Balloon Boy's Alive! (And Never Actually on the Balloon)
Update: TV news is reporting that six-year-old Falcon Heene was found safe in his home. He was never actually the balloon. Now the hoax questions begin. From the NY Times: 6:07 p.m. The 6-year boy, Falcon Heene, was just found alive, according to reporter Dan Frosch, who is at the boy's house in Fort Collins, Colo. A Larimer County Sheriff's deputy said that he was found in a box in the family's garage. Earlier: Based on photographs from KUSA, it appears something fell off the balloon thought to be carrying 6-year-old Falcon Heene. It may be the box that law enforcement think Falcon was in when the balloon took flight. A sherriff's deputy told KUSA he saw something fall of the balloon while it was in flight. Falcon is thought to have been playing in that box before the balloon took off. Police believe the boy, Falcon Heene, was inside the box, which the family called a battery compartment, when the aircraft lifted off around 11 a.m. Police say there are pegs on the bottom of the aircraft that indicate that a box was attached at some point. Police have been searching the area looking for the box. Neither it nor the boy have been found yet. MORE >>
Everything the Internet Knows About the Boy in the Balloon
Richard and Mayumi Heene, the parents of Falcon, who is missing after having apparently floated away in a helium balloon-craft built by his parents, have left a long and wide internet trail. Here's what we know. The Heenes have lived a self-consciously adventurous life, and sought to engage their children in it. Richard is a stormchaser, an amateur scientist (with some strange theories about civilization on Mars), and an avid self-promoter. When the family appeared on ABC's Wife Swap last year, the episode's set-up was that a stuffy, safety-obsessed woman was saddled with Richard and his wild boys. Here's a wrap-up of the show, featuring Falcon, the missing boy, saying, "Fuck this rule!" Here is a report on the Heenes from a local Colorado station last year when they went as a family to chase Hurrican Gustav. Heene tells the reporter that "safety is always first" when chasing storms and that he hopes his sons learn the lesson of hard work and to love what they do from their excursions. This undated family rap, apparently self-produced, features the boys and plenty of home video that somehow made it onto the internet. Here is Heene, in a video he uploaded to CNN's iReport, explaining his discovery of life on Mars. This could be tongue-in-cheek. And here's a YouTube video of Heene explaining his suspicion that John F. Kennedy Jr.'s death in a plane crash was faked. We're not entirely sure that this—and the above Mars video—isn't a gonzo persona of some sort. Heene had a web show called "The Science Detectives"—alternatively spelled "The Psyience Detectives." Video of him discussing the science of 2012 end-of-the-world predictions can be seen here. Richard and his wife Mayumi also created children's videos, including this instructional video on how to build fire trucks, trains and airplanes for your kids to play in out of cardboard boxes. Our sincere hope is that this was all a hoax. MORE >>
Top Chef: A Tale of Two Cancers, One Pig and a Mustache
Hello, It's Joshua David Stein here, halfway through a beautiful bottle of pinot [noir!] It's only 10:15am but it's time to drunkenly discuss Bravo's Top Chef somewhere, emmeyeright? A mustache grew in Las Vegas last night, on the upper lip of Charlie Palmer. Something was raised last night in Las Vegas, the voices of the brothers Voltaggio. A whine from the mouth of Eli issued under the Nevada firmament. Something eclipsed the hot sun, momentarily, the large hat of Padma Lakshmi moving sedately, pausing, pregnantly. Someone survived cancer last night. Someone braised pork belly, and as the harpsichord of the heavens plucked dawn's strings, one pig met his posthumous fame, dancing a little jig on the Etch-a-Sketch of the public consciousness before being shaken again to oblivion. Garçon, fill me up! The scene opens with Charlie Palmer, Matt Dillon plus age plus hair plus talent, in the kitchen, along with Padma Lakshmi wearing Nancy Sinatra boots and—frankly, I couldn't tell you what else because her face is so pretty I only look at that but my wife says it wasn't pretty what she was wearing which makes her 0/2 (with the jumpsuit). Charlie Palmer is to American cuisine what Evander Holyfield was to heavyweight boxing: the real deal. New Yorkers probably know him best for the recently re-opened Aureole but he also has some sort of Boschian enterprise in Las Vegas wherein wine-angels flit around