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Found by John Ligums.
(CNN) — Authorities in Colorado say criminal charges are expected to be filed against Richard Heene, a storm-chasing father whose giant Mylar balloon ascended into the sky earlier this week, sparking fears that his 6-year-old was aboard. “We do anticipate at some point in the future, there will be some criminal charges filed with regards to this incident,” Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden said.
The saga captured the nation’s attention early Thursday afternoon, after authorities reported the family’s homemade helium balloon was set adrift, apparently with young Falcon Heene inside. Since then, speculation has mounted over whether the incident was a hoax by the father, who has appeared with his family on ABC’s “Wife Swap,” and posted videos of storm chasing and other activities online. Earlier Saturday, in an impromptu press conference outside his home, Heene told reporters the runaway balloon incident was “absolutely no hoax.”
The incident prompted a widespread search in northern Colorado that included law enforcement from several counties, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Colorado National Guard. It ended when Falcon climbed down from the attic above the garage at the family’s Fort Collins, Colorado, home. If the incident was a hoax, the only charge local authorities could press would be making a false report to authorities — a Class 3 misdemeanor, Alderden told reporters Saturday. However, a misdemeanor “hardly seems serious enough given the circumstances,” the sheriff said.
“We certainly want to talk to FAA officials and federal officials to see if perhaps there aren’t additional federal charges that would be more appropriate in the circumstances than what we’re able to do locally,” he said. Earlier Saturday, Heene emerged from his house and offered a cardboard box for the media to submit questions.
UPDATE: Sherrif claims balloon chase a hoax.
So what do DU readers think? Was this a not so clever hoax… or just a precocious 6 year pulling a prank. If it’s a hoax… what would be the appropriate penalty?
“Creative reasons” sounds like code for our being nanny state idiots was found out. What’s next? Change history books so politicians never did anything wrong?
The BBC has defended a decision to change the ending of nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. A version used on the CBeebies channel was altered so rather than “couldn’t put Humpty together again” all the King’s horses “made Humpty happy again”. The broadcaster said the change was made purely for creative reasons rather than trying to give a soft version of the rhyme for children.
A spokeswoman said: “We play nursery rhymes with their original lyrics all the time and the small change to Humpty Dumpty was done for no other reason than being creative and entertaining.”
Labour MP Tom Harris told the Independent on Sunday: “For goodness sake. Obviously children will find it far too violent, distressing and horrific that Humpty should not be put back together again. This is what happens when adults try to make these kinds of judgments.”
He told the newspaper that he had also seen Little Miss Muffet changed on the channel, so that she made friends with the spider instead of running away.
The Daily Show angle:
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It’s refreshing to see a politician do his job for a change. Go get em Al!
At the European duty-free stores the cigarettes have these massive warning signs. There is a huge variety of warnings they seem to mix and match.
Slashdot – October 17, 2009:
“Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of well-known computer security company Kaspersky Labs, is calling for an end to the anonymity of the Internet,
and for the creation of mandatory ‘Internet passports’ for anyone who wishes to browse the Web. Says Kaspersky, ‘Everyone should and must have an identification, or internet passport … the internet was designed not for public use, but for American scientists and the US military. Then it was introduced to the public, and it was wrong … to introduce it in the same way.’ He calls anonymity ‘the Internet’s biggest security vulnerability’ and thinks any country that doesn’t follow this regime should be ‘cut off.’ The EFF objects, and it’s likely that they won’t be the only ones.”
Click pics to learn all about this modern mechanical miracle
He should take it here:
On second thought, he should take it to Washington. They could use a couple dozen of ’em.
Found by Brother Uncle Don
Comforting anecdotes in health care news that we are paying an arm and a leg for. I wonder how many go unreported.
The maker of a life-saving radiation therapy device has patched a software bug that could cause the system’s emergency stop button to fail to stop, following an incident at a Cleveland hospital in which medical staff had to physically pull a patient from the maw of the machine.
The bug affected the Gamma Knife, a device resembling a CT scan machine that focuses radiation on a patient’s brain tumor while leaving surrounding tissue untouched. A patient lies down on a motorized couch that glides into a chamber, where 201 emitters focus radiation on the treatment area from different angles. The patient wears a specialized helmet screwed onto his skull to ensure that his head doesn’t move and expose the wrong part of the brain to the machine’s pinpoint tumor-zapping beams.
