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Aqua Teen Hunger Force Brings Boston to a Halt
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."
...nerds get their pants pulled down and they are spanked with moonrocks.
Someone found one of the devices under a bridge last week and posted a few pictures to Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanderlin/tags/aquate enhungerforce/
-- Please insert another quarter
I salute our brave leaders for their quick and level-headed handling of the situation.
I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
That they spared Boston from the Quad-Laser.
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Frylock: You are not a prophet, Shake! So stop this madness!
Shake: Frylock, I cannot do that. God hath commanded that I do his will or the Earth will blow up!
Frylock: My ass he did!
Meatwad: God's gunna blow up the world?
Shake: Oh yeah, brutha! He ain't too pleased with YOU in particular, Meatwad!
Meatwad: ME?!
Shake: Oh yeah.... He saw you touchin' yourself--
Meatwad: I don't touch myself!
Shake: In the bathroom!
And then there was E
I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw this:
p ng
http://www.catastrophicerror.com/~endo/Ignignokt.
What has *science* done?!? -- Dr. Weird (ATHF)
"Paranoia strikes deep. Into your life it can creep."
-from "What It's Worth" -Buffalo Springfield
It really makes me sick that we're at the point where people mistake everyday things for bombs and have homeland security called in. I can't even ride my universities bus holding a wired up circuit board (for a class) without people looking at me like I'm about to blow them up.
Yes, because in Soviet America, anything outside normal trains of thought is illegal.
One of the articles I read said:
'Officials said it contained an electronic circuit board with some components that were "consistent with an improvised explosive device,"'
Okay, now, come on. These are really large circuit boards with a whole lot of LEDs soldered on to them. Nothing more, unless there are some other really messed up packages out there that haven't been reported on. Those officials sound like they have features consistent with smart police officers, in that they breathe and eat, but the similarities probably end there.
A friend of mine tried to tell the local FOX News affiliate.
They laughed him off.
Idiots.
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.
AccountKiller
" You have to take these all seriously, because who knows if they're threats or not?"
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.
Please don't try to justify this pathetic overreaction. We've become a nation of fearful neurotic idiots.
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.
Man, you really need that seminar!
Somebody set us up the bomb!
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
I saw this as I was coming into work this afternoon on our big screen (thank god for the military having most of their televisions permanently tuned to FOX NEWS for the "situational awareness" it provides...) and my jaw just dropped. It's really hitting me lately how much our country is changing, and there is very little that individuals can do about it. I feel like standing on top of a soap box and yelling at people till i'm blue in the face, but I know that's fruitless.
Wake up...
All your base are belong to Google.
what first grade did you go to?!?!
maybe i was ill that day...
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
Surprisingly only Boston had a problem with this when TFA mentions that these are up in 9 other cities. Likewise I've only heard Boston-based posters complaining about how this was irresponsible and something that obviously looked a lot like a bomb so it needed to be investigated.
In the second grade, they taught us to make pipe bombs. Important tips like not buying the pipe and caps at the same hardware store, paying cash for everything, how to make detonators from flashbulbs and clothespins, and so forth. You really missed out!
This is what happens when you've had 6 years of being told that the terrorists are out to kill every single last one of us in our beds.
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.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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.
qntm.org
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?
As part of my job, I leave electronic monitoring equipment for days or weeks in pubic places.
What type of sick experiment/fetish is going on there? To each their own...
Bandwidth exceeded. Placed back onto YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doD_VpT_yAY
Of course, with the police and such talking about nailing whoever did it to a cross, what a surprise that nobody stepped forward to quell the madness.
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.
CNN is running this article, but the picture has been edited out the offensive finger.
I find that interesting they will edit a "drawn" finger but will show blody dismembered bodies.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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The police apparently learned what bombs look like from hollywood movies and comic books.
The MPAA should definitely foot the bill.
Sooo, we should have detonated New Orleans?
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Likewise I've only heard Boston-based posters complaining about how this was irresponsible and something that obviously looked a lot like a bomb so it needed to be investigated.
I'm from Boston. I stood on the subway for a over an hour (normal ride time: 30 minutes or so) because of these dipshit "indie" artists that did this for Turner. Check out one of their websites. Wow, aren't they cool? They know how to use animation programs, video projectors, video cameras, and have dreadlocks. They use pen-names that sound uber-cool, and lots of hip artist-y language.
They should have heard the language on the subway when the conductor announced we'd be delayed because Sullivan Station was shut down on account of "a suspicious package."
Their stunt shut down 93 North, the orange line, several Charles River bridges (which are heavily trafficked.) These idiots planted electronic devices on private and public property, something they knew they shouldn't do, over-reactions from police aside. Let's be absolutely clear here: these clowns had zero business putting this stuff on property that wasn't theirs and they knew it, but decided to ignore that, because this whole thing probably made them some pot money.
One of them is sitting in jail, as of about half an hour ago. Let's see how he likes being inconvenienced.
Please help metamoderate.
Real IEDs do not have flashing lights or a ticking clock on them, unlike the movies would have you believe.
How anyone could confuse these things for anything dangerous makes me wonder how incredibly stupid the people in charge of our security really are.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
...the Scooter Libby trial, where "copies of handwritten notes by Vice President Dick Cheney, introduced at trial by defense attorneys for former White House staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, would appear to implicate George W. Bush in the Plame CIA Leak case". http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/013107Z.shtml
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.
Oppressing an entire population is never cheap.
--Jeckler (/. Beta IS GARBAGE!)
...it only took a hours to blow up a LiteBrite but it took weeks to respond to a devastating hurricane?
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?"
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Well, he did say it was for "Project XXX"!
> I'm from Boston. I stood on the subway for a over an hour (normal ride time: 30 minutes or so) because of these dipshit "indie" artists that did this for Turner.
:]
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?
Pipe bombs? Ha! in the thirth grade they taught us to make NBC weapons! My bird flu even made the news all around the world. Well, biocontainment wasn't taught before grade four...
I distinctly remember going to school aged 6 or 7 in Northern Ireland as a dependant of a British military personel toward the mid 1980s and being having a regular 'security' class taken by someone in combat fatigues every week (IE someone from the military). In that class we were shown explosive device designs in use by the IRA at that time - pipe bombs, nail bombs et al, anything we should not ever touch in any circumstance if we found.
I also went to school in Berlin toward the end of the 1980s (yes, I was there for the wall coming down) and there were adverts on TV (BFBC iirc) that detailed carbombs and how to check for them, along with what to look out for with regard to suspicious persons.
Some of us grew up in a security climate vastly worse than the current one. And no, Im not the AC above.
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.
so free hookers and blow for everybody!"
We're all in the wrong business, aren't we?
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