Tuesday 9 February 2021
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Hour One
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 1, Block A: Joseph Sternberg: @josephsternberg, @WSJOpinion; Political Economics column; WSJ editorial board; in re: London Times, Daily Telegraph, Financial Times, all have forborne to have an alarmist headline for some days, although the intl variants of the virus are moving around the world. Still have many patents ill in hospital. The danger that the [policy goal posts might start shifting. purpose of lockdown was to reduce number of patients overwhelming hospitals; and not clear that the virus will ever be eliminated. Travellers: arrive in Great Britain: hiding arrival from a mandatory isolation country will pay £10,000 and go to jail. The whole quarantine and travel restrictions are because the govt is trying to look as though it’s doing something. They'll soon kill the economy, plus the broader issue of: is it good for the govt constantly to be responding to pressures without controlling the virus? People still think there’s an end in sight; if I were Boris Johnson I'd be worried about [having a real plan]. Retail pubs, hospitality, people socializing in their own homes.
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 1, Block B: Joseph Sternberg: @josephsternberg, @WSJOpinion; Political Economics column; WSJ editorial board; in re: Italy, reorganizing with a surprising hero.Guseppi Conte didn’t put together a coalition; return, Mario Draghi,, former EU central banker. “SuperMario” saved the euro from the jaws of debt crises. Rome has been wracked by conflicts. Draghi has assembled disparate small parties, may be a bridge till the next election. Who’ll spend the money? The groups don’t trust each other but all trust Draghi. The bad part is that he comes out of the electoral system, but one needs to have had that experience to spend the money wisely. The rest of Europe will face a similar problem. Will they also call on central bankers? Washington did this with Yellin. Italy is the most flamboyant example.
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 1, Block C: Gregory R Copley: Defense and Foreign Affairs; Gregory R Copley, The New Total War of the Twenty-first Century and the Trigger of the Fear Pandemic, in re: The US has continued its slide from grace: in a helter-skelter fashion. Is seen as being of questionable resolve and ability to address its internal preoccupation, one year out of four it ignores the world; the only great power in history spending a quarter of its time ignoring the world. Strategic decline, will have increasing less case to spend on dominating the global envt. Trump put the US on a confrontation course with the Communist Party of China, which is great doubt for an array of factors—cash, food, shortage, water shortage—was in danger of abandoning its ___. The US 3 Nov election gave the CCP a new lease on life. What this will all come to is not clear. China wants to reduce the military differential between the two countries; but both are in a [phase of] reduction. My money is on the US, if we don’t blow it. “Dead Men Walking, Dead Men Waking.” – unless the EU collapses, and we see a resurgence of [small states]. Italy, others, and even France, seem to be thinking of leaving the EU. Brussels has official power, but without Germany is nothing. Creating a new Soviet Union; as the head of Czech Republic said, “We didn't leave one Soviet Union in order to join another one.” EU was designed to contain Germany’s [aggression]; instead, just rechanneled expansionism via the currency. PRC is currently testing the Biden administration, with a carrier in the South China Sea—no response form Biden: “probing our adversary to the point of contact.” Trump had the PRC on the run; now, PRC has Biden on the run (with documentation on the Biden family, for example).
Food, water, and energy shortages in China: PRC is still using Mickey Mouse schemes to evade sanctions on Iranian oil; PRC has run out of cash, is in tr0uble. PRC relying on the US being not a cornerstone of any pushback. However, the Quad states are pushing back, along
EU cannot deal with a Russian threat just now, although Russia isn't in a good position to threaten; what it wants is a stable relation and to control the EU by the flow gas and oil.
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 1, Block D: Gregory R Copley: Defense and Foreign Affairs; Gregory R Copley, The New Total War of the Twenty-first Century and the Trigger of the Fear Pandemic, in re: The original threat by Obama, that if GB went ahead with Brexit the US wouldn’t consider it as a major trading ally—envy among EU states. Trump reestablished the “special relationship, which Biden is undoing. BoJo is undermining independence of Scotland, demands free travel between Ireland and England. In the last week, UK has added to its defense revitalization with 20 billion or so; bldg. a range of new vessels and a world-class fighter and a lot of surface combatants, working with Australia and Canada.
Britain has a lot of friends in Washington, but not enough. Biden’s DC thinks th EU is the cat’s whiskers – but the real defense capability came from Britain; without it, the EU is weak.
Hour Two
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 2, Block A: Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News; in re: Oil is near $60; false trap, or are we coming out of the troubles? Covid and hospitalizations are diminishing, most people will have been vaccinated by July; a turnaround. Economy largely shut down, but may recover by September. Things are kind of coming in to place—raising questions about the $1.9 trillion stimulus—the economy doesn’t need that huge an injection going to couples making $175,000. The extra $400/week may seriously slow economic recovery as poor people realize they make more on unemployment than at work. Savings are high, net worth has increased. Oil wells today are short-lived. Biden can mess this up by bad policies cancelling Keystone pipe line. Cuomo will let cafes open—have dodged a $15/hr minimum wage. CBO report: Biden will cut 1.4 million jobs. People in charge think of this on racial lines. Play-acting from Cuomo, Newsom, et al.
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 2, Block B: Elizabeth Peek, TheHill and Fox News; in re: The impeachment trial: sentence then verdict of what use? The country is ready to move on. People are so alarmed by the censoring and cancelling of voices that they’re not paying that much attention to the trial. We need freedom of speech to be important. Democrats come across as being wildly vindictive, not only against Trump but against the 74 million who voted for him. The transgender sports thing, and so forth—a shame that Biden has climbed on that train.
