Nothing to Fear but Fear itself

At first it seemed kind of funny, a major city, one of the most liberal and best educated in America thrown into hysterics and shut down for a day because of blinking light cartoon characters.

As the Red State Son blog put it;

Boston's Lite-Brite freakout is an interesting case of urban psychosis and societal paranoia. I mean, what terrorist cell would go to the trouble of constructing bombs that show a Lite-Brite figure giving the finger, then prominently placing them all over a given city? I wasn't aware that al-Qaeda had such pop-cult sensibilities ("In the future, everyone will be targeted for 15 minutes"). It's a bit like the villains on the "Batman" show from the 60s, creating elaborate devices to either threaten Gotham City or slowly kill Batman and Robin, who manage to escape anyway. If someone wants to bomb something, I seriously doubt that they would tip their hand so openly. But then, this is Boston we're talking about, one of the craziest cities I've ever spent time in. The real danger there are the drivers, worse than Michigan drivers, if you can believe that. Red Sox fans are another horror, but that's a different topic altogether.

Holy Islamofascism, Batman! Yes Robin, this blinking cartoon character has all the hallmarks of Al-Quaeda. Or as Ridiculopathy put it;

Let that be a lesson to Al Qaeda. If they had plans to attack America's fourth largest city on the East Coast with a light-up-cartoon-related attack, they might as well pack it in. Boston is ready for that. In fact, they proved that they are far better prepared to panic than almost any other American metropolis. For a city bogged down for decades with an inferiority complex, Wednesday's test comes as welcome news.

PS click on their link for a really funny graphic

But on second thought, it's really quite sad. Have we really sunk this far into irrational fear and hysteria?

Boston officials are not amused either;

"...this sort of behaviour is reckless, irresponsible and illegal."

"Commerce was disrupted, transportation routes were paralyzed, residents were stranded and relatives across the nation were in fear for their loved ones in the city of Boston," [County DA] Conley said.

Excuse me, but you're the ones who did all that with your pathetic over-reaction. The perpetrators should be fined ten bucks for littering.