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Politics

Multiple Presidents Have Been Fooled by Moderate American Muslims

Donald-Trump-Alabama

Nov. 21, 2015: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign stop in Birmingham, Ala. (Photo: AP/Eric Schultz)

Presidential candidate Donald Trump is catching flack for saying he saw thousands of Muslims in America celebrating the attacks on 9/11 on television. Major media outlets were quick to denounce Trump as being nothing but wrong. Then, another GOP contender seemed to back Trump up, and the media storm against them was relentless!

However, these major media outlets are being far from truthful in making accusations against Trump’s larger point.

Pro-Jihad statements by American Muslims

“Allah is my lord, Islam is my life, the Quran is my guide, the Sunna is my practice, Jihad is my spirit, righteousness is my character, paradise is my goal,” attendees at the Muslim Students’ Association West Conference recited in January 2011 at UCLA. “I enjoin what is right, I forbid what is wrong, I will fight against oppression, and I will die to establish Islam.”

New York State Prison Chaplain Warith Deen Umar, a.k.a. Wallace Gene Marks, was removed from his position and barred from entering state prisons by Gov. George Pataki in 2003. CBS News reported:

Umar began his activities as a prison chaplain in 1975. New York Gov. George Pataki barred Umar from prisons in 2003, after the Wall Street Journal reported that Umar had expressed support for the 9/11 terrorists — even stating that Muslims “who say they are against terrorism secretly admire and applaud” bin Laden’s mass murderers. (According to Umar, the Koran does not forbid terrorism even against the innocent. “This is the sort of teaching they don’t want in prison,” he said. “But this is what I’m doing.“) <emphasis added>

Presidents Clinton and Bush met with Abdurahman Alamoudi, who purported to be a representative of moderate American Muslims. He led the American Muslim Council and the Muslim American Society. In 2003, Alamoudi was arrested and charged with 18 counts of federal crimes related to supporting terrorism. Currently, Alamoudi is serving a 23 year prison sentence. The Washington Institute had this to say about the man who represented American Muslims in the presence of two U.S. presidents.

In 2000, American Muslim Council founder and former Executive Director Abdurahman Alamoodi announced at a rally outside the White House: “We are all supporters of Hamas. Allahu Akhbar! … I am also a supporter of Hezbollah.” After the President announced the closure of the HLF, which raised $13 million for Hamas in its last year of operation, the AMC condemned the action as “particularly disturbing … unjust and counterproductive.”[12] AMC’s position was predictable, given that Alamoudi attended a conference of major Islamic terrorist groups in Beirut in January 2001.

If the name Alamoudi strikes a cord in your recent memory, it should. He was the founder of the Islamic Society of Boston, which is where the infamous Boston Marathon bombers attended for prayer and Islamic studies. Further, Alamoudi had long been serving his sentence in jail when Boston was attacked on April 15, 2013.

Trump may seem brash, and anything but restrained in his speech. But, his words of caution and warning regarding Islamic terrorism are not wrong. Dr. Ben Carson who initially backed him up, is one who chooses his words more carefully. Perhaps this should have been a clue to the American people that the major media outlets are hiding something.

This is only a smidgen of the available information on whether some American Muslims endorse terrorists and support acts of terror. There is a treasure trove of information supporting this line of argument, which is valid. The leaders of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the leaders of the Islamic Society of North America have–on numerous occasions and backed by numerous quotes–publicly stated their support of Hamas. Was it really too hard for major media outlets to find this information to report.

But it all comes down to the words of former Vice President Dick Cheney in 2002:

“We don’t know if it’s going to be tomorrow, or next week or next year,” Cheney said. The U.S.-led war on terrorism has had some successes at disrupting the al Qaeda terrorist network, making it more difficult for them to carry out operations, he noted, but it’s almost impossible to build “a 100 percent perfect defense.”

“The American people must understand the reality of the enemy we’re up against,” Cheney stressed. Even if your defense is 99% successful, that other one percent “can still kill you.”

