Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

I”m within 30 days of my birthday, which in Georgia means it”s time to renew the car tags. Both my Maxima and the wife”s Santa Fe come due for tags on my birthday (I”m listed first on her title), which means a double-treat of ad valorem taxes next month.

[editor"s note: If you buy a new car in Georgia, buy it between 1 and 90 days before your birthday and you get to skip the first year of ad valorem taxes. That saved us somewhere around $600 on the Santa Fe.]

And, as a bonus, I get to renew in person this year, thanks to us moving into the new manor last year.

But wait! There”s more!

I also get to renew my driver”s license this year. I”m sure that will be a real joy now that they”ve closed all the Kroger DMV kiosks.

I”m actually eager to do the license renewal. I”m starting to get odd looks when people have to check my ID. I don”t know exactly how old the picture is, but in it I”m wearing a tie. That dates it to at least August of 1997, the last time I had to wear a tie professionally. I begged the DMV people to let me take a new picture when I changed my address nearly 4 years ago, but they wouldn”t let me. I”m hoping it”s different when you actually renew.

So tonight I was doing some advance research on the wheres and whens of tag and license renewal. And in my surfing of the DMV site, I discovered something that apparently had slipped under my radar.

Loyal readers of The Wisdom will remember my award-winning pieces on the URL trend in tags and on Georgia”s new URL-laden tags being rolled out this year.

Well, as it turns out, the state has decided not to replace the “Georgia … on my Mind” tags with the ultra-lame “www.Georgia.gov” tags. A press release issued in late October says the state has decided to only issue the URL tags for new vehicles and when somebody orders a new vanity, college or other specialty plate. Seems the state would rather save the $7.8 million it would have cost over three years to replace all the current tags than promote one of the world”s most obvious governmental URLs on all vehicles in the state.

I can”t believe I missed that.

Also on the DMV site, I found out that the state now issues “Low Speed Vehicle” tags:

Vehicles with that tag are restricted to roads with speed limits of 35 MPH or less. It”s unclear whether the decision to get a “Low Speed Vehicle” tag rests with the driver of the vehicle or with justice-minded citizens such as myself.

I”d love to have the power to slap one of those on the next minivan I get behind going 45 MPH up I-75.

With the Georgia primary coming up in a couple of weeks, presidential campaign commercials have started popping up on local TV. And I saw one for Socialist Senator John Edwards tonight that I felt compelled to respond to.

Please understand that I know my opinion doesn”t matter. The wife and I are in a very insignificant minority in this country - we make pretty good money. We”re among the top 15% of income-earning households, in fact (don”t get jealous - you probably are, too. If you”re married, both of you work and you each make $37,500 a year, you qualify).

It”s the 63.4% of households which have incomes of less than $40,000 that socialists like Edwards cater to. The American majority of under-achievers wants the government to give them “stuff” and they want the “rich” to pay for it. And Edwards (even more so than John Kerry) is happy to offer up the grab bag of goodies to win their votes.

It”s a winning strategy, of course. In politics, you go where the numbers are. That”s why nobody - not even the “caring” Democrats - will stand up for the rights of homosexuals when it comes to “marriage.” They may believe in their hearts that all people - including gay folks - should have equal protection under the law, but homosexuals make up, what, 10% of the population?

That”s even more of a losing platform than championing the cause of people who make good money and pay a lot in taxes.

But I digress.

The commercial used Edwards” standard “there are two Americas” theme (one America for the rich, one for the poor, you see - and that”s a bad, bad thing), and when talking about taxes, here is the outright lie that sprang forth from his oh-so-pretty trial-lawyer mouth:

“Two tax systems, where the wealthy and corporations pay less; working families pay more.”

Yes, that”s what he said. He said the “wealthy and corporations” pay less taxes and that “working families” pay more.

Let”s go to the stats!

The figures below (and above) are from the IRS” own “tax stats” section. And they represent the truth.

