A simple question, a blizzard of bureaucracy

We asked the National Research Council a simple question: Tell us about this joint study you've been doing on snow with NASA.The federal departtment never agreed to an interview. It sent an email instead, without much information.But first it took a small army of staffers to decide how to answer it -- and 50 pages of emails back and forth to circulate the question, develop a response, and "massage" the text of their answer.