[…]
When the hospital called the company that makes the Gamma Knife, it learned that there was a “known software bug problem” affecting the unit’s couch sensors. Known, anyway, to the company, Stockholm-based Elekta AB.“Elekta was aware of the software ‘bug’ at the time of the December 2008 event and had implemented actions to correct the ‘bug’ in a future software release,” says Thomas Valentine, director of quality assurance and regulatory affairs for the Elekta’s U.S. arm, in an e-mail.
Since then, he adds, “The ‘bug’ has been corrected in software upgrades that have been implemented to all of the affected sites in the U.S. The U.S. NRC was notified of the completed status of software upgrades to correct the identified ‘bug’.”
We don’t know why “bug” is in quotes; surely this wasn’t a feature.
And then there was this:
The chief executive of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center said Thursday that he regretted the “circumstances” that subjected 206 patients to radiation overdoses and laid out reforms made since the hospital discovered that a CT scanner had been set erroneously for 18 months.
 Top floor, right |
The body of 75-year-old man sat decomposing on his Marina del Rey balcony for days because neighbors thought the lifeless figure was part of a Halloween display and didn’t call police.
Mostafa Mahmoud Zayed had apparently been dead since Monday with a single gunshot wound to one eye. He was slumped over a chair on the third-floor balcony of his apartment on Bora Bora Way, said cameraman Austin Raishbrook, who owns RMG News and was on the scene Thursday when authorities were alerted to the body.
Neighbors told Raishbrook that they noticed the body Monday “but didn’t bother calling authorities because it looked like a Halloween dummy,” he said.
In other, vaguely unrelated Halloween news, Target has been asked to pull their “Illegal Alien” with a green card costume.
Slashdot – October 17, 2009:
“New Canadian anti-spam and anti-spyware legislation is scheduled for a key vote on Monday. Michael Geist reports that the copyright lobby has been pushing to remove parts of the bill that would take away exceptions which currently allow spyware to be installed without authorization. ‘The copyright lobby is deeply concerned that this change will block attempts to track possible infringement through electronic means.’ There have also been proposals to extend the exemptions granted to telecom providers to include the installation of programs without the user’s express consent, which Geist says will ‘leave the door open to private, surreptitious surveillance.'”
Garth Brooks is back. I never knew he went away. But apparently he’s out of retirement and back in the news. He’s complaining that the government is not doing anything to crack down on file sharing, which is allegedly killing the music industry, even though it’s not. (See also here, and here, and here.)
To the government he complains,
You’ve ignored us, because there’s 50,000 of us and 300 million voters. You’ve ignored us.
Think about that. Brooks is admitting that the use of file sharing is widespread. He acknowledges that everyone is doing it. But yet he wants the government to crack down on every single person in the US so that he can earn a few million more a year.
That’s some fricken balls! I almost feel like I should give him some credit for being so completely self-centered. It’s one thing to complain, “My family is starving so I need government help to feed my kids.” It’s another thing to complain, “Why won’t the government help me so I can buy my fourth fricken mansion?!”
Apparently Garth doesn’t know this, but it’s common knowledge to the rest of the world that it’s already against the law to use P2P to infringe copyrights. The punishment for such use goes way beyond any physical crime. If I go to Walmart, stick a gun in someone’s face, and steal a CD, the most I’ll have to pay monetarily is for the price of that one CD, about 20 bucks. However, if I download a CD worth of music, I’d have to pay millions of dollars.
But yet that draconian law is not enough for Garthy. He wants more! Does he want incarceration? For all 300 million of us? Apparently so. Apparently, his “lost” money, which has nothing to do with P2P, is worth more than the liberty of every citizen in the US.
But this isn’t the first time Brooks put his bank account above the rights of citizens. He also claims that selling used CDs is stealing. I’m not making this up. According to Brooks, the simple act of selling a used CD is a criminal act. Of course he’s wrong. But your right to sell your stuff is nothing compared to Brooks’ right to buy a mansion.
Of course the main reason he’s having trouble selling CDs is that his time in the spotlight is over. When rock and roll killed off the careers of the vocalists from the 50s, Sinatra, Mathis, Cole, to name a few, those guys didn’t ask the government to stop the switch to rock music. They graciously accepted their time was over and moved on. It’s time for washed up has-beens like Brooks to do the same.
Artists of today realize that the net is not a hindrance to making great music, but is actually a great tool for connecting with fans.
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