Quotes of the week

You decide how much it's worth to you:

They said what?!?  

It’s not completely a joke to say Fort McMurray is the second-largest city in Newfoundland.

Philip Cross, Statistics Canada, on the phenomenon of so many Newfoundlanders working in the oil sands of Northern Alberta

The more vigilant and alert you are, the less likely the adversary will decide this is a good way to strike at you.

Cana A Goward, US Coast Guard Captain and director of Maritime Domain Awareness

Anyone who rejects the execution of Saddam is undermining the martyrs of Iraq and their dignity.

Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, Prime Minister of Iraq

What will this guy do? If he believes himself to be Turkmenbashi II, it means we will continue our struggle.

Bairam Shikmuradov, leader of opposition in Turkmenistan, speaking about new President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov. “Turmenbashi” translates literally as “head of all Turkmen” and was the title assumed by president-for-life Saparmurat Niyazov, who died last week

We need to reform the economy. Belarus is not ready for realistic energy prices.

Aleksandr Milinkevich, former opposition candidate for president of Belarus, on Russian threats to start charging world prices for gas exports

We’re going to turn this place into another Iraq.

Abdullahi Hashi, a Somali construction worker who joined an underground movement to launch an insurgency aimed at expelling US-supported Ethiopian troops who invaded last week

The people who came here after the highway opened saw the forest as an obstacle to development. Nobody thought of biodiversity, nobody thought of the potential the forest itself offered, the rule was to destroy.

Tarcisio Feitosa da Silva, director of the Roman Catholic Church’s Pastoral Land Commission in Altamira, Brazil, in the Amazon

Unfortunately, with the competition that exists in our milieu, a lot of girls attach more importance to work and certain notions of beauty than to their health. To go hungry in order to copy a certain standard is a big mistake.

Gisele Bundchen, a world-famous Brazilian supermodel who has spoken out against thinness after a burst of anorexic deaths in Brazil

The quick pace of these changes is what stands out.

Luke Copland, director, University of Ottawa’s Laboratory for Cryospheric Research, on Ellesmere Island ice shelves that are 90% gone since 1906, including a massive 41-square mile chunk of 3,000-year-old ice shelf that broke away in August of 2005, but just reported on this week

When I see them supporting the foreign policy of this president, the deficit spending, the eavesdropping, Guantanamo, I don’t recognize them.

Max L Friedersdorf, formerly President Gerald Ford’s top liaison to Congress, speaking about former close friends Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney

No one seems to be saying we’re going to make deep cuts in war-related expenditures. I don’t see evidence that the Democrats are interested in cutting this.

Steve Kosiak, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington policy analysis group, after the Pentagon asked for US$99 billion more for the War On Terror, creating a new record for one year of US$150 billion, and pushing the five-year war expenditures to US$507 billion

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