Ken Ward of the West Virginia Gazette reports a sadly familiar tale with a twist of bureaucratese in the investigation of the 2006 Sago, Aracoma, and Darby mine disasters that led to the deaths of 19 miners.  Officials of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) not only overlooked obvious safety violations, they also switched inspectors unexpectedly, caved into mining industry complaints by reassigning inspectors, and encouraged something called “compliance assistance” for the mining companies.  These would appear to be bureaucratic buzzwords for “looking the other way.”  More here.

Three opinion pieces in the Washington Post point out three plagues – ossified organizational behavior, lack of personal responsibility, and the dominance of outside contractors – underlying America’s intelligence problems today.  (more…)