Ted Haggard is the evangelical preacher whose career got upended when it turned out he paid for gay sex and crystal meth; Gary Busey is an imbalanced psychopath who will pull your endocrine system out of your body and put it in his briefcase with all the highlighters and loose change. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the GREATEST WIFE SWAP IN HISTORY.

Ted Haggard is going on the celebrity edition of ABC’s Wife Swap reality show … and will swap partners with Gary Busey. Haggard still has a wife—despite the fact that he admitted paying for meth-fueled sex with a male masseuse in 2006. The probably-bisexual pastor now runs a nondenominational church in Colorado, and Busey is apparently a good match for him: The born-again actor is involved with Christian men’s organization Promise Keepers.

However, Busey bizarrely has no wife, just a girlfriend with whom he has a child. Producers haven’t said whether she’s the swapee or not, People notes, but the Colorado Springs Gazette reports that she is. [Newser]

The reason Busey is still unmarried is because America’s puritanical laws keep him from marrying his one true love, a badger named Candace. They argue a lot, but the sex is incredible.

Alicia Guastaferro, an 18-year-old beauty pageant contestant who was featured on ABC’s “Wife Swap” with her shallow parents, is suing the network for $100 million. In preposterous number form, that’s 100,000,000 American dollars. From the New York Daily News:

[Guastaferro] says she has panic attacks and suicidal tendencies because of her 2008 appearance, in which she memorably berated her mom and sniffed, “I do feel sorry for people that are not gorgeous people.” The suit accuses ABC and parent company Walt Disney of staging scenes to “maximize [Guastaferro's] public embarrassment.”

The show… made Guastaferro the object of ridicule among her western New York peers and forced her to transfer schools, the suit claims.

No, I think it’s safe to say Guastaferro made Guastaferro the ridicule of her peers. Keep reading for more ridiculousness, plus the jaw-dropping clip of the show that features her awful, awful family.

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Richard and Mayumi Heene, the “Wife Swap” alumni who orchestrated the Balloon Boy hoax in October, were sentenced to jail last week. Both received four years of probation, while Dick got 90 days (of which 60 will be work-release) and mama-san got 20. Unfortunately, Christmas will come a little late this year, as the jail terms don’t begin until January 11th :(

David Lane, Richard Heene’s attorney, said he thought Schapanski delivered fair and “thoughtful” sentences but nonetheless questioned whether the rulings — especially the jail sentence imposed on Mayumi Heene for a first offense — mistook vengeance for justice. [Denver Post]

Wait. Are vengeance and justice not the same thing? *puts away pipe bomb*

Lane also said the restitution requirement [which could be $47,000 or more] would be difficult for the Heenes to uphold. As part of the sentence, the Heenes are barred from making money off the hoax.

I’ve got a foolproof plan for them to be able to pay the restitution that I think will be satisfactory for everyone. They have life insurance, right?

“Balloon boy” was found alive, as CNN reports, which left a lot of us wondering if this was a hoax costing taxpayers a buttload of cash.  The answer is probably yes:

Wolf Blitzer: Did he hear you screaming out “Falcon, Falcon”?
Richard Heene: Um, he’s asking us, Falcon, did you hear us calling your name at any time?  You did?  Why didn’t you come out?
Falcon Heene: You guys said that we did this for the show.

Then just watch the parents squirm and backpeddle.  Ah, schadenfreude, my old friend, we meet again.

[via buzzfeed]

UPDATE: Video got pulled. Instead, enjoy this music video about the Heene boys being “not pussified” from the same episode of “Wife Swap.” (via Buzzfeed)

Holy crap! I go offline for 90 minutes to interact with other human beings, and the Internet gets taken over by a six-year-old boy named Falcon floating thousands of feet in the air over Colorado — which, according to people near TVs, has already come crashing to earth (with no six-year-old boy inside, so it’s either a hoax or he’s dead).

Anyway, in case you’re wondering if the child floating in a balloon alone 8000 feet in the air is the result of responsible parenting, I direct you to this clip from an episode of “Wife Swap” last year, in which the boy’s father, a storm chaser, goes off the rails in a clash with a replacement mother who cares about some gay-ass subject called “safety.” Whatever that is.

UPDATE X 2: Bonus insanity below!
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