Peace, it's wonderful
"The Prime Minister welcomed yesterday the suspension of hostilities in the Gulf and made it clear Australia expected to play a big role in the lucrative reconstruction of Kuwait ...
"Mr Hawke was consulting senior departmental officials about how Australia could make sure it did not lose out on vital Middle East trade in the wake of a cease-fire, especially wheat sales." — Sydney Morning Herald, March 1.
Join 'em?
"What we keep proving in Australia is that we can't control the corporate crooks ... That's a worry. I don't know what we can do about that." — John Kerin, federal minister for primary industries and energy.
Jargon watch
"The verb to stealth ... had been used to mean to kill or be killed. American military spokesmen had used phrase 'to mort each other out' for airmen who fired accidentally on their own side." — Alan Peterson in the Sydney Morning Herald, reporting on the language of the US military.
Religious sanction
Magistrate Pat O'Shane, under attack for ruling that the F-word is not offensive language, should know that the first recorded use of it was by an English priest in 1503. (Also from Alan Peterson's Herald column.)
Why not just jail them?
"In a get-tough approach on money laundering and drug trafficking, children are ... being asked to produce proof of identity to open new [bank] accounts." — Sunday Telegraph, March 3.
Remember when it came from the tap?
"Water is the fastest growing beverage in the world. In the US the average person consumes 70 litres of packaged water a year." — Stephen Elliott, managing director of a company that produces water in a cask, quoted in the Good Weekend.
Perish the thought!
"Last week on Question Time (an Irish radio-television) program involving a panel and audience discussing the major problems of the day, an English Tory M.P. ... responding to the Kuwait invasion, asked the audience to imagine the response of the Irish if their country were to be invaded by a powerful neighbor. All burst out laughing uncontrollably. But she did not catch on." — Northern Ireland Human Rights Review.
For the kiddies
Topps, a US manufacturer of bubble gum cards, has a new series, "Desert Storm", featuring pictures of B-52s, fighter planes, battleships and before and after pictures of Iraqi buildings hit by cruise missiles.
The media already know
"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." — Winston Churchill to Joseph ran conference, quoted in New Scientist.