The John Batchelor Show

Friday 25 April 2014

Air Date: 
April 25, 2014

Photo, above:  Killer thug takes control of Slavyansk.   "For anyone interested to know more about the views and ideas of the current self-proclaimed mayor of Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomarev (the one which supposedly holds the VICE correspondent).  He gave an interview to a Russian Gazeta.ru reporter.   'Obama, you should shut up' (Original in Russian)"  See below, Hour 4, Block A, Paul Gregory, Hoover. [Breaking news, late Friday night: Ponomarev says that OSCE military observers have just been abducted and held captive as hostages because 'a spy was among them.' BBC reporter with a gun held to her head is obliged to leave swiftly.]

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Friday  25 April  2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Michael Vlahos, Naval War College, in re: 1. POTUS arriving Seoul with a threatened North Korea nuke test that reportedly  is attended by Iranian nuke ops, and may even be paid for by Iran

2.  Putin clearly indicating that Eastern Ukraine is the next target in the annexation of former Soviet buffer states: with a long list of cities ahead, from Odessa to Tallin.  Kerry warns Russia 'we will act'    Ukraine helicopter hit by grenade as Russia accused of 'wanting WW3'   Kiev warns that Moscow is engineering a third world war as Ukraine helicopter crippled in grenade attack

On the Front Lines in Ukraine’s Info War
 As the propaganda war prepares the ground for a shooting war, the death toll already is rising.

Friday  25 April  2014 / Hour 1, Block B: Michael Vlahos, Naval War College, in re: 3.  Japan baits China, China baits Japan, for preliminaries in regional war that damages the world economy.

Shinzo Abe's wartime shrine tribute risks inflaming China ...  Obama pledges support to Japan in Chinadispute

 
US President Barack Obama is set to throw his support behind Japan in its territorial dispute over a group of islands with China

4.  Palestinian Authority marrying Hama,. and total breakdown in talks with Israel Israel Halts Talks, Citing Palestinian Unity Agreement  Netanyahu: Mideast peace talks 'essentially buried' if ...

5.  Amid canonization of two Cold War popes:  Pope Francis is set to canonize two pillars of the Catholic Church this weekend. The blessed Pope John Paul II and blessed Pope John XXIII .

Friday  25 April  2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Mona Charen, NRO, in re: A ‘War on Women’ Response How the GOP can answer phony charges.

Friday  25 April  2014 / Hour 1, Block D: William Kent Suter, Hoover, in re: Executive Power on Steroids  In four recent Supreme Court cases, the Obama administration takes a crabbed view of individual rights. Much has been made recently about the Obama administration’s aggressive and excessive use of executive power. Examples include making recess appointments when the Senate was not in recess and repeatedly changing significant parts of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) without express legislative authority. Similar excessive executive authority has been used in executing laws pertaining to entitlements and immigration.   

The administration also exerts its strong-arm on a more local level, as evidenced by several recent U. S. Supreme Court cases. In those cases, which have received very little attention, the Obama administration took a crabbed view of an individual’s fundamental rights. It is one thing to be a liberal or a progressive administration; it is quite another to be hostile to fundamental individual rights. The cases described in this essay reflect an administration that is antagonistic to fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution.   [Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2012)]  Cheryl Perich was a teacher at the Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church, a small religious school in Michigan. She had undergone religious training and was certified to teach religious courses and lead religious services at the school. She also taught secular subjects. Her religious work took up only about forty-five minutes of her day.  In 2004, Perich became ill with narcolepsy and could not start the school year, but the school continued paying her for seven months. She subsequently attempted to return to work, but the church had already hired a replacement and, because of Perich’s behavior, the school principal did not think she was ready to resume teaching. She was disruptive and threatened a lawsuit, which violated written Lutheran Church doctrine. The congregation conducted a thorough due process hearing, rescinded Perich’s “call,” and terminated her employment. The termination decision was based on doctrine; it had nothing to do with disability. . . . [more]

. . . What do these cases have in common? First, the government lost all four in unanimous decisions. Second, each case dealt with a government infringement on a fundamental right—freedom of religion, the right to be free from unreasonable searches, the right to enjoy private property and due process, and the right to compensation when the government takes your property.

It is rare for the executive branch to lose four cases dealing with fundamental rights in unanimous decisions in one term. Those who believe in the Constitution and the rule of law should feel uneasy about the administration’s positions in these cases. The positions taken by the government suggest bullying and strong-arm tactics.

Hour Two

Friday  25 April  2014 / Hour 2, Block A:  Daniel Henninger, WSJ WONDER LAND, in re: Two New Saints. Now What?  Seeking an answer to messianic secularism and homicidal Islamic fundamentalism.  [more]

Friday  25 April  2014 / Hour 2, Block B: Noah Schactman, Daily Beast, in re:  Snowden Regrets Staged Putin Q&A  Even the NSA leaker’s closest advisers now say his appearance on a Kremlin call-in show, which touched off yet another international firestorm, was a mistake.

