This is off topic... but an interesting thing was said the other day, if any of you saw the [discovery channel?] show called "Grounded"... about 9/11 and the air traffic controllers and airlines and the scramble to get over 4,500 airplanes on the ground all across the country. I thought it was a pretty well-done show.
But there was an interesting thing they said, in the "planning is overrated" department.
Nobody, but nobody had ever really contemplated any such order ever happening. There was no plan. There was no set of guidelines. Nothing. YET-- they all managed to get it done in only about three hours. Not one accident, no midairs, no real problems at all except of course some inconvenience for people suddenly stuck in the wrong city.
It was masterful, when you think about it. More interesting yet-- the 9/11 commission started down the road of establishing a committee to design some plans and rules and guidelines should it ever need to be ordered again.
Then a totally astonishing thing happened. Somebody... some unnamed staffer in some unnamed meeting, piped up on the conference call and said something to the effect of "how about we *don't* do it". His point was that rulebooks and plans and procedures and protocols were *manifestly* unnecessary on 9/11. In fact, having such encumbrances probably would have merely gotten many people killed. If people can hide behind a plan and procedure they will. It was the seat-of-pants creativity and damn-it-just-do-it-because-I-said-so attitude that really made it work.
And, miracle of miracles... the commission abandoned any effort to build such a plan.
Pretty cool. IMHO. :-)
Vey, IMNSHO!
Vey.