In this frozen season of the year, we look (as always) to the ice-festooned shores of Lake Superior, for the annual List Of Banished Words. The good folks at Lake Superior State University provide this annual list as a tongue-in-cheek effort to get people to stop using words and expressions that have jumped the shark to the point of now being just downright annoying (case in point: "jumped the shark").

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Speaking as someone who generally enjoys a good conspiracy theory just for the "creative writing" aspect alone, in all good conscience I simply must report this shocking news: I have uncovered a big, fat conspiracy that is no mere theory. We're either being lied to, or we're joining in the propagation of the lie ourselves, with merriment. In actual fact, it would not be hyperbole to call this the father of all conspiracies.

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We hereby interrupt our live coverage of Pope Francis leading Midnight Mass this Christmas Eve, because we've got some breaking news from the Pentagon. We apologize for pre-empting our traditional Christmas Eve programming, and promise we will continue our coverage after the newsbreak, on a slight time delay so our viewers won't miss a single minute of the Pope.

We take you now to our Pentagon correspondent, who is awaiting the start of this extraordinary and unprecedented Christmas Eve press conference...

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When is Christmas? And why?

These are questions guaranteed to get you funny looks when you pop them, especially in a gathering of wassail-soaked relatives. But if you're tired of hearing the seemingly-eternal "this is what Uncle Fred did when he was twelve" stories, and you're leery of bringing up politics with your kin from Outer Podunk, then it's at least a conversation-starter that's somewhat neutral. Plus, you can reaffirm your nearest-and-dearests' image of you as a latte-sipping fruitcake who moved away from the glory of the heartland and now lives on (say it with an embarrassed whisper) the coast.

OK, I should stop editorializing here. After all, the subject at hand is Christmas.

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Everybody ready? Here is the first installment of our year-end awards, with our obligatory nod to The McLaughlin Group television show for coming up with these categories.

As always, it's a marathon. It's really, really long. Don't say you weren't warned! And since it is so long, that's all the introduction we're going to bother with.

Ready?... everyone buckle up... here we go....

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Before we get to the categories list for our annual year-end awards, I have one quick program note and one quick question.

Tomorrow we will have the last regular Friday Talking Points article of the year. Because the next two Fridays will be turned over to our yearly McLaughlin Awards (parts one and two). And then we'll be taking some time off (and running old columns) during the holidays (although we may pop in now and again with a new column... but no promises...). So we're preparing for next week already by throwing the nominations open for the first part of the awards (see below).

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It's that time of year again! That time when I shamelessly ask for your money, to support the site and keep the lights on for the upcoming year....

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Since it's going to be a short holiday week anyway, I though today was a good day to wallow in grammatical pedantry. Because I have a nit to pick with America's media editors. So fair warning to all -- today's column is about nothing more than me being linguistically annoying.

Elon Musk, Donald Trump's "first buddy" (as he calls himself), is going to team up with Vivek Ramaswamy to set up a group to slash government spending. The moniker Musk picked for this group is a misnomer, since it won't actually be a federal "department" of anything, but Musk reverse-engineered the name to boost his favored cryptocurrency anyway, coming up with the "Department Of Government Efficiency," or "DOGE."

That's the way I have been capitalizing it, at any rate. Because I apparently have different standards than everyone else in the editorial world.

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I start with an apology: I can't do it. I just can't. Not this year, sorry.

Today is when I traditionally spin scary (and amusing) stories depicting nightmares from the left and right of the political divide, but this year reality is scarier than anything I could come up with. So I am abdicating my duty. I am punting.

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Imagine, if you will, if President Joe Biden -- before he dropped his re-election bid -- had held what was billed as a televised town hall in a battleground state. Imagine further that after answering only five questions, Biden's brain seemed to freeze and he just stood there on stage while music played for the remaining 39 minutes of the scheduled event -- as Biden occasionally (and lethargically) moved his hands to the music a bit, but also occasionally just stood there with his eyes closed gripping the back of a chair. Now imagine what the media reaction would have been.

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