That's why Cincinnati, Ohio is the world's most funkiest city ever and not Boston. All you media droids should be ashamed of your delf.

People of Boston! I will be in your city next week, using a "Mobile Telecommunications Device" which will contain a large "Battery" and a wire connecting to a "Headset." These complicated "Technologies" are used to communicate with other human beings who are not in the immediate vicinity. Please do not be frightened! Although there are "Electromagnetic Waves" emitting from said device, the Telecommunications Mothership assures me that they are Not Harmful!

The police only found two signs in New York, because the rest were probably stolen.

As a citizen of the city of Boston let me state for the record that the vast majority of Boston's population think that that Mayor Menino and his people are idiots for acting the way they did. And what most of you don't realize is that they actually new the signs were just ads by early afternoon, but chose instead to "keep the fires burning", and err on the side of caution until they could be sure that all the signs were safe. He even went on to appalud the city's terrorism squad for acting so quickly, only to find out that the signs had already been up for weeks... And that nobody cared because it was essentially just a lite brite space invader flipping the bird.

As someone stated earlier, by living in paranoid fear in this "post 911 world" we do nothing but feed into the terrorist idea, and with that they win. They don't have to do anything but watch us slowly fall apart with paranoia, half baked accusations, and the constant need to be "ever vigilant" (Though I'm not saying we should throw all caution to the wind. But there is a huge difference between cautious, and paranoid). As Americans we need to rise above that, and remember to live free, not in fear and suspicion. Live loud and proud, not cowering in fear, waiting for the "the bomb"...

The Boston cops had a brain fart, and Turner should pay for it? I don't think so . . . And the DA should drop the charges and admit the mistakes to at least save some face . . . lol!

What amazes me is that this is not the first time an advertising agency has pulled a stunut like this. The light boxes were a new twist from the usual over-night tagging of multiple areas all at once. I really think Boston should have asked questions before reacting the way it did. Two weeks around other cities and nothing blew up,you would think that if they were bombs those who set them would want them to go off as soon as possible so as not to be noticed and removed as they were.

If anything, this marketing stunt proved that Boston is without a doubt NOT ready for a terrorist attack. These ads were placed all over the city, with neon colors highlighting where they were at night, and it still took the police almost 3 weeks to respond incorrectly to the situation. Don't 'bomb experts' have a method of determining if something is a bomb other then shutting down the entire city (and it's waterways) and smashing lite-brites?

The scary part is we've now added a 4th member to the Axis of Evil: The Moon. And on the Moon, nerds have their pants pulled down and are spanked with moonrocks. Prepare for a spanking Boston!

`This is just proof that people today are way too parinoid and nieve.

Im a fan of the show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" So I knew what they were right away when I saw them.

The company that put up the signs should have gotten permitts first tho. But now its probably better that they didn't because im sure this fiasco only will bost the ratings of the t.v. program.

This has only given the show free publicity, and will continue to do so as long as the news still talk about this.

If (we) US citizens allow this to continue think of the ramifications. Perhaps advertising agencies are going to have to start running their ideas by the local police and get approval. Who wants more rights to be taken away?

Why did it take so long for the police to discover that the ads were not bombs? Are we not sophisticated enough to tell the difference between lights and batteries and bombs? Why would there be shutdowns and overtime hours devoted to this. Couldn't a bomb expert just check the device out?

On the contrary, I'd like to see what law they actually broke. If those employees or the company broke an actual law, treat them accordingly. Since I really haven't seen any mention yet of an actual law they broke, I'm guessing that they probably didn't break the law.

I hope that the majority of the US watching this story realize how rediculous this is. Enjoy your "freedom of speech" and "free enterprise" while it is still legal. After all you wouldn't want to scare or offend anyone.

I doubt a terrorist would place bombs with flashing lights and in highly visable places. I think the city of Boston might look at replacing thier security force leaders with some one that has some common sense and more knowledge of what bombs look like ! !

Seriously, this is insanity. Insanity! What gives USA? What gives?

A co-worker of mine has an Lite-Brite in her office. Should I be worried? It contains the 2 things that, according to the Boston Police, are necessary for something to resemble an IED- Lights, and Wires.

Boston's authorities are now acting like little children by refusing to admit they were wrong. All they have to do is issue a statement saying they now see what these devices are, but it was better to be safe than sorry. But trying to say that these 2 men purposely made them "look like bombs" and placed them in strategic areas with the intent to cause a panic is absurd. Rather than simply admitting they were wrong, they'd rather make themselves look like idiots under the guise of national security.