Knowing the truth of these words gives reason to ponder the purposeful misinformation being pushed out by the major news networks on this issue. Given the truth, there is also reason to question whether the major news networks are working against the safety of Americans.
[mybooktable book=”civilization-jihad-and-the-myth-of-moderate-islam” display=”summary” buybutton_shadowbox=”true”]

Presidential candidate Donald Trump made a larger

World

Turkey Shooting Down Russian Fighter Jet Was “an Extraordinary, Unusual Move” for NATO Nation

Vladimir-Putin-Recep-Tayyip-Erdoğan

Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, left, and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, right, at the re-opening of the Cathedral Mosque in Moscow on Wednesday, September 24, 2015. (Photo: AP)

A senior U.S. defense official told PPD Friday that the Russian fighter jet “did not appear to be” in Turkish airspace when it was shot down on Tuesday. U.S. officials confirmed early Tuesday that a Turkish F-16 fighter jet shot down a Russian Su-24 with an air-to-air missile near the border between Turkey and Syria, though the NATO-member nation claimed it gave repeated warnings.

However, while conceding there has been numerous incursions into Turkish airspace by the Russian military over the past few months, the source said there are also numerous holes in the Turkish military’s story.

“We heard the transmissions [from Turkey] backing up their version, but there is evidence contradicting the initial story,” the source told PPD. “The Russian pilots did not appear to be in Turkish airspace when they were shot down and could only have been for a short period of time throughout the entire incident.”

The official also said that it was “an extraordinary, unusual move” on behalf of Turkey to make the decision, particularly considering the short duration of time the Russian warplane violated Turkey’s airspace. In fact, video footage of the incident showed the plane on fire before crashing on a hill, which is located in Syria, shortly after the two Russian pilots were forced to eject. Further, it was in Syria where rebel groups claimed to have recovered the pilots, one of them deceased.

More recent video footage posted by the so-called moderate 10th Brigade in the Coast shows the rebels shouting “Allah Akbar” over the body of the dead pilot, which emerged shortly before a separate Syrian rebel group blew up a Russian helicopter searching for the surviving pilot.

Meanwhile, tensions between the two nations continued to rise on Friday, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan warning Russian President Vladimir Putin not to “play with fire” after the latter leader called the incident a “stab in the back” and vowed it would have “significant consequences” for the NATO-member nation.

Putin said Russia would weigh whether they would retaliate economically in response, but Erdoğan has shot back by urging Russia not to make a knee-jerk reaction based on emotion.

“We very sincerely recommend to Russia not to play with fire,” Erdoğan said in a speech in Bayburt, Turkey. “We really attach a lot of importance to our relations with Russia. We don’t want these relations to suffer harm in any way.”

As of Friday, Putin has not reached out to Erdoğan because of his failure to apologize, and frankly, because the standoff has strengthened his hand among the Russian people. But at least one of the two leaders hopes to discuss the future of their relationship during the upcoming climate summit in Paris.

“I would like to meet [Putin] face-to-face in Paris,” Erdoğan said on Friday. “I would like to bring the issue to a reasonable point. We are disturbed that the issue has been escalated.”

The development comes after an earlier accusation that Russia violated Turkish airspace in October, prompting NATO to deploy six U.S. Air Force F-15 fighters previously stationed in Britain to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. Also in October, the North Atlantic Council, which is NATO’s governing body, had warned Moscow it was flirting with “extreme danger” if it continued to send planes into Turkish air space. The alliance’s European Command said the deployment was “in response to the government of Turkey’s request for support in securing the sovereignty of Turkish airspace” and an effort to secure their member’s airspace.

However, this time around, Putin vehemently denied the Russian fighter jet had violated Turkish airspace, claiming instead it never left Syrian airspace. He also accused Turkey of funding ISIS, and using its military to protect the terrorist organization. At least on Putin’s first claim, the source who spoke to PPD on a condition of anonymity half-agreed with the Russian president.

“They [Turkey] may have enough to make a case for a momentary incursion,” the Pentagon source said. “It’s just not a strong enough one to justify making a decision on their own to blow two Russian pilots out of the sky, potentially starting a conflict they cannot finish.”

“At least not alone.”

A senior U.S. defense official told PPD

News

healthcare-capitol-hill

Capitol Hill and healthcare emblem.

Back in 1933, Rep. Walter Pierce of Oregon introduced a bill in Congress to let doctors discuss birth control with their patients. The need for such a bill showed how controversial the subject was. But this was the heart of the Great Depression, when impoverished Americans could barely feed the children they had.

