Okay, I don’t think that anything definitive will come before the 999th post becomes ridiculously long, so I’m steaming ahead to the 1000th post on this blog.

First of all, confirmation of the very bad news in the Congress: Republicans have solidly won majorities in both the House and the Senate, and they’re already talking about going even more aggressively for their partisan agenda, pushing for more tax cuts favoring the wealthy and more attacks on the environment, such as opening up with wildlife preserves in Alaska for oil drilling.

The only thing that can stop them is if Kerry pulls this one out of the hole, and gets Ohio with the rest of the inside straight. Bush’s lead in Ohio has jumped back up to 130,000 votes (and a few minutes later, jumped back down to 100,000), but now some are saying that as many as 250,000 provisional votes may exist. If Kerry can cut the Bush lead significantly enough, then it may come down to those provisional ballots and we may not see a final result for some time.

Fox has called 269 electoral votes for Bush, effectively pronouncing him president.