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Aqua Teen Stunt Costs Turner and Agency $2M
evw writes "The NYTimes reports that the Turner Broadcasting System and the ad agency responsible have reached a $2M settlement with the city of Boston and state and federal agencies that treated the light boards placed around the city as an act of terrorism (as covered earlier on /.) Half of the money is to cover direct costs associated with the response. The other $1M goes to 'goodwill funds' that will be used for response training and public outreach."
I'm sure I won't be the only person to reply and point out that hours of national TV exposure (and subsequent stories, etc) are worth at LEAST $2M. As they say, "no press is bad press.."
..and frankly, in the end, they may not have been liable for any of this anyhow.. since it was mostly just the Boston police/whomever being semi-retarded. But $2M is a small price to pay for the publicity they got, and now the goodwill of paying "more than their fair share" towards homeland security and what the authorities even term as "goodwill funds."
Furthermore, think about how many people (on the fringes of their target demographics) that hadn't heard of ATHF are now keenly aware of the show? With the movie coming up.. yea.. $2M is cheap.
FTFA: "Ms. Coakley said the amount was more than the state would have obtained through litigation. The settlement shields the companies from civil or criminal liability by state and local agencies, Ms. Coakley said."
Too bad ATHF jumped the shark a bit (IMHO) after season 3. And even more bad that the two poor schmucks working for the ad agency are still charged with crimes. They should be set free, and whatever moron phoned in a litebrite as a "bomb" (and the corresponding police moron who agreed with him) should be looking at potential liability. WTF is wrong with our government. Does anybody remember the post-9/11 homeland security debacle with Tom Ridge reccomending people use duct tape and plastic sheeting to protect themselves from terrorists.. and then several people dying by asphyxiating themselves in their own homes? The sad fact is that our society has become so stupid and centered around sensationalist events that terrorists don't even need to make bombs anymore.. just scatter throughout several major cities a few dozen briefcases with litebrites affixed to them, and watch the panic ensue.
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
I assume that's legalese for a bribe?
The NYTimes reports that the Turner Broadcasting System and the ad agency responsible have reached a $2M settlement with the city of Boston and state and federal agencies that treated the light boards placed around the city as an act of terrorism (as covered earlier on /.)
It may have cost them $2 million, but the amount of coverage (read: free advertising) they got for the upcoming ATHF movie is almost immeasurable.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
The ones who ordered and paid for the stunt face no charges, but the two guys who put them up as their job do.
What kind of dumbass assume that glowing lights = bomb?
A real bomb is never designed to make itself presentable/noticable. Only a dickhead terrorist would invite attention to a bomb. Am I the only one who see the logic in this?
(NB. I hail from Australia and as such am not used to paranoia, yet).
Lets start with the mayor, Mayor Menino. He's a fucking retard. A blowhole of political mumbo jumbo. Listen to some of his speeches.
:)
Mayor Menino cant take a joke. This is well established, just ask Opie and Anthony on XM sat radio and cbs radio... Who both lost their jobs as a result of saying that the mayor had died on the air during an April fools show. He wanted them fired, arrested, and their stations broadcasting license revoked.
He's doing the same again. As we all know, he has gone as far as to call the Ignignot and Err "Light Bright" displays as "Hoax bombs". A hoax bomb is not a random item left on various buildings. People often leave things around such as backpacks by accident. Are these hoax bombs?
A hoax bomb is something that looks like a bomb. Perhaps toilet paper rolls painted red with a calculator crudely wired to them. That is a hoax bomb.
These were fucking "Light Brights" with artwork on them. No anonymous phone calls to the police saying "look out, we're the mooninites and we're gonna blow the fuck out of your city... we're everywhere!" That would be a hoax bomb situation.
These are billboards.... posters... fucking light brights.
2million isnt a bad deal, considering the histerical free press they received. 70's hair cuts... are so fucking bad ass.
I'm glad they did this. It makes the Mayor of Boston look like a fucking moron. It makes the press look like fucking morons. It makes Adult Swim look funny and politically wise. This country needs a little fucking with. Adult Swim is evidence of it, that many people not only want to create counter culture experiences, but also seek them out because of the current ass twisted state of our society. We need a good fucking with, for our own good.
They weren't hoax bombs... they were silly light brights... and i want one
Watch Aqua Teen Hunger Force on Adult Swim. It's funny and full of random nonsense. These guys are my heros. Not only was it a great idea, but when it became a big stinking "hoax bomb" situation in dumb fuck Boston... It became a good opportunity to make fun of the press and that stupid fucking Mayor Menino.
