Loose cannons

@columhead = Very clean

"It is a very clean deal. There is no payment, no nothing." — Businessman and Suharto crony Mohamad Hasan, confirming that the Indonesian government has given him, free, an additional $1 billion share in the Busang gold mine.

@columhead = Learned the easy way

"The arch enemy of an open society is no longer the Communist threat but the capitalist one ... It is wrong to make 'survival of the fittest' a leading principle in a civilized society ... I have made a fortune on international financial markets, and yet now fear the untrammelled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values into all areas of life is endangering our open and democratic society." — Canadian billionaire George Soros, writing in the Atlantic Monthly.

@columhead = Test the contents

"If you got a bottle of Dom Perignon from the boss in December, would you be worried?" — Senator Amanda Vanstone, insisting she's not concerned about rumours that she will be replaced as education minister.

@columhead = You don't?

"In Queensland you expect governments to be backing inappropriate developments ... but you don't expect the Victorian government to be proposing something inappropriate in the Prom [Wilson's Promontory park]." — Australian Conservation Foundation spokesperson Michael Krockenberger, quoted in the Bulletin.

@columhead = Well done, Sherlock!

"The investigation did not determine where the money had gone, but it is believed to have been stolen." — Report into the disappearance of $7460 from a safe in a Northern Territory police station.

@columhead = Brave

"Mr Howard ... has said that ministers should not be afraid to appoint people [to government authorities] who have connections or sympathies with the Coalition ..." — Sydney Morning Herald February 21.

From GLW issue 264