21 July 2009

Pay The Lawn Guy

Historically, one of the most common ways for a regime to be brought down is for soldiers to revolt because they are not paid. Not paying the lawn guy isn't quite as bad, but can still have grave consequences.

In the last two years India has lost two large ammunition dumps to fires caused by unmowed grass. Two soldiers were killed and a village was evacuated in connection with the fires. The grass next to the ammunition wasn't mowed because the military was not willing to pay enough to get anyone to mow it. Apparently, India didn't have any soldiers available to do the work. Government defenders claim that they had been taking a stand against a law mower bidding conspiracy, but that won't bring their expensive ammunition dumps or dead soldiers back.

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