Originally Posted by
gfunkdave
I'd be interested to understand more about why US wiring standards are terrible. My house hasn't gone up in flames yet and it's had electric service for YEARS.

I think it's less about our standards being terrible and more about foreign standards being unnecessarily complicated. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_circuit and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electri...United_Kingdom