Aqua Teen Hunger Force Brings Boston to a Halt 804
An anonymous reader writes "An ad campaign for Aqua Teen Hunger Force featuring the Mooninites Ignignot and Err caused major security concerns in Boston, MA when magnetic light displays were mistaken for possible bombs. The displays included one of Ignignot flipping the bird (as hard as he could), but Gov. Deval Patrick was not amused."
Who's the @**hole now! (Score:2, Insightful)
Isn't it funny that.... (Score:1, Insightful)
OMG! Wires and Circuitboards! (Score:4, Insightful)
Damn you Aqua Teen Hunger Force! You have DOOMED America!
Homeland Insecurity (Score:5, Insightful)
-from "What It's Worth" -Buffalo Springfield
Re:Reasonable suspicion (Score:2, Insightful)
The bottom line is, in times like these and in a major city like Boston, you have to take everything seriously.
Look at the pictures posted of one of these things - they have a row of D-batteries covered in duct tape. It looks very much like a bomb with a stupid figurine on them. And these things were found in somewhat suspicious locations - on the side of a bridge's concrete support columns, for instance. It's reasonable to expect the police react with suspicion after seeing a strange, jury-rigged little electronic device under a bridge.
State of our Country (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Reasonable suspicion (Score:4, Insightful)
There's being cautious and there's being retarded.
Re:As a Bostonian (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because in Soviet America, anything outside normal trains of thought is illegal.
Re:Reasonable suspicion (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right. If I ever need to blow up a bridge or something, I'll make sure not to disguise the bomb as a discarded cardboard box. Instead I'll make it flash wildly, so nobody notices.
The "You have to take all threats seriously" argument presupposes that either (a) wildly blinking objects with bird-flipping aliens on them are significantly more potentially dangerous than common refuse, or (b) any piece of common refuse should be treated as a threat and lead to bridge shutdowns and bomb squads and pissed-off governors. I can't see either of these being true (though the second one sure would help with the litter problem).
What the....... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the USA, home of Paranoid Freaks! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:As a Bostonian (Score:5, Insightful)
I live in Boston, and I can say that the day was very tense.
Why? Because the media put out a big scare story that turned out to be nothing?
which you'd expect no matter what when dealing with batteries and unknown electronics in a sneaky location in a heavy traffic area
Maybe you should just stop paying attention to every little scare mongering story that gets released. Personally I'd direct some attention over to the media outlets for publishing a story with no information, who's only result was to un-necessarily scare people. A few weeks ago it was a strange smell in NYC that everyone assumed was the work of terrorists. I'm sure there's about 20 other stories I'm missing because...I've stopped paying attention to these junk stories.
Stupidies thing I've heard, ever. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I do. It's obvious that a beer sign, light bright, or flickery street light are not bombs, although you and apparently others in Boston don't know this.
" I'm mad as hell about this ad campaign because when it comes time to pay for all the police activity today, you can bet your ass Ted Turner won't offer to foot the bill."
He shouldn't foot the bill. Any jerk could tell those signs aren't bombs. Turner doesn't owe dick for the local po' being stupid and overreacting.
Re:Isn't it funny that.... (Score:0, Insightful)
The whole thing is so STUPID (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone wants to blow up a bridge, they will blow it up. They can strap dynamite to their torso and hug support beams. They can drive an explosive-filled car into a stanchion. They can fill a boat with fertilizer and float underneath. No matter how much we freak out over nothing, no matter how many times we give up our rights, take off our shoes, and do other retarded inappropriate useless things.
Even if we were dealing with a coward terrorist who wasn't willing to commit his life, you wouldn't see something with wires and batteries sticking out. It'd be out of sight, or look like garbage.
It's such an irrational fear. How many people have been killed in the past hundred years in the US by little boxes with wires and batteries sticking out? How many have been killed by auto wrecks? It's jaw-droppingly lame, and it's getting worse. We'd be better off panicking about ceiling fans, lightning bolts, or bunions.
We don't even need terrorists anymore. All it takes to shut down a city is cowering, whimpering, losers afraid of their own shadow.
After seeing the photographs I think I'd be pissed (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously if anything that looks suspicious with me. They placed the devices all over the city and didn't tell anyone? And they thought it was ok?
