2008 Quotes

It was mid-November 2008. There were pirates taking ships with impunity in African waters, terrorists punching holes in Indian security, China sinking towards depression because Americans were afraid to buy cheap goods for Christmas, and the richest nation in the history of the world was talking about how to keep a budget. ~ Walter Mosley

Our children will be told what Israel has done.' graffiti on the Wall in Bethlehem, opposite Aida refugee camp, 2008 ~ William Parry

It does seem that the sea ice is returning to 'average' after the record lows of 2007 and 2008. There has been a definite recovery trend since then, so far from being a progression towards ice free summers it seems that it was a temporary dip. The recent observations do make the 2007 projections that the region would be ice free by 2013 look very unrealistic. Given what is happening only the foolish would look many years into the future and predict ice free summers now. ~ David Whitehouse

What's more they are also some of the best-paid entertainers in history: Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent, raked in U.S. $150 million in 2008 alone, placing him on top of Forbes's "Hip-Hop Cash Kings" list. ~ Peter Mcallister

Around 2008 and again in 2013 NATO officially offered the Ukraine the opportunity to join NATO. That's something no Russian government is ever going to accept. It's right at the geopolitical heartland of Russia. ~ Noam Chomsky

Great material progress has not been matched by great spiritual progress. Quite the opposite. Indeed, from this point of view perhaps man has never been so poor as since he became so rich.
Letters against the war: Letter from the Himalayas, 2008. ~ Tiziano Terzani

Though President Obama promised during the 2008 campaign to pass the DREAM Act, he never made it a priority and failed to bring Republicans and Democrats together to do it in his first term. ~ Juan Williams

It's not about sizzle for me. I think it's fine. I mean, America made a decision in 2008 to go with a president who did have sizzle. ~ Rob Portman

Remember, the first presidential candidate to reject public financing for both the primary and general election was ... Barack Obama, in 2008. He did it, in spite of a flat pledge to the contrary, because his campaign saw that it could vastly outspend John McCain. ~ Jeff Greenfield

Imperceptibly, the developed world's manufacturing base was gradually eroding and being replaced by securitized finance that destroyed itself and nearly its economies in 2008. ~ Bill Gross

Usually when there are a lot of layoffs, like in 2008 and 2009, business creation tends to spike. But that didn't happen right away, partly because people trying to start a business couldn't get credit. ~ Brad D. Smith

Many retirees - and those on the cusp of retirement - learned
a harsh lesson in 2008. They need not have suffered that way
if only the proper advice had reached their ears. I want to do
my part to remedy that situation so that millions of retirees can
remain securely on the path to prosperity. ~ Christopher K. Abts

My goal is to get on the national team. People joke that we'll be able to go to Beijing in 2008, but it's just jokes right now. Hopefully I'll be able to make it a reality. ~ Lindsay Thompson

America was magnificently characterized in November of 2008 when we elected, for the first time, an African-American President of the United States. ~ David Scott

Our country today is at a cross-point of several crises that were triggered by three groups of causes: the effects of the 2008 world crisis, the external political and economic pressure, and the internal problems and constraints that have built up in our economy ~ Dmitry Medvedev

According to 2008/09 census there were 61,080,000 dogs in the United States. Many homeless or mistreated. There are more pet dogs than babies in the world. ~ Alexander Fontana

Here's why Sarah Palin says she won't be running for president. She says she can be more effective at getting others elected by not running. And I thought, well, that's true, because in 2008 she got Obama elected. ~ David Letterman

I was ready in 2008 for the Olympic Games but unfortunately I missed the Kenyan trials with a thigh injury. I watched those Olympics but it was tough to watch. But it was good in the end because a Kenyan, Wilfred Bungei, was the champion. ~ David Rudisha

Since 2008, batters have hit only .175 against pitches thrown at 100 m.p.h. or above. Batting averages go up as the speed of the pitches goes down: .210 at 99, .213 at 98, .225 at 97, .242 at 96 and .252 at 95. ~ Barry Bearak

Proximity to power has an unsurprising ability to mutate a politician's spinal cord into bright yellow jelly. ~ Tariq Ali

Presidential election results in 2008 and 2012 clarified that talk radio was not, in fact, running the country. ~ Timothy Noah

The year 2008 was a reminder to those who had forgotten that there is such a thing as history and that the cycle of famine and feast in commerce, first identified in antiquity and well understood in the Middle Ages, was not suddenly abolished in modern times. ~ James Buchan

