I'm sorry, I can't leave this silly thing alone... though the crazy-woman-astronaut-love-triangle arrest is of more (but only transient) interest.
I won't tootle the thin-edge-of-the-wedge tin horn here, but this is one way of shutting up people you don't understand, don't like, or most likely made you look bad as a public official.
From The Register, a snarky UK online IT paper:
http://www.theregister.com/2007/02/02/mooninite_terrorists/***
Mooninite terrorists brought to justiceBostonians can sleep safely in their beds
By Chris Nelson
Published Friday 2nd February 2007 05:38 GMT
"Neon beer sign enthusiasts beware: you're next. Two men have been arrested and arraigned for hanging the signs that started Wednesday's bomb scare in Boston.
Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28, have been charged with creating a hoax leading to public disorder and disorderly conduct by Boston's District Attorney. The hoax charge is a felony, the disorderly conduct is a misdemeanor. While charges formally came Thursday, the threatening signs had been hanging over the heads of Bostonians like little swords of Damocles for two or three weeks before anyone mistook them for al-Qaeda handiwork.
( Read more... )There is a deeper implication with regard to how a post-9/11 America reckons with its own identity. Boston has decided, even knowing the circumstances of this advertising trick, that the people who did this should be punished despite their more obvious intentions to promote a television program. It rises to a level above censorship, because now state and local authorities have decided that a human being's health and welfare should potentially suffer because he has unintentionally expressed himself in a way that might possibly be construed as dangerous.
The trend that this shows in American thinking resembles McCarthyism, only stupider. The government has ceased with even the formality of asking questions, instead deciding to take the most punitive route possible before undertaking a half-hearted search for truth. What happened in Boston Wednesday is utterly amusing. Surely the road to Gitmo is paved with equally amusing anecdotes."***
Emphasis added.
My name is
Shake-Zula, the mic rulah, the old schoolah,
you wanna trip, I'll break it to ya.
Frylock and I'm on top rock you like a cop,
Meatwad you're up next with your knock-knock.
Meatwad make the money see, Meatwad get the honeys G.
Drivin in my car, livin like a star,
ice on my fingers and my toes and I'm a Taurus.
Cause we are the Aqua Teens,
make the homeys say ho and the girlies wanna scream. [EDIT: a mailing list for CTHEORY, an electronic journal run by Arthur and Marilouise Kroker sent me this article on why there was a panic in Boston and not in other cities. At least, I think that's what it is saying - the academese gets a little thick after a few paragraphs. Why can't these people talk country simple?
http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=571]
[EDIT EDIT: Well look, heads rolled... surely no surprise there.
Cartoon Network chief resigns following ad stuntLast Updated: Friday, February 9, 2007 | 3:41 PM ET
CBC Arts
The head of the Cartoon Network has resigned following a recent marketing stunt that caused a bomb scare across Boston last week.
Jim Samples, the Cartoon Network's executive vice president and general manager, said Friday he felt "compelled to step down, effective immediately, in recognition of the gravity of the situation that occurred under my watch."
The announcement of his resignation was made in an internal memo sent to Cartoon Network staff. In the statement, Samples expressed regret over what had happened.
Public areas in Boston were evacuated and bomb squads responded last Wednesday after members of the public made 911 calls reporting dozens of suspicious blinking electronic signs in subway stations, on bridges and in other locations.
Highways, bridges and a section of the Charles River were shut down and bomb squads dispatched to study the devices before authorities declared they were harmless.
The signs — which featured a boxy cartoon character giving an obscene hand gesture — were part of a publicity campaign for cult-hit Aqua Teen Hunger Force. They were distributed in nine other big U.S. cities in recent weeks, without causing the same consternation.
Hours into the investigation, Cartoon Network's corporate parent acknowledged the signs were part of a marketing move.
"It's my hope that my decision allows us to put this chapter behind us and get back to our mission of delivering unrivalled original animated entertainment for consumers of all ages," Samples said in his statement on Friday.
This week, Turner Broadcasting Systems and ad firm Interference Inc. agreed to pay $2 million US to make amends for the deployment of the variety of emergency response teams.
***
And that's that about
that.]
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