Loose cannons

Democratic process

"I didn't think that people should be disqualified from appointment to important boards or commissions just because they'd supported [me]. That seemed to me to be just the reverse of how the democratic process ought to work." — US President Bill Clinton, on "jobs for the boys" who have supported him.

Rogues

"I am worried about the [union] de-amalgamation process because ... it might ... encourage the old rogue elements who have no loyalty to the greater union movement or the future of Australia ... It will allow the old BLF types to get back into the industrial relations arena." — Former ACTU president and current Labor MP Martin F. Ferguson.

Not far

"How far do you go with these greens? You can't make everything so totally green and environmentally sustainable that it is uncommercial." — John Taylor, managing director of Australia Pacific Projects, the project manager of construction sites for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

Embarrassing

"In Indonesia if something is true but embarrassing, you just pretend that it has not happened." — Indonesia's former defence minister, General A.H. Nasution, on the Indonesian government's refusal to acknowledge the murder of Australian journalists during the invasion of East Timor in 1975.

From GLW issue 240