The John Batchelor Show

Wednesday 26 August 2015

Air Date: 
August 26, 2015

Photo, left: Pacific Island Coutrines: Carolina Islands.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-hosts: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com. Dr. David M. Livingston, The Space Show.
 
Hour One
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 1, Block A:   Bob Collins, former senior Pentagon analyst now based in South Korea, in re: http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/24/asia/koreas-tensions/ Security advisor to Pres Pak of ROK has been saying, "If we get hit, we'll hit back double or triple." When DPRK sent shells across DMZ, ROK sent back threefold. Small arms exchanges are frequent, but this was artillery.  Then major shows of force, N & S – DPRK diesel subs + ROK air force (jet fighters up); all this drove them to the negotiation table.  In 20134theys signed a counterprovocation agreement; now we see a shift in ROK conduct, obliging DPRK to think twice about provocations. North Korea wdn't understand a free-mkt economy any better than they'd understand democratic values.  Eun now sees what a show of force from the South bodes; in effect, a training exercise for young Eun.   Cross-DMZ loudspeakers from ROK go four or five miles  into the country: disparaging comments about the Kim regime, the lack of democracy. If the population isn't being fed – and it's not – those comments are effective.
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 1, Block B: Fraser Howie, co-author of Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China's Extraordinary Rise, in re:  Chinese stock market. Li Kaichung as an economic technocrat; the economy has headed down, debt go up, rough summer in the stock mkt and now in the currency mkt, so he'll get one term probably.  He dasn't act too swiftly lest it look like panic.   The Plan – supposedly bulletproof – to protect he mkt, has been abandoned as it all becomes a shambles. China Security Finance, supposedly backed to the hilt by PBOC, bit now not. Spent $200bil? to prop it up unsuccessfully. Confidence is everything!  In 1929 in the US, a cartoon of a biplane crashed and  destroyed, with the legend: "Wall Street." In China, we're in a crisis of govt; the mystique of the leadership is gone.  Spending $10 bil/day to defend the value of the RMB.   FX intervention is more normal than a govt's buying stock; but 'twixt a rock and a hard place, shed be fixing the dynamic of domestic market mechanisms. Quotidian Chinese stock mkt moves are entertainment to the world; the Chinese economy, however, is globally important.
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 1, Block C: Dr. Curt Niebur, NASA Lead Program Scientist, New Frontiers Program; Program Scientist: Cassini/Huygens Mission to Saturn, New Horizons, Juno, Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, Europa Multiple Flyby Mission; in re: Cassini Huygens! Seven years to reach Saturn, then the spectacular Huygens landing on Titan (a Saturn moon): a hydrocarbon superstation; and now photos of Saturn and all its moons.  Cassini is a NASA crown jewel, amazingly productive, exploring one of the most beautiful places in the Solar System; we've learned enough to fill library shelves.  Spent the last couple years at a high-inclination orbit; now more equatorial, for 1.5 years, then high up and a bunch of extremely dramatic orbits before we plunge into the atmosphere. I was surprised at how dynamic and active Saturn's rings are: more like a BMX dirt-bike race – high in the air, twirling around, dirt spraying into the audience.  . . . The high-gain antenna is [simple & dumb], so not likely to be damaged. Titan's atmosphere: a twin Earth but for . .  .  We've only scratched the surface; has a thick atmosphere, weather, lakes not water but liquefied LNG as it's much colder!  Coming: hot-air balloons, submarines. We see a remnant warmth left from when Titan first formed.  . . .  We have no clue what the red marks are. The wonder and diversity and surprises.  As Titan runs out of power & fuel, the Farewell tour: we'll adjust the orbit to fly between the inner part of the rings and the clouds of Saturn, only 5,000 mi wide, will skim about twenty times – we'll be within arm's reach; have spectroscopy on the craft and can analyze content. By the time we crash the craft we'll be on fumes. Huygens is just sitting there, awaiting a Smithsonian of the future to gather and display it.
The distance to Saturn from our planet is constantly changing as both of the planets travel through space. When the two are closest, they lie approximately 746 million miles (1.2 billion kilometers) apart, or eight times the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
David Livingston's Space Show, after fifteen years of broadcast, is rebuilding its website, with archives; see: SupportTheSpaceShow at IndieGoGo
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 1, Block D:  Elbridge Colby, CNAS, in re: . . . see CSIS work, also . . .
Hour Two
