So again, Cartoon Network should not have fired anyone, Boston’s police didn’t over react. Certainly, some of the officials did in the wake of it. But most of the people saying “It’s just a lite brite” are not nearly as smart as they think they are.

And how did they realize neither were present and it was a hoax? By investigating the call about a suspicious item that looked like a bomb and ensuring that, just in case it was, no one would be harmed by it if it went off while they were investigating.

I live in New York City, and work about a 1/2-mile south of the former World Trade Center, so I don’t take things like this lightly. It’s easy to play armchair crisis management from the safety of hindsight, but slamming Boston for their response is oversimplifying the situation in the name of what…lame attempts at snark and political commentary? Whatever.

The prolem is that the Boston PD, the Bomb Squad and several Federal agencies got everyone worked up over batteries and a circuit board. Where’s the detonator? Where’s the explosive? Answer – nowhere…and yet they felt they had to save face and detonate a lite brite.

They all have been spending millions of our tax dollars since 9/11 training to identify and assess potential terrorist threats, and then deal with them. The idea that they couldn’t I.D. this as a non-threat (if the bird finger weren’t enough of a clue) immediately says that they are incompetent.

It also points out we were foolish to put our trust in their “expertise” in the first place. Heidi’s right – the terrorists have won because Boston panicked instead of dealing with it. Now that they have egg on their faces they’re looking for payback. CN is going to pay a bunch of money to them.

Again, Boston you are stupid. stupid. stupid and you have heightened our culture of fear for no reason. We paid for your training with our tax dollars so we wouldn’t have to live in fear – so we would know that we have experts on hand to identify and eliminate threats before they happen…

Boston bring your resume’ and some whiteout into my office. We need to reassess your qualifications “to protect and serve.” While we’re at it – let’s go over your paychecks since 2002. I smell a rebate.

Not sure if Heidi was being facetious or not, but the whole situation — up to and including the scapegoating of Jim Samples (what about Sam Travis Ewen?) — is definitely an example of the terrorists “winning,” and not necessarily the ones we’re fighting in Iraq. Terrorism doesn’t always mean blowing shit up.

#1 – You want to advertise something? Stick to conventional means. We live in a justifyably paranoid society, or have we all forgotten 9/11. A whole lot of this world hates us, and it is not implausible that something like this could’ve been dangerous.

#2 – Everything I’ve heard about Samples indicates that his removal from Cartoon Network is no big loss. Granted, I can’t think of a single thing on that network that’s been worth my time since they pulled the plug on Justice League and Teen Titans. And that certainly includes Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Boston- have they ever suffered a terrorist attack?- gets a few, and they all need to change their diapers. That’s EXACTLY the type of thing a terrorist would want to happen: for a bunch of dumb people to get scared over something minor, and go off the deep end.

I think Boston owes Cartoon Network and Jim Samples an apology for being so stupid and making things so complicated.

Something that I think is interesting is that the head of Cartoon Network and NOT the head of Adult Swim is the one that resigned. Did they need someone higher up than that or did they feel that the head of Adult Swim was worth too much to let resign?

http://video.msn.com/v/us/msnbc.htm?g=ca438e50-5dbb-4ea4-8f3e-cc3155d55d19&f=00&fg=email

Guess what Boston? We want out money back…with interest.