My hope is that over the next few days all of the proper permits and paperwork allowing for the installation of these signs will all be discovered and then the city will REALLY have some 'splaining to do.

Who ever thought that by NOT watching "AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE" it would cost someone (the taxpayers of Boston & Massachusetts) 3/4 of a Million Dollars. Can't wait for the Movie to come out! Borat couldn't even touch this level of publicity. Like Borat did with his movie, this stunt shows us how stupid some of us can actually be. How about the city of Boston joins forces with the Frat boys from Borat for a good ol' All-American lawsuit. I guess ATHF & Lite-Brite were more popular/well known in cities other than Boston. Not anymore!!! "Prepare for a pride obliterating b!tch slap in front of your closest friends" - Ignignot from ATHF.
Hanging signs without a permit or slap tagging (placing stickers on someone else's property) is ALL they have on the 2 guy's arraigned for this over-reaction. I suppose the city will even try to make them pay for the cost's of the REAL bombs that were used to blow up one of the Lite-Brite's/Ignignot. For those who don't know, Ignignot is the name of the cartoon character that struck fear into all those Boston cops and if you don't know what a Lite-Brite is then you're probably not old enough to be in a position of power to call the shot's on a real bomb scare.

Seriously, you would think out of all the cities this marketing campaign took place, Boston would be one of the last to OVERACT at such thing being that Aqua Teen Hunger Force has a sizable "college-student" following....But hey, kudos to those "authorities" that shut down their city of Boston while the other 9 cities including mine (NEW YORK CITY) had authorities capable of actually investigating before sending the population into panic-mode. Funny cause i saw 2 of these devices a few days ago :)

Was there any room for this device to be anything else BUT a bomb? This is a fundamental problem of life: Do we allow for ambiguity, or do we see everything in black and white? This applies to the situation here because before the city of Boston reacted, they reacted as if this strange device must be a bomb, because people had already reacted so.

Rules are a way to take control over life, and life is simply too chaotic to bind to rules. To that extent, people are saying that you can't trust any bulletin board, any electronic device, just because it may be a bomb and there may be terrorists behind it. However, this is a type of pervasive distrust of humanity does not fit in our idealized world. We all have to continue learning and avoid fearing, or else we've lost.

Regardless, I doubt that anybody at Turner, or the three involved at the ground level should be held responsible. This is a *failure of intelligence*. We rightfully started the blame at the CIA for failures of 9/11, and now we blame the 'terrorists' of this situation before we blame our own hastiness and deep-seated paranoia. Furthermore, the state obviously has no case in this matter--I don't know if the terrorists in any other situation emblazoned their outfits with "I AM DANGEROUS" or "I AM A TERRORIST" when they struck.

This mistake was not made in nearly all the other cities with these same advertisments. It's not fair to blame someone else entirely for a mutual mistake, but this is not the case for Boston. Because of this, I'm blaming Boston's ignorance and self-absorption for this problem.

I sincerely hope that Deval Patrick can somehow clear out the plaque that must be clogging up the legal system in MA.

Just a silly advertising gimmic, no harm no foul???
Guerilla Marketing?? Nothing more than tagging methinks, destruction of public property with no respect for ordinances and regualtions. Had they taken out permits, or applied for advertising space, (in other words followed the rules, there would have been no problem. It is a lack of respect. The fine? Hmmm, how about for defacing public property and an amount equal to permitting fees that would have been charged, or maybe some community service to promote a sense of respect for others.
Bombs, suspicious packages and terrorist threats?? paranoia at it's hysterical peak. Certainly no presence of critical thinking skills are required for that move, and reality testing before you disrupt an entire city out of fear and dread might have been a good move. The fine??? Sentence all of the officials to critical thinking classes and being responsible for the costs to the community by their lack of professional behavior by asking forgiveness and learning from their mistakes.
Sad to say, none of the above will ever happen, and the blame laying and finger pointing will never end. A sad state of affairs this country is in, from the Liberal down to the conservative base.

It would seem that Boston is in the same state of preparedness as before 9/11: ignore a real threat and and overreact to a non-threat. What a moron Boston police commissioner Davis is, what a true moron. He is less than a man, less than a human. HE is responsible for the expense of the debacle and HE should be made to pay for it personally.

