Our new president has some pretty messed up priorities, hoo boy! Did you notice that during his first 100 days in office he ended the recession and shook hands with tin-pot dictators and even got himself a fancy purebred dog, but did not have the time or the inclination to designate, say, a NASA administrator? This is the number one thing an incoming president is supposed to declare, no later than 5-10 minutes after taking the oath of office, and if he does not, then the world folds in on itself and time runs backwards. TRUE STORY. [True/Slant via Ben Smith]

Today was supposed to be an exciting day for science as NASA planned to launch its “Orbiting Carbon Observatory,” a fancy new Space Machine that would study carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and calculate the exact moment when Earth will die, from heat. The $273.4 million, 972-pound monster “carried a single three-channel spectrometer to make its detailed measurements and was slated to launch into a near-polar, sun-synchronous orbit that would fly about 438 miles (705 kilometers) above Earth.” Well, it blew up right after launch, so global warming still does not exist. MORE »

SPACE DISASTER SOMEHOW DIDN’T INVOLVE NASA: Some old broken-ass Russian military satellite smashed into an Iridium satellite and now they are both tiny bits of space debris that will eventually cause the Apocalypse — the Russian satellite had a nuclear reactor. [Wall Street Journal]

Like grimy Chicago leeches, the Obama “transition team” (AS IF) has sent review panels to every federal agency to decide which budget items need to be cut, forever, to finance the next $100 billion wave of AIG bailouts. Agencies like FEMA probably abandoned their entire offices before their transition team appointments, just to avoid the embarrassment, whereas places like NASA — which holds valuable information about quasars, space monsters, and the planets Mars and Neptune — are simply telling the transition team “YOU WOULDN’T GET IT YOU STUPIDS — PHYSICS.” Space nerds. MORE »

While George W. Bush begged us to go along with Henry Paulson’s plan to print $700 billion worth of Treasury bills to sell to the Chinese in a tragic attempt to somewhat delay our Greatest Depression and final decline as a nation, China itself has been, you know, doing stuff. MORE »

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 »

America is back! Our astronauts floating in that useless goddamned tin can that uselessly orbits around the Earth forever can finally take off their shitty diapers and use a toilet again. This is because Our Government sent one of its three unexploded space shuttles up to low-earth orbit, at a cost of Many Billions of Dollars, to deliver a new toilet from Home Depot. That’s one small shit for man, and one giant shit for mankind. [AP/Google]

The death toll in Burma could hit a million people, the worst earthquake to strike China in 58 years has already killed at least 9,000, more than 70 tornadoes killed more than 20 people from the midwest to the southeast, and NASA will make a terrible announcement on Wednesday about something horrific they’ve been nervously hunting for 50 years. MORE »

For the great crime of hooking up willing ladies with horny politicians, “D.C. Madam” Deborah Jeane Paltry was facing four to six years in prison, and today she was found dead in a shed behind her mother’s house in Florida. The men who paid for hookers through her service, such as Republican Senator David Vitter, have paid no price for their crimes, and they remain in power as the very people who make up the laws. Anyway, good-bye, Deborah Jeane. Though we didn’t know you at all, you had the grace to hold yourself while those around you crawled. They crawled out of the woodwork, and they whispered into your brain. They set you on the treadmill and then Dick Cheney had you killed. But Wonkette just sent your name to this moon spaceship, Deborah. Enjoy the ride to a better place! [Washington Post]

We are not safe, anywhere, anytime, from the poisonous cancer death shrapnel remains of the “destroyed” Satellite of Love & Death. Some of us, however, are more safe than others. Mysterious operatives from deep within the British Royal Government have alerted Wonkette to the imminent doom that faces one of England’s most treasured towns: Cromer, the “world capital of wicket goblins,” in Norfolk shire. We urge the frumpy Tories of Cromer to stay within their quaint, thatched-roof cottages today, to avoid satellite death. MORE »

As you may have heard, the Pentagon’s space missile successfully hit that broken Satellite of Love last night, and now its poisonous death shrapnel (which has actually been deemed “unhazardous,” by liars) will come hurling into our atmosphere, killing us all. But there is one hope for us in this Armageddon scenario: the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the revered handymen most famous for getting New Orleans back on its feet within 24 hours of the initial Hurricane Katrina strike. Last week, America’s Most Effective Agency released its “First Responder Guide For Space Object Re-Entry,” i.e. “what to do if the poison satellite crashes next to you.” How will FEMA save the world this time? MORE »