As the cleansing ocean closes over bin Laden's carcass, may the earth lie lightly on the countless graves of those he sentenced without compunction to be burned alive or dismembered in the street.

You can't have occupation and human rights.

I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim—so modestly and so humbly—to possess. It is time to withdraw our 'respect' from such fantastic claims, all of them aimed at the exertion of power over other humans in the real and material world.

I can't find the compulsory mutilation of the genitals of children a subject for humor... It's designed to repress sexual pleasure... The full excision, not just the snip but the full mandatory covenant is fantastically painful, leads to trauma, leads to the dulling of the sexual relationship. And can be, in itself life-threatening at that moment. We have records, I can show them to you, of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds in the United States of boy babies who died or had life-threatening infections as a result of this disgusting practice.

I became a journalist because I didn't want to have to rely on the press for information... I only read it to make sure of whatever everyone else thinks is going on, because it's useful to know what people think is the news.

I think the socialist movement, by removing many, many people from grinding stagnation and poverty and overwork, does enable people not just to lead better lives but to be better people.

I have been called arrogant myself in my time, and hope to earn the title again, but to claim that I am privy to the secrets of the universe and its creator - that's beyond my conceit.