Oregon, along with California, is again ahead of the curve in promoting women’s access to contraceptives. Both states will soon let pharmacists dispense the pill, patches and other hormonal contraceptives without a doctor’s prescription. This is a major advance for the following reasons:

–Logistics. Needing a prescription from a physician requires having a physician. Many women don’t, and those who do must often wait for appointments. Or they may have had a recent checkup and want birth control without going through the other unpleasant procedures in a gynecologist’s office.
–Cost. It’s a cheaper way to obtain birth control.
–Convenience. The United States has a very high percentage of unintended pregnancies. Many are the result of women being unwilling to jump through the hoops to secure birth control before having sex. The hurdles of convenience, cost and logistics are higher for poor women.

Please spare us the lectures on personal responsibility. The objective here is to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Some argue that these state laws don’t go far enough in “freeing” the pill. They want it sold over the counter just like aspirin and toothpaste.

Hormonal contraceptives are already sold over the counter in much of the world — in nearly all of Asia and Latin America and in most of Africa. A prescription is still required in Canada and in western Europe, with the interesting exception of Portugal.

One can argue for requiring some sort of prescription, at least for the time being. Health insurance generally doesn’t cover over-the-counter medications but will pay for prescribed contraceptives. The federal Food and Drug Administration, meanwhile, takes forever to approve over-the-counter medications (another problem that needs fixing).

Although these contraceptives are generally very safe, they can cause complications for a few women. Both Oregon and California will ask pharmacists to have women fill out short questionnaires to help determine whether hormonal birth control poses any risks to the patient.

Arizona, Idaho and New Mexico have shown an interest in following the Oregon and California example. Washington state already lets pharmacists prescribe contraceptives, but only under special agreements with physicians; they can get complicated.

As we look forward to more easily obtainable birth control, we can also observe the past at work in a case now winding through the U.S. Supreme Court. It is the umpteenth challenge to the Affordable Care Act requirement that employers provide coverage for birth control. (Houses of worship are already exempt.)

The plaintiffs this time are the Little Sisters of the Poor in Baltimore. They argue that the Obama administration’s accommodation for religious nonprofits opposed to contraception, such as theirs, is too burdensome.

In truth, all they have to do is fill out a short form saying that birth control violates their religious beliefs and they won’t have to pay for it. The group says doing even that makes them “complicit” in the alleged immorality tied to birth control.

Americans have to agree on certain principles, and access to birth control is widely accepted, including among Catholics. In this world of increasing religious diversity, many principles will conflict with theological teachings. In short, Obama has stretched religious accommodation far enough.

Back to the future, thank the American West for leading the way toward curbing unwanted pregnancies — the results of which no one of faith or otherwise wants. Letting pharmacies prescribe contraceptives should become law across the land.

Oregon, along with California, is again ahead

Opinion

US-Capitol-Building-iStockPhoto

U.S. Capitol Building on Capitol Hill. (Photo: iStockPhoto)

What if the government’s goal is to perpetuate itself? What if the real levers of governmental power are pulled by agents and diplomats and bureaucrats behind the scenes? What if they stay in power no matter who is elected president or which political party controls Congress?

What if the frequent public displays of adversity between the Republicans and the Democrats are just a facade and a charade? What if both major political parties agree on the transcendental issues of our day?

What if the leadership of both major political parties believes that our rights are not natural to our humanity but instead gifts from the government? What if those leaders believe that the government that gives gifts to the people can take those gifts back?

What if the leadership of both parties gives only lip service to Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence that all people “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, (and) among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” and that the purpose of government is to protect these rights? What if the leadership of both parties dismisses these ideas as just Jefferson’s outdated musings? What if Jefferson’s arguments have been enacted into the federal laws that all in government have sworn to uphold?

What if the leadership of the parties believes that the constitutional requirement of due process somehow permits mothers to kill the babies in their wombs out of fear or convenience? What if the leaders of both parties believe that the president should be able to kill whomever he wants out of fear because due process is an inconvenience?

