Waste Products: Why Hippies Aren't Just Harmless Pranksters

I think the City of Boston's incredible overreaction cost the City of Boston $500k. Before the city went on high alert, shouldn't they have checked to see if these things were, you know, dangerous. Looking at them, they look like a "Lite-Brite", not an IED, plus these things didn't pop up overnight, some had been sitting out for days. It reminds me of the anthrax attacks back in 2001. The military gym I worked out at would evacuate the place at the slightest hint of any powdery substance anywhere. So what you would have was a bunch of folks in gym clothes out in the freezing cold because somebody spilled some talcalm and didn't clean it up right away.

Before the city went on high alert, shouldn't they have checked to see if these things were, you know, dangerous.

Unless the authorities have ESP, it costs the same amount of money to find out if it is safe as it does to find out if it is dangerous.

The fact that these devices were sitting out for a few days before anyone made a serious inquiring is what bothers me.

I really hope these two knotheads spend a few months in jail. I don't think it will teach these two anything, but it may set an example for others who might be considering something similar.

A few days? These things were laying around ten major cities for a few weeks. And Boston was the only one to flip out.

These sorts of fearful knee jerk responses help the terrorists. The Boston PD, in shutting down roads and riling up it's populace provided aid to the enemy.

Fear the Lite-Brite!
If that's what it's come to, the terrorists have already won.

Prior to 9/11, two ex-security people ran a security check (video-taped) through the Logan Air Terminal. They documented the many ways terrorists could use our lax security measures to our detriment. They delivered this tape to dear Mr. Kerry, who sluffed it off. Fast forward a year or two and 9/11 happened. There is a reason the bad guys pick Massachusetts for their dirty work. I'm glad Massachusetts DID SOMETHING but am worried it took so long to notice these devices, and, now, they might once again sit on their hands while bad stuff happens.

I heard a report on the news this morning that a Cartoon Network staffer heard about this and sent the knuckleheads an email telling them to stay quiet about it...

Kind of looks like a young Steve Jobs and a middle aged Bill Gates after refractive surgery and a couple of months in Montego Bay.

These sorts of fearful knee jerk responses help the terrorists. The Boston PD, in shutting down roads and riling up it's populace provided aid to the enemy.

I suppose you have a point. The overall reaction does seem to be a bit over-the-top.

But that doesn't excuse these two knotheads.

The dreadlocked yahoo would fit right in in the People's Republic of Austin, Texas, which did something similar a few weeks ago when cops found a few dead birds in the street downtown. They closed off the central business all morning, in case it was some sort of bio terrorism, and went in in moonsuits. Cost some businesses a lot of money.

ugh, hippies.

These sorts of fearful knee jerk responses help the terrorists. The Boston PD, in shutting down roads and riling up it's populace provided aid to the enemy.

I suppose you have a point. The overall reaction does seem to be a bit over-the-top.

But that doesn't excuse these two knotheads.
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Before planting the devices, shouldn't said clowns have notified the police? It would have been something if caught in the act, lethal force had been used to stop them. The message of the device is the kind of taunt we might expect, just before releasing a deadly agent.
Grow up.

I had heard that this marketing campaign took place in several other major cities, and that only Boston freaked out.

Not sure if that's true, but the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

First off, the signs in the other cities were different and placed in different places. For example, one of the Atlanta signs was on the side of an office building in a trendy neighborhood. The first one discovered in Boston was hanging under 93, a major traffic artery, above a public transit station. If you've never been in Sullivan Square, you really don't know what you are talking about. It looked like a circuit board with batteries and wires. This is an example of what part of one looked like.
http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger/8187/364/1600/713108/ied.jpg
Since the Boston Police Department is not staffed with potheads living off of their parents, they did not recognize the obscure cartoon character.
These devices were left in all the places you would chose if your purpose was to paralyze Boston and the chaos that ensued proves that point.
It's easy to sit here and monday-morning-quarterback, we all do it. However, I refuse to second guess the Boston Police Department E.O.D. who will strap on padding and go straight into the very danger everyone else is fleeing from.
If the public safety officials in Boston don't treat every threat seriously, how will they stop the one that is real?
As far as security at Logan goes, on 9/11 that was handled by Globe Aviation Services Corp & Huntleigh USA Corp, not the BPD or the Mass State Police (although they have a barracks there).
We say that we should all have heightened awareness in this post 9/11 world. We spend tons of taxpayers dollars training these guys to look for danger on our behalf. Now people are beefing about overreaction. Make up your mind! What do you want?
There are 3 separately responsible parties. Turner Broadcasting who has stepped forward, apologized (big newspaper ads) and said they will write a check. Good. The New York marketing company, Interference Inc., which should suffer punative damages for telling those two morons to keep quiet. And the morons who showed up in court laughing. I want them to do a little time. Then we'll see who's laughing.

I cannot believe that people assumed there was anything wrong with this. It looks like a dumb ad, it acts like a dumb ad, and it was posted like a dumb ad. Anyone who looks at it and thinks that people would make a lit-up flashing bomb and post it in an obvious public area is a complete and utter retard, and blaming those who put it up is pathetic. The only people to blame in this are the people who called it in and the police who didn't just laugh them off.

Again people are commenting on things they know very little about.

Alsadius, how many "ads" in your city are posted in the support beams *under* a major highway. These aren't like billboards that you would see as you drove on the highway. Also, it was not lit up and it was not flashing. Based on what knowledge do you demean the public safety officials who responded to those calls? How's that arm chair?

I find it quite ironic that on a blog where respect for the military is strongly encouraged and expected there would be comments displaying such utter disrespect for the Boston Police Department E.O.D.

Under a major highway, but above a public transit station - it's not like it was hidden, it was still posted in a relatively prominent public place by the sounds of it(I haven't seen pictures of the area where it was placed, I'm just going by your description). And while I haven't seen a commercial ad placed in such a spot, I've seen plenty of other similar things - protest signs, Christmas lights, etc. - enough to know that it's probably something relatively normal.

My assumption of flashing was based on a comment that it was "waving" in one of the articles I read on the issue - normally when light-bulb art is waving, it's alternating between a few different modes, which means that the individual bulbs are flashing on and off. Nontheless, the point stands even if it wasn't - who sticks lights on a bomb?

That said, I can certainly understand the motivation of the police - in the one-in-a-million that it had been a bomb then they would have been in rather deep trouble, and even when it wasn't, they'd probably get irate comments about "What if it had been a bomb?" - that's the downside to democracy, sometimes decisions have to be made with stupid people in mind. Also, to make it clear, I'm not trying to insult the EOD guys - I have nothing but respect for someone who spends their career doing something I wouldn't do for five minutes - but rather the people who called them in and the citizens who called the police in the first place.

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