From the National Post:

Canadians elected a historic government to office on Monday, handing the Conservatives their long-coveted majority and promoting the NDP to Official Opposition status for the first time ever.

The Liberals were reduced to less than half the seats they won in the last election, and the Bloc Quebecois dwindled to just a handful of seats in a province that, for the first time in 20 years, handed the majority of its seats to a federalist party.

The damage to the Liberals and Bloc was so severe that even leaders Michael Ignatieff and Gilles Duceppe were on track to lose their seats in Ontario and Quebec…

…With all 308 ridings reporting as of 11:50 p.m. EST, the Tories were leading or had won 165 seats — well past the 155 needed for a majority — and the NDP were leading or had won 104 ridings — nearly tripling the 36 seats it gleaned in 2008. A decimated Liberal Party was on track to win just 35 seats, and the Bloc Quebecois were poised to glean just three…

Congratulations to Mr. Harper – and a hope that this is a harbinger of things to come down south.

From ABC:

…in 2004, top al-Qaida operative Hassan Ghul was captured in Iraq. Ghul told the CIA that al-Kuwaiti was a courier, someone crucial to the terrorist organization. In particular, Ghul said, the courier was close to Faraj al-Libi, who replaced Mohammed as al-Qaida’s operational commander. It was a key break in the hunt for in bin Laden’s personal courier.

“Hassan Ghul was the linchpin,” a U.S. official said…

…The revelation that intelligence gleaned from the CIA’s so-called black sites helped kill bin Laden was seen as vindication for many intelligence officials who have been repeatedly investigated and criticized for their involvement in a program that involved the harshest interrogation methods in U.S. history.

“We got beat up for it, but those efforts led to this great day,” said Marty Martin, a retired CIA officer who for years led the hunt for bin Laden…

And Ghul was captured, where? Yes, it was in Iraq…in Iraq, the place liberals said we were never supposed to go, where we found the key link in the chain which eventually led to bin Laden’s.

The bottom line is that it took the whole process – the whole of nearly ten years to get to the bottom of this and get bin Laden. Now, the one thing we can’t ever take away from President Obama is that he gave the order for the final operation – he’ll always have that to his credit. But to try and pretend that Obama came along and turned defeat in to victory is just plain and simple absurd – stupidly absurd. In other words, the sort of thing only the most rank, ignorant and partisan of liberals could possibly think.

We never were and never will be engaged in a war against one man – or even one terrorist organization. We fight against a wicked ideology – Islamo-fascism being the best name for this. Bin Laden was a leader of these sorts of people and groups, but he was never supreme, nor was he ever alone. And he gained his ability not out of his own head, but out of the socio-political realities of the Moslem world. A hopelessly dysfunctional society slipping day by day further in to barbarism. Unless we cure that – and the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are the only sure ways we’ve seen to do this – then the war will both go on, and could eventually be lost by us.

Celebrate that our soldiers did their duty. Be content that justice was done to Osama bin Laden. But don’t confuse yourself and don’t fall for a simple narrative of what happened, or what needs to be done.

UPDATE: Obama’s Heroics – from Top of the Ticket:

…According to early reports of the incident, detailed here in The Ticket, 24 SEALs rappelled down ropes from hovering Chinooks in post-midnight darkness Monday Pakistan time with Osama security forces shooting at them. Brennan didn’t have much time to go into all that today, the goal is to elevate the ex-state senator to at least a one-star commander-in-chief…

Gee, wonder what everyone will want to talk about, today?

Well, if you have had your fill of dead bin Ladens – and Obamas taking credit for it and liberals crowing as if they ever agreed with fighting a war – then you might want to discuss:

Looks like we didn’t kill any Ghaddafi-larvae.

Knew I should have sold my silver last week...but, the way Bernanke’s going, I can probably sell it next week, instead.

Jerry Brown proposes to loot California’s taxpayers in order to reward his union friends. Anyone who thought that the Brown Administration would end well in California just wasn’t paying attention.

It is National Offend a Feminist Week. Well, come on, go offend one, already.

And, of course, feel free to talk about bin Laden still being dead.

From Rasmussen:

Twenty-one percent (21%) of Likely U.S. Voters say the country is heading in the right direction, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey taken the week ending Sunday, April 24. It’s the fourth week in a row that the measurement has gone down, with confidence in the nation’s course now reaching the lowest point of the Obama presidency…

It’ll probably go back up a bit with the news that bin Laden has been killed – but bin Laden dead doesn’t help pay the bills. In the end, only an actual change of direction will get people convinced we’re heading the right way. The policies of borrow and spend just aren’t working – and Obama seems utterly clueless about both the ineffectiveness of his policies as well as their unpopularity.

It will be a long road to 2012, but the payoff will be the end of the biggest mistake America ever made.

