Loose cannons

Environmentally sustainable death

"Neither do you want to pollute your own environment, nor do you want to put your own policemen and soldiers at risk." — Professor Thomas Klaptoke of the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, commenting on new research which will make explosives more environmentally friendly. They will, however, be just as effective at killing people.

Labor traditionalist

"It's a tradition in this parliament to do it in this way and who am I to argue with tradition?" — Outgoing secretary of the NSW Labor Council and newly appointed member of the upper house Michael Costa on the first of his likely many perks of office: a six-minute ceremony to install him which cost taxpayers $30,000.

Catching up with the West

"A recent survey by the [Chinese] Finance Ministry concluded that 98.7% of Chinese businesses falsified earnings in annual reports last year." — a report in the September 6 Washington Post.

Appreciative

A group of anti-WTO impostors have struck again, delivering a lecture, in which they called the US Civil War and the end of slavery a criminal interference with the principles of free trade, to an enthusiastic crowd of scientists, engineers, and marketing professionals at a conference in Tampere, Finland. The audience thought they were listening to an official World Trade Organisation representative and clapped and cheered appreciatively.

From GLW issue 463