Bravo... "and i'm doing this as hard as i can"
Surprised honestly..
I saw one of these "devices" (or one almost exactly like it) almost a year ago to the day on vacation in Seattle. Ya know what I did? I smiled. I smiled because it was a clever way to advertise (and because I knew what it was from). Nevertheless, when I looked at it I still would have realized it wasn't a bomb. It was flipping me off, not ticking.
If we painted all stupid people orange. Then we would know to just stay away from those ones.
It's part of what I call the "24" effect (after the Fox Network program 24).
More and more you see people's attitudes toward terrorism and law enforcement being molded by what they see on 24.
On 24, bombs all have blinking lights that count down.
On 24, Jack Bauer -must- torture the terrorist suspect -now- to stop the terrorist attack that is about to happen. No time for legal procedures, they must be stopped now!
People are starting to really believe that shit...
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
This incident just points up how vigilant we must be now that Everything Has Changed.
Now rationally no one would put a bomb, even a bomb the size of a D cell, on something with bright flashing lights in the shape of late-night cartoon characters because it would be totally obvious to even a mindless self-serving attention-hungry bureaucrat who can't take a joke and is afraid he/she (he) might end up looking like even more of a total chump if he admitted he/she (he) was taken for a chump...gasp...that making a bomb look this way would only attract undue attention; bored boarding school youths would steal them; bums would urinate on them; etc...
BUT say the terrorists: "since this is the last way anyone would ever expect us to plant a bomb, that makes it the perfect way to crush the unsuspecting infidel's vital infrastructure! Especially since our fiendish masterminds have just invented the most terrible explosive ever known to human kind, called ultramegatronium, that can level an entire bridge or airport with a single charge exactly the size and shape of D cell. Naturally we'd have to use ultramegatronium since a D cell full of any other explosive would be utterly pointless to use to try to use against a bridge or other permanent structure."
Now in the olden days they would have tried to conceal the bomb in a piece of trash, or encased in a bridge/building colored box, or hidden in a bag of groceries, or carried in a backpack, or driven in a car, or sewed up in the belly of an unusually large possum, or disguised to look like a rock, or a placed inside a bland piece of steel tubing, or wrapped up in a garbage bag, or carried by a bum they paid $5 for the job (with a $2 bonus for not urinating on it), or painted to look like a brick, or....you know, like that. BUT BUT BUT, these days we expect that all our bridges and buildings are going to get blown up in that manner, so random rocks and pieces of trash are immediately and necessarily suspect, and always disposed of in short order by the bomb squad. So you can't hide a bomb anymore. Instead, the bomb has to have bright flashing lights so people will ignore it.
Ha, but now we're on to 'em! So that scheme won't work anymore. Of course, they know that we're on to them so they have to go back to camouflage, except we know that they know that we know, so they're going to use bright flashing lights after all, except they also know that we know that they know that we know...
Anyway, the point is everything is probably a bomb made from ultramegatronium and you can never be too scared, and this proves the officials in charge of the hysteria aren't complete doofuses after all.
The fact is, THERE AREN'T MANY TERRORISTS. Terrorist attacks ARE NOT AND HAVE NEVER BEEN COMMON IN THE US. 9/11 happened because you cannot stop 9/11. Determined and resourceful people are trying to attack us, and, sooner or later, they will succeed. Terrorists could swallow explosives to get past security. They could use heat-seaking missles to hit jets. They could short a notebook battery and start a fire in the lavatory after stealing the fire extinguishers. They could open a cabin hatch in midflight.
We cannot stop terrorism. That's not to say that we shouldn't try to make it is difficult as possible for the terrorists. But we shouldn't become paranoid or live in fear trying to cover every last possibility. That's impossible. It would look like any other IED - some kind of timing or remote detonation device along with explosives. It doesn't really matter what it looks like, though, because it would be HIDDEN. You don't put explosives in plain sight - there's too much of a chance of them being discovered. You hide them in a vehicle, a mailbox, a trash can, or any of the millions of other out-of-sight places in a city. The point is that you don't put it in a public place at all. IT MAKES NO SENSE for terrorists to call attention to their devices with bright flashing lights. Whether or not individuals belieive that they are bombs, having your devices so plainly visible makes them infinitely easier to find and diffuse than if they were hidden.
Think of this from the police perspective: if you knew that bombs had been planted in your city, would you want them to be:
A - Brightly lit and placed in conspicuous locations
B - Nondescript devices (e.g. a cardboard box) hidden in trashcans or mailboxes
Which is easier to detect? Which is easier to find?
