photo courtesy of xjohnpaulx in West Philly

This is my indirect response to Jeremiah’s recent post LAT: “Was 9/11 really that bad?”.

For those of you who don’t know, the following facts:

1) There is a cartoon show about, well, a talking Happy Meal living in New Jersey called Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
2) A guerrilla marketing firm was hired by Cartoon Network (Turner Broadcasting) to put little Lite-Brite style ads of one the characters (named “Err”, a “Mooninite”).
3) The Boston PD crapped their pants and even detonated one of the ads as a possible bomb threat.

Now I can see how mysterious electronic devices around bridges and tunnels could be alarming to the police. But consider these statements:

Prosecutor Grossman explained the reason Boston reacted as it did is because bomb cops are trained to examine foreign objects for a power source and a circuit board and both were present in the Sullivan Square Mooninite, as well as duct tape attached to a red wire.
“They believed it was very possibly a bomb,” Grossman said, adding that an obscene cartoon leering back at them did little to throw them off.
“Someone with a nefarious intent would do that on top of a bomb,” he said.

Yes, I clearly remember the giant middle finger the 9-11 hijackers graffitied across United 93. Perhaps this is related to that old Bert – Bin Laden connection?

This reminds me of how a recent US cyber wargaming exercise, Cyberstorm, targeted the Birkenstock crowd. Not, oh, I don’t know, um… terrorists. Something has gone horribly wrong, hasn’t it?

Over the course of several hours yesterday, police also dismantled Mooninites at Fenway Park [map], the Boston University Bridge, Downtown Crossing and in the Theater District. The Mooninites have reportedly been up for weeks.

Shouldn’t this be a more important issue than wanting to throw the book at some
dreadlocked, unemployed pranking Dirty White Boy? Weeks?!?

Our man Assistant AG Grossman continues:

”It’s clear the intent was to get attention by causing fear and unrest that there was a bomb in that location,” Assistant Attorney General John Grossman said at their arraignment.

This is ridiculous. It’s a cartoon show. In those weeks that these devices were hanging (and still hanging in West Philly, apparently) around Boston, law enforcement did nothing to examine these “suspicious devices”. And moreover, it’s not the pranksters fault that anyone can put an electronic device on a bridge, nor is it their fault that the whole thing will cost Masschusetts well over a million dollars. It’s the fault of a fear-baiting, incompetent government. One that appears to think “duct tape + red wire” equals bomb, and now feels a need to deploy CYA measures. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you another thrilling episode of Security Theater.

Meanwhile, Bush flat out lied in his SOTU. The Congressional Budget Office concludes we’re really sending 48,000, not 21,000 more troops to Iraq and it’ll cost as much as 5 times as much as Bush said a mere three weeks ago.

But that’s nothing compared to the power of Ignignokt’s Foreigner Belt. Remember the true menace is on the Moon. (so that’s why Bush wanted to go there!)