Photo: Philippe Couillard, Premier Ministre du Québec (see: Hour 2, Block A)
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 1, Block A: Dan Henninger, WJS editorial board and Wonder Land column, in re: Near Washington and Lee University, the Red Hen restaurant.  From confrontation to violence.  Why? Probably social media. Sara Sanders at the Red Hen; also Kirstjen Michele Nielsen at a Mexican restaurant invaded by shrieking protestors.  This is street protest, but it’s the Left [not looking handsome]. This discomfits a lot of Americans who hold that political opinions need to be expressed more civilly. They wonder if the Democratic Party is normal? If not, they tend to turn Rightward. Is violent disruption part of this segment of the Democratic Party’s DNA? Note the Queens election win by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  . . . Internecine war inside the Democratic Party?
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 1, Block B: Jeff Bliss, Pacific Watch, in re:
Hawaii: was on catastrophe alert when an 8:07 AM false alert was issued. Who issued it? A whistleblower comes forward: “People often were seen watching TV or asleep at their post.” Hawaii not interested in a North Korean nuclear attack?  It's more than that; and a wholly home-grown problem.  In LA, Koreatown: other citizens express sympathy and interest; the city government does not.
Skid Row in LA in summer heat waves – violence and a real mess. More nearby states are shipping their homeless to California.
Santa Clarita: no sitting on sidewalks, no sleeping in libraries.  San Francisco: same story. The pictures are alarming—young people, able to work but collapsing from opioids. Looks like bedlam. 
Banning soda pop: new taxes on sugary beverages, but corporations politely snafu’d that. 
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 1, Block C: Gene Marks, Small-Business column from The Guardian, US edition;  in re: Online sales tax.  Affects many many small merchants.  Huge number of forms to be filled out – nightmare. Two big winners: Amazon, which already has it all set up; and compliance software firms. Possible that smaller merchants can't afford not to be an Amazon merchant.
Health care — oh dear!   . . . The strip malls missing retailers.  Mason Asset Mgt and Nanda Realty: bought 100-plus malls around the country at pennies on the dollar (at $15-20 mil each); operating them.   . .  . Purple Bricks?  did a study, found that 40% of home buyers said that proximity to coffee shop or favorite store was critical. 
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 1, Block D: Gene Marks, Small-Business column from The Guardian, US edition;  in re: more tales of small bz, in the US and even in China.
 
Hour Two
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 2, Block A:  The Honorable Dr Philippe Couillard, premier of Quebec, in re:  Chrystia Freeland’s recent pronouncements.  Ninety per cent of US aluminum comes from Quebec, which is an export-based economy – natural resources and manufacturing.  There are five electric school busses; Bombardier trains are all around us.  Delegate-General in New York, Jean-Claude Lauzon; Quebec’s most important intl trade office is here in New York; Jean-Claude also manages other offices [incl in Washington?].  Dr Couillard intends to dvp above the 49 Parallel, over a million sq km; le Plan Nord.  Mining, tourism, multiple possibilities.  Iron, nickel, copper, lithium, graphite, rare earths.  Also hydroelectric. See: https://plannord.gouv.qc.ca/en/
Sport: soccer is tremendously popular.  We want the Expos to return to Montreal and win a World Series.  Quebec and US working together: 10 million US jobs depend thereon; we have common challenges abroad – e.g., China. 
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 2, Block B:  Francis Rose, GovernmentMatters; NationalDefenseWeek.com and francisrose.com, @FrancisRoseDC, WJLA-TV, WMAL-AM, in re: Robert Willkie nominated to be head of VA, a troubled organization. Will he [significantly improve this longstanding, messy problem?]  It's widely thought that he will. Transparency requires a lot more than testifying at hearings, but it appears that Robert Willkie is off to a good start.  One of the VA’s huge problems is digitizing its records.  Rebecca Burgess, AEI, published an article documenting VA’s ghastly malperformance going back to 1820.
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 2, Block C:  Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Natl Strategist, Fox news; author, Defeating Jihad; and of, Why We Fight; in re: London Times hed:  Euro allies are afraid of a Trump-Putin peace deal.  Afraid??  Indictment of the geostrategic irrelevance of most of the countries on that side of the Atlantic. Pres Trump has [cleared up] North Korean relations, trade relations, the NATO deadbeats; Trump sees eleven time zones in Russia and looks for a modicum of endeavors in which the US and Russia can collaborate. Europe is hostage to its ideologies.  Don’t have an adequate filter to understand [the larger picture of what’s going on].Trump refuses to fit inside their taxonomy.  
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 2, Block D:  Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Natl Strategist, Fox news; author, Defeating Jihad; and of, Why We Fight; in re: The US southern border.  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  . . . Half or more of Afghanistan is not under the control of the federal government there.  Why does it matter? It mustn’t be allowed to be the HQ of [groups] that intend to attack US territory. The US military.
 
