From: John Cuccia 

On Thu, 06 Oct 2005 01:28:00 -0700, Ellen K.
 wrote:

>On Wed, 05 Oct 2005 23:54:57 -0500, John Cuccia 
>wrote in message :
>
>
>>Go to the top of this thread for a link to an MSNBC article. They
>>produce documentary evidence showing that the contractor who built the
>>floodwalls notified the Corps of Engineers that their design soil
>>strength assumptions were incorrect.
>
>Well, they deserve to get nailed for that then.

P'raps, we don't know enough yet to be nailing anyone.

>>It looks more and more like New Orleans was killed by an engineering
>>error which was then hidden by a bureaucracy that did not encourage
>>people to admit their mistakes (that is, a bureaucracy like every
>>other on the face of the planet).
>>
>I will never understand this mentality.

Didn't you mention that you've worked for large corporations?  If so, you
must have first hand experience of people who don't want to deal with bad
news?   Hell, the President is a prime example of such:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9287434/site/newsweek/
Sept. 19, 2005 issue - It's a standing joke among the president's top
aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush
can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the
displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in
West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug.
30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans,
was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a
couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff,
Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan
Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to
discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task
of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would
do the deed.

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