If their parents would wear their asses out like my generation of parents did, they'd be afraid to do this cowardly BS.

Where screaming a threat (this could be construed as such) to more than 1 person is charged as felony terrorism. Plus for extra goodness we don't HAVE a juvenile court system so the ADA can charge any 16 year, at their own discretion, as an adult.

Salonfranciscans would be advised to pull their oh so precious heads out of their asses once in a while and take a realistic look at what's going on.

Maybe it's just because I'm young and about ten years ago spent a lot of time skateboarding, but I know the origin of the whole fire-in-the-hole prank. The original CKY video (the crew that largely constitute Jackass) featured that in a video, then Brandon DiCamillo sang a little ditty about it. Kids have been doing this for about ten years, but only Youtube could bring it into the mainstream media as described in this article. A bunch of slackers with video cameras from Pennsylvania started this trend, and a bunch of idiot kids who don't realize posting crimes on Youtube is a very bad idea have continued it. Ahhh, the youth never really change.

The best punishment would have been for the judge to order the fast food workers to visit the bedrooms of these kids, toss about a dozen Big Gulps all over their beds, clothes and other possessions, and then laugh "have fun cleaning it up, you little dipsh*ts."

Film that, stick it on Youtube with a preface saying here's what you get if you ever try "fire in the hole," and I guarantee no kid will ever want to try that particular prank again.

(and I bet the victimized fast food workers will feel a lot more satisfaction about the whole thing, too).

While I would tend to agree with your analysis, Farhad, I wonder if the judge was thinking of this in a different way than you are - that in essence the kids would be making a public apology through their video. If you think about it, the internet is in many places a public forum, perhaps equivalent to the town square of the past. It is embarrassing to do what the kids had to do, so perhaps he was equating this to a 21st century version of the pillory (to extend the analogy)? People leave comments instead of throwing rotten vegetables (or worse!) at the offenders. Additionally, the judge is striking out at the notion of anonymity on the internet - making an example of these pranksters, showing that you can indeed get caught if you misbehave.

I’m going to guess not many. In fact – I would argue that when a prank hits something like the Today Show or Dr. Phil it’s un-cool and over.

I think what this shows kids is what they should have known all along: video tape yourself doing something bad and you will get caught.