Photo, left: The fabulous Dr. Tabetha Boyajian, assistant professor of Astrophysics at ‪#LSU. disrupter of astrophysics; ‪#BoyajiansStar ‪#TabbysStar; @tsboyajian
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 1, Block A: Dan Henninger, WSJ editorial board; in re: American politics now a tragicomic grand opera [opera bouffe. –ed]
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Trump the Opera
In place of a routine political endorsement, we give Trump the ultimate tribute—his own opera.
Political endorsements are a dime a dozen. Instead, we will give Donald J. Trump the grandest tribute to his unique presidential campaign—the world premiere of Trump the Opera.
Cast
Trump: Donald Trump
Crooked Hillary: Hillary Clinton
Lyin’ Ted: Ted Cruz
Little Marco: Marco Rubio
Low Energy Jeb: Jeb Bush
The Director: James Comey
Huma the Maidservant: Huma Abedin
Carlos Danger: Anthony Weiner
The Trump Clan: Ivanka, Melania, Donald Jr., Eric
The Clinton Cronies: John Podesta, Cheryl Mills, Terry McAuliffe
Spear Carriers: Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani, Billy Bush, Corey Lewandowski, Miss Universe 1996
The Mainstream Media Chorus
My Husband: Bill Clinton (Mr. Clinton’s performance is made possible by a special gift from the Opera Society of Kazakhstan.)
Act One
Scene 1: A dining room at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Trump, the scion of an American real-estate family, is eating dinner, seated at one end of a 60-foot-long table. At the other end is his wife, Melania. Along the sides of the table are the Trump Family—his daughter Ivanka and two older sons, Donald Jr. and Eric. Trump puts down his Big Mac and says, “I am going to be president.” Ivanka says: “Of what?” Trump, reddening, shouts: “What else? Of the United States!” Melania faints, falling to the floor.
As Donald Jr. rushes to revive Melania, a short, wiry man enters the dining room. Eric says to his father: “Who is this guy?” Trump tells the family his name is Corey Lewandowski. Trump says he found Lewandowski in New Hampshire and that he will run Trump’s presidential campaign. Revived, Melania implores her husband: “Why have you done this to me?” Trump replies: “I want to build a wall.” Trump and Lewandowski sing the moving construction duet: “A beautiful wall (Un bel muro).”
Scene 2: A Republican primary debate.
Trump stands behind a podium on a stage. On either side of him, extending to the edges of the stage, are 15 men and a woman who all say they are running for the Republican presidential nomination. The debate begins and Trump announces that he will not address anyone by their real name. Instead, he refers to them as Lyin’ Ted, Little Marco and Low-Energy Jeb.
The men have heard rumors of Trump’s wrathful followers, the Trumpians, and accept Trump’s insults. Lyin’ Ted attempts to placate Trump, addressing him as “my good friend, Donald.” Trump hears this as an insult and replies that Lyin’ Ted’s father might have had something to do with the Kennedy assassination. Lyin’ Ted pulls a knife from his belt. Carly Fiorina holds on to Lyin’ Ted’s wrist and in a terrifying aria warns Trump to “beware the revenge of women (la vendetta delle donne).” Gripping the sides of his lectern, Trump vows he will never again look upon the face of Fiorina.
Act Two
Scene: An interrogation room at the FBI.
It is late Saturday afternoon. Light from the setting sun illuminates the faces of Democratic presidential candidate Crooked Hillary, the Director James Comey, and Crooked Hillary’s lawyer and confidante, Cheryl Mills. Comey asks Crooked Hillary if it is true that while she was Secretary of State, she maintained a personal email server.
Crooked Hillary replies with one of the most extended arias in the history of opera: “I do not recall (Non ricordo).” Comey asks if she used the server to discuss her daughter’s wedding. Crooked Hillary replies: “Non ricordo.”
The Director asks if she has ever heard of the Clinton Foundation. Crooked Hillary rises from the table and shrieks, in a piercing F above high C: “Non ricordo! Non ricordo!”
Mills, the confidante, leans forward and asks Comey in a low, ominous whisper if the FBI is recording their conversation. The Director says she has insulted him, smashes Mills’ laptop against the wall and orders them to leave the building.
Act Three
Scene One: An outdoor stage in Palm Beach, Florida.