When Brad and I got married in 2008, it got a lot of attention. And all the attention was over the fact that we were two men, but people were hardly conscious of the fact that we were entering into an interracial marriage. That's wonderful, because it was only 50 years ago with Loving v. Virginia that interracial marriages were made legal. ~ George Takei

Sir Ken Robinson's 2008 talk on educational reform - entitled "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" - has now been viewed more than 4 million times. In it Robinson cites the fact that children's scores on standard tests of creativity decline as they grow older and advance through the educational system. He concludes that children start out as curious, creative individuals but are made duller by factory-style schools that spend too much time teaching children academic facts and not enough helping them express themselves. Sir Ken clearly cares greatly about the well-being of children, and he is a superb storyteller, but his arguments about creativity, though beguilingly made, are almost entirely baseless. ~ Ian Leslie

First, a school with a strong, shared sense of mission is more likely to initiate improvement efforts. Second, norms of collegiality are related to collaborative planning and effective decision making. Third, cultures with a strong dedication to improvement are more likely to implement complex new instructional strategies. Finally, schools improve best when small successes are recognized and celebrated through shared ceremonies commemorating both individual and group contributions (Louis, 1994; Fullan, 1998; Abplanalp, 2008). ~ Terrence E. Deal

The eyes of all people are upon us. And all they see is a mash-up of naked prisoners and an American girl in fatigues standing there giving a thumbs-up. As I write this, the United States of America is still a city on a hill; and it's still shining - because we never turn off the lights in our torture prisons. That's how we carry out the sleep deprivation. ~ Sarah Vowell

I was super-obsessed with the Spice Girls. Ginger was my favorite. They had a tour in 2008, and my home girls went, but I didn't have the money to go! ~ Kreayshawn

In 2008, I just decided that there will come a time when I am dead and gone, and I only have a body of work to show. That was when I did films like 'Last Lear' and Deepa Mehta's 'Heaven On Earth.' They were serious roles. ~ Preity Zinta

If your joy is derived from what society thinks of you, you're always going to be disappointed. ~ Madonna

The much-discussed estimate of twenty-two vets a day committing suicide in the United States is deceptive: it was only in 2008 that - for the first time in decades- the suicide rate among veterans surpassed the civilian rate in America, and though each death is enormously tragic, the majority of those veterans were over the age of fifty. Many were Vietnam vets and, generally speaking, the more time that passes after a trauma, the less likely a suicide is to have anything to do with it. ~ Sebastian Junger

I think the average American recognizes that it took years to create the crisis that erupted in 2008 and peaked in January of 2009. And it's going to take some time to work through it. ~ David Axelrod

African-Americans who might have disagreed with candidate Obama's left-of-center politics voted for him in 2008 because electing a candidate with brown skin was too historic an opportunity to miss. ~ Alveda King

I said in 2008 the media is dead in America. Journalism's dead. ~ Sean Hannity

Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me.
Joe Biden, speaking at a town hall meeting in Nashua, New Hampshire, Sept. 10, 2008 ~ Joe Biden

Roll back federal spending to 2008 levels. ~ Rand Paul

After the Republican Party did everything that Colin Powell says it needs to do to grow, and nominated the very kind of candidate he wanted in 2008, what did Powell do? He endorsed Obama! So according to the Drive-Bys and David Gergen, Republicans should let somebody who campaigned and voted for Obama, tell us how to build our party. ~ Rush Limbaugh

In his discussion of Trika Yoga Abhinavagupta begins with the most advanced approach, and then presents successively easier methods one by one in descending order. This is another example of his particular approach to yoga. His intention is to make the best and the quickest method of yoga immediately available to all aspirants. If they succeed at the highest level, they need not go through the long chain of lower stages. However, if certain aspirants feel that they cannot handle the most advanced path successfully, then they are free to move along a more structured path and to choose any of the methods that accommodate their psychophysical capacity. The important point is that spiritual students should not assume that they are not fit for the most advanced method. Why should people resort to riding on a bullock cart when an airplane is at their disposal? If, however, they are unable to handle the superior vehicle successfully, they can choose some other more appropriate form of transportation.

