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Buzzwords - September 17, 2007

Western Standard - September 17, 2007

"We've gone from counterculture to mainstream culture in this 20 years."

- Simpsons producer James L. Brooks, on the success of the longest-running sitcom in television history (July 26)

"It's almost a cliché to speak of the obesity = epidemic as being an epidemic. But we wanted to see if it really did spread from person to person like a fashion or a germ."

- Nicholas A. Christakis of Harvard Medical School, who led a headline-making study in the New England Journal of Medicine on the fat-spreading influence of overweight friends and family (July 25)

"Decisions were based on conversations, not applications."

- Ontario Auditor General Jim McCarter, explaining his report finding $32 million in grants was handed out to ethnic groups without a formal process (July 26)

"We shot dead a male captive because the government did not listen to our demands."

- Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf, after the group killed the second of 23 Korean hostages they're holding (July 30)

"The purpose was to release demons from this very young child."

- Phoenix police Sgt. Joel Tranter, after the force was called to house where a 3-year-old girl was being choked by her grandfather who thought she was possessed by the devil (July 30)

"I used to fly all the time when I got here. I don't fly anywhere anymore."

- Canadian Brig.-Gen. Tim Grant, in Afghanistan, explaining why he was in an armoured vehicle convoy that was attacked by a suicide bomber (July 26)

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