Umm, don’t want to alarm anybody, but uh, Nick Coleman is writing about the bridge again.

The recovery effort was still underway Tuesday – and four victims of the bridge catastrophe still missing in the Mississippi – when state Transportation Department suits unveiled a drawing of a new bridge.

When I saw the “drawing,” I thought it was a joke. I have more impressive finger paintings on my refrigerator door.

Then I say there are some darned talented junior draftsmen and architects in the Coleman clan.

The new sketch is just a bunch of lines on an overhead photo of the river, with all the broken debris and the horrors of the tragic collapse magically Photoshopped out of the picture. If only it were that easy.

(This is probably the finger painting to which Coleman is referring. And here is a 5 Meg PDF of that image. I won’t nitpick that “arial” should be “aerial.”) 

Um. Um. Ummmmmm. It is that easy. Can someone please tell Nick about satellite imagery. About Google Earth. About the 21st century. About cell phones. About the telegraph. About fire.

Even the Vast Evil Crazy Fanatical Christianist Right Wing Conspiracy with all its Rovian Powers hasn’t had enough time yet to erase the debris from every photo in existence.

Gaaaaaaaaaah! No, wait, they have! They’ve made it all disappear! They’re devils! They serve the Dark Lord!

But Pawlenty’s willingness to consider a gas tax increase now is a tacit admission that it should have been done before.

Take us on outta here, Andy…