Twelve Images of Christmas -- #12

There's 12 days 'till Christmas, so here's the first of 12 days of images that are Christmas in our house.

We begin with Mr. Christmas himself, Clark, leader of the Griswold tribe, and his sidekick, Cousin Eddy. The first time our friend Pam next door met our Cousin Eddy she thought that I had hired an actor to spoof her.

On Christmas Eve, everybody in our house sits down and we watch this, again, and we laugh, again, because it is us.

Again.

Different Topic:

Think that our Illinois politicians don't cost us all a ton of money? Look at this ( as we sink further into the mess that our elected representatives create for us). As they work on commuted sentences and new felonies, Michigan, king of the rust belt, scores a big plum project that should have been ours:
Argonne loses out on $550M research project
Jeff Finkelman on -->December 11, 2008 at 11:14 PM

The Department of Energy awarded a $550 million research project to Michigan State University today, disappointing officials at Argonne National Laboratory, which was the other finalist for the prized facility.
Federal officials say the university's application was superior, in part because its proposed budget is "reasonable and realistic" and because it offered to share some of the costs to build the facility for rare isotope beams. Argonne officials had estimated the cutting-edge research facility would have brought $250 million into the local economy during its eight-year construction, with a total local economic impact exceeding $1 billion. Once completed, the facility would have created 290 jobs and had an economic impact of $80 million a year, they said.The Department of Energy said the facility will provide research opportunities for about 1,000 scientists and students from around the world.

Maybe we can get a new WalMart or something, and George and Rod and Dick and all their pals can cut the grand opening ribbon as they preen with pride over the handful of new $8 per hour jobs.

Or maybe not.