only in missouri

where they compete for toothlessness with kentucky. from today's papers:

Beyond the war, death penalty news makes it to the NYT front, with Missouri officials unable to find an anesthesiologist willing to assist with executions. A federal judge had ordered the state to hire a board-certified anesthesiologist after the doctor who had been giving out the drugs for lethal injections said in a deposition that he, um, improvised in the process. Apparently, the state proposed the job to 298 anesthesiologists, and they all said no.

Maybe they could just stick with the same guy. Sure, he says his dyslexia has led him to mix up phone numbers and cable bill account numbers, and that "it's not unusual for me to make mistakes." But as the NYT points out: "He indicated in his testimony, however, that he had made no mistakes in his death chamber work and that the mistakes elsewhere were 'not medically crucial.'"