Posted on 02/01/2007 5:02:47 AM PST by Puppage
BOSTON -- Nine blinking electronic devices planted at bridges and other spots in Boston threw a scare into the city Wednesday in what turned out to be a marketing campaign for a late-night cable cartoon. At least one of the devices depicts a character giving the finger.
Highways, bridges and a section of the Charles River were shut down and bomb squads were sent in before authorities declared the devices were harmless.
"It's a hoax -- and it's not funny," said Gov. Deval Patrick.
Turner Broadcasting, parent company of Cartoon Network, said the devices were part of a promotion for the TV show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force."
"The packages in question are magnetic lights that pose no danger," Turner said in a statement. It said the devices have been in place for two to three weeks in 10 cities: Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Austin, Texas, San Francisco and Philadelphia.
"We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger," the company said.
Police said only that they were investigating where the device came from. The Department of Homeland Security said there are no credible reports of other devices being found elsewhere in the country.
An angry Mayor Thomas Menino said a stiff penalty will be pursued against whoever was responsible for the devices.
"It's about keeping a city on edge. It's about public safety," he said.
Authorities said some of the objects looked like circuit boards or had wires hanging from them.
The first device was found at a subway and bus station underneath Interstate 93, forcing the shutdown of the station and the highway.
Later, police said four calls, all around 1 p.m., reported devices at the Boston University Bridge and the Longfellow Bridge, both of which span the Charles River, at a Boston street corner and at the Tufts-New England Medical Center.
The package near the Boston University bridge was found attached to a structure beneath the span, authorities said.
Subway service across the Longfellow Bridge between Boston and Cambridge was briefly suspended, and Storrow Drive was closed as well.
Wanda Higgins, a 47-year-old Weymouth resident and a nurse at Massachusetts General Hospital, heard about the threat as she watched television news coverage while preparing to leave work at 4 p.m.
"I saw the bomb squad guys carrying a paper bag with their bare hands," Higgins said. "I knew it couldn't be too serious."
Messages seeking additional comment from the Atlanta-based Cartoon Network were left with several publicists.
"Aqua Teen Hunger Force" is a cartoon with a cultish following that airs as part of the Adult Swim late-night block of programs for adults on the Cartoon Network. A feature length film based on the show is slated for release March 23.
The surreal series centers on a talking milkshake (Master Shake), fries (Frylock) and a meatball (Meatwad).
The cartoon also includes two trouble-making, 1980s-graphic-like characters called "mooninites," named Ignignokt and Err -- who were pictured on the suspicious devices. They are known for making the obscene hand gesture depicted on the devices.
Ah - you've explained it: class envy.
Absolutely. The rest of the country is just itching to move to where they have no rights and have to cower in fear because they've lost the ability to think like free men. Why just the other day several of my colleagues were wondering how they could get transferred to NYC so that they could be represented by Hitlery and upChuckie. Of course no one wanted to move to Boston, because the rest of us think it's part of Quebec, but without the jolly party spirit nad friendly attitude that marks the rest of French Canada
Nah, it's just laughing at the stupidity of those who think they're superior to everyone else.
These "enlightened" people got into a panic over a lite brite.
Originally, I'm from western Massachusetts, and you haven't seen hostility aimed at Bostonians until you've lived west of 128.
F Menino, screw Boston.
a couple of Duracell batteries. does this sound like the work of undercover terrorist operatives?
------
How many of us know what to look for in a bomb. We do know that tiny cellphone batteries power bombs that have killed thousands of people. We do know that bombs can take many forms. We do know that there is a will of the terrorists to kill us and we do know that camps dedicated to the teaching of bomb making exist and produce hundreds if not thousands of bomb makers and most of do know that it was a very stupid, if not criminal, thing to do.
The next time we see something suspicious with blinking lights under your home or your car we'll just write it off a probably nothing.
Looking at these gizmos, I don't know that I'd have thought they were all that suspicious. But what policy message to we send about this?
Should we publicly humiliate everybody that reports something out of place if it turns out to be a false alarm? Should we not expect bomb squads to respond unless the caller says it "really, really" looks like a bomb, and ignore the ones that say it just looks "sorta" like a bomb?
We don't get to have it both ways. If *you* are walking along the mall and you see something *you* think is suspicious... and you call 911... what do you want them to do? Take you seriously or just blow it off? Should they take your name and say "if it turns out to be nothing serious we'll be able to publicly blame you for it". or maybe: "Walk up and kick it and tell us if anything happens. We don't respond to false alarms".
I don't think we'd like it if the motto of the bomb squad was "we only go out for real bombs". :-)
Here's a question:
Do we arrest these marketers because someone got the willies over some LEDs?
And how much commonsense does it take to realize that 'IEDs' would be less conspicuous, not blinkie cartoon characters making obscene gestures.
aqua teen hunger force mooninites neon sign
Bidding is up to $265.00.
It's about people not taking a joke, wanting to scream "Terrorism!" at the slightest oddity, and watching way too much "24".
Dealing with terrorism is one thing.
Looking for boogeymen is something else.
No, not if that's what really happened. But if after a few weeks of nobody getting particularly alarmed over these things in cities all over the country... they *themselves* called in the "suspicious device" reports all at once yesterday in order to raise a ruckus and get the free publicity?
Yes, then I'd think they should be arrested.
Think about it... for weeks these gizmos are sitting around in plain sight and apparently not getting much attention. Certainly not raising an alarm. But then one morning all of a sudden in the space of minutes there's six or more calls reporting a "suspicous device". All in different places in the city. What's the 911 operations center supposed to think? They've got to respond, and that response is just always going to be disruptive. You don't send out the bomb squad to an address without cordoning things off and closing streets.
The bomb squad doesn't have the luxury of hindsight until they've done their thing and found out what the gizmos are. I don't think officials did anything wrong here.
I do suspect that the calls were intended to create this reaction. It was a publicity stunt that wasn't getting any publicity. Now it is. Worked like a charm.
Quite.
Driving to work the last few days, there have been mentions of "fatality crash" in the morning traffic updates - said with no more feeling or comment than "stalled car". Actual fatalaties, nobody cares.
One silly blinking figurine and out come the lynch mobs.
How many of us know what to look for in a bomb.
http://www.siri-us.com/IEDBrief.ppt#1
here's a start, and also see my #97.
At a glance it's obvious they're a bunch of lights connected to a few batteries and a blinker.
This "but we don't KNOW" stuff has got to lighten up. If someone doesn't recognize something that obvious, further education is warranted.
"..so do not panic when you see a soda can.." Ding, Ding - We have a winner. I'm just astounded by the reactions on a supposedly 'conservative' site. Your comment hits the paranoia nail on the head, but you are surely going to get flamed. We gotta watch out for the children, don'tcha know.
Worth repeating.
If the public reaction was "whew, just a mistake, carry on" there wouldn't be an issue. Instead, people laughed - and so someone had to go to jail.
http://www.devilducky.com/media/56891/
Here is a great car bomb vid- you can see the air shock moving away.
If you freeze the vid at the beginning, you can see that there is nothing to give the nature of the thing away.
It would have been a great place to put a bomb, were one so inclined. Why? Because no one in their right mind would do that.
It still is, especially now, because no one in authority wants to look like an idiot, right?
At any rate, it looks like the ad campaign has been wildly effective. Now if the perp can just get out of jail and stay out of the red...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.