Photo, above: Gen. Aliyu Mohamed Gusau, just-appointed Nigerian Defense Minister. See Hour 3, Block C, Gregory Copley, author.

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Charles Ornstein, ProPublica, in re: Obamacare, the ACA. Reporters across the country have been telling their stories -and they seem to square with the broader experiences of the public. Specifically:

·  The first-person story for the Daily Caller last week, by a former Politico reporter, Steve Friess, laid out how he and his partner had signed up for a plan, only to try to cancel it days after it took effect because it turned out to have unexpected costs. "After dozens of hours of phone calls that displaced my usual work obligations this week, only one thing is clear: Nobody can give anybody a straight or consistent answer to anything," Friess wrote.

·  The freelance science writer Anna Azvolinsky shared how she and her husband had been on hold with Blue Cross for a total of 22 hours trying to pay their premiums and ensure they were enrolled. On Jan. 10, they received insurance cards in the mail, but the cars were for their previous plans and were of no use. She still hasn't received her ID card and has found that none of her doctors takes her new plan. [more]

Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 1, Block B:  Joe Drape,   , in re:  Dizzying Heights, and a Death The X Games drive revenue while showcasing sports like motocross and freestyle snowmobiling, but last year came a first: a death in competition, of Caleb Moore, above.

Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Ty Rogoway, AviationIntel, in re: The issues with the F-35B’s exhaust gasses, and the MV-22 Osprey’s as well, damaging the decks of America’s “L class” ships is nothing new. What is new is that America’s latest amphibious assault ship, the USS America, designed without a well deck to embark beach landing craft and their assorted tanks and vehicles, instead being focused on aviation operations, cannot handle the aircraft it was purpose-built to deploy.  . . . [more]

Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 1, Block D:  Peter Berkowitz, Hoover, in re: "Secrecy and Accountability in a Digital Age," Real Clear Politics, Jan. 16, the first in a series of nine essays to be published by the Hoover Institution's task force on national security and law over the next week and a half focusing on intelligence gathering in a digital age . . . [more]  . . . Edward Snowden’s theft of massive numbers of National Security Agency (NSA) documents — the Pentagon estimates he copied 1.7 million intelligence files — and the distribution of those documents to journalists who have sporadically published them has damaged American national security interests around the world by delivering to our adversaries sensitive secrets about US intelligence and military operations. The means by which the NSA collects intelligence have been seriously compromised as have been the numerous relationships on which that collection depends, all to the serious detriment of our security.

So far the pilfered documents have not exposed substantial instances of unlawful conduct by the United States government. Nevertheless, much of the public controversy sparked by the revelations about America’s extensive electronic surveillance has revolved around allegations of government wrongdoing. In fact, it was no secret that the United States government, partly in response to the threat of transnational terrorism, has for many years engaged in the collection of enormous amounts of . . .

Hour Two

Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 2, Block A:  Carson Bruno, Hoover: Defining Ideas, in re: Pick up a newspaper in California and it’s hard to ignore the talk of a robust economic and fiscal “comeback”—the Golden State adding jobs, while state government, after years of massive budget deficits and painful spending cuts, at last having a surplus to reinvest in government programs. There’s only one problem with such a narrative—well, two if you include the fact that California’s recovery is shallow compared to others past. And that would be a sober realization that the same champagne giddiness shared by politicians and reporters covering them hasn’t affected California voters . . .

Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 2, Block B:  John Tamny, RealClearMarkets, in re:

Money supply is always and everywhere demand determined, and as today's quantity-deluded Fed is naively focused on creating dollars without regard to the dollar's value, the failure of QE was certain from day one.  Money that is stable in value is heavily demanded, however, so if the Fed adopts a dollar-price rule, it will have no need to taper.  With a Dollar-Price Rule, No Fed 'Taper' Would Be Necessary

With the Federal Reserve's recent announcement that it's set to begin reducing its monthly purchases of interest-bearing bonds, the conversation has partially shifted to the economic implications of the central bank's pivot. If the 'taper' is engineered properly, the near and long-term results have the potential to be very positive

Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 2, Block C: Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution, Chicago Law, 1 of 2, in re: The latest government labor report indicates that job growth has slowed once again. It is now at a three-year low, with only an estimated 74,000 new jobs added this past month. To be sure, the nominal unemployment rate dropped to 6.7 percent, but as experts on both the left and the right have noted, the only reason for this “improvement” is the decline of labor force participation, which is at the lowest level since 1978, with little prospect of improvement. These dismal jobs numbers reveal how misguided progressive policy is. To create new jobs we need less, not more, government regulation… [more]

Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution, Chicago Law, 2 of 2

Hour Three

Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 3, Block A: Terry Anderson, PERC, in re:  Let’s stipulate up front that there is no great sport in hunting a black rhinoceros, especially not in Namibia’s open countryside.  . . . Let’s also accept, nolo contendere, that trophy hunters are “coldhearted, soulless zombies.”  . . . Even so, auctioning the right to kill a black rhino in Namibia is an entirely sound idea, good for conservation and good for rhinos in particular. Here’s why: Namibia is just about the only place on earth to have gotten conservation right for rhinos and, incidentally, a lot of other wildlife. [more]

Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 3, Block B:  Sebastian Gorka, FDD, in re:   Timing, power of blast at Cairo police HQ raises fears
 A plume of black smoke rose over Cairo early Friday after a powerful explosion hit the city's police headquarters, killing at least four . . .  Egypt: Big Explosion Hits Cairo Police Headquarters, Killing at Least 4

Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Gregory Copley, author, in re: Nigerian troops have been remarkably successful, essential in the AU, have suffered major losses in Somalia and elsewhere. Nigeria has been without a defense minister for the last year-and-a-half; now corrected with  minister "honest beyond reproach," Aliyu Mohammed.  The annual AU summit underway: South Sudan, CAR; food security.  African Unity formed after Gaddafi couldn’t get any response form the old OAU.  Morocco isn’t in the AU because AU decided to recognize Polisario. Egypt is suspended; Republic of Somaliland not allowed entry.  Loyalty to the old colonial borders dissipating Big meeting to come in Washington in August.  China has put in major funding to AU HQ in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The South African ANC has dominated AU for some yeas and "gone nowhere" with it. Pres. Goodluck Jonathan has been in a correspondence fight with a previous president; the state is not wholly stable.   . . .

Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 3, Block D: Gregory Copley, author, in re: Governance Patterns in the New World Order.  Urban societies think differently from rural societies. In Thailand: rural people voted against he current govt, have taken to the streets.  It’s people who couldn't get elected by popular ballot, so took to the street – as often funded by G Soros, who sent funds, then received benefit from the incoming new regime. . . .  Nationalism is no longer the way to interpret – populations have been cut free.

Mass migration into urban areas has polarized societies around the world, as urban priorities clash with rural priorities. This fact alone, quite apart from other trends, has split countries which once had a degree of harmony and an overriding sense of nation. Add to this the significant impetus given to the destabilization of newly-democratic societies by discreet funding injected by such financiers as George Soros to create “color revolutions”: the means by which the popular vote can be overturned by street protest and media manipulation. . . .

The rule is now clear, from the US to the Ukraine, and from Thailand to Egypt: If you don't like the results, you can overturn them. And if the majority vote isn't the one desired by key foreign states, then they, too, will assist in helping the losing side in a democratic election “take it to the street” in a now formulaic approach to overturning the popular vote.

Escalating street violence in Kiev to topple the Government of Ukraine reflects the reality that Western Ukraine, which has a Western-oriented history and a dominance by Uniate Catholicism, has differing priorities to Eastern Ukraine, which is heavily oriented toward Russia and is dominated by Orthodox Christianity. But the Western Ukraine lacks the population to outvote Eastern Ukraine, so “democratic elections” cannot deliver what they want.  Similarly, the urban population of Bangkok and other Thai cities cannot match the voting power of the rural areas, so “democratic elections” cannot give the urban élites what they seek.

History has shown that forms of governance have remarkable resilience. Monarchies, theocracies, autocracies or tyrannies, republics, federations, and more — often in varying or combinational forms — keep reappearing.  Equally, historical patterns show that each iteration has its lifespan, and collapses through internal or external pressures when it is no longer viable.

There are also patterns which often recur, not only to the lives and deaths of these societies and their forms of government, but also to their resurrection, or succession. Some societies — such as Rome after the collapse of republicanism, for example, or Britain with the civil war and its aftermath — adapt and re- invent themselves in different or repeated forms, extending their lifespan. So whither goes Western civilization, or the nation-states within it at this time in history? 

Hour Four

Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 4, Block A:  Henry I Miller, M.D., Hoover & Forbes.com, in re: General Mills Has a Soggy Idea for Cheerios (Wall Street Journal op-ed by Henry I. Miller and Gregory Conko).

Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 4, Block B:  Ken Croswell, Scientific American, in re: A Star at the Edge of Eternity A Saturn-size star just 40 light-years away will outlive nearly all of its peers.  Every star that now shines will one day die, but some stars live far longer than others. Our 4.6-billion-year-old sun will shrivel into a white dwarf in 7.8 billion years. Now astronomers say a dim red star south of the constellation Orion will outlive any other yet examined. "It actually will live for much longer than the current age of the universe—for literally trillions of years," says Sergio Dieterich, an astronomer at Georgia State University.  Paradoxically, the less mass a star is born with, the longer it lives. Most stars, . . . [more]

Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 4, Block C: Ericka Solomon, Reuters, in re: Also, while the peace talks are going on, Syria’s 2 million Kurds want to create the independent state of Kurdistan, write a constitution, and hold elections. In a Reuters Special Report, Erika Solomon writes that there are 30 million Kurds living in parts of Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, making them the world’s largest ethnic group without an independent homeland. Neighbors fear secession, and Kurds worry about Turkish interference.


Friday  24 January 2014 / Hour 4, Block D:   Charles Pellegrino, author and explorer, in re: Biggest asteroid vents water vapour   Observations of the Solar System's biggest asteroid suggest it is spewing plumes of water vapour into space. [more]

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