Boots

A few months after the story between a Secretary of Defence and the Chief Commander of the Army that I described in http://ccszeto.blogspot.com/2010/01/missile.html

Somehow they survived, and hold another meeting. (Being different from Rene Descartes, their motto is: I attend meetings, therefore I am. I shall leave the Chinese translation to your imagination.)

The senior civil servant began, "Look, now we have a small funding from the prime minister for twenty pairs of new boots for our foot soldiers. It's a new design and should be more comfortable than the old ones that we are using."

The chief soldier frowned, "But we have several thousand foot soldiers. How are we going to decide which of them should get the new ones ? Well, maybe I should pick a small troop that is most in need."

"No, you can't do that," the Secretary interrupted, "We need a fair and open system so that every soldier would know of the news and consider applying for the boots."

"Eh ... ?" The army general could not believe his ears.

"Yes, we shall send letters to each and every one of them. They shall fill in a form if they want to apply. We shall then arrange the applicants to have a formal inspection of the boots, and then we draw lots ..."

"Well, how much does this process cost ?" the Commander murmured.

"Don't worry. As I said, we have the money. If necessary, we shall cut down the plan to ten pair of new boots and save the money for the administrative procedure."