Old Fogey's Quotes for Sunday

"Last week saw the news that Humana, one of the country’s largest health insurance companies, experienced much better second-quarter earnings than had been expected. The announcement amounted to confirmation that the Medicare drug benefit is working exactly as planned -- not for the people enrolled in it, but for the insurers who drafted it."
Barbara T. Dreyfuss, a senior correspondent for The American Prospect
Inside Job

''It's been an ongoing frustration about their resistance to purchase off-the-shelf, state-of-the-art equipment that can meet these threats.''
Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, a senior Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee
Bureaucracy Impedes Bomb - Detection Work

''The Americans are shooting themselves in the foot. The only beneficiaries of the ongoing conflict are the fundamentalists.''
Abdel Moneim Said, head of Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said prior to the adoption of the UN resolution
Analysis: Pact Won't Improve U.S. Image

"She was basically seen as saying you have to kill Arabs to remake them and you have to allow Israel to destroy Arab movements to make better nations."
Rami G. Khouri, an analyst and columnist for Beirut's Daily Star newspaper, regarding Rice's comment on the Lebanese conflict as part of the "birth pangs" of a new Middle East
As Mideast Smoke Clears, Political Fates May Shift

"She is now in the hands of God. I'm just glad she's not in the hands of some of you."
Minister at memorial service for Analicia Perry, who was killed in gang violence in San Francisco
A War Zone in U.S. Neighborhoods

"President Bush says, 'The Iraqi people decided against civil war when they went to the ballot box,' but some apparently want a recount."
Michael Grunwald in WaPo editorial
The Zeitgeist Checklist BY MICHAEL GRUNWALD