• You don’t want them walking away saying, ‘I paid to get in, I bought my kid a hot dog, I just want to show my kid a fish -- and you are making me feel bad about climate change,’
• Source: New York Times   |   Nation   |   August 28, 2012
• Paul Boyle, the senior vice president for conservation and education at the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, on why some zoos' and aquariums' are reluctant to dwell on climate change during tours or on instructional signs.
• 2 Comments

• Nobody will confuse a yellow car with a 75-foot-long train car that runs underground.
• Source: New York Times   |   New York City   |   August 27, 2012
• New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission Chairman David Yassky, on officials’ concerns that the city’s new logo for cabs, which replaces the word “taxi” with a simple “T,” might be too similar to the under-construction T train which will eventually run underneath Second Avenue.

• If you don’t like New York, you don’t have to come to New York. You don’t have to sell your products here. And perhaps we won’t come to your concerts.
• Source: New York Times   |   New York City   |   August 24, 2012
• New York state Senator Malcolm Smith, after rapper Lil Wayne said that he doesn't like New York. Smith called a news conference to demand an apology from the rapper.
• 1 Comments

• When a state regulator wants to, he or she can take the ‘dual’ in U.S. bank regulatory jurisdiction and turn it into a very powerful solo act.
• Source: Washington Post   |   Nation   |   August 23, 2012
• Karen Shaw Petrou, managing partner of Federal Financial Analytics. Ever since the financial crisis, some state regulators have been using state laws to get some of the biggest banks to fall in line.

• Leave banks can become a de facto deferred-compensation program. It's a huge unfunded liability.
• Source: Sacramento Bee   |   California   |   August 22, 2012
• Dave Gilb, a former head of California's personnel department. Recent investigations revealed that excessive leave hours built up by state parks managers led to a larger revelation that the state Department of Parks and Recreation hid millions of dollars even while threatening to close parks.

• From what I understand from doctors, (pregnancy) is really rare ... If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.
• Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch   |   Missouri   |   August 21, 2012
• U.S. Senate nominee Todd Akin (R-Mo.), who said he opposes all abortions -- even in cases of rape -- during a TV interview this past weekend. His comment, which he later apologized for, sparked outrage nationwide and led to calls from his own party for him to drop out of the race.

• I cannot have any more deaths on my conscience because we did not take action.
• Source: The Associated Press   |   Dallas   |   August 20, 2012
• Mike Rawlings, the mayor of Dallas, where the nation's West Nile virus outbreak is the worst. It prompted the county to spray insecticide from the air for the first time in nearly 50 years.

• I hate to put a number on having children but I don't know, we enjoy having a home and keeping food on the table.
• Source: McClatchy Newspapers   |   Minnesota   |   August 17, 2012
• Sasha Reese, a resident of Minnesota, where putting an infant in child care costs more than a year of state college tuition. The high cost of care, she said, has influenced her decision on if and when to have more kids.

• [Politics are] down in the toilet. Everybody lies. The deficit? My good Lord almighty.
• Source: USA Today   |   Nation   |   August 16, 2012
• North Carolina resident Annie Provencher, 60, who didn't vote in the 2008 presidential election and said she would only vote this year if Hillary Clinton were running. A USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll found that nearly 40 percent of eligible voters didn't cast a ballot in 2008 and the rate is expected to rise this year.

• He should retire to his plantation and let the rest of us continue to embrace the 21st century.
• Source: McClatchy Newspapers   |   South Carolina   |   August 15, 2012
• Rob Godfrey, the spokesperson for South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, referring to activist John Rainey who filed a lawsuit alleging Haley used her position as a state representative for personal gain. The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal of the dismissal of Rainey's original lawsuit.

• Any time you try to talk with her... she says, 'Just take me to court.' So that's what we're doing.
• Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution   |   East Point, Ga.   |   August 14, 2012
• Barbara Collins, referring to Mayor Earnestine Pittman, who she filed a lawsuit against to remove from office. Pittman first removed Collins from the local housing authority board.

• If you have a cellphone, that's your weapon.
• Source: McClatchy Newspapers   |   Nation   |   August 13, 2012
• Chris Tutko, director of Neighborhood Watch for the National Sheriffs' Association. More and more residents and cities are hiring private security forces to make up for cuts in police budgets.

• Let’s call it the “missing umbrella in the rain” syndrome. The best ideas fall by the wayside in hard times.
• Source: GOVERNING   |   Nation   |   August 10, 2012
• Katherine Barrett and Richard Greene, in August's Smart Management column on how gainsharing -- the concept of sharing unspent dollars with other employees and agencies -- is often ignored when budgets are the smallest.

• The NFL and NCAA have a contract with ESPN to televise point spreads on major games, and you're telling me there's no betting on sports already going on?
• Source: McClatchy Newspapers   |   New Jersey   |   August 9, 2012
• New Jersey state Sen. James Whelan, responding to the NCAA and four professional sports leagues' decision to file a lawsuit against the state to stop it from implementing sports betting at casinos and race tracks.

• No one’s saying ‘I’m not sure about this Obama guy but, boy, I love Biden.'
• Source: PolitickerNJ   |   New Jersey   |   August 8, 2012
• New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who said Mitt Romney's pick for vice president will have little impact on the presidential campaign.
• 1 Comments