Photo, left:  The gloriously beautiful South Georgia Island, Grytvikken
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block A: Liz Peek, Fiscal Times and Fox, in re:  a wry discussion on the Republican Predicament.  Donald Trump Has Reason to Cry Foul Over a ‘Rigged Election’ On to the next! The New York primary is in the rear-view mirror, but the scramble for Republican delegates is far from over. Next Tuesday, April 26, GOP primaries will take place in Pennsylvania . . .
If front-runner Trump does not arrive in Cleveland with 1,237 delegates in hand – the requisite majority needed to become the nominee – the convention will vote, and then vote again, until one candidate reaches that magic number. After the first round, in which 5 per cent of the delegates are “unbound,” 59 per cent of the delegates are free to change their affiliation; after the second ballot, 80 per cent may do so.
Voters should ask:  how do you court a delegate?  What can Ted Cruz, or any of the candidates, offer these men and women to secure their second-ballot votes?
For starters, he can pitch his policies, or the effort he’ll make on behalf of a delegate’s home-state candidates. He can argue that he has the best shot at beating Hillary Clinton, or that his polling in the candidate’s state looks great for the “down-ballot” crowd. He might also offer to include a delegate in some policy-making committee, allow him or her to act as a campaign surrogate, or suggest that a person could fill a slot in the “transition team.”
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block B:  Lou Ann Hammond, Driving the Nation, in re: Sierra Club Takes EPA and CARB to Task for Volkswagen Settlement  Volkswagen may have a settlement with government agencies, but might be continuing to lose car buyers with environmental concerns. ;  Scandal Costs Drive Volkswagen to a Loss for 2015  ; Volkswagen to Buy Back Cars in US, Europe Deal Still Frozen  ; Triple Pundit (registration) 
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block C:  Francis Rose, NationalDefenseWeek.com and francisrose.com, in re: New VA Inspector General   List of House-Passed Veterans Bills that the Senate Is Dithering Over (inter al.)  http://veterans.house.gov/press-release/miller-statement-on-senate-confirmation-of-va-inspector-general    ;  VA hasn't fixed wait-time problems, GAO finds   http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/04/18/va-hasnt-fixed-wait-time-problems-gao-finds/83045046/
National Defense Week, on WMAL (in Washington, D.C., every Sunday):
-- Admiral Robert Natter (USN ret.), former Commander of US Fleet Forces Command, on his testimony to a House Armed Services subcommittee on the size of the Navy’s fleet: it’s now in the upper 200s. Adm Natter advocates a 350-ship Navy.  It's not the number; it's their capabilities and capacity.  The Navy’s current strategy was designed a decade ago, and surely needs revision and updating. 
-- Cary Russell of the Government Accountability Office on the problems with the F-35’s Autonomic Logistics Information System. The F35:  ALIS – software for the F35 aircraft; ALIS might not be deployable.  Not a happy ending to the tale. Sometimes ALIS declines to acknowledge a problem, even as it refuses to be turned off.
-- Dr. Nora Bensahel of American University and the Atlantic Council, on the concept of Unrestricted Warfare, and how militaries around the world should prepare for it. The wars we’ve fought in the past—all or any of the wars we’ve fought in the past—will not look like the war we’ll fight in the future. Noteworthy that the source of this concept is the present Chinese military.
-- Kristina Wong, defense reporter for The Hill, on the House Armed Services Committee’s markup of the fiscal year 2017 defense budget.
--Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International Studies on what the numbers in that HASC budget mark mean.
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block D:  David Livingston, The Space Show, and Jeff Foust, Space News; in re: Recovered SpaceX Falcon 9 Booster Moves Back to KSC for ...  Up-close view of base of the recovered SpaceX Falcon 9 first-stage rocket powered by 9 Merlin 1 D engines being transported horizontally back to . . .
 
Hour Two
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael E Vlahos, Global Security Studies program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Arts and Science; in re: “ASSURED RESOLVE - Testing Possible Challenges to Baltic Security,” by Julianne Smith & Jerry Hendrix  http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNASReport-BalticTTX-160331.pdf
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 2, Block B:   Michael E Vlahos, Global Security Studies program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Arts and Science; in re: “ASSURED RESOLVE - Testing Possible Challenges to Baltic Security,” by Julianne Smith & Jerry Hendrix  http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNASReport-BalticTTX-160331.pdf
. . .  NATO members by and large decline to pay the amount they're committed to; NATO is insufficiently supported.  In war games, euphemistically called TTX (tabletop exercises), the hypothetical Baltics responded immediately to  a sense of threat from the hypothetical Russia, whereas the others all wanted to sit and jawbone for a while to figure things out.  Meanwhile, Belgium, merely as an example, has military parades featuring soup kitchens and the like but it owns no, zero, tank.  
[This is a good time to mention that the overarching physical security of Europe was paid for by US taxpayers for generations, from 1945 till the end of the USSR in 1991; and absent the requisite expenditures to protect themselves, Europeans were able to build up comfortable, somewhat luxurious, welfare states.  Soon thereafter, many Europeans began to castigate Americans as cowboys — gun-happy and lacking history or polish — even as the US Army, Navy and Air Force were the very powers that kept Europe safe from a distinctly expansionist Soviet empire. 