Are they anxious that this is all that holds them together? They have no other theme. Schumer looking over his shoulder at AOC primarying him. The far left is on the ascent with energy and money. https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/raskin-opens-impeachment-trial-wit...
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 2, Block C: New World Report.Joseph Humire @jmhumire, @securefreesoc, and Senator Maria Fernanda Cabal @MariaFdaCabal, in re: An outbreak of democratic voting across South America. Begin with Ecuador. The economist Andres Araos, socialist candidate, leading at the polls. Also an indigenous candidate; and a perennial candidate. . . . In Ecuador, Iran is helping socialists. A threat network that includes Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela; “the Bolivarian network.” Colombia is a holdout from the trend of strongmen government funded from the outside plus narcoterrorists within, and illicit gold; trade-based money laundering. Colombia is therefore a target. Amlo in Mexico; Bolivia. Cocaine and mafia businesses. Maduro helping the guerrillas.
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 2, Block D: New World Report.Joseph Humire @jmhumire, @securefreesoc, and Senator Maria Fernanda Cabal @MariaFdaCabal, in re: Biden’s decision to end the previous agreements: will the caravans start again? Certainly. We eed to be very careful about rushing through border-policy changing. SIA: special interest aliens—migrants form Asia, Africa ,Middle East, countries having a high density of terrorists. Eleven Iranians hopped into the US across the Mexican border. The sources of disorder: narcotraffic is deeply destabilizing; Panama. Honduras, Guatemala, then Mexico, then the US. Enough money to corrupt the authorities. Govt is extremely corrupt—the covid crisis, which is leading people to socialism than ever before, They don't understand how economics works. Corruption inequilty—all these lead to a terrible end.
Chile – referendum to change the constitution; all the failed countries began by changing their constitution, letting tyrants rule forever.
Hour Three
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 3, Block A: Josh Rogin: @joshrogin; Chaos under Heaven;in re: Clubhouse—Chinese people being tested. An audio-only app for tech nerds, then discovered by others; spread worldwide, became a sort of less-caustic, more friendly version of social media. People in authoritarian countries still had access to it; as it spread like wildfire over China. Thousands of Chinese citizens were having discussions they’d never imagined all over the world with people. Govt now has shut it down. Who knows how the govt will punish citizens? Clubhouse is still exploding in Turkey.
Natan Scharansky, famous Russian dissident who spent nine years in a Russian gulag, says: If you want to know if you're in a free society, go to the town square and speak your mind about the govt; if you’re not beat up, you're in a free society.
This was the original purpose of the Voice of America. The Chinese firewall is so complete; but it wouldn’t make much for us to puncture it in ways as [innovative as] Clubhouse and provide an alternative. US has an asymmetric advantage if it chooses o use it: not tell Chinese people to believe all we say, but merely to see with their eyes what the world is doing.
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 3, Block B: Josh Rogin: @joshrogin; Chaos under Heaven;in re: The virus, the pandemic; mankind has become a troubled lot. The virus will never leave us, How’s the US doing as a world leader? How do we look from London, Rome, Ho Chi Minh City? . . .
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 3, Block B: Josh Rogin: @joshrogin; Chaos under Heaven;in re: Vaccine nationalism.
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 3, Block C: Russell Seitz, Fellow of the Department of Physics, Harvard; Senior Research Fellow, The Climate Institute; in re: Albedo is how bright a planet is; Earth is covered with white clouds and water, some of which is light and other almost black. Dark water absorbs heat, is the dominant factor on the planet. Antarctic and urban areas. Mitigation and adaptation. What Russell and colleagues are looking at are ways to mitigate. White water: the lake in Central Park; after two decades of effort by City Hall, much of the black asphalt has been painted white—but doesn’t [keep up] with the Jackie Onassis pond in the park. Urban microclimates because the shallow coastal water heats up during the day doesn’t cool at night; air conditioning runs twenty-four hours. In Los Angeles, balls covering water that eventually were covered with green slime. Some countries lose more from evaporation than they consume. Evaporation of water, which will increase, and the need to mitigate the heating of our cities.
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 3, Block D: Russell Seitz, Fellow of the Department of Physics, Harvard; Senior Research Fellow, The Climate Institute; in re: Bright water is a method of treating reflective water to a depth of ten meters by making it [light in color; white]. In 600 BC, Solon passed a law that people have to whitewash their houses once a year. That’s the origin of whitewashed houses. Last century, some people decided to fill the top of water with white plastic bits, bad idea. Now, the refractive index between air and water. A fog of tiny bubbles across the top of water. If we put bubbles in the Central Park pond: cut down evaporation and decrease he heat in New York. Make bubbles by using pressure: at one atmosphere dissolves a little air; at five atmospheres (like a water tap), goes up by two or three. Occasionally inject bubbles into the pond. What's the biggest body of water practicable? Microbubbles last maybe only a minute—variable, Pure water, may last ten seconds. If you take a small amt of organic matter, works better, We want to test this in large bodies of water. Marvellously inexpensive as well as beneficial.
Hour Four
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 4, Block A: Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America,by T. J. Stiles
Topography scout: George Armstrong Custer.
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 4, Block B: Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America,by T. J. Stiles
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 4, Block C: Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America,by T. J. Stiles
Tuesday 9 February 2021 / Hour 4, Block D: Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America,by T. J. Stiles