The Great Boston "Bomb Scare"

August J. Pollak, at Some Guy WIth A Blog, has pretty much said all there is to be said about the "bomb scare" in Boston. Quoting from an editorial by Zach Nathanson at ToonZone:

I am not blaming the Boston police for the problems caused today, but rather the city government and media's spinning of the story to create a sense of paranoia. The comments of Shepard Smith and his co-workers at News Corp provide a prime example of the media's hand in this story. Many of the Fox News interviews were with citizens who were "distraught" over the Aqua Teen advertisements. Smith explained the plot of the show, portraying it as something appalling. Now I understand that the media has the right to their opinions on a show like Aqua Teen, but I think that Fox's comments in particular only aggravated the situation. What most newscasters should have at least commented on is that this investigation was a result of pure paranoia. If you ask any teenager or young adult I am sure that most would be able to identify Ignignokt as a cartoon character at the very least. Sadly no one thought to do so, and at least one of the poor little guys was blown to smithereens by overzealous police.

Pollak sums up:

There is no excuse for blaming Turner Networks, Adult Swim, and especially a single 27-year-old, for the overzealousness of Boston's government and the news media. And if the mayor of Boston continues to use an innocent man as his scapegoat, it's evidence of a level of incompetence that makes him unfit for office.

As he points out earlier in the post, these devices were planted in ten cities. Only in Boston did life come to a screeching halt.

Read it.

It's a post-9/11 world, alright. Jeebus! I am so glad I'm a Midwesterner.