Hour Three
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 3, Block A: Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, on the island of Calypso/Gozo/Audish, in Malta; in re: The impending American civil war. The Nation article: ”Against Civility”  MEV: Civility has nothing to do with decorum; the word comes form civis, civitatus; a city, a city-state, where citizens must work together or the city-state does not survive. The Blues who call for no civility don't know what they’re asking for.  “The othering” – making former brethren into almost-inhuman creatures. Sets the stage for violence to come.  Not to be taken lightly.  Prelude to a terrible conflict on the horizon.  . . . Trey Gowdy: The country is being torn apart . . . Remove the elected president with charges we can’t see?   . . . Both sides just quitting the Union.   MEV: If things continue, somehow, everything they are will be overturned. Thus, the Blues feel that the very anchors of their existence – abortion, LGBT – will be lost. For Reds, they’ll be delegitimated as actors, be called second-class citizens. Two equally existential matters.
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 3, Block B: Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, on the island of Calypso/Gozo/Audish, in Malta; in re: You can't see a civil war when you’re in it.   . . . Italian conflict between the red shirts and the black shirts. Wreckage after WWI.  People now (and then) fighting for the core of who they are – and in that circumstance, will not give an inch.  Demand complete submission from the other side – when the losing side sees it’s not winning, it’ll fight to the bloody end.  Such steps prefigure and render certain the outcome [not good]. 
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 3, Block C:  Adam White,  Hoover, & prof at George Mason Law School, in re:   The intellectual history of Google in an article in New Atlantis entitled, “Google.gov” Eric Schmidt thought people wanted to be instructed where to go next. Paige and Bryn: Search makes money was their revelation [i.e., advertising on search makes money].  When they figured out how to serialize out ads to third-party advertisers was when they really began to make money.  Motto: Don't be evil. What’s this actually mean?? They tried to figure out their internal ethos.  The three principals disagreed on the meaning of that.  Second slogan:  Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information making it accessible and useful.*
Oops – deciding if something is or isn't accessible and useful is, by itself, subjective; and even “information” may be propaganda.  Pres Obama on Google, FB, Twitter: Each is a public good.  [JB: Check for your wallet!] —From MIT’s spring sports analytics conference. Note Pres Obama’s significant change of tone.
*[Recall Sowell’s statement saying {more or less} that in trying to create a perfect society, what’s most important is not what the policies will be but who decides the policies.—ed]
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 3, Block D:  Adam White,  Hoover, & prof at George Mason Law School, in re:  The paradox of Google’s wanting to be trusted. Eric Schmidt at a conference in Halifax: “ . .  oops.  Think of Google in China ooops.  In good faith, Google thinks it knows what’s best for us.   . .  Be aware of the subtle connection – a deep intellectual kinship – between Google and Pres Obama’s point of view: we can solve social problems with engineering [social engineering?]  Massive exchange of personnel between Google and the Obama Administration.  . . . The ranking by Google of Google’s financial sites.
 
Hour Four
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 4, Block A: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re: A certain village in China has been bombarded for decades by Chinese military booster rockets falling back to Earth. Extremely toxic fuel, so population has to be repeatedly evacuated.  With the advent of social media, people have started to pay attention to this, send out vids, criticize the cavalier government.   . . . Proton Rocket; Dmitry Rogozin: we’ll replace this with Angara (which isn’t ready and won’t be for a long time).  Politics are involved (surprise).  Vostochny!  Russia’s space program is dying from inadequate funding and bad management. It’ll revive somewhere in the future. Ariana Space.  Indian satellite. Ariana 6 to replace Ariana 5? Prices are tooo high.
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 4, Block B: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re: Eighth anniversary of BehindtheBlack.com  Groundhog Day: NASA pummels us with notices that the James Webb telescope is delayed again and again. Major mess-up at Grumman, hundreds of millions lost.  Almost $10 bil cost. Was going to cost $1 bil and launch in 2011; now, oceanic costs and won't launch till 2020 or years later.
. . . The cigar-shaped [thing] zipped past Earth in October; thought it was an asteroid.  But it’s moving faster than predicted by celestial mechanics.  . . . Slo-mo avalanche.   . . . Mars images.
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 4, Block C:   In the Hour of Victory: The Royal Navy at War in the Age of Nelson, by Sam Willis and Greg Wagland.
Friday  4 January 2018 / Hour 4, Block D In the Hour of Victory: The Royal Navy at War in the Age of Nelson, by Sam Willis and Greg Wagland.
..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..