- B. N. Pandit, Specific Principles of Kashmir Shaivism (3rd ed., 2008), p. 94–95. ~ Balajinnatha Pandita

By year's end, on 31 December, the New York stock exchange has lost more than 31 per cent of its total value since 1 January 2008. ~ Yanis Varoufakis

Certainly, when I'd left Iraq back in 2008, I'd been proud of my service, but whether we'd been successful or not was still an open question. ~ Phil Klay

You had a package. It was torn, so I looked in." She lifted one of a stack of firefighter calendars, with his own mug and half-naked body on the cover. "Nice," she said, a ghost of a smile crossing her lips. "Mr. 2008." He bit back a sigh. "It's for charity." "And you definitely contributed. ~ Jill Shalvis

Around 2008 when the writers' strike happened, all my stuff was getting stuck in development, and I thought, 'I'm going to try my hand at horror because I always loved it as a kid.' ~ Drew Daywalt

I took a lot of heat from Republicans when I stepped out of John McCain's campaign after the 2008 primaries. I still supported McCain, and voted for him, but I just didn't want to be the tip of the spear attacking Obama. ~ Mark McKinnon

In all likelihood, a significant amount of time will be required to restore the nearly eight and a half million jobs that were lost nationwide over 2008 and 2009. ~ Ben Bernanke

I knew what I was getting into: 72-ounce steaks, shakes by the quart, atomic wings. When I landed 'Man v. Food' in 2008, I accepted the fact that my weight would fluctuate. But instead of stressing about the scale, I made my long-term health a primary concern. ~ Adam Richman

In 2008, America elected a man with no "hands-on" experience" of anything who promptly cocooned himself within a circle of advisors with less experience of business, of the private sector, of "doing" than any previous administration in American history. You want "change", so you vote for a bunch of guys who've never done nuthin' but sit around talking? ~ Mark Steyn

I highly recommend the approach Marshall Rosenberg details in Nonviolent Communication (2nd Edition 2008), which has essentially three parts: When X happens [described factually, not judgmentally], I feel Y [especially the deeper, softer emotions], because I need Z [fundamental needs and wants]. ~ Rick Hanson

My appreciation for cooking and healthy living came from watching my best friend die from liver cancer in 2008. I realized that I needed to make some big changes if I wanted to be around for a long time, so now I'm more cautious of how much I eat, what I'm eating, and how often. ~ Sara Ramirez

Obama microtargeted his way to re-election by pitting Americans against each other in many instances. In order to confront the challenges the nation faces, he's really going to have to put his 2008 rhetoric about bringing people together into practice. Otherwise his legacy will only be that of a great campaigner whose promises fell short of accomplishment. ~ Kevin Madden

The essential nature of samvit is the subtle stir of spanda. The introverted and extroverted movements of spanda cause samvit to manifest itself in both the noumenal and phenomenal aspects of creation. These two aspects of samvit are known in Shaivism as Shiva (transcendent) and Shakti (universal). Shiva and Shakti are the two names given to the monistic Absolute (Paramasiva) when it is being considered in its dual aspects of eternal and transcendent changelessness (Shiva), and the ever-changing and immanent manifestation of universal appearances (Shakti).

- B. N. Pandit, Specific Principles of Kashmir Shaivism (3rd ed., 2008), p. 17–18. ~ Balajinnatha Pandita

When I got my success, I became decadent for a while. This was 2003 to 2008. I fell for tiramisu really hard. I've become more moderate since, because African-Americans are prone to diabetes. ~ Jill Scott

In October 2008, American commandos launched a cross-border raid into Syria to capture an Islamic militant known as Abu Ghadiya. He was accused of being one of al Qaeda in Iraq's main smugglers of fighters and money between Iraq and Syria. ~ Richard Engel

Risk is not inherent in an investment; it is always relative to the price paid. Uncertainty is not the same as risk. Indeed, when great uncertainty - such as in the fall of 2008 - drives securities prices to especially low levels, they often become less risky investments. ~ Seth Klarman

I'm not a masochist. I don't want to be hurt. Or injured. Just... pushed. I want that sort of... effacement, I guess... where my rationality is dissolved by sensation, emotion, adrenaline, all that. Like when you bike or run, and you think you've hit the wall and have to stop because your lungs don't seem to be able to suck in enough air, your heart is pounding so hard it hurts, and your legs feel soft, like you're just going to fall down. But you keep going, and after a while, it's almost like floating. Like you're apart from your body, but at the same time you feel, hear, see everything with this unfamiliar intensity. Or when you eat too much chili pepper or wasabe, and you feel your body respond, it's not a thought process. Your veins throb, you sweat, there's a weird euphoria. And there's pain, too. You can't stop it. You just have to wait for it to pass, and while you do, you, your reality is subsumed in the... transcendence of the pain.

