Mooninites scare people?

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/01/boston.bombscare/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

If you can't find humor in inignok and er  then the terrorists win.

They were in a dozen cities. Only Boston made a hissy fit about it.

"if they had been explosive they could have damaged transportation infrastructure in the city"

Talk about FUD.....hehe

Yeah, big deal outta nuthin' really.

And I don't even find ATHF funny, the media circus and ruckus the g'ment is creating has more funnay.

You'd think they had never seen an LED before!

Yeah, this proves our society is now run by morons who are afraid of their shadows.  Mayors, governors, and congressmen are denoucing the stunt but if you shut down an expressway and mobilize local and federal authorities over 12" tall signs with dorky blinking lights, then its you, not the marketeers, who should be kicked out of office.  Twits...

Harlequin wrote:

They were in a dozen cities. Only Boston made a hissy fit about it.

"if they had been explosive they could have damaged transportation infrastructure in the city"

Talk about FUD.....hehe

You have no idea.

Due to this 'threat' (if you can really consider a 'light brite' a threat), they made us all get off the train at a random stop last night for 45 minutes in 15^o (F)  temperture, so they could send the bomb sniffing dogs through the train.

Ruined my whole evening, and now I think I may be catching a cold.

Just to play devils advocate for a minute here...

What is to say that someone couldn't hang one of these up with some det-cord in it in the same places? From what I understand, these were devices with LEDs and batteries -- a evildoer could easily put some detcord around the edges there and have a pretty potent bomb... since these were hung up on bridges and whatnot -- it could be seen as a threat.

Yes -- they ended up being lightbrites this time, but when funky looking signs start showing up on bridges in my city -- I would expect the city to investigate. And let's not forget that Boston was an important city in that 2 of the flights on 9/11 came from Boston Logan airport...

Not to say that the govt didn't overreact, but it was a pretty stupid stunt.

Antitorgo wrote:



Just to play devils advocate for a minute here...

What is to say that someone couldn't hang one of these up with some det-cord in it in the same places? From what I understand, these were devices with LEDs and batteries -- a evildoer could easily put some detcord around the edges there and have a pretty potent bomb... since these were hung up on bridges and whatnot -- it could be seen as a threat.

Yes -- they ended up being lightbrites this time, but when funky looking signs start showing up on bridges in my city -- I would expect the city to investigate. And let's not forget that Boston was an important city in that 2 of the flights on 9/11 came from Boston Logan airport...

Not to say that the govt didn't overreact, but it was a pretty stupid stunt.

But pretty much anything could be rigged to carry explosives or be otherwise dangerous.
An automatic reaction of "Look, something different! We must be afraid!" is pretty pathetic.
The world is an inherently dangerous place, and experience and observation suggest that yes, we are all going to die. Preferably later.
So let's relax a bit and try to have a bit of fun while we're here.

Actually what they should have done is to let the city and/or police department know that they were going to do this so they would know not to freak out when they saw them.

Yeah it is a little silly to get bent out of shape over a light bright but as the saying goes: "An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure".

I was reading an account of their arraignment, and when the prosecutor was talking about how they were doing this to intentionally create fear, people in the gallery just broke out into laughter. In truth, if they really push this they're going to come out the other side looking like completely out-of-touch idiots. But, knowing government bureaucracies, that will just make them dig in their heels more and go overboard.

Legally, they have a real hurdle to overcome. They're going to have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these two guys intended to create fear amongst the general populace. All the defense has to do is make sure at least some of the folks in the jury are under the age of 30, and there's no way they're going to be convicted.

Antitorgo wrote:



Just to play devils advocate for a minute here...

What is to say that someone couldn't hang one of these up with some det-cord in it in the same places? From what I understand, these were devices with LEDs and batteries -- a evildoer could easily put some detcord around the edges there and have a pretty potent bomb... since these were hung up on bridges and whatnot -- it could be seen as a threat.

Yes -- they ended up being lightbrites this time, but when funky looking signs start showing up on bridges in my city -- I would expect the city to investigate. And let's not forget that Boston was an important city in that 2 of the flights on 9/11 came from Boston Logan airport...

Not to say that the govt didn't overreact, but it was a pretty stupid stunt.

Yea, I'm sure a real terrorist would want to draw attention to his/her planted bomb with flashing LEDs.

ScanIAm wrote:

If you can't find humor in inignok and er  then the terrorists win.

Ahem....

I believe it's spelled Err.

Or perhaps their advanced moon names and spelling are too a complicated for your primitive earth brain.

Now, I must go smoke and "shoot the bird." I hope you can see it, I'm doing it as hard as I can.

Lightbrights will go the way of the Potato Gun. Considered a dangerous munition.

On the flip side real terrorist make IEDs to look like rocks and detris not glowing led cartoons.

Just ends up bad PR for Boston in the long run.

What I don't understand in all of this is why are they prosecuting these 2 kids for something that wasn't intended to look like a bomb, yet; they let the guy that made the 2 other faux pipe bombs go?

In case you don't know (not sure how much the national media is reporting), the police found 2 other fake bombs yesterday that were NOT part of this marketing scheme.

These other 2 bombs looked exactly like a pipe bomb and was planted by a disgruntled ex-employee to scare people at his old workplace.

But of course this guy was not even charged with any crime.


http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=180349

Apparently, bostonian pussiness won out over common sense.

I did find it funny that most of the news coverage on this showed the lit devices with Ignignok (or is it Err) giving the finger.

You have to admit, though, that was pretty inexpensive advertizing for Turner broadcasting.  $2million and the entire country wants to watch ATHF to see what is going on...