America the scared: "Flashing Beer Ad Forces Hotel Evacuation"

[Newsjock]

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/06/21/national/a192304D26.DTL

Plymouth, Ind. (AP) -- A red light from a beer ad that a bartender suspected was a bomb when he saw it blinking on a wall forced 35 people to be evacuated from a resort hotel.

The guests were allowed back in their rooms less than an hour later after a Marshall County sheriff's officer determined the light was part of a Pabst Blue Ribbon ad suction-cupped to the window of the Sam Snead restaurant in the resort.

... The false alarm is a sign of the times in a post-Sept. 11 world, Leedke said.

[marmar]

1. Oh for fuck's sake...

It's just gotten silly. Freedom from the Matrix, now!

[MadMaddie]

2. Living in constant fear is not American.....

If something happens we will deal with it like we always do.....

[otherlander]

3. That's it....I'm going to Washington, D.C.

with bubble wrap.

[hobbit709]

4. When in danger or in doubt

Run in circles, scream and shout.
And if that doesn't work, just panic, obviously there was not one iota of rational thought involved here. If someone is going to place a bomb somewhere do you really think it would come with a neon-lit billboard announcing its presence.

[BuyingThyme]

5. Terra, terra, terra!

[sweetheart]

6. musta been one hell of a bowel movement

They should advertize that, it would attract customers.

[rurallib]

7. Terra alert now a flashing beer sign

Up from orange.

[Igel]

8. I think that's the most surreal thing I've heard today.

Silly doesn't begin to cover it.

Yeah, I know if I ever am in charge of producing a terrorist weapon of midlevel destruction, I'm gonna make sure it has a big, bright, flashing red light. Put everybody in an epileptic seizure, I will.

Geesh.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. You haven't been watching your James Bond movies properly

Didn't you know it's impossible to build a bomb without a large red LED countdown on it?

[Igel]

13. LOL.

Large red FLASHING LED.

[NYC]

9. I read the rest of the article.

Didn't say much. What must that ad have looked like?

[defiant1]

10. WTF?

Why does it say:

"A red light from a beer ad that a bartender suspected was a bomb when he saw it blinking on a WALL forced 35 people to be evacuated from a resort hotel."

and then say:

"The guests were allowed back in their rooms less than an hour later after a Marshall County sheriff's officer determined the light was part of a Pabst Blue Ribbon ad suction-cupped to the WINDOW of the Sam Snead restaurant in the resort."

Also was this his first day? I mean someone has to put up the sign, don't they? And he'd never noticed this blinking light before? Why was his first instinct to call the authorities instead of walking his ass over there and getting a look for himself?

This is an odd story, indeed.

d1

[The_Casual_Observer]

11. The land of the free and the home of the brave.

[jmowreader]

14. Follow-up article: Thirty-five hotel guests assault bartender

Plymouth, Ind. (Spurious News Network) -- A bartender whose false alarm triggered the evacuation of a resort hotel had the living shit kicked out of him by the 35 outraged hotel guests.

"My husband's Viagra just kicked in when the police started pounding on our door!" screamed Myrna Jones, a vacationer from Indianapolis. "Do you know what that shit costs? And Frank's doctor says he can't have but one tablet every three days. You're damn straight I wailed on that idiot bartender."

The bartender, who was fired immediately after his beating, called in a bomb threat after observing a blinking red light on a beer sign in the hotel's restaurant.