"This Could Never Work"

Not going to make it out of New Orleans today, in the shitstorm over the Libby indictment, but the Times-Picayune reports that a team of LSU researchers have now concluded that the Army Corps of Engineers made basic mistakes in the design of the floodwall at the 17th St. Canal, the breach of which caused the flooding of much of central New Orleans. The resarchers, who've been unable to obtain official Corps documents, reviewed documents obtained by the newspaper, including soil analyses of the soil into which the supportive pilings were driven.

The money quote:

"We tell our students all the time, when you see these materials, don't rely on them, keep going down until you get to some better strata," said team member Radhey Sharma, associate professor of engineering at Louisiana State University. "This could never work."

Until this information surfaces big time at the national level, the debate over the Federal obligation to rebuild New Orleans will be seriously skewed.