WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush on Wednesday defended his decision to put off a change in Iraq policy until next month and rejected some recommendations that he said would ‘lead to defeat.’ After talks with top defense officials at the Pentagon, Bush gave little hint that a big change was in the offing in an Iraq policy that Americans increasingly have doubts about. ‘If we lose our nerve, if we’re not steadfast in our determination to help the Iraqi government succeed, we will be handing Iraq over to an enemy that would do us harm,’ Bush said. He defended his decision to put off a speech to announce his new strategy after some Democrats complained that time was of the essence and a new policy needed to be put in place quickly. He did not say when he would give the speech, but aides said it would be in January. ‘I’m not going to be rushed into making a difficult decision, a necessary decision to say to our troops: ‘We’re going to give you the tools necessary to succeed and a strategy to succeed,” Bush said. He said one reason for the delay was […]
Space weather forecasters revised their predictions for storminess after a major flare erupted on the Sun overnight threatening damage to communication systems and power grids while offering up the wonder of Northern Lights. ‘We’re looking for very strong, severe geomagnetic storming’ to begin probably around mid-day Thursday, Joe Kunches, Lead Forecaster at the NOAA Space Environment Center, told SPACE.com this afternoon. The storm is expected to generate aurora or Northern Lights, as far south as the northern United States Thursday night. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station are not expected to be put at additional risk, Kunches said. Radio communications, satellites and power grids could face potential interruptions or damage, however. Solar flares send radiation to Earth within minutes. Some are also accompanied by coronal mass ejections (CME), clouds of charged particles that arrive in a day or two. This flare unleashed a strong CME that’s aimed squarely at Earth. ‘It’s got all the right stuff,’ Kunches said. However, one crucial component to the storm is unknown: its magnetic orientation. If it lines up a certain way with Earth’s magnetic field, then the storm essentially pours into our upper atmosphere. If the alignment is […]
WASHINGTON — The American people need to prepare for a long-duration war against radical Muslims who are set to fight for 50 to 100 years to create an Islamist state in the region, a top Pentagon strategist in the war on terror says. Air Force Brig. Gen. Mark O. Schissler said in an interview that the current strategy for fighting Islamists includes both military and ideological components that make it similar to the 40-year Cold War against communism. ‘We’re in a generational war. You can try and fight the enemy where they are and where they’re attacking you, or prevent them and defend your own homeland,’ said Gen. Schissler, deputy director for the war on terrorism within the strategic plans office of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff. ‘But that’s not enough to stop it. We’ve got to break the chain, and that’s … the ideology. We really need to show the errors in Islamist extremist thinking.’ Gen. Schissler said he is concerned that Washington politics is weakening the will of the nation. ‘I don’t care about the politics. I care about people understanding the facts of what’s our enemy is thinking about, what’s our strategy to […]
WASHINGTON — Antidepressants increase the risk of suicidal behavior for people up to age 24, the government said Wednesday. It plans new warning labels and says users of all ages should be closely monitored. The label change proposed Wednesday would expand a warning now on the antidepressants that applies only to children and adolescents. The Food and Drug Administration put forth its plan to update the drug labels at a meeting of outside advisers on the issue. The changes also would include a recommendation for careful monitoring, especially when patients are beginning treatment. Public reaction was split, with some saying the changes were overdue and others arguing they could keep drugs from those who need them. In emotional testimony illustrated at times by slides of family photos, relatives of suicide victims pleaded for the new warnings. Suzanne Gonzalez, shouting and in tears, goaded the panel to action, telling the experts that her 40-year-old husband who had been taking Paxil shot himself. ‘I wake up every morning thinking, ‘Oh my God, he’s dead. He is freaking dead.’ Do you wake up and think, ‘How many people are going to die today because I am doing […]
WASHINGTON - Scientists appear to have found a fingerprint of Alzheimer’s disease in patients’ spinal fluid, a step toward a long-awaited test for the memory-robbing disease that today can be diagnosed definitively only at autopsy. Researchers at New York’s Weill Cornell Medical College discovered a pattern of 23 proteins floating in spinal fluid that, in very preliminary testing, seems to identify Alzheimer’s - not perfectly, but with pretty good accuracy. Far more research is needed before doctors could try spinal-tap tests in people worried they have Alzheimer’s, specialists caution. But the scientists already are preparing for larger studies to see if this potential ‘biomarker’ of Alzheimer’s holds up. ‘We’re looking to an era in which the kinds of uncertainties that many patients and their families face about the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease will no longer be a problem,’ predicts Dr. Norman Relkin, a neurologist and the study’s senior researcher. Currently, doctors diagnose Alzheimer’s mainly by symptoms. That makes early diagnosis particularly difficult, and even more advanced disease can be confused with other forms of dementia. Nor is there a good way to track the disease’s progression, important for decisions about patient care as well as […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
