Photo, left: 
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday  8 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block A:  Tyler Rogoway, Foxtrot Alpha, in re: Shadowy Marine Artillery Base in Iraq Attacked Again After Deadly ISIS Rocket Strike   ;  The Operation to Retake Mosul Has Started, but Don't Expect Victory Anytime Soon  ;  U.S. Allies 'Borrowing' Munitions to Drop On ISIS as U.S. Stockpiles Are Also in Question  ;  Global Military Spending Is on the Rise for the First Time in Several Years  ;  Navy Carrier Built for F-35s Is Done Being Rebuilt So That It Can Operate F-35s  ;  Just Because Lockheed Says They Can Build a Mach 6 Spy Plane Doesn't Mean We Need One (1 of 2)
Friday  8 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block B:   Tyler Rogoway, Foxtrot Alpha, in re: Shadowy Marine Artillery Base in Iraq Attacked Again After Deadly ISIS Rocket Strike   ;  The Operation to Retake Mosul Has Started, but Don't Expect Victory Anytime Soon  ;  U.S. Allies 'Borrowing' Munitions to Drop On ISIS as U.S. Stockpiles Are Also in Question  ;  Global Military Spending Is on the Rise for the First Time in Several Years  ;  Navy Carrier Built for F-35s Is Done Being Rebuilt So That It Can Operate F-35s  ;  Just Because Lockheed Says They Can Build a Mach 6 Spy Plane Doesn't Mean We Need One (2 of 2)
Friday  8 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block C: Brian Blase, of Forbes, & Senior Research Fellow at Mercatus Center, in re:  considering the president's request for more than $100 billion in additional Medicaid spending over the next decade. 
An excerpt:  As enrollment in the ACA exchanges is only half of initial expectations, President Obama’s health care legacy increasingly looks like a massive increase of a poorly performing and low-value Medicaid program. Unfortunately, the administration has backed away from some of its sensible past Medicaid proposals, such as limiting the provider tax accounting gimmick—something Vice President Biden referred to as a scam and advocated scrapping.  At some point, we will have to deal the fact that the country spends an enormous amount of money, while running large budget deficits, on a program that has such poor results. Unfortunately, it seems like serious grappling by the executive branch with Medicaid’s many problems will have to wait until at least next year. (1 of 2)
Friday  8 April 2016 / Hour 1, Block D:  Brian Blase, of Forbes, & Senior Research Fellow at Mercatus Center, in re:  considering the president's request for more than $100 billion in additional Medicaid spending over the next decade. 
An excerpt:  As enrollment in the ACA exchanges is only half of initial expectations, President Obama’s health care legacy increasingly looks like a massive increase of a poorly performing and low-value Medicaid program. Unfortunately, the administration has backed away from some of its sensible past Medicaid proposals, such as limiting the provider tax accounting gimmick—something Vice President Biden referred to as a scam and advocated scrapping.  At some point, we will have to deal the fact that the country spends an enormous amount of money, while running large budget deficits, on a program that has such poor results. Unfortunately, it seems like serious grappling by the executive branch with Medicaid’s many problems will have to wait until at least next year. (2 of 2)
 
