Word: ax
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Talk about divine inspiration. Twenty-eight army recruits stood at attention at a swearing-in ceremony on May 6, each holding his weapon - a combination of spear and battle ax called a halberd - and listening intently to the boss' pep talk. "I hope that despite the heaviness of your service you will live this time of mission as a deepening of your faith," he said. Of course, not many armies can boast that their commander is Pope John Paul II, the peace-loving head of the Roman Catholic Church. And in an era of drab, utilitarian uniforms, few recruits start...
...Trained in skydiving, demolition and weapons handling, they were taught to kill with an ax and to hit an enemy in the eye with a knife from 10 meters. They learned to live off raw snakes and rats. Before each drill, they were made to bellow: "If you're caught, blow yourself up." Anyone who fell behind faced a beating from their guard-trainers. One recruit died in swimming endurance training, another fell off a cliff. The guards took one laggard into the ocean and nearly drowned him. Later they buried him on the beach with his head sticking...
...adding to the country's stock of human capital. Applications to graduate programs in everything from law and business to education and engineering are up from last year by 30%-100%. That approach should pay off. Although 1.9 million Americans with a high school diploma or less got the ax from September 2000 to October 2001--a time when the economy was slumping--1.2 million people with college or vocational degrees were hired, according to the Employment Policy Foundation...
...workers opt to be independent contractors or to job hop at will, managers will also have to work harder than ever to retain people and develop all of them--not just standouts--to their fullest potential. Rather than dampening the rush toward free agency, many observers believe the recent ax wielding will only encourage it. "It's not that everybody is dying to be a free agent," says Bruce Tulgan, author of Winning the Talent Wars (W.W. Norton & Co.). "It's that people are realizing they have no choice." And companies will soon have no choice but to accept that...
...enough to stir the ire of the European Commission. Durão Barroso says wryly that this was "only a slight variation of 100%" on the government's 1.1% prediction and that it's probably higher because of trick accounting. He won't say where he would wield the ax but claims he will be tough on the state-funded institutions that grow around Portuguese governments like suckerfish around the mouth of a whale. "There were 130 of these six years ago," he says. "The Guterres government added another 78. Most are to give jobs to the boys...