U.S. Army Corps of Morons

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[Military]
The Army Corps of Engineers, the Keystone Cops of public civil engineering projects, continues its streak of crackerjack work. The Corps was shopping for bids for some new pumps for New Orleans' beleaguered canal system, so they needed to write up specifications for the pumps they were looking for. But that's a lot of work, what with the typing and drafts and spell-checking and all--so instead they decided to just cut and paste the text straight out of an existing catalog. You'll never guess whose catalog it was.

It was the catalog of the company that "won" the bidding! How convenient--the Corps uses the description for existing pumps and then finds exactly what they were looking for in those same existing pumps. They even made the same typos that Moving Water Industries, the pump-pimping company in question, used in THEIR catalog. The pumps, it turns out, are as defective as the bidding process used to buy them, and now are in need of repair if they are to be ready for the upcoming hurricane season. The Corps even had to spend $4.5 MILLION to buy MORE pumps from MWI to troubleshoot the existing, non-functional pumps. Whatadeal! This being politics in New Orleans, MWI is of course politically connected. Jeb Bush, son and brother of presidents, used to work for MWI back before he got the sweet gig of trying to keep the juice on for vegetables in the goofiest state in the Union.

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Posted by Pile on 2007-05-01 11:31:18
Jesus H. Christ that's ridiculous!
GAO supporter
Posted by GAO on 2007-05-01 12:49:00
Too bad the GAO has no real authority.

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