• On his website, Edwards defines the “wealthiest Americans” as the top 2% of income earners. That, according to the IRS (and Edwards), means a household income of $200,000 or more. In 2001, those households earned 54.5% of all income and paid 74.7% of all individual income tax. On average, households in this group had an effective tax rate of 20.90% on their income.

• It”s hard to tell what Edwards considers to be “working families”, although there is a reference on his site to limiting programs for “working Americans” to households making under $50,000. In 2001, those households earned 29.2% of all income and paid 13.5% of all individual income tax. On average, households in this group had an effective tax rate of 7.05% on their income.

Even I can do the math on that one. If you have a higher income and pay a higher percentage of your income in taxes, you”re paying more tax than someone with a lower income and lower tax rate.

Yet Edwards will throw out a lie like “the wealthy and corporations pay less; working families pay more” without flinching (yes, I backed up the DVR to make sure I got that line right).

And 63.4% of Americans will buy it.

P.S. Corporations don”t pay income tax. You pay the “corporate” income tax because all of the income corporations pay tax on actually comes from the corporation”s customers. Which is you.

I set out this morning to update and make consistent my passwords for the different online banking/financial services I use. No, you won”t be able to guess my new password.

When I got to Citibank, there was a link on the password change page which read “User ID and Password Guidelines” and within that page there was a section titled “Citibank Vulgar Language Policy”. I figured that might be fun to read.

By policy, Citibank will not allow me to have a user name or password containing language that:

• Is sexually explicit, vulgar or obscene.
• Is racially or ethnically offensive.
• Exploits a minor (any person under the age of 18).
• Defames, abuses or threatens physical harm or death to others or oneself.
• Represents violence.

“Determination of whether there has been a violation of the policy, and whether any action is warranted, is made at our sole discretion.”

OK, the first category (sexually explicit, vulgar, obscene) is pretty easy to understand. Sam Jackson can”t have “badmotherfucker” as his password. Although why they would restrict passwords - which are only useful if nobody else knows what they are - is a mystery to me.

They also can”t be “racially or ethnically offensive”, so no “mexicansarelazy” or “jewslovemoney” there.

Then things get a little tricky.

My user name and password can”t “exploit a minor”? I”m not sure how language can exploit a minor. I guess “cometodaddyyousexylittlegirl” is an inappropriate user name or something.

I also can”t defame, abuse or threaten physical harm or death to others or myself by use of my user name and password. I guess “johnedwardsisasocialist” is out, unless my user name would be protected by the defamation standards applied to public figures. But the part I like in this line is the inclusion of “oneself” in the prohibition. Under these terms, I can”t use “ihatemyself” or “iamfat” as a user name/password. Citibank must care a lot about me as a customer if they work to prevent me from putting myself down.

And, finally, no representing violence. What does “represent violence”, anyway? “bloodstainedsidewalk” does, I suppose. And “jackiechan” certainly does. How about
“itwasadarknightdowntownandasinglespentbulletcasinglayonthepavementglisteninginblood”? Does artistic merit win me any favors with the Citibank User Name and Password Appropriateness Patrol?

Let”s just say I”ll be happy to get back home to Atlanta. This is a work trip, so I shouldn”t expect too much excitement, but Blue Ash ain”t the most fabulous place in the world. So I”m left to ponder the little things around me.

• What an attractive air dam you have on your grille. Ohio is one of those states that have both front-end and back-end license plates on cars. Driving around this morning, this question occurred to me: How much gasoline is wasted in states that have front-end license plates? Bear with me here. Having a license plate on the front of the car disrupts - to some small degree - the aerodynamics of the car; the less aerodynamic a car is, the more air resistance it creates as it moves; the more resistance created, the more energy needed to move the car; the more energy needed to move the car, the more gas consumed. If the state required a 4 foot by 4 foot steel plate to be attached to your grille, there would be an obvious increase is gasoline consumption per vehicle. So requiring a license plate that is something like 14 inches wide by 8 inches tall also has some effect on each car”s fuel consumption. And now I”m wondering how much of an effect that is. Here”s a hypothetical: Assume there are 2 million cars in the state, and each car averages 10,000 miles a year and normally gets 20 miles per gallon. If the license plate on the front reduces fuel efficiency by one-tenth of one percent, that means those cars would now get 19.98 miles per gallon. For those 2 million cars driving 10,000 miles each, that”s an extra 100,100 gallons of gasoline per year. Significant? Maybe not. But these are the kinds of thing that get my mind working.

