Back in March 2003, as we were settling in to what would prove to be a month-long CNN marathon, we had a single thought:

Don’t fuck this up.

Our opposition to Shrub’s War, hopeless to begin with, had been rendered moot by the launch of Shock & Awe. Whatever Bush did, we were stuck for the ride, and could only hope that he would prove competent at the task. We’re old enough to remember when “quagmire” was part of contemporary political jargon, not a Family Guy character.

As it happens, eight years to the day after Dubya announced that war to the nation, Barack Obama launched missiles into Libya. Maybe we’ll get lucky this time, and there the comparisons will end. Beyond that, we’re absolutely fucking clueless what to think.

We know what others think, and unless they’re John McCain, they generally don’t think well of it. It certainly sets a bad precedent — or, more to the point, continues a long string of bad precedents. After all, we also remember “Imperial Presidency” the first time around. And “War Powers Act”.

And “Three Mile Island”, come to think of it. Seriously: We thought Seventies Nostalgia was over.

In the end, all we can think for certain is what we thought eight years ago:

Don’t fuck this up.

So, how’s your bracket doing?

Ohhhhhhhh. We’re soooooo sorry.

Actually, no. See, we copped Nate Silver’s bracket, and Yahoo tells us we’re doing better than 97 percent of losers. But not as well as Libertarian Tool, who copped Our Preznit’s bracket, and is claiming the title of Most Resented Bracketeer.

(Please note: Showing humility doesn’t work. That just makes the rest of us hate you even more.)

Anyway, now that it’s been publicly proven that you suck, Bracket Queen Mellbell has graciously provided you the opportunity to suck again — with the Stinque Losers Braquet!

Just drop by Yahoo Sports and sign your doom thusly:

Group ID: 6376
Password: eventhelosers

You have until — well, shit, we dunno. We’re just in it for the sadism.

Title: “Infinite Quest: Develop Your Psychic Intuition to Take Charge of Your Life”

Author: John Edward

Rank: 77

Blurb: “By following certain guidelines and intuition-building exercises, we can learn to get in touch with our Spirit Guides and identify the psychic energy around us on deeper levels.”

Review: “I really liked John’s description of his team of energetic guides that instruct, poke, and inspire him from the Not-Earthly-Plane-of-Being. I want my own team, too! Do I recruit them on Craigslist?”

Customers Also Bought: “Do Dead People Watch You Shower? And Other Questions You’ve Been All but Dying to Ask a Medium”, by Concetta Bertoldi

Footnote: Edward, not Edwards. Although they’re both charlatans.

Infinite Quest [Amazon]

Buy or Die [Stinque@Amazon kickback link]

[via Mashable]

Part of the job of being a geek is being severely paranoid. You don’t trust anything coming in from the Internet when you’re programming a website. And you especially don’t program a URL that repeats on the page whatever you feed it.

Like, well, this. Or, while we’re playing, this.

Additional nominations accepted in the comments.

Update: Oh, darn, they’re on to us. Say, whose weekend did we just ruin?

“Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi issued a temporary restraining order Friday, barring the publication of a controversial new law that would sharply curtail collective bargaining for public employees… District Attorney Ismael Ozanne is seeking to block the law because he says a legislative committee violated the state’s open meetings law.” [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, via Political Wire]

Our guest columnist this morning is Molly Merrell.

Due to the inappropriate comments on this post, we will no longer be allowing comments on The Source until further notice.

My sincere apologies to those who came to this blog to actually discuss DC Comics and their books, but this back-and-forth has gotten out of control on this blog.

Posts have been — and will continue to be — deleted on both sides of this conflict. Your post may not have included any offensive words, but by continuing this dialogue, you are only escalating the problem. Therefore, any comment that is part of this back-and-forth will be deleted.

For those users who had nothing to do with this, I am very sorry for the inconvenience. We are working to make this site more hospitable to those who choose to comment properly and not take part in these offensive and inappropriate disputes.

Ms. Merrell works for DC Online, which produces the official “Source” blog for the comics publisher. The post that killed the comments asked “Who do you think is faster, SOURCE readers? Superman or Flash?”

DC’s Blog Closes Comments, Gives Up On Even Trying To Talk to You Jerks [Comics Alliance]

Bonus background research! The Superman-Flash Races [Hyperborea]