transforming grape juice into pure profit. Another measure of his caliber is that two of the top contestants, the Brothers Voltaggio, worked with him in his kitchen, Bryan for ten years, Mike as Executive Chef for one. Palmer had the honor of announcing the Quickfire Challenge: pairing food with some shitty new prepackaged chip snacks called Adventis, Adrongia or something. Dementia? Advertia? Advertia, yeah, that sounds about right. Anyway, having a chef as high caliber as Mr. Palmer judge a challenge based on a chip is like having John Currin judge a painting contest based on painting with diarrhea. And you couldn't use a brush either. Anyway, Eli won the quickfire. That was fine by all involved. Everybody who is reading this—I assume—was present for Hippity's liveblog so there isn't any need for me to rehash the particulars of the Elimination Challenge. Suffice to say, contestants were asked to pair their pork dish to a particular wine for Charlie Palmer's big charity event Pigs & Pinot which benefits Share Our Strength. They drew knives indicating which part of the pig they would use and then Padma led in a Mangalitsa hog .The contestants quickly clustered around the terrified animal, no one wanting to plunge their dagger first. Finally, Jennifer Carroll who said, "I did this shit all the time in North Philly," gouged out the animals voicebox—which she made a lovely souffle from—so at least one couldn't hear the beast's cries as the other contestants solemnly but fanatically set about carving up the still thrashing... MORE >>
Glee: You Keep Me Hanging On
There's nothing like a good screaming match, and last night the fights were dirtier than the blog posts that Nerdy McFroerson writes about Rachel. Who are you backing? Team Rachel? Team Quinn?! As Sue Motherfucking Sylvester said last night, even in the heat of battle, this show is so elegant. But this episode was filled with hate and even Sue MF Sylvester's rants had more bile and bite than usual. To deflect all that tension, we had lots of step-ball-changing to remind us why we watch this show in the first place. "Hate On Me": This episode was filled by the empty darkness that fills these desperate characters souls. Of course, the biggest hate was between Sue Motherfucking Sylvester and Will, who battled for control of Glee. While putting on a bright face for Principal Figgins (I want to hug somebody just so I can say "I'm about to vomit down your back"), behind the scenes they were ripping into each other like an 8 year old off his ADD medication attacking his Christmas presents. Sue's strategy, as always, was to divide and conquer, sectioning off the "minority" students and building up their confidence so that they would hate Will and the other kids, thus ending the whole enterprise. Will responded by failing all of SMS's Cheerios in Spanish and exposing the grade inflation that has allowed her winning team to keep pushing pompoms instead of pencils. Oh, Sue, if only round-offs could shave the world. Sue retaliates by trying to get her "Sue's Kids" to leave Glee. It ends in a slow motion, spit-flying cuss off of epic proportions. And then, as happens every week, all the kids go "Glee ain't fun no mo," and then Will says, "Damn, I have to start behaving like an adult now and fix it." Can he please stop making Glee not fun for at least one whole episode? This week he fixed it thanks to Sue, who in a surprising act, stepped down from Glee to focus on getting her Cheerios back into shape, and maybe getting them to learn how to spell their names. It was a surprisingly magnanimous gesture for SMS, but she has to be working some kind of angle. Whatever that is, Will didn't make Glee fun again, even though he tried. Thanks Sue, for relinquishing control and giving us our club back. "Ride with Me": I hate this song. Well, nothing against Nelly, but I didn't like it in the episode. The great thing about Glee that we don't get in most other musicals is that the songs are always intertwined into the action so we don't get the most common (and most annoying) criticism of musicals: "I don't get why they're like in the supermarket and they break out into song and dance." On this show, the kids are singing and dancing because, well, they're in a club where they sing and dance! This number just seemed tacked on, and it wasn't especially good. Yes, the more singing the better, but don't just start adding things willy nilly because you need a few more tracks for the soundtrack (out November 9). I liked the sentiment behind it though, where it showed all the... MORE >>
Announcing the Goldman Project
