Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

OK, enough of the tease.

Yes, I quit my job Friday. The important note is that I have a new job I”ve taken to replace the old job.

Loyal and longtime readers of The Widsom will remember a time when I wrote about TWMBIC (The World”s Most Boring Internet Company). Then, as circumstance would have it, the bosses of TWMBIC found The Wisdom themselves, resulting in a dressing-down of Cap”n Ken and an abrupt cessasion of TWMBIC posts.

In short, TWMBIC isn”t the kind of place where Cap”n Ken can execute his plan of world domination. Therefore, the Cap”n has been seeking better opportunities to reach his goal of Earth Ruler.

And now I”ve found it. Where TWMBIC offered stagnation, TNIJ (The New Internet Job) offers promise. TWMBIC was a dead-end. TNIJ is an opportunity.

Yeah, I”m being rather vague. But considering a number of people within TWMBIC have become regular readers of The Wisdom [editor"s note: BlogPatrol tells me the IP origins of visitors, so I know when people at TWMBIC visit], and taking into account that I”ll still be employed by TWMBIC for 8 more working days, I”m not going to start spilling dirt now.

And, really, I have no beef with TWMBIC. I don”t think they “get it”, and I told my VP that when I ran into him on my way out Friday. And I”m better off elsewhere (TNIJ). But if TWMBIC is happy with how they do things and how well they perform, more power to them.

But TNIJ offers a lot of opportunity for the Cap”n. It”s a significant role in a significant part of a significant company. And, unlike TWMBIC, there”s opportunity at TNIJ to do a great job and actually advance within the organization based upon the performance of your job, not just on how long you”ve been employed there.

Plus, Cokes are 25 cents and they have mini-moos instead of powdered faux creamer in the break room.

*Cap”n Ken was pretty well sauced when writing this. Therefore The Wisdom is not responsible for factual errors, misspellings, obscenities or other general issues with this post.

The AJC has a piece this morning saying the Mitchell Street bridge downtown has been re-opened for “lightweight vehicle” traffic.

I used this bridge every afternoon on my trek home until it was abruptly closed back in January because the railroad that runs underneath it had it declared unsafe. The city has put off repairing or replacing it for years.

[editor"s note: In lieu of actually repairing the crumbling bridge, the city"s solution was to hang big steel nets under the bridge to catch the chunks of falling concrete so they didn"t land on the tracks. I"m not making that up.]

So in January the city had to shut it down. And the one good link between Northside Drive and the other side of the railroad was cut off (I used it to get over to I-20 on Spring Street).

And now - nearly six months later - the bridge has been re-opened to “lightweight” traffic. What feat of construction and engineering did the city spend these six months working on to re-open the bridge?

Yep, a pole. Six months to put up a $3,000 pole and open back up a bridge used by hundreds of people a day.

To demonstrate the safety of this fix, Atlanta”s public works chief was the first to drive over the re-opened bridge and told the AJC “I have all the confidence in the world in my engineers.”

Why does this remind me of the scene in Jaws when the mayor goads the townfolk back into the water after the first shark attack?

I cannot in good conscience provide a link to the story, as AJC.com won”t let you read anything without registering, so here”s the whole piece for your amusement:

Readers of The Wisdom love when I start getting off on anti-anti-terrorism rants. Maybe I should create a special blog just for exposing the ridiculousness of the “security” efforts in America, but I doubt many people would read it.

It seems most Americans are happy to stand in 2-hour lines at the airport while “security” people feel for weapons in the artificial knees of 70-year-old women*.

And yes, I know I just wrote about the mall-bomb plot yesterday, and my prediction of a mall “security” panic still holds (Christmas season, maybe?).

But a piece in USA Today today underscores my two main points about this whole “security” thing.

It was a story about Boston”s plan to randomly search passengers on its subway system and why such a plan is not likely to catch on elsewhere. Two quotes in the story really jumped out at me:

“We don”t need another wake-up call like Madrid. We need more funding”. That came from the head of the American Public Transit Association.

Invest money in fighting terrorism. Sounds like a good idea. But the problem is demonstrated very clearly in another quote found in the piece, this one from the head of a think tank created by the federal government to research transportation issues.

“If terrorists know that there is a potential of them being identified and checked, it becomes a better deterrent … The problem is you have to be careful about profiling because it is a no-no in our society.”

