How We Lost the Battle of Boston: Fear of Aqua Teen Hunger Force

You'll hear pundits on the radio and on TV going on and on about how "we can't let the terrorists win." If you switch on your FM radio and turn the dial to one of your many local hate radio stations, you can probably hear this exact phrase being spoken aloud right now.

We can't pull troops out of Iraq because then the terrorists will win. We can't send more troops to Iraq because it will break up American families and then the terrorists will win. You have to keep going to work and going shopping and shelling out money and buying trinkets at the dollar store or else the terrorists will win.

In Boston, on January 31st (which date we will all remember), we witnessed a city paralyzed by its own police force, in a gross overreaction to...what?

To unauthorized Ryder trucks parked outside government buildings? No.
To aerosol neurotoxins disbursed in the city's subway tunnels? No.
Perhaps to suspicious packages placed about the city transit system? No.

To cartoons. To cartoon characters, rendered in colorful lights, part of a promotional campaign for an animated movie.

The northbound lanes of Interstate 93 were closed to traffic. Most Boston's public transportation system was shut down. Two bridges, the BU Bridge and Longfellow Bridge were closed by police and the Coast Guard was enlisted to close the Charles River, spanned by both bridges, to boat traffic.

Boston P.D. went on, that fateful day, to valiantly and courageously blow up a bunch of cartoon characters. The drama was covered, as always, by the television cameras of CNN and other stations. And the images of closed highways and large scale police response paralyzed the city with fear.

Fear of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

Think about that for just a second: The Mooninites, occasional Aqua Teen guest characters, paralyzed the city of Boston with fear.