COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

China Suffers


"An arm of a victim is seen in the debris of a collapsed building after an earthquake in Dujiangyan, Sichuan province." - REUTERS

A telling picture from the devastation in China. Notice the hollow concrete block. Their is no reinforing steel bar. The core is open and clean. There appears to be one thin wire on the upper right. That is no way to build in a seismic zone. That missing rebar probably ended that life.


3 comments:

  1. So between Burma and China, that's what, 200,000 dead in a week?

    Building standards, in the global economy, not what they are, here.

    Another opportunity for for a Kyoto type "Standardization".

    Are we are going to have to loosen US standards, to stay competitive?

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  2. "For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows." -- Jesus of Nazareth

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  3. china is rich now...

    time to SPEND some of those dollars on USA construction companies to earthquake proof their nation's most valuable asset, their people...

    but the funny thing? look for more food riots, fuel riots, healthcare and freedom riots in that great wealthy land beyond the wall

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