Well, if you start off with faulty statistics and then ignore the real world, of course you can prove whatever it is that you want to.

Guess who might end up carrying the financial can for the Madoff losses? Yup, the taxpayer. Still, at least it's a $50 billion fiscal boost, eh?

No, food miles are not a good way of measuring environmental impact. Total resource use would be rather better.

So those people approving all those no money down, no income checks, negative amortisation mortgages, what were they, on crack? Umm, no, methamphetamine actually.

Competition time! Who would you nominate as your, err, umm, "coprolites" of the year?

The Angry Economist has obviusly spent too much of the season with young children. The latest Nobel Laureate in economics* is, apparently, a "doody head".

And finally, shades of Roderick Spode and those black footy bags. Can any British politician survive being the butt of the Panto jokes?

*Yes, we know, it's the Swedish Central Bank's prize in honour of etc. And no, we don't care.