[Today, in contrast, and with Europe at sixes and sevens, Washington has for a decade and a half been making a grave error, that of conspicuously disrespecting Russia: not the Soviet empire, but the eleven-time-zone heir to a thousand years of religion and culture; the authors of magnificent music, literature and art (see especially the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg for stunning paintings), a fully-developed civilization bridging Western Europe–from the Renaissance onward–and East Asia.  Not surprisingly, Russians are miffed at America’s gratuitous affronts. It's perfectly possible to disagree strongly with another state and yet maintain normal care and courtesy in dealings. The United States has recently failed in both protocol and geostrategy; it's time for us to review and reorganize. –ed.]
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 2, Block C:   Gene Marks, Washington Post, in re:   What manufacturers are doing:  shopfloor.org – upping employee benefits. JetBlue is going to pay its employees' college tuition up-front  http://theweek.com/speedreads/619134/jetblue-going-pay-employees-college-tuition-upfront   ;   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2016/04/18/gene-marks-why-small-businesses-are-not-feeling-so-sunny-these-days-just-do-the-math/
The one big thing missing from the candidates' tax proposals http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2016/04/11/one-big-thing-missing-from-candidates-tax-proposals.html
Homebuilder Confidence Unchanged in April  http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/typepad/RyNm/%7E3/yTliCo0llzA/
Manufacturers Continue to Lead on Employee Benefits  http://www.shopfloor.org/2016/04/manufacturers-continue-to-lead-on-employee-benefits/
One of the nation’s largest pension funds could soon cut benefits for retirees http://nalert.blogspot.com/2016/04/one-of-nations-largest-pension-funds.html
Are You Happy at Work? Because Apparently Worker Satisfaction Is at Its Highest Level in 10 Years  http://brobible.com/life/article/morning-brew-april-20-2016/
This startup plans to protect airports by taking over rogue drones in midair  - Mark Andreesen is an early investor.  http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/20/11466368/skysafe-drones-detect-disable-protection
Thin, flexible 'sheet camera' could turn any surface into a camera http://mashable.com/2016/04/18/flexible-sheet-camera/
Germany Now Has Women-Only Train Compartments  http://www.nbcnews.com/business/travel/women-only-train-compartments-roll-out-germany-n557581
No Phones for You! Chic Businesses Are Abandoning Landlines  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/fashion/phones-businesses-landline.html
iPhone Sales Fell Off a Cliff Last Quarter http://time.com/4297527/apple-iphone-sale-drop/
How Amazon plans to avoid making a profit this holiday season – all profits are ploughed back into the company by Jeff Bezos.  Heavy-duty competition with Netflix; big push to bring more people into Amazon for greater market share. http://www.vox.com/2016/4/18/11449748/amazon-prime-video-temporary
Google adds podcasts to Google Play Music http://www.theverge.com/2016/4/18/11441098/google-adds-podcasts-google-play-music
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 2, Block D:  Gene Marks, Washington Post (2 of 2)
 
Hour Three
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block A:  Gregory Copley, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs editor and publisher; from Buenos Aires; in re:  There is little doubt that Argentina’s new conservative government, under Pres. Mauricio Macri, wanted a new era of cooperation in US-Argentine relations — so do most US officials — but that was not necessarily the thrust behind US Pres. Barack Obama’s March 23-25, 2016, visit to Buenos Aires. 
The release of a UN report, a few days after the Obama visit, suddenly pronounced that Argentina’s territorial waters had, under its reckoning [according to the continental shelf], increased by 35 percent, to include the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, and the South Shetlands, which are British, and which give Britain exposure/access to Antarctica. Argentina’s access is at present quite modest.  The depth of the matter here is undersea resources and the surrounding economic zone.  British Foreign Office have issued a statement: We’ll review.   This all affects NATO, too, in that it throws into real question the ownership and control of Greek islands in the Aegean, and of northern Cyrus; massively re-opens a can of worms.  Note also Timor Sea claims involving Indonesia and Australia, not to mention Timor-L’Este.
The timing of the release of the report from the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) was hardly coincidental. Or, rather, the timing of the Obama visit. The report had been completed by March 11, 2016, and was released on March 28, 2016. [Pres Obama actively opposes anything he sees as British colonialism. He sat with Her Majesty at her ninetieth birthday party while secretly moving to take the Falklands from Britain. “Putting a little poison in her tea.”]  [The problem for the US that Pres Obama has inadvertently nurtured is that this UN mode of calculation also throws into question the US claim to the Northwest passage — in favor of Canada. Oops.]
Significantly, the US has not ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and therefore is not a member of the CLCS, but, as with the UN’s International Criminal Court (ICC, to which the US is also not a signatory), Washington works to exert pressures on and through these UN bodies. The timing and nature of the CLCS “ruling” on Argentinean territorial waters, then, came as no surprise to Pres. Obama, even before his Buenos Aires visit. 