I'm sure the expense just with bomb squads and shutting down the interstate is beyond prohibitive (Trust me, I lived in Boston, shutting down any street in Boston = hell).
This sounds like something that cartoon network would do but hell if it isn't the type of stupid ass stuff that people aren't thinking about but can cause a major problem. Sounds like someone's getting a pink slip.
Such a crying shame. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wake up...
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:5, Insightful)
Only Boston (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:State of our Country (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:4, Insightful)
I know it's fashionable to complain about these things now, but war on terror or not, this was unnecessary and dumb. It could have been done in any number of ways that did not involve bringing Boston to a halt in the middle of the day. I think the response was the correct one and I hope that if this ever happens in my city the response is exactly the same.
And if these bored TV execs thought about it for more than five seconds and didn't do this - then the terrorists are winning as well? I think not. This is about common sense and basic civil responsibility.
Re:Reasonable suspicion (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because our immaculately clean cities have such a serious shortage of more innocuous hiding places, right? Like, say, garbage... Why, I can't even recall the last time I saw a discarded beat-up large cardboard box while visiting Boston.
Hiding in plain sight might work well for ninjas, but we mere mortals should stick to diving for the closet or under the bed when the parents/jealous hubby/mormons come to the door.
The bottom line is, in times like these and in a major city like Boston, you have to take everything seriously.
No. "In times like [foo]" and "in places like [bar]" never count as a good reason. Every generation in the history of the planet, and every city to ever plague the face of the Earth, has believed that it had some magically unique set of trying circumstances.
"These times" represent more of a norm than an abberation therefrom. Get used to it, and just thank Zeus every day you don't live in the West Bank or Mosul or any of the abundance of other places we only know about because the daily news keeps reminding us of how much life there sucks.
Look at the pictures posted of one of these things - they have a row of D-batteries covered in duct tape.
Have you ever seen anything more "bomb-like" than an M-80?
A few D-battery-sized wads of high explosive, detonated in an open area (not the same as a shaped charge or a capped bore-hole!), would do nothing. Someone who happened to touch it at the moment of explosion might get killed, but it wouldn't do much better than that.
When you hear about suicide bombs going off in markets and mosques in Iraq, these involve large backpacks or even vehicles stuffed to the brim with explosives. And they still usually only manage to take out, in a crowd, a dozen people!
While the average Joe may believe what they see on CSI or 24 or whatever they have as the joke-of-a-cop-drama of the season, a real bomb-squad should have a hell of a lot better training than that.
Stupid Government (Score:2, Insightful)
It seems like everything these days that is out of the ordinary is now suspected to be terrorism. I thought republicans were for smaller more efficient government, not for overbearing, bloated, and stupid government. It is amazing how over the last 5 years; the feds managed to fuck up a perfectly good country.
Re:Reasonable suspicion (Score:5, Insightful)
What if? What if someone suddenly replaced the bridges with an exact replica only it wasn't a bridge, it was actually a chameleon nuclear bomb. And what if the police didn't notice? What then eh? What then?
The "what if" argument fails because it immediately deviates from the actual fact, into the fantasy realm of the author.
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:5, Insightful)
The next time you're about to say "if you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about" remember this story, and think about some wacky cartoon guys trying to have a little fun. They are now being threatened with who-knows-what just because we've got leaders that piss themselves at the thought of islamoliberalnazis coming in the night to rape their women, cut their throats and give their kids video games with pictures of naked breasts.
There is a serious downside to buying into the current wave of fear-mongering being perpetrated in this country. I understand that they're doing it to make us easier to govern, but it's going to have consequences that the powers that be cannot imagine. One of those consequences is that we're starting to seriously think our leaders are knuckleheads. And cowards.
Re:Reasonable suspicion (Score:5, Insightful)
As some other people said, this is just a media event (unless of course, the people involved really are retarded). I hate to break it to people, but there is very little that we can do to stop dedicated terrorists, whether those terrorists are Muslim fundamentalists, the next Timothy McVeigh, or a group of teenagers who are pissed at their classmates. If we try to prevent terrorism from happening by jumping at shadows or taking away freedom, we aren't going to make any progress and will probably just create more terrorists. Does anyone else think that there will be a minor backlash of ATHF graffiti and copycat light ads now that this happened? Hell, I'd almost expect a terrorist to make a bomb in the shape of these ads, but that would be kinda counter productive because it would prove these security freaks right.