What if President Barack Obama has killed Americans and claimed that he has done so legally, relying on the convenient arguments of his attorney general, who falsely told him his killings are consistent with due process? What if the Constitution requires due process whenever the government wants someone’s life, liberty or property, whether convenient or not? What if due process means a fair jury trial, not an ordered killing?

What if the congressional leadership and most of the membership from both major political parties believe in perpetual war and perpetual debt? What if the history of American government in the past 100 years is proof of this nearly universal belief among the political class?

What if the political class in America believes that war is the health of the state? What if the leadership of that class wants war so as to induce the loyalty of the voters, open the pocketbooks of the taxpayers and cause compliance among the people? What if the political class uses war to enrich its benefactors? What if the government has been paying for war by increasing its debt?

What if the political class has been paying for prosperity by increasing the government’s debt? What if that class has controlled the cash-creating computers at the Federal Reserve and the free cash the Fed creates is to bankers and traders what heroin is to addicts? What if the $18.6 trillion current federal government debt has largely been caused by borrowing to pay for war and false prosperity? What if 20 cents of every tax dollar collected by the feds today is spent on interest payments for the government’s debt?

What if American taxpayers are still paying interest on debts incurred by Woodrow Wilson, FDR, JFK, LBJ, Ronald Reagan and every modern president?

What if the silent damage that the artificial creation of cash causes has been manifested not in price inflation but in equity and savings deflation? What if the manifestation of equity deflation is that too much of everything we own secures too much debt? What if the folks at the Fed who create the cash have kept interest rates so low that there is little incentive to save?

What if we all own a smaller percentage of what we think we own because the value of what we own has decreased as the debt on what we own has increased? What if the banks have borrowed the money that they lend? What if they can’t pay it back? What if the stock market is soaring on borrowed money? What if mansions and shopping malls are popping up but they secure more debt than they are worth? What happens when the plug is pulled on this temporary artifice when those debts come due?

What if the government demands transparency from all of us but declines to be transparent to us? What if the government fosters the make-believe notion that it exists to serve us? What if the government denies that it works for us and thinks we work for it? What if it has access to all of our communications, bank accounts, health and legal records, and monthly utility and credit card bills? What if the government knows more about us than we know about it?

What if the government stays in power by bribery? What if it bribes the states with grants of cash, the rich with bailouts, the middle class with tax cuts and the poor with welfare? What if the courts have approved this bribery?

What if, on Thanksgiving Day, our gratitude is not to the government that assails our freedoms but to God, who gave us our freedoms? What if, on Thanksgiving Day, our gratitude is for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? What if we possess them despite the government?

What if, on Thanksgiving Day, we should be most grateful that we are free creatures made in God’s image and likeness? What if we are free to reject the government?

What if, on Thanksgiving Day, we should

Opinion

The-First-Thanksgiving-

The First Thanksgiving 1621, oil on canvas by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1899).

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens,” and America became the first nation to establish a holiday based upon gratitude. Americans were thankful for their faith, good fortune, and the political and economic systems that nurtured their way of life.

Every year since that year of untold hardship during the Civil War, we Americans take the day to reflect on the things in each of our own lives we are thankful to have. However, rarely do we as a nation collectively reflect on things we have to be thankful for as a result of living in this great nation.

Much to the chagrin of collectivists, the national character of America is still very much individualistic. And this Thanksgiving, I thank God that it is.

The “First Thanksgiving” nearly never happened. Before they had a chance to be thankful for anything, the Pilgrims almost starved to death.

Schools often teach our children that Squanto, a Patuxet Native American who resided with the Wampanoag tribe, taught the Pilgrims how to catch eel, fish and grow corn. Unfortunately, they skip over the rest of the story.

Pilgrims operated under a communal system when they first settled Plymouth. The charter dictated that they would share in common property and farms and, as a result, each family was to receive an equal share of food, despite how much work they put in. It was a colonial era wealth redistribution scheme.

The result was as expected—widespread starvation.

“Much was stolen both by night and day,” Gov. William Bradford wrote. But he quickly noticed the less-agreeable aspects to human nature — notably, the innate human desire to free-ride if and when allowed — and he changed course. Adopting a free market capitalism mentality, which was strengthened by the Protestant ethic, Gov. Bradford noticed that the Pilgrims now “went willingly into the field.”

“They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty,” Bradford wrote.

