Balloon Boy’s parents Richard and Mayumi Heene have been sentenced for this hoax. Larimer County, Colo. Judge Stephen Schapanski sentenced the couple to a total of 110 days in jail and eight years probation. He also prohibited the couple from making any money off the balloon boy fiasco during that time.
Richard Heene must spend 30 days in jail beginning Jan. 11, 2010. The remaining 60 days of his 90-day sentence may be carried out under “work release.” Presumably, not on a reality show set. During those work release days, he will spend the nights in prison.
He must also write a letter of apology to the community and public service agencies that tried to rescue their son.
Mayumi Heene received 20 days jail time to be served after Richard Heene completes his sentence, four years supervised probation. She will also serve 120 hours community service, a mandatory letter of apology and a stipulation that she cannot profit from the fiasco for at least four years.
They may not be done. The FAA is pushing for maximum fines against the parents, here. They have already been told that they owe at least $42,000 to public authorities, here.
For the full story, click here.
anon nurse: ” council-workers-can-enter-homes-without-a-warrant”
Unbelievable. You recall in school, grade school, those hall monitors, kids your own age that volunteered for the job, that would make you take the steps over because you deviated from their invisible path? Or just because they could? The council members and police volunteer adjuncts in the UK are IMO those kids all grown up and given the cover of law and office. Who does a job like that but some really twisted little jerk? These people are the civil corollary of the paramilitary thugs in places like Iran.
That we don’t already have millions of these self esteem challenged martinets running around every neighborhood in America is probably to be attributed squarely to the 2ND Amendment.
I just have this horrible feeling that the English speaking West has become Germany before the war (on a purely class basis) and that there’s probably no going back now.
rcampbell, I’m not jumping on you, just providing an alternate view to the way that the cost of the reparations was figured. Please don’t think I was on your case because I wasn’t. You were talking about cost and I was talking about cost as it applies to the reparations aspect of the article which are related subjects but a departure points for other considerations. I was just acknowledging your comment regarding the cost and my tangential concern.
The only time I ever had to deal with the cost of something for a government entity (federal) the only item of concern to the Agency was a historic projection of unanticipated overtime and other resources since even historically anticipated overtime levels/resources were built into the original budget request.
I don’t mind the idea of a straight-up fine, that’s one thing, but I’m not entirely comfortable with a bill from the state for doing what is part of the normal job of the workers involved. That money received by the state from the Henee’s won’t be going back to the taxpayers. I, like the Henee’s lawyer would like to see the itemized bill first and then have some questions answered.
Don’t jump on me, I’m just recounting what’s in the article:
“They have already been told that they owe at least $42,000 to public authorities, here”.
Great idea, lottakatz! Problem is that, not being farmers, they might cause even more damage.
Cheers.
rcampbell, All of the state and local agencies were on the job already so their time and effort is a line item and shouldn’t be considered IMO, They get paid the same to chase a balloon or drink coffee at the station.
The person I felt got a raw deal was the farmer that had the misfortune to have the balloon land in his field, I read that his entire late year planting was destroyed. He should be the one restitution is paid to and their community service should be to plant/tend his spring crop.
Say it aint so Joe, ya mean we can’t be no media ho.
I bet the self centered folks get divorced.
Air heads …
RCampbell, does everything in America come down to money?
The word on the street is that an unamed person was ordering “take out”
DavidG
The incident cost quite a lot of money as dozens of state, county and municipal law enforecment groups, multiple airports’ radar, local and national news agencies, helicopter, I think even the US military were all simultaneously tracking, coordinating and reporting the balloon.
With all the war and killing that the U.S. generates, I think the parents of Balloon Boy are being treated rather harshly.
I mean, it brought a few moments of concern, then it brought relief, then laughter that we’d all been taken in so easily.
If Americans concentrated more on bringing the world some joy and a few laughs instead of death and destruction the world would be a better place!
