Perspectives of a Colorado Curmudgeon on topics ranging from Basketball to Music to Science & Religion to Travel to Memories, touching on a bit of everything.
Sunday, August 07, 2011
A MODEST PROPOSAL FOR PEACE
13 comments:
Hugh G.
said...
If the good Christians kill off all the bad Christians, then we would have nothing left but good Christians. Isn't that a desirable outcome?
Anon - in a way, it is rather depressing. Throw in Muslim vs Muslim, religions vs religions and wars for oil and you have covered most of the worlds violence.
Most would say General George Patton was eccentric, maybe worse.
For starters, he had a long-term affair with his niece, who called him “Uncle Georgie.” It’s said he once urinated in a foxhole of another division commander during WWI, simply to show his disdain for what he called “passive defense.”
He was bloodthirsty and loved war for war’s sake. While on the way into Germany, he was constantly taking his troops down the most dangerous routes. On one particular occasion, as the sky was lit with gunfire and bomb blasts, he threw his hands in the air and proclaimed to his troops:
“Could anything be more magnificent? Compared to war, all other forms of life shrink to insignificance. God, how I love it!”
Patton also claimed to have a strong sense of déjà vu on many occasions, believing it to be a sign that he was reincarnated. He was certain that in his past incarnations, he had served as an infantryman under Napoleon, a prehistoric warrior, a Greek foot soldier fighting the Persians, a legionnaire with Julius Caesar in Gaul, and an English knight in the Hundred Years’ War.
He was disciplined for slapping two soldiers for being cowards who were being treated in army hospitals during the war.
Patton’s unpredictability gave him an advantage over his enemies, making him invaluable to the allies during World War II. Even though Eisenhower refused to give the general free reign because he couldn’t be trusted, he couldn’t bring himself to let Patton go.
For much of the war, Eisenhower had Patton stationed all over Europe, pretty much as a decoy, armed with inflatable trucks, a phantom army, and ships. Patton and his rubber troops were moved in darkness from one spot to another to make it look as though the D-Day attack would happen in Southern Norway.
When the D-Day invasion finally did take place, the Germans were so convinced the event wouldn’t happen without Patton and his troops that they held back military defenses, waiting for the “real” attack.
I see nothing wrong in Patton's slapping of soldiers. They're lucky they didn't get shot. In WWII there were mean ole staff sergeants with pistols whose job was to shoot troops who abandoned their posts in the heat of battle.
I suspect some cowards are just born that way. Most men can function in the heat of battle, but some just freeze up. They can't help it, that's the way their system responds to the overwhelming stress. They end up dead or evacuated, like to an Army hospital, where the biggest risk, apparently, is a slap from a general.
Actually the name is a play on words. You have heard of Six Sigma? The sixth standard deviation? A six sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of the products manufactured are statistically expected to be free of defects (3.4 defects per million). I have worked in both federal and state government where attempts were made to apply the Six Sigma process. I could have saved the taxpayer a lot of money if the bosses would have listened to me and not attempted to adopt Six Sigma. Why wouldn't it work, someone may ask? "It's government you idiot! Of course it's not going to work!" And from my experience it never did. I thought the attempts were naive and kind of "sick,", thus Sick Sigma.
SSS - very interesting!!! And I agree that it is completely unreasonable for anything that the government does to be a six sigma process, and for that matter, unreasonable for most any process. Sick indeed!
13 comments:
If the good Christians kill off all the bad Christians, then we would have nothing left but good Christians. Isn't that a desirable outcome?
Hugh - great idea! Just let me decide who are the good ones and who are the bad ones, and we will be set!!!
I just don't like to think about that stuff.
Anon - in a way, it is rather depressing. Throw in Muslim vs Muslim, religions vs religions and wars for oil and you have covered most of the worlds violence.
Man is never more alive than when he is at war.
I don't think that one is in my bible.
Nope. That one is from Patton.
Patton was crazy - to quote from another website:
Most would say General George Patton was eccentric, maybe worse.
For starters, he had a long-term affair with his niece, who called him “Uncle Georgie.” It’s said he once urinated in a foxhole of another division commander during WWI, simply to show his disdain for what he called “passive defense.”
He was bloodthirsty and loved war for war’s sake. While on the way into Germany, he was constantly taking his troops down the most dangerous routes. On one particular occasion, as the sky was lit with gunfire and bomb blasts, he threw his hands in the air and proclaimed to his troops:
“Could anything be more magnificent? Compared to war, all other forms of life shrink to insignificance. God, how I love it!”
Patton also claimed to have a strong sense of déjà vu on many occasions, believing it to be a sign that he was reincarnated. He was certain that in his past incarnations, he had served as an infantryman under Napoleon, a prehistoric warrior, a Greek foot soldier fighting the Persians, a legionnaire with Julius Caesar in Gaul, and an English knight in the Hundred Years’ War.
He was disciplined for slapping two soldiers for being cowards who were being treated in army hospitals during the war.
Patton’s unpredictability gave him an advantage over his enemies, making him invaluable to the allies during World War II. Even though Eisenhower refused to give the general free reign because he couldn’t be trusted, he couldn’t bring himself to let Patton go.
For much of the war, Eisenhower had Patton stationed all over Europe, pretty much as a decoy, armed with inflatable trucks, a phantom army, and ships. Patton and his rubber troops were moved in darkness from one spot to another to make it look as though the D-Day attack would happen in Southern Norway.
When the D-Day invasion finally did take place, the Germans were so convinced the event wouldn’t happen without Patton and his troops that they held back military defenses, waiting for the “real” attack.
France was stormed, and the rest is history.
Hey, ya' gotta love the guy.
I see nothing wrong in Patton's slapping of soldiers. They're lucky they didn't get shot. In WWII there were mean ole staff sergeants with pistols whose job was to shoot troops who abandoned their posts in the heat of battle.
I suspect some cowards are just born that way. Most men can function in the heat of battle, but some just freeze up. They can't help it, that's the way their system responds to the overwhelming stress. They end up dead or evacuated, like to an Army hospital, where the biggest risk, apparently, is a slap from a general.
Hey Sick One - at least you are living up to your name! :-)
Actually the name is a play on words. You have heard of Six Sigma? The sixth standard deviation? A six sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of the products manufactured are statistically expected to be free of defects (3.4 defects per million). I have worked in both federal and state government where attempts were made to apply the Six Sigma process. I could have saved the taxpayer a lot of money if the bosses would have listened to me and not attempted to adopt Six Sigma. Why wouldn't it work, someone may ask? "It's government you idiot! Of course it's not going to work!" And from my experience it never did. I thought the attempts were naive and kind of "sick,", thus Sick Sigma.
SSS - very interesting!!! And I agree that it is completely unreasonable for anything that the government does to be a six sigma process, and for that matter, unreasonable for most any process. Sick indeed!
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