Responding to Colin Powell’s use of the phrase “The Pottery Barn Rule” to refer to the rule “You break it, you own it,” Williams-Sonoma, parent of Pottery Barn, has issued a press release stating that its policy is in fact to write-down breakage.  I’m serious.

Update: It has been brought to my attention that the State Department, showing more concern for the breakables in Pottery Barn than the US Government did for the breakables in the Iraqi National Museum, actually issued a statement yesterday indicating that it did not intend to cast aspersions on the Pottery Barn mark.