Re:Reasonable suspicion (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Homeland Insecurity (Score:5, Insightful)
"It starts when you're always afraid"
Re:First thought (Score:2, Insightful)
Reasonable vs. unreasonable concerns (Score:3, Insightful)
There are places where it's normal to find LEDs, wires, and electronic components, such as, oh, say, on monitors, keyboards, mice, computers, cell phones, and so on. And then there are places where it's not normal to find electronics, such as on unrecognizable devices attached to bridges, and on subway walls.
There is normally no need to be unduly alarmed about the former. Like it or not, there is a need to be alarmed about the latter, at least to the point of taking prudent measures to check it out as they did.
And it's not like we haven't seen an innocent marketing ploy turned into a security concern before [msn.com], though I think this one is way more stupid. At some point, these idiotic marketing companies have to figure out that at some point, someone needs to ask the question, "Is this something that could reasonably cause security problems for people who don't look at the world as one huge billboard?"
I realise you're being facetious, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's your problem. A bomb does not "look like a bomb". People think a bomb is a bundle of sticks of dynamite with a bright red digital timer, preferably bleeping. But bombs don't look like that.
Re:Such a crying shame. (Score:2, Insightful)
I may get modded flame, but I don't care.
Here's something that you. Don't work for the military/defense department that is ruining the world. If no one worked for them, they wouldn't be able to do anything.
When you're working with stuff that kills other people, it's not "just a job."
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:4, Insightful)
So it the person who called this in - they should be charged for the mess.
Bullshit. Someone (most likely someone who's never even heard of ATHF, much less knows what a Mooninite is) saw an an odd-looking device attached to a potentially suspicious target and reported it. The bomb squad blew one up, and investigated the others. Yes, some roads and bridges were closed, but the city wasn't evacuated, the national guard wasn't called out, no one was rounded up. By the time I heard about this, it was already over. The system worked the way it should.
Turner, on the other hand may have something to answer for. As part of my job, I leave electronic monitoring equipment for days or weeks in pubic places. Even before 9/11, I knew better than to do so without informing the authorities - if I can't inform someone in charge, I attach a note to the device saying "this is a sound monitoring device for project XXX. If you have any questions, call John Smith at (617) 555-8944." I have heard from many colleagues who did not take these steps, and had their $5000 devices blown up by the bomb squad (again, this stuff was happening before 9/11).
If Turner took these steps, and officials got their wires crossed, then yes the authorities obviously overreacted. But if the city wasn't informed, the city took all the right steps. Did you expect the authorities to just ignore the devices because they looked cute?
Re:Gentlemen...BEHOLD! (Score:3, Insightful)
I also live in Boston, and while I wasn't too thrilled about the whole thing, whoever called in the complaint is an idiot. The bomb squad, even more so. The media aren't exactly blameless, either; this wasn't exactly a difficult story to crack.
You can't make society bomb-proof, and you'll sacrifice too much in the process of trying. Hopefully we'll learn that someday.
Re:Reasonable suspicion (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Reasonable vs. unreasonable concerns (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Reasonable suspicion (Score:5, Insightful)
Uhhh...
They placed cute flashing animated signs in various locations around three cities. According to some accounts, they did this two weeks ago, and Boston just now got around to noticing enough to throw a hissy-fit.
And you call this "terrorism"? The only "terrorists" here sit on the city council and behind news anchor desks at the local media. The advertising firm at worst failed to get the proper permits. Whoop-de-do. Fine them $50 and let's all get on with our lives.
I don't really find it funny that a large chunk of taxpayer's money is being spent investigating what is effectively a burning paper bag full of doo doo.
Well, we agree on that much. And I sincerely hope the people of Boston throw the clueless fearmongers in city hall out on the streets as a result.
Also Aqua Teen Hunger Force sucks. there. i said it. god.
Again, we agree completely. But I'll defend their right to free speech to my death.