Due to property incentives, self-interests and the tenets of their faith, including their unique work ethic, the soon-to-be-founders of Plymouth Rock and Massachusetts Bay Colony prospered. But without capitalism, there would’ve been no true right to property, thus little to no incentive.

Sadly, there are those in American society that seek to distort and diminish the true Sprit of capitalism; those who seek to define this system in terms of greed and selfishness. Yet, just as today’s Thanksgiving celebrations would likely be unrecognizable to attendees of the original 1621 harvest meal, the same is true with modern-day American capitalism. Our Founding Fathers believed capitalism to be a means to a much different end than many view it to be now.

Faith lays at the heart of this disparity in thought.

“Virtues and ethics are all that separate classical American capitalism from the simple pursuit of wealth that transpired in antiquity, European-style capitalism, and the modern American free market,” I explain in Our Virtuous Republic. “The removal of one’s virtuous obligation to ‘worldly asceticism,’ or frugality, has made the pursuit of wealth an object of greed.”

The book was a defense of traditional American values, political, economic and cultural systems. Early Americans faithfully believed it was their duty to work, harvest and provide, hence their unique work ethic. The goal was not to become a burden on civil society and, further, to achieve the social and economic status that enables you to serve and help others.

“The secularization of American capitalism has made the pursuit of wealth an end,” I further observed from their writings. “Whereas with Protestantism, wealth historically was a means to achieve a strong civil society.”

But don’t take my word for it. Max Weber, the German sociologist and political economist, wrote of the origins, history, and the true Spirit of capitalism long before I did.

“The impulse to acquisition, pursuit of gain, of money, of the greatest possible amount of money, has in itself nothing to do with capitalism,” Weber wrote in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. “It should be taught in the kindergarten of cultural history that this naive idea of capitalism must be given up once and for all. Unlimited greed for gain is not in the least identical with capitalism, and is still less its spirit.”

A free market, where people are free to make choices and, ultimately to live as they wish, is the true cradle of liberty.

Our Founding Fathers established a political and economic system in a new nation that would nurture the more-agreeable characteristics of human nature. Though it has unquestionably been distorted and diminished, I am thankful that it still survives today.

From Plymouth to 2015, the real Thanksgiving

Opinion

obamacare-obama-lie

President Obama depicted in front of an American flag in reference to his signature healthcare law, ObamaCare.

Shortly after ObamaCare was enacted, I started writing about groups victimized by the law. But after highlighting how children, low-income workers, and retirees were disadvantaged by government-run healthcare,I soon realized that I wasn’t saying anything new or different.

Heck, ObamaCare has been such a disaster that lots of people have been writing lots of good articles about the law’s failure and how various segments of the population are being unjustly harmed.

So I chose a different approach. I decided to identify groups that deserve to suffer because of the law. Or at least to highlight slices of the population that are not very deserving of sympathy.

Some politicians and staffers of Capitol Hill, for instance, are very upset about the prospect of being subjected to the law that they inflicted on the rest of the country. Gee, my heart breaks for them.

The bureaucrats at the IRS are agitated about the possibility of living under ObamaCare, even though the IRS got new powers as a result of the law. How sad, cry me a river.

Professors at Harvard University, including many who supported ObamaCare, are now upset that the law is hurting them. Oh, the inhumanity!

Now we have another group to add to this list. And this group is definitely in the deserve-to-suffer category.

That’s because we’re going to look at the big insurance companies that supported ObamaCare, but now are squealing because the law isn’t working and they’re not getting the bailouts they were promised.

Here are some excerpts from a column by the irreplaceable Tim Carney of theWashington Examiner.

Until recently, the insurance giants saw Obamacare as a cash cow. They are now finding the law’s insurance marketplaces to be sickly quagmires causing billions in losses. …United Healthcare, the nation’s largest insurer, last week announced it was suffering huge losses in the exchanges. …The company forecast $700 million in losses on the exchanges. Fellow insurance giant Aetna also said it expected to lose money on the exchanges, and other insurers said enrollment was lower than they expected.

This seems like a feel-good story, very appropriate for the holidays. After all, companies that get in bed with big government deserve bad consequences.

But hold on to your wallet.

