Graphic, left: Compact planetary system Kepler-11.  See: Kepler 11 – six planets that together fit inside of Mercury's orbit and . .  .
Once-Wild Jupiter Could Have Destroyed Super Earths in Our Solar System. As astronomers have gained the ability gaze at far-off exoplanets, they have started to realize our solar system is more unique than they could have imagined. Many other alien’ systems have ‘super-Earths’ and other planets in tight orbits close to their star, but ours does not. And now we might know why. According to a team of scientists at UC Santa Cruz, Jupiter either destroyed other planets during the early formation period or chased them out of our solar system in order to allow Earth take root and support life. . . . The results of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences could explain why our solar system is so differently constituted compared with the hundreds of other planetary systems astronomers have been discovering orbiting distant stars.
“Indeed, it appears that the solar system today is not the common representative of the galactic planetary census,” says planetary scientist Konstantin Batygin at the California Institute of Technology. “Instead we are something of an outlier.” In Solar System 1.0, the region closest to the sun was occupied by numerous planets with masses several times bigger than that of Earth. There were also planetesimals, “planetary building blocks” that formed within the first million years after the birth of the sun. This is how things might have stayed if the young Jupiter had stayed put at its initial orbit, between 3 and 10 astronomical units away from the Sun . . .
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Hour One
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 1, Block A: Aaron Task, Yahoo Finance, in re: Capital Economics (Canada): looking ahead -  Our econometric model indicates that non-farm payroll employment increased by a slightly more modest 240,000 in March (Friday). After falling sharply in February, we suspect that the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.5% this month. We anticipate a more robust 0.3% m/m increase in average hourly earnings, which would favour a June interest rate hike from the Fed. Personal income and spending (13.30 BST, Monday) were probably both held down by the bad weather in February. Meanwhile, we have pencilled in a small rebound in the ISM manufacturing index in March (Wednesday). Finally, even though the West Coast port dispute wasn’t resolved until the second half of February, the container traffic data point to a rebound in both imports and exports (Thursday). (Paul Ashworth) / Economic Growth, Corporate Profits Slowed as 2014 Ended
The U.S. economy slowed in the final months of 2014 and corporate profits fell, putting the growth trajectory on a lower path ahead of an apparent slowdown early this year.  / Oil Prices Slip Friday
The U.S. benchmark oil contract slipped Friday, but remained within striking distance of its biggest weekly gain in four years, as concerns about fighting in the Middle East faded. 
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 1, Block B:  Liz Peek, The Fiscal Times & Fox, in re: Are Americans angry enough to elect Ted Cruz? The feisty Texas senator has made his name by refusing to play by the rules; he is brash and disruptive. For these reasons, he is not a conventional candidate, but rather someone who might appeal to those who are hopping mad at President Obama and with mainstream politicians in both parties.
The good news for Cruz, according to Rasmussen, is “Eighty-five percent of Republicans and 68 percent of voters not affiliated with either major political party say the country is on the wrong track.” That’s the group Cruz is aiming at, and they’re fed up with “business as usual.” [Related: Ted Cruz—20 Things You Don’t Know About Him] Millions of Americans feel that their concerns have been ignored by President Obama and belittled by the media. Americans who believe in God, who pay taxes, who have worked to put their kids through college for and saved for their own retirements, who hold traditional values, and who voted in the midterm elections – only to see the defiant president brandish his pen and his phone in pursuit of policies they don’t like.
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 1, Block C: Konstantin Batygin, Caltech, in re: his possible scenario has been suggested by Konstantin Batygin, a Caltech planetary scientist, and Gregory Laughlin of UC Santa Cruz in a paper that appears the week of March 23 in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper also suggests that the formation of gas giant planets such as Jupiter and Saturn—a process that planetary scientists believe is relatively rare—plays a major role in determining whether a planetary system winds up looking something like our own or like the more typical systems with close-in super-Earths. As planet-hunters identify additional systems that harbor gas giants, Batygin and Laughlin will have more data against which they can check their hypothesis—to see just how often other migrating giant planets set off collisional cascades in their planetary systems, sending primordial super-Earths into their host stars. The researchers describe their work in a paper entitled “Jupiter’s Decisive Role in the Inner Solar System’s Early Evolution.” (1 of 2)
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 1, Block D: Konstantin Batygin, Caltech, in re: his possible scenario has been suggested by Konstantin Batygin, a Caltech planetary scientist, and Gregory Laughlin of UC Santa Cruz in a paper that appears the week of March 23 in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The paper also suggests that the formation of gas giant planets such as Jupiter and Saturn—a process that planetary scientists believe is relatively rare—plays a major role in determining whether a planetary system winds up looking something like our own or like the more typical systems with close-in super-Earths. As planet-hunters identify additional systems that harbor gas giants, Batygin and Laughlin will have more data against which they can check their hypothesis—to see just how often other migrating giant planets set off collisional cascades in their planetary systems, sending primordial super-Earths into their host stars. The researchers describe their work in a paper entitled “Jupiter’s Decisive Role in the Inner Solar System’s Early Evolution.” (2 of 2)
Hour Two
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 2, Block A:  John Bolton, AEI,  in re: Mr. Obama’s fascination with an Iranian nuclear deal always had an air of unreality. But by ignoring the strategic implications of such diplomacy, these talks have triggered a potential wave of nuclear programs. The president’s biggest legacy could be a thoroughly nuclear-weaponized Middle East.

