Photo, left: Curiosity Lands on Mars: Know What You're Watching When You're Watching '7 Minutes of Terror'  See Hour 1, Blocks C & D, Hotel Mars, episode n.  Dr. Ashwin R. Vasavada, MSL-Curiosity Project Scientist. Photo by courtesy of and with thanks to The Atlantic.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 1, Block A: Stephen Yates, chairman of the Idaho Republican Party, CEO of D.C. International Advisory, and former advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, in re: Pres Obama's flyover drop-in to Idaho today, and his brief mtg with the family of Pastor Sayeed, who’s being held prisoner in Iran, first in the terrifying Evin prison, now in a more distant one.  The foreign policy aspects of the SOTU.
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 1, Block B:  Sarah Cook, senior research analyst for East Asia at Freedom House, in re: Senate voted today 98 to 1 to affirm the existence of climate change. However, it's not climate but oppression by the militia that's important in China: social media users, many normally-innocent activities.  As the govt becomes more repressive, paradoxically Chinese people fear the govt less. As the Party comes down harder, more citizens join in human rights activity – that is, as more people feel the boot and the repression in their own lives, the more active they become.  Pres Obama avoids mentioning any of this, which constitutes infantilizing a great power.  This is important to the US, whether relating to our economy or geopolitics. Even this recent study on censorship, food safety, many areas of interconnection between China and the West. Increasing repression in China and its effects on society.  The success of Occupy Central in Hong Kong was the global attention to Beijing's bad behavior.  In the report: "Atmosphere of terror," according to one citizen.  Definitely much intimidation.
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 1, Block C:  Hotel Mars, episode n.  Dr. Ashwin R. Vasavada, MSL-Curiosity Project Scientist, in re:  The frontier of planetary science.  We landed in the three-mile high Gale Crater with a mountain in the middle of it; like the side of the Grand Canyon.   
1. Evidence for streams, deltas, and a giant lake in the crater, all within the first billi0n years of Mars's history. Water there is generally gravity-driven, but the crater is an enclosed basin. The closer we got to the mountain mid-crater, more and more evidence of water flowing toward the center of the mountain – uphill – so we think that the mud in the bottom of the lake rose and rose to become the mountain.   Mars evolved differently from Earth because it lost its magnetic field early on; it then became vulnerable to space radiation that stripped the atmosphere, including water.   A little girl named the rover "Curiosity," but the formal name is: Mars Laboratory Mission, where we scoop up rocks and save them; first time we drilled into rocks that we thought had been in the lake, we found fresh water – "so fresh you probably could drink it."
2.  Methane evidence and the possible causes; how it relates to past indications from orbiters of methane in the atmosphere.  Seven parts per billion, found by shining laser light on it. There's background methane at 1 ppB, then for several days it suddenly jumped to 7 ppB for two months, then receded.  . . . Can Curiosity discern between atmospheric and soil-based methane?  We think so . . .
3.  Organic materials in rocks so far, what this means, what this suggests for future exploration.
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 1, Block D: Hotel Mars, episode n.  Dr. Ashwin R. Vasavada, MSL-Curiosity Project Scientist, in re:  Marks seems t be the best candidate for [our sort of life] in this Solar System except for Earth.   . . .  We drilled for organics, found it in one drill-hole, Cumberland, then analyzed it repeatedly; tried also Confidence Hills, got no signal for organics.  Perchlorate is toxic on Earth, reacts with organics on Mars and is widespread there(?).  We hope to drill more holes, find fossil evidence of organics on Mars.  First billion years of Mars history were most likely to [nourish] life.  In Mars2020, we hope for a two-part thing – it’ll look back for cues from Curiosity of where to go for evidence of life or fossils; then it'll prepare samples to be returned to Earth.
Hour Two
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 2, Block A: Kelley Currie, senior Fellow with the Project 2049 Institute, in re: the one thing the US president is doing right:  going to India.  This will be the first time a US president
- will have gone to an India Republic Day as a guest of honor;
- gone to India twice;
- taken such an enormous trip to go to only one country.
