 
Drew Einhorn