Krylov, Varian (2008-05-19). Abduction (Kindle Locations 9214-9221). eXcessica. Kindle Edition. ~ Krylov Varian 20080519 . Abduction

My husband saw me go through the 2008 campaign cycle. We did it together for Sarah Palin and John McCain. It ended disastrously, and afterward I really wanted to do something different, so I started writing novels, and I imagined a fictional female president in my head. ~ Nicolle Wallace

We're always flexible and pragmatic ... It's always important to watch the unemployment rate and to make sure that we can keep most Canadians working. We were successful in that back in 2008-09. ~ Jim Flaherty

I'm not sure we could spell 'shale' in 2008. ~ Jim Ratcliffe

'Green' is likely to be a big issue in the 2008 U.S. presidential election - largely in response to George Bush's suicidal refusal to engage with environmental issues. ~ Zac Goldsmith

Like a lot of films at the end of 2008, they hit a wall with financing, which is why I moved back onto 'Stone.' In doing so, I had to let go of 'The Beautiful and the Damned,' to at least give them an opportunity to move forward with somebody else. ~ John Curran

It sounds funny, but the 2008 Olympics were something that just kind of happened, and I was lucky they came at a point when I was uninjured and well prepared. As a gymnast, you can't ask for much more. ~ Shawn Johnson

The Fed is the major U.S. firefighter. It's not the Treasury. It's not the Congress. We certainly saw that vividly in 2008. ~ Roger Altman

Well, the big elephant in the whole system is the baby boomer generation that marches through like a herd of elephants. And we begin to retire in 2008. ~ Lindsey Graham

I always had the impression it was just a job for you."

I hesitate. "I want to do it for Robert. It feels like a chance for me to give back a little."

"Give back?" Davis repeats. "You work there. You don't owe them your virginity."

This makes me laugh. "Right. Unless they have a time turner and can go back to 2008 and Eric Mordito's basement, I think that ship has sailed."

It takes him a few seconds to compute and then, "Gross, Holls. Mordito? Eric and I shared a pottery wheel my sophomore year."

"It's possible you're missing the point ~ Christina Lauren

Accidental nuclear war between two superpowers may or may not happen in my lifetime, but if it does, it will obviously change everything. The climate change we're currently worrying about pales in comparison with nuclear winter, where a global dust cloud blocks sunlight for years, much like when an asteroid or supervolcano caused a mass extinction in the past. The 2008 economic turmoil was of course nothing compared to the resulting global crop failures, infrastructure collapse and mass starvation, with survivors succumbing to hungry armed gangs systematically pillaging from house to house. Do I expect to see this in my lifetime? I'd give it about 30%, putting it roughly on par with my getting cancer. Yet we devote way less attention and resources to reducing the risk of nuclear disaster than we do for cancer. And whereas humanity as a whole survives even if 30% get cancer, it's less obvious to what extent our civilization would survive a nuclear Armageddon. There are concrete and straightforward steps that can be taken to slash this risk, as spelled out in numerous reports by scientific organizations, but these never become major election issues and tend to get largely ignored. ~ Max Tegmark

Regulators in Britain, America and Switzerland fined six banks - HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup - a total of $4.3 billion for manipulating foreign exchange markets. Britain's Financial Conduct Authority said that traders at the banks had colluded to rig important benchmark exchange rates between 2008 and 2013. ~ Anonymous

ECONOMIC IMPACT - The United States buys almost three quarters of a trillion dollars ($738,000,000,000.00) more from overseas suppliers than it sells in exports (balance of trade deficit). Overall, the US buys about $ 2.5 trillion dollars in goods and services produced by the other nations of the world every year. With the United States gone as the world's economic engine, the remaining nations of the world will, in varying degrees, immediately suffer from staggering financial depression. The financial credit crisis that started in mid-September, 2008 in the United States, soon reverberated in stock markets across the world. ~ John Price

In his tub-thumping speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention, Romney sounded like the hedge-fund tycoon he is. ~ Stephen Kinzer

People who don't like me talk about it as though I'm trash because I have tattoos. I find that insane because it's 2008, not the 1950s. Tattoos aren't limited to sailors. It's a form of art I find beautiful. I love it. ~ Megan Fox

One of our very favorite shows of 2008 was our Slowtrain instore. We drove straight from San Francisco, pulled up to the back of the store, dragged our entire setup inside and played our new album, Rook, start-to-finish - and they let us get away with it. ~ Jonathan Meiburg

