Dispatches from the land of Twitteronia: Penelope Trunk and Brooke Hammerling wrestled with their relationships, while Jason Pontin and Chris Lehmann wrestled with the facts. These are the fights Twitter always wins:

Remember John Edwards, the Southern Gentleman whose lifelong dream of being President Hillary Clinton's veep was ruined when he admitted a marital affair? The National Enquirer continues to torment the has-been politician.

♦ Things are going from bad to worse for Damon Dash and Rachel Roy: Three months after a bank foreclosed on their two Tribeca condos, Dash's Chevy Tahoe was seized this week after he failed to make the monthly lease payments. Does this mean he's already lost his Maybach? [NYDN]
♦ Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson were supposedly getting engaged yesterday. Today the relationship is supposedly "heading for choppy waters," because Lindsay wants to "explore her heterosexuality." [The Sun]
♦ How is Lindsay's publicist explaining her client's description of Barack Obama earlier this week as the country's first "colored President"? She says no one knows what LiLo really said, since it was "unintelligible." [MSNBC]
♦ Katie Holmes is supposedly refusing to move back to LA after she's finished on Broadway. Why? Because she doesn't get dragged to as many Scientology events when she's in NYC. [NYDN]

As we noted Thursday morning, the Washington Post this week prominentaly mentioned that the wife of Democratic politician John Edwards, Elizabeth, was missing her wedding band when she recently stepped back into public view. Perhaps, we thought, this was a sign the marriage was over. But as commenter La Cieca first noticed, Edwards also went ringless in 2007; we dug through photo archives and found she's been slipping her ring on and off for years now, seemingly without regard for the ups and downs of her marriages. The band would appear meaningless as to the state of her marriage. And yet:

♦ Don't get your hopes up, but supposedly Madonna and Guy Ritchie are hoping to settle their divorce by early next week. Until then, though, we'll be treated to lots more gossip about their wacky marriage, including the set of rules Madonna posted on the wall of their Central Park West apartment and how she wanted to fill up their Olympic-size swimming pool with Kabbalah water. [NYP, Daily Mail]
♦ You think your house is complete chaos? For their stay in Berlin, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have six full-time nannies and a fleet of 20 Volkswagens (provided to them by the car company gratis, of course). [NYDN]
♦ Elizabeth Edwards, the wife of former presidential contender John Edwards, was spotted without her wedding ring at an event Monday night. Now the talk is that the couple isn't living together anymore either. [P6]
♦ Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are supposedly feuding because Ashley wants a boob job, but doesn't want to get one unless Mary-Kate goes under the knife at the same time. [Star]

John Edwards knows how to drag out a scandal. After falsely denying an Oct. 2007 report he was cheating on cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth, a more credible investigation was published in July, and Edwards spent several weeks dodging questions. He eventually confessed to ABC News, but insisted he hadn't fooled around with his mistress since 2006. Everyone thought that was bullshit, and now it looks like they were correct: The Washington Post this week noticed Elizabeth Edwards was missing her wedding band at a recent George Washington University appearance, with her husband absent. And Page Six heard further whispers:

Click to viewJohn Edwards has admitted to his affair with "filmmaker" Rielle Hunter, even if he hasn't come totally clean about the shenanigans he and his inner circle of advisors went through to keep it a secret. Elizabeth Edwards has also admitted that she knew about the affair before her husband formally announced his candidacy. But the Baron family — deep-pocketed trial lawyer Fred Baron and son Andrew Baron, who funded his startup Rocketboom from the family coffers — continue to hand-wave about what, exactly, they knew.Andrew Baron has denied he knew anything. But troublingly, he also says his dad didn't know about the affair, which strains belief — considering that it was Fred Baron's ongoing financial assistance to Hunter which blew Edwards's cover. I'm inclined to believe that the younger Baron was not, in fact, wise to the arrangement, and it's only natural to stick up for family. Unless you purport to be a news organization, in which case recusal is your best bet. Because it all makes Rocketboom's original coverage of the Edwards campaign look all the more fawning and uninformed in retrospect. By continuing to toe the family line in public adds fuel to a story that, like Edwards's political career, no longer really matters. While one might be willing to forgive the original faux pas of letting the campaign lead you around by the news nose, it doesn't help perceptions of questionable "new media" journalist ethics to continue to deny, deny, deny. As long as the younger Baron continues to trumpet his father's innocence in public, the more Rocketboom looks like it traded access for complicity, even if unintentionally. Andrew should probably take his own advice and "take a few days off."

You know what's "funny" about John Edwards getting busted (pretty damn convincingly) by the National Enquirer while meeting his mistress and love child in a Los Angeles hotel? Edwards' cover story was that he was in LA to meet with the city's mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa — and Villaraigosa, like John Edwards, cheated on his wife right after a primary election! And also, wouldn't you know it, Villaraigosa's wife Corina was battling thyroid cancer at the time, sort of like how Elizabeth Edwards is now battling breast cancer. Isn't that... awful? Yes, yes it is. But also it's part of a long trend among certain American political candidates to ditch their sick wives. In fact, you might remember this disturbing behavior from such examples as: the current presumptive Republican nominee for president!

Slate shows impressive timing in choosing this week to focus their pointless and vaguely offensive "First Mates" series on Elizabeth Edwards. "Why Elizabeth Edwards Isn't Hillary Clinton"? Because when she proves to be more ambitious and driven than her smooth-talking husband, people don't respond to her with misogyny and him with disdain, apparently. Which means they might actually give a shit if and when they hear that he fooled around on her! [Slate]