The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 26 November 2013

Air Date: 
November 26, 2013

Photo, above:  650 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan: seat of the criminal empire built by the Alavi Foundation, the Supreme Leader's money-laundering op in the US from which funds flowed into the Iranian nuclear program.

The U.S. government is set to seize a Manhattan skyscraper that prosecutors say is secretly owned and controlled by the Iranian government.   The 36-story tower is located on Fifth Avenue in the heart of New York City, adjacent to Rockefeller Center, and is home to a number of corporate tenants. Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said Tuesday that the seizure and sale of the property would be the government's largest-ever terrorism-related forfeiture.

A federal judge authorized the seizure in a ruling this week, finding that the building's owners had violated federal money laundering laws and sanctions against Iran.

The building was constructed in the 1970's by a non-profit organization operated by the Shah of Iran, who was overthrown at the end of that decade. Today, the property is 60% owned by that organization, now called the Alavi Foundation, and 40% owned by Assa Corporation.

Prosecutors say Assa Corporation is a front for a bank owned and controlled by the Iranian government, which also is alleged to control the Alavi Foundation. The co-owners have allegedly been transferring rental income back to Tehran.

Bharara said the government would use proceeds from the pending seizure to compensate the families of victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism.

See: Hour 2, Block A, Claudia Rosett, FDD, on Alavi Foundation, 650 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan: The largest terrorist organization in the US ever" –the  building was taken over from the shha in 1979, then run under shell corporations as a massive money-laundering operation."

"The Alavi Foundation is a private not-for-profit [read: no federal taxes, thus subsidized by American taxpayers] organization devoted to the promotion and support of Islamic culture and Persian language, literature and  . . ."

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 1, Block A:  Gregory Zuckerman, WSJ & author, The Greatest Trade Ever, & The Frackers: The Outrageous Inside Story of the New Billionaire Wildcatters, in re:  fields all across America, to awaken old seams of oil and gas in order to take them to market. Our railroads are overwhelmed with the amount of oil they’re hauling.   Regulations are the new [game]. Exxon et al. are coming back to this country; see the backlash and environmental risks.  "Ban it" crowd (East and West Coasts, among others) and the "no-regulations-whatsoever" crowd (Texas, Oklahoma and the Dakotas).  Wyoming and Colorado are instituting regs against damaging water but don't obviate hydrofracking entirely – a sign of the future.  Require regular testing of water, incl springs within a half-mile of the drilling site, esp for methane, in advance.   Cost could be as little as $15,000 a well.   Environmental Defense Fund actually works with producers, such as Harold Hamm, and take a lot of hear therefor.   State legislatures need to be reassured.

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 1, Block B:    Leah Binder, Forbes.com & CEO of The Leapfrog  Group (nonprofit) hospitalsafetyscore [dot] org, in re: We rate hospitals first of all on quality of care and outcome - safety (avoidance of iatrogenic [hospital-caused] illness) above all.  Hospitals have never been subjected to this scrutiny before and are resistant.

Hospital Lobbyists Aren't So Savvy in Dealing with Hospital Ratings   Lately, hospital lobbyists appear flummoxed by a relatively new and powerful phenomenon in health care they can’t seem to control: public reports comparing the quality of care different hospitals provide to their patients. A variety of organizations now issue hospital comparisons, from U.S. News & World Report to Consumer Reports to my own nonprofit founded by employer purchasers of health benefits, The Leapfrog Group, which in many respects pioneered the public reporting enterprise back in 2000.  Hospital lobbyists are known for their savvy, but they are reacting like deer in headlights to all of this public reporting.  . . .  read »

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 1, Block C: David Rohde, Reuters, (1 of 2) in re: Kerry once voiced a 95-word sentence while in the Senate. Gasbag.

