No sane local official who has hung up an empty stocking over the municipal fireplace is going to shoot Santa Claus just before a hard Christmas.

He put a ring in the toe of a stocking. On Christmas Eve we opened our stockings and it was there at the bottom of the toe. Then he got down on his knees and he was shaking.

Christmas is a stocking stuffed with sugary goodness.

There's something brave and touching about game girls of all ages keeping themselves smart in hard times - one thinks of those wonderful women during World War II drawing stocking seams in eyebrow pencil up the back of legs stained with gravy browning because nylons were so hard to get hold of.

Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungi raise aphids as livestock launch armies into war use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies capture slaves engage in child labour exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television.

When you get billions in aid and your weapons resupplied and your ammunition stock resupplied you don't learn the lesson that war is bad and nobody wins.

We've got fuel prices coming down and good travel numbers coming out so it's not surprising airline stocks are going up.

I'm very thankful to players like John Stockton and Spud Webb. They've made it possible for someone like me to make it. I think teams are actually looking for one player under 6-feet now because they make things happen.

From coast to coast the FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission have ensnared people not only at hedge funds but at technology and pharmaceutical companies consulting and law firms government agencies and even a major stock exchange.

Today's stock market actually hates technology as shown by all-time low price/earnings ratios for major public technology companies.