Back in 2008, candidate Obama called a $10 trillion national debt 'unpatriotic' - serious talk from what looked to be a serious reformer. Yet by his own decisions, President Obama has added more debt than any other president before him, and more than all the troubled governments of Europe combined. One president, one term, $5 trillion in new debt. ~ Paul Ryan

I really believed Obama when he spoke in 2008, but I remember watching his victory speech after this last election and it was the same speech. Exactly the same speech. I felt like he didn't even believe it anymore. He seemed to be tired of saying the same thing. ~ Andrew Dominik

After all, Wall Street is clearly the most powerful lobbying force on Capitol Hill. From 1998 through 2008, the financial sector spent over $5 billion in lobbying and campaign contributions to deregulate Wall Street. ~ Bernie Sanders

If we are really serious about preventing another crisis like the 2008 meltdown, we should simply ban complex financial instruments unless they can be unambiguously shown to benefit society in the long run. ~ Ha-Joon Chang

I never like to talk about my own politics, but whether you're left, right or center, the 2008 race was definitely good drama. ~ Brian K. Vaughan

This was the winter of 2008/9. Work was ongoing to reinstate a tram system in the city. A lot of people couldn't see the point of trams and many more disliked the disruption. Streets were closed off. There was almost a sense of 'apartheid' as the roadworks made it difficult to move from New Town to Old Town and vice versa. Added to which, the weather was fairly grim. And the banks looked ready to implode. ~ Ian Rankin

The adoring crowds and overwhelming Democratic support in the 2008 election was based largely on joy at jettisoning Bush and the appeal of electing a superbly qualified charismatic African American leader. ~ Mary Frances Berry

this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal ..."~~Barack Obama upon winning the Democratic nomination for presidency conveys his thinking of what that means ....for the world, Tuesday, JUNE 03, 2008 ~ Barack Obama

It is a bizarre thought that in this [U.S. 2008] presidential cycle we could have had a woman in the White House we might have a black man in the White House but if either of them had said they were atheists neither of them would have had a hope in hell. ~ Julian Barnes

Someone must have talked plenty, because on an afternoon in June 2008, Sarvannantha Pereira was detained by men who didn't say who whey were. They would call it an arrest. It felt more like an abduction. ~ Rohini Mohan

Ever since Obama's election team and media thugs made me famous for asking a simple question in 2008, I've had more than my share of death threats by people who are by definition at least a little crazy. ~ Joe Wurzelbacher

Nine equals eight ... just ask any math teacher. Well, make that a Tampa-St. Pete area math teacher, one who also likes baseball, and is a diehard Rays fan, and who knows that Joe Maddon deserves more than just the 2008 Manager of the Year Award. ~ Tucker Elliot

In 2008, my one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Sophia, suffered a grand mal seizure. It came from nowhere, for no apparent reason, and took hold of my little fairy-girl. ~ Tony DiTerlizzi

Poverty existed before January 20, 2008, OK? Before President Obama took office. ~ Hill Harper

George W. Bush in 2000 went to private financing for the nomination, but he accepted public funding in the general. And, quite frankly, so did - it was broken in 2008, when Barack Obama decided he wasn't going to do that. ~ Mark Shields

I got involved in lots of different areas round about 2007, 2008. Just working with lots of different people and stretching myself in different ways. I was working on art projects and working with other writers, just doing bits and pieces, trying to keep busy. ~ Stevie Jackson

Vladimir Putin shot out of obscurity in 1999 by exploiting growing nostalgia for the USSR, fueled by the disappointment, uncertainty and crisis that brought Yeltsin's reform era to a shuddering halt. Once in power the following year, Putin set about building an authoritarian regime whose control would expand for more than a decade, until soaring corruption on top of another economic downturn - a much smaller one, triggered by the global financial crisis of 2008 - prompted another backlash. ~ Gregory Feifer

When my party won the elections convincingly on February 18th, 2008, we immediately reached out to other parties to form broad-based coalitions of national unity in the National Assembly and in the four provincial assemblies. ~ Asif Ali Zardari

What religious Americans might have been slow to realize is that the ACLU's long march through the institutions of America has culminated at the door of Obama's White House. Behind that door stands the one we have "been waiting for," as liberals chanted about Obama in 2008. Obama is the fulfillment of the ACLU's messianic secularist hopes. No president has done more to empty the public square of Christians than Barack Obama. To the delight of secularists, Obama has been stacking the federal courts with ACLU-style judges who read the First Amendment through an ahistorical and atheistic prism, or as they like to call it, the "living Constitution," which is nothing more than a euphemism for whatever they think the Constitution should mean in our supposedly enlightened times. ~ Phyllis Schlafly

