In what is turning out to be the strangest presidential campaign in "U.S" history, we seem to be in a hiatus, a time between events worthy of notice. The primaries are over, the nominees for president have been chosen, but there's not much going on until the conventions.

Enter the myriad of soothsayers, oracles, and prophets. Or at least, so they pretend. So far this week in Salon we have had speculators speculating about the vice presidential possibilities of Hillary Clinton, Chuck Hagel, and now Joe Lieberman. I may have missed others mentioned.

If you give enough monkeys a keypad, one of them will eventually predict the vice presidential nominees of both parties. I might as well join the fray.

For McCain, I predict that no one will want to join his losing campaign. No one, that is, who actually expects to be the vice president. It will have to be someone positioning himself for a presidential run in 2012, a rising star. Let's see. Who is a rising star among the "Republicans?" There aren't any. I'll take Kit Bond, senator from Missouri. His name will resonate well with "McCain." Like "Dole-Kemp," "McCain-Bond" will have some phonetic appeal.

For Obama, it will likely be a governor and a female, and it's between Kansas and Arizona. Just in terms of stabbing and turning the dagger, I predict Obama will choose Janet Napolitano of Arizona. It has a nice alliteration: Obama-Napolitano. It will give the "right wingers" fits. They will have to say Osama Obama Hussein Napolitano.

Now that that's settled, maybe Salon can get back to doing real stories, like what it would take to get the international community to call for the arrest and trial of the Bush criminal regime for war crimes, kidnapping, and torture, and various lesser crimes like extortion, blackmail, arms trafficking, and subversion. Talk precedes action. If we stand for anything as a species, it should be easy to put this gang behind bars.

It has finally sunk in to Barack Obama that he is going to be president. He is undergoing a transformation. Assimilation into the Borg, as in Star Trek - The Next Generation, is taking place.

This being the case, what can we expect for the next four years? A man at the mercy of events. Global warming is now kicking into high gear, with severe weather, regional droughts, and rampant forest fires showing no signs of abatement. Oil prices are not likely to return to their formerly low levels. The prospects for unlimited economic growth are poor. And the rest of the planet no longer sees the "U.S." as the shining light of human civilization.

It is probably fitting that Barack Obama has succombed to the pressures of the corporate state. No one man will change the power structure anyway. It will fall of its own weight, like a dinosaur. It will be a great lesson for us all, that we can't rely on a savior.

In this light, George W. Bush is more of a "hero." By being so brazenly criminal he has done more to advance the demise of the corporate state than a relatively good person like Barack Obama could ever hope to accomplish.

In the next four years a lot of reaping of what has been sown will come to fruition. The Mideast, in particular, will very likely be the catalyst for upheaval worldwide. In concert with the effects of changing climate, our corporate power apparatus will more than likely undergo a transformation. Collapse is a better word for it.

I was going to alternate the bumper sticker on my car's back window from Obama to Nader, but now will probably leave the Nader sticker in place. It's not much of a statement, but it will probably help me drive a little safer.