President Nixon resigned not because campaign aides plotted a burglary for political espionage but because the president himself directed an all-levels effort to conceal it.

NPR: Justifications More Troubling Than Spying Itself

But the Justice Department did not include accusations that Padilla plotted to detonate a "dirty bomb" or to blow up apartment buildings, although government officials had leveled those allegations publicly before Padilla was charged.

CNN: Feds to high court: Allow Padilla move

Today's worst programmes should be measured not against the best products of yesteryear but the worst: so slackly plotted, vapid and slow-moving that they are now almost unwatchable.

ECONOMIST: Warnings to parents

Well, here's an axiom, if not an epigram, of my own: "Hitch" is least good when most plotted.

WSJ: Will Power