On the surface, the blunder was failing to square the retail deal with a coalition ally, the Trinamul Congress, led by Mamata Banerjee, a notoriously unreliable ally.

ECONOMIST: India��s political paralysis

If Congress fails to pass a bill, we'll be back to square one in the new year, with the Senate needing to pass a new bill which will then have to be ratified by the House.

CNN: Goodbye, Postal Service?

In February, the Pentagon sent a report, an assessment to Congress which said that Iraqi forces have assumed ownership of slightly more than 12, 000 square miles, so there's a bit of a difference there.

NPR: Bush Speech Highlights the Challenge of the Iraqi Insurgency

There will be few high-profile hardware launches at the congress (despite the 67, 000-crowd of visitors milling over the 240, 000 square meters of the new site).

WSJ: Move It!

But nowhere has Congress's penchant for inefficiency been more manifest than in the new Capitol Visitor Centre, a 580, 000 square foot (54, 000 square metre) subterranean hall lined in white marble, which has just opened next to the Capitol itself.

ECONOMIST: When it comes to mismanagement, Congress is hard to beat