"Our proposition, very simply, we take no sides on whose claims, Australia and New Zealand have no claims in the South China Sea, we can confidently assure you of that.
Which is why, for example, climatologists, who have actually studied the data and know how to interpret it, tend to carefully hedge their claims, declining to assert any direct causality or make predictions, whereas professional obfuscators will confidently assure you that global warming is a lot of alarmist hooey.
"That's real treasure, Dad," Maddy confidently assures me.
They are confidently assured, practiced partners, born and trained in Kiev, longstanding members of Ballet Theater, and married to each other.
He had already been questioned after his arrest, and had confidently assured the police that each of his patients had died from natural causes.
When asked about the debt, he confidently assured reporters in a rare meeting two months ago that "we are all right" and "we are not worried," leaving details of a recovery plan - if such a plan exists - to everyone's guess.
A decade ago Washington confidently assured Latin American nations that if they opened themselves to foreign goods and capital and privatized their state enterprises they would experience a great surge of economic growth.
One confidently assured me that the Iranians "are stiffing the inspectors, but ElBaradei won't say it" -- which the inspectors themselves deny -- and speculates that he is soft-pedaling the truth in service to "higher ambitions": to head the Arab League, or even to qualify for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Although cheap and durable vinyl had yet to replace shellac as the recording industry's medium of choice, and all-electric record players had only recently superseded acoustic ones, Harrison confidently assured his readers that they were on the cusp of a new, "high-fidelity" era.
As some industry executives declared that a government move to break up Microsoft could inject new competition into the software business, Microsoft's top management confidently assured its 34,000 employees yesterday that there was no chance the company would be split up.
Of course, there are obvious ethical quandaries in confidently assuring patients of privacy when their research involvement occurs almost exclusively in a public setting like the internet.