John R. Bolton, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, was the United States ambassador to the United Nations from August 2005 to December 2006. 
[read this article online]
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 2, Block B:  Daniel Henninger, WSJ WONDER LAND, in re: Race after Obama  Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz took it in the neck from all sides for asking his baristas to chat up half-awake customers about race in America. Mr. Schultz, however, is merely one voice in the conversation on race, which since the Ferguson shooting and Selma’s 50th anniversary has settled on American politics like winter in the East, harsh and unending.
While much of it is predictable or discouraging, others are trying something really new—a positive point of view. We start with the discouraging words. The nomination of Loretta Lynch, the black federal prosecutor from the Brooklyn district, has elicited comments about her delayed confirmation vote in the Senate. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said, “Loretta Lynch, the first African-American woman nominated to be attorney general, is asked to sit in the back of the bus when it comes to the Senate calendar.” North Carolina’s Rep. G.K. Butterfield, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus: “I think race certainly can be considered a major factor in the delay.”
These two members of Congress are saying some Senate Republicans, five decades after a bipartisan vote passed the Civil Rights Act, are opposed to Loretta Lynch because she is black. When the president of the United States was asked if race was playing a role in the delayed nomination, Mr. Obama replied, “I don’t know about that.” Eric Holder said, “My guess is that there is probably not a huge racial component to . . .
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 2, Block C: Paul Collins, author, in re:  Vanishing Act - Barbara Newhall Follett was a prodigy who transfixed the literary world—and then vanished. In a New Hampshire apartment during the winter of 1923, this typewritten notice was fastened squarely against a closed door:
Nobody may come into this room if the door is shut tight (if it is shut not quite latched it is all right) without knocking. The person in this room if he agrees that one shall come in will say “come in,” or something like that and if he does not agree to it he will say “Not yet, please,” or something like that. The door may be shut if nobody is in the room but if a person wants to come in, knocks and hears no answer that means there is no one in the room and he must not go in.
Reason. If the door is shut tight and a person is in the room the shut door means that the person in the room wishes to be left alone.
Through the door could be heard furious clacking and carriage returns: the sound, in fact, of an eight-year-old girl writing her first novel.
In 1923, typewriters were hardly a child’s plaything, but to those following the . . . [more] (1 of 2)
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 2, Block D: Paul Collins, author & Lapham's Quarterly, in re:  Vanishing Act - Barbara Newhall Follett was a prodigy who transfixed the literary world—and then vanished. In a New Hampshire apartment during the winter of 1923, this typewritten notice was fastened squarely against a closed door:
Nobody may come into this room if the door is shut tight (if it is shut not quite latched it is all right) without knocking. The person in this room if he agrees that one shall come in will say “come in,” or something like that and if he does not agree to it he will say “Not yet, please,” or something like that. The door may be shut if nobody is in the room but if a person wants to come in, knocks and hears no answer that means there is no one in the room and he must not go in.
Reason. If the door is shut tight and a person is in the room the shut door means that the person in the room wishes to be left alone.
Through the door could be heard furious clacking and carriage returns: the sound, in fact, of an eight-year-old girl writing her first novel.
In 1923, typewriters were hardly a child’s plaything, but to those following the . . . [more] (2 of 2)
Hour Three
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 3, Block A:  Michael Vlahos, Naval War College, in re: President Roosevelt Meets King Saud at Bitter Lake ... / ... they viewed as President Franklin Roosevelt's pro-Zionist policies. ... at Yalta in February 1945, Roosevelt traveled to the Great Bitter Lake in . . .  ( of 2)
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 3, Block B:  Michael Vlahos, Naval War College, in re:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire The Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Turkish: دَوْلَتِ عَلِيّهٔ عُثمَانِیّه, Devlet-i Aliyye-i Osmâniyye, Modern Turkish: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti), was a Sunni Islamic state founded in 1299 by Oghuz Turks under Osman I in northwestern Anatolia. With conquests in the Balkans by Murad I between 1362 and 1389, the Ottoman sultanate was transformed into a transcontinental empire and claimant to caliphate. The Ottomans overthrew the Byzantine Empire in 1453 with Mehmed II's conquest of Constantinople.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, in particular at the height of its power under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire was . . . ( 2 of 2)
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 3, Block C:  Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: Air Force demanded too much in its SpaceX certification process  In the heat of competition: A military review of the Air Force’s certification process of SpaceX has found that the Air Force has demanded far more changes from the company than were justified or proper.   The report, prepared by former Air Force Chief of Staff General Larry Welch, said the Air Force treated the process like a detailed design review, dictating changes in SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and even the company’s organizational structure. That approach resulted in over 400 issues that needed to be resolved, which was “counterproductive” to a national policy aimed at encouraging competition in the sector.
