Aqua Teen Hunger Settlement

Turner Broadcasting, parent company of the Cartoon Network, and ad agency Interference, Inc., have agreed to pay Boston $2 million to reimburse the city for costs associated with the latter's security measures in response to what city and state officials thought was a terrorist attack. This is pretty much win-win. Turner avoids litigation and more importantly, gets more publicity. Boston officials get to point to the settlement as evidence that Turner and Interference must have done something illegal or at least very wrong in placing their electronic ad devices in various locations throughout the city. That may deflect attention from the gross overreaction to a collection of light bulbs giving Bostonians the finger.

Of course, the $2 million will not go to reimburse the thousands of people who missed meetings and were otherwise inconvenienced by the city's near-shutdown. Presumably they are the ones who would otherwise be clamoring for accountability. Or perhaps I have it exactly backwards. Maybe Bostonians are justly proud of their vigilant law enforcement officers for perceiving a potential threat where officials in nine other cities did not.