Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Author's note: the following yuletide greeting comes from the pen of our legal staff, the august firm Dewey, Diddlum & Howe, at the insistence, we're sorry to say, of the esteemed partner who gives us most of what ends up, we're again sorry to say, being pretty poor advice most of the time. That said, we haven't mailed the firm a check in a long time (though we certainly have sent Les a lot of olives), so what should we expect?

Greetings one and all!

It's been another great year here at Dewey, Diddlum & Howe. We're doing more business than ever with some of the shadiest people imaginable, and yet they continue to pay and we continue to care, and the help continues to steal us blind while N Howe, who does all the work, looks the other way and, well, does all the work.

For this we give thanks.

And also for Michelle Bachman, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, possibly Ron Paul, and anyone else the Republican base believes, however fleetingly, is a better candidate to run for president against Barack Obama than Mitt Romney. May they all be our clients one day, with money in their checking accounts.

Let us also be thankful this holiday season for Mitt Romney, who was VC back when most of us still thought VC was Charlie, who, as someone else pointed out, looks like a guy who might play the president in a movie calling for a president in a bit part.

Let us be thankful, too, that the Good Lord gave us the eloquent atheist and apostate Christopher Hitchens to get after all the charlatans and clowns and sanctimonious folk who make this Hobbesian existence of ours even more Hobbesian.

Let us be thankful for Facebook and other fine social networking sites, for giving us the illusion that we are close and cosy and keeping in touch. As Ibsen said, a vital lie is critical to the sanity of most of us—lies, in my case. As in: All is well so long as N Howe is doing the work. And I have olives.

Let us be thankful for Greece, btw, for their olives, for giving us civilization, for being the kind of client we here at Dewey, Diddlum & Howe would love to have if they had any money in their checking account.

Let us be thankful for snow, which we here in Louisville (if not in Summit County) have in abundance, for the moment.

For a White Christmas, Charlie Brown's Christmas, and It's a Wonderful Life.

For fudge and cookies and stuffing and pumpkin pie.

For quiet nights with the associates, after a stiff drink ...

For our clients, even the ones who don't pay their bills ...

That is all.

Sincerely,

Les Diddlum, Of Counsel (Part-time)

Dewey, Diddlum & Howe

[You Pay, We Care]

Wishing all a very merry holiday season!

cb