Moon Mining Could Begin As Early As 2025

Via Mining.com,

Plans to start mining the Moon as early as 2025 became more attractive this week after a US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) team found evidence that the Earth’s natural satellite may, underneath its surface, be richer in metals than previously thought. Using data from the Miniature Radio Frequency (Mini-RF) instrument onboard NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), a team of researchers came to the conclusion that the lunar subsurface contains a higher concentration of certain metals, such as iron and titanium, than estimated.

The study, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, contends the most popular theory surrounding the Moon’s origins. The hypothesis contends the satellite was formed when a Mars-sized object collided with Earth, vaporizing large portions of the Earth’s upper crust.

“By improving our understanding of how much metal the moon’s subsurface actually has, scientists can constrain the ambiguities about how it has formed, how it is evolving and how it is contributing to maintaining habitability on Earth,” lead study author Essam Heggy said in a statement.

The evidence was discovered while the scientists were looking for ice at the bottom of craters in the lunar north pole region, NASA said. It means that fine dust found at the base of those holes are  parts of the deeper layers of the Moon, ejected during meteor impacts. As such, this dust represents the composition in deeper Moon layers.
The researchers found a pattern in which larger and deeper craters have higher metal concentrations than smaller and shallower ones. Specifically, in craters approximately 1 to 3 miles wide, the dielectric constant or electrical property increased along with crater size. However, the electrical property remained constant for craters between three to 12 miles wide.

Order to mine

US President Donald Trump signed an order in April encouraging citizens to mine the Moon and other celestial bodies with commercial purposes.

The directive classifies outer space as a “legally and physically unique domain of human activity” instead of a “global commons,” paving the way for mining the moon without any sort of international treaty.

“Americans should have the right to engage in commercial exploration, recovery, and use of resources in outer space,” the document states, noting that the US had never signed a 1979 accord known as the Moon Treaty. This agreement stipulates that any activities in space should conform to international law.

Russia’s space agency Roscosmos quickly condemned Trump’s move, likening it to colonialism.

“There have already been examples in history when one country decided to start seizing territories in its interest — everyone remembers what came of it,” Roscosmos’ deputy general director for international cooperation, Sergey Saveliev, said.

Aircraft taking off from Ronald Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia. (Public domain CC0 image.)

The proposed global legal framework for mining on the moon, called the Artemis Accords, would be the latest effort to attract allies to the National Space Agency’s (NASA) plan to place humans and space stations on the celestial body within the next decade.

It also lines-up with several public and private initiatives to fulfill the goal of extracting resources from asteroids, the moon and even other planets.

In 2015, the US Congress passed a bill explicitly allowing companies and citizens to mine, sell and own any space material.

That piece of legislation included a very important clause, stating that it did not grant “sovereignty or sovereign or exclusive rights or jurisdiction over, or the ownership of, any celestial body.”

The section ratified the Outer Space Treaty, signed in 1966 by the US, Russia, and a number of other countries, which states that nations can’t own territory in space.

Trump has taken a consistent interest in asserting American power beyond Earth, forming the Space Force within the US military last year to conduct space warfare.

The country’s space agency NASA had previously outlined its long-term approach to lunar exploration, which includes setting up a “base camp” on the moon’s south pole. 

Trillion-dollar market

The US isn’t the first nor the only nation to jump on board the lunar mining train.

Russia has been pursuing plans in recent years to return to the moon, potentially travelling further into outer space.

Roscosmos revealed in 2018 plans to establish a long-term base on the moon over the next two decades, while President Vladimir Putin has vowed to launch a mission to Mars “very soon.”

Luxembourg, one of the first countries to set its eyes on the possibility of mining celestial bodies, created in 2018 a Space Agency (LSA) to boost exploration and commercial utilization of resources from Near Earth Objects.Unlike NASA, LSA does not carry out research or launches. Its purpose is to accelerate collaborations between economic project leaders of the space sector, investors and other partners.

Thanks to the emerging European network, scientists announced last year plans to begin extracting resources from the moon in five years.

