Overheard

"Wikipedia, the most pervasive quasi-encyclopedia on the Web."

"Woman say MDs ignored their flesh-eating bacteria"

"I believe it is time to change the name of the [I-69] highway. It is the moral thing to do."

"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped or turned back, for their private benefit."

"Steve Vamos, Microsoft Australia's managing director, agreed, saying he does not believe IE's market share is under attack following the recent high-profile debut of the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser. (...) Vamos, who admitted he has never used Firefox, said there is a lot of hype surrounding the open-source movement and that if Microsoft's customers wanted new features, they would have told the company about it."

"A well-done medium is rare."

"Men Wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success."

"giving middle america the chance to ban gay marriage is like giving urban america the chance to ban country music."

"There is something infectious about a wheezy laugh."

"The Democratic Party stands for, by and large, the dismantling of marriage as we've known it as a civilization."

"[Fundamentalist movements] are embattled forms of spirituality, which have emerged as a response to a perceived crisis. They are engaged in a conflict with enemies whose secularist policies and beliefs seem inimical to religion itself. Fundamentalists do not regard this battle as a conventional political struggle, but experience it as a cosmic war between the forces of good and evil. They fear annihilation, and try to fortify their beleaguered identity by means of a selective retrieval of certain doctrines and practices of the past. To avoid contamination, they often withdraw from mainstream society to create a counterculture; yet fundamentalists are not impractical dreamers. They have absorbed the pragmatic rationalism of modernity, and, under the guidance of their charismatic leaders, they refine these "fundamentals" so as to create an ideology that provides the faithful with a plan of action. Eventually they fight back and attempt to resacralize an increasingly skeptical world."

"Campaigns have reduced politicians to even lower tactics and news media now more than ever play along. The public isn't served by that. It's hard to believe the public is even entertained by it."