George Bush was just informed by a reporter (Bill Sammon from the Washington Times) at his press conference that Yasser Arafat has died. He was asked what his reaction is. George Bush said, “God bless his soul.”

Right answer Mr. Bush.

Update: I tried to update this at 11 cst, but then the power went out. Bill Sammon was informed by the AP that Yasser Arafat had died and asked his question of the President. Further reports have it that Yasser Arafat is in very grave condition. President Bush still had the right answer. 12:21 cst.

Finally Dead at approx 3:30 am Paris Time – November 11, 2004

We need to change the primary election system. I would suggest regionalizing the primaries, set up four distinct regions in the US. Hold the primaries over four consecutive weeks in March or April. Rotate the regions on a two- year basis so that each region has a chance to be first in the Presidential election years and the off-year elections. John Kerry had the nomination before Illinois held its primary. Illinois only cemented it in.

The American people have spoken. A 3.5 million popular vote mandate. W won with over 50% of the popular vote.

Polls close at 7:00 p.m. CST. The County says it will start uploading results at 7:30. I’ll try to keep up.

Update: Our precinct had 829 registered voters and 451 votes cast for a turnout of 54.4%!

In our precinct:

Bush/Cheney 227 50.33%
Kerry/Edwards 216 47.89%

11 votes!

Update (County Wide):72.2% Turnout.

Bush/Cheney: 139,006 50.45%
Kerry/Edwards: 134,231 48.71%

At 10:30 a.m. I was the 171th precinct voter and the 255th from both precincts. There were 12 voting booths and 10 were occupied. That is the most people I have ever seen in my polling place at one time. The election judge said it was pretty slow right then, they have seen many more at one time already today. There were two men at the door to direct you to the proper precinct table. If you didn’t know what precinct, they directed you to a third table to be “looked up”. Since my last name can be difficult, I just showed my registration card. The two people behind me did as well. It seemed as though everyone leaving was happy to get their “Proud to Vote” sticker, in fact, as I was coming in a woman was insisting on getting her sticker. I’m in Illinois, so we know how the state (Chicago) is going to vote, but I did my part for W.

Update: At the Primary there were 743 registered voters in my precinct. 134 votes were cast for a turnout of 18.03%. The other precinct had 709 registered voters at the Primary, 145 votes were cast for a turnout of 20.45%.

Already at 10:30 at voter number 171 from my precinct, we were already 27% higher than the primary. As voter 255 from both precincts, we were at 91% of the Primary’s total votes.

Air Raid Sirens (Tornado Sirens) just went off. First Tuesday of the month at 10 a.m. Is this going to end up scaring anybody?

My husband went and voted this morning. He was number 77 out of 2 precincts in the polling place at 6:40 am. In the Primary, we went together and were numbers 100 and 101, but I can’t remember what time we went. I am going to go a little later to get a better sense of turnout in our little precinct. I think that there were about 364 registered voters in the precinct at Primary time.

Update: At the Primary there were 743 registered voters in the precinct.

then you are much too close.

You cheated to find out who Madeline Albright was…

Our village holds trick or treating from 1 pm until 5 pm on the Sunday before Halloween, or on Halloween if it falls on Sunday, like today. Our little Mickey Mouse went the rounds for an hour with his father, had a piece of candy when he got home, watched a little TV and was out like a light. He’s almost four and really needed a nap. Not too many visitors today. Lots of ghouls, a tiny giraffe (15 months old), several Spidermen, various Disney Princesses and a Care Bear. I was glad to see that most the trick or treaters had at least one adult with them. Leftover candy, but all in all a nice Halloween.

I was watching Beltway Boys earlier and Mort and Fred were discussing Kerry and Bush’s accusing each other of “jumping to conclusions”. The comment made in answer to this was (paraphrased):

Bush may have “jumped to conclusions” regarding WMD’s, but it was based on CIA and other intelligence reports and was conventional wisdom. Kerry jumped to conclusions based on a front page story in the NY Times.