The Balloon Idiots

I'm apparently not as easily distracted by shiny things as the rest of America appears to be. I didn't hear about this balloon thing until it was all over. And not it appears it was a hoax to futher the father's career. Read this from Wikipedia:

The family had been featured twice on the reality television show Wife Swap, the second time as a fan-favorite choice for the show's 100th episode. During his time on the show, Heene claimed to believe humanity descended from aliens, and spoke of launching home-made flying saucers into storms. Heene has made relentless unsuccessful attempts to get media attention for a proposed reality show called "The Science Detectives", which he envisioned as a documentary series "to investigate the mysteries of science". Months before the balloon incident on October 15, 2009, Heene pitched a reality show idea to the television channel TLC, but they passed on the offer.

So he's a constant failure and he decided since he has such a good track record, why not lie to the news?

According to this article, the parents are 'upset' after being given felony criminal charges. You should be upset, ass!

If all the media attention they have now isn't enough (remember, they pretty much just wanted to be famous), then I say follow them around in prison with cameras and air it. And all the money they get from the show? Yeah, they don't get it. Give it to the prison system or something. Or give it to the people whose flights were canceled in Denver because of these jerks.

Wait a minute, I bet you're going "but they're innocent until proven guilty!" Well, how about this:

...[Robert] Thomas [who had worked with Heene for two months last spring] told CNN that at one point they were talking about the Roswell UFO incident of the late 1940s, when Heene said it would be easy to cook up "a media stunt that would be equally profound as Roswell, and we could do so with nothing more than a weather balloon and some controversy."

Also, I found this rather unsurprising:

Heene has been described as a meteorologist, but his education ended at the high school level.

Also, that stupid balloon of his? From this article,

The father built the 20ft by 5ft silver helium balloon in his yard and it was designed as a transport vehicle of the future so "people can pull out of their garage and hover 50ft to 100ft above traffic."

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME! A balloon is not a vehicle of the future SINCE THEY PREDATE AIRPLANES!

Oh, yeah, and to make matters worse, this moron is one of those David Icke nutjobs. HE THINKS HILLARY CLINTON IS A ONE OF OUR SHAPESHIFTING REPTILIAN OVERLORDS! AHGHAGHGHGH.

Lock him up for eternity I say!