NASA is working on lunar bases that can travel on wheels, or even legs, increasing landing zone safety, provide equipment redundancy and improve the odds of making key discoveries. (Image courtesy of NASA.)

The mission, in charge of the European Space Agency in partnership with ArianeGroup, plans to extract waste-free nuclear energy thought to be worth trillions of dollars.

Both China and India have also floated ideas about extracting Helium-3 from the Earth’s natural satellite. Beijing has already landed on the moon twice in the 21st century, with more missions to follow.

In Canada, most initiatives have come from the private sector. One of the most touted was Northern Ontario-based Deltion Innovations partnership with Moon Express, the first American private space exploration firm to have been granted government permission to travel beyond Earth’s orbit.

Space ventures in the works include plans to mine asteroids, track space debris, build the first human settlement in Mars, and billionaire Elon Musk’s own plan for an unmanned mission to the red planet.

Geologists, as well as emerging companies, such as US-based Planetary Resources, a firm pioneering the space mining industry, believe asteroids are packed with iron ore, nickel and precious metals at much higher concentrations than those found on Earth, making up a market valued in the trillions.

Only 4% of fraud is caught by outside auditors. It’s time for accounting to change its approach

From Fortune.com 

For too long, auditors haven’t held themselves as accountable as they should for identifying potential fraud, instead paying out massive settlements for missing the signs and red flags within audits. Looking at the big picture, it’s more than a matter of missing the signs. 

Auditors aren’t necessarily looking for fraud and won’t see what they aren’t looking for. The numbers show the extent of this: Only 4% of occupational fraud is discovered by external auditors. Many auditors have shaken the responsibility in finding fraud, claiming the onus is on others or that finding fraud is too difficult, especially if there is collusion involved.

It’s time to step up and assume responsibility. The public looks to the accounting profession to be a watchdog, adept at recognizing and uncovering occupational fraud and protecting investments. If we continue to fail at upholding our duty to the public and investors, there is nothing stopping Congress from stepping in and taking away the profession’s exclusive right to perform external audits. 

Part of the problem lies in the lack of training necessary to help auditors own the responsibility of fighting fraud. Since it has never been a focus, there are few measures in place to educate auditors on how to actually do it. The framework is there; standard setters have done a good job in setting the expectation that fraud does fall into auditors’ purview. But there’s catch-up that needs to be done to teach auditors the proper steps in identifying potential fraud, including integrating lessons into the education curriculum, inclusion on the CPA exam, and annual requirements for continuing education on finding fraud. Combining education with technology that puts the tools in auditors’ hands is the only effective way to combat financial fraud at a large level. (My firm makes anti-fraud technology, and could financially benefit from more accounting firms using such tools.)

The tone at the top must also set the stage for a drastic industry change. The longer executives balk at the expectation, the harder it will be to implement a new precedent. If this avoidance remains unchecked and firms continue to get banned from performing audits while getting slapped with increasing penalties and fines, they’ll be forced to change. 

It shouldn’t have to come to that. The profession should take proactive steps now to prioritize fraud detection and avoid the mistakes that have led to major scandals, such as what we’ve seen with Wirecard, Luckin Coffee, Parmalat, Satyam, Olympus, Enron, HealthSouth, and Patisserie Valerie. 

The likelihood of a forced reckoning is increasing. Congress has already taken away the profession’s authority to set its own standards for public company audits after continued missteps, putting this duty in the hands of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. Loss of the ability to self-regulate was the first step; if firms can’t follow set standards to protect the public, then it’s fair game to open auditing up to anyone who can. 

If the profession continues on this trajectory, then there is no reason Congress won’t intervene further, especially if called for by the investing public. After all, there is precedent—just look at tax preparation. The IRS ruled that tax preparers don’t have to be CPAs, and now the profession has competition with technology providers like TurboTax and non-CPA preparers like H&R Block.

Calls for action aren’t just coming from Congress anymore, either; some countries are calling to break up the big accounting firms. As fraud scandals continue to be revealed, which is likely to happen, investors will have even more reason to hold accounting firms accountable for the supposed audit work being done. After all, investors are the ones that take the biggest hit when a fraud scandal breaks; when billions of dollars are lost, people start to pay attention and demand change.

