The people and agencies responding to Hurricane Rita's ominous approach to Texas and Louisiana appear to be fast learners.

Preparations for this latest weather onslaught, while hardly perfect, went better than they did a month ago in New Orleans. People evacuated earlier. There were more shelters awaiting their arrival. Food and water were stockpiled in great quantities; troops and surveillance helicopters were ready to help those who stayed behind; an improved system of post-storm communication was in place.

But preparation -- even when it hews closely to the "game plan" -- only gets you so far. In the coming days, people with varying levels of authority all along the Gulf Coast will likely have to make many decisions. Often they'll have to make them quickly, alone, and without experience to guide them. Let's hope they have learned one more thing from Katrina: Sometimes you need to break the rules to avert greater disaster.

The Model of Hierarchical Complexity presents a framework for scoring reasoning stages in any domain as well as in any cross cultural setting. The scoring is based not upon the content or the subject material, but instead on the mathematical complexity of hierarchical organization of information. The subject’s performance on a task of a given complexity represents the stage of developmental complexity.

A boss creates fear, a leader confidence. A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all, a leader asks questions. A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting. A boss is interested in himself or herself, a leader is interested in the group.
- Russel H. Ewing.

Common experience shows how much rarer is moral courage than physical bravery. A thousand men will march to the mouth of the cannon where one man will dare espouse an unpopular cause.
- Clarence Darrow, Resist Not Evil

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
- William Jennings Bryan

I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.
- William E. Henley

An editorial in the New York Times comparing strategic planning with scenario planning in uncertain times.

Sir Arthur C Clarke is acknowledged as the greatest living science fiction writer and an outstanding visionary of our times. His writing over the past six decades – more than 100 books, 1,000 articles and short stories – have not only helped humanity find its way in times of rapid change, but also discussed the social and cultural implications of key technologies.

Among the ideas that seemed to collapse along with the twin towers two years ago was a view of globalization as a kind of manifest destiny. Unlike the 19th-century version of manifest destiny, this vision didn't involve expanding America's borders. Rather, America's values — notably economic and political liberty — would spread beyond those borders, covering the planet. And this time around America's mission didn't have the widely assumed blessing of God. But it had the next best thing: the force of history. Globalization was seen by some as a nearly inevitable climax of the human story — destiny of a secular sort.

The time has come for us brights to come out of the closet. What is a bright? A bright is a person with a naturalist as opposed to a supernaturalist world view. We brights don't believe in ghosts or elves or the Easter Bunny -- or God. We disagree about many things, and hold a variety of views about morality, politics and the meaning of life, but we share a disbelief in black magic -- and life after death.

I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
- Dwight Eisenhower

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
- Alfred Adler

One can resist the invasion of an army; one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.
- Victor Hugo