Quotes

From the November 2007 issue

“What if someone started one of these sites in the six months that we’re not in session? We were able to proactively legislate for society.”
—Delaware state Rep. Melanie George Marshall (D-Bear/Newark), on her vote to ban the nonexistent practice of “Internet hunting,” in which sportsmen theoretically use webcams to kill animals remotely, quoted in The Wall Street Journal, August 10

“We can’t make John black; we can’t make him a woman. Those things get you a lot of press, worth a certain amount of fund raising dollars.”
—Elizabeth Edwards, on challenges to her husband’s presidential campaign, quoted in CIO Insight, August 6

“A she dog, or doggess; the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman, even more provoking than that of whore.”
—the definition of bitch in a New York City Council measure banning the use of that word, August 6

“Conventional work is out of the question for me—both in terms of my conscience and on an intellectual level—as it seems objectionable with regard to both my personal well-being and the well-being of society as a whole. Emotionally too it creates unbearable pain and dejection.”
—from a letter by a Swedish couple petitioning for continued welfare payments after 10 years on the dole, quoted in The Local, August 3