And, even better, she is forcing her staff to make the hellish trek on the bus, as she flies in comfort.

Palingates broke the terribly surprising news: Palin has been emerging from the bus at tour stops, and giving interviews from the bus, and pretending to post to Facebook from the bus, but that is all a lie, because she physically cannot stop lying, ever.

As McGinniss writes in the Daily Beast:

The bottom line is that the plane's goings and comings track Palin's tour perfectly: from Grand Rapids to Washington, Pa. and then to Rochester, N.Y., Roanoke, Va., Fayetteville, N.C., Birmingham, Ala., and Jacksonville and Orlando.

On November 25, the plane carried Palin, her parents, her two youngest children and her Aunt Katie to Pasco, Washington, for Thanksgiving. And there it sat, at Tri-Cities Airport in Pasco, for four full days, which is a lot of inactivity for a plane that rents for more than $4,000 an hour. But it was Thanksgiving weekend and the Pasco-Richland area was where Palin wanted to be.

This is another wonderful example of Sarah Palin creating her own fucking mess for herself through her incredible contempt for her followers, her own stupidity, and her staff's astounding ineptitude. Because using a plane to conduct a book tour is a standard practice. But pretending that you are taking a bus and driving all night—because you want to appear salt-of-the-earth—while you are actually flying and staying in hotels is insane. Sarah Palin is just baiting Andrew Sullivan, now.

[Pic: AP]

Update: Harper Collins is taking the fall! And also denying that the whole bus thing is a fraud! They confirmed to Greg Sargent that Sarah Palin has taken a plane, but her publisher booked and paid for the flights. Also they say she only took the plane three times, even though the plane has been following their itinerary this whole time. (Palingates finds this hard to believe!)

"The plane stops were minimal" and were only done for "logistical reasons," Andreadis argued. "The majority of it was done by bus, but there were some stops we couldn't do by bus."

Andreadis allowed that the trip had been billed as a bus tour, but insisted: "We never hid the fact that there would be some planes."

It is a good thing that Sarah Palin is probably going to make Harper Collins a lot of money, because doing her damage control is a lot of thankless work.

After two terms of not giving a shit about transit, and despite not having any control over the MTA, nor any real chance of gaining control of the MTA, and despite the fact that the MTA always and forever claims to be completely out of money and unable to reliably provide the service we are supposed to have now, Mike Bloomberg laid out a 33-point proposal for transit in his third term that amounts entirely to "a list of awesome things that will magically happen if you vote for me, for free, I promise."

Free crosstown buses! The V will run into Brooklyn! Express service on the F! Countdown clocks for every train! Reopening LIRR stations in Queens! Military technology to track buses! More ferries! New smart cards to replace MetroCards!

All of this sounds great to us! It is just too bad that the mayor is only responsible for 4 out of 17 votes on the MTA board, and so therefore he does not have the authority to implement any of these ideas that he stole from Anthony Weiner and others! (Hey, he could get Albany to give him more control, like with the schools, right? The could take care of it right after the State Senate gets around to giving him back control of the schools, which they might someday do, maybe.) So reelect Mayor Bloomberg and he promises an express train that runs directly from your apartment to work, and it will be free, and it will have a non-stop open bar!

Details on what caused the crash are sparse, but it appears to eerily mirror the DC subway collision. Video of the crashed monorail is here; there's nothing too graphic about it other than the Disney employee doing his best to get any and all cameras out of sight. Whether that was due to Disney's well-known penchant for secrecy or for the dignity of the employee, who knows. As someone who took great pleasure in riding the Monorail at one point in his life, though, I can definitively report one thing: this is as strangely sad as it is simply depressing. Also, bad things happen in threes, as we all learned last week. Avoid trains.

[CNN]

Update: the employee's name was Austin Wuennenberg. It appears he took great pride in his job:

According to Wuennenberg's Facebook page, he was a computer science major at Stetson University and was set to graduate in 2010. Wuennenberg, who graduated from Celebration High School in 2006, served as a teacher's aide from August 2007 to May 2008, the Facebook page said.

Wuennenberg listed his position as "Monorail Pilot," a role he had held since October 2008. He described his job as "running the highway in the sky!" The Facebook page also stated that Wuennenberg worked at Disney in "Sunset Attractions" from June 2006 to September 2008. His interests included video games, computers, programming and comedy.

He appears to be the first fatality from the Monorail at Walt Disney World since it first opened, though this isn't the first incident the Monorail's had.

Something else I learned about the Monorail today: Disney guests can join the pilots in the front cab - where Wuennenberg died in the crash's impact - and receive a special commemorative co-pilot's license (pictured here) for doing so.

• As we already saw, the security sweeps at the Mall were easily breached, so you and your friends could just break down a police barrier or two and possbly spark a crowd control incident. Tear gas time!
• The Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial are "near capacity," which means "full." You won't get anywhere near the Capitol unless you're there now. Meanwhile the cops are impeding your trip even further, randomly closing more streets, and all the bridges from Virginia are closed (sorry, Virginia!).
• Hah apparently dozens of people have abandoned their cars on Route 50 in Maryland. They will be towed.
• Meanwhile the Metro (DC's subway) website's "Trip Planner" is routing people to closed stations.
• And then a lady was hit by a train at Gallery Place, closing the entire Red Line. The Chinatown bus lets off right around the corner from Gallery Place, of course. (Oh, and maybe she just fell.) This is where Hamilton is, at the moment, we think. Whoops!

Photo: AP

"Sick customer," MTA-speak for a subway delay caused by an ill passenger, was the No. 3 cause of disruptions between October 2005 and October 2006, an analysis of agency statistics shows. "You have women trying to get their bodies tight for the summer and they won t eat," said Asim Nelson, a Transit emergency medical technician based in Grand Central Station. "Not eating for three or four days, you are going to go down. If you don t eat for 12 hours you are going to get weak."

Skinny girls to blame for late trains? [AMNY]