If you listen, beneath the pleasant acoustic instruments, you hear a tartly sarcastic, gravely judgmental song.

NPR: The Magnetic Fields' Hard-Headed 'Realism'

As Mr Kohl tartly observed, you cannot spend twice what you do not even have once.

ECONOMIST: Mountains still to climb | The

This excuse, as Sweden's foreign minister tartly noted, recalled Hitler's justifications of Nazi invasions.

ECONOMIST: The war in Georgia: Russia resurgent | The

Libby's defense lawyer, William Jeffress, questioned Miller tartly about her memory, repeatedly seeking to undermine her credibility as a witness.

NPR: Reporter Miller Returns to Stand at Libby Trial

"Everybody's home would produce more taxes as a Costco or a high-rise office building, " Institute for Justice attorney Dana Berliner tartly observes.

FORBES: Land Grab

Their motives may be partly political: Mr Jen tartly observes that the Europeans have had nothing to say on the value of the yuan recently.

ECONOMIST: Capital and companies from China are sidling into Europe

Yet her offer of mediation has been tartly rebuffed by China.

ECONOMIST: Rocky relations between China and Japan

Mr Strauss-Kahn, who had pushed hardest for its creation, tartly dismissed this by observing that in a marriage one did not invite strangers into the bedroom.

ECONOMIST: Gordon Brown, the lonely chancellor