And there you have it. “Sure, it would be great if we could convince the terrorists that we”re going to identify and catch them, but since our policy is that we search everybody or we don”t search anybody, we”re never going to be able to do that.”

Read the USA Today story.

* Absolutely true story that happened to the wife”s cousin when the wife”s family was heading for Hawaii a couple of months ago.

The wife and I came home from NashVegas last night (taking the long way through Birmingham to avoid the mud-splattered hippies leaving Bonaroo) to find an interesting thing recorded on the upstairs TiFaux.

It was a 7-minute bit that fired off at 4 a.m. Sunday and was labeled something like “Recommend Dish Network and get $50″. And, sure enough, it was a Dish Network promotion apparently pushed down to the DVR by the company, ala the TiVo forced programming fiasco of last year.

This did not please me. I don”t care if it was only 7 minutes worth of DVR capacity they took from me, and I don”t care that I was able to erase it without watching. I own this equipment and I pay Dish about $75 a month for their service. I won”t open an argument about whether they have the “right” to push promotional crap down to my DVR, but - at least from this subscriber”s point of view - it”s certainly not good business practice.

I”m going to call Dish and find out what the hell is up with this, and I”ll update my findings when I hear from them. Also, it”s interesting that they pushed the stuff down to the DishPVR 501 but not the DishPVR 721. It could be that they are less concered about pissing off a customer who paid $200 for a DVR than they are a customer who paid $600 for one, or maybe it”s because I”m still about the only person in America who owns a DishPVR 721.

In the next few days, the cry will begin that shopping malls and other public places suffer from a dangerous lack of “security”.

This will come in response to today”s arrest of a Muslim suspected in a plot to blow up a mall in Ohio.

Unfortunately, it seems like the terrorists do know how to bring down the U.S. (although there”s really no need to train for this kind of thing in Ethiopia for a year). Not too long after Sept. 11, I put together my mental “If I were a terrorist” to-do list, and blowing up bombs at malls was near the top.

Here, in case you”re a terrorist, are the three most effective ways I came up with to destroy the U.S.:

• Mall Attacks

The setup - Send 12 terrorists to 12 different shopping malls across the U.S. with explosives stuffed in their backpacks. Have them put the backbacks in the food courts and set them to blow up at roughly the same time.

The result - Bombs go off, killing a few people but sending Americans into a panic. All shopping malls in the U.S. shut down for a few days, then re-open with few people venturing inside. The federal government hastily organizes the Mall Security Administration within the Department of Homeland Defense and commits $10 billion a year to installing metal detectors and staffing the entrances of every mall in America with MSA agents so every person entering the mall can be screened.

The effect - Retail spending drops by 40% overnight and takes more than a year to recover. Major retailers declare bankruptcy; tens or hundreds of thousands of retail workers laid off; more federal spending drains economy; U.S. pushed back into recession. Amazon.com stock rises 75%.

Why this works - Faced with any chance of danger, Americans cower and then demand to be made “safe”. A dozen small bombs could drain billions out of the economy overnight.

Level of effort for the terrorists -1 (on a 1 - 10 scale)

• Suitcase Shuffle

The setup - Send 12 terrorists to 12 different airports across the U.S. with explosives stuffed in their suitcases. Each terrorist checks in for a flight, checks their bags and leaves the airport.

The result - Two possibilities - either one or more of the bombs go off, or one or more of the bombs is found. In either case, the event would shut down the U.S. commercial air system once the other bombs are found. People again avoid flying, the TSA adds another $25 billion to its budget and spends another 45 minutes searching all of the old women.

The effect - Post-Sept. 11 revisited. Airlines seek a bailout, but probably don”t get it. Major carriers fail; people are afraid to fly; travel industry goes back into recession and the U.S. economy is carried with it. Federal spending on transportation “security” causes further economic harm, higher taxes, etc.

Why this works - You saw what happened after Sept. 11, right? The recession was caused by a collapse in the travel industry and related economic panic; not by the actual destruction that took place. And now the terrorists don”t even need to bring down any planes. Just the realization that a coordinated effort was put together to blow up planes will send the public back to panic.

Level of effort for the terrorists -3

• School Bus Boom

The setup - Send 15 two-person teams of terrorists to 15 different towns across America armed with RPGs, big-ass guns or whatever other destructive stuff they can find. Each team rents a car and pulls up to a school bus on the same morning. They take out the big bananas at about the same time.

