The Aqua Teen Hunger Forcer terror story broke last week, so this isn’t exactly rolling out while the presses are hot … but I’ve been thinking, and sometimes that takes a while.

If we can’t cope with the placement of lite-brite^©-esque renditions of cartoon characters — if we mistake anything innocuous for a bomb — then I think it can be said that “the terrorists have won” … to use a phrase that’s been oft-bandied since 9/11. Isn’t the idea, in this new kind of cold war, that we, the peace-loving denizens of the west, are supposed to go about our lives as normal? Without fear of planes-as-projectiles and bombs in every bag of dirty laundry someone forgot on the bus?

Since the Aqua Teen Hunger Force put us in such a tizzy, and the aforesaid bag of dirty laundry draws a huge police presence, I’d say that we are not going about our lives as normal (was once defined). Obviously it pays to be safe … but this development proves that, now, overreaction is normal.

And if you’re wondering about what this has to do with video games, just take a look at Ignignokt and Err; it takes me back to when I played Space Invaders, when a bad of dirty laundry was just that, and Cost and Revs “terrorized” New York with paint rollers (and, no, they weren’t battery-powered).