Having been in the presidency from the time of Mandela to that of Zuma, I am one of the privileged few who has seen it all, rather than hearing it via the grapevine. The challenge is say 'the things I could not say' in a responsible way that helps the country to move forward rather than backwards. ~ Frank Chikane

Obama's judges share his contempt for the original meaning of the Constitution. He has long seen the U.S. Constitution as an obstacle to what he considers progress. In a 2001 interview that surfaced during the 2008 presidential campaign, he made this very clear: the Supreme Court under Justice Earl Warren had failed to break "free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution," Obama told the host of a radio show. ~ Phyllis Schlafly

Indeed, many adults don't consider having children at all until they've deemed themselves good and ready: in 2008, 72 percent of college-educated women between the ages of twenty-five and twenty-nine had not yet had children. ~ Jennifer Senior

One of the main reasons America should re-elect President Obama is that he is still committed to cooperation. He appointed Republican Secretaries of Defense, the Army and Transportation. He appointed a Vice President who ran against him in 2008. ~ William J. Clinton

As our values are the core to who we are as human beings, they are also the easiest way to identify and connect with others in meaningful ways. Think about it - most political campaigns are based around values. Barack Obama's 2008 election campaign galvanized millions of youth behind two very clear values - hope and change. ~ Adam Braun

Between 1980 and 2000 the number of patents registered in Israel was 7652 compared with 367 for all the Arab countries combined. In 2008 alone is really inventors applied to register 9591 new patents. The equivalent figure for Iran was 50 and for all majority Muslim countries in the world with 5657. ~ Niall Ferguson

Exhibit 6.2 Cost of $1,000 in Monthly Lifetime Annuity Income, Starting at Age 65 Year Male Female 2004 $157,432 $167,818 2005 $157,255 $167,817 2006 $151,700 $161,363 2007 $151,524 $160,966 2008 $147,953 $155,843 2009 $156,500 $165,502 2010 $170,116 $178,410 2011 $174,828 $182,952 2012 $187,008 $195,216 2013 $183,728 $191,571 Average $163,804 $172,746 Source: CANNEX Financial Exchanges for non-COLA-adjusted qualified annuity income with a 10-year guarantee for California. ~ Moshe A. Milevsky

In 2008, an Australian company commissioned a study to find out exactly how much people fear public speaking. The survey of more than one thousand people found that 23 percent feared public speaking more than death itself! As Jerry Seinfeld once said, most people attending a funeral would rather be in the casket than delivering the eulogy!
I can relate to those people because I feared speaking in front of a class or group of people more than anything else when I was a kid. In fact, I dropped speech in high school because when I signed up for it I thought it was a grammar class for an English credit. When I found out it actually required giving an oral presentation, I didn't want any part of it! After hearing the overview of the class on the first day, I got out of my seat and walked toward the door; the teacher asked me where I was going. We had a brief meeting in the hall, in which she informed me that nobody ever dropped her class. After a meeting with the principal, I dropped the class, but on the condition that I might be called upon in the near future to use my hunting and fishing skills. I thought the principal was joking--until I was called upon later that year during duck season to pick ducks during recess! I looked at it as a fair trade. ~ Jase Robertson

In August 2008, the General Accountability Office issued a report. According to this report, two out of every three corporations in the United States paid no Federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005. ~ Bernie Sanders

There was a time when formal clothes were one of life's great pleasures, as well as a way of describing instantly a man's status wealth. Toffs wore the most, the proles the least. Fast forward to 2008 and clothes are still an unrivalled pleasure but some men - and this includes many of our betters - have confused status with fake informality. ~ Peter York

As you know, in the latter part of 2008 and early 2009, the Federal Reserve took extraordinary steps to provide liquidity and support credit market functioning, including the establishment of a number of emergency lending facilities and the creation or extension of currency swap agreements with 14 central banks around the world. ~ Ben Bernanke

But in more than a few cases, you can draw a straight line from a cop being laid off or a union worker having his or her pension slashed back to the week of 2008 when a handful of Lehman executives took a payoff to mark down their own inventory. ~ Matt Taibbi

Some 8,000 nonviolent Occupy protesters were arrested across the nation. Not one banker or investor went to jail for causing the 2008 financial meltdown. The disparity of justice mirrored the disparity in incomes and the disparity in power. ~ Chris Hedges