The CLCS ruling increases Argentina’s claimed continental shelf jurisdiction by 1.7-million sq. km from its current 4.8-million sq. km, and refers to the area from the 200 miles exclusive economic zone limit to the shelf slope, an additional 150 miles. 
Pres. Obama has exhibited a lifelong antipathy to British colonialism and 2016 represented the last year of the Obama Presidency, and his ability to make “history on the ground”: hence his visits, particularly, to Cuba and Argentina. The degree to which the White House prompted and supported the CLCS decision regarding Argentina through US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Powers is still under investigation. The Argentine submission to the CLCS was lodged in 2009 (although work on it was begun by Pres. Carlos Menem and Foreign Minister Guido Di Tella in 1995), and has, not surprisingly, been monitored by the US government. 
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block B:   Gregory Copley, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs; in re: Publication of The Birth of the Peoples Republic of Antarctica – at the moment of the Falklands War in 1982.  Used New York Public Library’s maps of the South Atlantic. Macri and international financial markets.   Recall that a British sub sank the Argentine Belgrano; and the British navy also suffered large losses. All quite emotional for both nations.  Both countries would do well to see what Ma Ying-jeou [Taiwan] did: set aside sovereign claims and discuss development for common benefit.  British defense is in decline, but the Argentine military is in parlous condition.  (2 of 2)
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block C:  The Translation of Love: A Novel, by Lynne Kutsukake (1 of 2)
Thirteen-year-old Aya Shimamura is released from a Canadian internment camp in 1946, still grieving the recent death of her mother, and repatriated to Japan with her embittered father. They arrive in a devastated Tokyo occupied by the Americans under the command of General Douglas MacArthur. Aya's English-language abilities are prized by the principal of her new school, but her status as the "repat girl" makes her a social pariah--until her seatmate, a fierce, willful girl named Fumi Tanaka, decides that Aya might be able to help her find her missing older sister. Beautiful Sumiko has disappeared into the seedy back alleys of the Ginza. Fumi has heard that General MacArthur sometimes assists Japanese citizens in need, and she enlists Aya to compose a letter in English asking him for help.
Corporal Matt Matsumoto is a Japanese-American working for the Occupation forces, and it's his overwhelming job to translate thousands of letters for the General. He is entrusted with the safe delivery of Fumi's letter; but Fumi, desperate for answers, takes matters into her own hands, venturing into the Ginza with Aya in tow.
Told through rich, interlocking storylines, The Translation of Love mines a turbulent period to show how war irrevocably shapes the lives of both the occupied and the occupiers, and how the poignant spark of resilience, friendship and love transcends cultures and borders to stunning effect
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block D:   The Translation of Love: A Novel, by Lynne Kutsukake (2 of 2)
 
Hour Four
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 4, Block A:  Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack, in re:  Senate committee throws money at NASA   The Senate appropriations subcommittee has announced its proposed 2017 budget for NASA, including significant budget increases for SLS and Orion.
SLS is the big winner in the bill, according to a summary of its contents provided by the committee. The heavy-lift launch vehicle would get $2.15 billion, $150 million more than it received in 2016 and $840 million above the administration’s request. The SLS funding includes $300 million directed for work on the Exploration Upper Stage with the goal of having it ready as soon as 2021, the earliest planned date for the first crewed SLS/Orion mission.
The bill also provides $1.3 billion for Orion, $30 million above 2016 and $180 million above the administration’s request. It also directs Orion to be ready for its first crewed mission in 2021.
The bill provides $5.4 billion for science programs overall, $200 million below the request. The summary does not break out spending among the various science mission directorates. Commercial crew would get $1.18 billion, the amount requested by NASA, and space technology would get $687 million, the same as 2016 but $140 million less than requested.
Meanwhile, in order to keep NASA’s overall budget about the same as last year the subcommittee, led by porkmeister Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), apparently trimmed the agency’s science budget.
The full plan will be revealed tomorrow. Moreover, the House still has to make its budget proposal, and then the House and Senate have to agree. Regardless, this Senate budget proposal is more indication that this Republican Congress is going to throw endless gobs of money at SLS and Orion, so the boondoggle can fly once, maybe twice, and then get mothballed. What a waste!   It also tells us how insincere many Republican elected officials are when they claim they’re for fiscal responsibility.
Russian government rescues Proton manufacturer  The Russian government has moved to cover more than $300 million in debts incurred by the Khrunichev Space Center, the company that builds the Proton rocket. The company’s problems center around its loss of market share, partly because of repeated launch failures of the Proton rocket in the last five years, and partly because of SpaceX’s lower launch prices. (1 of 2)
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 4, Block B:  Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack (2 of 2)
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 4, Block C: Matt Blitz. Popular Mechanics, in re:  http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a20350/yuri-gagarin-death/
Friday  22 April 2016 / Hour 4, Block D:   Ken Croswell, New Galaxy Satellite, in re: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2084438-never-before-seen-galaxy-spotted-orbiting-the-milky-way/ . 
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