At this hour, the Heene family are still giddy celebrating their child not being smashed to bits on the side of a mountain. But for us the good news means no annoying pause before blame can be assigned.

So let's get the ball rolling and start naming names. Who are the winners and losers of Balloon Boygate?

WINNER: Falcon Heene, for not being dead, and for the awe-inspiring level of popularity coming his way as the due from this amount of fame. Falcon is never going to want to graduate elementary school.
LOSERS: Mr and Mrs Heene family, who have so much explaining to do.

LOSERS: Cable news networks who in the midst of the health care, debate, the world exploding, etc., interrupted their programming for three hours to cover what turned out to be a huge mix-up. Oh yeah, and the internet for doing that too.
WINNERS: Cable news networks, whose ratings no doubt sky-rocketed for their coverage of a huge mix-up.

LOSERS: American employers, who saw worker productivity plummet during our national adventure.
WINNERS: American workers, who now have to come with just one more day's worth of procrastination to make it to the weekend. May we suggest.

LOSERS: Balloon enthusiasts, whom we always suspected were pretty strange to start with and bore watching.
WINNER: Wife Swap. Restored to its rightful place at the center of our culture.

LOSERS: Health care reformers. Do you really expect us to go back to talking about that after this excitement?
WINNERS: The few on Twitter who took the bold step to mock while it seemed a six-year-old boy was about to be smashed to death against a mountain before our very eyes. Their psychopathic insensitivity to human suffering is now vindicated.