Friday  25 April  2014 / Hour 2, Block C:  Gregory Copley, StrategicStudies director & author, UnCivilization, in re:  DPRK Nuclear Detonation Was Almost Certainly for Iran

Friday  25 April  2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Emma Rosenblum, Bloomberg, in re:  Later, baby: the growing business of egg freezing, and how it’s becoming a viable option for women to eliminate the "mommy track"—that is, allowing working women to maximize their career opportunities before becoming mothers. Considers a world in which a woman’s life isn’t dictated by a biological clock; one where a 35 year-old who has banked her eggs and is up for a huge promotion, can go for it whole­heartedly without worrying about missing out on having a baby. Egg freezing has been around for 30 years but may now be nearing a tipping point due to recently improved success rates, and data showing no increase in birth defects in babies born from thawed eggs. It remains, however, an expensive procedure that is not covered by insurance. But as several new companies work to bring down the costs, more and more women will likely be freezing their eggs and freeing up options in their careers. Not since the birth control pill has a medical technology had such potential to change family and career planning.  [more]

Hour Three

Friday  25 April  2014   Sid Perkins, Nature Magazine, Science Magazine, Nature News, in re: climate on early Mars being too cold for liquid water over the long term (but warm during geologically brief episodes)  Ancient Martian flood?

Friday  25 April  2014 / Hour 3, Block D:   Harry Siegel, New York Daily  News, in re:

Airbnb disrupts New York City, but will it be for the best? Days after my friend Joan died in the Spring St. apartment she’d lived in since the mid-70s, before her family had time to move out all of her effects, her ex-husband, out of the picture for decades, broke through the police tape and locked the door behind him to try and establish his right to the rent-controlled walkup.  It’s a strange city, where people will get married, fight in divorce court or even break into an apartment they don’t own to try and claim it.

Hour Four

Friday  25 April  2014 / Hour 4, Block A: Paul Gregory, Hoover, in re: Taped Conversation of Russian Special Forces Commander With Self-Proclaimed Mayor of Slovyansk

A Radio Liberty dispatch (Radio Svobody) dated April 24 contains the transcript of a taped conversation between Colonel Igor Strelkov, the purported commander of Russian special forces in the east Ukrainian city of Slovyansk (Russian: Slavyansk) with the self-appointed Mayor, “Slava” Ponomarev (see the transcript of his chilling interview). The Radio Liberty imprimatur gives the tapped telephone conversation credibility because Radio Liberty must avoid over-the-top claims to preserve the credibility of its reporting. Radio Liberty writes that the Ukrainian secret service (SBU) has made the tape available to destroy any illusion as to who is in charge of  Slovyansk.

The brief conversation involves Strelkov ordering Ponomarev to deal with the body of the pro-Ukrainian city council member, Vladimir (Volodomyr) Rybak, last seen surrounded by a pro-Russian mob, whose tortured body was discovered floating in the river.

The short conversation is as follows:

Strelkov: “Slava: you (“Ty,” familiar form) please decide the question of the corpse. This should be taken care of quickly and get it off our hands. The body is lying here and beginning to smell.”

Ponomarev: “The corpse. Yes. Yes. Right away. I am just finishing with the journalists. I’ll take care of it.”

Ponomarev (apologetic): "My stupid guys (literally “goats”) brought the body to you there – to the basement."

Ponomarev: “I am coming right now. I’ll organize the burial of this rooster.”

Strelkov: “Ok. Good.”

I publish my translation, again, to illustrate the kind of Russian forces and stooges that will run those parts of Ukraine taken over by Russia. What a nightmare! I would not like to be a liberal, Ukrainian, Gypsy, Tartar, or Jew caught up in Putin's embrace.

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A Self-Appointed Pro-Russian Mayor Speaking His Mind: Disturbing to Say the Least

Excerpts from interview by woman reporter from Gazeta.ru with the self-appointed mayor of Slavyansk, Vyacheslav Ponomarev. After the shooting incident on April 20, Ponomarev issued a call to Putin to send “peacekeeping” forces to Slavyansk.

I begin with the reporter (R) asking “Mayor” Ponomarev (P) what he intends to do with those who disagree with him:

P. We raised our hands and said: All who are with us, good. He who is against us – it is clearly understood.

R. What does that mean, clearly understood?

P. They will be destroyed.

R. How?

P. Why are you asking how?

R. Even among peaceful residents, even if they are one in a hundred, and they hold other opinions. What do you do with them?

P. Well there are only about 40 of them (here).

R. Are these 40 to be destroyed?

P. They are like apes which people go to the zoo to look at. They will be a separate group but under our control.  I’ll tell you how operational work goes. You light a flashlight to attract the moths, to which you attach a sticky tape. They get stuck and then you smash them with a flyswatter.

R. I find what you are saying horrible.

P. What is horrible? This is a naked fact of life. Is it not scary when our boys are found in the river, their bellies cut open and tortured. And then I go to the morgue and can’t really determine whether it is one of ours or not. Then it turns out it is the very same elected deputy, Vladimir Rybak (a political opponent) from Gorlovka. I can’t really give you the information but according to all information it is him.

