Mess up the mix, mix up the mess Come on down, yo here's the address 6-1-2 Wharf Avenue 6-1-2 Wharf Avenue
Posted on 01/31/2007 12:04:30 PM PST by Howlin
BOSTON -- Four "hoax devices" were found at several Boston locations Wednesday, hours after officials detonated a suspicious package on an elevated structure above the Sullivan Square Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority station.
The additional packages were found at the Boston University Bridge, the Longfellow Bridge and near the intersection of Stuart and Columbus streets. A device described by officials as a pipe bomb was found in the basement of the Tufts New England Medical Center at 185 Harrison Ave.
A spokesman for the Boston Police Department said that all of the packages appeared to be similar.
"Our device was not an active device. We are still treating the area as a crime scene. There were no injuries. Everyone was evacuated properly, and everyone now back to their locations," Tufts New England Medical Center's Brooke Hynes said.
Mayor Tom Menino said that all of the packages found posed no danger, but the incidents remained under investigation. Storrow Drive eastbound was shut down for a brief time, and the MBTA suspended service on the Red Line and planned to bus afternoon commuters between Kendall and Park Street stations.
Earlier Wednesday, the state police bomb squad was called and detonated the package in Sullivan Square just before 10 a.m. Officials said it contained an electronic circuit board with some components that were "consistent with an improvised explosive device," but they said it had no explosives. They determined that the device was not dangerous, but destroyed it as a precaution.
"We determined that this device, in particular, was not explosive," said MBTA Lt. Sal Venturelli.
He said MBTA police were told about the package by a transit passenger who spotted it on a column that supports Interstate 93. The parcel was located on an elevated structure above the bus way and below I-93 in the Charlestown section of Boston at about 8 a.m.
"This is a perfect example of our passengers taking part in Homeland Security," Venturelli said.
An investigation will be conducted into how the package got there and when, he said.
Train service on the Orange Line between Sullivan Square and Wellington stations was suspended in both directions. No injuries were reported.
The northbound side of I-93 was closed, causing significant traffic backups. Motorists were not allowed to access the highway near Sullivan Square coming up from the south.
I understand that, but there's a difference between thinking that a boxish object that contains some volume of some unknown material might be a bomb, and a device like this which consists of a single flat panel with four D cell Duracell batteries attached.
My point is that there's no place for the explosive material to go.
While the average Police officer might have only a little better idea of what may or may not be a bomb than the average person, somewhere along the line of this escalating from a person calling the police because they were suspicions of the object, and shutting down a considerable part of the city for hours, someone who had much better knowledge about bombs should have been able to look at it, and figure out that it wasn't a threat.
I'm not saying that it's that unreasonable for somewhat paranoid person to have called the police to investigate this. It's not even that unreasonable for the responding officers to report in that they don't know what it is, and that could unfortunately result in a bit of an overreaction and the bomb squad having to respond and investigate.
However, somewhere along the line of these being reported all over town, someone would have had to have said, are you sure these are bombs? These things have been there for weeks. Why do we suspect them of being bombs?
What part is supposed to blow up? The batteries? The flat sign? The LEDs?
It's simply not reasonable for the politicians and administrators in Boston to be blaming this advertising effort for their overreaction.
Now the politicians in Boston are calling for criminal and civil penalties against these people who didn't do anything wrong. They are accusing them of felony acts and confiscating their property, as well as having city governments in other large cities confiscate them as well.
If it wasn't for the fact that this will probably work in the favor of the cartoon and the advertising company in the long run, they would very likely have a good case to sue Boston for even more money than they already wasted on the police response.
The politicians are embarrassed about how they handled the issue, so as usual they have to push the blame onto someone else and threaten and abuse their authority to threaten them into issuing an apology and accepting the blame in the eyes of much of the public.
No doubt you think I am silly. Fine with me. I don't watch cartoons for entertainment, either. I'm not very cool..
I don't think what you said is silly. I agree with it.
