At 07:44 AM 8 October 2002 +1000, Pat Naughtin wrote: >Dear Ezra and All, > >An interesting situation arose in Australia a few summers ago when one state >(Victoria) was experiencing a worse than usual bush fire (I think these are >called wild fires in the USA). They called for help from a neighbouring >state (New South Wales) only to discover that each of the two states had >decided to use differing standards for purchasing of their hose fittings � >the two fire service's fittings wouldn't fit. > >At the post mortem held after the fire, I don't think that issue such as >'market forces' and 'individual freedom' were very high on the agenda. All >Australian states now have fire fighting fittings that are made to uniform >standards.
If your fire services, like ours, are owned and run by the government, then the fact that different states had different fittings can hardly be blamed on the free market or market forces, nor do such institutions really have anything to do with fixing the problem. Sounds to me like the government screwed up. Jim Elwell, CAMS Electrical Engineer Industrial manufacturing manager Salt Lake City, Utah, USA www.qsicorp.com
