Boston Emboldens Terrorists by Kicking Capitalism in the Nuts

Plastic boards covered with Light-emitting Diodes, or LEDs, powered by four D batteries, were scattered across several cities as part of an ad campaign for the upcoming Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. The lights were arranged in such a fashion as to depict Mooninites, characters from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force cartoon.

Boston Emergency Service workers apparently responded to concerned “old people,” who noticed the signs, after they had been in place for 3 weeks without causing any problems. The signs were blinking in what this columnist can only assume was a frightening manner. Coincidentally, a couple of fake pipe bombs were found in Boston on the same day as the ad campaign became a concern to police.

The pipe bombs were not placed by a mischievous, self-centered, talking cup called Milkshake. Nor were they place by the cutting edge ad agency that apparently devised the concept of blinking advertisements, because Bostonians reacted as if they had never before seen such a thing. Similar guerilla advertising schemes, with the plastic boards, were launched in Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, and Philadelphia without causing massive bridge, road or waterway shutdowns.

Boston Mayor, Thomas Menino, said, "It is outrageous, in a post 9/11 world, that a company would use this type of marketing scheme. I am prepared to take any and all legal action against Turner Broadcasting and its affiliates for any and all expenses incurred during the response to today's incidents."

When an act of pure and harmless capitalism gets the Turner Broadcasting System into legal trouble, the terrorists have won.

Instead of charging the manufacturer of the fake pipe bombs for the disruption of the morning commute, Boston charged the mooks hired by an advertising company to install the signs. I don’t really like advertisers, either, but I don’t think they deserved to go to jail for signs that look about as dangerous as Lite-Brite(R). They expect Turner Broadcasting Systems to pay for the safety measures taken by Boston Emergency Services to protect its citizenry from the scary marketing ploy.

And now City of Chicago Supt. Philip Cline is sniffing around for compensation, because their Police Officers were ordered to remove 20 signs, although it was well known that they were harmless by the time they did so (and, again, these signs had been installed for at least 2 weeks). After this news hit the fan, people probably would have collected the signs and attempted to sell the on eBay, making the removal by city employees nonsensical.