One of the great hockey cliches (of which there are literally THOUSANDS) is that a playoff series doesn’t really begin until the home team loses a game.  (Which doesn’t take into account a series in which the home team wins Games One through Seven, inclusive.  Cliches, in Sport, are like that.)

So: the GOP nomination process has now begun in earnest.  T-Paw is out, after finishing behind Bachmann and Paul in the Ames Straw Poll. Which means he leaves after finishing behind Bachmann.  (Come on.  There will be no rEVOLution.  Let’s just stipulate to that right now.)  And finishing behind her in a poll that means, truthfully, just about as much as anything that Gallup or USA Today or NBC/W$J polling does.  And finishing behind a woman who decided to trump his conservative bonafides at the debate last week by citing her defense of incandescent light bulbs on the floor of the House.  That’s what made him up and quit.

(NB: Jokes about Bachmann never having a man finish behind her are NOT WELCOME.  Pleases and thank yous.)

OK, you lovely cynics.  After a three-month absence (oh man, work has just been peachy in that time), I’m back.  And not a moment too soon, for we got ourselves some Wiscocentric denouement tonight.

The read at this early stage is that turnout has been positively massive.  But that could cut both ways.  The energy on both sides is probably at a fever pitch (whipped up no doubt by… excuse me…. 33 MILLION CLAMS shelled out for the nine recalls), so more than half of the turnout could be Wisconsinites angry at unions for, well, whatever foul they may have committed.  And “more than half” is the name of the game in elections, as you know.

So, the p0lls close — nominally — in 15 minutes.  (Polls can stay open so long as people are in line — a rule that approximately 7,000 lawyers know by heart and are poised to enforce to their hearts’ content.)  Then, the story shall unfold before you, old-school OPEN THREAD style.

(Note: picture above, right, is a scene from a Wisconsin hockey game.  Hockey is popular in Wisconsin, where winter is about six weeks away.)

ADD: The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has the best live-results page in the state, and therefore that page is linked…. HERE.

President Obama: “The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama Bin Laden.”

Previously…

CNN is citing “multiple sources” that the U.S. “has the body of Osama Bin Laden”. President Obama to deliver national address in minutes.

CNN: Osama killed in Afghanistan (update: Pakistan). Presumption is that DNA tests were conducted prior to making the call.

CNN: “Actionable U.S. intelligence” on Osama’s location prompted strike. Osama killed in mansion outside Islamabad — Pakistan — with family members.

CNN: “Human operation, not a drone.”

Bonus Update! The inevitable Fox chyron:

[SarahSpain@Twitpic]

The news coming out of Japan at midnight PT:

Large areas of Japan’s northern Pacific coast have been swamped by a devastating tsunami, engulfing entire towns following a major 8.9 offshore quake.

The meteorological agency issued its top-level evacuation alerts for the entire Japanese coast, warning of a tsunami of up to six metres.

Towns and farms around Sendai city in northern Japan are being engulfed by a tsunami, and a four-metre wave has swamped parts of Kamaishi on the Pacific coast.

We’re not hearing specific casualty reports yet, but the ugly details will surely emerge all too soon.

Tsunami swamps Japan after powerful quake [ABC Australia]

Tsunami hits north-eastern Japan after massive quake [BBC]

Massive 8.9 quake, tsunamis hit Japan [CNN]

Update: Tsunami warning now in effect from Point Concepcion, California, to the Oregon-Washington Border. Estimated arrival begins at 7:15 am PT.

And now the whole thing in Wisconsin has gone supernova in the last couple of hours.

The premise of the Flying Fourteen was that they could deny quorum, because you need three-fifths of the chamber present for fiscal bills.  The union-busting stuff that has caused all the ruckus was inserted into a budget bill (on the insistence by every Republican in on the thing that it was necessary to fix the budget mess); thus, the Democratic Senators could get out of the state and block the bill.

This afternoon, the Republicans in Madison decided to create a new bill with only those union-busting things in it.  And then they voted on it. — which apparently sends the thing to conference committee and, reportedly, quick passage as an agreed-upon bill by both chambers tomorrow and signature by the Governor before anybody can do a damn thing about it. [EDIT — it was first passed by a conference committee — which was caught (devastatingly) on tape through the Wisconsin version of C-SPAN — and then immediately sent to the Senate, which voted on it.  Last stop before Walker is a vote by the Assembly tomorrow morning.  That should be must-see teevee.]

The protests, which had to be honest waned a bit this week, started up again almost instantaneously.  The crowd, from what little I’ve gleaned from this, looks to be absolutely livid.  There was also a report that the hold-out Senators decided to come back to Madison to fight this, but then a decision in mid-trip to turn around.  (No confirmation on any of this, naturally.)

All sorts of angles here — the first of which has to do with Scott Walker’s claim that this was related to the fiscal health of the state, but then changing tack in order to ram it through after three weeks of pure legislative chaos.

There will be more to this as the night moves along, but it is safe to say this: WOW.

Holy holy fuck:

A 6.3-magnitude earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Tuesday afternoon, seriously damaged the city’s cathedrals, burst water mains, buckled streets and shut down phone service, according to media reports.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake struck just before 1 p.m. Tuesday (7 p.m. Monday ET), and a 5.6-magnitude aftershock struck about 15 minutes later.

Speaking from experience: Anything over 6.0 is a wild ride.

New Zealand rattled by strong quake [CNN]

In what seems to be a first for the Internet Age — including Iran — Egypt has disconnected itself from the planet:

Confirming what a few have reported this evening: in an action unprecedented in Internet history, the Egyptian government appears to have ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet. Critical European-Asian fiber-optic routes through Egypt appear to be unaffected for now. But every Egyptian provider, every business, bank, Internet cafe, website, school, embassy, and government office that relied on the big four Egyptian ISPs for their Internet connectivity is now cut off from the rest of the world.

Our old tabloid colleague Curt Hopkins asks whether other international communications will be cut as well:

Read more »