Trump, beset by the vast forces of Crooked Hillary and various female accusers, has retreated to his kingdom in southern Florida. Standing before a huge throng, Trump defends himself by singing the Duke of Mantua’s aria from Verdi’s Rigoletto: “Questa o quella (This woman or that woman).” Trump suddenly cries out that Crooked Hillary “should be locked up!” The Trumpian chorus thunders: “Lock her up! Lock her up! (Rinchiudetela!)”
Scene Two: The basement of Crooked Hillary’s castle in Chappaqua.
It is the night before the election. Crooked Hillary, Huma the Maidservant, Carlos Danger and James Comey sit at a table on top of which is a silver chalice and small ceramic pitcher. Behind them is a mammoth pile of destroyed electronics—laptops, PCs, BlackBerrys, servers.
The Director places a document on the table and the three sign it. Carlos Danger pours white liquid from the pitcher into the chalice and all drink from it, including Comey. As the others seem to fall asleep, Crooked Hillary rises to sing her last aria: “I spent my entire life helping everyone (Tutta la mia vita).”
Final Act
Scene: A golden apartment in Trump Tower on Fifth Ave.
It is 4 a.m. on election morning. Trump is at his desk, tweeting curses and maledictions at his enemies. Trump’s consigliere, Rudolph Giuliani, enters the room and tells Trump he is still a genius. Trump tweets more curses. The Trump Family enters with Chris Christie, now returned from exile in New Jersey.
All walk out onto a balcony above Fifth Avenue, led by Trump. A crowd has filled the street below. Trump suddenly climbs onto a chair and raises his arms, as if about to jump into the crowd. Instead, Trump raises his right hand, forms his thumb and fingers into a delicate zero and sings the final aria in the 72-hour-long opera: “Believe me (Credetemi). It will be so beautiful. It’s going to be very, very beautiful. Believe me.”
Opera ends. Trump begins three days of curtain calls.
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 1, Block B:  Jim McTague, Barron’s Washington, in re: visiting 40 mi north of Raleigh, with lots o people in long lines as fast food outlets; seems cheerful.  The jobs number is not too hot, not too cold, kind of keeps things holding together (recent grads can get some sort of job).  Fed will do a token increase in December, causing some intl funds to pour in to the US to get even the most modest positive. 
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 1, Block C:  Liz Peek, Fiscal Times and Fox News, in re:   . . . So much intertwining of Clinton apparatchiks and officials; , , ,  it make your head explode.  And Pres Obama was aware of Mrs Clinton’s private server and sent email to her, via that server, using a nom de plume . 
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 1, Block D:  Brian Benstock, VP &Gen Manager, Paragon Honda, in Queens, New York; in re: Some automobile sales are down a bit year on year, but overall sales are good.  Honda Civic: low cost to maintain. lasts forever, uses little gasoline. Interest rates are historically low, as are gas prices, so the near-term business looks good —but expect softening over the medium term. Because we’ve had interest rates below 1% much encourage sales, but that’s not normal. Average over fifty years is about 5%.  October 2015 was super.  SUVs are doing OK; the concern is that there are a lot of unknowns, it looks stormy out there.  Compete political uncertainly in five days, then the aftermath; stock market in a seven-year bull mkt (which is unusually long), and an open door for adverse conditions. Recent discussions on foreign trade.  Foreign car mfrs hire a lot of Americans – but it's fair to ask them to play fair in trade with the US.
 
Hour Two
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael E Vlahos, Global Security Studies program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Arts and Science; in re:  Mahan.  
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 2, Block B:  Michael E Vlahos, Global Security Studies program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Arts and Science; in re: The ship the Ponce was shot at a few weeks ago by Houthis:  they were firing at the older (1971) version of a supply ship (although now elegantly converted to an intell ship); seems like a patched-together notion of American power: they can fire missiles at us and not suffer consequences. We make believe we can still supply our troops and carry this off.  Ponce represents our journey of the last few years, where we rely on a bunch of hulls to maintain our position in the world. We have a division in the UAE and air bases all around, but all are highly fungible (we need a Plan B for Incirlik). Where the heck are our allies? We don’t really have allies, and the Europeans have no military capability.
