NOLA makes it back to the front pages

There's been a lot of news lately, a lot of news that I haven't blogged about yet.

Most significantly, a judge ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers is not legally responsible for damages that happened when drainage canal walls built by the Corps failed during Hurricane Katrina. The basis for the ruling is the Flood Control Act of 1928, which protects federal agencies from liability when "a flood control project fails to control floodwaters because of the failure of the flood control project itself."

Now, maybe I've taken too many of Dr. Blessing's hell/political science classes, but that looks very much like the cardinal sin of using a word to define that word. The project failed because the project failed, so the Corps is off the hook. Strange logic, but if it's in the law, then it was the legally right decision. Ethically? Morally?

Another interesting part of the case was the damage claims. Members of the class-action lawsuit filed more than $3 quadrillion in damages. Although they've lost the case (at least for now -- the lawyers say they plan to appeal), what if they had won? How would the Corps even begin to pay out that much money? And really it would be taxpayers footing the bill, anyway, but that's such an exorbitant amount of money. I can't imagine trying to crunch those numbers.

The ruling made national headlines, which are interesting to read next to local coverage of the case. The New York Times' coverage is very unique -- it's written as an outsider trying really hard to be an insider.

The Times-Pic hasn't made an editorial statement, yet, which I think is curious. Maybe it's like the New York Times said -- most people didn't expect the Corps to be found liable anyway, so this ruling doesn't come as much of a surprise.