Hour Two
Friday  8 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:   Near ISIS front, U.S. Marine artillerymen 'fire every day'  Day-to-day life in Iraq is busy for the 100-plus U.S. Marine ... U.S. Marines operating at Firebase Bell fire an M777A2 Howitzer at an ISIS infiltration route March 18.   ; US Military Open to Adding Another Fire Base in Iraq  ;  US Ready to Set up More Firebases for Iraqi Push to Mosul: Pentagon  ;  Mosul siege stalled as Iraqi army once again flees when bullets fly, say sources  The Iraqi Army reportedly has around 4,500 troops lined up for the Mosul campaign, ...   ;  Advance on ISIS: The road to Mosul  ; U.S. may open 'fire bases' to help Iraqi troops retake Mosul  (1 of 2)
Friday  8 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:   Near ISIS front, U.S. Marine artillerymen 'fire every day'  Day-to-day life in Iraq is busy for the 100-plus U.S. Marine ... U.S. Marines operating at Firebase Bell fire an M777A2 Howitzer at an ISIS infiltration route March 18.   ; US Military Open to Adding Another Fire Base in Iraq  ;  US Ready to Set up More Firebases for Iraqi Push to Mosul: Pentagon  ;  Mosul siege stalled as Iraqi army once again flees when bullets fly, say sources  The Iraqi Army reportedly has around 4,500 troops lined up for the Mosul campaign, ...   ;  Advance on ISIS: The road to Mosul  ; U.S. may open 'fire bases' to help Iraqi troops retake Mosul  (2 of 2)
Friday  8 April 2016 / Hour 2, Block C:  Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs; in re: Why the End of the Age of Consumerism and Scale Will Change the Balance of Power    The things that created the unique era which took on distinct characteristics after World War II have begun to change because the underpinning cyclical conditions are no longer in confluence. A very different world must, perforce, emerge, and with it a new power framework and new patterns of conflict and governance. 
Analysis. Humanity’s present mini-age is close to its end. Everything changes when an age ends, because new values, weights, and priorities emerge. And all ages end. What we have recently experienced can be described as “the age of consumerism and scale”. 
What will emerge are changed forms of governance, society, and security. By definition, then, the global balance of power will change in ways which differ from the present architecture. 
The impending decline in global population levels — particularly within the major industrial societies — highlights why this unique episode in human behavior and history is passing, pointing the way to new economic and social models, which will start to emerge within the coming decades. 
The second half of the 20th Century was characterized by unprecedented scale married to several equally unprecedented, absolutely mutually-reinforcing and interdependent phenomena: 

• 1. Compounding technological evolution (and therefore compounding efficiency in the output of goods, services, food, and energy), mostly linked to electricity. This led to the easy production of surpluses in almost all biological as well as inanimate products1; 
• 2. Dramatically rising average per capita wealth, leading to improving caloric intake, longevity, and more successful live birth rates globally;
• 3. The consolidation, efficiency, and scale of an open global trading and supply chain architecture; 
• 4. The urbanization of the majority of the world’s population; and 
• 5. The temporary bubble of the trebling of the global human population2. 

What was created, post World War II, by the resultant wealth/population growth/ technology matrix was the evolution of a societal management model predicated (on the one hand) on growth in the scale of human numbers, and (on the other hand), the counterpoint of human population growth predicated upon wealth and technological support within an open-architecture economic model. 
In other words, the rôle of most members of the global population came to be that they should function primarily as a consumption base. 
Growing human numbers enabled the scaling of production and the development of logistical capabilities to service that larger market. 
To put it more succinctly: the principal function of most people in this brief era was to be consumers, and to earn the means of acquisition of their consumables to sustain this rôle. In this fashion, they had only two main qualities: to provide markets for all manufactures; and to provide scale to the overall economy, thereby also maximizing the scale of surplus wealth generated. As a result of the scale and the urbanization, fewer and fewer people were existentially necessary for “vital” or meaningful work, and were relegated to “employment for employment’s sake”, in order to both sustain them and their families, and to serve as “consumers”. 
This was not necessarily a conscious division of society, but an inevitable outgrowth of the dramatic rise in productivity and the creation of food surpluses, and of population growth and, particularly, urbanization. 
There was, as a result, an inevitable unplanned, rapid growth in income disparity, given the natural ratio of leaders-to-followers in any mammalian species. Fewer economic leaders (in proportional relation to total population) has led to a greater consolidation of production capacity and surpluses in the hands of a small percentage of people. On the other hand, relative wealth growth generally has enabled security and comfort on a scale and dispersal unprecedented in history, marred only by one of the fundamental motivational human factors: envy.   (1 of 2)
Friday  8 April 2016 / Hour 2, Block D:   Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs; in re: Why the End of the Age of Consumerism and Scale Will Change the Balance of Power    The things that created the unique era which took on distinct characteristics after World War II have begun to change because the underpinning cyclical conditions are no longer in confluence. A very different world must, perforce, emerge, and with it a new power framework and new patterns of conflict and governance. 
Analysis. Humanity’s present mini-age is close to its end. Everything changes when an age ends, because new values, weights, and priorities emerge. And all ages end. What we have recently experienced can be described as “the age of consumerism and scale”. 
What will emerge are changed forms of governance, society, and security. By definition, then, the global balance of power will change in ways which differ from the present architecture. 
The impending decline in global population levels — particularly within the major industrial societies — highlights why this unique episode in human behavior and history is passing, pointing the way to new economic and social models, which will start to emerge within the coming decades. 
The second half of the 20th Century was characterized by unprecedented scale married to several equally unprecedented, absolutely mutually-reinforcing and interdependent phenomena: 

• 1. Compounding technological evolution (and therefore compounding efficiency in the output of goods, services, food, and energy), mostly linked to electricity. This led to the easy production of surpluses in almost all biological as well as inanimate products1; 
• 2. Dramatically rising average per capita wealth, leading to improving caloric intake, longevity, and more successful live birth rates globally;
• 3. The consolidation, efficiency, and scale of an open global trading and supply chain architecture; 
• 4. The urbanization of the majority of the world’s population; and 
• 5. The temporary bubble of the trebling of the global human population2. 