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 2, Block A: Cleo Paskal, associate fellow, Energy, Environment and Resources at Chatham House and author of Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic, and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map, in re:  14 South Pacific countries have been undervalued geopolitically. Indians promise a wide range of things: most of the small countries are tied into economically exploitative arrangements, e.g., we Australia; so India will set up pharma mfrg there, and satellite tracking, and IT labs in each of the countries.  China has relations with only 8 of the 24 because of the Taiwan factor, but India is working with all 14. Dvpt of Indo-Pacific, generating notions like "Maritime Silk Route."  . . .  The West has a big natural advantage, as does India: people prefer to deal with like-minded cultures.  Australia: the biggest question is the future of the Southern Pacific – part of the security alliance, US depends on it; has Australia given away some of its strategic relations with the West in order to grab some of the [now-withering] Chinese miracle.  There shd  have been no question about US Marines in Darwin, but it became a political [football]. Three Australian PMs have said that the US should share the Pacific with China – the country needs to have a big discussion to figure out who it is. Turned their backs on the country without which there would be no free Australia,  Australia, in this economic plunge, has taken sides with China and now is on the wrong side of history. Seventy years after WWII, Australia was the backbone; now it's forgot who it was.
http://www.sunday-guardian.com/analysis/act-east-engage-pacific-island-countries ; http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/fipic-summit-pm-narendra-modi-announces-plan-to-open-space-research-station-in-fiji/articleshow/48586711.cms
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 2, Block B: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, in re: Chinese troubles these last weeks; the Chinese stock market is tiny in a world context, but the Chinese economy is major. The descent is striking.  Second-quarter earnings: half the S&P were negative in earnings calls (excluding Nike); other punished by China operations, esp Caterpillar.  In the frantic 24 August sell-off, rumor that Tim Cook told Jim Cramer (sent an email) that Apple was doing fine.  Tim was trying to curry favor with Beijing.  [Booo.]  Craven.  See previous segment on Australia.
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 2, Block C: Warner Brown, FP's Tea Leaf Nation; based in Shanghai; in re: Baidu – Chinese search engine, now dominates in China. Chinese peopole yearn to know  certain things about Europe:  http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/08/20/this-map-shows-chinas-hilarious-and-racist-stereotypes-of-europe/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Copy%20of%20New%20Campaign&utm_term=%2AEditors%20Picks
Similar to google autocomplete: type in part of your question.  I typed in, "Why is France so" – yielding these results hilarious results. "UK: small yet strong." Hsiao chu'eh hun chiang da." ____.   "Denmark: killing whales."  "WWI: Germany – why does it hate or kill Jews?"  "Italy . . . " "Ukraine [and Russia]: Why are there so many beautiful women?" –  weishemma mei nyu dwo?"  Also: "Why do Russian women start thin and grow fat?" "Finland: good English" "Norway: not cold"  "Sweden: imports trash." [Sweden is so efficient at recycling and reducing trash that it needs to import trash to keep furnaces working.]   Turkey has stood up for Uyghurs. Poland: during the Paris Peace Conference, one of Poland's first actions was to give German possessions in Asia to Japan - and China is still enraged.  "Spain: why doesn't it annex Portugal?"  Chinese perceptions of history – China knows about Spain's colonial empire in the 1500s, so why not claim all of Iberia?  "Netherlands: tall."
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 2, Block D:  Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack, in re: Russia to do all-female simulated Moon mission   The competition heats up: The Institute of Biomedical Problems in Moscow has announced plans to do an all-female eight day simulated mission to the Moon.  Currently scheduled for October-November 2015, the experiment will differ from the Mars-500 venture not just in duration but most notably in crew composition. For Moon-2015, all the participants will be women, drawn from the staff at IBMP itself.
In their July announcement, IBMP named the ten volunteers from whom the actual crew will be chosen. All have strong scientific, medical or research backgrounds and many have worked in the space or aviation medicine sphere, working closely with cosmonauts before or after visits to the International Space Station (ISS).  The Institute’s focus is medical, so the goal is not to develop engineering to get to the Moon but to study the human body and how it reacts to living in a spacecraft environment. In this case, they can’t simulate weightlessness so the only thing they can study is how the crew interacts with each other in a confined space for a period of time.
 
