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These two studies — and others that are recounted in the Armstrong and Green paper — strengthen the authors’ assertion that the oft-touted advice to chase market share in order to achieve greater profitability, is a harmful myth.

I have one more example for these guys: Apple.

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Last week, a couple of days before retiring to one of the big damn compounds at which he vacations, President Bush made his way to Walter Reed to give out a few Purple Hearts and to get his picture taken with wounded soldiers, but not the too-skeevy, burn-scarred, brain damaged ones. Ones with nice clean wounds. For better photo-ops.

Here he is with Army Spc. John C. Hoxie from Philippi, West Virginia. On August 21, Hoxie was near an IED that exploded south of Baghdad. And then he was shot. He lost his left hand and his left leg. His right leg was mangled. He suffered “internal injuries,” too. He’ll finally get to go home late next year.

The point here is not whether or not Hoxie is proud of his service. It’s not even the level of care he’s receiving at Walter Reed (which his father praises). The point is the picture, of the crippled boy and the standing man.

Said the standing man, “Every time I come to a facility like this I count my blessings.” So what the standing man learned from the crippled boy is “Better him than me.” And then he gave the crippled boy a medal for getting crippled.

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It’s a crazy world we live in. Crazier every day. But one of the craziest notions that ever came down the pike is evolution. Who in his right mind would ever believe that the complicated homo sapien derived from a speck? That’s getting the larger from the smaller.

Here’s one pastor who’s probably still convinced a baby comes from a stork. After all, a pregnancy would be “getting the larger from the smaller”, right?

Oh, wait, that requires biology, and that’s science. Can’t have that.

So.

I guess I’ll have to quote something else for this pastor, about getting the larger from the smaller…

How about….

Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it?
It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it.

– Luke 13:18–9

And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it?
It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth:
But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it.

– Mark 4:30–2

Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:
Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

– Matthew 13:31–2

The disciples said to Jesus, “Tell us what Heaven’s kingdom is like.” He said to them, “It’s like a mustard seed, the smallest of all seeds, but when it falls on prepared soil, it produces a large plant and becomes a shelter for birds of the sky.”

– Thomas 20

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I think the agency is putting on a show for travelers who fly only once or twice a year. The message: the $4.7 billion of taxpayer money is being well spent to protect you.

From exploding pies.

Feel safer yet?

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Chase will reset everyone’s marketing preferences under the guise of providing “more options to specify which mail offers you do not want.” Remember when you originally opted-out? They didn’t quite understand. What about their Value Added Products And Services and Used Vehicle Financing? Unless you opt-out again by January 24, Chase will acknowledge your implied change of heart.

moar funny pictures

A lot of kids are going to get the “Guitar Hero” computer game for Christmas. This kid won’t.

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Public floggings hurt, even when administered by satirical sacred noodles.

Ask the Polk County School Board. The panel made news last month when five of its seven members declared a personal belief in the concept of intelligent design, the religiously based explanation of the development of life believed in by many Christians.

Four of those five sympathetic board members said they would like to see intelligent design taught in Polk schools as an alternative to Darwinian evolution, at a time when new state standards mentioning evolution by name for the first time are under consideration.

Just like that, it appeared the Darwin wars had found their newest battlefield.

Yet a few weeks later, the controversy is dying with a whimper. There’s no board support for a challenge to the proposed standards. Some of the five school board members blame the local newspaper for trying to start a fight.

“It’s not our agenda,” said Tim Harris, one of the board members. “My personal opinion and how I vote don’t always jibe.”

What happened? You can start with the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The satirical religious Web site asserts that an omnipotent, airborne clump of spaghetti intelligently designed all life with the deft touch of its “noodly appendage.” Adherents call themselves Pastafarians. They deluged Polk school board members with e-mail demanding equal time for Flying Spaghetti Monsterism’s version of intelligent design.

“They’ve made us the laughingstock of the world,” said Margaret Lofton, a school board member who supports intelligent design. She dismissed the e-mail as ridiculous and insulting.

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The archbishop of Wales thinks one of the greatest problems facing the world is “atheist fundamentalism”. The only problems he seems to be able to ascribe to it, though, are a dearth of school nativity plays and stewardesses failing to drape themselves with religious paraphernalia, neither of which seem to be exactly pressing crises, especially since it is quite clear that there is no worldwide shortage of public piety. If all outspoken atheism has done is offend a few sanctimonious old bishops, it sounds to me like a virtue that we ought to encourage.

I’d say that this is a much more serious problem:

There are demented fuckwits running for the office of president in the most militarily powerful nation in the world. They think they can have conversations with an all-powerful cosmic being who instructs them in the right things to do, and that they have the approval of that being, no matter what they do: they can initiate an unjust and futile war that kills and maims our soldiers and slaughters the civilians of another country; they can endorse torture; they can deprive people of their civil rights; they can treat loving couples as pariahs if they don’t meet their abstract notions of who is allowed to fall in love; they can poison the planet; they can oppress the poor; they can enrich their corrupt cronies; they can pretty much run roughshod over any notion of justice, liberty, and equality. And what does their imaginary god do? He gives them a phantasmal thumbs-up and an ethereal “Good job!” and assures them that he is on their side. That’s all he can do, since all he is is a projection of a mob of venal bluenoses’ sense of entitlement.

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If only I could get a room filled with 8-year-olds to test my code.

Why do the people in Kentucky vote against their own interests?