Comments on the Belmont Club: "Intensity"

cellec,
thank God for America’s status as a “developed” nation

Design Margin counts. Haiti is different, not just poor in lacking money. It isn't that they suffer from a reliance on government to solve their problems. Only people from the wealthy middle class of a developed nation still harbor the illusion that government can solve their social and economic problems. The poverty in Haiti is deeper. They have fundamentally failed to create and accumulate wealth to build in a design margin.

Basic training in how to respond in an emergency is part of basic training. This is one reason that I have called for 6 months of universal military training after the 17th birthday.

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If the 500,000 dead number on Drudge is true then according to the wiki this would be the 3rd worst earthquake in history in terms of human lives lost and the 3rd or 4th worst natural disaster ever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_by_death_toll#Earthquakes

Mein Gott ein Himmel