Domestic Terror Threat

On newsweek.com, in the article “The Domestic Terror Threat” Paul Cruickshank points to the increasing number of radicalized Muslim Americans intent on committing violent jihad. There has been a spike in terrorism and in the past six months there have been nine cases of Muslims in the U.S. allegedly becoming involved in Islamist terrorism. This represents only a few of the 1.5 million American Muslims but according to a survey 7% have a “favorable” view of Al Qaeda. Radical preachers have increasingly used the Internet to encourage terrible acts by some, but luckily the Muslim community is largely immune to their messages. These figures are worrisome but I believe some of statistics are misleading. A “favorable” view can have many connotations and this article is narrowly focusing on a few alleged plots of terrorism. Despite these misleading figures I think it is terrible but necessary that we need to keep a close eye on people who pose a threat to our country in these ways.

Job Losses

An article by John W. Schoen on msnbc.com describes the unemployment figures released November 6. The grim number of people (16 million) out of a job in October meant the unemployment rate rose to 10.2 percent, which is over ten percent for the first time since 1983. As bad as this sounds, analysts say the economy is showing a slow but steady recovery. The number of jobs lost has been 188,000 in the past three months compared to 700,000 monthly earlier this year. People still wonder how the holiday spending season will turn out since consumer spending accounts for two thirds of economic activity. I think it is good that the number of people losing their jobs has slowed, but I’m unsure how much stuff people will buy in the upcoming holidays. A 10.2 percent unemployment rate can affect many people badly but I hope people can find ways to get a job to buy things without going into debt.