Cautionary tales

Excellent investigative story in the New York Times on the disastrous Kemper "clean coal" project in Mississippi. And another reminder in today's Star Tribune about all the public money sunk into the ill-fated Essar Steel project near Nashwauk. Both are examples of what can go wrong when government so badly wants private-sector projects to succeed, when businesses have more political assets then anything else, and the environmental risks involved.