You could just use <script>if(jQuery)jQuery.ready()</script>, it would be shorter than what you have currently: <script>window.jQuery && jQuery.ready();</script>

In any case, I don't think that CDATA is a particularly inefficient or ugly part of our HTML output, compared to, say,

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"watchlisthideliu":0,"watchlisthideminor":0,"watchlisthideown":0,"watchlisthidepatrolled":0,"watchmoves":0,"wllimit":250,"useeditwarning":1,"flaggedrevssimpleui":1,"flaggedrevsstable":0,"flaggedrevseditdiffs":true,"flaggedrevsviewdiffs":false,"vector-simplesearch":1,"vector-collapsiblenav":1,"usebetatoolbar":1,"usebetatoolbar-cgd":1,"aftv5-last-filter":null,"visualeditor-enable":1,"wikilove-enabled":1,"echo-subscriptions-web-page-review":true,"echo-subscriptions-email-page-review":false,"ep_showtoplink":false,"ep_bulkdelorgs":false,"ep_bulkdelcourses":true,"ep_showdyk":true,"echo-notify-show-link":true,"echo-show-alert":true,"echo-email-frequency":0,"echo-subscriptions-email-system":true,"echo-subscriptions-web-system":true,"echo-subscriptions-email-other":false,"echo-subscriptions-web-other":true,"echo-subscriptions-email-edit-user-talk":false,"echo-subscriptions-web-edit-user-talk":true,"echo-subscriptions-email-reverted":false,"echo-subscriptions-web-reverted":true,
"echo-subscriptions-email-article-linked":false,"echo-subscriptions-web-article-linked":false,"echo-subscriptions-email-mention":false,"echo-subscriptions-web-mention":true,"echo-subscriptions-web-edit-thank":true,"echo-subscriptions-email-edit-thank":false,"gettingstarted-task-toolbar-show-intro":true,"variant":"en","language":"en","searchNs0":true,"searchNs1":false,"searchNs2":false,"searchNs3":false,"searchNs4":false,"searchNs5":false,"searchNs6":false,"searchNs7":false,"searchNs8":false,"searchNs9":false,"searchNs10":false,"searchNs11":false,"searchNs12":false,"searchNs13":false,"searchNs14":false,"searchNs15":false,"searchNs100":false,"searchNs101":false,"searchNs108":false,"searchNs109":false,"searchNs446":false,"searchNs447":false,"searchNs710":false,"searchNs711":false,"searchNs828":false,"searchNs829":false,"gadget-teahouse":1,"gadget-ReferenceTooltips":1,"gadget-DRN-wizard":1,"gadget-charinsert":1,"gadget-mySandbox":1});},{},{});mw.loader.implement("user.tokens",function(){mw
.user.tokens.set({"editToken":"+\\","patrolToken":false,"watchToken":false});},{},{});

which is sent out with every anonymous page view.