Separated at birth!

Balloon Dad . . .



And Captain Pike:



Sorry. Captain Pike:



Oh, and by the way. Post (from whence the top photo): "Balloon family to face charges". What, including the six-year-old?

Update: Ouchie! Felony. Post:

Richard Heene and his wife, Mayumi, are under investigation on suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, trying to influence a public official and providing false information to authorities, Alderden said.

They face up to six years in prison and a fine of as much as $500,000 on each of two felony counts.

Couldn't stand it any more

So here's Paul Revere and the Raiders (post-uniforms) with (an obviously lip- and instrument-faked) Cherokee Nation (or whatever they call it):

Premature balloonist

The Post:

Rescuers and paramedics are with a "homemade flying saucer" that just came down, but the fate of a 6-year-old who was on board is unknown.

Rescuers on the ground told their dispatcher the boy was not inside.

Officials and the boy's family had said he was in the gondola when it went airborne this morning; it's unclear what happened to the boy.

Fox News is saying somebody on the ground was claiming they saw "something" fall out. The video of the balloon is freaky.

The incident started this morning in Fort Collins when the boy got into the balloon-like device built by his father and it came loose from a tether. . . .

The balloon craft belongs to Richard Heene, whose son, Falcon, is now missing.

Falcon.

The craft could fly as high as 10,000 feet, according to the Weld County Sheriff's Office. (Lisa Ecklund via 9News)the ground following the balloon with the assistance of the 9News helicopter.

Richard Heene is an amateur scientist based out of Fort Collins. He and his partners call themselves the "psyience detectives."

Jaysus.

Heene is a storm chaser who collects data to prove that rotating storms create their own magnetic fields.He began his research in 2002 with lab experiments, then moved on to dust devils. In 2005, he flew a plane around Hurricane Wilma's perimeter.

Update: The parents have been on something called "Wife Swap." What's that? Oh. Huffpo (of course) has more.

Update II: Fox says they found Falcon in his house. Shee-eewww. Lots more to come, tho not necessarily from me. (Yeah, right.)

Update III: Post has it now. Key grafs:

Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden told media in Fort Collins that the 6-year-old boy thought to be missing in a balloon craft has been found alive at his home.

"He was found in a box in the attic above the garage," Alderden said.

If I were his parents (I have the ability to morph into more than one person) he'd stay there for a while.

Update IV: Hoax? KOA:

The 6-year-old Colorado boy thought to have floated off in a homemade balloon has raised questions whether it might have been a family stunt.

During a live interview on CNN, Falcon Heene said he heard his family calling his name as he hid in the rafters of their garage. At the time, there was a frantic effort to bring down the balloon safely. Falcon's father asked, ``Why didn't you come out?'' The boy answered, ``You had said we did this for a show.'' After the CNN interview, the father said he didn't know what his son meant. The boys' parents have appeared twice in the ABC reality show ``Wife Swap.'' The show promoted the Heene family as storm chasers who also ``devote their time to scientific experiments that include looking for extraterrestrials and building a research-gathering flying saucer to send into the eye of the storm.'' Richard Heene adamantly has denied the notion that the whole thing was a big publicity stunt.

Before the interview, a local sheriff in Fort Collins said there was no evidence of a hoax.

Update V: Our Caz sends along this from the Borowitz Report:

Moments after a little boy who was believed to be in his parents' homemade helium balloon was found safe and sound, millions of Americans came to the realization that they had flushed the entire fucking afternoon down the fucking toilet.

"I watched the entire drama unfold and then it turned out that no drama had unfolded," said Carol Foyler, 32, of Missoula, Montana. "I can't tell you how pissed I am at that fucking kid."

At their Colorado home, the parents of six-year-old Falcon Heene said that they were relieved that their son was all right and that they were pushing forward with their plans to build a giant child-operated flame-throwing robot. . . .

The rest requires registration.

CU asks for $50,000 in legal expenses from Wart

So they went high-end. Gamera:

The University of Colorado is seeking to recover more than $52,000 from Ward Churchill to recover costs the school incurred fighting a lawsuit filed by the former ethnic studies
professor. . . .

Colorado law requires the court to award the "prevailing party," in this case CU, "reasonable costs."

Now CU has finished tallying up its expenses, which amount to $52,181.71, and the school has filed a motion in Denver District Court requesting compensation from Churchill.

A commenter at PB links to one of Peter Boyles' satiric songs:
Counterfeit Indian. Not very good, but it's only a minute or so. Don't know when it was originally done; can't find it on Boyles' website.

Wouldn't you?

Post: "Colorado insurer changes course on fat infants"

Too late.

And yes, I know it's saying they'll welcome bloated chirrens. I go for the joke, funny or not.

Update: Anybody think that Titanic was better than A Night to Remember? One won eleven Oscars. God. "Jack!" "Rosie!"

One down`

The best time for sports in America: Fall. Which, of course, is not really happening in America this year. We went straight from summer to winter.

Whatever. Broncos win in OT. They're 5-0. We'll see. Rockies Baseball Club up next in the playoofs.. It's 33 degrees; by gametime, it'll be in the 20s. Play ball!

Not bad

Headline on Comcast right now: "Pope elevates five new saints." Like I say, not bad, but not as good as this guy.

It's 19 degrees

In Denver, according to the Post. The wind is howling. Or maybe just whistling insouciantly. But it's cold. Summer ended just three weeks ago, experts say. And this summer was the coolest (temp-wise) I've seen in the quarter-century I've lived out here. Loveland ski area opened earlier than it ever has before (tho I'm not sure the linked story says that), and A-Basin opened today.

This winter is not going to be gentle on the D-blog's pocketbook. Global warming my ass. I hope.

Update (10/10/09: Last night's low temp beat Denver's old record of 25 degrees, set in 1904, by eight degrees. Tonight's Rockies playoff game has been postponed. It's cold.

Update II: OMFG. The BBC (yes, the BBC): "What happened to global warming?"

This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.

A bit of a surprise, the reporter doesn't mention, only because, as everyone knows, the BBC has been one of if not the most consistently AGW-biased outlets anywhere.

But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.

And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.

So what on Earth is going on? . . .

They quote a scientist who says it's solar-related. Fine, fine. What I care about is that if the BBC is saying this, the tide might really, finally be turning.

Cockeyed optimist, I know.

Not my doggy!

Oh, my God. The most over-the-top global-wanking ad ever:



Copenhagen cometh!

(via WattsUpWithThat)

Wart, Kindle, polar bears

Sherman Alexie, flogging a new book of short stories, opines on Warty in Mother Jones:

The tribes he claims he belongs to don't even claim him. Let's put it this way: You guys are all way behind in terms of what you know about his identity and his politics. Indians have been having those discussions since the beginning. His words got him in trouble, but he had lost plenty of Indian credibility before he lost white people's credibility.

We knew that. Alexie also weirdly defends his notion that the Kindle is elitist:

I got hundreds of emails insulting me, accusing me of being some caveman. I am by no means a Luddite. I have two iPods. I have a cell phone. I have cable TV, HDTV! If I had been talking about drowning polar bears, people would have been weeping with me. But nobody recognizes that a bookstore or library can also be a drowning polar bear. And right now in this country, magazines, newspapers, and bookstores are drowning polar bears. And if people can't see that or don't want to talk about it, I don't understand them at all.

Update: The New York Times (l) next to Ward Churchill.

Two words

Rigoberto Menchú. You can have your Carters and Gores, I'm sticking by Rigo (as her friends call her) as the worst Nobel Prize winner.