Comments on: Publicity Stunt Suspects Released

2 Men Accused Of Putting Electronic Ads For Cartoon Around Boston Prompting Scare

[mitdgreenb]

I have to disagree with the numerous posts that say, roughly, "It was just a joke" or "Don't blame us for your overreaction." Many of those posts also imply that this is somehow tied to failures of the President, etc.

Stop.

It's NEVER been OK to call in a false alarm. I learned that when I was about 5. It's NEVER been OK to shout "fire" in a theater. Hey, great prank, but people can get trampled and emergency crews might be diverted from a real emergency. The excuse that "it's just a joke" has NEVER been acceptible, not even before 9/11 and the war and this President. Freedom of expression has ALWAYS been balanced against public safety -- inciting a riot is a crime.

Guerilla marketing often is simply an attempt to avoid paying fees for advertising space. But one aspect of paying for a billboard is that the city knows it's an ad. Clearly the people who did this did not have the good graces to tell the cities ahead of time because ***gasp*** they might have to pay minor fines (like for littering). Now they are going to pay... and perhaps people will GROW UP a little.

[panhandlpete]

It's ok for the authorities to plan a military exercise of having an airplane fly into a building in a city ( on 9/ll) without citizen awareness, but when an ad campaign lands two people in jail, you must look at the big picture.

Freedom has been lost in the quest for security. If these same ad boxes have been placed in other cities, why did Boston respond with such fervor? A law must be put on the books to cover such actions....oh, I forgot, it is covered in the Patriot Act. It's gonna come home to us more and more.

[pdun1]

9/11 Was an Inside Job!

[Wesley_Mouch]

The Evil Moron GWB has created such a climate of fear and suspicion in this country that local officials overreacted to a harmless cartoon promo.

Is that what you ****wits really believe? It's as if you sit around playing Six Degrees of George Bush desparately trying to connect any negative incident to the Neofascists in the White House. If President Bush made a statement indicating his support for motherhood and apple pie, you loons would immediately decry it as insensitive to people who are allergic to apples and hurtful to couples who are unable to conceive.

Just a GD cartoon? Fine, then Hezbollah just needs to slap a Scooby Doo sticker on their IEDs and we can all ignore the danger.

Honestly, judging by the sensitive nature of the locations where these promo devices were placed, it's almost as if Turner Broadcasting is conducting a dry run for Al Qaeda.

[observantx]

My Lord. Are we so scared sh*tless that a few blinking lights cause this panic.

Boy, Osama sure did a great job. Now all the terrorists have to do is leave an empty box or a shopping bag in the middle of the street and we all wring our hands and blubber like little babies.

This is pathetic.

[bellonet]

so this guy working for a marketing company is in the back of a cop car while the marketing company won't take any calls.

Frankly, I'm a little surprised that more people around the country did not react to these things adversely. This cartoon character shows up rarely on a marginally popular late night cartoon that has a relatively small audience. The people who reported it are definitely not in the ATHF demographic, and were already on edge because they'd just had a bomb scare earlier in the week.

Over-reaction? Perhaps--yet understandable. Badly planned and tasteless publicity campaign? Absolutely.

Let's save the stupid, tasteless ideas for the Superbowl halftime commercials, people!

[wadecounty01]

there is a freaking easter bunny in my yard

Boston can now be the official "City of Stupidity and Ignorance". None of the other major cities over-reacted like the idiots in Massoftwoshits. Either that or nobody in Boston watches ATHF. I wonder what they do if you leave a paper bag in the middle of the Commons, evacuate to Rhode Island and Maine? Well, I'm having fun watching the hand-wringing and "iron fist" of the law come down on this harmless exposure of ignorance.
-Lizard

Boston can now be the official "City of Stupidity and Ignorance". None of the other major cities over-reacted like the idiots in Massoftwoshits. Either that or nobody in Boston watches ATHF. I wonder what they do if you leave a paper bag in the middle of the Commons, evacuate to Rhode Island and Maine? Well, I'm having fun watching the hand-wringing and "iron fist" of the law come down on this harmless exposure of ignorance.
-Lizard

Boston can now be the official "City of Stupidity and Ignorance". None of the other major cities over-reacted like the idiots in Massoftwoshits. Either that or nobody in Boston watches ATHF. I wonder what they do if you leave a paper bag in the middle of the Commons, evacuate to Rhode Island and Maine? Well, I'm having fun watching the hand-wringing and "iron fist" of the law come down on this harmless exposure of ignorance.
-Lizard

[wodiegt]

The most ridiculous thing is that it is known as the "Boston Hoax" just because that's where morons overreacted to it. As the article stated, these ploys were used in multiple cities spanning the country, yet the geniuses in Massachusetts were the only ones stupid enough to think that Ignignokt flipping them off was a bomb... incompetence at its best.

[cepe10-2009]

Really scary! - The law enforcement agencies that is! If they are this incompetant - to mistake a cartoon ad campaign for a terrorsist plolt we are in real trouble. The not admitting their mistake and trying to blow it out of proportion only adds to their blunder!

[mgpm-2009]

It is stupid when we have real terrorist threats to deal with. Sorry. They should have known the response wouldn't have been favorable.

[nothappyatall]

"New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Ore., Austin, Texas, San Francisco and Philadelphia all had the devices for the past few weeks. "

ONLY BOSTON authorities went off the deep end, blowing one of the devices up and now because they look like dumb clueless sheep they want revenge on the guys who are responsible for making them look bad.
A lawyer will get them off, when the "hoax" charge comes out in court any idiot- even a Repubicon judge can see this is bogus.

[rray52]

I love it.
Just when I thought the panic over global warming was the best around, along comes Boston.
We don't need Cartoon Network, we have real live clowns.

[mgpm-2009]

these guys should get hard time just for being so stoopid in this day and age to pull such a stunt.

[deadanimal]

"Hoaxes are a tremendous burden on local law enforcement and counter-terrorism resources and there's absolutely no place for them in a post-9/11 world," Knocke said.

Give me a break. They know *** well that this was not a hoax. They were not attempting to scare anyone or make anyone think they were planting bombs. They were "planting" circuit boards with lighted cartoon characters on them. Since Osama Bin Laden is a huge fan of "Adult Swim", it's easy to see why people were suspicious of the devices...yeah right. If these "devices" had lighted crucifixes on them, not only would these guys NOT have been arrested, the Religious Right would have been demonstrating to keep the devices in place.

[hillaryin08]

They should send these guys to Club Gitmo!