Wednesday 27 August 2014
Photo, above: West Point, Monrovia, Liberia. See Hour 3, Block B, Clair MacDougall, Al Jazeera America: CDC Director on Ebola: 'We Are Definitely Not at the Peak' US health official says Ebola has 'upper hand' in W Africa but ...
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-hosts: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com. Dr. David M. Livingston, The Space Show.
Hour One
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block A: James Holmes, professor at the Naval War College and co-author of Red Star over the Pacific: China's Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy, in re: the latest in the South China Sea, especially Manila's reaction to Beijing's moves and the August 19 Hainan intercept Unplanned encounters on the sea. Counterpiracy expedition. Rules for China not always he same. Twelve to 200 miles off shore: nor sovereignty, but right to exploit it, extract natural resources; from US point of view, these are international waters. "Freedom of navigation" - China interprets this as "the ability to pass from point A to point P while doing nothing in between." Goal is to intimidate US and its allies, especially – Japan. Philippines, and esp Vietnam; that the US will not go to their aid. "Win without fighting; build up so much power that your enemies will bow to your will." The US Administration has lost its depth.
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block B: Cleo Paskal, associate Fellow at Chatham House and author of Global Warring: How Environmental, Economic, and Political Crises Will Redraw the World Map, in re: Indian militants' fighting with ISIS and stunning the Indian populace.
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Jeff Foust, thespacereview.com, in re: Falcon 9 took off from MacGregor, Texas; seems to have exploded. No one injured, but the loss of a vehicle and a bit of a setback for SpaceX. Possible problem with attitude control of avionics referred to a "block sensor point" – sounds not like an engine problem. If it was tilting too far, could cause the flight-abort system to kick in. Trying to make Falcon 9 a reusable rocket, thus much reducing launch costs. Earlier version: Grasshopper, VTOL. . . . Antares rocket. AJ27 engine: replace it?
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Dr. David H Grinspoon, Astrobiology chair, Library of Congress; astrobiology curator, Denver Museum of Nature & Science, in re: ULTRA COOL! Now that we've crossed Neptune's orbit--check out our rear view mirror. #PlutoLives! pic.twitter.com/qL9CBVY2DX
The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission has chosen five candidate landing sites on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko for its Philae lander. Philae's descent to the comet's nucleus, scheduled for this November, will be the first such landing ever attempted. full story
Hour Two
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 2, Block A: Rick Fisher, senior Fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, in re: China developing a hypersonic glide vehicle – ideal to deliver a nuclear weapon to, say, New York City. Also working on a _____ submarine, Since early 1980s, tremendous Chinese investment in high tech for military use After 30 or 40 years, beginning to see the result of this investment: can look at supercavitation or antigravity, for example. If you had twelve hypersonic glide vehicles, you could destroy the entire US Navy. The DF21d – Navy considers this hypersonic ballistic missile cannot yet be shot down; is a deployed weapon, Can feed the hypersonic glide vehicle, soon to be an antiship weapon. The plane that buzzed the US plane (which a US general absurdly called a "rogue pilot"): China openly stole plans for the Sukhoi 27 from Russia, which is enraged. If the US wanted to fly escort planes near Hainan Island, it'd have to fly a long way out of its way.
The South China Sea is obviously important to China; US leaders have entirely failed to explain t Americans why it's genuinely important to the US. China now very interested in plasma stealth technology: cloak a plane in electrons so it disappears from radar.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/20/china-secretly-conducts-second-test-new-hypersonic/
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 2, Block B: Michael Cole, correspondent at IHS Jane's Defence Weekly based in Taipei, in re: the strategic value of the islands in the Taiwan Strait. Islands in the Taiwan Straits , e.g., Dong I Islands; Jin Min (being demilitarized). Tink of South China Sea as a wine-bottle; and _ as the cork. Pratas Island has the longest airstrip in the South China Sea. It's 1600 km from Taiwan and thus hard to defend. Defensive offense.
