A government memo shows the Federal Aviation Agency predicted "public concern" over fighter jets flying near downtown Manhattan — and yet demanded that New York officials not explain the planes' terrifying presence.

Louis Caldera has taken repsonsibility for the Air Force jetliner that buzzed the city today. This panic video shows why the White House official should go.

Well, he's not the pilot of the plane that buzzed the financial district (and lowly Jersey City) this sunny, 9/11-y morning. But he is the guy who authorized the flight.

Oh hey, a 747 just circled around lower Manhattan today, and then some fighter jets showed up. That isn't the sort of thing anyone should've been warned about!

This, reportedly from a "European trade publication circa 1998," may be the single most unintentionally terrible ad ever produced. At least in the last 11 28 years. Click to enlarge. [via Fishbowl LA]

Is it possible that in the midst of a recession, companies are thinking twice about paying outrageous fees for advice from some underling hired by America's most comical Presidential campaign failure, Rudy Giuliani? It's possible.

God, this decade? It sucked. Wes Anderson stopped making good movies, the Vikings lost Mike Tomlin and hired Brad Childress, and this complete asshole named George Bush was our president. For like eight years! Ugh!

Oh man. Who even knows why this happened, but Chris Matthews and former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer had a hilarious bitchy fight a few minutes ago.

1/15: Never Forget [Max Silvestr]

Bob Woodward descended from his perch to "report" some "news" everyone! Breaking: the US tortured a guy.

An airplane flies into two vertical objects: For many ordinary New Yorkers, it's a horrible, still-living memory. For Internet commenters, it's absolutely hilarious.

All of the alleged Fort Dix plotters have been acquitted of attempted murder, but five have been convicted of "conspiring to kill military personnel." This is the end of their ridiculous trial.

Twee crooner John Mayer on the trauma of 9/11: "[How] can you process the idea of everything changing and things never being the same when you have no point of reference for what 'everything' and 'the same' is?" Good point. [HuffPo]

John McCain's brother Joe got in a bit of trouble earlier this month for inventing the McCain campaign's new justification for losing in red states like Virginia: the part of Virginia they are losing in is not real Virginia, it is "communist country." Joe McCain, 65, is a former reporter who has largely stayed out of the spotlight this year because he's worried he might say something damaging to his brother's campaign. Something like, you know, calling half of Virginia "communist country" or maybe calling 911 to complain about traffic, cursing at the 911 operator in disgust, and then calling back to complain further. It would really be a shame, a hilarious shame, if the recordings of those two 911 calls were released to the local media, and then posted on this blog. Did we mention that he calls back after cursing and hanging up? Click and enjoy! [ABC7]

When we first heard about Heather Locklear's weekend arrest for driving under the influence of a controlled substance, we were most interested in the curious detail of the sunglasses she repeatedly ran over. Turns out, the entire case is full of curious details, and here's the biggest one: the witness who placed the call to 911 is a former Us Weekly staffer who's under investigation by the FBI for hacking into the magazine's computer system to locate celebrities. Oh, and she called the paparazzi immediately after her 911 call. Oh, and she also just happens to have a lucrative partnership with Locklear rival Denise Richards! Details and her kooky 911 call, after the jump:Jossip has the goods on the ex-Us staffer, Jill Ishkanian, who had left the magazine (which she then sued) to start a paparazzi agency called Sunset Photo & News (where she was embezzled from).

"Trinity Church, which became an emotional refuge amid the fallout at ground zero, is offering services to its neighbors during a time of crisis: free spiritual and psychological counseling for workers who have been affected by the current Wall Street financial turmoil." Oh ha, it's the 9/11 of bankers getting fired! Will the free spiritual counseling encourages downtown assholes to renounce materialism or something? (Is that likely from the this particular church?) More: "And because they are typically measured by the size of their paychecks - bonuses, in particular - their self-worth is deeply threatened when the money evaporates." Words fail! Anyway. Free counseling! As usual, self-medication is by necessity self-financed. So far that's not stopping anyone!

Spider-Man will once again swoop into New York City and save its catastrophe-plagued citizenry. Though this time he'll be in nerdy, terrestrial Tobey Maguire form. The slim yet dough-ish actor is giving a 9/11 speech tonight, according to some leaked CNN documents. What exactly his qualifications are, other than having played a city-saving superhero in the motion pictures (he also played a teenage sex fiend in The Ice Storm, should he give speeches at teenage sex fiend conventions??), is sorta beyond us. But whatevs. Hopefully it will be stirring and sad and ultimately hopeful. Also issuing (strangely poetic) musings on this hallowed day is celebrity deejay and Lindsay Lohan clam digger Samantha Ronson:

MSNBC is replaying, in real time, its coverage of 9/11. Happy anniversary, New York! Relive the magic! Apparently Keith "no responsible newsroom plays this graphic footage anymore" Olbermann does not actually have a stranglehold on that cable news network. No one watched MSNBC's coverage on that terrible day, of course, so it's like a special alternate angle or deleted scene on the 9/11 Special Edition DVD. Tune in and experience it again, for the very first time. [Unrelated]

Everyone's nightmares and memories about the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center are important. And every year a few people and their memories are deemed more important than everyone else's—not survivors or rescuers, just folks who had been in New York, somewhere, at the time. And every year we're expected to read their important memories in periodicals like The New York Times and The New Yorker. And every year it's just very sad, strangely insulting, not soothing and, in the end, rarely enlightening. There's this, for instance: "I remember the weekend before. A friend was visiting. We went to Chinatown for dinner on Mulberry Street, then walked north to Little Italy, stumbling into the Feast of San Gennaro. My friend kept eating things, suddenly in street-food heaven. I remember him gnawing on a big brick of nougat. I remember I had dinner plans for Tuesday. I remember the general panic, my wife and me stocking up at the Food Emporium a block from our Upper East Side apartment, buying provisions almost at random. (Salmon steaks — why not?)."

No plans for 9/11 day yet? Why not enjoy Barack Obama and John McCain at Columbia, one of those Elitist East Coast Ivy League Colleges of The Elite, where they will talk about civic duty for "ServiceNation, an organization that aims to increase public service participation." You know, "public service participation" like "community organizing," which, as we all know, is gay and elitist and not something seriously important like shooting wolves from airplanes. Anyway. We assume Obama will talk on behalf on public service and McCain will become confused and angry and speak against it. [CollegeOTR]