Verbatim

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"In baseball, it's three strikes, you're out. What is it for the Secretary of Defense?"
U.S. SENATOR EDWARD KENNEDY, questioning Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during a Senate hearing on the Iraq war about the "series of gross errors and mistakes" made on his watch

"Senator, I've offered my resignation to the President twice, and he has decided that he would prefer that he not accept it, and that's his call."
DONALD RUMSFELD, U.S. Secretary of Defense, responding to Senator Edward Kennedy's call for his resignation

"I am a foreigner, but I am first and foremost a Sony warrior."
HOWARD STRINGER, chief executive of Sony, at the shareholder's meeting that appointed him as the first non-Japanese head of the electronics and entertainment giant

"The taste and texture are somewhere between beef and fish."
MIKU OH, chain manager of Lucky Pierrot, a group of Japanese restaurants that has started selling whale burgers. Japan's attempts to overturn the long-standing ban on commercial whale hunting met with failure at last week's meeting of the International Whaling Commission, but Japanese whalers will continue to harvest whales in the name of scientific research

"Signing is one thing, but implementation is another. All peace-minded people should support it as it can pave the way for greater collaboration."
NIMALAN KARTHIKEYAN, assistant general secretary of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka, on the government's approval of a controversial plan allowing Tamil Tiger separatists to share $3 billion in aid for the island's tsunami victims

"They're very well treated down there. They're living in the tropics. They're well fed."
DICK CHENEY, U.S. Vice President, defending the treatment of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in light of allegations of inmate abuse and unjust detention