The John Batchelor Show

Tuesday 13 May 2014

Air Date: 
May 13, 2014

Photo, above: Roman ditch at Hadrian's Wall; see Hour 4, The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts by Graham Robb 

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 1, Block A:  Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: Russia fights back   Much has been made of the sanctions the Obama administration has imposed on any cooperation with Russia due to the situation in Ukraine and how those sanctions might damage the commercial and manned space efforts of the United States.

So far, all evidence has suggested that the sanctions have little teeth. The Obama administration exempted ISS from the sanctions. It also appears to be allowing the shipment of all commercial satellites to Russia for launch. Even a court injunction against using Russia rocket engines in U.S. military launches was lifted when the Obama administration asked the judge to do so.

The Russians now have responded. Why do I take their response more seriously?
[More]

More problems for Virgin Galactic: A news story today reports that cracks have been discovered in the wings of WhiteKnightTwo.

Sources tell me the cracks are along the spars that run the length of the wings. Specifically, they are located where the spars connect with the fuselage. My sources tell me the cracks have caused quite a bit of concern among the engineers at Virgin and Scaled. One particularly worrisome aspect is that nobody knows why or when they occurred.

I’m told there is some comfort in the repairs being made based on previous Scaled experience in patching composites. However, since the cause of the cracks is uncertain and WhiteKnightTwo is unique in terms of its size and the stresses placed on it by SpaceShipTwo, the engineers are in uncharted territory. They don’t know if they have addressed the root cause, or whether the problem will reoccur.

If this story turns out to be true, it will likely be a disaster for Virgin Galactic. Not only can they not yet fly SpaceShipTwo because of engine issues, the mother ship that puts the spacecraft into the air can’t fly either.

Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 1, Block B:  James Taranto, Wall Street Journal, in re: Bore More Years  Let's hear it for voter apathy! 
/  Starr Turn? 
Not only Republicans have called for an IRS special prosecutor. 


Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 1, Block C:  Mike Giglio, Buzzfeed, in re:  Inside a Nerve Center of Ukraine’s Shadow War 


Home to masked militants, a growing number of captives, and a makeshift medical clinic, the separatist headquarters in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk is braced for war. Not far beneath the surface, one already seems to be raging. 
 DONETSK, Ukraine — As he sobered up through the long, strange night, the captive man grew more and more afraid.

He recalled the previous hours through a blur of alcohol and pain: drunkenly insulting a group of pro-Russia men, being clubbed and dragged to a makeshift base; and then the raised stakes when they found out who he was. He remembered an injection — maybe a truth serum, he thought, or something for the pain — and a videotaped confession, where he admitted to recruiting men to fight the separatists overrunning eastern Ukraine. Now he was in their nerve center, an 11-story government building in the regional capital of Donetsk ringed by razor wire and barricades. He was handcuffed to a chair in a busy hallway beneath fluorescent lights. Some of the armed men passing by bent down and threatened to kill him. The man, a pro-Kiev activist, had found himself in the heart of a shadow war fueled by . . . 
 [more]

Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Mike Giglio, Buzzfeed, in re: Eastern Ukraine Just Voted on Autonomy and No One Knows What Comes Next 


“We can choose to do whatever we want — we could even join Mars if we wanted.”

Hour Two

Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 2, Block A:  Stephen F. Cohen, NYU & Princeton prof Emeritus ;  author: Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, & The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag after Stalin; (1 of 4) in re:  Ukraine, Kiev, elections, EU, Merkel, energy ministers.  Putin's speech on Friday in Crimea.  Merkel: "The crisis cannot be solved by military means."  Who's sent a military and killed people in the last few weeks? Our govt in Kiev – although some of the Kievans have now died.  Flashback to 7 May, Putin: "I look at what's going on in Ukraine, at the footage of 40 people burned to death in Odessa in a bldg – it’s horrible, and things are spinning out of control. The West says the presence of my troops too close to the border is part of the problem, so I've moved them back."  Washington claimed he hadn't; Putin said, "Check sat pix"; no more complaint from DC.  . . .  Putin:  "I had a call with Merkel, she says, 'Let’s have a roundtable in Kiev of all involved parties.' " The oil & gas questions are easy to solve: IMF gave Kiev the first $3.5 bil of what it says it'll give over the next few years [note: much of tha t seems to be US taxpayer-funded].  Moscow: "Great! Pls send us a check for $3.5 owed."  Yatseniuk said, "OK, we'll pay what we owe if you give us a big future discount."  An unusual version of the free market.   

Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 2, Block B: Stephen F. Cohen (2 of 4), in re: Ukraine, Putin.  Memory (pamiuk?); together we'll be ever stronger. Motherland.  Memories of WWII veterans, the Great Patriotic War.  May 9 is the most sacred holiday in Russia, in Soviet times and today.  Reasons:  7.5 million Soviet citizens, abt 70% ethnic Russian, died in the Eastern Front, ensued after Hitler invaded in June 1941. Esp after Stalingrad, the German army was crushed in Russia. Almost every family lost people. The lost are acutely remembered.  Of every 100 boys conscripted in the Great Patriotic War, three came home!  Later, when the girls wanted to marry – no males. The spinsters were called, "Ivan's widow." This is the demographic & historical background.  Every Soviet leader since 1941 has manipulated this memory, but it’s not artificial. In Kentucky, we had VE Day – victory in Europe – one of the biggest holidays, schools closed, parade with bands.  VE Day has basically vanished from the US.  We teach our children that the US landed in Normandy on 6 June 1944, marched to Berlin and defeated Nazi Germany. No, we didn’t: the heart of German military was destroyed in the East by Russia – then there was a race to Berlin.  Imagine if Hitler had conquered Russia. Russians deeply resent the US depiction of the war; and when Brzezinski and H Clinton called Putin "Fascist," it angers Russians. Even those who don't like him know that he's not a Fascist. 