Modi was here several months ago.  . . . The Modi-Abe romance was a big story; we'll see if there's a Modi-Obama romance.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/barack-obamas-india-trip-first-solo-country-travel-by-any-us-president/articleshow/45958362.cms
http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/india-s-republic-day-tamasha-awaits-obama-115012000694_1.html
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 2, Block B: Rick Fisher, senior Fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, in re:  China stealing pretty much everything it needs to develop its own F-35s; a discussion of large-scale military theft.  Our great-grandchildren will be flying a version of the F-35 – it’s critical that we sustain this plane and make it work: it’s an information warfare system. When China stole 50 terabytes of data on this, they stole the heart of the future of our air power. A very serious attack. In the cyberrealm, China is at war with the US.   US is replacing a lot of airframes with the F-35, so it’s a plane for the Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force. Once China has all that, the US doesn’t have air dominance any more.  China's cyberattack against Lockheed Martin requires huge reworking and doubles the cost to the US.  A new Chinese fifth-generation fighter needed only 19 months to "develop."  This gives China a gathering advantage: it’s taken us decades to dvp our two newest fighters – and Americans are now in danger.  Should we build more F-22s? We need an improved version and more funding of our sixth-generation fighter.  http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/19/world/china-us-f35-fighter-denial/
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 2, Block C: Steven L Herman, Southeast Asia Bureau Chief/Correspondent, Voice of America [Facebook: voa-herman; Twitter: @w7voa], in Bangkok, in re: Islamic State ransom demand for the two Japanese hostages.  The savages of Islamic State threaten swift, horrifying death of two Japanese hostages.  PM Abe was in Jerusalem when this broke; he says that he lies of these hostages is top priority; ISIS has demanded $200 million by Friday to release them.  So far Japan is not participating in war-fighting, but last week PM Abe in Cairo prepared a large aid package to aid those contending with ISIS. which caused ISIS to grab men for murder.   May have to drop Article of the Japanese constitution the pacifist clause.  The two journos took extreme risks, esp Yukawa (42 yrs old, checkered background); his journey was wholly ill-advised. Goto has more experience and knew the risks, may have been trying to find Yukawa. UN Special Rapporteur visited Burma to speak on the Rohyngia, a small group of Muslims who’ve been treated very badly – and a Buddhist monk said of the UN woman, "I hope you don't think you're important just because you represent a high-falutin' organization like the UN; you're just a whore to us." The police have let Burman gangs run roughshod over the Rohingia.   This particular monk was in the 969 movement, was once sentenced to 25 years in prison for his inflammatory sermons.  Was on the cover of Time in June 2013 as, "The face of Buddhist terror."
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 2, Block D: Aaron Back, WSJ Hong Kong, Heard on the Street, in re:  HK stock market is irrational, absent capital controls and other essential regs. The amount of margin debt in China tripled last year form June through December.   Can’t predict using he same kind of logic one uses for other market around the world.  Regulator  finally have just imposed _;  Stock prices of the same stocks are 30% higher in Shanghai than in HK for the same thing.   Govt wants to prevent a stock-market bubble while also stimulating growth.  . . .   Beijing sees that local govt s have too much debt – but it's the locals who are responsible for infrastructure.  Beijing can't clean it up overnight – a delicate balance. 
Hour Three
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 3, Block A:   Monica Crowley, Fox, & Washington Times Online opinion editor;  in re: From Jeb Bush to Jim Webb: How Potential 2016 Candidates Responded to the State of the Union Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton and others who are thinking about running for president in 2016 weighed in on President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech. Read more » (1 of 2)
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 3, Block B:  Monica Crowley, Fox, & Washington Times Online opinion editor; (2 of 2)
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 3, Block C:  Dr. David H Grinspoon, Astrobiology chair, Library of Congress; astrobiology curator, Denver Museum of Nature & Science, in re: A HOT Topics public discussion at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. [HOT (Human Origins Today) Topic: Can a Technological Civilization Be Beneficial to Planet Earth?]
Presenters:  Dr. David Grinspoon (Senior Scientist, Planetary Science Institute) & Dr. Connie Bertka (Co-Chair, Human Origins Program's Broader Social Impacts Committee)  
    The more we study the history and nature of Earth’s biosphere, the more we see that life has become an integral aspect of Earth, not something that has happened on an otherwise lifeless planet. The arrival of the “Anthropocene Epoch,” where humans have become a major geological force, suggests the possibility that intelligence, too, may become a long-term planetary property on Earth and, perhaps, elsewhere. What would it take for us to become the kind of civilization that could work with, rather than against, the planet and the biosphere?
Free and open to the public!
Hall of Human Origins (First floor); One Species, Living Worldwide Theater ;National Museum of Natural History (10th St. and Constitution Ave. NW) http://humanorigins.si.edu/about/events/hot-human-origins-today-topic-can-technological-civilization-be-beneficial-planet-earth?hootPostID=a139dda736fed458efeff08f8923dd42
https://www.facebook.com/nmnh.fanpage
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 3, Block D: Gene Marks, in re: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2015/01/20/comme...
Hour Four
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 4, Block A:  Jillian Kay Melchior, National Review Online, in re: FRACKING The Fracas over Earthquakes: activists misinterpret a recent study.
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 4, Block B:  Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: Comet 67P/C-G’s plumes   The science team running Rosetta has released an image (cropped by me on the right) from the probe’s high-resolution camera showing the fine structure of Comet 67P/C-G’s plumes.  I call them plumes rather than jets, which is the word the scientists use as does everyone else, because it appears to me that they really aren’t jets: tightly confined flows of material coming from a nozzle-like opening. Instead, the image makes me think of very fast-rising plumes of smoke rising from an extinguished fire.
     This image was taken in November, and is one of only a tiny handful of images released from the high-resolution camera. Rosetta’s science team has been very possessive of images from this camera, holding them back for their own research papers to follow in the future. Even here, the image is not very detailed. I wonder what cool stuff this camera has snapped close in that they haven't yet shown us.
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 4, Block C: James Taranto, Wall Street Journal, in re: 7 Down, 1 to Go  An ungracious address even by this president’s standards.
Wednesday  21 January 2015/ Hour 4, Block D:   Philip Terzian, Weekly Standard, in re: Making light of Princeton, Cool Whip, microaggression theory, and the distinctive accent of Middle Tennessee.  http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/microaggression-princeton_823389.html#.VLa3PprEPKM.gmail