What you missed if you didn’t read today’s The New York Times:

• In a story detailing problems with the Bush administration push for Medicare enrollees to utilize private plans for the new drug benefit comes this nugget:

In March, Sierra Health Services ended drug coverage for more than 2,300 Medicare beneficiaries with H.I.V./AIDS, saying they had not paid their premiums. In many cases, the premiums had been paid, and beneficiaries had canceled checks to prove it. Sierra initially refused to reinstate them, but eventually agreed to do so after repeated requests from federal officials. Peter O’Neill, a vice president of Sierra, said this particular drug plan, which attracted people with very high drug costs, would not be offered in 2008

Um, duh? Whoda thunk that people with HIV/AIDS would need expensive drugs?

• Another story, discussing Syria’s ties to Iraqi Baathists and attempts to increase its influence among Sunnis in Iraq, it’s noted that, “In July, former Baathists opposed to the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki scheduled a conference for insurgent groups — including two of the most prominent, the 1920s Revolution Brigades and Ansar al Sunna — at the Sahara Resort outside Damascus.”

Sounds to me like a good target for a JDAM.

• And the growing number of rapes in Congo? Not only is that awful, but so is the name and style of one insurgent group: “According to victims, one of the newest groups to emerge is called the Rastas, a mysterious gang of dreadlocked fugitives who live deep in the forest, wear shiny tracksuits and Los Angeles Lakers jerseys and are notorious for burning babies, kidnapping women and literally chopping up anybody who gets in their way.”

• The Japanese government takes a page from the Texas state board of education: “In new high school textbooks, the Japanese government is now denying that Okinawans had been coerced by troops into committing mass suicide during World War II.”

• And, of course, your daily fix of Christian virtual violence: Thou Shalt Not Kill, Except in a Popular Video Game at Church.