In November, the Department of Labor's Inspector General released a report showing the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) frequently fails to conduct required mine inspections. For those mines that do get inspected, the enforcement may be utterly toothless, according to new evidence. In some cases, inspectors are noticing violations and issuing citations, but those citations are being lost in some kind of bureaucratic abyss. From the Associated Press: Preliminary data showed that penalties had not been assessed against operators for about 4,000 citations the agency issued between January 2000 and July 2006, the Charleston Sunday Gazette-Mail reported. MSHA Director Richard Stickler told the newspaper that the review also showed that penalties had never been assessed for a few hundred citations issued in 1996. Apparently, MSHA is less effective than your typical local parking authority, which, when leaving a parking ticket on your windshield, expects you to…you know…pay it!