After paralyzing the city of Boston for most of the day, it has been announced nationally that the Aqua Teens are no longer considered a Terrorist threat....well, less than Maher Arar, but still, I am sure they will be allowed to travel again soon.

When I first saw the story run on the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) and watched as a fully-suited bomb squaddie gingerly caressed a circuit board emblazoned with Ignignot into a bomb destruction bin, I admit I could do naught but laugh.

Surely a sense of humour existed in one of the hundreds of people involved in the city-wide anti-terrorist campaign? No? Not one of them could recognize a cartoon character or the fact that the devices were obviously just lights attached to a circuit board? No?

Similar ad boards were put up in New York; Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; Atlanta, Georgia; Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Austin, Texas; San Francisco, California; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The citizens of all these fine cities for the last two weeks all seemed to handle Ignignot flipping the bird to them without having to call the bomb-squad in their defence.

Boston police spokeswoman Elaine Driscoll, confirming the city's lack of humour, called Wednesday's incident "a colossal waste of money." She had no immediate comment on whether any laws were broken but said police would investigate further in an effort to waste more money.

CNN covered the story like this.

What has yet been mentioned in the major media is how to prevent future repeats of such cash-burning, common-sense defying incidents. My suggestion would be to have Homeland Security hire a panel of 12 to 16-year-olds or College students to do some quick Google fact checking or simply tap into their collective unconscious to weed out the ads from the threats in a more timely and cost effective manner.

As a post script, I would like to say that anyone who can get their hands on one of these signs would make a tidy profit on Ebay. I'd buy one.


Thanks to Sid for additional contributions!