This is our opportunity to take ownership of our role in identifying potential fraud at the companies we audit. Otherwise the accounting profession is at real risk of losing its exclusive hold on the audit process to potential disrupters. Let’s step up to our responsibility and do the right thing before we no longer have the option.

Brian Fox is founder and president of digital confirmation platform Confirmation.

Michigan Passes Controversial Bill To Microchip Humans Voluntarily "To Protect Their Privacy"

Via GreatGameIndia.com,

The Michigan House of Representatives has passed a controversial bill to microchip humans voluntarily in the state under the guise of protecting their privacy. The Microchip Protection Act would allow Michigan employers to use microchipping of their workers with their consent. However, research has shown that RFID transponders causes cancer.

The plan to microchip humans is sponsored by Rep. Bronna Kahle under the guise of protecting the privacy of workers. The stated objective of the bill is that it will protect the privacy rights of Michigan workers and promote further growth for job providers as it relates to microchipping – a cutting-edge technology on the rise that increases workplace efficiency.

“With the way technology has increased over the years and as it continues to grow, it’s important Michigan job providers balance the interests of the company with their employees’ expectations of privacy.”

“Microchipping has been brought up in many conversations as companies across the country are exploring cost-effective ways to increase workplace efficiency. While these miniature devices are on the rise, so are the calls of workers to have their privacy protected.”

- Rep. Bronna Kahle, the Republican who sponsored the bill, said in a press statement.

Radio-frequency identification tags, commonly referred to as microchips, are beginning to seep into the marketplace as new technological devices to help streamline everyday business practices. The chips, roughly the size of a grain of rice, are implanted into the hands of employees and act as a replacement for I.D. badges, timecards, usernames and passwords for security clearance, and even credit cards.

“Despite this type of technology not quite making its way into our state yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes a standard business practice statewide within the next few years,” Kahle said.

“We should absolutely take every step possible to get ahead of these devices.” 

Under Kahle’s plan, Michigan employers would be able utilize microchipping, but could not mandate employees to have such devices implanted. Kahle said the measure strikes a good balance between protecting workers’ rights and providing businesses with flexibility to increase efficiency and further grow.

However, research has shown that RFID transponders causes cancer. Research has suggested 90 percent of Americans are uncomfortable with microchipping mostly due to studies that suggested a link between RFID transponders and cancer in lab animals.

In May, the plan to chip humans globally through a digital ID was exposed in the Italian Parliament. Sara Cunial, the Member of Parliament for Rome denounced Bill Gates as a “vaccine criminal” and urged the Italian President to hand him over to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. She also exposed Bill Gates’ agenda in India and Africa, along with the plans to chip the human race through the digital identification program ID2020.

The Strategies Of Dementia Politics

Authored by Victor Davis Hanson via National Review,

Stoke chaos, obstruct economic recovery, and hide Biden in the basement till Election Day...

Joe Biden is tragically suffering a mental eclipse and sliding away at a geometric rate. Understandably, his handlers have kept him out of sight. He stays off the campaign trail on the pretext of the virus and his age-related susceptibility to COVID-19 morbidity.

I say “pretext” without apology. Quarantine should not have otherwise stopped Biden over the past three months from doing daily interviews, speeches, and meetings. But each occasion, however scripted, rehearsed, and canned, would only have offered further daily proof that Biden is cognitively unable to be president or indeed to hold any office.

Often Biden cannot finish a sentence. Names are vague eddies in his mind’s river of forgetfulness. He is in a far more dire mental state than a physically failing FDR was in his 1944 campaign for a fourth term.

The earlier career of a healthy Biden illustrates that he was not especially sharp even when in control of most of his faculties. We recall the former sane/nutty Biden of Neal Kinnock plagiarism, his “put y’all in chains” demagoguery, the studied racism of Biden’s riffs about a “clean” and well-spoken Obama, and the sane/insane Corn Pop stories. All are the trademark of a once fool Joe Biden, who was at least alert when compared with his current catalepsy. If Donald Trump can be ungrammatical, Biden is agrammatical — he simply streams together half-thoughts without syntax and then abandons the sentence entirely.