John Kerry will not be denied.  FOREIGN POLICY | JOHN KERRY | STATE DEPARTMENT   The secretary of state’s critics call him arrogant, undisciplined, and reckless — but his relentlessness in pursuit of negotiations might produce some of the most important diplomatic breakthroughs in years.  [more]

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 1, Block D: David Rohde, Reuters, (2 of 2) in re: When John Kerry succeeded Hillary Clinton as secretary of state in February, Clinton’s emotional departure from the State Department received blanket media coverage. Kerry’s arrival received next to none.

“So here’s the big question before the country and the world and the State Department after the last eight years,” Kerry said in a speech to State Department employees on his first day on the job. “Can a man actually run the State Department? I don’t know.”

As the crowd roared with laughter, Kerry pushed the joke too far.  “As the saying goes,” he said, “I have big heels to fill.”

Nearly three weeks later, Kerry’s first foreign-policy speech as secretary, an hour-long defense of diplomacy and foreign aid, was a flop. The Washington Post gave it 500 words. . . . [more]

Hour Two

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 2, Block A: Claudia Rosett, FDD, in re: Alavi Foundation, 650 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan: "the largest terrorist organization in the US ever" – building taken over from the shah, run under shell corporations as a massive money-laundering operation. Fancy office tower, 36-storey, huge income to the Alavi Fdn, directed after 1991 by the Iranian ambassador to the US. Its Board of Directors was a facade, under the direct orders of the Supreme Leader  in violation of US law. Until recently, that was Amb Mohamed Javed Zarif, the twittering, Facebooking, mediatique socialite. Manhattan DA, Morgenthau. found a global criminal network.  Ergo, Secretary John Kerry is fully apprised of Zarif's gross sanctions violations, money-laundering, criminal activities under Bank Melli. Banking services to the IRGC and the al Quds Corps. In Geneva, the very thing Iran is saying it wasn’t doing is what it's long been doing: funneling vast amounts of money into its nuclear developments.  This is the real Javad Zarif: smooth ambassador while sending huge sums to Iran's nuclear proliferation – the exact act that in Geneva he denies exists.  Smoothest, most adept diplomat; duplicity on a scale that could cost the lives of millions.  Know your enemy!

Iran’s Chief Negotiator  Surprise, surprise: He has a long record of  double-dealing. Along with President Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif is yet another arrow in the quiver of the Islamic Republic’s charm offensive. The chief negotiator at Geneva over Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Zarif was schooled in the United States, is fluent in English, and exudes a polished manner befitting a veteran diplomat who served from 2002-2007 as U.N. ambassador. During his posting in New York, he met with a number of senior U.S. politicians, including future vice president Joe Biden and future secretary of defense Chuck Hagel (both then senators), and impressed them as someone they could do business with. He’s “pragmatic,” said Biden, “not dogmatic.” The courtship continues. After meeting with Zarif in September, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told Time magazine last month, “He doesn’t play games.” 

U.S. federal court documents say otherwise. While Zarif was beguiling lawmakers, he was violating U.S. sanctions and funneling millions of dollars into Iran’s state-owned Bank Melli, designated by the Treasury Department for its role in Iranian nuclear proliferation. Known as the Alavi case, this scheme ranks as the . . . [more]

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 2, Block B:  Charles Pellegrino, inventor and adventurer, in re: exoplanets. Milky Way, Andromeda, smaller galaxies ("the local group") have many opportunities to develop warm, wet rocky planets like Earth.   Frances Crick.  Heavy-metal accumulation rates.  Universe 13.7 billion years old.  Helium; large stars; Earth, Moon and Mars have zircon: their crusts all formed about 4.4 billion years ago. Organics are opportunistic.     Genesis and galactic blight(?).  Some of the younger planets around newer stars are too volatile to sustain life like ours.  We're the civilization people [sic] will be looking for – we started at the Goldilocks moment.  Our radio signals – strongest was Marconi from Titanic - go out to 101 light years!

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 2, Block C:  Mark Oppenheimer, NYT, author, The Zen Predator of the Upper East Side, in re:  "His energy level seems not to have flagged until very recently."  The Buddha left teachings explaining his knowledge; Zen practice depends greatly on sitting meditation. Zen is radically decentralized; anyone who claims to have received the knowledge can set up his or her own temple.   See: SweepingZen dot com.  Predators all over the country; huge problem, an open secret. He distortion of the teachings.