Opinion A: These things don't look like bombs.
Well duh. Only proper official bombs look like bombs. Well even that isn't true because that would suggest every explosive device has the same form/look. They don't. Bombs that are just designed to go boom just look like whatever shape suits their purpose best.
A bomb would contain some form of explosive. These make shift readerboard signs didn't have anything on them that looked like they had anything to do with bombs as they had NO INCENDIARIES.
Bombs are designed to go boom, but their shape affects how they go boom. For example, a firecracker is chaped in such a way that it makes a loud noise. A bottle rocket is shaped so that it gets propelled. Other rockets contain a payload of balls of power. If you take the contents of a firecracker and ignite it, you get a flash not a boom sound.
These things looked like reader boards. Near as I can see, they had no timmer circuits on them, no connection to a primer or payload. I couldn't even spy a photoelectric cell, would would have been handy to keep them lit at night only. I.E. not bomb like in the slightest.
Plus the fact that explosives tend to have weight beyond plastic, a few batteries, and a slew of LEDs.
Only a moron would think that this was a bomb.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Well duh. Only proper official bombs look like bombs. Well even that isn't true because that would suggest every explosive device has the same form/look. They don't. Bombs that are just designed to go boom just look like whatever shape suits their purpose best.
Reading the above reminds me of folks who are quick to criticise a movie to damnation based on something they heard or what they read in the paper.
Have you even see the bloody things? They look like something a 5 year old would enjoy playing with. That opinion is my own, of course, but I'm guessing it's shared at least in part by the constabulatory in the other 9 cities where these bomb lookalikes were placed. I wonder whether the bomb squad folks have any skills, or whether they get any training, or do they get hired simply for their ability to get excited by anything with flashing lights?
If there's any head shaking to be done, it should be at the over-reaction on the part of Boston's finest. They've made themselves look like fools, and turned the idea of protecting the Homeland into something more of a farce than it typically is. And overlong ramblings such as yours about the dangers of bombs only adds to the collective absurdity.
The two guys are complete idiots, of course, but that's another subject. If there's anything interesting or noteworthy about the mess it's the story of how an entertainment company is held liable for the unfortunate outcome an advertising campaign gone bad, and how that blame gets spread around.
The problem is that now those that over reacted now feel justified in thier actions. The admission of guilt means that they were right to shut down the city and next time they will do even more. Now, no matter how many people tell them they overreacted thier minds can justify thier actions. The last thing this country needs is more emboldened idiots.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Now in the olden days they would have tried to conceal the bomb in a piece of trash, or encased in a bridge/building colored box, or hidden in a bag of groceries, or carried in a backpack, or driven in a car, or sewed up in the belly of an unusually large possum, or disguised to look like a rock, or a placed inside a bland piece of steel tubing, or wrapped up in a garbage bag, or carried by a bum they paid $5 for the job (with a $2 bonus for not urinating on it), or painted to look like a brick, or....you know, like that. BUT BUT BUT, these days we expect that all our bridges and buildings are going to get blown up in that manner, so random rocks and pieces of trash are immediately and necessarily suspect, and always disposed of in short order by the bomb squad. So you can't hide a bomb anymore. Instead, the bomb has to have bright flashing lights so people will ignore it.
If you call up the police and report that you think there's a bomb (as someone did) then they will bring in the bomb squad and they will treat it very seriously. Even if the object in question looks like (and is) a lite brite. This has been true at least the 1990s, and has probably been true as long as 'bomb squads' have existed.
The astonishing thing about this case is not that the authorities treated a lighted sign like it was a bomb. That's exactly what their job is. If you report something is a bomb, they treat it that way, whether it looks like a car, a cardboard box, a stuffed animal... or a cute LED sign giving you the finger.
No, the astonishing thing is that, even after the cops blew the thing apart with water (revealing a total lack of explosive components), they continued to tell the media that it was a suspicious device and that there were more suspicious devices located in key areas of the city. That's where someone really screwed up big time.
Everyone keeps trying to solve the problem in reverse, and then yes, it's impossible to solve. The problem with airplanes is that you have an isolated environment with a power vacuum, and the silliest little item snuck onboard an airplane then produces a huge power imbalance. So fix the power vacuum, and trust ordinary people to be as mentally stable on an airplane as in a restaurant.
(For bonus points you could also serve steak, but the distribution of steak knives alone would serve the purpose of security.)
Seriously. If I'm walking down the street and drop a PCI card in Boston, will I be arrested for inciting fear of terrorism?
