Comments

aikimark • March 2, 2007 11:43 AM

@Pat,

Can’t you use a photo editor to blur the extended fingers like they did on TV?

Snarky • March 2, 2007 11:50 AM

I’ve got it!
Plastic explosives shaped and colored to look like an American flag!
Oh, wait!
I just gave those darned terrorists the foolproof way to bomb Boston!

Carlo Graziani • March 2, 2007 11:52 AM

“If it’s not an American flag, it’s probably a bomb”.

Hadn’t thought of that. I suppose that if one did wish to plant a bomb, decorating it with an American flag would probably protect it from police detection.

Fred P • March 2, 2007 11:52 AM

I tend to think that some people (like the Boston Police force) have played Paranoia, but don’t yet realize that it’s satire (see URL at name).

DocOrion • March 2, 2007 12:04 PM

Oh heck, yeah! Can I have one?!

(Yes, I know it’s a graphic. I can dream, can’t I?)

Spider • March 2, 2007 12:43 PM

In that case, we’ll need a more efficient way of blowing suspicious items up. Some sort of a grenade launcher with super glue sprayed on it.

Then it could be combined with preexisting security cameras to detect non-flag items and send the super glue enhanced grenade lanching robot to dispatch it.

We’ll need to fine tune the flag reconginiton to make sure it only spares US flags, and not simular ones like cuba, puerto rico, or Texas’s flag. There might be some false positives, but I can’t think of a more patriotic way of disposing of a flag than destroying it in our fight for freedom.

Roxanne • March 2, 2007 1:47 PM

But it doesn’t tell us how to order the poster. 🙁

I love that it has borrowed the style of those Motivational (and De-motivational) posters that show up in schools all the time.

Meatwad • March 2, 2007 2:08 PM

Now why did you post that link? The Boston Police just came into my cubicle and blew up my monitor!

Pat Cahalan • March 2, 2007 6:26 PM

Re:

http://bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/this_just_in/documents/03885837.asp

[q]

So if Previtera didn’t mention a bomb, what exactly constitutes a bomb threat?

“It can be implied, with fingers and wires — especially in a heightened state of alert, as we are,” says Officer Michael McCarthy, Boston Police Department spokesman.

[/q]

Given that your “heightened state of alert” is largely due to your astonishing, staggering, unbelievable incompetence, I’m thinking this is implication is something entirely in the magic thinking of the Boston PD.

Woo • March 3, 2007 9:09 AM

If everybody with boxes and wires is bound to be blown up, I wonder when this country will run out of electricians.

Has any Boston PD officer already blown up his office radio’s speakers? After all.. they’re also just boxes with wires on them, and usually connected to a strange device with lights and numbers on it..

Ale • March 4, 2007 1:07 PM

‘You can never be too careful,” said O’Hara. “I’d blow up a hundred innocent people if I can prevent another 9/11’

What an idiot.

Mike • March 6, 2007 1:39 AM

I would love to have that Paranoia photo as a car window decal or as a bumper sticker.

wrs • June 9, 2007 1:55 PM

Hey Bruce,

over here in Germany anti-G8 demonstrators now get arrested into wire hovels because of suspicious look – a dark cloth, coat with a hood or sunglasses.

Already press calls the jail Small Guantanamo. Here are some pictures, people could smuggle out: http://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/590773.html?nv=ct_rl&backref=%2Fpolitik%2Fdeutschland%2F%3ADie-Seite-Gipfels-Klein-Guantanamo-Rostock%2F590715.html

I wonder when the first one gets blasted off here to.

Best,

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