Re:Isn't it funny that.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:5, Insightful)
It was a stupid stunt, with a moronic response by the authorities. It also worked 100%, due to how moronic the response of the Boston authorities was. There's a difference between quickly closing down the immmediate area, investigating the sign while doing so, and then discontinuing the closures after the all clear, and what they did. They closed everything in a wide area, called in heavily armed units, caused considerable panic, and then gave the all clear while screaming about throwing whoever did it in the abyss. In other words, the decision makers acted like irrational mental cases screaming at the invisible monsters from space rather than calm intelligent people dealing with a potential dangerous situation.
Re:Reasonable suspicion (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:2, Insightful)
pissed off at whom?
The people who pulled this 'stunt' in 9 cities, or the people in just *one* city who decided that igniknot flashing the bird was some kind of threat?
Re:As a Bostonian (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:1, Insightful)
What a bunch of scared little girls we Americans have become. Not content to take threats at face value, we have to feed the scare machine at every opportunity.
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:2, Insightful)
Cops are humans, and they're not psychic. I'd rather they DIDN'T go after every strange report they get. I mean, in this case, as someone pointed out, what kind of idiot bomber would make his bombs FLASHING? That should send a signal to the cop's brain that says "This report is highly suspicious. I'd better at least send a nearby cop to look at the scene before I send out the cavalry."
On rare, rare occasions, yes, tragedy might strike when that looney report turns out to be true, but... tragedy happens all the time. And I'd rather the cops be on call to respond to a REAL emergency.
Terror-ism (Score:3, Insightful)
"No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices" -- Edward R. Murrow [wikipedia.org]
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Dumbest thing I've read in years.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the way they justify all their bullshit.
"Behavior consistent with terrorist actions."
"Associations with well-known terrorists."
etc
When those vague phrases are the best they can do it means they don't have a shred of meaningful evidence but they want to scare people into thinking they do, so their authority won't be questioned.
Dude. (Score:5, Insightful)
How anyone could confuse these things for anything dangerous makes me wonder how incredibly stupid the people in charge of our security really are.
Re:Reasonable suspicion (Score:4, Insightful)
For a lot of the people in power, the reason they keep parroting the whole "terrorist" possibility (much like the communist scare of years gone by) is so that they can have even more power. They think that if they can keep the populace frightened enough, they will be able to justify keeping themselves in office indefinately and being able to act with impunity.
In addition, it's a great way to distract people from how badly things are going in the economic and civil rights arenas.
It's like the old saying says - power corrupts, and these people have way too much power and far too few scruples.
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:3, Insightful)
Beats the hell out of talking about... (Score:5, Insightful)
If there's one thing you can rely on, it's bad news for the Adminstration being accompanied by a hyped-up terror scare that turns out to be nothing.
Re:The whole thing is so STUPID (Score:5, Insightful)
Become????
sorry my friend we have been that way for a really long time, at least 4 generations now. Histroy has recorded this quite clearly. Last time it was communism.
Re:from a Bostonian (Score:2, Insightful)
Fixed that for you.
Re:As a Bostonian (Score:3, Insightful)
The less we know, the more people's imaginations go wild, like apparently yours did.
If you're comparing a frickin plane crashing into the WTC to someone finding a lite-brite connected to a battery, I guess I can't help you. The media now goes on full-alert anytime there's ANYTHING that's not immediately explainable as not-terrorism. Are you really trying to tell me you're still willing to keep believing them at this point because "it might just be real"? Exactly how does getting all paranoid and frightened help anyone?
Re:Isn't it funny that.... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is insightful?
Would the "weeks" it took to respond to Katrina include the Coast Guard flying of people off of their rooftops the same day the storm blew through? Or are you thinking more about the days in advance of that hurricane that the mayor of that town and the governor of that state wasted in not actually evacuating the city's residents (you know, the ones not complying with the evacuation order) with their sitting-idle fleet of buses? Why talk about response to a major disaster when you can talk about the choice to live below sea level where hurricanes regularly hit, and then not leaving town when you're told to?
Doesn't matter. You're obviously a trolling twit. Or, you're serious, and also say completely non-non-sequitorish things like, "Isn't it funny that poor people get cancer when the NSA now has ways to back up petabytes of data in a drinking straw?"
Re:Isn't it funny that.... (Score:2, Insightful)
The real point was that we prioritize terrorist threats that don't exist above all else and put real problems (Katrina, minimum wage, health care, education) well below it. Sorry you didn't get that.
