Well I feel I hell of a lot safer now.

So there's an Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie coming out. Nothing to be excited about, right? ATHF is dumb.

But some ad cats employed by Turner Broadcasting thought: let's market this thing by putting little electronic doohickeys all around ten major cities in the US.

And here's how it went. And here's what the deep thinkers at the Boston Globe editorial board think we oughtta do about it.

And here's what the thing looked like.

Ladies and Gentlemen: two Boston-area douchebags were arrested for strategic placement of circuit boards and LED's. As one commenter at this occasionally-funny but largely embarrassing and lazy Reason comment thread puts it:

Let me get this straight. The city of Boston is paralyzed in fear of Lite Brite?

This is why I moved to VA.

The newsmen have taken pains to mention that the police purportedly 'detonated' (i.e. blew up using their own bomb) at least one of the devices - presumably to discover that it was not, in fact, an explosive of any kind, as should presumably have been apparent to trained professionals from a couple of key facts:

• These stupid sculptures have been up all over the country for weeks now
• Bombs generally require explosive materials, I think
• Embarrassment, though contagious, is not explosive

The furor in the press is about wasted gov't resources, 'panic,' and the fear (among those in positions of authority) of embarrassment. The Globe editorial is a risible piece of moralizing hackwork:

Perpetrators of terror hoaxes can anticipate prison sentences of up to five years if apprehended. But potential criminal prosecution is only one consideration. The tricksters at Turner, a unit of Time Warner, Inc., should pay the bill for the consequences of its lame marketing gimmick.

Terrorism hoaxes are common. Two years ago, a drug addict and smuggler gave a fake tip about a terrorist incursion in Boston that led to another massive mobilization of law enforcement. In 2005, an angry deportee used a fake threat that forced officials to close a tunnel under Baltimore's harbor. Turner officials say their devices were never meant to be seen as threats. Yet they find themselves in bad company.

This was not, of course, a 'terror hoax,' at least not according to the several news reports that have already come out; prosecuting the two 'artists' for deliberately inciting public terror is disgusting, and would set a bad precedent for dealing with public electronic displays. (Do you realize there are complicated digital billboards and 'televisions' arrayed all...over...the...city?!!???!?.2/2d) These boards looked like IED's? Seriously?

Even when they lit up pretty colours?

The city reacted properly in this case, for the first few minutes, it looks like. We should be glad our first-response team is deadly serious; someone has to be. But Menino's government is now embarrassing itself and needlessly causing problems for its citizenry.

But restitution should be made by someone: that's the American way. How's this. If Turner foots the bill for deploying the Bomb Squad, I'll pay for Menino and the Globe editorial board to go into therapy. It can only help.

Comments

[Dr. Kenneth Noisewater]

I don't think I'm with you on the "first responders". I think if the cops had done their jobs correctly, this wouldn't have escalated into the fiasco that it did. Before the scare in Boston, these things were removed by cops and Public Works employees in other cities without much fanfare. No doubt every politician involved compounded the over-reaction, but I still think the cops overreacted as well. It shouldn't have landed on Menino's desk and in the media's lap to begin with.

I'll go a step further and say that the overreaction by the first-responders has demonstrated a weakness in their processes that might actually prove dangerous to all of us. Any would-be attacker has seen that the cops and firefighters are easily distracted by things that are clearly innocuous.