To hold on to our world position we’d have to double the size of our Navy.  Brest-Litovsk Treaty of 1918. We can’t put more than a couple of battalions in the Baltics.
How long before it’s too late to pull back?  The next president will have to make major decisions about the American position in the world. We're not up to a major war now; will have to pull back in a kind of humiliation for the US.
Redeemer Nation.
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 2, Block C:   Francis Rose, NationalDefenseWeek.com (WMAL) and francisrose.com, and now Channel 7 in Washington; and Channel 8 daily: "Government matters";  in re: The endless travails of the VA nationally.
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 2, Block D:  Francis Rose, NationalDefenseWeek.com (WMAL) and francisrose.com, and now Channel 7 in Washington; and Channel 8 daily: "Government matters";  in re:  Army Rapid Capabilities Office: because of a third offset, the US mil is worried that future adversaries are gaining technologically.  Want to obtain new technologies more quickly; this latest ofc: the time between determining what the Army needs and when it asks a defense contractor/industry for the thing to be supplied, it can be obsolete.
Simplicity absolutely is one of the considerations. Flies in the face of some eqpt, esp comms. All the branches don't have what they need: sequestration, and downsizing after 15 years of war – dramatically affecting the branches. Am hearing this even from retirees, incl Bush Adm officials who are keeping contacts in the Building.  The drumbeat is so loud that the mil is getting to a difficult place at the moment when Russia and China re growing stronger by the moment and ISISI will b here for a while to come.
Gabe Camarillo: make the AF more attractive to people and gain the widest-possible experiences and skillsets.  Right now it’s very small, yet asked to perform more missions and do more training – cannot.  . . .  We value everyone in the Air Force because each person has a role in the [success] of the Air Force.
 
Hour Three
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 3, Block A: Ty Rogoway, FoxtrotAlpha, in re:
Expeditionary Mobil Base (also does supply; meant to be parked somewhere; can send out huge helos, small force disaster recovery, sea control Set up a small base anywhere in the world offshore. Upper deck for helicopter, then belowdecks looks like a football stadium). Chesty Puller.   All commands demand one of these.
A proven design, 760’ long, 78,000 tons (lots of fuel, and can house commandos and al their gear; lots of space) , Underneath: mission deck to store vessels and vehicles. Huge crane arms can set a craft into water below, incl in rough seas. Used for storing, moving, deploying, Eventually ships will be able to move up alongside and refuel. A little floating marina and airbase.
Monfort Point sister ship, similar design but can submerge itself to a certain degree Ship pulls u adjacent, and can connect to a beach. 
A littoral combat ship., the Montgomery, has a crack designed to operate close to shore (an Australian ferry design). Looks sort of like a trimaran; aluminum hull; can't define mission, serious delays, don’t really have much of a powerful punch and can’t easily defend against air attack – and now are breaking down a lot.
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USNS Lewis B. Puller (T-ESB-3) (formerly T-MLP-3/T-AFSB-1), is the first purpose-built Expeditionary Mobile Base (previously Mobile Landing Platform, then Afloat Forward Staging Base) vessel for the United States Navy. It will be one of two Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB) variants of the U.S. Navy's planned fleet of Expeditionary Transfer Dock vessels. Lewis B. Puller is slated to replace USS Ponce (AFSB-(I)-15) currently operating with the U.S. Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf in 2016
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 3, Block B: Ty Rogoway, War Zone at The Drive; in re:
Adm Kuznetzov, moving slowly toward Syria (using a sea tug).  Pix of its having lines to supply tugs and may be under tow.  “A serious, serious pain to operate; breaks down al the time.” Has o catapult, has to launch off a ski lift and use the wind.
Rendezvous with Kula-class attack subs (two in the Med right now).  Also some of their diesel sbs have come down from Crimea; probably four or five in the Eastern Med when this huge flotilla arrives; imagine how many NATO subs will be there to observe. A dense zone for antisub warfare.
A Chinese air show for the J20 – has arrogated a little Sukhoi, a little Lockheed; “copying is flattery”  (this is straight-up IP theft).  Seems to be good: China has hacked so much US IP that it’s successful. Not a fighter but an interceptor, long range, to go after AWACS. 