However, being cautious and investigating it is far different than letting this situation get completely out of control, shutting down the city, and then blaming the owners of these signs for the overreaction, including threatening criminal prosecution.
Otherwise we're going to end up shutting down cities and criminally prosecuting people for putting up Christmas decorations.
Some level of common sense must be exercised, and some checks must be in place to keep a little suspicions from shutting down cities.
It's so very easy for you to declare, "I got it, everyone else is stupid" after you were informed it was an advertising campaign for an obscure cartoon.
How lame is Boston that we’re frightened of flashing lights ? I’m reminded of another ad campaign – that of the Geico Caveman. I’m picturing the Neanderthal pointing at the Adult Swim Lite-Brite while cowering in fear and grunting like a monkey. Yep, that’s Boston for you !
Of course it doesn’t help that the city’s spokesman, Mayor Menino, is a dead ringer for Alley Oop.
Mess up the mix, mix up the mess Come on down, yo here's the address 6-1-2 Wharf Avenue 6-1-2 Wharf Avenue
I didn't think so.
Look at that thing! People in ten cities looked at it for two weeks. One person freaked out and now two people are probably going to jail for a looooong time to appease people like you and cover for the stupidity of the government we pay for.
Grow up. If the idiots want to advertise their stupid, juvenile cartoon for their giggly fans, then don't place the "toys" under bridges. Buy a billboard.
BUMP
I hope Time Warner is sued out the kazoo.
There are advisories every 30 minutes proclaiming so.
Burma Shave.
This is what I'm talking about. This is the result of 'genius-experts' concocting endless 'crisis' in self-importance, spending vast fortunes chasing 'paper tigers.'
The ad-campaign was entirely harmless. The media 'genius-experts' in certain locations panicked residents. That, in turn, was an 'invitation' to 'genius-experts' to abuse their positions and the public at large by hitting the 'panic button' and spending vast fortunes in SELF-IMPORTANCE.
THEN, instead of addressing the OBVIOUS, they point long accusatory fingers at somebody/anybody ELSE.
This is a 'giant-sucking-sound' out of economy.
IT MUST STOP.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic terrorists."
-- Clarke's third law
Paragigm shifts. Real inconvenient aren't they? We are a nation at war. And the intelligence data readily available from the Boston Bomb hoax is very real. Its a gold mine for anyone wanting to plant bombs in Boston.
Actually you are the one who needs a bunker. You will be in need of one cause you won't be even "mind ready" about two years after the Dems win the presidency in 2008, let alone able to defend yourself or your neigborhood.
Then the drills will be for real. And these days we now enjoy will seem unfortunately idyllic by comparison.
Good Luck.
I could hold enough C4 in the palm of my hand to blow the engine of your car up through the roof of your garage.
But you already knew that?
You must have some really, really big hands.
L
The data is that Americans have become terrified. If I was a terrorist, sitting back watching Americans crucify two children to soothe their paranoia, I'd be pretty content that America was defeated.
You remember right, the point of terrorism is to get people to live in fear? To destroy freedom through fear?
There's no security, only an illusion. If it isn't a publicly placed bomb, it could be a natural disaster or a transportation disaster. If not that, we have enemies with ICBMs and nuclear weapons enough to obliterate the whole world. If that isn't enough to be scared of, we live on a rapidly spinning ball of molten rock hurtling through a galactic pinball machine.
Why live in fear? We all live on the edge of obliteration every day.
Sure, preparation is different than fear, but is there anything that makes a jihadi scarier than simply living on a giant ball of lava? Nah, life is scary enough. Forget the fools who want to manipulate you by reminding you. Stop inflating criminal sentences against American citizens who cause a panic among the sheep - especially sheep in Boston that freaked out more than nine other cities combined.
This SHOULD be a thread about chicken-littles; INSTEAD, we have "conservatives" screaming for blood. We need to conquer our fear, not punish children for reminding us of how scared we have become.
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