If Trump repeats vocabulary, Biden increasingly searches for words, any noun, whatever its irrelevance to the point he is making. Biden seems to suffer dyscognitive seizures, in which for moments he has no idea what he is doing or saying or where he is — a tragic, nearly epileptic condition. In scary episodes, the pale, scaly, and frozen visage of Biden appears almost reptilian, like a lizard freezing and remaining stationary as it struggles to process signals of perceived danger.

Inserting memorized answers into rehearsed questions, as if the entire con was spontaneous, only reveals how his once episodic dementia has become chronic as he loses his prompt and place. It was understandable that his handlers saw opportunity in secluding Biden during Trump’s tweeting, alongside the contagion, the lockdown, the recession, and the rioting that in voters’ minds had equated fear of chaos with the culpability of the current commander in chief.

But there were always problems with placing Biden in suspended animation in his basement, even as he seemingly surged ahead of Trump in the early-summer polls.

One, seclusion, quiet, and the absence of intellectual stimuli often only enhance dementia, while travel, conversation, and new imagery and experiences tend to unclog for a bit the congested neuron pathways. The more Biden “rests up,” the more he seems to be non compos mentis in his rare staged interviews. His brain is like a flabby muscle, and restful disuse does not make it firmer.

Two, in theory there should be a shelf life to a virtual presidential candidate. True, Biden has climbed in the polls, as the public never sees or hears him — in the manner that an unpopular lame-duck Obama disappeared to the golf courses and retreats in 2016 and yielded the media spotlight to the dog and cat fighting between Trump and Clinton. Obama then discovered that the more he retreated from the public eye, the more the public liked the old idea, rather than the current reality, of him.

So too the ghost model was supposed to work for Biden.

He is a cardboard candidate, but at least he’s not on the front lines of commentary on statue toppling and the contagion, and so he can be blamed for neither.

But by avoiding the campaign trail, Biden is only postponing the inevitable. He is compressing the campaign into an ever-shorter late-summer and autumn cycle. If he really agrees to three debates (he may not agree to any at all), and if he performs as he usually now acts and speaks, then he may end up reminding the American people in the eleventh hour of the campaign that they have a choice between a controversial president and a presidential candidate who simply cannot fulfill the office of presidency. And if Biden is a no-show, Trump will probably debate an empty, Clint Eastwood–prop mute chair.

Why, then, is Biden the nominee at all — other than that he leads in the delegate count and surged after Democrat back-roomers panicked when Bloomberg imploded and Bernie surged? As a result, politicos forced or enticed all the other primary candidates to vacate and unite around someone nominally not a socialist.

Is one consolation that Biden’s dementia offers a credible defense that he has “no recollection” that he was in on Obama’s efforts to surveil an oppositional campaign and abort a presidential transition?

While all Democrats know that the cat must be belled, no one wishes to step forward to do it and remove Biden — and indeed no one knows how to steal a nomination from an enfeebled winner and hand it off to an undeserving but cogent alternative. Take out Biden in August, and who knows what sort of candidate stampede might follow in today’s insane landscape?

So what are these strategies of dementia other than putting Biden on ice while redefining the election as Trump versus the media’s version of the virus, lockdown, and economic stagnation?

Pity is one pretext. The progressive media have put Biden’s blank stares and word searching off limits. We are not supposed to remember that Trump was hounded by progressive M.D.s, to the point that he took — and aced — the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test, an examination that no one in his right mind would suggest Biden now take, given that the results would be no surprise.

Dementia is also about the only valid reason one can legitimately say “I don’t remember.” So ask Joe Biden about those early January 2017 strategy sessions in which Obama, Biden, and their henchmen plotted the surveillance of the Trump campaign and the destruction of Michael Flynn — and he can honestly say, “What administration?” Ask Biden about his illiberal past statements, his associations with neo-Confederate senators, or his plagiarism, and without guile he can retort, “What? What plagiarism? What senators?” Burisma? Hunter Biden’s Chinese lucre? He will look dumbfounded and turn to an aide to ask, “What is Burisma and who is Hunter?”

