Quotables

"I don't even have to pretend to try to be nice to people I don't like."

U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., on an advantage of retiring from politics. Frank, notoriously mean-spirited, announced on Nov. 28 that he would not seek reelection in 2012 after serving 16 terms in the House.

"Jihad"

The name of a 13-pound baby boy born on Nov. 25 in Berlin, Germany. Jihad's mother reportedly insisted on a vaginal birth, and the boy became the heaviest baby ever born naturally in Germany.

"A waste of time and a waste of money."

Epidemiologist Thomas M. Mack, a veteran of the fight against smallpox in Pakistan, on the Obama administration's push to pay Siga Technologies Inc. $443 million for an experimental smallpox drug. Ronald O. Perelman, a leading Democratic Party donor, is Siga's controlling shareholder. The U.S. government already owns enough smallpox vaccine to inoculate the entire U.S. population.

"I told somebody at one point: 'This is like watching Walton or Kroc develop Walmart and McDonald's.'"

GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, on rebuilding his political campaign after an early implosion.

"Private, alleged consensual conduct between adults."

Description by Lin Wood, attorney for GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, of claims by an Atlanta businesswoman that she had a 13-year extramarital affair with Cain. Wood said the matter "is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public."

"Damp squib."

British Prime Minister David Cameron's description of public sector strikes that reportedly shut down two-thirds of state schools and most non-emergency medical operations in the United Kingdom on Nov. 30. A squib is a small explosive device. The strikers seek to maintain pensions that the government says are unsustainable.