Old Fogey's Quotes for Monday

"They're not for some form of generic religious freedom. They're for Christian superiority, that Christians take over the courts."
Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, regarding the Alliance Defense Fund's efforts to return religion to public life
From the Church to the Court

"It feels good to be for new technology rather than for nasty new taxes or regulations. But this is a false choice. If you want the new technology, you have to support the new tax or the new cap."
Sebastian Mallaby in WaPo editorial on global warming
A Dated Approach to Warming

"Today, this country is on the edge of civil war, not sectarian strife."
Wafiq al-Samarrae, an adviser to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani
Scores Of Sunnis Killed in Baghdad: Neighborhood Residents Describe Signs of Torture

"Heart surgeon Jimmy Frank Howell owns a piece of land that hasn't produced crops in years. The federal government has paid him $490,709 in rice subsidies since 1996."
Editorial in WaPo
Cultivating Farm Spending Waste

"The Supreme Court said the president cannot continue to break the law. The worst thing to do would be to simply paper that over and say we'll make it possible for him to break the law."
Senator PatrickLeahy, the Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat, regarding the SCOTUS decision on military tribunals
Detainee Rights Create a Divide on Capitol Hill

"The red lines, pink lines, and mauve lines of U.S. foreign policy seem increasingly to be written in erasable ink. What was 'unacceptable' to President Bush a week ago (a North Korean missile launch) has been accepted."
William Kristol, a prominent conservative voice and editor of the Weekly Standard
Bush's Shift: Being Patient With Foes

"But while day laborers may be the most loathed illegal immigrants, you could also call them the least illegal. They don't misrepresent their identities as they contract independently for jobs off the books. They don't steal Social Security numbers or submit false work papers. They just work."
Lawrence Downes, in NYT editorial, regarding the move by some day laborers to unionize.
Editorial Observer: Day Laborers, Silent and Despised, Find Their Voice