So the reign of Bush the Terrible (also known as Bush the Cruel, Bush the Torturer, Bush the Despised, and Bush the Unholy) ends much the same as it began:

“Shouting slogans like ‘Hail to the Thief’ and ‘Selected, Not Elected,’ tens of thousands of protesters descended on George W. Bush's inaugural parade route yesterday to proclaim that he and Vice President Dick Cheney had ‘stolen’ the election.”

-Michael Kranish and Sue Kirchhoff, “Thousands Protest ‘Stolen’ Election,” Boston Globe, January 21, 2001.

“Scuffles erupted between radicals and riot police while an egg struck the bullet-proof presidential limousine as it carried Mr. Bush and wife Laura to the White House.”

-Damon Johnston, “Bush Pledges Justice as Critics Throw Eggs,” The Advertisers, January 22, 2001.

Of course, "in this post-9/11 world" [a carefully crafted corporate-news phrase requiring the gravest and most somber intonation], these same egg-tossing protesters (should they even be allowed in the same zip code as Bush) would now be labeled as "terrorists" and simply gunned down in their tracks.

'Eggs to Florsheims'

-a song by Scorpio69er, sung to the tune of 'Rags to Riches'

So now you've gone from eggs to Florsheims

You laugh and say you just don't care

And though our pockets now are empty

You're still a millionaire

My clothes may now be torn and tattered

But in your mind you're still a king

Your greed is all that ever mattered

It's everything

So open your files and you'll open the door

It's Patrick Fitzgerald that I'm hopin' for

To nail your ass and send you up the river ever more

We all forever now are beggars

Whose golden dreams will not come true

So while you've gone from eggs to Florsheims

You're still an ass - FUCK YOU!

...the guy would've been gunned down instantly. Then we would've been told by the corporate media that he was wearing exploding shoes that apparently malfunctioned. Then Bush would've pinned the Medal of Freedom on the "heroes" from the Secret Service. Then there would've been a requirement in the future that all reporters attending press conferences must be barefoot...

One week ago, I made 10 predictions for 2009, here:

http://tinyurl.com/5rntpz

One of them read as follows:

10. America will become even more religious, as desperate, frightened people turn to God for salvation.

NOW WE READ...

Bad Times Draw Bigger Crowds to Churches

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/14/nyregion/14churches.html?_r=1&em

Damn, I'm good.

re: nobody listens to you, except for me

It is the lot of the avant-garde that our appeal is only to the cognoscenti.

I expect that our collective posts will be the stuff of college courses in about, oh, another 50 years or so.

:)

re: I very strongly suspect there is no longer a solution.

For in much wisdom is much grief,

And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

-Ecclesiastes 1:18

re: you two guys (?) should get a frickin' room

Perhaps you should discuss with your therapist why you want to project your own gay fantasies onto to others. I suspect that latent homosexuality is one of your problems.

re: the narcissism

Since you've not chosen to challenge anything I've posted specifically, and since you apparently have no original thoughts, I'll have to assume that you're simply jealous. Just accept reality, and embrace the fact that you're mentally inferior.

re: Since you geniuses have seen this coming all along, how are you spending all those profits you've raked in shorting the markets?

Speaking for myself, I've been living the good life for years. Of course, you have no real way of knowing this, but since you seem to know nothing anyway, it shouldn't present you with any internal conflict.

re: with your hippie handle Scorpio, I'm guessing there's a lot of the kind & sticky fueling your paranoia.

Well, where I live I have ready access to plenty of da kine. And it's world class, lemme tell ya. But if you had the remotest understanding of what paranoia is, you'd know that you're misusing the term. Now, you may call me apocalyptic, but that would only be "paranoia" if it were irrational or delusional. Perhaps you've missed the terms like "meltdown" that have been used by even top economists and government officials when discussing the present financial situation. Or perhaps you missed a previous column by Mr. Leonard, wherein he noted the following:

Felix Salmon, who once blogged under the auspices of Nouriel Roubini's RGE Monitor, but who has been consistently critical of his extreme doom prognostications over the past two years, fulfills the true blogger's credo today, and admits that Roubini was right. "Nouriel was right, and I was wrong. The more apocalyptic you were, the more correct you were. And there were precious few people as apocalyptic as Nouriel." [Except for Walter and myself, that is - Scorpio]

http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2008/10/07/fed_commercial_paper_plan/index.html

Or perhaps you missed this recent post of mine, wherein I quoted from an interview on PBS:

PAUL SOLMAN: We sat down with [Nassim Nicholas] Taleb and the man he calls his mentor, mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, pioneer of fractal geometry and chaos theory. And even more than feeling vindicated, they're both scared.

NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB: I don't know if we're entering the most difficult period since -- not since the Great Depression, since the American Revolution.

PAUL SOLMAN: The most serious situation we've been in since the American Revolution?

NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB: Yes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Professor Mandelbrot, can that possibly be true?

BENOIT MANDELBROT, Mathematician: It's very serious.

PAUL SOLMAN: More serious than the Great Depression, possibly?

BENOIT MANDELBROT: Possibly. I hope not.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec08/psolman_10-21.html

If you don't feel stupid by now, it's only because you're too stupid to realize that you should.

Have a nice day.