Stand, Men of the West! Stand and wait! This is the hour of doom.

The realm of New Line Cinema is ended!

(Perhaps not unrelatedly, in a story I neglected to mention earlier this month, the Tolkien Trust has sued New Line over Lord of the Rings profits, threatening to scuttle The Hobbit.)

It’s February 28, but who says “March Madness” can’t get started a little early? Check out this wild ending in New Britain, Connecticut:

Wow.

It’s unlikely we’ll be seeing either Quinnipiac — which is better known for polls than for basketball — or Central Connecticut State in the Big Dance, but they’re certainly doing their best to whet our appetites for it anyway. Anybody else excited for next month?

BEEEEAT CARDINALS!!!

That is all.

UPDATE: Um, so yeah, it’s not going too well. Louisville 42, Notre Dame 27 at halftime.

UPDATE 2: Louisville won, 90-85. They were way ahead for most of the game, but Notre Dame mounted a valiant comeback late, with five three-pointers in the last minute-and-a-half — three of them by Luke Harangody, who hadn’t hit a three all season! Harangody ended up with 40 points.

UPDATE 3: USC-Arizona is now underway on ESPN. The Trojans lead early, 26-14.

UPDATE 4: Trojans pick up a huge road win, 70-58. Sweet!

Maybe. And it has nothing to do with Vicki Iseman:

Bottom line: Either McCain used the promise of public campaign funds as collateral for his loan, in which case he’s locked himself into the public campaign finance system (and its strict spending limits) and is massively screwed until September. Or he didn’t use potential public funds as collateral, which means he didn’t have anything to offer as collateral, which means he received an improper loan. Neither one of those scenarios is very good for the Straight Talk Express.

Interesting. Verrrry interesting.

P.S. Then, unrelatedly, there’s the fact that he was born in Panama. Obviously that one shouldn’t matter, but it’s an interesting ConLaw debate, if nothing else.

(Personally, I continue to maintain that the constitutional requirement should be changed to say that you have to have been a citizen — whether natural-born or otherwise — for 35 years. Thus the citizenship requirement would essentially replace the age requirement, and we’d prevent the obvious absurdity of someone who moved here when they were a toddler, like Jennifer Granholm, being ineligible because they’re considered some sort of dangerous foreigner.)

SPOILER WARNING: Do NOT watch the below video unless you want to know who is going to win in November.

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

It’s National Grammar Day!

CORRECTION: My bad. It isn’t today. Next Tuesday, March 4, is National Grammar Day.

I guess this means Hillary’s concession speech will have to be grammatically correct.

Britain’s Prince Harry has been serving on the front line in Afghanistan, CNN confirms.

Could be… Only way to find out is to sue McCain… My two cents, if it was good enough to keep A. Hamilton out it’s good enough for lesser statesmen too. (And yes, I am explicitly saying that Hamilton is a higher level of statesmen than John McCain. Go ahead, argue that one.)

In other news, if you’ve nothing better to do today, call the mint and complain at them for rejecting DC’s US quarter design… For some reason the rallying cry of the revolution, “taxation without representation” is seen as “too controversial” to put on the money. Seriously?