My country grows stranger by the day. The elderly Italian lady who lives next door to me annotates her almanac to keep track of which moon phases bode best for planting, thinning, or harvesting fresh back yard arugula. Suspicious ways? She's definitely attempting to maximize the likelihood of operational success through careful planning. If the taste of the fresh, shared greens she drops off on my doorstep in brown paper bags are any proof — it's working.

The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning.

In a bulletin sent Christmas Eve to about 18,000 police organizations, the FBI said terrorists may use almanacs "to assist with target selection and pre-operational planning." It urged officers to watch during searches, traffic stops and other investigations for anyone carrying almanacs, especially if the books are annotated in suspicious ways. "The practice of researching potential targets is consistent with known methods of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations that seek to maximize the likelihood of operational success through careful planning," the FBI wrote.