Friday, February 02, 2007

I Am Peeved

I am hearing a lot of criticism of Boston's handling of the bomb scare the other day and I don't like it.
For example, this discussion over at Ala's.

Many sneered at the Boston Police Department's E.O.U.

My response:

Speaking as a taxpayer here, yes Turner Broadcasting should foot the entire bill. Also, there should be punative damages for the marketing company out of New York that told those two morons to keep quiet about it. They could have ended this several hours early. Turner should pay the whole million. It's no skin off their noses and it bought them more publicity than they could have ever dreamed. I realize those two nitwits didn't intend to cause a "terrorist" alert, but their conduct in court calls for some punishment. Had they walked into their arraignment showing any remorse, I wouldn't have given them another thought.
Why didn't it cause a panic in other cities? Because they were not placed in such odd locations. They were on the sides of buildings in trendy neighborhoods. They *looked* like what they were, ads. Boston's were placed in just exactly places you would want to damage if you were attacking Boston, transpostation hubs; bridges, public transit sites, major highway overpasses. Menino does sound like an idiot, so what? Streets get plowed and paved and people feel he delivers on constituent services. No I've never voted for him and no, I can't understand him half the time.
The BPD did everything by the book and deserve no criticism whatsoever. A circuit board with batteries hanging from the bottom of a major traffic artery should be treated as a threat. What exactly were they supposed to do? Being as they are gainfully employed, productive members of society who don't live in their parents basements and weren't high....the E.O.U didn't recognize Aqua Teen Hunger Force....go figure. I guess the next time a suspicious package is found, we should drop it over by the BU dorms and have some co-eds identify it for us?
Also, as far as this comment/questions: "Did the incompetent Boston authorities pay for the damage they allowed on 9-11?" *Boston* didn't allow anything. Globe Aviation Services Corp & Huntleigh USA Corp handled security at Logan that day, not the BPD. They didn't do a good job, but they weren't laughing afterwards either.
The very fact that shutting down these areas for the purposes of investigation caused such overwhelming chaos illustrates perfectly how very sensitive these areas are.
We send these officers to all kinds of special post 9/11 training courses and we are surprised when they see an electronic device hanging of off 93 as a threat. WTF! What do you want?

Quite the rant, huh? LOL I don't want to hear anymore MMQs talking smack. You weren't there and if you had been, you would have been one of the people running. There is a huge difference between seeing one of those shitty things hanging on the side of an office building while you sip you grande double cap latte at Starbucks and seeing a circuit board with batteries hanging from the bottom of 93. If you've never been in Sullivan Square then you are talking out your ass and you should STFU.

4 comments:

AFSister said...

Well... my comment is at ALa's, but I most definately agree with you that Turner owes Boston for the monetary value of the cleanup. I also agree with you on the 9/11 comment- it was out of line and not well thought out. Bram usually has more sense than that.

Was it worth investigating? Yeah. But was it worth arresting a couple of people for, or making such a big deal about? No, I really don't think so. The police and mayor overreacted to save face. A more proper response would have been that Turner is being handed a giant bill. A more proper handling of the original ad campaign would have avoided the whole thing- they should have gotten permission to hang the signs first. Whoever made the decision to hang the signs without getting permission needs to be charged with inducing panic. It was a bad, bad decision... but Boston really overreacted.

But Maggie... YA KNOW I LUVS YA!

BostonMaggie said...

**Whoever made the decision to hang the signs without getting permission needs to be charged with inducing panic.**

That's who was in court.

AFSister said...

Ah... well that's good to know, because all of the reports I've gotten just said that "two people" had been arrested. It never said WHY those two people were chosen out of the dozens who probably knew about this stunt.

googiebaba said...

I agree with you Maggie. Hindsight is 20/20. If those had been bombs, and the city ignored them, it would have been a lot worse.

And I don't know what to say about the two idiots in court.