Recall the tale of a spaceship under the ice: a Canadian CP140 (P3 Orion) is investigating in the Arctic:  multiple reports in NE Territory by Fury Strait, pinging noises heard widely.  Same area as where one of our first Early Warning Radar site was built in Cold War; locals say that from the moment of the pings, wildlife has scattered and hunting is terrible. Military sent research. Cd be climate change,  or Russian something. Not known what it is; intriguing mystery.
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 3, Block C: Mary Anastasia O’Grady, The Americas, Walls Street Journal editorial board; in re: Haiti: The land of Ten Thousand NGOs. – also USAID (State Dept) bilateral aid and multilateral aid from development banks; yet Haiti remains decade after decade the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. After a disastrous hurricane it gets worse. Many groups rushing in never leave; this has become a curse. Poverty Inc, 2015 film: how helping hands do not help. Btw, also about Africa; premise is that economies develop through entrepreneurship. If you grow rice in Haiti, sell it to a middleman, who resells; when Bill Clinton decided to help Haiti to send huge shipments of subsidized rice, local growers went out of business. Done repeatedly. Then another big rice dump after 2010 earthquake. Becomes permanent.   Clothes, shoes, bottle water, solar panel – Jean Noelle, company Inersa, hired 60 employees to bld solar panels and is doing well putting them in street lamps. Municipalities wee buying from him, his employee interviews were deeply charming – honorable work and productivity. At earthquake, Clinton sent a mountain of solar panels – “How can I compete with free/” Beltway Bandits get US govt contracts,  but do not change on the ground what's going on – i.e., don't perform. Again, Bill Clinton was the gatekeeper – “Need to be a friend of WJC.”
The only forex into Haiti came from calls from expats to Haiti; Clintons conspicuously broke the law, put that out of business.
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 3, Block D:   Mary Anastasia O’Grady, The Americas, Walls Street Journal editorial board; in re: When the history of this presidential campaign s written a main element in the public mind will turn out to have been the poorly-functioning economy. The central reason now is the Federal Reserve policy of buying up government paper and mortgage-backed securities – not stimulative, just sitting on Fed books, not going into the economy, not available in the real economy to be used as collateral, above all not for loans to small and mid-sized businesses, which are the backbone of the economy, It’s not expansionary, its contractionary. (vide: David Malpass)
Dems  have been trying to centralize the Fed more and more; has 12 regional reserve banks , one in NY (which has perhaps excessive influence); other 11 rotate seats on FOMC, but have votes and a voice in the committee meetings. Important because New York economy operates differently from others.  Dems heading for less and less balance on the FOMC, which is a problem.
Chile:  has been governed by socialists since early 90s, but this one gives the Communists a lot of power. They don't like educational choice given in the 1980s by Pinochet, which allows for-profit schools to receive a subsidy per child, and public and for-profit schools compete for students. This govt killed the subsidy, damages 40% of students. It's not about money, it's about ideology: “We’ll use a backhoe against all market economy ideas.” Communists will have nothing to do with the private sector.  Passion for a big welfare state. 
 
Hour Four
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 4, Block A:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re: SpaceX “overpressurized” the oxygen tank: cool it more than normal to make it more dense to get more O2 inside the tank. Seems to be the shift from colder, denser O2 fuel created some sort of failure condition, not rebuild, just change.  Inmarsat is looking for alternative rockets to launch an upcoming commercial sat; competing with other co’s, can't accept SpaceX delays. Maybe Atlas5, Proton Booster, or Europeans, Maybe just putting pressure on SpaceX.
ULA (United Launch Alliance, Boeing and Lockheed Martin): have been trying to get WorldView 4 off Vandenburgh since September; minor delay, then Vandenburgh had giant wildfires. 
. . . not to be under FAA regs through the 2020s – FAA cannot regulate commercial space industry (suborbital tourism). But of course they do  need standards, and consequently are developing their own safety standards; met on 24 Oct under auspices of ASTM to make voluntary industry standards; 29 co’s, 53 people met to create their own rules. 
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 4, Block B:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re: Ariane Space used to be Big Space, but under competition from SpaceX, had to sell itself to Aibus/Safran, which now is controlled by that private co; bldg. Ariane6.  Culture change: My Ariane6” competition; prize will be airfare and accommodations to see a 2017 launch, also travel to meet. Need to post  on Instagram an image on what Arian means to you; winner will be the most sincere.  Branding is critical.    Cheap way to do PR. 