The government of Boston and Mass should be absolutely embarrassed. They looked like absolute fools. I hate these guys are still in jail - but they'll be out soon enough and you can tell they have the right attitude - their press conference was priceless.
Remember that stupid color warning from DHS? The one that would bounce from yellow to orange every time Bush needed attention for himself? It's still on Orange. It'll be on Orange when I'm dead and gone. How pointless. I'm surprised they didn't bump it to Red just to strip us of our rights for a day just for fun because some kids stuck light brites to walls.
Of course I expect that little flashing circuit boards of LEDs will be showing up for months in all sorts of places. They'll just have to make sure they attach the 'THIS IS NOT A BOMB (tm)' sticker to it if they put any up in Boston.
Top Most Bizarre/Disturbing Error Messages
OK, so we all agree that the city of Boston overreacted. However, consider for a second that type 2 error happens all the time, even in "good" systems, and that terrorist prevention is still coming up to speed and working out growing pains.
Consider how this looks. You're someone sitting behind the phone. You have posters up everywhere inviting people "hey, if you see something suspicious, call it in." I'm sure you get tons of calls. Most of them are false positives, but sorting those out are your job.
One day, you get a call of some suspicious object with blinking lights on the BU bridge. "Blinking lights?" Probably another false alarm, but we'll look into it. Now you get a second call--there's another one on a different bridge. "Strange box with blinking lights." Hmm...now it's a pattern. You haven't SEEN one of the boxes, but you have 2 reports of similar objects on seperate bridges. Still could be nothing, but it's a concern at this point.
So you put out a notice to law enforcement--"look for strange boxes with blinking lights near major transportation architecture." Hey, there's one in this subway station! Under this highway overpass! etc. Now it's a pattern, and it's your job to spot patterns. It could be nothing, or it could be an organized attack on the city's transportation infrastructure. So you make a call--we're keeping people away from these things until we figure out what they are.
Now, I think someone should have looked at these things before it got to this point, and I'm not condoning Boston's overreaction. But the decision to "shut everything down" was unquestionably made by someone who's trained to treat suspicious patterns as threats, and who didn't personally see any of the "suspicious objects." He saw the PATTERN, not the items, and determined the pattern COULD be a threat.
I think this is an object lesson for all counterterrorism departments of major cities. People focus on all the cities that didn't overract to this campaign, but that's missing the point. To some degree, those cities didn't overreact because in this case they didn't get the right pattern of reports. But I assure you New York has overracted to many OTHER possible "terror" threats, as have other cities. This is a high profile object lesson in "what can go wrong" with terrorism spotting. Let's not hang the whole discipline because the system isn't perfect.
While we might be doing some tangible good in other countries
?
That's how you handle a credible threat of regularly placed terrorist bombs. Without terror.
a) Thomas Menino is a moron
b) Ed Markey is a moron
c) Martha Coakley is a moron
d) Michael Flaherty is a moron
e) All of the above "It's outrageous, reckless and totally irresponsible," Flaherty said. "What a waste of resources." Yes it was waste of resources but what was outrageous and reckless wasn't the ad company it was the overreaction. We understand that morons run the city and their overreaction led to the shutdown of the city. They did not act reasonably post Sep 11 or anything - if they looked at the device up close it ought to have been obvious that it was not a bomb. They knocked the first device of the Sullivan Sq MBTA with a fucking water cannon. They KNEW it wasn't a bomb by this point (that or this is standard explosive ordinance disposal procedure in which case I'm moving from Cambridge tomorrow). They might have communicated this and ended the chaos early. No they later blew up one of the devices to make sure it wasn't a bomb.
What else did we learn? When is a bomb not a bomb? When the IED has LEDs on it. Now if I'm a terrorist, the best way to bomb any city in the U.S. would be to stick one of the ATHF banners in front of my actual bomb.
This 2 million isn't a fine - its a little bit of money so that Turner can accept responsibility and these public officials can save face instead of being decried for being thundering morons.
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
I agree it wasn't a hoax. And it's funny on many levels, just not the intended one. The original "guerilla marketing" campaign was just stupid. Turner lucked out on the publicity they got -- well worth two million.
/. they are undermining their own credibility.