Zen Buddhists Roiled by Accusations Against Teacher  An independent council of Zen leaders has said that the Buddhist teacher Joshu Sasaki . . . Since arriving in Los Angeles from Japan in 1962, the Buddhist teacher Joshu Sasaki, who is 105 years old, has taught thousands of Americans at his two Zen centers in the area and one in New Mexico. He has influenced thousands more enlightenment seekers through a chain of some 30 affiliated Zen centers from the Puget Sound to Princeton to Berlin. And he is known as a Buddhist teacher of Leonard Cohen, the poet and songwriter.

Mr. Sasaki’s Rinzai-ji center in Los Angeles. His senior priests are conducting their own inquiry.  Mr. Sasaki has also, according to an investigation by an independent council of Buddhist leaders, released in January, groped and sexually harassed female students for decades, taking advantage of their loyalty to a famously charismatic roshi, or master.  . . .  [more]

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 2, Block D:  Scot Paltrow, Reuters, in re: DOD warehouses.  DOD has received 8.5 trillion from taxpayers since 1996 – not a dime of that has been audited.  Pentagon's books are a total disaster , cannot be audited. Messes up war-fighting ability, damages morale of soldiers who are paid incorrectly. Pentagon gets a pass on Sarbanes Oxley.  Chuck Hagel knows this, says, "This is unacceptable."  That’s all" Congress has set a deadline of 2017 (but no penalty if it misses, which it will.)  Photo: a low-ceilinged version of Amazon, conveyor belt, cartons; DOD worker looking diligent – but they don’t know what's in the boxes.  Head of Defense Logistics Agy said that half of it isn’t needed; and no system to track to see if the right stuff is put in. Some cases, have 15,000 things they don’t need, incl a Humvee part for which they vastly overpaid.  Resistance to reform is coming from low-level supervisors.

Acres and acres of stuff owned by the Army – but much is out of date and never will be used (runway flares from WWI, missiles from decades ago – "No one gives us the money to destroy it.") This is a hoarding problem, a psychological malady. The right hand doesn’t know that the left hand his holding unstable C4.  Nuclear weapons: stored by the Air Force – which has lost track of some of it.

      In July, Reuters published the first of a planned three-part special report delving into how the Department of Defense, which fields the most sophisticated technology in the world to fight wars and protect the United States, has come to rely on thousands of dysfunctional accounting systems that cost taxpayers billions and billions of dollars in waste. Today, Reuters publishes part two of Scot Paltrow’s special report, which addresses unprecedented and astounding inventory of the Pentagon’s record-keeping failings.

The story reveals the practice of “plugging” – entering false numbers to square the books at the end of an accounting period – and how this and other creative techniques that would be illegal and punishable in almost any other setting have become standard accounting procedure in the military.  As a result, the Pentagon’s unreliable accounts conceal widespread losses to waste and fraud which amount to tens of billions of dollars each year. 

This report comes one day in advance of a hearing scheduled by the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee on Pentagon accounting.  Since 1990, a federal law has required annual audits of all federal agencies, except for the Pentagon which alone has gotten a pass every year, claiming that its financial statements are in such disorder that an audit is impossible. But a recent law requires the Defense Department to be audit-ready and its first deadline is 2014.  Tuesday’s hearing will focus on whether the Pentagon has the ability to meet this deadline, and the special report indicates that the answer is a resounding “no.” Here are just a few of Paltrow’s discoveries:

·         A single Defense Finance and Accounting Services office in Columbus, Ohio, made at least $1.59 trillion— yes, trillion—in accounting errors in one year.  [more]  

Hour Three

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 3, Block A: Michael Ledeen, FDD, and author, Obama's Betrayal of Israel, in re: the money coup: sanctions come off, money flows into Iran, which is explicitly allowed to sell a lot on the world market. Oil minister stalking with big oil companies worldwide including US corporations.

