Some worry it is a sign of mental illness, while others rationalise it in a variety of ways: one may see it as part of brain activity, deriving from the same complex part of our subconscious as dreams.
Central and eastern European members are rightly alarmed by the invasion while western Europe is fast rationalising Russia's action away.
I've wanted to rationalise our approach for a while, and put the internet at the heart of our future.
While trying to rationalise her prejudices at a press conference in 1977, she received a substantial pie to the face from a gay rights campaigner.
While schemes to rationalise the layout of the market's stalls had been proposed since the 18th century, they had foundered on the fact that so many of the stalls were privately owned.
While this was rationalised on the basis that these groups would have a limited insight into the practicalities of healthcare, as negotiated between health and social care providers, it does mean that a potentially useful perspective was omitted.
This is big money and while there is a strong argument for rationalising all care and support funding into a single locally controlled budget, how to do it without reducing future entitlements will be tricky.
The British Medical Association chairman, Dr Hamish Meldrum, said: "While we recognise some of the arguments for rationalising the process of regulation, the BMA is concerned that, only a few years after the Healthcare Commission was set up, it is about to be abolished to make way for yet another, new regulatory body.
While proving to be a useful framework for rationalising illusions of brightness and the like, a problem with this framework is that the visual experience of individuals (with regard to surface reflectance and illumination) and that of their evolutionary ancestors is unknown if not unknowable.
Jim gave Paul a nickel-plated trumpet for his fourteenth birthday, but when rock and roll became popular on Radio Luxembourg, McCartney traded it for a £15 Framus Zenith (model 17) acoustic guitar, rationalising that it would be difficult to sing while playing a trumpet.