The ultimate measure to protect property rights:

A proposed constitutional amendment to abolish property taxes in North Dakota has been approved for the ballot.

Secretary of State Al Jaeger said Friday the initiative had enough petition signatures to qualify for the June 2012 primary election. It will be listed as Measure 2…

As long as there are property taxes, no person owns their property. This is hopefully going to be the first pebble in an avalanche. Cities, counties and States use property taxes as a stealthy way of hitting up the people for ever more money – most people paying their taxes via their mortgage and don’t even realize the increases. But over the years they go up and up and up…and if you don’t pay, they take your property.

Time to put an end to this – both the threat of property loss, as well as the government being able to sneak tax hikes through.

Color me doubtful convinced.

USA! USA! USA!

UPDATE: President says killed in a firefight just today. Hat’s off to the President for ordering the attack and our thanks and prayers for the brave soldiers who carried out the attack.

UPDATE II: Funny how, just now, President Obama notes that we’re at war…first time I can recall him using that word. Here’s another word for you, Mr. President – its called “victory”, and its what we should be shooting for.

UPDATE III: While Obama made it out that it was his superb leadership which brought down bin Laden…it might be that the Pakistani’s just dropped dime on him in order to help us withdraw from Afghanistan – from Hot Air:

Good point from Dave Weigel: Now that we’ve gotten the scalp we wanted the most, the public will probably be even more inclined to support withdrawal from Afghanistan. Which, of course, is what Pakistan’s been after for years. Again, I’m very curious to know just what role their intel services played. Especially if the almost unbelievable detail about where this happened is true.

From The Hill:

…On Sunday Trump said that all the jokes were inappropriate given the problems facing the American people.

“I don’t think the American people are having a good time paying $5 gasoline and their clothing prices doubling and all of the other problems that they’ve got,” Trump said. “You look at what’s happening with food, so I was thinking to myself as they were doing this, the American people are suffering and we’re all having a good time. I think it’s inappropriate in certain respects, but I thought the delivery was good.”…

I have been detecting a level of moral growth in Donald Trump – as a very rich man, he’ll never really know what its like to live middle class or poor, but he’s at least reaching for understanding. That there is something wrong with a bunch of people having a lavish party while people are out of work, suffering from natural disasters, plagued by war and so many other problems is just wrong – it is the act of an out-of-touch Ruling Class. Yes, Trump is a firm member of that class…but there is something dawning there.

Most rich people, you see, are just as Chesterton described them:

Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.

And to be sure, Trump wanted it – and he set himself out to get quite a lot of it. Which is why, on the whole, very rich men don’t usually make it too far in politics. They can get on a bit, but there is a falsity about them – and a clear comprehension by most people that the super-rich simply don’t understand. But Trump seems to be learning – first off, in learning to be pro-life, now in understanding that just because you can live swell, it doesn’t mean you necessarily should.

In the end, there may be a lot more to Donald Trump than a lot of us suspected.

Excellently done – lays it out in an entertaining manner.

From Rasmussen:

Voters continue to believe tax cuts and decreases in government spending will benefit the nation’s economy. But most also still think government spending will go up under the Obama administration.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 53% of Likely U.S. Voters say, generally speaking, tax cuts help the economy…

…A plurality (48%) of voters say decreases in government spending will help the economy…

Are you listening, GOP leadership? I’m telling you, this is a fight we can win…the people are on the side of rational fiscal policy. Now is the time to press tax and spending cuts and carry that battle all the way through 2012. Let the Democrats try to justify spending; let the Democrats keep up the “tax the rich” class warfare nonsense – they have already lost the public; no one is listening to them any more.

To win, we need only fight – right is on our side, and it will make us mighty enough to defeat Obama, defeat the Democrats and utterly crush liberalism.

Keep wondering when we’ll hit the bottom of the stupid well – still haven’t; from CNA:

Several atheist, agnostic, and secular humanist organizations are pushing to establish their own U.S. military “chaplaincy” for soldiers. The head of the United States Military Archdiocese thinks the effort may be more about opposing religion than meeting non-believers’ needs.

“The idea of a ‘chaplaincy’ for atheists seems contradictory,” U.S. Military Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio told CNA…

Yeah, no kidding. What will they do? Build a cathedral “No Lady of Nihilism” and meet to discuss the different ways they can not worship God? Its just plain and simple idiotic – for crying out loud, if you don’t believe in God, there’s an end on it: there is nothing else to do. Anything beyond that is just an attempt to irritate people who do believe in God. I don’t believe in the Hindu pantheon…what am I supposed to do other than merely state that? Anything else I might do on the subject would merely irritate people of the Hindu faith…so, why do it?

Just give it a rest, already. You atheists out there are free to believe that you’re smarter than all us dunderheads who believe in God. Smugly believe that and leave us alone.