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The Third Annual White House Christmas Special! Because I am too lazy to think up something new, it must be time for a clip reel.

Here are some highlights from a couple of the most widely underappreciated posts in Skimbleland, starting with The Second Annual White House Christmas Special. Please feel free to sing along...

Joy to the World: Evolution Edition

Sung by the Secular Humanism Christmas Holiday Chorale
to the tune of "Joy to the World"

Joy to the world,
This duck is lame.
Let Darwin do his thing!
Let every state
Know where to place the blame,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n and nature sing,
And heav’n and nature sing!

And from The First Annnual White House Christmas Special...

Spider Hole

Sung with a Texas twang by George W Bush
to the tune of "Jingle Bells"

Dashing to Iraq
With a stopoff in Kuwait
Overspend a lot
Catch the guy I hate
Cheney makes a face
Loves inflicting pain
‘Cause everything they’re losing there
Is Halliburton’s gain!

Oh, spider hole, spider hole,
Shock and awe and bomb
Oh what fun it is to try
To neutralize Saddam!
Silo nukes, Baathist gooks,
Nothing there? My bad!
Oh what fun to fry the guy
Who tried to kill my dad!



Cue global booing... wait... NOW!

{ 10:46 AM }

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Americans can't buy drugs from Canada... because increasingly we can only buy drugs that are researched in and conform to the safety and patent laws of India and China (WSJ):

As big drug companies shut down some research facilities in the U.S. and other rich countries, labs in India and China are increasingly picking up the slack. Eli Lilly & Co., Wyeth and GlaxoSmithKline PLC all have outsourced chemistry work to Indian firms, and Novartis AG announced last month that it is building a research center in China with at least 400 scientists. Meanwhile, Bayer AG said last month it is closing a major research facility in the U.S. [...]

Indian companies such as Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. have long competed internationally in generic drugs, drawing on their skill in copying foreign products learned under India's old patent regime. Now Indian companies are increasingly conducting clinical trials, performing contract chemistry work and, as Dr. Barbhaiya's journey shows, carrying out original research aimed at discovering new drugs.

Soon American pharmaceutical companies will be able to outsource everything: the research, the manufacture, and the markets themselves, because no Americans will be able to provide the research insight, the cheap labor, or the purchase price of American drugs.

If we'd only listened to Hillary 12 years ago, we could have worked out any kinks in her healthcare system by now. Instead, we're stuck in a downward spiral of mindless market worship and relentless globalization that will prevent Americans from access to drugs that are effective at a reasonable cost.

{ 8:58 AM }

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Inmate No. 29296-179: CEO of Enron. The Enron fairy tale is getting at least a partial happy ending (Loren Steffy, Houston Chronicle):

...here, amid the frozen and fallow fields, is a fitting place for Skilling to begin his penance. This town of almost 10,000 is steeped in the values Skilling long ago traded for the arrogance and greed that dominated his tenure at Enron.

It's a town where, according to the latest census data, the average citizen makes less than $27,000 a year. In Skilling's world, that's more of a rounding error than a salary.

Tucked 14 miles down the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historical Highway from Interstate 35, it's worlds away from the Houston of Skilling's glory days.

The economy here is tied to a handful of industries, from catalog publishing to electronics manufacturing — real companies producing real products, the sort of asset-laden businesses that Skilling mocked in his days running Enron.

Many of their warehouses and factories are just a stone's throw from the prison yard where Skilling will take his exercise, a reminder of how business ought to be conducted.

One side of the yard borders a row of wood-frame houses, the homes of hard-working people who will pass Skilling's new residence on their way to honest jobs.

They, too, will be a reminder of why he is here. [...]

Across the country, average Americans depended on those [stock] markets for their pensions and their savings and, in some cases, their livelihoods. They expected honesty. Instead they got Enron, one of America's premier public companies that, under Skilling's steady hand, became a financial ruse.

Skilling is serving 24 years and four months in part because, as U.S. District Judge Sim Lake noted, his crimes destroyed the lives of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people whose finances will never recover.

Thousands more suffered losses both direct and indirect. Enron was a blue chip stock that blackened mutual funds, index funds and public pension funds. [...]

