Day: January 20, 2004

If you need to contact me via e-mail and I don’t already already know you, the best option is to either post the message to this or any of my other web sites, or use this web e-mail form if the inquiry is of a more private nature. E-mail sent directly to [email protected] that is not from people I’m already familiar with may or may not ever get read. Alternatively you could always IM me or call me at the contact information listed here.

Currently my spam filtering software catches about 400 spam per day, but the problem is I receive about 500 spam per day. Keeping my spam filtering software uptodate is gradually turning into a losing proposition. For the most part I only keep current with e-mail from users whose identity I already know and catch up with the rest only intermittently.

Wow, here’s a shocker — according to the New York Times, the Bush adminstration is proposing to further increase federal spending!

President Bush will increase Medicare payments to health maintenance organizations and other private health plans by a record 10.6 percent in an effort to persuade them to enter the Medicare market and increase benefits for the elderly, administration officials say.

Federal officials and members of Congress said they hoped the increase, five times as large as the typical annual increase in recent years, would reverse the exodus of private plans from the Medicare program. The administration, trying to enhance competition and efficiency in the Medicare marketplace, wants to triple enrollment in private plans within three years.

Thank goodness the era of big government is over.

Source:

Insurers to Get 10.6% Increase From Medicare. Robert Pear, New York Times, January 20, 2004.

Has there ever been a major candidate as completely inept as Wesley Clark? I personally can’t stand John Kerry or most of what he stands for, but this comment by Clark is way out of bounds,

It’s one thing to be a hero as a junior officer. He’s done that, I respect that. But I’ve got the military experience at the top as well as at the bottom.

Don’t worry, though, by tomorrow Clark will have changed his mind about junior officer heroes, too.

Update: Originally this story implied that Clark, unlike Kerry, had not been awarded a Silver Star. In fact, Clark earned a Silver Star for his heroic actions during a firefight in Vietnam.

Source:

Clark Aims to Pull Rank on Kerry in N.H.. Associated Press, Jan 19, 2004.

There’s an op-ed in the local Newhouse rag, the Kalamazoo Gazette, today featuring advice for Israel on how to deal with the Palestinians. The op-ed is written by Paul Clements, chair of the Kalamazoo Interfaith Coalition for Peace and Justice, and concludes with this bizarre paragraph (emphasis added),

The only way to reach peace in the Middle East is through a viable Palestinian state. Israel needs and deservs U.S. protection, but the best way we can protect them is encourage them to be kind — and just — not tough. A secure and viable Palestinian state would also undermine resentment of the U.S. in Iraq, helping to create a climate hospitable to the establishment of democracy there. The United States should push for a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, and the next time Palestinian suicide bombers try to derail peace negotiations, the Israelis should ignore them.

Yeah, because that approach has always worked well against terrorists. Just ignore them rather than retaliate and the terrorists will go on to pick on someone else (this is why Al Qaeda never targeted America again after we ignored them following 1993 World Trade Center bombing).

As for “helping to create a climate hospitable to the establishment of democracy [in Iraq],” I think the overthrow and capture of Saddam Hussein and his cronies offers the best chance in decades of such an eventuality.

Source:

In Israel, kind is better, smarter than tough. Paul Clements, Kalamazoo Gazette, January 20, 2004.