The authorities mishandled the response. Not by treating it a potential bomb scare after the "suspicious devices" had been reported; that was appropriate. But by making the all to human mistake of attributing malice to the perpetrator. Naturally, they were miffed at all the disruption, but, as we're seeing right here on
If I were governor, my response would have been this:
"These devices are not bombs, they are advertising gimmicks. There is no danger. But the individuals who reported them as a suspicious device did the right thing, as the police who responded did. I'd like to stress two important things. First, anybody in the future who sees a suspicious device should treat it as dangerous and report it to the police. They should NOT assume it is safe because the devices in this case were safe. It is important to remain vigilant, even though it is inevitable most terrorist scares will be false alarms. Second: nobody should place devices such as this in public places where they can cause a nuisance like this. Unfortunately, we cannot train every citizen in recognizing bombs or in terrorist tactics. So if you are use your common sense.
We have no reason to believe that the people who placed these devices had any malice. It's an understandable mistake. Although the costs of the response were considerable, some false alarms in the fight against terrorism are unavoidable. We will discuss this matter with the people who did this, and naturally we will welcome any help they are willing to offer with defraying the costs, but we should not lose sight of an important lesson this situation can teach us. We should neither panic, nor relax our guard in the struggle against terror. If we learn that, then this may have been the best money we've spent yet on terrorism prevention.
Municipalities should develop ordinances and permitting programs for such advertising programs. Advertisers should use their common sense. In the future there will be no leniency for anybody who tries a stunt like this, in full knowledge of the response it will create."
That's it. It think everybody in this situation was behaving reasonably, based on the information they had at their disposal, up to the point where the authorities decided to call it a "hoax". This is a lesson I'm always drilling my children in: don't jump to conclusions about the motivations of others. Don't say somebody is picking a fight when they bump into you. Don't say somebody is stealing when they pick something up that belongs to you. Don't think somebody is trying to hurt your feelings when they happen to say something that bothers you. It feels right and good at the time, but in the end you create a bigger problem for yourself than the one you imagined.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That's because Israel has been in a state of war for 60+ years. It's perverse, but the threat of violence has become part of their everyday background noise. The Americans aren't at that point - yet.
Self awareness - try it!
You're playing the terror game yourself. Please stop.
An IED would be a bit bigger than this- and if not, where it was PLACED wouldn't have done anything to anyone.
As a bomb, these things would have been worthless- at most you would have put about 1 pound of HE in it.
One pound of C4 MIGHT hurt someone at point blank range or at a slightly larger range if made up to be
a fragmentation device. Neither were evident and at the distances they were placed they wouldn't have
been effective at all as IEDs (I saw the video footage of their Boston sign placement run- sorry, don't
buy the IED angle at all with this whole thing.
If the signs had been a biochem weapon, the Police did precisely the wrong thing as the EOD they did on
one of the signs would have spread the damn weaponized substance all over the damn place. You don't
just EOD something unless you know precisely what it is. Too much risk of bad things happening with it.
Here's a hint... A terrorist is NOT going to go about doing something like this, and if so, they'd have
already accomplished it because the signs had been up for about a week before ANYONE noticed. And doing
these little signs that draw attention to themselves wouldn't be how they would have went about this- they'd
have hidden it in the common trash that seems to lie about in this town in varying places and it would have
went off. Worse, they're not going to go do a low payoff thing like what Boston keeps trying to paint this
looking like. They're going to go for another 9-11 type payoff and there's still quite a few things that
the bad guys can do to us that we're NOT worrying about.
Boston, and to a lesser extent, the Feds, way overreacted to the situation.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Because right now, you are the laughingstock of the US. Backwater hick towns in the south are laughing at what gullible rubes are you all are (I know, not everyone is, but you had widespread public panic when none of the other cities had a single incident over these signs). Not only were your people fooled and panicked by a light brite (which had been there for two weeks before anyone thought to call the bomb squad), but the police, city officials, up to the Mayor and prosecutors have all demonstrated a frightening lack of intelligence, reasoning, and common sense.
I know, in a post 9/11 world we cannot afford to depend on common sense and should rely on crippling fear and paranoia to get us through the day, but really. Even after learning their embarrassing mistake, the officials STILL continue to treat this like an episode of 24 and act like a terror threat had taken place. Heck, your news papers are playing along with the mass idiocy.
You would think after all the facts came out, the city would want this quietly brushed aside but it seems to be reveling in its paranoia and ignorance.
Finkployd
Get made to look like an idiot in front of the world == Charges
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
This whole thing reminds me of the radio debut of War of the Worlds. As long as you were in the know and/or have some common sense you didn't panic. The parrellels between the 2 events are uncanny in my mind.
This story recieved quite a bit of air time, compare that to the how much time they could have gotten if they'd advertised for the show during say... the superbowl.
If you're actually AFRAID that a Lite-Brite may actually be a bomb...you've quite effectively become ....terrorized. Oh, the irony.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies