Turner Broadcasting System has accepted full responsibility for the guerrilla marketing campaign that caused a security scare across Boston Wednesday. WBZ-TV's Dan Rea spoke with Mayor Thomas Menino Friday morning and Menino said that the company had agreed to pay about $250,000 for the costs created by the scare. Phil Kent, Turner's C-E-O, issued an apology in full-page ads in Boston newspapers Friday for "the confusion and inconvenience" caused as highways, bridges and river traffic were shut down. Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28, were released Thursday on $2,500 bail each after pleading not guilty pleas to charges of placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct. full article

If this is accurate, it changes my mind about the situation. Turner should not get off with a bribe. I still believe Berdovsky and Stevens deserve to face charges, but many others deserve to face charges as well. If the city of Boston is not going to prosecute the people at Turner and Interference who orchestrated the stunt, the city has no business persecuting the bottom-level guys who did their employer's dirty work.

I would like to note that this does not change my conviction that the police did a fine job. This is on Menino, not the police.

Bush's $2.9 trillion dollar budget proposal seeks to cut FEMA funding by 14%. Does he somehow believe that FEMA has been too well funded to handle disasters? Does he WANT another Katrina-style disaster? Perhaps he simply needs to scrape more money up for his failed wars and hopes that the public view this as punishing FEMA rather than further crippling an agency that was already decimated by his post-9/11 homeland security reforms.