Verbatim

"We can all pitch in by being better conservers."
GEORGE W. BUSH, U.S. President, announcing that federal workers are being encouraged to carpool or use mass transit in light of back-to-back hurricanes disrupting the country's oil refineries and distribution

"So I guess you want me to be this superhero that is going to step in there and suddenly take everybody out of New Orleans."
MICHAEL BROWN, former director of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, during tough questioning as he testified before a House panel investigating what went wrong in the federal response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans

"What I wanted you to do was do your job and coordinate."
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Republican representative of Connecticut, responding to Michael Brown at the hearing

"With what we're doing in Guantánamo, we're on thin ice to push on this."
U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL, quoted in a Human Rights Watch report issued last week; the document claims that the U.S. is toning down demands that Malaysia end its practice of holding terror suspects without trial

"The day a T-shirt is cheaper than a croissant, we are arriving at indecent prices."
LI EDELKOORT, Dutch fashion consultant, arguing that the movement of clothing manufacturing to China is undercutting traditional European producers and leading to a "genocide of the culture of textiles"

"We got a letter from Santa complaining about his reindeer's death and looked into it seriously."
MORTEN JENSEN, spokesman for the Danish air force, which paid a part-time Santa Claus about $5000 after flight data and veterinarian reports backed up his claim that F-16 jets screaming over his farm had frightened his animal, Rudolf, to death