SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Bush administration has been unable to muster even half of the 2,500 National Guardsmen it planned to have on the Mexican border by the end of June. As of Thursday, the next-to-last day of the month, fewer than 1,000 troops were in place, according to military officials in the four border states of Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona. President Bush’s plan called for all 50 states to send troops. But only 10 states _ including the four border states _ have signed commitments. Some state officials have argued that they cannot free up Guardsmen because of flooding in the East, wildfires in the West or the prospect of hurricanes in the South. ‘It’s not a combat priority. It is a volunteer mission,’ said Kristine Munn, spokeswoman for the National Guard Bureau, an arm of the Pentagon, ‘so it’s a question of balancing the needs of the Border Patrol with the needs of 54 states and territories, and all those balls roll in different directions.’ Bush’s plan for stemming illegal immigration by using National Guardsmen in a support role called for 2,500 troops to be on the border by June 30, […]
Your next raise might buy you a more lavish vacation, a better car, or a few extra bedrooms, but it’s not likely to buy you much happiness. Measuring the quality of people’s daily lives via surveys, the results of a study published in the June 30 issue of journal Science reveals that income plays a rather insignificant role in day-to-day happiness. Although most people imagine that if they had more money they could do more fun things and perhaps be happier, the reality seems to be that those with higher incomes tend to be tenser, and spend less time on simple leisurely activities. Scaling bad mood In 2004, the researchers developed a survey tool that measures people’s quality of daily lives. Then they asked 909 employed women to record the previous day’s activities and their feelings toward them. The study focused on women because the researchers wanted to study a homogeneous group while the surveys were in the early developmental stages. Recently, the researchers revisited the data from the 2004 and focused on correlating the amount of income with the percentage of time each participant reported as being in a bad mood each day. […]
A government panel today recommended that girls as young as 11 routinely get a new vaccine against cervical cancercervical cancer. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the government on vaccine policies, unanimously backed widespread use of the vaccine in preadolescent girls in hopes of protecting them before most become sexually active. The vaccine, known as Gardasil, prevents infection with human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted virus known to cause most cervical cancers and genital wartsgenital warts. If the panel’s recommendation is approved by the Bush administration, Gardasil would join vaccines against measlesmeasles, whooping coughwhooping cough, chicken pox, and other diseases on the list of routine shots for all American children. Such approval would also qualify Gardasil for inclusion in a federal program that provides free vaccines for low-income children. ‘This is a huge breakthrough for women’s health and for prevention and for cancercancer prevention,’ said Anne Schuchat, MD, director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the CDC. The vaccine received the unanimous consent of an FDA panel earlier this month after the drug company Merck showed it was nearly 100% effective in preventing HPV infections. Early Vaccinations But […]
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military war crimes trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees, saying in a strong rebuke that the trials were illegal under U.S. and international law. Bush said there might still be a way to work with Congress to sanction military tribunals for detainees and the American people should know the ruling ‘won’t cause killers to be put out on the street.’ The court declared 5-3 that the trials for 10 foreign terror suspects violate U.S. military law and the Geneva conventions. The ruling raises major questions about the legal status of the approximately 450 men still being held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba and exactly how, when and where the administration might pursue the charges against them. It also seems likely to further fuel international criticism of the administration, including by many U.S. allies, for its handling of the terror war detainees at Guantanamo in Cuba, Abu Ghraib in Iraq and elsewhere. White House counselor Dan Bartlett said the administration’s task now is mostly technical – trying to determine how to design military tribunals that would pass muster under the […]
WASHINGTON — The nation’s top climate scientists are giving ‘An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore’s documentary on global warming, five stars for accuracy. The former vice president’s movie — replete with the prospect of a flooded New York City, an inundated Florida, more and nastier hurricanes, worsening droughts, retreating glaciers and disappearing ice sheets — mostly got the science right, said all 19 climate scientists who had seen the movie or read the book and answered questions from The Associated Press. The AP contacted more than 100 top climate researchers by e-mail and phone for their opinion. Among those contacted were vocal skeptics of climate change theory. Most scientists had not seen the movie, which is in limited release, or read the book. But those who have seen it had the same general impression: Gore conveyed the science correctly; the world is getting hotter and it is a manmade catastrophe-in-the-making caused by the burning of fossil fuels. ‘Excellent,” said William Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School of Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. ‘He got all the important material and got it right.” Robert Corell, chairman of the worldwide Arctic Climate Impact Assessment group of […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
