The John Batchelor Show

Wednesday 17 September 2020

Air Date: 
September 17, 2020

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Colleagues: Gordon Chang, Daily Beast, and David Livingston, The Space Show
 
Hour One
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 1, Block A:  Brett Arends, @BrettArends @Marketwatch,
Marketwatch, in re:  Today’s markets.  At 33 PE, the market grows to Heaven while watching Trump and Biden—or not?
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 1, Block B: Brandon Weichert, publisher of The Weichert Report and author of, Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower,  & Gordon Chang, in re:  Chinese are sloppy in rocket launches: many countries complain, “Hey, your rocket hit my satellite [or nearly did]!”  Splinternet.  Space dominance.  China intends to win by 2049.  They’re so focussed, they may leapfrog us.   Chines look at Mahan, apply the principles to space.  The CCP views space as an ocean, the Moon as the South China Sea:  dominate chokepoints.    https://www.space.com/china-rocket-launch-from-sea-platform-jilin-1-gaofen-3.html
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 1, Block C: Cleo Paskal, a nonresident senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, & Gordon Chang, in re: The latest in Ladakh. “Tibet is the palm, and the five fingers [Nepal, Bhutan, and three others] of the palm need to be liberated.” —Mao Tse-tung.  China is going after claiming the entire Himalaya, militarily.  Would give China control over all the water from there, thus strangling India.  Nehru thought that if everyone was nice to China, it'd become more [genteel and compliant].  Clearly, this has failed.  Enormous anger in India for China’s having killed 21 Indian men, and failing to notify the world of the Wuhan flu.  Also, the CCP has been limiting access to Buddhist sites in China, garnering great displeasure from Indian populace.   In the Himalaya, as troops of the two sides face each other, a tense situation.  Refuelling exercise with Indian & US militaries.  The virus has destroyed the Indian economy.  Negotiations to  have some US planes mfrd in India, some of which could then be sold to other countries. 
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 1, Block D: James Holmes, first holder of the Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and blogger at The Naval Diplomat (https://navaldiplomat.com/), in re: . . .  We need new shipyard capacity.  Falling behind schedule.  We’re at sea all the time, creating delays and more repairs to be done.   Even Nimitz-class have to do very long deployments.  Marine Commandant’s comments about inability to build more ships: might a war last long enough to build new ships?  “A short, sharp war.” Probably not.  Is the 355 Navy utopian?  “We’re definitely in a danger zone.” 
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/war-china-shipyards-are-americas-achilles-heel-168921
 
Hour Two
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 2, Block A:  Salena Zito, @SalenaZito @DCExaminer @RealClearPolitics, in re: Johnstown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, a pre-eminent steel manufacturing town and Democratic for generations.  Lawn signs now: “Pro-life, pro-Trump.” Many voters have changed their registration.  Also Erie, Luzern, Washington, Westmoreland Counties are following suit.  If all these counties show up for rump, no matter what happens in Philadelphia, these will [win] Pennsylvania for Trump. 
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 2, Block B:  
Mr Biden says he now supports fracking; Senator Harris has pledged to shut it down on her first day.
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 2, Block C: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re: Capitalism is space risk reward and failure
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 2, Block D: Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack.com, in re:  Hayabusa-2 looks for another asteroid mission
 
Hour Three
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 3, Block A:   John Catsimatidis, @JCats2013, @CatsRoundtable, Red Apple Media & Cats Roundtable Radio, in re: Letter to DeBasio signed by 167 New York City CEOs, all expressing concern about the economic and social conditions in the city.  People do not feel physically safe in own.  Also, quite nutty regulations in schools.  If we don’t open up the city, it won't survive.  Many companies will not bring employees back this early.  The city has no leader—not the mayor, not the governor—to say, “Trust the police,” or equally helpful announcements.  The New York Democratic Party hates Trump so much it’d rather sacrifice the city than let Trump get any credit for anything.  The mayor says he’ll furlough himself for a week to help close the budget gap.   But he took $1 billion from the NYPD—and then spent $400 million in four months on overtime!  New York region is 9% of the national GDP.
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 3, Block B:  Weifong Zhang, Mercatus, in re: Committee on Foreign Investments in the US (CFIUS)  decides on whether or not Oracle may buy TikTok. ByteDance collets user data, against Google’s rules; and TikTok shares data with ByteDance, its owner.  The problem is that the data are shared with the Chinese Communist Party, leading to the hacking department and the military.  Oracle is good at protecting data.   WeChat, much bigger than TikTok; rampant social control by CCP regime.  Much of business in China is done on WeChat. 
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 3, Block C:  Elin Suleymanov, ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan to Washington, and Christopher Nixon Cox, in re: Amb Suleymanov attended the signing of the Abraham Accords.  “A great event.”  President Aliyev has sent his annual congratulatory letter to Jews in Azerbaijan in honor of Rosh Hashana.  Azerbaijan has shown that it’s possible to be a proud Muslim nation, to support Palestinians, and to be a good friend to Israel and Jews. Armenia continues to attack Azerbaijan—and is settling large numbers of refugees from Syria in the occupied territory. Can President Trump solve the Armenia-Azerbaijan feud?
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 3, Block D:  Jonatan Vseviov, ambassador of the Republic of Estonia to Washington;  and Christopher Nixon Cox, in re: The crisis in Byelarus.  Govt charges opposition figure with damaging national security.  Byelarus is an immediate neighbor of EU and NATO, as well as of Russia.  The elections in August clearly were not free and fair; Lukashenka is no longer a legitimate head of state.  The world community needs to make that violence is absolutely unacceptable.  Lukashenko and Putin met two days ago; Byelarus is critical to Russia, but also to the West—and above all, to the Byelarussian people, whose consistent demonstrations have made their decision obvious.  There comes a moment when an authoritarian leader We’re confident that the the saber-rattling messages are for domestic consumption; we feel safe: because of NATO. Estonia as a full e-government: all the normal govt services, DMV, taxes, every kind of form, all available to all citizens. 
 
Hour Four
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 4, Block A:  Richard Epstein: @RichardAEpstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover; in re: :in defense of Dr. Scott Atlas
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 4, Block B:  Richard Epstein: @RichardAEpstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover; in re:  Managing the virus
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 4, Block C:  Erik Honashek, Hoover, in re: The future GDP loss from the school shutdowns
Wednesday 29 April 2020 / Hour 4, Block D:  Hotel Mars, episode n;  in re: Rust on the Moon, from where, and how?