…ObamaCare insiders — the wealthy and powerful operatives who alternate between top government jobs and top industry jobs — are hustling to find more bailout money for insurers. Republicans, if they are able to hold their ground in the face of lobbyist pressure, can block the bailout of ObamaCare and its corporate clientele. …ObamaCare included…a three-year safety net for insurers who do much worse than expected, paid for by an extra tax on insurers who do much better. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) had announced in October that insurers losses for 2014 entitled them to $2.87 billion in bailout payments… The problem is that super-profitable insurers did not pay nearly that much into the bailout fund.

This means there will be a fight in Washington. The Obama White House wants to bail out its corporate cronies. But there’s not enough money in the bailout fund.

And, thanks to Senator Rubio of Florida, the government can’t write checks out of thin air.

In late 2014, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., inserted into the so-called Cromnibus spending bill a provision that prohibited CMS from paying out more in risk corridor payments than it takes in. Profitable insurers — not taxpayers — must subsidize their less profitable peers.

Unfortunately, the Obama Administration oftentimes doesn’t care what the law says.

CMS announced last week that the government was going to find a way to pay the insurers their full bailout, anyway. …CMS also declared the unfunded portion of ObamaCare’s initial promised insurer bailout was nevertheless an “obligation of the United States Government for which full payment is required,” even though at least under the current appropriation law it is illegal.

Tim outlines the incestuous relationship between Big Insurance and the Obama White House, all of which makes for nauseating reading.

But here’s the part that matters for public policy.

Rubio’s provision…expires along with the current government funding law on December 11. The ObamaCare insiders, led by Slavitt and Tavenner, will fight to free up their bailouts and put the taxpayers on the hook for their losses caused by the law they supported.

In other words, we’re about to see – as part of upcoming appropriations legislation – if Republicans have the intelligence and fortitude to retain Rubio’s anti-bailout provision.

This should be a slam-dunk issue. After all, the American people presumably will not favor bailouts for corrupt health insurance corporations.

Especially since ObamaCare is still very unpopular.

But what if Obama says “boo” and threatens to veto spending legislation if it doesn’t give him carte blanche bailout authority? Will GOPers be so scared of a partial government shutdown that they instantly surrender?

After all, when there was a shutdown fight in 2013, Republicans suffered a horrible defeat in the 2014 mid-term elections. Right? Isn’t that what happened?

Oh…wait…never mind.

P.S. Let’s not forget that there is one very tiny segment of America that has unambiguously benefited from ObamaCare.

P.P.S. If you have any friends who work for the corrupt health insurance companies that are worried about a potential loss of bailout money, you can cheer them up this Christmas season with some great – and very appropriate – action figure toys.

P.P.P.S. Since we’re closing with sarcasm, here’s the federal government’s universal bailout application form.

Aside from low-income workers, retirees, and children

Science

Mars Atmosphere Mystery Solved?

NASA-New-Horizon-Pluto

An image of the dwarf planet Pluto as captured by NASA’s New Horizons. (Photo: NASA)

While geological evidence shows the red planet was once a much wetter, warmer place than it is now, the Mars atmosphere mystery has long-puzzled scientists. Now a team of scientists from the California Institute of Technology and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, both in Pasadena, offer an explanation of the “missing” carbon, in a paper published today by the journal Nature Communications.

“Our paper shows that transitioning from a moderately dense atmosphere to the current thin one is entirely possible,” says Caltech postdoctoral fellow Renyu Hu, the lead author. “It is exciting that what we know about the Martian atmosphere can now be pieced together into a consistent picture of its evolution — and this does not require a massive undetected carbon reservoir.”

It has been known for sometime that solar wind stripped away much of what was once the thicker Mars atmosphere and, indeed, is still removing tons of it every day. However, scientists have been puzzled as to why they haven’t found more carbon in the form of carbonate, which captured into Martian rocks.

Mars-Carbon-Atmosphere-Loss

This graphic depicts paths by which carbon has been exchanged among Martian interior, surface rocks, polar caps, waters and atmosphere, and also depicts a mechanism by which it is lost from the atmosphere with a strong effect on isotope ratio.
Credits: Lance Hayashida/Caltech

The solar wind stripped away much of Mars’ ancient atmosphere and is still removing tons of it every day. But scientists have been puzzled by why they haven’t found more carbon — in the form of carbonate — captured into Martian rocks. The new study, unlike the “escaped to space” theory, not only accounts for the “missing” carbon problem, but also does so in a way that is consistent with the observed ratio of carbon-13 to carbon-12, which differ only by how many neutrons are in each nucleus.