Democrats also knew that they would lose with an Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, or Bernie Sanders as their masthead. The primaries, even heavily loaded to the left-wing base, taught them that well enough. The hard-left agenda of winter 2020 went nowhere, and it will go less than nowhere in the fall after months of televised arson, looting, and gratuitous violence.

In contrast, even a cardboard-cutout version of Biden offers them the veneer of the “moderation.” A Bill Clinton–style Biden phantom, if elected, can allow a passageway for a leftist surrogate into the presidency, the same way that Harry Truman, a centrist, was put on the ticket in 1944 to save the country from Vice President Henry Wallace’s Communism.

Translated, that means the Democratic donor class accepts that they cannot win while siding with the mobs on the street and their appeasers and apologists — and yet the latter leftists are needed to provide the missing 5 to 7 points for victory. With a wink and nod, the vice-presidential candidate will be seen as assuming the presidency and giving to the Left what they could not achieve through a presidential election — while old Joe Biden from Scranton stares at the TV screen a bit longer to prove he’s not a raving socialist.

Also expect the Democrats to push the following strategies harder and harder, as they square the circle of a demented candidate who nonetheless could prove enormously useful — if he can just get elected.

• Expect more calls to cancel the debates as corrupt, fluff, reality-TV pizzazz and utterly unnecessary. Anticipate that the virus lockdown will be prolonged nearly until Election Day and will de facto lead Democrats to call for a Zoom campaign: Biden talking to the camera with a teleprompted script behind the screen.
• Election Day voting, we will be told, is merely an ossified construct. The key to our new electoral process is not Neanderthal driving into a COVID-infested polling booth, but rather voter-harvested mail-in ballots.
• Expect the vote in November to be declared in advance warped, stolen, and invalid — and then declared valid and fair if Biden wins.
• Expect blue states to remain economically mired in quarantines, in hopes of aborting a recovery. Democratic leaders will never really crack down on what heretofore have been blue-state rioting and looting; the chronic chaos and recession will be kept alive and geared to the November election.

Are there problems with such Biden basement strategies? Lots.

A hard-left candidate for vice president will have to do the campaign messaging as a public auxiliary of, and in line with, Joe Biden. She will privately reassure her base that it’s all a moderate con, assuming that leftist voters are sophisticated and cynical enough to be willing to be lied to now for the sake of gaining power shortly.

It will also be problematic to assure the country that Joe Biden is 110 percent fit to be president in November but then to leak to the public by February 2021 that he’s crazy and it’s past time for his radical vice president, regrettably, to move him out.

Using Biden as an empty vessel also assumes that he is at least a vessel. But what if Biden, say, on October 25, 2020, has one of his blank-outs? Or what if he announces once again, but this time at his final rare press conference: “I am going to beat [be] Joe Biden!” What then? Do they call Christopher Steele out of retirement to do a hasty file on Joe Biden, the delusional nut, and use Yahoo or Mother Jones again to leak the dirt in order to switch the order of the Democratic ticket?

Given the current racial hysteria, how do Democratic handlers muzzle the not always latently bigoted Biden? Often dementia is a cruel pathway to the truth, freed from normal self-censorship, politeness, and social awareness. Meaning: What if Biden has more “you ain’t black” moments, or Corn Pop storytelling, or he mimics a black accent to riff about chains, “clean” blacks, and such? And in the present climate, will people be forgiving when he brags that his home state of Delaware was once a “slave state”? One or two such outbursts could shrink his share of the black vote to 80 percent, which would lead to losses in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Florida.

In the chaos of July, Biden’s handlers have been acclaimed geniuses for anesthetizing him. But in the different season of October, he may finally be forced out from his lockdown, in the wild manner that soon-to-be looters and arsonists at last emerged from quarantine in June — pent-up, angry, incoherent, and self-destructive.