List of islands in the South China Sea
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 2, Block C: Joseph Sternberg, WSJ Asia editorial board, in re: promises; Hong Kong's special status: a Special Administrative Region; how will the next HK Chief Executive be selected n 2017: by vote – as agreed – or by faceless autarchs in Beijing? Beijing will demand a mal nominating committee – this has been a key focus of debate. If Beijing stays rigid, it'll see civil disobedience in HK: gridlock to central business district, at least. Recall Occupy Central. Sounds as though China is going off the rails; will make the wrong decision because its political system is in distress. Of course, it’s been making poor decisions for a decade and a half. Now the choices concern basic political decisions, he stakes are much higher, and the world is noticing. Beijing's inability to compromise will be the hinge point in Hong Kong's future development, certainly including its capability to function well economically.
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Abheek Bhattacharya, Heard on the Street, in re: I've been spending a lot of time understanding the way China has distorted the world's massive resource industries. Its growth supercharged the demand for minerals like iron-ore, so its downturn is going to leave its mark. China makes up 40% of incremental oil demand in the world. . . . No longer needs the kind of steel it used to. Behind curtains A, B – and C. The price of certain commodities: look at the Shanghai price of rebar, at a four-year low. Demand obviously is falling while supply is high. Same for iron ore. Shale, LNG – energy issues. Golar– building a ship that can produce, liquefy, and transport LNG all at once. Amazing economics.
Oil, probably the world's largest natural-resource market, has had a great run partly on China's insatiable demand -- but that demand is now slowing. Iron-ore and steel are simple derivatives of the China story -- so when we discover that China may be overstating its steel production and still dumping its surplus steel on to the world, that doesn't bode well. In aluminum, too, China is producing so much of this stuff without needing it, that Western aluminum firms are trying their best to get out of the way.
China's resource slump affects not just companies that produce these materials. It's reverberating across the world's commodity supply chains -- for instance, a New York-listed firm that supplies temporary housing to coal miners in Australia. And for the resources it's still questing for, it will affect, say, an oilfield services firm that works with Chinese oil majors in Iraq.
The bottom line: in the commodities world, it's hard to escape China's reach. For some materials, this can be positive -- China's industries still need more natural gas, so that's good for folks bringing new kinds of infrastructure for liquefied natural gas.
The broader China story is more straightforward for companies that sell directly to consumers. The car market is the best example of this -- it's slowing down somewhat, but hotly competes for consumers' tastes, with the foreign car brands winning hands down. The government is trying to make life difficult for these foreign carmakers, but they can only do so much in the face of consumer love. Meanwhile, Chinese firms associated with foreign brands can sit back and enjoy the ride.
The Chinese consumer is also the reason behind the biggest corporate story out of China in the past year, the e-commerce giant Alibaba. Most of Hong Kong is abuzz about its upcoming IPO, and I wrote a piece last week explaining an alternate, but perhaps the most profitable, way of playing the Alibaba IPO.
Hour Three
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block A: Monica Crowley, Fox, in re: Scott Brown Denies That Man-Made Climate Change Is ... New Hampshire Senate candidate Scott Brown has added his name to the list of Republicans who have dismissed the science behind climate ...
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block B: Clair MacDougall, Al Jazeera America, in re: CDC Director On Ebola: 'We Are Definitely Not at the Peak' US health official says Ebola has 'upper hand' in W Africa but ... In-Depth-U.S. News & World
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Mary Anastasia O'Grady, Wall Street Journal, in re: The Panama Canal Celebrates 100 Years Ecuador's Phony Bitcoin Ploy
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 3, Block D: Seb Gorka, Marine Corps University & Breitbart, in re: Obama’s Reign of Error: How America Lost its Way and Is Losing the War Against Jihad (part 3)
Hour Four
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block A: Coral Davenport, NYT, in re: Obama Pursuing Climate Accord in Lieu of Treaty The Obama administration is working to forge a sweeping international climate change agreement to compel nations to cut their planet-warming fossil fuel emissions, but without ratification from Congress. "West Point is out of control for the pandemic" – quarantine, shooting, Monrovia's future.
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block B: Abby Haglage, Daily Beast, in re: Fighting Ebola With Nothing but Hope Physician assistant Emmanuel Boyah is at Ebola’s frontline in Liberia. If he contracts the disease, there will be no ‘secret serum’ waiting for him. Yet he keeps fighting.
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block C: Angelo M. Codevilla, Hoover, The Federalist, in re: If You Want to Stop ISIS, Here Is What It Will Take
Wednesday 27 August 2014 / Hour 4, Block D: Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: IPCC says we’re all gonna die one day. Cooking the numbers. CFCs.