UPDATED: HST FilibusterWatch: It's not over til it's over ...

As expected, the government brought down the hammer earlier today: with the help of just enough Liberals to get the job done, they managed to pass that double-barreled closure-on-closure  -- in case you've lost track, that's the one to shut down debate on the motion to impose time allocation on the HST bill, which goes to second reading tomorrow morning, and third reading tentatively scheduled for Wednesday evening. 

That is, unless the New Democrats have yet another line of passive aggressive procedural offence in store for their parliamentary adversaries, which is distinctly possible -- really, with only four days left before the House rises for the holidays, it wouldn't take much lollygagging for the legislation to miss the Friday deadline. 

Anyway, that's pretty much what we know so far -- I'll update this post if anything changes. 

UPDATE: Hey, remember how the Liberals were going to crack that whip on the HST vote? Turns out that may not be the case -- at least, not if you happen to be a sporadically contrarian British Columbia MP named Keith Martin. 

During post-QP scrums, he described the government's attempt to "ram" the legislation through the House as "a sham" and "a mockery of democracy" -- and announced that he, for one, wasn't going to be there to bear witness. "The leader's given me permission," he explained to reporters -- which, as far as he's concerned, was a wise move. "That's just the way it's going to be.  I'm not supporting the HST and I will not be here to vote for it. Period. End of story." 

So what about the rest of the BC caucus? Don't ask Keith Martin -- he doesn't know. "You'll have to ask them." No worries there -- you can bet that they've been fielding frantic media queries -- and even more frantic calls from the Liberal whip -- all afternoon.