“The economy shrugged off the ill effects of the hurricanes very gracefully.”

-- Mark Zandi, chief economist for economy.com, in a December 1 Associated Press story

“I have a president who thinks that Kyoto is that guy his father threw up on in Japan. You know, I hear numbers from this administration like 2018. We will reduce mercury emissions in the air by 70 percent by 2018. Shut up about 2018. Are you crazy?! Fix it now, not 2018! Even if it does, even if it does, sin of all American sins, impose a cost on business. Aggh! Yes, that’s called the cost of doing business. Now, I know as Americans we love to vote our pocketbook, but small suggestion, next time, vote your lungs, vote your kidneys, vote your gall bladder, vote the organs that are going to have to process all the toxic crap that is in the food, the water, the air, and the pharmacy. Vote your grandkids’ DNA. Thank you very much. I appreciate you. I appreciate you coming out here.”

-- Comedian Bill Maher on TBS special “Earth to America,” November 20, 2005.

“I have an SUV, and I feel a little guilty about it.”

--Bill Weir, ABC reporter, Nov 18, 2005 Good Morning America

 “A typical cow in the European Union receives a government subsidy of US$2.20 a day. The cow earns more than 1.2 billion of the world's poorest people.”

-- Australian trade minister Mark Vaile, The Sydney Institute, Oct. 24, 2005

"I usually read the Wall Street Journal before breakfast. I can't take the New York Times on an empty stomach.”

-- Thomas Sowell, Townhall.com, Oct. 18, 2005

"And consumers say they prefer tuna caught in dolphin-proof nets, coffee grown by fairly paid farmers and products made from recycled materials – but retailers find that most are unwilling to pay extra for it."

-- Steven Pearlstein, Washington Post business columnist, Oct. 5, 2005

"You can have good government, or you can have Big Government, but you can't have good Big Government."

-- Fred Smith, president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Reason magazine online, Oct. 3, 2005

"They can kiss my ear! That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

-- Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) on giving up the "bridges to nowhere" for hurricane relief, New York Times, Sept. 29, 2005

"Like looters who seize six televisions when their homes have room for only two, the Louisiana legislators are out to grab more federal cash than they could possibly spend usefully."

-- Washington Post editorial, Sept. 27, 2005

"Leftist politicians and their environmental allies should be ashamed of themselves for preying on peoples’ fears, and diverting attention from the real causes — both political and natural — for the widespread devastation wrought by Katrina. The victims of this tragedy deserve better."

-- H. Sterling Burnett, National Center for Policy Analysis, Sept. 16, 2005

"While state and federal officials have come under harsh criticism for their handling of the storm's aftermath, Wal-Mart is being held up as a model for logistical efficiency and nimble disaster planning, which have allowed it to quickly deliver staples such as water, fuel and toilet paper to thousands of evacuees."

-- Michael Barbaro and Justin Gillis, Washington Post staff writers, Sept. 6, 2005

"Fuel efficiency is best achieved through market forces, rather than bureaucrats waving magic wands and imposing hidden costs."
-- USA Today editorial, Aug. 30, 2005

"But overall, the country is not suffering from a dangerous bubble right now."
-- Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor and Brandeis University professor, on the U.S. housing market, CBS's "Face the Nation," Aug. 21, 2005

“Tonight it is important to note that in this country we still do not have the same number of jobs that we had five years ago. Part of the reason is that we are exporting jobs and we are importing labor.”
-- CNN's Lou Dobbs, "Lou Dobbs Tonight," March 28, 2005.

"We're the IM generation. They're going to put our screen names on our tombstones."
-- Justin Young, 22; USA Today, Aug. 15
 

"The number of new jobs is consistent with the rest of the economic data that shows that the economy is moving along quite strongly."
-- Brian Fabbri, chief economist at BNP Paribas. New York Times, Aug. 6, 2005
 

"Good news. Very good news actually. We were expecting 180,000 jobs to be created in the month of July and instead, we got 207,000. Unemployment rate holds steady at 5 percent. ... That’s good stuff.”
– Andy Serwer, CNN’s “American Morning,” Aug. 5, 2005
 

“You can lead a horde of people to low carb diets; you just can't make them eat their products.”
-- Chris Huntington, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Reports, Aug. 1, 2005
 

“The insurgents would shrink the federation’s Washington headquarters and shift millions of dollars into organizing drives.”
-- Thomas Edsall describing union members who left the AFL-CIO; The Washington Post, July 24  (See Article)
 

"You have the economy kind of firing on, well, pretty much all cylinders..."
-- Andy Serwer, CNN's American Morning, July 27, 2005
 

“Once you start giving the customer, what they want, when they want it, how they want it, they'll pay you for it.”
– Mark Cuban on movies, ABC’s World News Tonight, July 17, 2005
 

“You know, some people would like to think so, but there's really no scientific evidence to suggest that this is global warming.”
- Tony Perkins on Hurricane Dennis, Good Morning America, July 13, 2005
 

"Well, we know global climate change is happening. What we don't know is why."
-- CNN's Kitty Pilgrim, "Lou Dobbs Tonight," July 4, 2005
 

"One cannot trust people whose cuisine is so bad. The only thing they have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow disease."
-- French President Jacques Chirac about the British, French newspaper Liberation, July 5, 2005