Loose cannons

Enviable

"Jodee [Rich], Bradley [Keeling] and their team have achieved enviable results in a very short time ..." One.Tel chairperson John Greaves, defending bonuses of $6.9 million each to the joint managing directors in a year in which the company lost $291 million.

No justice

"Over the last 15 years, New Zealand has undertaken almost every conceivable economic reform to a state-of-the-art standard, but the result is that growth has been substantially less than Australia's and the productivity performance has been half Australia's." — Business economist Dr John Edwards.

Help!

"It would help if we had some companies that were world leaders in telecommunications and information technology." — Treasurer Peter Costello on the declining exchange rate of the Australian dollar.

Now he tells us

"You don't need a 110,000-seat stadium for Sydney." — International Olympic Committee official Jacques Rogge.

Which is?

"We don't need ... subliminal messages to get my message across." — US Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush, on the word "rats" appearing in one frame of a TV ad attacking his opponent's health policy.

Dedicated

"The city is dedicated to compassionate service provision to the homeless and needy ..." — Sydney Lord Mayor Frank Sartor, one week before the council ordered the eviction of a shopfront service for homeless and disabled people.

Perhaps

"It was not, perhaps, a wise decision." — David James on the building of London's Millennium Dome, which he has been hired to save after it has consumed 𧻺 in public subsidies.

Standards

"The country never fought a revolution or a civil war, pioneered no great social or political movement, produced no great world leader and committed no memorable atrocities." — Steven Pearlstein in the Guardian Weekly on Canada's alleged lack of history.

Come up in the world

"Now I'm dealing with a whole lot of intelligent people." — Mike Moore, director-general of the World Trade Organisation, formerly head of the New Zealand Labour Party.

From GLW issue 421