Why are Massachusetts people so panicky?

[Bucky]

Seriously, does this look like a bomb threat to you?

Promotional Fax Mistaken for Bomb Threat

ASHLAND, Mass. - A faulty bank fax printed a message that was misinterpreted as a bomb threat Wednesday, leading authorities to evacuate more than a dozen neighboring businesses and a day care center.

The branch manager of the Bank of America called police about 10 a.m. after receiving a fax containing images of a lit match and a bomb with a fuse, bank spokesman Ernesto Anguilla said.

But text explaining the fax was an internal bank promotion failed to transmit. The missing text included the phrases "The countdown begins" and "Small business commitment week June 4-8," according to a copy circulated by police.

Ri-i-i-ight. "Small business commitment week" is clearly a jihadist threat against our American way of lift. Obviously a threat from, you know, the type of jihadists who tend to use Microsoft Clip Art on their death threats. The same sick, freedom-hating bastards who designed el-train bombs to look like the Aqua Teen Hunger Force villains the Mooninites.

Help me understand this, Bay State DUers. Are your neighbors really all that jittery? Do your local cops quiver like Barney Fife with his one bullet loaded in the chamber? I was thinking about taking my 17 year old daughter up to Massachusetts this summer to check out the colleges. But if a stranger shows up in town with an outsider's accent, do you think it will cause people to go rioting thru the streets screaming "The British are coming!"?

[sleipnir]

1. Simple answer. It is run by Choades.

n/t

[uppityperson]

2. The graphics came through but no words? That would look odd.

[Tom Joad]

3. every abandoned knapsack in america is seen as a portable bomb,

if not seen as a possible nuclear weapon.

[JeffR]

4. The Lite Brites are Coming! The Lite Brites are Coming!

I'm a Floridian and a Georgia registered Democrat, so I desperately laugh at any state with absolute impunity. Or at least, in my pathetic worm's eye, lowest-of-the-low, two tainted stars on Old Glory perspective, I think I can...

[Kat45]

5. I saw that on the news.

When the fax came through, it had no text, only the images. They thought it was a picture of a bomb being lit, and a timer/clock counting down time 'til the bomb. Yeah, I found it silly, but it seems that these days a lot of people are extremely paranoid about terror. I guess they just listen to their government in Washington, who is always telling them they should be afraid. I don't know how many times I've heard on the news incidents of schools being locked down, places being evacuated because of a bomb scare. :shrug:

[MannyGoldstein]

6. Wrong Picture

That's what was supposed to be received.

Somehow, it actually looked like this when it showed up:

http://news.bostonherald.com/galleries/?title=Faxscare

Which is a might threatening, in an amusing way.

[uppityperson]

8. THis does look off. I can see being concerned enough to track it down.

[canetoad]

10. The senders of that fax should be jailed

for wasting other peoples toner on big black promotional images.

[Kurovski]

7. Too much ice cream?

:shrug:

[Breeze54]

9. People from MA aren't panicky, just cautious.

Short Fuse

June 1, 2007

Terror scares: Aqua Teen II in Ashland

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2007/06/01/short_fuse/

History repeats itself -- the first time as farce, and the second time as farce. In January,
an ad stunt that was mistaken for a terrorist plot briefly paralyzed Boston. On Wednesday in
Ashland, a mysterious fax to a Bank of America branch triggered the evacuation of a strip mall.
The fax, which pictured a bomb with a lit fuse, turned out to be a garbled marketing document
from the bank's corporate headquarters. Just as Cartoon Network marketers should have known
better than to place circuit boards and wires near bridges and subway stations, Bank of America
shouldn't send out faxes with bomb imagery. In recent years, police and average citizens alike
have been told to report anything suspicious. Perfectly justifiable responses can create absurd
situations. And if ad gizmos and badly faxed clip art can trigger broader panic, these two terror
scares won't be the last.

[Edweird]

11. What, they don't have *69? or a fax record?

Why would a terrorist send a fax? That is just dumb. Somebody is lacking critical thinking skills.

[dEMOK]

12. Because People like you...

...are so aggressive,

[welshTerrier2]

13. i live in this town ...

does this sound panicky to you? the woman was right in "mid-haircut" ... can you imagine the stress she must have been under?

this is from the local paper ...

The scare vexed some business owners and workers.

Nick Markos, owner of Town House Pizza next door to the bank, said a woman who works there came to his restaurant at about 9:45 a.m. and told him the bank had received a threatening fax.

Markos said he did not take the threat seriously at first, figuring it might be a hoax. "I went to do an errand, and the next thing I knew, it was a mad zoo," he said.

Markos said he left two pizzas burning in his oven and was frustrated that he was missing a usually busy lunchtime. He said he also had planned to meet with a contractor at the restaurant to discuss remodeling.

"I see every customer turned away right now," Markos said, looking at police cars blocking off the entrance to the parking lot.

Dawn Frazier, owner of Paul Albert Salon and Spa, said she walked over to the bank to pick up change for her business and found all the employees outside. <skip>

The evacuation left Mary Griffin of Ashland in mid-haircut, but she took the interruption in stride. "It was no problem," said Griffin, a former Chicago school principal.

[Bucky]

16. Heh. It sounds like a James Thurber short story I read.

One guy on a street moves suddenly, some people jump quickly in reaction to him, and by chain reaction by the end of the story there's a full on panic in the street with people running away from God-knows-what. I think he was making fun of Cold War paranoia & mob psychology. Thank God we don't fall for such fear mongering anymore.

[dave_p]

14. But what if the British ARE coming?

Massachusetts will be prepared. The rest of America will just wake up one morning and find itself drafted into soccer militias, curfewed under an Anti-Social Behavior Order and paying $6 for gas.

And the Brits will bring their weather. Massachusetts can cope with that. Will other states?

[Bucky]

15. They would be right to invade us. We have missiles that could hit them in 45 minutes

And we could give them to terrorists. After all, don't we have a history of using germ warfare against our own people? And we do have contacts with known terrorist groups. Frankly, I suspect we'd greet our British liberators with open arms.

[rug]

17. It all goes back to Paul Revere.

[zippy890]

18. Yes, thats it

:rofl:

we Massachusettes people have a genetic tendency to get panicky - going back to Paul Revere.

:rofl: oh thanks for that

[Forkboy]

19. That's NOT the pic that was recieved.