- Bank of America lost $1 billion—and your Wonkette editor’s debit card!!—in the third quarter. [New York Times]
- Do not read this, keep thy heart pure: Boy in the Balloon? Likely a publicity stunt. [New York Times]
- A weak dollar is good news for things that are made here and exported elsewhere. This is an important news article from a city’s major newspaper. [Los Angeles Times]
- The FDA would prefer that everyone not buy the powerful Swine Flu Antidote on the Internet for all the regular reasons buying drugs on the Internet, without telling your doctor, might be unwise. [CNN]
- A 6.1 magnitude earthquake hit Jakarta this morning and you know quite frankly everyone there is a bit sick of the earthquakes at this point. [CNN]
- UN Human Rights Council endorsed a report in which both Hamas and Israel were accused of war crimes in Gaza. [Guardian]
DAILY BRIEFING
October 16, 2009
Balloon Boy: A Case Of Highly Orchestrated Whimsy?
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{ 64 comments }
The good thing about the Boy in the Balloon was that it got “Boy in the Bubble” lodged in my head, so I spent the rest of the day listening to Paul Simon’s “Graceland”.
I know I’ve been away but it is Friday. Is there any news about a Mark Sanford divorce/resignation because I expect Mark news before the weekend. By the way, when I watched the health care vote and saw Ensign vote- I wanted to yell- “throw the bum out” or smack him.
I’m kind of appalled at where you’re going with this. He didn’t even plan to do the interview.
CNN BALLOON ALERTS on? Check.
Don’t google “Wife Swap” at work.
Media whores are what makes America the great country that it is today.
I predict Republicans are going to be asking the balloon boy father to run for office.
Famewhoring is the cancer killing America.
It won’t be long before Chinese laborers are bitchin’ about underpriced American imports. The textile sweatshops will be reborn but the execs will still cry for more tax breaks.
Maybe it was a hint that the first call made by the Balloon Boy’s family was to a news station.
Geez – if your son or daughter went missing (and I sincerely hope that never happens!) do you think your first call might be to the police and not the television station? Unless you’re Greta or Nancy, of course.
A caller to Sheer “Am I An Idiot?” InSannity’s show said it takes 15 cubic feet of helium to raise one pound. So this craft could, mayble, lift about 8 pounds. Now, I haven’t Google’d that statement to see if it’s true (because I’ve learned by now everything on the Internets is true) but it makes sense.
And if one of the “news” mediums following the balloon through the sky had actually managed to ask an expert…well, they might have had some real news, after all!
You betcha!
A grown, married man with hair that gay is surely a fakir and a swindler. I hope the press is there when he receives the bill for all the public services he tied up during this cynical PR stunt.
Sweet hoax, if that what is was. Sort of like an OJ low speed chase, except involved a child, in the sky. Only a brilliant mind could dream up this perfect convergence of the American psyche and the insta-media video streaming delivery. Even the post hoax skepticism is masterful PR.
Give that man his own cable channel.
Wolf Blitzer proved that he should concentrate on interviewing six year olds.
[re=436920]4tehlulz[/re]: We just discussed this at coffee. So many people with cable shows and in magazines for nothing besides being actual whores,bad parents or celebrity hanger-ons(and these are often combined)
The dollar’s strength would be great news if we actually manufactured anything. Apart from warplanes, guns, bombs & ammo, that is.
Oh boy, good news for American Apparel. Hopefully the hipster t-shirt and leggings market in China is strong.
Why can’t the balloon publicity whore shitheads exploit their children in the traditional way like the Gosselins and Duggas?
[re=436919]Monsieur Grumpe[/re]:
Joe the Balloonist?
[re=436919]Monsieur Grumpe[/re]: Agreed – better to elect someone who is already clearly insane than elect someone who is just going to go insane over time.
