In the Sunday, December 10th issue of the New York Times, Clark H0yt, the Public Editor agonizes over "... what to call people who pursue political, religious, territorial, or unidentifiable goals through violence on civilians." He need not be so concerned. There does exist a well-established rule for deciding. It comes from Hoyle's rules for poker. Simply put, it says that cards "speak for themselves". A player may not call two-pair a full-house or try to identify a straight as a flush. By analogy, "people who pursue political, religious, territorial, or unidentifiable goals through violence on civilians" should be called what they are: Homicidal Sociopaths.

Sarah Palin

Last week, Governor Palin had occasion to spend an hour or so with a half a dozen medical specialists ranging from gynecologist to otorhinolaryngalogist. Her admirers feel she is now equipped to dispense sound medical advice.

T. Boone Pickens

Mr Pickens has recently recently purchased time on tv to promote a scheme for ensuring energy independence for the United States. Whatever else his scheme is designed to do, it is structured to make Mr. Pickens richer than he already is.

A Pox on them All

Egg producers whose eggs are infected with salmonella.

Members of Congress who denounce pork.

Defense attorneys who confuse vigorous advocacy with lying.

Supermarket managers who make all prices end in 9.

Taxi drivers who a) roar through rainwater puddles at curbside or b) become creative in finding their way from A to B.

CNN, PC Magazine, IDG Connect, and all the other Sites which load my emailinbox with spam and are totally impervious to my entreaties to cease and desist.

Wolpe

Some time ago Rhea and I attended a concert presented by the Juilliard String Quartet, a truly superb ensemble. The 2 numbers before the intermission were the Mozart D-minor quartet, K.173 and Stefan Wolpe's Quartet (1969) in that order. This particular Mozart is not one of my favorites and I promptly dozed off. I awoke in time for the Wolpe. By the time intermission arrived I had long since concluded that my dislike for the Mozart, notwithstanding, I had slept through the wrong quartet.

On the program it was noted that the Quartet was dedicated to his mother. The music was so raucous and dissonant that I concluded that he must have disliked her intensely.

Jet Propelled Aircraft

Near the end of World War II the German Luftwaffe introduced a jet-propelled aircraft, the ME-262. It quickly became a topic of intensive and wide discussion in allied military circles. Shortly thereafter in the Pentagon a memorandum was circulated to the effect that in correspondence, "jet-propelled aircraft would not repeat not be referred to as blow jobs".

Environmentalists

It sometimes seems that:

On Mondays environmentalists picket nuclear power plants in the hope that they will be shut down.

On Tuesdays environmentalists picket utilities in the hope they will stop using coal or oil.

On Wednesdays environmentalists picket oil companies in the hope that they will stop drilling oil wells.

On Thursdays environmentalists picket coal companies in the hope that they will stop mining coal.

On Fridays environmentalists picket lumber companies in the hope they will stop cutting trees down.

On weekends environmentalists sit around by candlelight shivering in the cold worrying if they have overlooked something.