Now that the pretending is over, Bush is scrapping the ranch for what will no doubt be toney new digs in Dallas, but before our cowboy rides off into the sunset, we learn via the Pine View Farm that there is still time for some parting middle fingers to the American public:

The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday approved a last-minute rule change by the Bush administration that will allow coal companies to bury streams under the rocks leftover from mining. The 1983 rule prohibited dumping the fill from mountaintop removal mining within 100 feet of streams. In practice, the government hadn’t been enforcing the rule. Government figures show that 535 miles of streams were buried or diverted from 2001 to 2005, more than half of them in the mountains of Appalachia. Along with the loss of the streams has been an increase of erosion and flooding. The 11th hour change before President George W. Bush leaves office would eliminate a tool that citizens groups have used in lawsuits to keep mining waste out of streams. Mining companies had been pushing for the change for years. It also means that President-elect Barack Obama’s administration will have to decide whether to try to restore and enforce the rule, a process that could take many months of new rulemaking. Obama’s transition team declined to comment on its plans on Tuesday.

Rivers and streams are over-rated, although since Appalachia went for McCain and Pinochet in heels, I guess you could argue this is what we wanted. Also, via the Mahablog, Bush is offering a parting gift to the religious nutters:

The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new “right of conscience” rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable, including abortion and possibly even artificial insemination and birth control.

So while some on the left are busy getting their progressive selves up in arms because Obama isn’t doing exactly what they want him to do 48 days before he is sworn in, the reality of the matter is that the first few months of the Obama administration are going to have to be spent figuring out how to stave off a depression with a government that has been bankrupted by Republican rule, figure out how to get us out of Iraq, and then spend a good bit of time undoing the last minute parting shots from the Mayberry Machiavellis.

Worst. President. Ever.