The Lexicographer's Rules

"Top Bush advisers have become image profiteers, spinning tall tales in a greedy quest to transform the president they had fretted was coming across as too small before the crisis into a larger-than-life figure now. 'They're trying so hard to make him look Churchillian and it's entirely unnecessary,' says one Republican who advises the administration. 'They're overselling a product that's selling itself.'"

—New York Times. From here in New York City, the product that sells so well elsewhere appears to have the substance of air. "The hyperventilated spin began the morning after the attacks. To deflect criticism that the administration had been without any commanding and reassuring Giuliani-like voice for 10 hours, as the president and other high-level officials scrambled around, Karl Rove and Mr. Fleischer pushed the spurious and elaborately embroidered stories that the White House and Air Force One were also intended targets."'

"In the last half of the Twentieth Century, Canada effectively abandoned the vision of being an economic and military power separate from the United States. Recognizing that our north-south axis ultimately trumped our east-west arrangements, we accepted the continentalization of North American defence and the economy. The logic of the gradual erasure of the border for military and economic purposes always implied the idea of a North American perimeter. No one seems to know how Washington and Ottawa will tighten the perimeter in coming monthsÑCanadian sensitivities about sovereignty have to be respectedÑbut real tightening is inevitable."

—National Post. "The golden age of Canadian greatness was the decade or so after 1945. We had emerged from the Second World War as a significant military power, at one time the fourth mightiest military country in the world. Because of our fantastic resource base, we seemed an economic giant in the making. Our diplomatic corps, personified by Lester Pearson, was respected around the world. In international affairs, we were an important 'middle power,' and we liked to think of ourselves as the hypotenuse of a North Atlantic Triangle, helping the estranged Brits and Americans understand each other."'

"Only 25 to 30 seconds had elapsed since I had missed the earlier elevator. I turned again and walked a few steps, three or four seconds, maybe less, and was opposite an adjoining hallway. I stopped, faced the hallway, heard an explosion, turned to my left and saw a wall of debris and smoke heading for me, heard screams, leaped into the adjoining hallway as the smoke and debris flew by."

—National Post. Edward Fine was on the 78th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center when it was hit by the airplane. "Walking now, ever so slowly, EXPLOSION, look back, building crumbling, frozen, awe struck, RUN someone screams, start running, legs hurt not moving very fast, turn corner get ten feet, look back, large cloud of debris, ash and smoke heading my way, can't outrun it, lie down a voice calls, we lie face down on the street, a priest starts praying, DEATH has arrived for me. We are engulfed, warm ash covering us, breathing extremely difficult, hold your breath, keep your eyes closed, suffocation."'

"A cigarette is a suitable substitute for almost all distracting bodily desires. The peaceful prescription to all your daily worries. Whether you're tired, cold, hungry, sad, angry or just boredÑthe smooth, smoky sensation of toxins tickling your tonsils is a recipe for relaxation. And appetite, what appetite? Two coffees and a bifter for breakfast, a long drag for lunch and 10 durries for dinner. Just add sugar to keep the heart ticking, and you've got a weight-loss program that'll shave the kilos off a sumo wrestler."

—Moscow Times. Andrew Boag has decided that if he should not have grease and lard to assuage his hangovers because of they way his figure is affected, then he'll return to smoking as his cure-all. "A timely puff is also the perfect answer to those uncomfortable silences that seem to pop up just as all parties are inching toward intimacy."'

"The bizarre case surfaced Monday, when a Colombian television station aired footage of a May ceremony at Bogota's National Museum at which Colombian President Andres Pastrana and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez were seated together at a table. Helping to push in Chavez's chair and then standing behind the two leaders during the ceremony was a thin, nerdy man with glasses and a dark, rumpled suit. His presence, apparently as part of the security detail, raised no suspicions at the time. But on closer inspection, the man behind the presidents is the same man Colombia's secret service presented to the media earlier this month as an alleged guerrilla deserter who revealed an assassination plot against a Colombian presidential candidate, Alvaro Uribe."

—Associated Press. "Secret service officials said Friday he was in a witness protection program managed by the federal prosecutors' office. Federal prosecutors said they don't have him, and insist he is being held by the secret service."'