• But I”ve never worried about technicalities. Driving up I-75, I passed a tanker truck with the following label on the back: “TECHNICAL ANIMAL FAT. NOT INTENDED FOR HUMAN FOOD”. I get that some fats aren”t made for eating, but what”s this “technical” term?

• MOTORISTS ADVISED TO DEPART TRAVEL LANES AT DESIGNATED EGRESS POINTS Also on I-75, there were signs posted at the end of construction zones that read “RESUME LEGAL SPEED”. I know what they are trying to say - this is the end of the construction zone, so normal speed limits are back in effect. But “RESUME LEGAL SPEED”? That implies that I shouldn”t have been driving the “legal speed” up until this point. In the construction zone, they post lower speed limits, which are - during those zones - the “legal speed.” Poorly-worded road signs piss me off. There was another sign near Dayton that read “MAINTAIN PRESENT LANE”. Why not say “STAY IN LANE”? Americans are generally very stupid, so I don”t see why the highway department writes in anything above a third-grade level. I do miss, however, the signs along I-285 merge lanes that read “TAKE GAP GIVE GAP”. I never figured how I was supposed to do both. I either took the gap or I gave it away, right?

I”m living on the road in Cincinnati … Cincinnati ain”t the place to be. (sung to the tune of WKRP in Cincinnati).

Yes, this night finds me in beautiful Cincinnati Ohio. Or, more specifically, Blue Ash Ohio. A fabulous vacation? Not quite. Just work.

My experiences here aren”t living up, of course, to the fabulous exploits of Cap”n & Wife in Las Vegas and Hollywood last year. But for my own amusement, here are some observations from the finest damn town between Dayton and Louisville:

• If I”d thought about the children, I”d have never run down that highway worker. I flew in to Dayton and drove down to Cincinnati to save the company about $600. Just outside of Dayton, there”s a big construction area on I-75. And entering the construction area, there are two big signs on either side of the road. One reads “SLOW DOWN, MY DADDY WORKS HERE” and the other reads “SLOW DOWN, MY MOMMY WORKS HERE”. To add to the crumb-crusher effect, the sign was written in a “kid” font, with the “S” in “WORKS” drawn backward. Aww, how cute. I”m so sick of the “its for the children” mentality, I”m ret to scream. Just like the “Baby on Board” crap, you have to wonder if people think others are really more likely to create careless mayhem if you don”t remind them that “the children” may suffer from your recklessness. I say not. I like the construction signs I saw a few years ago in South Carolina. They were standard orange diamond signs that read “Let “em work. Let “em live.” I can get on board with that. Yes, I shall let them work, and in doing so, let them live!

• And now the hotel next door is taunting me. When I rolled in to town last night, I needed to grab some stuff off the Internet that I”d created for my meeting today. So I get in to my Hampton Inn room and I notice no high-speed modem; no notes about wireless service, and not even a spare phone jack to plug in a dial-up connection. And no business center, either. The guy at the front desk said most people go over to Kinkos and rent Internet time there. Great. I managed to find a local Earthlink number and fortunately the phone cord wasn”t hard-wired into the room phone, so I”m coming at you with a whopping 26.4 kbps. And the worst part is that my wireless card keeps picking up bits of the signal from the hotel next door. Of course, I can”t connect to it. It just keeps popping up as a reminder of my dial-up misery.

