Obama's inauguration is not just his star-studded debut; it's also his first chance for a PR disaster. After the jump, a brief look at all the things that could go wrong on Day One:

Hero pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, America's most popular man, was all set to make his big national television debut on the Today show this morning. Then he pulled out. Stop restraining our Sully!:

Olivia Palermo's cousin, Nevan Donahue, the hooker-soliciting costar of The City, keeps doing sad, trashy things. Like crapping out on a hotel bill. And having an embarrassing $50 limit on his credit card.

What do you get when you mix the potent trends of Russian oligarchs buying pop stars for private concerts and Kanye West getting booed? The funnest New Year's Eve story of awful 2008!

A US Airways flight carrying 148 people went down in the Hudson River about an hour ago, reportedly after flying into a flock of birds. News reports indicate many passengers may still be in the water, so if you've been complaining about how cold you are today, you should probably shut up now. [NYT, CNN]

After his chat tonight with Bill O'Reilly, Christopher Hitchens asked for a second date: "We've barely got our trousers off," he said. The hawkish former Trotskyite had certainly pushed O'Reilly's buttons.

The train wreck that is the thread "What an UNbelievable JERK!" on dating site OkCupid.com is spreading quickly via Digg, Reddit, etc. It's real, but might as well be scripted.

Mary Rambin, the scholar-poet corner of ladyblog Non Society's feminist Bermuda Triangle, has, in one simple blog post, demonstrated two things that must be shut down. Immediately.

We learned this morning that Nevan Donahue, from MTV's reality tinkle The City, had a warrant out for an old prostitution charge. Now we know all the white trash details! How will Olivia Palermo live this down?

Enjoy your cruise! But beware of running aground, falling overboard, disappearing, and/ or being jacked by Somali pirates. Click to watch a compilation of just one month of holiday cruise ship disasters.

From New York to Los Angeles, Viacom channels like Comedy Central are set to flicker off cable systems in the first minute of 2009. Sumner Redstone's desperation finally impacted your life!

It's brand new as of yesterday. What they're (they = the Israeli Defense Forces' Spokesperson's Unit) using it for is to, well, show instances of successful bombings in Gaza. Because, you know, they're doing that whole fighting with Hamas thing again. Apparently YouTube administrators took down one particularly graphic video, but the IDF remains committed to showing horrible bombings to drum up some positive PR. The channel's profile reads:

The City wasn't the only dreadful reality show to premiere last night. There was also Bromance, the Brody Jenner show in which he searches for the platonic man love of his life.

To discourage people from actually attending Barack Obama's presidential inauguration, the Democratic Congress is promising the ceremony will be hell on Earth, like Katrina, except planned by Congress.

Earlier this morning we bemoaned the fact that Alex from Real Housewives New York was writing a book. An advice book, about parenting. Ugh, and hah! But maybe we didn't need to worry after all. A tipster from inside the book world tells us that Alex (and presumably her dopish, gayish husband Simon) had an agent shop the stupid thing around, but no one bit. All the publishing houses told her to come back once season two of the Bravo reality slosh started and maybe something could happen, but for the time being it's a no go.

Real Housewives of New York City star Alex McCord is writing a book about raising urban children. Like, advice giving. Step one: have a foppish be-accented husband. Step two: pretend to be fancy.

New tidbits about the Jeremy Piven-destroys-Broadway story keep coming. "Mercury-filled sushi made him sick!" "Wrong! He quit early because he parties too hard!" Etc. Now an insider with the show, Speed-the-Plow, has provided some details.

Perez Hilton, dark pink lady of the semen-stained celebrity gossip racket, has written a book! Sort of! Mostly some dude shaped his silly stories into a readable narrative. Or so Perez tells Jesse Oxfeld.

Esquire can now retire their esteemed old "What I've Learned..." feature. Paris Hilton has filled out the questionnaire, and once you find out that someone has a nightclub in their house, there's just no topping it.

"The White House has prepared more than a dozen contingency plans to help guide President-elect Barack Obama if an international crisis erupts in the opening days of his administration, part of an elaborate operation devised to smooth the first transition of power since Sept. 11, 2001." —New York Times