Oil, spare parts for aircraft (dual-use technology, which worries the US defense establishment. Boeing, Shell, all the big multinationals; once the money starts flowing, very hard to cease that trade ever.  Back-channel conversation started in March of this year, coterminous with the chem weapons flap in Syria. Do you think that the US withdrew in order not to damage discussions with Iran? yes; but back-channel negotiations have been going on since 1979. None of the major media have written on this but James Rosen of Fox News, who tried. When Pres Obama did the 180, it as probably because of either the Russians or Iranians. Pres Obama went before Congress to ask but neglected to mention that he was in active talks with Syria's chief supporter. Some presidents, like Wilson, are one-man bands.  We have an American-Iranian romance, and an Arab-Israeli romance now in reaction to Iran – the Saudis, Gulfies, Israelis have common cause.   For Iran, Syria is the number-one issue: If Syria goes, Hezbollah ceases, and that's Iran's foreign legion; it’s hated in Lebanon. Iran also has established control over Iraq, where ht slaughter is greater than in Syria. 

Schumer doesn’t like the “historic” deal with Iran–it doesn’t seem proportional to him–and Menendez insists that new sanctions are on the way.  Two Democrats, not notoriously leading neocons, both warning that the agreement may be a hard sell to Congress.  But then, Obama may not ask them for approval, so then what?  That would give the Iranians multiple coups:

–first and foremost, money, which they badly need.  According to my sources in Iran, Iranian industry overall is currently at twenty percent of capacity, the regime’s blank check for supporting Assad in Syria has drained the treasury, and the country is down to something like two-to-three months’ hard currency supplies;

The “money coup” is even better than that for the regime, because, as numerous smart people have noted–and as my colleague Mark Dubowitz warned well before the deal was agreed–this step offers Tehran the real possibility of an end to sanctions altogether.  That’s because Iran will now be able to . . .

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 3, Block B: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: Mohammad Javad Zarif, on Iranian TV: already changing the deal on the right to enrichment, when it starts, the language of the deal. Did Secy Kerry sign a deal that wasn't nailed down?  Iran called the text the White House put up inaccurate. Iran says a "right to enrich" is "enshrined" – not at all, btw; read the NPT.  US Administration said it'd be six weeks or early January when it starts. They're allowed to build a nuclear facility, just not install heavy water or plutonium are allowed to fix busted centrifuges. 

Two Salafi jihadi terrorists suddenly in the West Bank, in Hebron where the Tomb of the Patriarchs is, were on their way from Sinai to do an op, with VBIEDs and weapons, caught in the nick of time.  Whom does that operation favor right now – as Rouhani says negative things in the JPost about "occupying power"  Sinai: killing a major leader (Abu McNeir??) who'd murdered 25 Egyptian officers near Rafah, caught by Egyptian soldiers in a huge firefight. Major kill of a  Wahhabi leader; what retaliation will they Wahhabists against Egypt?

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 3, Block C: Peter Bogucki, Princeton, in re:  The genome of a boy who died in central Siberia 24,000 years ago sheds light on the origins of Native Americans.   Scientists have mapped the genome of a four-year-old boy who died in south-central Siberia 24,000 years ago.   The Mal'ta boy was buried with a variety of artefacts, including a Venus figurine.  It's the oldest modern human genome sequenced to date, researchers report in the journal Nature.

The results provide a window into the origins of Native Americans, whose ancestors crossed from Siberia into the New World during the last Ice Age. They suggest about one-third of Native American ancestry came from an ancient population related to Europeans.

Analysing the genes of present-day populations can only tell us so much about the past because traces of ancient movements have been overwritten many times.

So studying the DNA from ancient remains is becoming a powerful tool for disentangling the numerous waves of migration that produced the genetic patterns seen in people today.

The burial of an Upper Palaeolithic Siberian boy was discovered along with numerous artefacts in the 1920s by Russian archaeologists near the village of Mal'ta, along the Belaya river.