Slogan: “Hanne for Senate: This is as crazy as I’ll ever get”
The unmentioned part of the Hamas & Israel war crimes bit is that Israel is saying the peace process is dead in the water due to this horribly unfair vote. You’d think the UN would understand by now that if you criticize Israel you’re obviously an anti-Semite, and anyway if your people have experienced a horrible genocide you are then incapable of comitting war crimes, because pretty much anything goes. So shut up & give us more money and killing machines. Peace is for pussies.
The Repugnants believe that anything airborne without authorization is a terrist muslin aircraft and must be swiftly shot down. Birds included.
So, Who had the better publicity stunt yesterday, Megan McCain or Balloonboy? I know my choice and it involves balloons.
I REALLY wanted to see an airborne rescue of the Boy in the Balloon yesterday. But to match the farce level of the whole thing, they should have used one of those jumpy helicopter things from those old silent film clips of planes crashing that they use as stock footage in TV and movies sometimes.
More from Balloon Boy: The family members appeared tired and emotional and on the “Today” show on NBC, Falcon vomited on camera.
Hmmm, did Falcon see the Gavin Newsom vid too?
I’m going to fly across the country in a balloon filled with Republicans’ hot air.
[re=436927]hobospacejunkie[/re]:
I believe Trucknutz are made in this country, so, we got that going for us.
USA, USA, USA!
[re=436938]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]: on camera vomiting- now the Duggans, the Gosselins and the Kardashians will be doing it.
[re=436937]PabaBritannica[/re]:
Airborne rescue? I wanted to see F-16′s chase the balloon as it strayed over a military base, then shoot it down based on standing orders left from the last administration.
[re=436945]Terry[/re]: If they shot it down, I have a feeling that the collective national hysteria over a 6 year old being shot down in his balloon would rival that of the Orson Well’s War of the Worlds broadcast.
Re: BOA, you’ve got to be extraordinarily incompetent to not make money in this financial climate. Most of your competition has by now failed out of existence, the govt has created about 823 different ways of giving you free money, and they let you legally futz with your books. So they’re making the poor CEO go home, for good, with only about $125 million in retirement benefits. The price of failure in this new economy is steep, and it is painful.
[re=436937]PabaBritannica[/re]: I would have loved to have seen an airborne rescue on CNN intercut with clips from that runaway bus movie with Keanu Reeves.
[re=436938]queeraselvis v 2.0[/re]:
“As his family did the morning show circuit on Friday, he first vomited during a GMA appearance, which was pretaped. (SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH)”
These two sentences actually appeared in HuffPo. Right next to each other. In this order.
[re=436919]Monsieur Grumpe[/re]: [re=436920]4tehlulz[/re]: well, which is it? The cancer killing america or what made america great? Or both, like our wonderful coal industry that runs our powerplants while it pollutes our air and gives our miners black lung disease?
[Blitzer] added, “I got to tell you personally, as a reporter, who reported that he was alive and well, that it was a thrilling moment for me.”
Wolf Blitzer’s a reporter?
This story would have been much better if the balloon had gotten stuck in a well on a compound run by a polygamist cult that was involved in a multi-week standoff with the ATF. Then, when they miraculously retrieve the child from the balloon in the well and everyone starts to breathe a sigh of relief and tears of joy start to flow, at that very second a DINGO runs up and steals the kid and takes him to a fundamentalist Islamic country to be raised under shiite law. Lifetime and Oxygen would open their own news departments to cover this.
BTW, anyone else think about Harrison Ford in Mosquito Coast when seeing the Balloon Dad and family in action???
[re=436949]hobospacejunkie[/re]: They’re failing at getting customers to bounce checks, which is the only thing the other banks can do right, apparently.
[re=436939]Holy Cow!![/re]: You could go ’round the world in that balloon..
The Heene family has now replaced the Palins as America’s premier snowbilly krewe.
[re=436929]ManchuCandidate[/re]: They did, right? On Wife Swap? That’s what I read on the innertubes.
A reality show veteran orchestrating a PR stunt? I am shocked, shocked.
