Wonkette

WHERE WAS MARK PENN THAT NIGHT? Turns out that no-big-deal little plane emergency on Barack Obama’s charter jet was actually kind of a big deal — hope almost crashed and burned in St. Louis that dark night. [ABC News]

NASA, which means FAIL in the Moon Man language, has announced the doomed zillion-dollar replacement for the rust-bucket death-trap space shuttles that haven’t yet blown up won’t be ready until at least September of 2014, which means “never” in the Moon Man language. MORE »

Remember the last young handsome half-Kenyan President we had before Barack Obama? Yes, Jack Kennedy! You’ll recall he assembled a band of Cuban nationals to re-invade Guam, and then he tore Nikita Khrushchev a new one while having sex with Marilyn Monroe and Angie Dickinson simultaneously. None of it would have been possible without drugs, and the excuse for the drugs was diarrhea. MORE »

During the Hurricane Katrina fiasco, FEMA found out the hard way that sometimes the press just isn’t feeling very charitable towards the incompetent agency. So when they had a press conference today, the Washington Post’s Al Kamen reveals, it’s way better to just make sure the reporters can’t get there, and then to assign various staffers with make-believe roles as pretend reporters. MORE »

Somehow, the brief political truce engendered by the tragic and inexplicable collapse of a freeway bridge in Minneapolis didn’t last. Against all odds, the most liberal city in the state is no longer thrilled with the response from their ambitious conservative governor. It turns out that a government that may be culpable in the disaster isn’t trusted to clean it up, for some crazy reason. MORE »

Our Federal Highway Administrator is on the case in Minneapolis, investigating why the 35W bridge collapsed and making sure it’s rebuilt speedily and safely. And the man knows plenty about infrastructure disasters — because he used to be one of the guys in charge of Massachusetts’ own Big Dig! MORE »

Commenter Hockeymom with an exclusive Bridgegate ‘08 report: I’m just back from the bridge. Worked for one of our esteemed national networks, doing live shots till 2am. Here’s my personal Wonkette report.

This thing is a mess.

The gov of Minnesota just vetoed a transportation bill that would have funded infrastructure repairs to bridges just like this one. This bridge would have still fallen down, but the money in the bill would have gone to repair other bridges around the state. And the roads/bridges in Minnesota are in bad shape. So expect a lot of fingerpointing.

In other news, I’ve found that “Minnesota Nice” is more than just a phrase. The drunks in the background of our 2am liveshots were completely polite and delightful!

A big-ass bridge collapsed for no apparent fucking reason in your East Coast editor’s hometown yesterday. Nine people are confirmed dead, but with fifty cars tumbling into the river and at least twelve still at the bottom of the fucking Mississippi and 20 (30? 65?) people missing, you can bet that number’s gonna rise a bit over the course of the week.

MORE »

Yesterday: MORE »

The National Capital Planning Commission predicts that the entirety of Washington, DC will become a charming and bizarre underwater Victorian photo-postcard, reports the Examiner. MORE »