It's Thursday, so Goldman Sachs raked in billions with taxpayer help while you're still unemployed. The bank announced $3.1 billion in third-quarter profits today, and set aside $5.3 billion for bonuses. Help us find out how they spend it. Goldman's third-quarter take is down slightly from its record-breaking $3.4 billion second-quarter earnings, and the amount set aside for bonuses declined by roughly 20%. But so far this year, the firm has socked away $16.7 billion to compensate its young masters of the universe, and analysts believe that before the year is over Goldman will skim $23 billion off the top to keep its employees preposterously rich. Bully for them. The downside of Goldman's remarkable resurgence in the wake of the near-collapse of the financial system is that you financed it. There was the $10 billion in TARP funds Goldman got last fall—it's since been repaid to the feds with interest, but that's probably little consolation for people who couldn't get a loan in the past year to buy a house or a car last fall despite excellent credit and documented income. There was the $13 billion pass-through bailout from AIG, wherein the taxpayer funds ostensibly directed to prop up AIG were simply forwarded to Goldman and other banks that had purchased insurance from AIG in the form of credit-default swaps on their bad investments. The AIG bailout is particularly noxious in light of an op-ed Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein wrote in the Financial Times earlier this week (in a clear bid to prebut an avalanche of anti-bankster rage at today's results): "An institution's assets must also be valued at their fair market value—the price at which willing buyers and sellers transact—not at the (frequently irrelevant) historic value." The irrelevant historic value of Goldman's credit-default contracts with AIG was $13 billion. The fair market value was whatever a hemorrhaging AIG could afford to pay. But instead of getting pennies on the dollar in bankruptcy proceedings, Goldman got the federal government to spend your money to pay them off in full. Fair-market-value for me, but not for thee. The other ways in which Goldman has benefited—in many instances uniquely—from the federal intervention into the financial industry have been illustratively rehearsed by Matt Taibbi: Banks that want to repay TARP money are forced by the feds to raise capital, and Goldman is there to underwrite the debt and equity offerings at a reasonable 7% commission. It has access to low-cost FDIC-backed debt through the Temporary Loan Guarantee Program, saving it an estimated $600 million per year. It has access to the Fed's discount window, where it can borrow money a .5% interest. Our credit card company charges us 13%, and we didn't lose $2 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, as Goldman did. All of this is quite objectionable. But what makes it eye-stabbingly, brain-searingly blood-boiling is the fact that Goldman's employees are personally... MORE >>
Sleepless Benadryl-Crazed PR Man Just Wanted Some Wine, Officer
Washington, DC PR man David Bass has a perfectly good explanation for why he was charged with a felony for disrupting a flight: He was all hopped up on Benadryl! He was awake traveling for five three days! He wanted wine! Much props to David Bass—who now works with plugged-in political PR firm Qorvis, [UPDATE: Bass actually left Qorvis a couple years ago, and is now with Raptor Strategies] after serving as deputy publisher at the Weekly Standard—for not hiding behind a "no comment." You can see how he might be embarrassed by the fact that the FBI said he "appeared drunk and abusive on the flight, demanding alcohol and refusing flight attendants' orders to sit down." Bass explained to Politico the stunning confluence of events that led up to his totally misunderstood behavior on the flight: Bass said he wasn't drunk on the flight, but rather had been taking Benadryl for an allergic reaction. "I didn't see any reason why I couldn't get a glass of wine," he said. "I was extremely sleep deprived. I have a bad history of traveling south." Antihistamines combined with travel in a direction contrary to the preferences of one's internal compass? Any doctor will tell you that's a recipe for an airborne outburst—including crawling over the passenger next to you while demanding wine— through no fault of one's own. On top of that: Bass said he had been in Honduras on a business trip and hadn't slept for five days before boarding a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Washington on Friday. Not sleeping for five fucking days? He's a hardworking professional. "It didn't seem like reality to me," Bass said. We bet! Update: Politico just updated their story to say he hadn't slept for three days, not five after Bass called to clarify that he had been traveling for five days and not getting much sleep. [Politico] MORE >>