[re=436955]BigBrainOnBrad[/re]:
That’s when you call Janet Reno.
I am so fucking hungover.
[re=436956]Johnny Zhivago[/re]:
no, but I did think of that time Harrison Ford rescued someone in his helicopter.
http://www.helis.com/news/2000/harrford.htm
Imagine if he HF been there when they found the balloon empty… I can see him now, pounding his fists on the ground à la Charlton Heston. “Damn you all to hell!”
[re=436960]alzronnie[/re]: No….not at least until one of the Heene boys impregnates Bristol or Willow.
[re=436965]KilgoreTrout_XL[/re]: Win.
The solution to getting hit by earthquakes in Jakarta is to GET THE HELL OUT OF JAKARTA. Just don’t come here, obvs.
[re=436984]Texan Bulldoggette[/re]: What would Falcon and Willow name their child? Nest?
[re=436945]Terry[/re]: Negatory. Bogie too slow for intercept. I recommend we get out and walk.
This family look like the resurgence of the Hale Bop clan.
Fly away.
C’mon, Skynet, please become self-aware and obliterate out what passes for our culture.
This story would have been much better if the balloon had gotten stuck in a well on a compound run by a polygamist cult that was involved in a multi-week standoff with the ATF. Then, when they miraculously retrieve the child from the balloon in the well and everyone starts to breathe a sigh of relief and tears of joy start to flow, at that very second RUSH LIMBAUGH runs up and steals the kid and takes him to a fundamentalist Islamic country to be raised under shiite law.
/fixed
[re=436948]PabaBritannica[/re]:
Yes, it would.
[re=436954]magic titty[/re]:
He was the “scud stud” during the first Gulf War.
BREAKING NEWS , BREAKING NEWS , BREAKING NEWS!!!!
Balloon boy vomits on Good Morning America.
[re=436913]PabaBritannica[/re]: The way the camera follows us in slow-mo… fitting.
Boy in the Balloon? Likely a publicity stunt.
Out of the mouths of babes…
Rod Blagojevich just announced that he’s changing his name to Falcon Steele.
And, strangely, Orly Taitz just announced that she’s changing her name to Meghan Malkin.
Halloween
TLC. 9 AM. “No Strings Attached.” In the debut episode, Falcon shoots Dad’s weather rocket into a Wiccan compound. Domestic chaos ensues.
Thanksgiving
NBC. 11 AM. “Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.” Join Al Roker, Rick Astley and grand martial Falcon Henee for this turkey day classic.
Chistmas Eve
QVC. 7 AM. Captain Sully hosts this segment featuring the new The Falcon’s Magic Box video game.
WTF is going on in Jakarta. Jesus is really, really pissed at them, so he’s turning the Indian Ocean into a washing machine. My guess is sodomy.
I think I learned when I was 6 years old and had a fellow 6 year old in a cookie jar heist, that you cannot trust a 6 year old to keep quiet about the scam!
[re=437235]widget09[/re]: He’s a gettin them muslins on accounta theys antimurican!
This seems plausible:
5…4…3…where’s Falcon? Anybody seen Falcon?…oh, what the hell…2…1…LIFT OFF!!!
After Mr. Heene angrily denied that his son was admitting that the whole thing was a hoax, Mr. Blitzer quickly retreated, perhaps fearing that he would be accused of engaging in what is called “gotcha journalism”…
If only that pitiful excuse for a reporter, Wolf Blitzer, had probed a little deeper, America might have witnessed a live case of child abuse AND law enforcement activity during the same segment, making for a riveting follow-up to yesterday’s boy-could-die-any-moment-before-our-eyes breaking news event. Blitzer’s a pansy.
[re=437056]Terry[/re]: Nope. That was Arthur Kent.
I know my studs, believe me.
This is how we do everything in the US: The cable news channels get a full day of viewers for a single story they were duped into covering, and now they’ll get a whole second day covering the fact that they were duped. This is your free-market meritocracy at work, people.
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