So, questions still remain about the ability of the U.S. disaster relief system to handle a large-scale catastrophe.  What can we do?
(1) Develop a national disaster relief fund
With such a fund, private contributions for relief …

I’ve been silent on the blog for a few weeks due to paternity leave.
In my absence, events continued to raise questions about the capability of the U.S. disaster response system. There were criticisms of the …

As Hurricane Gustav approached this weekend, the president and both would-be presidents engaged in a bit of fund raising, mostly for the American Red Cross (ARC).  Barack Obama directly asked all those in his fund …

The American Red Cross announced recently that their disaster relief fund was depleted, meaning the organization will have to borrow significant sums to fund relief operations for the Midwest floods.  This is not a good situation, especially …