Month: October 2008

Godly Activist Investors

A conservative Christian pastor is urging followers to load up on Microsoft stock, to force the company to “stop financing ungodly ventures.” “We’re not trying to hurt Microsoft or their shareholders, nor are we calling for a boycott of their products. We are trying to get Christians to buy their shares.” It’s unclear what effect, if any, the initiative could have on the stock price. It would be difficult to influence company direction — just to gain a 1% stake in Microsoft, 31m people would each have to spend $104 to buy 3 shares. Microsoft has 9.36b outstanding shares, and its largest holder is Chairman Bill Gates, with 858m shares, or 9%. Capital Research and Management Co. follows with 6%.

thump the bible too much and you fail at basic math like this guy

Parsing Palin

There are plenty of people out there who believe that diagramming a sentence provides insight into the mind of its perpetrator. The more the diagram is forced to wander around the page, loop back on itself, and generally stretch its capabilities, the more it reveals that the mind that created the sentence is either a richly educated one—with a Proustian grasp of language that pushes the limits of expression—or such an impoverished one that it can produce only hot air, baloney, and twaddle. Other Palinisms are not so tractable:

I know that John McCain will do that and I, as his vice president, families we are blessed with that vote of the American people and are elected to serve and are sworn in on January 20, that will be our top priority is to defend the American people.

I didn’t stop to marvel at the mad thrusting of that pet political watchword “families” into the text. I just rolled up my sleeves and attempted to bring order out of the chaos:

I had to give up. This sentence is not for diagramming lightweights.

of course the people prone to listening to her only hear “donuts” anyway.