If we become so paranoid about terrorists trying to destroy our nation and our lives that we jump at every little shadow that could maybe possibly in the right light be a weapon, then whats the point of living? If we can't live our lives with some semblance of confidence and security then whats the point in living? If we're afraid to go outside because "the terrorists could have put a bomb somewhere" then it sounds like they won. I'm pretty sure that anyone looking to make a statement using violence wouldn't have used a the Mooninites, and even if you don't know who the Mooninites are, the thing didn't even look like a bomb. Would it be logical to attract attention to a bomb with a flashing square cartoon flipping people off? No, and the city of Boston's reaction wasn't logical either. Thank god I'm not from Boston.

I work In public safety and I can not believe How this got so out of hand,If the original responding department would of investigated this complaint a little closer,they would of found out that these signs were in fact not explosive devices.And would of saved the tax payers a lot of money,And would not of had the whole city of boston in an panic.Then they could of just taken these signs down,Without calling out all of extra agencies,And speaking of all the other agencies,That is what they are there for anyway right.They should just consider it a good training exercise and move on.And drop the charges on the two men they have in custody.

how can you tell this wasn't an explosive device at first glance,from 50 ft away. If it was in your neighborhood you'd probably react differently. can you say for sure, even if you could make it out clearly from that far away, that this wasn't Osama giving us the finger one last time before a bomb blew up? In the end they might have over-reacted once the sixth one was found, intact(it wasn't blown up cause it was attached to a building, and it was clear that it was just some lite brite, since this one happen to light up at night before its scheduled debut) but you would think after the chaos the first one caused, then 3 more before the morning was over, that someone would come forward and say something! that is negligence, and TBS, the marketing firm, and the punks who showed up in court more worried what their hair looked like, should all pay. Public places and bridges are not open to advertisers for a reason.

Like most of those who took the time to read responses to this blog and respond themselves, I too cannot believe what I am reading. I can't believe that there are people here that think the city of Boston has overreacted! Are we blind to the possibilities, can it be that easy to cover the eyes of America? Have you learned nothing yet? Will you really excuse these guys for concealing these toys in a threatening manner? I can see the possibility of this type of arrangement to get folks like most of you to feel safe. They simply place some stupid toys in several major cities, have them deemed to be safe in the others, and then Kah-Blam in Boston, played like a deck of cards. Are you awake yet? What would you say then? Boston should have looked into it? Or will you have written it off since they are toys, saying Boston had no way of knowing. Do you expect that everyone is sitting on their couch at home watching cartoon network and are aware of what these dumb looking things are? This could have been the way to set these oblivious folks up. For all we know, we may have just taught terrorist how to get the next job done, lol. The bottom line is overreacting is better than not acting at all and if you want to make reference to 9/11, make reference to that big blunder where “idle” threats were written off. Maybe I should wait until another disastrous terror attack is carried out on our country to revisit these pages for a recap…Maybe we are too smart in Boston, and others just don’t get it, humph, shame.

People of Boston, your mayor is a joke. You know what to do come election time.

I disagree with all the comments that it's a generational gap thing. I'm in my 20's and my first reaction to hearing about the situation was "WTF was Turner thinking????????" The planes that brought down the WTC on 9/11 took off from Logan so of *COURSE* the authorities are not going to take any chances when it comes to a suspected terrorist attack.

While I don't believe that the subcontractors should go to jail over it, I *DO* think that Turner ought to be held responsible for reimbursing the city for the money spent in dealing with this incident.

I can't resist not making a comment here. I have been in law enforcement, studied law and I am in the Army. I can tell you and anyone can tell that these objects look nothing like bombs. So what is the problem? It's political. Some person made a bad call in the city and decided to dispatch their law enforcement and bomb squads. They further added to the fear of the city by probably telling the people that it was a bomb or cordoning off areas and clearing buildings as if it was a bomb. After all they had to do this if they actually thought they were bombs. Normally that safety area is a 1000 meters. That is where the fear came from; some political figure made a stupid call and over reacted. Before that happened, I bet the city of Boston was laughing at the things. The Government has a responsibility to its people and that responsibility is to protect them. They should do that by solving real problems and not causing them. I see the political figure that over reacted as the person that should be legally liable. There are many times in my life where I had to protect people and this was poorly handled.