Well, the race to the weekend is finally over — here’s some links found along the way:
- Medicaid woes: I’ve been tooting this horn for a while (see also here): Medicaid, (with Medicare closing fast), is paying physicians substantially less than their cost to see the patient, and it’s causing a huge and growing access problem. In Washington state, over 50% of physicians now have dropped out of Medicaid (for many reasons: unaffordable reimbursements, long delays in payment, bureaucratic hassles, hyper-aggressive “fraud and abuse” policies, higher liability risk in these patients, high no-show rate for appointments, etc., etc.), and most of the rest restrict their numbers. Practices which exceed 30-35% Medicaid patients are at vastly greater risk of closing or going into bankruptcy. The bureaucrats and politicians always sing the same song: “We cannot find any evidence that access to health care is being affected.” After all, they can still get health care, so what’s the problem? The Doctor Won’t See You
- Postmodern Christianity: Last time I checked, religious faith had something to do with absolute truth and core beliefs. Old fashioned notion, I guess: Seattle now has an Episcopal priest who is both fully Christian and fully Muslim — although the core teachings are diametrically opposed about such trivial things as the nature of Christ, the Resurrection, the Crucifixion, and a thousand other central tenets. The response of the priest’s bishop to this? He thinks it presents great opportunities for interfaith dialog. Riiight. The First Openly Muslim Priest
- Michael Totten in Baghdad: — must-read: Welcome to Baghdad
From the See No Evil Department: Huge weapons cache in Dallas — AK-47’s, grenades, submachine guns, ordinance launchers, tons of ammunition.
No chance it was terrorism, no siree:
Authorities tell us the tenant travels to the Middle East frequently and just returned from there Wednesday morning. That information and the amount of weapons found lead to the involvement of the North Texas Terrorism Task Force. However, authorities say there is no reason to suspect terrorism as a motive.
- Decentralizing counterterrorism: Feel safe with Homeland Security? Me neither. This seems like a far better solution, from the always-excellent City Journal: On the Front Line in the War on Terrorism
That’s all for now. Have a great week, and God bless.
The “huge” weapons cache found in Dallas was four firearms and a flare launcher. There were no illegal arms involved. There was, however, probable child pornography, which may go a long way toward explaining why the tenant left during the search.
If my home was searched, it would also be reported as a huge weapons cache. I am a hunter, a shooter, and a hand-loader. Loading components are much less expensive in bulk, and thus I have thousands of rounds of ammunition.
You should always take news reports of “arsenals” or “weapons caches” with a big dose of skepticism.
Point well taken, Dan — thanks.
But there does seem to be a reflex denial by authorities on many occasions with many instances of suspicious nature. Sometimes I think we are more concerned over not offending Muslims than hunting for those who want to kill us.
“Fully Christian and fully Muslim”? I think not! “No man can serve two masters…” and “a house divided against itself will fall” seem to apply here.
At least two of the Episcopal churches here, included my former parish church (during my Episcopal phase) have stopped referring to God as Father (too sexist) and to Jesus as Lord (suggests an authority figure, rather than brotherhood), along with other changes in language. I wonder how many pages they’ve torn out of their Bibles. I suppose the Book of Common Prayer has either been replaced altogether or “updated” again.