We spend lots money to be able to defuse a benign, blinking LED toy within a few hours, but we don't spend the same kind of money to fix a devastated region in the United States within a year.
Go to Flickr and search for "new orleans destruction" and sort by recent. It's been almost a year and a half and there are still neighborhoods that are completely leveled.
Re:Reasonable suspicion (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:State of our Paranoid Law Enforcement (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Reasonable suspicion (Score:3, Insightful)
and when you want the Geek out of the picture, you show him something shiney...that ticks.
all that the driver sees on the road or under the bridge is something that is almost but not quite right: movement, a flashing light, that has no good reason for being there.
Re:State of our Country (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:from a Bostonian (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the authorities shut down everything, in a massive overreaction to what was obviously an art project or a harmless prank.
My first thought on seeing a big flashing LED display attached to a bridge would be "Ah, MIT students playing again." I'm seriously surprised the Boston police didn't consider that the explanation. Are they unaware of all the previous MIT pranks?
From an American (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude, grow a pair instead of getting pissy because you got stuck on the subway for a few minutes.
Some dumbass got freaked out by a glorified Lite Brite. I hate to break this to you, but circuit boards don't explode, nor do LEDs, nor do Duracell D cell batteries, nor do wires. If your city gets this freaked over nothing, any sensible terrorist would just plant a bunch of hoaxes and laugh while you all piss yourself.
You don't want to help the terrorists win, do you?
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:4, Insightful)
A filing cabinet left out on a sidewalk would be overlooked for weeks in some parts of Boston and most other cities, and yet pose a much more significant danger.
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:3, Insightful)
Perfectly rational political human reaction. Ugly stupid and weak, but perfectly rational.
The War is Over (Score:2, Insightful)
Oooh! Ohhh! I KNOW! (Score:3, Insightful)
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!
And we'll stick them on bridges and buildings.
Lets see the morons flip out and call THEM bombs.
Then we can ask them, "Why do you hate America?" and "Why don't you support our troops?"
And then their heads go all asplody like.
Re:Man Arrested In Marketing Stunt (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm curious what they could actually charge these people for, considering it's often intention to harm that's considered in these cases.
Vandalism, or posting bills or something else.
Once the smoke's clear, the trial will likely end up making the police and city government look stupid. That is, assuming the judge and jury acts reasonably on people that aren't evil criminals.
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, let's look at terrorism from the point of view of your Joe Sixpack Homeland Security Officer (JSHSO), or any other dude from the executive branch of the govt., They sit all day on their asses (a lot more positions were created after 9/11), get payed loads of money (more $$$ was budgeted for war on terror) and are waiting for the terrorists to attack. Well, according to the probability mentioned above, the chance of a large terrorist attack is very slim, and JSHSO is getting pretty bored. He was trained to sniff out terrorists, pop their eyes out and skullfuck the empty sockets. So are we really that surprised that they will see terrorists in every Middle Eastern person, a bomb in every blinking light, and will pull the 'OMFG! TERRORISTS ARE COMING!' trigger on every shadow. This gets their blood going, they get a high when they get to close down half a city. Then they realize how stupid they are and arrest someone so they can turn them into a scapegoat. This justifies their job position, they get to go home at the end of the day and tell their kids that 'Daddy stopped Osama today, he disarmed bombs with blinking lights that had nazi jihadists flicking Americans off'
It is pretty obvious that the terrorists already won. They wanted us to be do this and we are doing it. It is about time to smarten up. If we really want to live longer and safe, we should not smoke, drive more carefully, watch what we eat, watch our step when we get in and out of the shower and other stuff like that.
Re:Dude. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because a bomb doesn't need flashing lights or ticking clocks don't assume for a second that something fitting that description is harmless. Darwin awards aside, I'd just as soon not see you get hurt.
How quickly people seem to forget events such as the Oklohoma bombings or 9/11. Just because Cmdr Cookoo in the Whitehouse uses terrorism as an excuse to push through crazy laws to restrict our freedom doesn't mean that terrorism is not a very, very real threat. The american dream of some zero-vigilance 1950's utopia died long ago, if it ever existed. Modern ballistics and bomb chemistry have irreversibly changed the survival traits for societies.