Native Americans are composed of the meeting of two populations - an East Asian group and these Mal'ta west Eurasian populations”

"With these remains of a young kid were all sorts of cultural items, one of which was a Venus figurine," lead researcher Eske Willerslev, from the University of Copenhagen, told the Nature podcast. "These Venus figurines are found all the way west of this area into Europe."

Dr Willerslev and a colleague obtained a sample from the boy's arm bone, extracted DNA and compared it with that of present-day populations.

DNA was extracted from the boy's arm bone

"When we sequenced this genome, something strange appeared," he explained. "Parts of the genome you find today in western Eurasians, other parts of the genome you find today in Native Americans - and are unique today to Native Americans."

DNA from the boy's Y chromosome and from the mitochondria (the cell's batteries) were of types found today in a region encompassing Europe, West and South Asia and North Africa, but rare or absent in Central Asia, East Asia and the Americas.

The researchers estimate that 14-38% of the ancestry of Native Americans traces to a population like the one living at Mal'ta 24,000 years ago.  [more]

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 3, Block D:  Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re:  Curiosity. Curiosity has resumed science operations after experiencing a short circuit and voltage drop.  Though the press release notes that engineers have apparently pinpointed the source of the voltage drop, it doesn't explain why the drop has disappeared.  After swallowing her pet, Chang'I became immortal and flew to the Moon and lived there with her rabbit.  US commercial geosynchronous launch, SpaceX Falcon 9: three min and forty seconds before, launch scrubbed. Rescheduled to Thanksgiving.

Hour Four

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 4, Block A:  Kate Galbraith, NYT, in re: In energy-friendly Wyoming, oil and gas companies are getting a clear message: Drill, baby, drill — but carefully.

Last week, state regulators approved one of the nation’s strongest requirements for testing water wells near drilling sites. The measure is intended to address concerns that groundwater can become contaminated from drilling activities.  [more]

The broader context is the state-by-state patchwork of rules on various aspects of fracking.

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 4, Block B:  Peter Berkowitz, Real Clear Politics,

 in re: The Saudis and Israelis Know Best

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 4, Block C:  Christian Whiton, National Interest & author, Smart Power, in re: Iran and History's Ash Heap  The Obama administration's deal with Tehran brings the world closer to two profoundly undesirable events: an Iranian nuclear breakout capability or a possible Iranian retaliation in the wake of an Israeli strike to disrupt Iran's nuclear program. Such is the implication of the Geneva agreement that U.S. diplomats call a nuclear "freeze," but which allows Tehran to proceed merrily with uranium enrichment.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu—representing those caught playing the role of canary in a coal mine, who may presumably fall first to Iran—has made no secret of his distaste for what he called yesterday "a historic mistake." He has also lamented the approximately $7 billion in sanctions relief sanctions relief given to Tehran for the deal—money that will alleviate domestic pressure on Iran's government and allow it to augment its nuclear program.

Netanyahu is not alone. Over the past month, Washington has gotten an earful from other U.S. allies as well, including Saudi Arabia and several Persian Gulf states that must contend with Tehran's terrorism and political subversion efforts. This loss of confidence in America will have real consequences.

Tuesday  26 November  2013 / Hour 4, Block D:   Ken Croswell, Scientific American, in re: author of, The Alchemy of the Heavens, in re: Oldest minerals from Mars found on Earth  A meteorite recently retrieved from the Sahara Desert bears the oldest known minerals ever seen from the planet Mars, say scientists in the US, Australia and France. These minerals are 4.4 billion years old and therefore formed just 150 million years after the red planet's birth. Their age confirms earlier indications that the Martian crust formed quickly, as did the crusts of the Earth and Moon.   [more]

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Music

Hour 1:  Eagle.  Breaking Bad. Break. 

Hour 2:  300.  Gravity.  Painted Veil.  Sin City.

Hour 3:  Eastern Promises.  Enders Game.

Hour 4:  Breaking Bad. Gravity. Argo.