2008.12.02
Discuss Tuesday's editorials
Carilion's unseemly profits
Last year, the nonprofit clinic's flagship hospital had a profit margin of more than 11 percent, by one measure, but ranked low in charity care.
The nonprofit Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital had one of the highest profit margins of any hospital in the region in 2007 and devoted a lower percentage of its expenditures to charity care than most. It needs to improve that picture.
Read more.
Goode won't get a real recount
Without a paper trail in the 5th District, officials can only double-check their arithmetic.
Virgil Goode had every right to request a recount in the closely contested 5th Congressional District. He deserves one, too, but he won't get it. Virginia's election rules are set up to prevent a genuine recount. Most voters in Goode's district cast their ballots using touch-screen voting machines. Votes are stored in computer memory without a physical record. There is no voter-verified paper trail, only the machine's tally.
Read more.
RSS feed 
"Goode won't get a real recount" Well once again I quibble with the wording (go figure) and the message. He "had every right" and "He deserves one too" only in a certain context would I agree. As a Virginia politician for his adult life, Mr. Goode was in a unique position to know well the election system and it's foibles. He was certainly around for past recounts here and the more infamous national contests. To never raise an eyebrow or the issue when you win election after election strikes me as pretty self serving to then complain when you finally (at long last) lose. Your last line " within the limitations of the existing technology" says it all. This is the Virginia system. I will forgive a first time pol who might actually be unaware, but Goode gets no such pass. "You pays your money and you takes your chances". The system may well need to be fixed, I won't argue against that. The counting could even be "rigged", I have enough skepticism for that one as well, but to benefit from the same system election after election and know (as he must) that a "recount" is not a re-count, makes it absurd to ask for one or be supported for the request absent any true allegation of errors or irregularities beyond the ones in his mind. And what of the consequences and fall out if this so-called recount did change the outcome?
Comment by Sandi Saunders — December 2, 2008 @ 3:45 pm