The federal Mine Safety and Health Administration recently discovered that it has failed to follow up thousands of safety citations with actual, you know, penalties.

Seven years now, since 2000, some 4,000 citations for safety violations have been followed up with … bupkis.

Oopsie!

Said Matthew Faraci, MSHA spokesflack, "Given that this seems to have been an endemic problem that has been with the agency for quite some time, the part that we’re optimistic about is that we know about it and are working to fix it."

That’s the spirit.