Verbatim

'It's kind of like a slime highway from the surface to the bottom ... Eventually the slime gets heavy, and it sinks.'

SAMANTHA JOYE, a marine-science professor at the University of Georgia, on the discovery of miles of oily sediment on the Gulf of Mexico seafloor; the muck suggests that much of the oil from the BP spill didn't evaporate or dissipate in the water

'Dude, you have no Koran!'

JACOB ISOM, a resident of Amarillo, Texas, on what he said after snatching Islam's holy book from the leader of a local radical Christian group intent on burning it in protest

'My father's not here to defend himself.'

ROSALIND WITHERS, daughter of the late civil rights photographer Ernest Withers, who was identified in a recent investigation as an FBI informant who provided intelligence to the agency about Martin Luther King Jr. and other activists

'The scale of our contracting in Afghanistan represents both an opportunity and a danger.'

DAVID PETRAEUS, top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, issuing new rules on hiring contractors, which aim to reduce corruption and prevent funds from being siphoned off by insurgents

'I would like to ask you and all the country's officials to take the sanctions seriously and not as a joke.'

ALI AKBAR HASHEMI RAFSANJANI, former Iranian President, speaking to influential clerics in Tehran on recent sanctions leveled against Iran because of its controversial nuclear program

'We thought we could put it to better use than he did.'

YIGAL PALMOR, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, on the country's recent purchase of the Twitter account @israel from Israel Meléndez, a Spanish owner of a pornographic website

'We don't want to hear another apology.'

MARGARET KENNEDY, of the Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors group, on Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Britain, where he was scheduled to meet with abuse victims and publicly express his regret over Catholic priests' deviant behavior; activists say they want real action and reform within the church

TALKING HEADS

John Ross

Writing in the Guardian on Mexico's struggle with drug cartels as the country marks 200 years of independence from Spain:

"Revolutionaries in their armchairs complain that revolutions must have ideologies and display class allegiances: this narco-insurrection seems to be all about barbaric killing and taking power, not the liberation of the working class. Yet, given a globalized world in which the market seems to be all, a narco-insurgency may be the best revolution this lacerated nation is going to get."

--9/12/10

Charlie Gasparino

Writing at the Daily Beast about Wall Street's obliviousness:

"What did the American taxpayer get for bailing out Citigroup? Tim Geithner and other government officials behind the effort will tell you ... [that] it ... is stronger, holds more capital, and takes less risk than ever before ... One point that's not debatable is whether banks like Citigroup have learned their lesson and are now more willing to level with ... the taxpayers they owe their existence to when they screw up. They haven't."

--9/13/10