The result - The children?!?!?!? They”re attacking THE CHILDREN?!?!?!?!?!?! Schools shut down for two weeks; Moms are afraid to let their kids out of the house; police forces across America begin to hire School Bus Patrol officers by the thousands; school systems order new $400,000 armored Blue Birds.

The effect - The crippling effect on local governments and school boards would be amazing. Per-pupil spending would reach $50,000 thanks to increased security, and local police budgets would skyrocket, causing massive property tax increases and ultimately collapsing the housing market. Banks fail, recession follows.

Why this works - Anything that threatens “the children” must be met with an overkill of expensive “security” measures, bankrupting the local goverments who just can”t say no to “the children”.

Level of effort for the terrorists -4

It should be noted that I do not (seeing as I am not a terrolrist) advocate any of these (or other) terror tactics, but I see the potential for a relatively small terror effort to paralyze the U.S.

And the reason is this: Americans are stupid, scared and lazy. We”re the perfect target for terrorists. Where Brits withstood months of German bombing raids in World War II, Americans would just move en mass to Montana. Where the Israelis cope with everyday bombings, Americans would freak out.

The effectiveness of terrorism depends not on the act, but on the effect. Remember that when the first mayor or police chief recommends more “security” at the local mall.

OK, you”ve probably seen this story about how researchers have learned that dogs can comprehend words.

If you”re a dog owner, this is probably not surprising. But it”s interesting to see some scientific research backing it up.

All of this led me to think about our dogs (Big Brown and Little Black), what words they know, and what words I wish they knew.

What They Know

Big Brown Dog:

• “walk” - The most obvious thing a dog would learn, I guess. Saying the word - especially while wearing shorts and sneakers - means you”re taking him out. Even if “walk” was in the context of a baseball game.

• “out front” - A few months ago, I figured out that the easiest way to get the BBD to take a piss before bedtime was to let him wander unleashed in the front yard. With so many dogs passing our house each day, he”ll instantly drain his bladder to re-mark our trees out there. The problem is, now he absolutely refuses to go to bed unless he”s been out front. So around 11 each night, I say “out front” and he leaps up out of his slumber on the sofa and dashes to the front door. Once finished outside, he heads straight to his room, awaits his bedtime treat and retires for the evening.

• “drop” - The BBD recognizes this word when we”re playing fetch, but it has a different meaning for him than it has for me. When I say “drop”, I mean “drop the ball so I can throw it”. When he hears “drop”, he turns away, runs behind the grill or otherwise prepares to fight me for control of the ball. To him, “drop” means “go time!”

Little Black Dog:

• “breakfast” and “dinner” - Here”s the life of the LBD in a nutshell - He wakes up about 6:30 a.m. and demands breakfast. From 6:32 a.m. until we get home, he”s thinking about dinner. He eats dinner within 3 minutes of us getting home, and then he thinks about breakfast until he goes to bed. We don”t dare say “breakfast” or “dinner” if we”re not intending to put food in front of him.

• “treat” - Because food is the focus of the LBD”s life, and because he”s such a bastard, every positive action he takes throughout the day is rewarded with a Snausage or other fine dog treat. He begs to go to bed at night so he can get one. Starting about 8:30 every night, he asks to go outside every 5 minutes or so, because he gets a treat after he takes a crap, and he figures he can fool us into thinking he craps 10 times between 8:30 and 10. “Treat” is a word we also don”t dare use in the house, because the LBD is already rewarded at every turn.

• “potty” - As in “did you go potty?”. The LBD understands that if you say the word “potty” in a sentence, you are expecting an excited reaction, and that excited reaction gets him a treat. There”s an important distinction here. It”s not that he associates actually going potty as the trigger for getting a treat; in his mind it”s barking excitedly when the word “potty” is spoken that is rewarded.

• “[doorbell sound]” - To the LBD, a doorbell sound means “someone is here, and I must kill them.” This was really amusing when we lived in the old house, which did not have a working doorbell. But TV doorbells draw the same reaction. He”s especially set off by the doorbells on South Park, Frasier and Domino”s commercials. When we”re feeling especially mean, we”ll hit the back button on the TiFaux and play the doorbell sounds over and over.

What I Wish They Knew

• “no”
• “shut up” (LBD)
• “come here”
• “go away”
• “chill out