Loose cannons

Issue 

Analysis

"When we analyse the problem, we find he [Suharto] is the problem." — A University of North Sumatra lecturer, on the Indonesian president.

No comparison

"It's a waste management facility. There is no comparison between it and a tip." — Merv Pyne, mayor of Cessnock, describing as "a rare opportunity" plans to dump Sydney garbage in a quarry at Neath, four kilometres from Cessnock.

As advanced as kids twice his age

"He said he wanted to shoot and kill several pupils, as well as a teacher." — The arrest document for a five-year-old in Memphis, USA, who took a loaded semiautomatic pistol to his kindergarten.

No rush

"The German arms firm Karl Diehl, which prospered in the Nazi era, is to pay compensation to people made to do slave labour in its factories during World War II." — Sydney Morning Herald, May 13.

Those battlers

"A real classy budget for the financial markets." — Prime Menzies John Howard's evaluation of the federal budget.

Who's been holding you back?

"We are committed to improving the working conditions of the 500,000 people who make our products." — Nike chairperson Phil Knight, complaining that workers' rights campaigners have made the company name "synonymous with slave wages, forced overtime and arbitrary abuse".

Disappointed

"We'd be pretty disappointed with [a GST] if it had exemptions for education and health." — Angela Ryan, tax director of the Australian Society of Certified Practising Accountants, arguing for the government's planned consumption tax to cover everything.

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