The wars in Afghanistan and Iran are both fought in defense of the manliness of America. […] President [George W.] Bush is reelected on a platform of never changing his mind, never reconsidering a decision once taken, and never worrying about what others might think or feel in relation to U.S. actions globally. Since this model of national sovereignty in the face of a foreign threat leaves little room for worrying about individual lives at home, victims of national disasters are subjected to an unimaginably callous carelessness. And the events in nature that shock and awe the senses are used as excuses for doing away with those minimal environmental protections that still constrain the fossil fuel industry.

[W]hen he went abroad with Dombey and was chasing that vagabond up and down France, J. Bagstock would have pooh-pooh'd you—would have pooh-pooh'd you, Sir, by the Lord!

(Mad Pierre had showered her with his customary praise as well, exclaiming on IRC that she made him behave “like a testosteronal teenager in an AOL chat room”—a line that Shiksaa was quick to appropriate for use in her Usenet signature.)

A porkchop-shaped camping area is set along the south cove of 12-mile Sebec Lake.