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you wear an earthed metal hat whenever you go out and the weather's a bit dodgy? Have you plastered your children and housepets in flexible Faraday cages?
Go look up the chances of being killed in a terrorist attack, and then the chances of being hit by lightning.
If you always wear lightning-proof headgear and earthed metal underwear in the rain, then rant away.
If not, your response is fact-free, emotion-not-intelligence-prompted horseshit caused by media over-reporting and sensationalising that has no place in a serious debate.
Seriously - what the fuck makes idiots assume that just because three people got killed by terrorists in Buttfuck, Arkensas that suddenly now everyone has to have chips in their heads and hand in their genitals for safe keeping by the government?
Look up the statistics - you're more likely to be hit by lightning than killed in a terrorist attack. So if you don't spend the same amount of time worrying about lightning as you spend worring about "t3h T3rr0R1sTs!!11!1!" you're being a nervous jumpy fuckwit.
Re:Stupidies thing I've heard, ever. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:3, Insightful)
My favorite quote: "It had a very sinister appearance," [Attorney General Martha] Coakley told reporters. "It had a battery behind it, and wires."
Unlike most illuminated signs where the bulbs light up without power or wires...
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:4, Insightful)
And I would expect it to go something like "Holy shit, that ad campaign got more attention that we ever DREAMED it would! The resulting increased receipts from the ATHF movie more than cover the cost of the fines we had to pay, so free hookers and blow for everybody!"
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:5, Insightful)
We're all in the wrong business, aren't we?
Re:Man Arrested In Marketing Stunt (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this is showing we have so many (some stupid) laws on the books, that no matter what you do, or do not do, if someone wants you arrested and charged, you can and will be.
Re:Who's the @**hole now! (Score:4, Insightful)
The only fine that is justified here is for the trespassing and vandalism. Nothing more than that should be paid. Let the idiots who decided this was a hoax (it was NOT a hoax) and the idiots that decided it was a bomb (it was NOT a bomb and didn't even look anywhere near like a bomb ... as determined by officials in some other cities like Seattle) pay the fine. Or better yet, let them lose their jobs so people can come visit Boston some day in the future knowing that the city isn't going to overreact.
No bomb needed (Score:3, Insightful)
The terrorist's handbook is probably being re-written as you read this. Remember, their goal isn't actually to kill people so much as it is to create the panic that you might be killed. The ensuing panic causes far more economic damage than the loss of lives does. And incompetent government officials like those in Boston just play right into it. Now the terrorists know an all new way to create panic, thanks to the Boston Police.
Re:from a Bostonian (Score:4, Insightful)
NO ... you stood on the subway for over an hour because your city is run by a bunch of incompetent jackasses that only know how to overreact and create a panic over a bunch of blinking lights that had been there for days with no problems. You stood on the subway for over an hour because someone saw that one of these signs was flipping the bird and them and got pissed off and called in (on a payphone) to the city and claimed it was a bomb (this act being the hoax act).
You'll probably have a lot more of this in Boston in the future, too, if you don't admit that it is the fault of the city and do what it takes to get some major turnover to get some competent people running the place. Remember, it didn't cause a panic in any of the several other cities they showed up in. The rest of the country is laughing at Boston and all those headless chickens in police uniforms running around. The feeling you should have right now is one of embarassment and shame (if you're supporting those city people that did this).
No it didn't. The devices were there for days. And they were in other cities, too. It was the stupid incompetent police/city officials that shut things down. The rest of us are laughing at Boston.
He should be there for trespassing and vandalism. That's the first crime that was done. The next crime was days later, and was done by some yet-unnamed incompetent city official who, unlike his counterparts in other cities, doesn't have a clue. The police really arrested this guy to try to cover up their own incompetence.
Re:Flashing Lights and/or Whirligigs. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:First thought (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? My first thought was that this was genius because for the cheap cheap price of assembling these and hiring someone to set them up they've gained untold millions of dollars worth of free press. And the best part is that with their target audience (18-34 males), they've come off in an incredibly good light. You see, the vast majority of their audience have read all these stories and said "haha, police are dumb, this is just an ad for a cartoon on Adult Swim, hey I might check that out."
Well played Cartoon Network.