What was created, post World War II, by the resultant wealth/population growth/ technology matrix was the evolution of a societal management model predicated (on the one hand) on growth in the scale of human numbers, and (on the other hand), the counterpoint of human population growth predicated upon wealth and technological support within an open-architecture economic model. 
In other words, the rôle of most members of the global population came to be that they should function primarily as a consumption base. 
Growing human numbers enabled the scaling of production and the development of logistical capabilities to service that larger market. 
To put it more succinctly: the principal function of most people in this brief era was to be consumers, and to earn the means of acquisition of their consumables to sustain this rôle. In this fashion, they had only two main qualities: to provide markets for all manufactures; and to provide scale to the overall economy, thereby also maximizing the scale of surplus wealth generated. As a result of the scale and the urbanization, fewer and fewer people were existentially necessary for “vital” or meaningful work, and were relegated to “employment for employment’s sake”, in order to both sustain them and their families, and to serve as “consumers”. 
This was not necessarily a conscious division of society, but an inevitable outgrowth of the dramatic rise in productivity and the creation of food surpluses, and of population growth and, particularly, urbanization. 
There was, as a result, an inevitable unplanned, rapid growth in income disparity, given the natural ratio of leaders-to-followers in any mammalian species. Fewer economic leaders (in proportional relation to total population) has led to a greater consolidation of production capacity and surpluses in the hands of a small percentage of people. On the other hand, relative wealth growth generally has enabled security and comfort on a scale and dispersal unprecedented in history, marred only by one of the fundamental motivational human factors: envy.   (2 of 2)
 
Hour Three
Friday  8 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block A:  Liz Peek, Fox & The Fiscal Times, in re:  Cruz Is Not the Solution: Time to Draft a Moderate? Donald Trump may be the problem, but Ted Cruz is not the solution. Not because the unpopular first-term Texas senator lied about how he financed his Senate campaign (he didn’t actually roll the dice . . . )
Friday  8 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block B:  Nelson Schwarz, NYT, in re:  http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/business/economy/carrier-workers-see-c...
Friday  8 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block C: Patrick Tucker, Defense One, in re:  "Carter May Elevate CYBERCOM to a Full Combatant Command": Patrick Tucker reports that as network warriors pound away on ISIS in the battle for Mosul, Defense Secretary Ash Carter says it's time to turn U.S. Cyber Command into a full combatant command, an acknowledgment that cyber warriors are today not just defending military networks but joining in combined-arms attacks on the enemy. 
Friday  8 April 2016 / Hour 3, Block D:   Oriana Pawluk,  Air Force Times, in re: http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2016/04/04/f-15-jet-europe-exercises/82595724/
http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2016/04/05/air-force-wants-more-temporary-airfields-eastern-europe-general-says/82648632/
http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2016/03/30/air-national-guard-train-ukraine-airmen-spring/82428182/
http://www.airforcetimes.com/story/military/2016/03/15/colony-glacier-1952-crash-recovery-effort-identifies-more-airmen/81804944/
 
Hour Four
Friday  8 April 2016 / Hour 4, Block A: The Other Space Race: Eisenhower and the Quest for Aerospace Security (Transforming War), by Nicholas Michael Sambaluk (1 of 4)
Friday  8 April 2016 / Hour 4, Block B:  The Other Space Race: Eisenhower and the Quest for Aerospace Security (Transforming War), by Nicholas Michael Sambaluk (2 of 4)
Friday  8 April 2016 / Hour 4, Block C:  The Other Space Race: Eisenhower and the Quest for Aerospace Security (Transforming War), by Nicholas Michael Sambaluk (3 of 4)
Friday  8 April 2016 / Hour 4, Block D:  The Other Space Race: Eisenhower and the Quest for Aerospace Security (Transforming War), by Nicholas Michael Sambaluk (4 of 4)