The confluence of events that was 2008 - in war, in politics, in business, in the economy - will have a profound effect on the history of the world. But here in North Carolina, we may feel the changes more deeply than most. We are going to declare 2009 to be the Year of the Yankee in North Carolina.

Its going to be one of those Christmases. You know, that Charlie Brown kind where everything looks bleak and then some intellectual jerk who cant leave the house without his blanket decides to lecture us about the true meaning of Christmas. Peace on earth? Good will towards men? Give us a break.

Today in our editorial pages, among Jim Longworths counterintuitivity, Ogi Overmans nostalgia, Alexander Cockburns angry leftism and a shameless plug for Chuck Norris cultural manifesto, we have some good news. Well, its pretty good. Or maybe its just not bad, which these days passes for red-letter tidings.

It would be depressing to total up all the bailout money the federal government is throwing around these days. It would also be somewhat trite, and likely premature, as we fear this voracious raid on the US Treasury has only just begun.

Wachovoia Corp. will hold what is likely to be its last shareholder's meeting on Dec. 23. And while the shareholders scream about the price of their stock - which cratered from about $55 two years ago to roughly $6 last week - and carp about Wells...

Gun sales in North Carolina last week jumped 60 percent, according to a report from WRAL TV in Raleigh, part of a nationwide trend that saw sales of firearms particularly assault-type weapons skyrocket.

This year we elected the very first African-American president and North Carolina voted a Democrat into the office for the first time since Jimmy Carter in 1976.

By the time this editorial hits the streets, the election will be over. For better or worse, the people have anointed a new leader in these final throes of the Bush regime. Now can we please move on? Its been a long eight years under President Bush. (Where were you before 9-11? Where were we?).

Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan took his lumps last week before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which seemingly placed much the blame for our economic mess onto his 82-year-old shoulders.

When the bottom drops out and the chips are down, when complicit parties and innocent bystanders alike go scurrying for cover, strange alliances are formed in the trenches for the sake of common interest. It happened in the 1960s, when the Black Panthers hooked up with the leftist intelligentsia in New York City.