Balloon Boy: America’s Got Morons
By Yes it’s shameful to give this story another scintilla of bandwith. So sue me.
Seriously, as a resident of Colorado (the damned thing practically landed in my backyard), I’m going to be mighty aggravated if Celebrity-Crazed Dad and his Zombie Cult Wife aren’t arrested for filing a false police report — a felony in our fair state. I do sort of admire the guy though for the planning he put into it.
(1) He waited until a weekday morning when the kids didn’t have school (much better for news ratings than weekend coverage).
(2) He chose a completely clear day, when the prevailing winds were out of the north, so that the balloon would be pushed towards Denver, rather than as would be typical out toward the great and empty plains.
(3) He launched it early enough in the day so there would be enough time for him and his brave little Falcon to do the evening news shows, but not so early that folks wouldn’t be able to follow it because they were commuting to (West Coast) or from (East Coast) work.
(4) He created a hiding place in the garage ceiling for the kid, so as to have a plausible explanation for not being able to find him.
(5) He waited a good 30 minutes before calling a TV station, and maybe an hour before calling the cops, thus allowing the balloon plenty of time to drift toward the media-rich Denver metro area.
However he really dropped the ball on the cardboard box attached to the balloon stuff. That was obviously made up after the fact in a moment of panic, when he forget he had videotaped the launch.