When Soldiers Speak Up...It's News

Question the wisdom of a platoon sergeant, and a solider is likely to get...a very unhappy platoon sergeant. But question the wisdom of the Secretary of Defense, and a solider's likely to get national attention.

Such is the status of Army Spec. Thomas Wilson, Wednesday's burstiest person on BlogPulse, because of the pointed question he asked of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during Rummy's troop visit and question-answer session with U.S. soldiers awaiting deployment to Iraq from Kuwait. Not only did the soliders ask hard questions about stop-loss orders, equipment armor and resource allocation, they applauded each other's questions. Sort of an amazing phenomenon in an organization where not questioning authority is the rule of the day.

Speaking of amazing phenomena, here are a few: a rat brain that flies an airpline, the touching ritual among gorillas at Illinois' Brookfield Zoo when one of their own died, and a recent finding that 99.8% of the TV-related complaints filed with the Federal Communications Communication originate from a single activist group: The Parents Television Council.

From the "how do people get these jobs?" department comes this intruging study from a Pittsburgh linguist: the dude report. Who knew? In a similar not-so-intellectual vein comes the tale of Corporate Americans who haven't learned the simple skill of writing. Mybe its frm 2 much instmsging?

Over in old London town, some people aren't so happy with the Nativity display at Madame Tussauds in London. A waxen soccer player David Beckham plays Joseph to Posh Spice's Mary, with "wise men" Tony Blair, George Bush and the Duke of Edinburgh gathering 'round.

Seasonal personalities also bubbled up on BlogPulse this week, including the late John Lennon (this week marks the anniversary of his death at the hands of Mark Chapman), and good ol' Charlie Brown and his annual Christmas TV special. (The marketing cube at Intelliseek is graced by a scraggly little Charlie Brown-type tree in a clay pot. Very cute).

TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY: New trend graphs went up on BlogPulse this week, so be sure to check them out. Particularly the key issues expected to take center stage during a second Bush presidency.