• Love the track suit, coach. We had dinner tonight at a place called the Montgomery Inn. It”s apparently a famous local ribs place (word on the street is that Bob Hope used to order ribs flown in from the Inn to his California parties). The ribs were OK, but I”ll take Daddy D”z over these any day. The Inn is also the home of the weekly radio show of University of Cincinnati basketball coach Bob Huggins. And tonight was show night. As we were waiting for our car, Coach Hug rolls up and makes his way inside. Yes, it was a beautiful satinesque Bearcats track suit he was wearing. I resisted the temptation to remind him of just how freaking overrated his program has been for the past 20 years. I made plenty of headway in my NCAA basketball pools in years past picking his teams to get upset.

The Atlantans among you are no doubt familiar with our town”s two news/talk radio stations - Cox-owned WSB-AM (750) and Clear Channel-owned WGST-AM (640). And if you follow the media, you know that WSB consistently crushes WGST and has for years. Anybody remember “Planet Radio”?

There have been signs lately that Clear Channel is getting absolutely desperate. Saddled with a 100-watt nighttime signal, WGST can”t reach the suburbs after sunset, so Clear Channel recently turned its FM “80s station” into a second talk station, much to the dismay of my wife.

And recently I”ve started to see (illegal) little blue signs stuck in the ground near busy intersections which read “For traffic information, tune to 640 AM.” The signs are obviously put up by WGST, but they have no branding. The station apparently wants to get listeners by making people think there”s some situation that requires them to tune in to 640. Pathetic.

However, on my way in to work, I often tune in to WGST”s morning program before Neal Boortz begins at 8:30 on WSB. The WGST morning show is way better than the headline-reading boredom that is the WSB morning program.

One of the things I like is that at 8:23 every morning, WGST has an interview with some kind of “news maker”. On Mondays, for instance, they always have Steve Roberts from ABC News on to talk politics. And during the NFL season, they had John Madden on every Friday to preview the Falcons and other weekend games.

Or so I thought.

This morning they featured an interview with a guy named Frank Caliendo, who is a comedian/impressionist appearing at some local comedy club. But the interview began with this intro: “Welcome back John Nadden, who you hear every week during the football season.”

That”s right. John “Nadden”. Not Madden. Nadden.

I remember thinking Madden sounded particularly incoherent during those WGST interviews, but I also very clearly remember that his appearances were never, ever, labeled as satire, the work of an impressionist or anything of the sort. It was always “joining us is John Nadden” (which, of course, is not distinguishable from “joining us is John Madden” on the radio.)

But they had a big laugh about the “Nadden” appearances on WGST.

It turns out this Caliendo dude appears on Fox Sports as Madden, Rush Limbaugh and other characters to give weekly NFL picks.

On TV, of course, the comedy/satire context is clear. Even so, Fox clearly labels these bits as “Frank”s Picks” and makes it clear that he”s doing impressions. Which is what you”d expect of a legitimate media outlet.

WGST, it seems, is not burdened by those same kinds of standards. It was ironic that on the same morning they laughed about Caliendo”s “John Nadden” appearances, they were oh-so-careful to explain that they are reporting that Alex Polier is denying an affair with John Kerry only because that rumor had, itself, become a story.

Caliendo and Tom Hughes (the WGST morning show host) were quite amused by the fact that AJC sports editor Furman Bisher was so taken in by the fake Madden that he included a bit in his column about being glad football season is over so he won”t have to listen to Madden on WGST.

They explained that the actual John Madden is not very happy about the WGST ruse. Hughes” defense was “hey, we never said he was John Madden. He”s John Nadden!”

Again, this seemed to surprise them. Who cares if a major-market radio station supposedly presenting “news” passes off a comedian as the country”s most respected NFL personality and goes out of its way to not reveal it”s a joke?

So maybe it was James Curville who provided the post-Iowa analysis a few weeks back. And perhaps it”s Paul Hervey doing those Paul Harvey segments; Rush Limpaugh airing everyday from noon to three and Dr. Maura on in the evenings.