Marcus Mabry, international business editor for our partner, The New York Times, and Jonathan Marcus, diplomatic correspondent for our partner, the BBC, look at the week ahead, primarily at the violence in central Asia. They will also peek ahead at what's going to happen with Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Eastern Europe, and examine the latest on Afghanistan's election controversy and how that will affect the White House's decision on troop levels there. All that and how the latest bombings in Iran affect ongoing meetings about their nuclear program.

• Washington Takeout: Once again, health care reform conversations are happening behind closed doors. Takeaway Contributor Todd Zwillich drops by to tell us about Senator Conrad's (D-ND) possible lean toward the public option.
  
• Sports Takeout: We play a little Monday morning quarterback with The Takeaway's sports contributor, Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, as we look at a battle of undefeateds: the New York Giants and the New Orleans Saints. He also mentions a wild finish for Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings, and Tom Brady breaking the single quarter record for touchdowns.
• Listeners Respond: Last week's discussion on Sheriff Joe Arpaio and his anti-immigration sweep started a heated discussion on our website. We take a look at a piece of that discussion, as well as listener responses to how the economy has effected your values.

On Sunday, a suicide bomber killed at least 42 people in Iran, including five senior commanders of the powerful Revolutionary Guard. The Sunni guerilla group Jundallah, or 'Soldiers of God,' claimed responsibility for the attack.  This was the deadliest attack against this elite unit since a bombing in February 2007, which was also claimed by the same group. Despite Jundallah's claims, Iran is blaming the United States for the attacks. We dig into this accusation with Professor Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian Studies at Columbia University.

Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last five days, you've seen the “Balloon Boy” story, in which a Colorado family claimed that their 6-year-old son had climbed into a homemade helium balloon which then floated across the nation's television screens for the next four hours. When the balloon finally crash-landed, would-be rescuers discovered the boy had never been in the balloon, but had purportedly been hiding out in his family's attic. Over the weekend, the local sheriff accused the Heene family of deliberately hoaxing the public.

We’re joined by famous hoaxter Joey Skaggs; Skaggs has been pulling off hoaxes since the 1960s, and he claims that his website, The Art of the Prank, was one of the first to claim this as a hoax. He agrees that the Heene story feels like a scam and says it violates all the ethical rules of hoaxters.

Are there parenting lessons to learn from Spike Jonze's new movie, "Where the Wild Things Are?" New York Times blogger Lisa Belkin says Jonze's film, and the classic children's book that inspired it, could serve as guides for the parents of so-called wild boys. She joins Anthony Rao, child psychologist and author of "The Way of Boys: Raising Healthy Boys in a Challenging and Complex World," along with his co-author Michelle Seaton, to find the parenting lessons in Sendak's tale and Jonze's movie.

Read a chapter from Rao and Seaton's book in The New York Times' 'Motherlode' Blog: "When Time-Outs Don't Work."

A U.N.-backed election commission has determined that neither of the two leading candidates received a majority of votes. According to unnamed officials, President Hamid Karzai, the incumbent, has received 47 percent of the vote. That finding could result in a runoff between Karzai and his leading opponent, Abdullah Abdullah.

We speak with Ambassador Peter Galbraith to find out more about the election results. Until last month, he was the number two ranking official at the United Nations office in Kabul. He was abruptly recalled after pushing internally for the U.N. to take fraud charges in the Afghan elections more seriously. We're also joined by Alexander Thier, director for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

• Washington Takeout: Democrats on Capitol Hill continue pushing their campaign for health care reform. Takeaway Contributor Todd Zwillich drops by to tell us how the insurance companies are responding, and how the Democrats are hitting back.
• Business Takeout: Wal-Mart and Amazon are competing head to head for book sales by pricing their books below wholesale costs. Newsweek reporter Daniel Gross talks to us about why the two are locking horns, and what this means for readers.
• Sports Takeout: The Takeaway's sports contributor, Ibrahim Abdul-Matin, takes a look back at baseball's AL and NL championship series over the weekend and looks ahead to Game 3 of the ALCS between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Everyone’s talking about the "Balloon Boy": not just about the hoax, but about the Heene family in particular and reality TV families in general. What does Falcon Heene's story tell us about parenting in the spotlight, and about those people who want to parent in the spotlight? Kate Dailey, Health & Lifestyle editor for Newsweek.com, and Liz Gumbinner, from the blog Mom101, share their insights about reality TV, families and fame.

Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger shot to fame after safely landing a US Airways plane in the Hudson River last January. He's written a new book about the experience, "Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters," and talks to us about what went through his head in the seconds before the emergency landing and why he's using his new platform to advocate for other airline pilots.

This month, the U.S. Congressional Oversight Panel released a new report that looks at how effective goverment efforts have been at stemming the tide of foreclosures. It questions whether the U.S. Treasury's strategies will lead to permanent mortgage modifications for many homeowners, and expresses concern about the limited scope and scale of the Making Home Affordable program.

We talk with the chair of the panel, Elizabeth Warren, and Brian Murphy, who knows from first-hand experience the difficulties of modifying a home loan .