The Aqua Teens are coming!
Everybody's a critic. Here's a sampling of what bloggers around the country, and beyond, have been saying about Boston since the "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" scare. Names and locations of bloggers are given as they are listed on each site. Some Guy With A Website, August J. Pollak, Washington, D.C.: Attorney General Martha Coakley needs to shut up and stop using the word "hoax." There was no hoax. Hoax implies Turner Networks and the ATHF people were trying to defraud or confuse people as to what they were doing. Hoax implies they were trying to make their signs look like bombs. They weren't. They made Lite-Brite signs of a cartoon character giving the finger.
Ain't It Cool News, Harry Knowles, Austin, Texas: It's illegal to yell FIRE in a theater -- you arrest the person who screamed FIRE! This kid didn't yell BOMB. The media did, the city did. If there was panic in the city, it was caused by the BOSTON news stations, radio stations and the people in government that leaked the story to them. They're the ones to blame, not the cartoon character.
Hard Drive Life, Corey Clayton, Lancaster, Pa.: That's some BAD marketing if you're stuff is mistaken as a bomb. And how do you not tell someone in the media or at the police dept. about this campaign, just in case someone calls 911?
Tumeke!, Martyn "Bomber" Bradbury, Auckland, New Zealand (or thereabouts): I don't want to suggest that America has become paranoid to the point of the absurd, I thought the case of two Secret Service agents pulling a 14 - year - old out of school to interview her because she had written 'Kill Bush' on her blog was the height of paranoia, but apparently Al Qaeda are a sneaky bunch of Muslims and have formed a special attack force made up of a floating Fries pack, a large cup with hands and a straw sticking out of its head and a stupid wad of meat that can talk.
Homeland Security never looked so prepared, I wonder if the color - coded terror threat might reach peach or apricot over fears that the Aqua Teen Hunger Force are about to launch an attack against America?
The Chicagoist, Laura Oppenheimer, Chicago, Ill.: Oh those crazy marketers, what will they think of next? First causing a ruckus in Boston, where they were thought to be some sort of terrorist ploy, the . . . packages turned out to be nothing more than an "ingenious" marketing ploy by Adult Swim's Aqua Teen Hunger Force. And now, of course, they are causing a smaller ruckus in Chicago. . . . Police Superintendent Philip Cline said the devices could have created "chaos" had they been discovered during this weekend's Super Bowl festivities. But as you can see, they didn't, since they were picked up by the police after the whole mess in Boston. It seems to Chicagoist that the marketers did a crappy job in Chicago; unlike those attached to bridges and other high - visibility areas in Beantown, none of the packages were spotted here.
J.M. BERGER 