“This solves a long-standing paradox,” said Bethany Ehlmann of Caltech and JPL, a co-author of both today’s publication and the August one about carbonates. “The supposed very thick atmosphere seemed to imply that you needed this big surface carbon reservoir, but the efficiency of the UV photodissociation process means that there actually is no paradox. You can use normal loss processes as we understand them, with detected amounts of carbonate, and find an evolutionary scenario for Mars that makes sense.”

While geological evidence shows the red planet

Economy

durable-goods-reuters

American workers at a manufacturing plant for long-lasting durable goods. (PHOTO: REUTERS)

The Commerce Department reported on Wednesday durable goods orders rose 3% in October from the prior month, beating estimates for an increase of 1.5%. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected overall orders to increase by 1.8% in October, while September durable goods orders were revised to a 0.8% decrease from the previously estimated drop of 1.2%.

However, in the period through the first 10 months of the year, durable goods orders are down 4.2% compared to the same period in 2014. The downturn reflects curtailed demand due to low oil prices, a strong dollar and slow overseas growth. If orders for nondefense aircraft didn’t increase by 81%, which fueled the overall reading, the reading would have been more in line with regional manufacturing reports, which have shown contraction or abysmal growth.

Boeing Co., the nation’s largest aerospace firm and largest recipient of Export-Import Bank reauthorizations, said orders for passenger jets doubled last month compared to September, on a nonseasonally adjusted basis.

Taking out the transportation component altogether and durable goods orders rose 0.5%, while the estimate was for that part to increase by 0.3%. Further, orders for motor vehicles and parts, which have been performing better than other categories this year–fell 2.9% in October. Excluding defense, another volatile sector, durable orders were up 3.2% last month, but down 4% so far this year. Defense orders increased 1% in October.

While overall the manufacturing sector contributes or slices off a relatively small percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), it remains an important indicator for two reasons. First, the sector, which has been approaching life support in 2015, indicates future strengths and weakness in demand. Second, the sector provides opportunities for a higher wage than the vast majority of service sector employment positions.

The Commerce Department reported on Wednesday durable

Economy

unemployment-benefits

Weekly jobless claims, or first-time claims for unemployment benefits reported by the Labor Department.

The Labor Department said initial jobless claims for unemployment benefits declined 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 260,000 for the week ended Nov. 21. The number of weekly jobless benefits is now nearing a 42-week low, though those numbers are largely fueled by the number of long-term unemployed no longer eligible to file. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims falling to 270,000 for the week.

The four-week moving average of claims–which is widely considered to be a better measure of labor market trends as it strips out week-to-week volatility–was unchanged at 271,000 last week. The four-week average of continuing claims rose 8,750 between the October and November survey periods, which indicates the unemployment rate will likely hold steady this month.

Meanwhile, the prior week’s claims were revised up by 1,000 applications than previously reported. Claims have now held below the 300,000 threshold for 38 consecutive weeks, the longest stretch in years, and remain close to levels last seen in the early 1970s. Claims below this level are usually associated with a healthy jobs market.

The Labor Department said initial jobless claims

Economy

consumer-spending

A shopper organizes his cash before paying for merchandise at a Best Buy Co. store in Peoria, Illinois, U.S., on Friday, Nov. 23, 2012. (Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty)

Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity increased 0.1% in October, missing economists’ forecast for 0.3%. The Commerce Department reported on Wednesday that the savings rate hit the highest level in three years.

Personal income increased 0.4%, up from 2%, which came in matching expectations. Wages and salaries jumped by 0.6%, the largest increase since May. When adjusted for inflation, consumer spending gained 0.1 percent in October after rising by the same margin in September.

With income outpacing spending, savings rose, which could boost consumer spending in the coming months. Savings increased to $761.9 billion last month, the highest level since December 2012, from $722.9 billion in September.

Consumer spending, which accounts for more than

People's Pundit Daily
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