Back in the Old Country, there’ve been tricks aplenty – and it’s not even Halloween yet.

With the mass media coverage of the “balloon boy” and the subsequent revelation that it was a hoax, there’s no need for long explanations.

The Heenes, a classically publicity-hungry family, the ultimate in the ‘look at me’ generation, engineered a hoax wherein they told officials their aptly-named son “Falcon” might be aboard a home-made hot air balloon that soared for several hours over parts of Colorado.

No one has yet tallied the dollar cost to the federal, state and local governments who participated in the search and rescue effort for the six year old, but the Colorado Army National Guard was involved, using their UH060 Black Hawk and OH 58 Kiowa helicopters. That doesn't come cheap. The local sheriff’s department joined the boy-hunt, and rescue workers of all kinds were pulled off other work, in preparation, as the balloon soared and the boy remained missing. Also involved were the Federal Aviation Administration as well as local law enforcement from several counties, all to the detriment of other people who were in real danger, of course.

Then little Falcon Heene emerged from the attic, where he’d been hiding all the time.

“It was a hoax”, said Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden. Criminal charges against the family are expected, and the family’s ability to care for their three children is being evaluated. All in all, it was a significant brouhaha, not to mention an expensive one, with the taxpayers picking up the tab.

All that said, another hoax just earned not only a “get out of jail free” card from a Minnesota judge but better yet, cash dollars legally required to be transferred to the hoaxers.

This hoax involves the “Flying Imams” a group of six Muslim men who set out in November of 2006, to test the airline security systems put in place after 9/11.

These six Muslims dressed and deliberately acted in a suspicious way, trying to duplicate what the 9/11 terrorists had done, hoping to get themselves arrested and/or kicked off the airplane.

They succeeded. They were removed from a US Airways flight in Minneapolis bound for Phoenix after acting in such a way that “serious security and safety concerns amongst fellow travelers” were aroused.

It was a hoax! They tried to act suspicious. They were trying to get arrested – which arrests would be false, of course, because they were kidding – they had no plan to terrorize or kill anyone.

So in March 2007, along with CAIR – terrorist sympathizers in the US – the “Flying Imams” filed a law suit against US Airways, the Minneapolis Airport, and "John Doe" passengers who reported the highly suspicious behavior. CAIR's executive director, Nihad Awad, proclaimed, "At its core, this case has always been about the ability of all Americans to practice their faith without fear of intimidation or harassment".

Well, that’s one view. Some of us might think it was about the rest of the passengers, on every airline all over the world, who’d like to fly with some reasonable degree of confidence that some Muslim nutcase with a box cutter wasn’t about to commandeer the airplane and fly it into a skyscraper, all for the glory of Allah. There is that.

Anyway, today a wisdom-impaired Minnesota Federal Judge – Ann Montgomery, a Bubba appointee – insisted on a settlement of the lawsuit, which included cash dollars to be paid to the Muslims. They are being paid off for their hoax – for their “inconvenience” in being falsely arrested.

One of the imams, Marwan Sadeddin, confirmed that the financial settlement did not include any kind of an apology from the perpetrators of the hoax. But, he said, they acknowledged that “a mistake was made”.

So? Two tricks, two hoaxes, one in Colorado, one in Minnesota. In both cases, taxpayers paid the bills.

Do you think the idiotic Heene family will be compensated for all the trouble they were put through in perpetrating their hoax?

Or could it be that you need to be Muslim to get the courts to approve of your dangerous tricks, and pay you off, anyway?

I think it’s time to take the Statue of Liberty down. Thanks anyway, France. Nice idea, but it didn’t work. The ‘wretched refuse’ that washed up on America’s shores has taken over the country, pure and simple.

Justice? Forget it. Try insanity.