Chupacabra Report

More news that gets my goat.
Harris County clerk Beverly Kaufman wrote a letter to the Chron to respond to their critique of the November election. She admitted that we “still have a ways to go” but then proceeded, in typical Tory fashion, to blame the messenger. I have to wonder if the party in power finds it in their interest to prevent fixing problems. This could be a rearguard action to preserve the perks of their waning hegemony, as long as there’s money to be made and axes to grind. When they start losing I expect them to become interested in needed reforms such as providing a paper trail for verification of electronic ballots.

The WaPo reports that Bush has appointed Eric Keroack, medical director of A Woman’s Concern, a nonprofit group from Massachusets, to be the new chief of family-planning programs at the Dept of Health and Human Services. A Woman’s Concern is a Christian pregnancy counseling organization that advocates abstinence and opposes contraception, saying that “commercialization and distribution of birth control is demeaning to women, degrading of human sexuality and adverse to human health and happiness.” –Yeah, and Margaret Sanger practiced eugenics, like Hitler.

AP had a story about Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo bringing criminal and civil charges against a Kaiser Permanente hospital for dumping a demented 63-year-old woman on the streets in a hospital gown and slippers. I wonder if they stiffed the cabdriver too. Maybe somebody from The Church of the Market can help me with a Bible verse, how does it go? “Howsoever you treat the least among you, so do you treat me?”

But the news isn’t all bad, how about this one: WICHITA, Kan. — A botched kidnapping ended with one of the assailants shooting himself in the groin, police said.
The man had just stuck the gun in his waistband when it fired, shooting him in the left testicle, authorities said. He cringed, causing the gun to fire again and strike him in the left calf, they said.
The 23-year-old man managed to walk into a hospital for treatment. He and his two alleged accomplices, ages 18 and 20, were arrested on attempted kidnapping charges. They were accused of trying to kidnap a teenager in a dispute over stereo speakers.