In fact, the process was intended to show that SpaceX met overall requirements to launch military satellites, not carry out the more detailed review required for each launch on a case-by-case basis, he said. The review also concluded that SpaceX was too resistant to any proposed changes. SpaceX might have been too resistant, but this report confirms my suspicion that the Air Force purposely created hoops for SpaceX to jump through because the Air Force really didn’t want to have to deal with SpaceX and wanted to make it too difficult for them to be approved.
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 3, Block D:   Nicholas Wade, NYT, in re: Scientists Seek Ban on Method of Editing the Human Genome. A group of leading biologists on Thursday called for a worldwide moratorium on use of a new genome-editing technique that would alter human DNA in a way that can be inherited.  The biologists fear that the new technique is so effective and easy to use that some physicians may push ahead before its safety can be assessed. They also want the public to understand the ethical issues surrounding the technique, which could be used to cure genetic diseases, but also to enhance qualities like beauty or intelligence. The latter is a path that many ethicists believe should never be taken.
“You could exert control over human heredity with this technique, and that is why we are raising the issue,” said David Baltimore, a former president of the California Institute of Technology and a member of the group whose paper on the topic was published in the journal Science.
 Ethicists, for decades, have been concerned about the dangers of altering the human germline — meaning to make changes to human sperm, eggs or embryos that will last through the life of the individual and be passed on to future generations. Until now, these worries have been theoretical. But a technique invented in 2012 makes it possible to edit the genome precisely and with much greater ease. The technique has already been used to edit the genomes of mice, rats and monkeys, and few doubt that it would work the same way in people. The technique holds the power to repair or enhance any . . . [more]
Hour Four
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 4, Block A:  Gil Stein, director of the University of Chicago Oriental Institute, in re: The Syrian Heritage Initiative (sponsored by US state department in collaboration with the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR).  Their website is:  http://www.asor-syrianheritage.org/ (1 of 2)
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 4, Block B: Gil Stein, director of the University of Chicago Oriental Institute, in re: The Syrian Heritage Initiative (sponsored by US state department in collaboration with the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR).  Their website is:  http://www.asor-syrianheritage.org/ (2 of 2)
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 4, Block C: Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 4, Block C: Banafsheh Zand, Persian scholar & AmericanThinker.com, in re:   Obama Throws Iranian-Americans under the Bus The Khomeinist regime has time and time again ‘promised’ to abide by agreements similar to what’s on offer now from the Obama administration. Various U.S. administrations, EU conciliators, et al. have reached out to Tehran over the years, yet the undeniable fact is that they have not and will not make a standing deal. Because, as those of us who have followed the every move of that regime since 1979 can specifically point out, the first thing the Islamic Republic of Iran did after it took over in 1979 was to announce to the world through its constitution its “hope that this century will witness the establishment of a universal holy government and the downfall of all others” and delegated the export of its revolution to the globe to the Revolutionary Guard and Hizb’allah.
 
Friday  27 March 2015 / Hour 4, Block D:   Brendan Kiley, thestranger.com, in re:  The Architect Who Wants to Redesign Being Dead What if We Composted Our Bodies Instead of Burying or Cremating Them? The Revolutionary Idea Behind the Urban Death Project   If you happen to die in North America, this is probably what will happen next: Someone will pause for a moment in front of your corpse and then make a phone call. They'll call either a funeral home or a local government agency, depending on how much money you have. Some minutes later—I've never timed the interval, but in my experience it's always at the crossroads of too soon and eternity—two people will show up in suits to take your body away. They will briskly shake hands with the living and say, "I'm sorry for your loss," in a tone that indicates they'd like to be sorry for your loss, but this is what they do for work. To preserve a semblance of dignity, they might invite the living to step out of the room while they begin the awkward business of wrangling your body onto a board, strapping it down, and getting you out of there as quickly as possible.
After that, unless you've planned ahead for something exotic—donating your body to a university, burial at sea—you're headed in one of two directions: a casket or a furnace. The American dead, like American voters, fall roughly into two camps. . . . [more]
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