Now for super-brand-management: Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic. Announced their first free-flying glide test, go ’way up to glide down, but cancelled due to wind. Then:  Virgin Galactic released a planned test schedule (lacking dates) for Unity to have commercial flight. Happily, Branson isn’t named here. Sounds like new management skills, new management. Orbital craft will fly off an L-1011 (small sat operation). 
Kim Jong-eun trying to launch a medium-range ballistic missile; six failures. Eun announced an investigation into causes.  Eun of course attributes them to US meddling. In the West, we don’t wait for six failures to look into the reasons be glad you’re not a North Korean engineer who was attached to any of this (suddenly with a short life expectancy).
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 4, Block C: Hotel Mars, episode n. Dr. Andrew Siemion, director,  Berkeley SETI Research Center (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) at Berkeley; & Dr. David M. Livingston, The Space Show, in re: Tabby’s Star (KIC 8462852 is an F-type main-sequence star located in the constellation Cygnus approximately 454 parsecs from Earth).  Dr Tabetha Boyajian . . . dimming events are long, no predictable periodicity.  Strange; what might cause this? One reason might be a very advanced civilization made a huge solar collector (Dyson’s Sphere), then this is what we’d see if it occluded light from the star.  Very carefully observed from all over Earth.  More observations just bring up more questions. 
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Possible reasons for the unusual dimming of Tabby's star include super-advanced aliens
About 1480 light-years away from Earth, a star is doing something astronomers have never seen before. Every now and then, at random intervals, its light dips by as much as 22 percent (observed by the Kepler space telescope). That's way too much to be a planet. And the star (officially named KIC 8462852, but informally called "Tabby's Star" or "Boyajian's Star") seems to have gotten dramatically darker over the past century.
This odd behavior defies all known explanations, and astronomer Jason Wright has pointed out that these light patterns are similar to what we might expect if aliens built a complex of machines around the star to harvest its energy. But even Wright admits it's much more likely there's a natural explanation.
Bradley Schaefer looked at old DASCH photometry and found that Boyajian’s Star has been fading over the past 100 years, a claim at least as extraordinary as the star’s Kepler light curve.  
Ben Montet and Josh Simon very cleverly recently used the Kepler full-frame imagery—some calibration data that doesn’t get much attention because you can’t use it to find planets—to get accurate long-term photometry of Boyajian’s Star over the course of the mission. Amazingly (to everyone but Bradley, I suspect), they found that the star got 4% dimmer over 4 years, in a monotonic but irregular way. What’s more it is the only star out of > 200 that show this effect.
This independent confirmation of the unprecedented effect Schaefer claimed—even if not covering the same time period—shows that Shaefer’s analysis is correct and the star really has dimmed a lot. Adding the two effects, the star is now apparently at least 17% dimmer than it was in 1890.
We now have two inexplicable things going on: long-term, secular dimming of 17% in 115 years, and these days-long, deep “dips” of up to 22%. Both are very hard to explain.
Some call it “Boyajian’s Star“. Dr Tabetha Boyajian herself calls it the “WTF” star, ostensibly after the subtitle of her paper (“Where’s the Flux?”) Others call it Tabby's star.   . . .
Friday  4 November 2016 / Hour 4, Block D:  Hotel Mars, episode n. Dr. Andrew Siemion, director,  Berkeley SETI Research Center (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) at Berkeley; & Dr. David M. Livingston, The Space Show, in re: Tabby’s Star (KIC 8462852 is an F-type main-sequence star located in the constellation Cygnus approximately 454 parsecs from Earth).   . . .  FAST radiotelescope in China. Most sensitive one in existence at its frequency. Tabby’s Star is within the part of the sky FAST can observe.  The breakthrough LISTEN program working with Chinese academy. Another excellent telescope in Socorro, New Mexico.  . . .  Might be an overdensity of gas (space between stars is not vacuum).  Dust cluster might be perfectly aligned with the star, and thus cause the dimming.  None of our explanations so far fits all the data. Constellation Cygnus. Dimming up to 20% is visible. Amateur astronomers’s group is following Tabby’s Star.  SETI:   seti.berkeley.edu      A key component of our search with the 100-meter telescope is to make all uur data available for download. 
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