R. This is very horrible. And who is the second body?

P. Probably his driver. Have you seen the bodies?

R. No they did not let me in the morgue. The man said it was closed.

P. Listen, you are better off enjoying the beauty and passages of our city and leave the dirt to someone else. It will be better for you. It is not good to try to get some financial benefit or fame. When you take a picture of death you become involuntarily a participant, And when you bring this death to the public's attention, this is worse. This sows panic, people are frightened and this is essential for our opponents. That is why I forbid every one.   

R. OK. My last question is not about bodies but about the election of the president of Ukraine scheduled for May 25.

P. It will not take place.

R. It won’t take place in the whole Donbass? In Slavyansk?

P. It won’t be anywhere. Believe me.

R. You will not allow? Someone else will not allow? Please explain.

P. We’ll take all necessary measures so that there will be no election in the southeast [of Ukraine].

R. Measures to what extreme?

P. We’ll take someone prisoner and hang them by the balls. Really. Do you understand?

R. Dear God. It is really terrible what you are saying.

P. No. No. I am a good person. Very good. But sometimes they take my goodness for weakness, but that is not so, I love my children and my mother.

The reporter asks the self-appointed mayor to describe  Slavyansk as part of the Peoples Republic of Donetsk after Russian peacekeeping troops make eastern Ukraine independent of Kiev

R. What would you say to the people of Western Ukraine?

P. [Thinks it over] Give up. [laughs]

R. What will be the official language of the Donetsk Peoples Republic?

P. Russian.

R. There will be no Ukrainian?

P. No question. They can converse in Ukrainian and sing songs.

R. What will you do with the minority who continue to subordinate themselves to Kiev and consider themselves a part of Ukraine?

P. We’ll let them stay. Only that.

R. How?

P. They should keep their heads down. Let them keep quiet.

R. What would you tell Obama, who claims that you mutineers are acting on Moscow’s orders?

P. I would tell him to keep his mouth shut. 

I pity the poor Ukrainian and Tartar residents of Crimea. They are living under pro-Russian administrators who think like Ponomarev.

Friday  25 April  2014 / Hour 4, Block B: Ilan Berman, US Foreign Policy Council, in re:  What Putin Is Costing Russia

Friday  25 April  2014 / Hour 4, Block C: James Taranto, Wall Street Journal, in re:

Jeanne Shaheen, the senior senator from New Hampshire, won her seat by defeating a Republican incumbent in 2008. She was thought to have a safe seat this year, and most polls and observers still give her an edge, if a tenuous one, over likely GOP challenger Scott Brown

Friday  25 April  2014 / Hour 4, Block D:   Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review & Pirates fan, in re: A rusting steam shovel from a bygone era has sat guarding an old strip mine along Route 51 in this Fayette County village for as long as anyone can remember. For at least 60 years, some say; even longer, say others.  The once-mighty mechanical monster, whose kind began to fall out of favor in the 1930s, was built to lift and move dirt or, as in this case, coal. With the coming of cheaper, diesel-powered shovels, the steam shovel disappeared from America's landscape.  Except for this one.

“The steam shovel is legendary,” said Michael Parzynski, who was shopping for Easter candy with his mother at Gene and Boots Candy Shop in nearby Star Junction. He “cannot imagine” not seeing it, he said, because it has become “part of the fabric of our community.”

I remember passing the shovel as a child sitting in my father's old station wagon as we rolled down the highway on some family trip to West Virginia; my mother, trying to hush three rambunctious children in the backseat, always challenged us to spot the most unusual roadside curiosity.  The steam shovel — then only a mildly tarnished red — gleamed so brightly in the sun that it caused my father to pull over to examine it, with a look in his eyes that could only come from an engineer fond of tinkering with machines.

When my own children raised havoc in the back of my minivan on the way to yet another soccer or baseball game, they too would hush as they gazed at the mysterious machine, now coated in graffiti and rust. And I soon habitually pulled over to take our photo with it. Turns out that we weren't the only ones to do so: I've passed the steam shovel hundreds of times on the way to or from Washington, D.C., and, more often than not, someone is posing in front of it for a camera. Websites, message boards and social media sites are dedicated to it, too.

Its allure crosses generations, somehow magically capturing the imagination of people passing by long after its original usefulness ended.  Funny, how odd or little things become part of our routines, traditions and lives; they find a way to gently weave themselves into part of who we are, because of our emotional connection when we see them.

It is human nature to expect — or, at least, to hope — that some things will never change, that they will always be there. And it is heartbreaking when we discover that, despite all of our amassed education, wisdom and enlightenment, nothing ever stays the same.

At some point over this past winter, time and the elements caught up with the old steam shovel: Her massive arm, which once held her crane and shovel at a towering 45-degree angle, which always seemed to be waving to the passing traveler, collapsed. It was an arm that once proudly held an American flag in the months after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

All that remains upright now is the cab that held her operator.  If we are lucky, all of us will live long enough to make that nostalgic trip back to the home we grew up in, and to feel the rush of emotions — both happy and sad — as we . . . [more]

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