Nostradamus 101

Okay, I'm ready to make a prediction on the presidential race using a poetic technique of prognostication (and a highly subjective analysis of it) that many believe predicted Napoleon, Hitler, the Kennedy brothers, and even 9/11 centuries before they existed when used by Nostradamus in the 16th Century.

Let's begin with the relevant facts:

McCain's a Virgo, and Obama's a Leo.

Hmm. Does the lion eat the virgin, or does does the virgin soothe the savage beast, and vanquish it?

To find the answer, we have to gather more clues:

Election Day--November 4--is seven days after the new moon, and two days before the lunar first quarter.

Coincidence? Maybe.

Significance? Unknown (i.e. above my paygrade).

More significantly (perhaps), it's on a Tuesday, which, as everyone knows, is not only hamburger payday for Wimpy (i.e. Obama?), but, as I'm privileged to know, was quarters night at my alma mater's Tavern, before the campus went dry...

....like the economy just did.

A-ha. Now I'm getting somewhere.

Many young lions prowled the Tavern for virgins...

...which were nowhere to be found (and, when making the analogous extension, certainly not on Governor Palin's end of the ticket).

Let's just cut to the chase. The outcome is clear (unless, of course, the skies are overcast).

Behold the inspired quatrain:

The hungry lion
Dark & smelly
Will strike the old virgin
(Veteran though he be)...

And the prediction:

...And win to lose
Or lose to win.

Go ahead and write that in stone. And you can be hailed as an "expert" and used in a pretentious documentary on cable no matter who wins, because the ambiguity of the couplet allows you to say you were right no matter what the outcome will be.

If you want, you can also easily read bin Laden (i.e. "dark & smelly lion"), the United States ("old, veteran virgin"), and 9/11 ("strike," "win to lose, or lose to win") into the quatrain and couplet and call me a prophet if 9/11 happened not in 2001, but will happen in 2009, even though I'm really talking about contemporary political events, because Nostradamus is hailed as one for writing far more ambiguous quatrains "about 9/11" half a millennium ago (even if he, too, was writing about his own contemporary political events).

It would really help your credibility, though, if you had an English accent and smoked a pipe.