See: "Cold War Again: Who’s responsible?" and  "Cold War Against Russia – without debate"

both in The Nation magazine.

Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 2, Block C: Stephen F. Cohen (3 of 4), in re: Enter the third player, Germany. Mrs Merkel is the de facto leader of the European Union.  Raised in East Germany, she speaks fluent Russian; Putin in KGB lived and trained as an intell officer in Germany (when he visited the German parliament, he addressed them in German).   A few weeks ago, Putin said he'd no longer speak to Obama.   When Mrs Merkel visited Washington, the meeting was very rough: she confronted the US president on his embracing thugs in Ukraine, on the NSA spying on her personal cell phone. Not a happy meeting.

Despite having fought two wars, the relations between Russia and Germany have long been rather close.  Even during wartime, the two countries share history,.  "Only one-third of US Congresspersons have a passport"!  The US is a provincial nation.  Putin doesn’t rust Obama, might like him.  A tiny child asked Putin, "If you were drownding, would Pres Obama save you?"  "Pres Obama is a decent man; we have disagreements, but I'm sure he'd save me."  Merkel wants an end of armed attacks by the Kiev govt, which the US controls. Dunno why Merkel is so reluctant to speak bluntly.  Germany's industry runs one-third on Russian energy; also, Russia is an enormous market for goods from Europe, from food to cars to luxe.  Ukraine's economy has collapsed; creditors banging on the door; will they take Kiev to court? London headlines: "Don't force Ukrainian people into substandard conditions so the only way forward seems to be violence."   The euro speaks loudly; louder than guns? I don’t know.   

Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Stephen F. Cohen (4 of 4), in re: "EU must prosper"  Russia as a trade partner depends on EU prosperity, just as EU depends on Russian pipelines.  "The April Ukrainian payment is overdue; Gazprom is launching an invoice to the Ukrainian Naftogaz on 17 May with payment to be made before 31 May. If not paid, Gazprom has a complete right to cease delivery."    Since the end of the Soviet Union, Russia has shipped gas, partly to be used by Ukraine, mostly to go through to Europe. When Ukraine refuses to pay sometimes, Russia turns off shipment till the bill is paid Russia has subsidized the Ukrainian govt to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.  Putin intervened to give Kiev another month. Gazprom: "If Ukr doesn’t pay  its debt,  in future it'll have not 60 days to pay (using transit revenues from the EU) but will have to pre-pay."  There's a large geopolitical/economic reality here. Moscow is owed by billions and Washington claims Moscow is playing politics; then the West takes away a big chunk of Ukraine and wants Russia to subsidize it.   Resolved: tonight, it’s not about gunfire, it’s about cash. 

Hour Three

Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 3, Block A: McKay Coppins, Buzzfeed, in re:   Republicans Torn over How to Talk about Monica Lewinsky

Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 3, Block B: David Freedlander, Daily Beast, in re:  How the Left Cut Down a Democratic Frontrunner   Rep. Allyson Schwartz was up by 25 points in Pennsylvania’s Democratic primary for governor. Then came accusations of centrism—now a dirty word in a party with an energized left flank. There are a couple of hundred well-turned-out, professional women sipping $9 white wines at the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Philadelphia, and Allyson Schwartz is determined to kiss every single one of them on the cheek. It’s not hard, as they are all gathered for a fundraiser for a nearly 40-year-old women’s health group that Schwartz helped found, and so she seems to know half the room.

“I tell everyone, ‘Vote for my girl, vote for my girl!’” says one older woman after emerging from her own cheek peck.  Another grabs Schwartz by the shoulders and looks searchingly into her face. “Tell me,” she implores. “Are you OK?”

In eight days, the voters of Pennsylvania have a chance to make Schwartz the first female governor in the state’s history. Last year, the five-term congresswoman and political powerbroker from the upper reaches of Philadelphia and its wealthy northern suburbs was up by as much as 25 points and looked like a shoo-in for the Democratic nomination. With Republican incumbent Tom Corbett notching some of the lowest approval ratings in the country, Schwartz could have been forgiven if she had started to measure the drapes in Harrisburg.

Now she is down by nearly that much. While her campaign was buried under an avalanche of gauzy television advertisements from wealthy businessman Tom Wolf, who now holds a commanding lead in the polls, the Schwartz campaign was knocked off course by a surprising . . . [more]

Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Eli Lake, senior national security correspondent, Newsweek/Daily Beast, in re: Boko Haram's Bin Laden Connection Some intelligence analysts believe that Osama bin Laden provided everything from seed money to strategic direction to the now-infamous Nigerian terror group.

Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 3, Block D: Michelle Conlin, Reuters, NEW YORK/SYDNEY,  in re: The Chinese take Manhattan: replace Russians as top apartment buyers

Hour Four

Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 4, Block A: The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts by Graham Robb (1 of 4)

Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 4, Block B: The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts by Graham Robb (2 of 4)

Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 4, Block C: The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts by Graham Robb (3 of 4)

Tuesday  13 May 2014 / Hour 4, Block D: The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts by Graham Robb (4 of 4)

 

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