Please, Waiter, A New Translator: Seems Al Gore gave a speech in Nigerian (anyone smell desperation booking here?) in which he said he has and works in a family a restaurant in Tennessee. No one in his office seems to know anything about this and suggested something was lost in the translation. In Nigerian there are four primary languages Fulani, Igbo/Ibo, Hausa and Yoruba so all this is understandable, we think. For the moment we will just assume that that the did say restaurant and that he either has the Clinton disease or he's barking mad.

Bye George, Bye Youth: The passing of Beatle George Hamilton during the night is so profoundly sad, so irretrievably aging that we will just mention it out of gratitude and respect and move on.

Oops, She's Done It Again: Georgia Democrat Rep. Cynthia A. McKinney, yes, the one who made an ankle snapping grab for the money Rudy Giuliani tossed back at that Saudi sheik, has stepped in another big pile and called Congress "Jewish occupied territory." Someone loan that woman a burque. The one with the head piece that's really tight around the mouth.

Ho Ho Ho And A Touch of Payback: Seems Sunday is the day to visit the town of Kensington (People's Republic of Maryland) as hordes of renegade Santas are planning to bring a bit of Jiggle Hell to the place for trying to ban 'Ol St. Nick. We hope they are wearing fur, fully armed and blowing side stream smoke but not at the kiddies. Never at the kiddies. If there are any left there. Who would want to raise children in such a place?

LDotter Note: We want to thank all of you for your supportive mail re yesterday's Short Cuts in which we dared to use words like "slut" "deaf" and "dwarf." Clearly just reading those words gave many of you a measure of guilty pleasure. Trying not to over stimulate you, we will work on this slowly. Okay, today's word is "niggardly." Don't write it down or say it out loud. Just whisper it to yourself and like minded non-PCers. This is going to be a long process.

Your Patient LComStaff