Hour Three
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 3, Block A:   Monica Crowley, Washington Times, in re: . . . something seriously awry with Mrs Clinton's campaign + Is Pres Obama doing her in? She's a godawful retail pol, comes off as arrogant, insincere, narcissistic; foes on listening tours and doesn't listen.  Thought she'd be crowned. Also the Clinton Fdn, corrupt cash, private server, all these militate against her.  "The fundamental transformation of the nation" promised by Pres Obama means a radical shift in how the country functions.  Nothing in this Admin happens without Mr Obama's approval, incl any investigation. He's putting Biden in the candidacy.
Tom Harkin Cautions Joe Biden Against Running for President
Former Senator Tom Harkin, a fixture in Iowa Democratic politics for over four decades, discouraged Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on . . . 
 ; 
Will Joe Biden Run for President (Again)?Is Joe Biden running for president? ;  
Biden is everything Hillary Clinton isn't ; 
Briefing: Joe Biden Getting Ready for 2016  ;  Would Seth Moulton back a Biden White House bid?
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 3, Block B: Monica Crowley, Washington Times, in re: Hillary Clinton Talks Potential Joe Biden Run, Gun Violence  Hillary Clinton on Wednesday said Joe Biden should be given "space" to make up his mind about a presidential bid and that she had not been ... ;  Hillary Clinton: "No evidence" Joe Biden could steal her 2016 support ;  Second poll shows Hillary Clinton still trailing Bernie Sanders ; What Obama Should Do about the Hillary Clinton-Joe Biden Pickle ; Donors sour on Hillary Clinton ; Why Bernie Sanders Won't Add Debates without Hillary Clinton
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 3, Block C: Monica Crowley, Washington Times, in re:  The many feuds of Donald Trump, diagrammed In challenging Donald Trump at his press conference in Iowa on Tuesday night, Jorge Ramos became only the latest target of Donald Trump's ... ; Donald Trump and Jorge Ramos: Who Was Right? ; Univision Anchor Kicked Out of Donald Trump Event ; Who is Jorge Ramos and why is Donald Trump so mad at him? ; Trump Kicks Hispanic Anchor Out of Press Conference, Tells Him to ... ; In taking on Jorge Ramos, Donald Trump may have picked the ...
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 3, Block D: Monica Crowley, Washington Times, in re: Chris Christie just went out of his way to trash Jeb Bush ; New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) went out of his way to slam former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) during a Tuesday night interview. Christie . . .  ; Chris Christie accuses Jeb Bush of 'pandering' on anchor babies ; Chris Christie: How Will Jeb Bush Stand Up to Putin If He Can't . . . ; Christie labels Bush part of GOP past
Hour Four
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 4, Block A:   Markos Kounalakis, Hoover  via Sacramento Bee; in re: From Living in Loomis to Hiding from Chinese Agents China has a long and storied relationship with Sacramento. After all, the first all-Chinese rural settlement in the United States was in nearby Locke.
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 4, Block B:  Paul Gregory, Hoover, in re: Ukraine-Russia clash - how many Russian soldiers have died?
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hour 4, Block C: John Avlon, Daily Beast, and Taegan Goddard, Political Wire, in re: Biden/Clinton ; Joe Biden to Hold Unusual Call with Democratic Party Officials ; Obama Gives Biden the OK ;  http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/25/hillary-vs-biden-would-get-ugly-fast.html  ; Clinton Maintains Massive Lead in Iowa
Wednesday   20 May 2015  / Hor 4, Block D: John Avlon, Daily Beast, and Taegan Goddard, Political Wire, in re:  Jorge Ramos of Univision Is Snubbed, Ejected and Debated at Donald Trump Event ; Why Bush Is Making a Mistake Attacking Trump ; http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/25/roger-ailes-trump-s-new-attack-on-megyn-kelly-is-unacceptable-and-disturbing.html ; Roger Ailes Wants Apology from Donald Trump
 
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