The New Republic

Wow, good point. I'll get out my calculator and figure out the amount it cost me. And maybe the folks on Wall Street might want to do the same. Hell, they need every fucking penny they can get from us. Truly, I'd like to help pick up the tab but I just found out the government will not be including COLAs in the checks folks like me [on SSDI] get on the dole from the government. Thanks President Barack "the audacity of change" Obama. I appreciate anything I can do to help keep that deficit down. Really, how many fucking farces can you fit on one blog?!!! gw

- iambiguous

October 15, 2009 at 7:36pm

Simple, should poor people be offered equal rescue options as the wealthy? If yes, then no of course you don't charge them. If no, then yes, let's do a credit check before we send any ambulances or the Coast Guard out.

- acria multa

October 15, 2009 at 8:18pm

How much do we charge the families of kids who fall down wells for their rescues? There are circumstances where stupidity and easily predictable calamitous results might make it appropriate to seek compensation from the beneficiaries of expensive rescue efforts. You don't actually have the experience necessary to climb a mountain, and as a result of your foolishness you got stuck on the mountainside during a blizzard and the Park Service had to send a helicopter to rescue your ass? If you'd just asked an experienced guide beforehand, she could have told you that this would happen, so yeah, you're gonna have to cover some of your rescue costs. But the key is the combination of stupidity and predictability, such that a reasonable person could predict the danger that would follow from a foolish course of action. The bizarreness of the balloon baby thing would seem to me to defeat the predictability side of the equation -- and I'm not convinced of the stupidity aspect either. So this would seem not to be a case where it is appropriate to seek redress after the fact. Besides, it's not the family's fault that it didn't occur to the first cops on the scene to, you know, search the missing boy's own house just to be sure the "baby climbed into a weather balloon and launched himself into the stratosphere" theory really held up. That would seem like a pretty obvious first step in a police investigation, no? It's just lucky the boy was in the attic and not, say, suffocating in the garage freezer while the cops stood a few feet away radioing the FAA to track the flying saucer instead of actually looking for him.

- rhubarbs

October 15, 2009 at 10:11pm

Does this assume it was a hoax, as is being reported? Then, yes.

- bigm

October 16, 2009 at 10:39am

If they can prove it was a hoax or a publicity stunt (is there still a difference?) in court, suing for restitution might be warranted. Past that, as a liberal I'm OK with the public taking it on the chin, again. I don't toss and turn at night worrying about whether frauds are being perpetrated on the taxpayer every time the state cuts a check.

- austinexpat

October 16, 2009 at 11:06am