Thought for the Day
“The moral difference...between the soldier and the civilian...lies in the field of civic virtue. A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not.”
-- Robert Anson Heinlein in Starship Troopers

My School Makes Dilbert!
Today's Dilbert features Asok the Intern announcing that he is “...an I.I.T. graduate, mentally superior to most people on earth...”! I don't know why Scott Adams picked IIT--maybe it was because Asok was intended to be foreign (of unidentified ethnicity) and IIT has a very large population of international students, but in any case, it's very cool!


Update: Hey, at least this one drew some comments! Ok, OK, OK, I know the next day that Asok specifically stated it was the India [sic] Institute of Technology. Believe it nor not , in the midwestern United States, Illinois Institute of Technology is better known.

The J-Walk Blog: Gone and Back
The J-Walk Blog is written and published by John Walkenbach, a computer book author, an occasional consultant, and someone responsible for several popular Excel add-in products. I don't always see eye-to-eye with John's politics but his blog is consistantly one of the wittiest and best Web publications; he has an uncanny knack for locating the outrageous and absurd online. I went to remove my link to his blog today, because he announced last Tuesday that he was done with his blog and would not be posting anymore. This was an event that caused at least a minor quake in the blogosphere, since I am certainly not the only one who feels strongly about the value of his blog, and he was was persuaded by the outpouring of support to keep going! Great! I must say I am delighted and I hope he continues to pour out his eclectic mix of oddness and wit for years to come.

A True (British)American Hero: Rick Rescorla
I got hooked up from some other blogs last week reading about Rick Rescorla, a hero in both Viet Nam and at the World Trade Center on that fateful September 11th. Rick, born and raised in Cornwall, England, is the soldier pictured on the cover of We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young. This book served as the basis for the Mel Gibson film, We were Soldiers. He went on to become the Chief of Security for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and in that role was instrumental in evacuating Morgan Stanley employees from the World Trade Center. During the evacuation he spoke with a friend on the phone and told him the Port Authority (owners of the WTC) had told him not to evacuate and to order people to stay at their desks. “What'd you say?” his friend asked asked; Rescorla responded, “I said, 'Piss off, you son of a bitch,'” Through his efforts, over 2600 employees of Morgan Stanley walked out of the south tower and in to the rest of their lives that morning; only Rick and five other employees did not make it out in time. You can read the full story of Rick Rescorla and his wife Susan in the New Yorker; another slightly abbreviated version drawing on a lot of sources can be found at the Mudville Gazette. An 8 minute interview with him, now named “Voice of the Prophet”, can be viewed at Atom Films (you really should watch this). Finally, there is a move afoot to have the President award Rick Rescorla the Medal of Freedom with an online petition; you can sign the petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/pmfrick/petition.html. I misspoke at the beginning of this post; I said Rick Rescorla was a hero in both Viet Nam and at the World Trade Center. I was wrong--I think Rick Rescorla was a hero every day of his life.