Ignore the “google hits” comment — I’m getting a lower number now — in the tens of thousands.
The story is a bit disconcerting, to say the least.
The 20,000 snooper army: Vast number of town hall bureaucrats get power to enter your home without a warrant (Published 2009-12-28) is the title. From/in the UK.
Trying to located another source for this. (Google yielded almost 700,000 hits and most links have been posted within the last 24 hours.)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6895854/20000-council-workers-can-enter-homes-without-a-warrant.html
Hope this isn’t a knee-jerk posting.
Regarding the CCRC link, thank you.
Enter the two psychologists, Mitchell and Jessen.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/us/12psychs.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=jessen%20and%20mitchell&st=cse
We don’t know the half of what these two guys (and others) cooked up. And I believe that they may have been involved in the domestic operations that apparently continue to this day, but are taking place beneath the radar of most. (Some believe that COINTELPRO was ramped up during the Bush-Cheney years and is still going strong.)
____ An excerpt:
Interrogation Inc.
2 U.S. Architects of Harsh Tactics in 9/11’s Wake
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: August 11, 2009
WASHINGTON — Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were military retirees and psychologists, on the lookout for business opportunities. They found an excellent customer in the Central Intelligence Agency, where in 2002 they became the architects of the most important interrogation program in the history of American counterterrorism.
DR. BRUCE JESSEN Joined his Air Force colleague to build a thriving business that made millions of dollars selling interrogation and training services to the C.I.A.
JIM MITCHELL A former Air Force explosives expert and a natural salesman, Dr. Mitchell and his colleague had no expertise on Al Qaeda and had never conducted an actual interrogation. But they had psychological credentials and an intimate knowledge of a brutal treatment regimen used decades ago by Chinese Communists.
They had never carried out a real interrogation, only mock sessions in the military training they had overseen. They had no relevant scholarship; their Ph.D. dissertations were on high blood pressure and family therapy. They had no language skills and no expertise on Al Qaeda.
But they had psychology credentials and an intimate knowledge of a brutal treatment regimen used decades ago by Chinese Communists. For an administration eager to get tough on those who had killed 3,000 Americans, that was enough.
(end quoted portion of article)
What has happened to these guys and why isn’t there an aggressive investigation into what has been taking place domestically? In China, within the past few years, a journalist was “diagnosed” as mentally ill and institutionaled for her pro-democratic views. And these guys reportedly drew on techniques honed by the Chinese.
The government lies to us all the time, the media is backed by laws that allow them to lie to the public…
yet when we lie to authorities we are arrested, fined and/or sent to prison.
It’s definitely time for a new revolution… let’s start by turning off our phones and tv’s, and stop on the freeway in your city at 8am, next monday, just enough time to have a coffee and donut … THAT will get their attention!
The only way to get kicked out of office is with a sex scandal.
anyone ever heard of chinagate? lewinski was just a diversion.
Here’s a justice story from the Center for Constitutional Rights:
“The Louisiana Board that licenses psychologists is facing a growing legal fight over torture and medical care at the infamous Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons.
In 2003, Louisiana psychologist and retired colonel Larry James watched behind a one-way mirror in a U.S. prison camp while an interrogator and three prison guards wrestled a screaming near-naked man on the floor.
The prisoner had been forced into pink women’s panties, lipstick and a wig; the men then pinned the prisoner to the floor in an effort “to outfit him with the matching pink nightgown.” As he recounts in his memoir, Fixing Hell, Dr. James initially chose not to respond. He “opened [his] thermos, poured a cup of coffee, and watched the episode play out, hoping it would take a better turn and not wanting to interfere without good reason…”
http://ccrjustice.org/hell-and-dr.-james%3A-when-gitmo-and-abu-ghraib-come-home
Although he claims to eventually find “good reason” to intervene, the Army colonel never reported the incident or even so much as reprimanded men who had engaged in activities that constituted war crimes.”
Talk about your flight risk…