For me, the information we are getting from the letters etc. sent here
leaves the whole thing clear as mud. Did they, or didn't they do
something? In part I agree with Paul Ryan, except that with many of these
things the Dark Ages have always been around. In any public work in which
a geological or, as in this case, geophysical study and report are
required we need, as Allan Gibb says, to be careful. If the tunneling
machine gets stuck or the tunnel collapses under a block of flats, who is
going to get the blame? The President? the Minister? the company doing the
work? the Engineer? No. Who is the last poor bastard at the end of the
line with more unknowns in his report? The geologist? He didn't predict
that there would be a big fault in the way with a lot of water flowing
along it. So, let's blame him.
If these guys in Italy had drawn up a report making recommendations, would
they have been followed? Would the mayor have then drawn up an evacuation
plan and gotten everyone on board and trained? Would the people do
anything to reinforce their houses? Naw, not a chance. But once something
happens they scream like mad for somebody to blame. So, they blame the
President, who takes photo op away from his little darlings to visit and
announce plans to rebuild - money he doesn't have. He blames the minister,
but the minister has an excuse - he was at the chalet with the presidents
little darlings all along, so he blames ... and so on and so on until it
reaches the end of the line - the geophysist who, they suddenly realise
with great joy, should have made a prediction about the possibility of a
big earthquake happening. He goes home and kicks the cat.
I am sure that meteorologists were predicting for years that there would
be a force 4 hurricane hit New Orleans at some point, and did the
goverment have a plan in place? No. Disaster predictionists are a dime a
dozen. According to them there should be a 25 m high tsunami somewhere
every day, a meteorite impact somewhere else, a magnitude 10 earthquake
here and there, and all of this under an impossibly hot sun as
temperatures rise beyond what our little household thermometers can
handle.
Once politicians get involved in a disaster it becomes a game of offering
money that never arrives and placing blame. We this every day. And this
thing in Italy is a blame game and it ends at the weakest link. In this
case the geophysist.
Dennis Brown (having a little rant)
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