Those in Washington who wish to roll back the reforms that followed the demise of Enron and other corporate fraud should come here, to towns like this one, and explain to the people who've entrusted their futures to the market why their investments don't deserve protection from the kind of dishonesty that Skilling and his Enron cronies unleashed.

It's fitting, perhaps even poetic, that the coda of Skilling's career brings him here, that one of the most notorious of America's corporate criminals would serve his time in a town that stands as a living reminder to all he eschewed. [...]

Perhaps as soon as today, Skilling is supposed to begin his new life as Inmate No. 29296-179. He will slide into obscurity as the curtain closes on the greatest fraud in American business.

But the lessons of Enron remain. If Skilling were to wonder why his penalty is so stiff, he'll need only to look out the window of his new home.

The answers will be all around him.

Loren Steffy, The Chronicle's business columnist, has done a great job over the years covering this story, culminating in today's pitch-perfect commentary.

{ 8:52 AM }

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Presidential nursery rhyme.

"I will not withdraw even if Laura and Barney are the only ones supporting me."





Pat a cake, pat a cake, Baker man,
Plan me a plan as slow as you can.
Shake it and bake it and mark it with B
To save the reputation of Barney and me.

{ 9:27 AM }

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Our booming economy. Class warfare emerges victorious over gender warfare: "Women narrow wage gap as men's earnings shrink."

{ 11:10 AM }

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Fit for a king. It's wartime and we all have to make sacrifices. Iraqis and American soldiers are being killed and maimed physically. With $26,000 in new national debt per person, American taxpayers are being hobbled financially.

But the holiday menus of the Office of the First Lady seem to be immune from reality:

Display of Specialty Cheeses and Winter Fruits (Served with a Bountiful Display of Lavish Specialty Crackers and Spiced Pecans).

Colossal Shrimp Cocktail and Jonah Crab Claws (Served with Ramsey’s Cocktail Sauce and Spiced Remoulade).

Stuffed Turkey Breasts with Winter Mushrooms, Cheese and Brandied Cranberries.

Sugar Cured Virginia Ham with Hot Pepper Mustard (Served with Warm Blue Corn Muffins).

Chicken Fried Beef Tenderloin with White Onion Gravy (Served with Tiny Icebox Rolls).

Herb Roasted Lollipop Lamb Chops served with Warm Yeast Rolls.

Honey Cup Mustard Sauce.

Fresh Tamales with Tomatillo Sauce and Black Beans.

Baked White Cheddar Farfalle.

Sweet Potato Soufflé.

Asparagus Tier with Lemon-Garlic Aioli.

Golden and Crimson Beet Salad with Orange, Fennel, and Feta.

Chocolate Peppermint Cookies with Peppermint Crunch.

Pecan Sandie Tree (Mexican Wedding Cookies, Russian Tea Cakes) with Layers of Cookies.

Holiday Ornamental Cookies: Barney, Miss Beazley, Christmas Trees, Snowflakes, Candy Canes.

Red Hat Box Mascarpone Cake.

White Pound Cake with Mascarpone Cream Filling, Red Marzipan Frosting and Red Ribbon Bow Decoration.

Coconut Cake.

Coconut Chiffon Cake, Coconut Pastry Cream Filling and 7 Minute Meringue Frosting.

Chocolate Roulade (Christmas Log): Soft Ganache Frosting with a Chocolate Sponge, Meringue Mushrooms, Magnolia Leaves in White Chocolate, Raspberries.

Mini Tartlettes.

Pecan Pie, Lemon Meringue Pie, Orange Chiffon and Chocolate Boston Cream Pie.

Chocolate Truffles.

Homemade, Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache.

Long Stem Strawberries with Dark Chocolate Dipping Sauce.

Warm Macintosh Apple Cobbler With Oatmeal Crumble.

Pumpkin Trifle.

Spiced Pumpkin Mousse with Whipped Cream and Shaved Dark Chocolate.

Let them eat pumpkin trifle!

Is Sofia Coppola available to film Laura Bush's life story?

{ 9:58 AM }

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