Friday, February 02, 2007

That Boston Scare

My feeling is that the people who did it were trying to be hip, cool, edgy...and they went over the edge. In retrospect, the city overreacted, but they didn't really have a choice -- they have to assume the worst, because the cost of being wrong is so high.

I think the perpetrators and the people who unleashed them should be held responsible for the costs of the city's response. How much should that be? Well, I think it ought to be substantial. Some amount of it likely would have been spent, regardless; and if the amount is high enough, adding a punitive amount would seem redundant.

Yesterday, my cell phone rang. I don't normally carry it, but today I was. The caller was the local 911 service, saying that they'd gotten a call from my number, and was there a problem? I was startled -- and yet there it was, on the call log. Somehow, the two step process -- hit '9', then 'send' -- had occurred while the phone was in my pocket. (Why have it at all? So I don't have to look down at the phone while driving. ) Nothing came of it -- but suppose they'd dispatched a cop to where I was (assuming they could find it), or suppose I now get a bill for their time in calling me. Would that be fair?

Yeah, I think it would. I hope they don't, and if they do, I hope they don't make it a large bill, but yeah, I think it'd be fair. I made them react.

Oh, and I took the autodial for '9' off my phyone.

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