Well thank God for the occassional bout of level-headedness. The five girls in a small Ohio town who caused a terrorist scare by leaving boxes that looked like question blocks from Super Mario Bros. around town will not be brought up on any criminal charges.

As reported by the Akron Beacon-Journal, Portage County Prosecutor Victor V. Vigluicci said the girls "The girls were imitating an art project they found on the Internet. None of the girls had any prior contacts with the police or juvenile court and are all good students. I do not believe that they had any bad or malicious intentions, (but) were not thinking about the consequences of their actions in this day and age."

The prosecutor even correctly identified it as an art project instead of "an Internet game that kids are playing nationwide" as reported by newspapers after the event. What does piss me off, however, is the commenters at Game Politics whining about the girls having to write apology letters.

Just because games are involved does not make the participants holy and blameless. The town may have overreacted, but the girls did something really stupid. Again, I must reiterate that they left several strange boxes at a Goddamn courthouse. Why do people on the Internet staunchly refuse to see both sides of a situation? It's like everyone within range of a computer with an Internet connection becomes a 14-year old in a Misfits t-shirt, bitching at their parents for giving them a curfew.

Source: Game Politics