Anarchy in the Machine: Welcome to Gawker's Open Forums
As you admired Gawker's shiny new look, you may have noticed that big "Share" box right up at the top of the page. It's part of our new "open forums," and we really have no idea what's going to happen. In the four years since comments were introduced on Gawker Media sites (yes, there was a time before comments), your tireless editors have always had a sort of love-hate relationship with the people who are kind enough to take the time to scrutinize our every move. As much as it can drive you batty to try and run an editorial operation in front of an audience of hecklers, our readers also supply the site with some of its best wit and tips. Traditionally the way we've heard from you is either through our tipline or in comments, and then one of your editors has decided whether something is worthy for the site. Now there's a third way: we're throwing open the site to anyone who wants to publish anything. The basic way this works is that you can type a comment, upload a photo, or embed a video into that box up top and it will be published on the site wherever you choose by giving it a Twitter-style hashtag. So, got a news tip or link? Tag it #tips and it will show up here. If you saw someone famous, use #stalker and it will go straight to the Gawker Stalker page. Or you can use your own tags. Got something to say about Anna Wintour, send it to the #annawintour page. Have an internal memo to post, tag it #internalmemos. Or make up your own. We're trying to learn to stop worrying and love the chaos. While this all sounds fairly anarchic (it is), the hierarchical commenting system still applies. If you're not an approved commenter, your posting has to be approved by an editor, moderator, or star commenter and the two-tier system applies to these tag pages, too. And, as always, trouble-makers will be banned. There's a revised Commenter FAQ if you want to brush up. Oh! And I almost forgot to add: there's now a very cool, long-requested new notification function. When someone responds to one of your comments, there will be a little box on the top of the home page that says "You have TK new replies" and will link you to them. One more: Also long-requested, under "Settings" in your profile, you can set your default comment view to see just the featured comments or all of them as well as whether you'd like to see them in newest first or oldest first. Just click your name at the top of the page to visit your profile. If you notice bugs, please let us know in comments. Today should be fun. MORE >>
Oprah's Tyson/Holyfield Matchup, The Death Knell for Macho
Macho men are not so in vogue these days. And, with some help from Oprah, the trend, once so prevalent in pop culture, may very well be dead. Or on its way, at least. This past Monday marked an important date in the death of macho: Oprah, the nation's greatest arbitrator of cultural trends, hosted Mike Tyson, the boxer most known for wife-beating and biting off Evander Holyfield's ear. The latter was the bloody, maniacal and all-around shocking moment in which Tyson become macho's ugly extreme: he was a monster, and the public, however horrified, fed the beast, which may explain those regrettable tattoos. But thanks to some soothing words from Oprah this week, a contrite Tyson was brought to tears as he cried about his troublesome past and, most tenderly, the death of his daughter. Since simple tears may not be enough to completely rehabilitate Tyson, Oprah's bringing him on again this Friday, when he'll sit down and have a gab with Holyfield himself. The resultant sob fest may very well make these former enemies the best of friends. Or, at the very least wash them both, but mostly Tyson, of their respective heavy-weight images. Tyson's is just one of the many examples of once-fierce men rebranding themselves in more family-friendly fashion. The most obvious, of course, is former braggart wrestler Dwayne Johnson. Sure, "The Rock" still has some action chops, but how can anyone take him seriously after seeing him dressed up as, quite literally, a fairy in his latest, The Tooth Fairy. A sadder display we have not seen. Even action heroes aren't manly anymore: Jake Gyllenhaal may be buff in Prince of Persia, but he's hardly a macho man. Nor is Adrien Brody, who will be fighting the aliens in the Predator remake. And so it goes. Thanks, birth control. MORE >>
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