The John Batchelor Show

Friday 12 January 2017

Air Date: 
January 12, 2018

Photo: Left: Santa Barbara County mudslides.
John Batchelor Show 
Hour One
Liz Peek. Bud Weinstein. Jeff Bliss. Francis Rose.
Hour Two
Michael Vlahos, Johns Hopkins. Sam Katz.
Hour Three
Joe Pappalardo.
Hour Four
Hugh Wilford.
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JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 1, Block A:   Liz Peek
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 1, Block B:   Bud Weinstein, Southern Methodist University, in re: O&G. LNG. The US has emerged as a major world supplier, shipping to all continents – and even the Middle East.
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 1, Block C:  Jeff Bliss, Pacific Watch; in re: the fires and then the reveerse-tsunamis of the Brobdingnagian mudslides.  
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 1, Block D:   Francis Rose
 
Hour Two
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re: War warnings? It's ’way too quiet, around Europe, the US, and even the Middle East. Alternatively, it may be that after the Sturm und Drang and sackcloth following the 2016 election, things are going so well that negativity is temporarily [sort of rescinded].  Nothing like a confident, resurgent power to make  the argument that all is going well.  Happened in the period of Pericles, and in Germany during Bismarck.  The Arabian Peninsula has fragmented into Saudis and their crew – UAE – and Qatar, which they call a haven for terrorists— a remarkable statement for Los Angeles on the Gulf.  Qatar hosts the largest US overseas base.   . . .  The world appreciates the US for its [historical] ability to evince the best of human [deeds].
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 2, Block B:  Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re: War warnings? It's ’way too quiet, around Europe, the US, and even the Middle East. What worries me is that China is expanding widely, incl in Africa and the Gulf.   . . . Halford Mackinder . . . I saw no Russian presence in the Gulf. 
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 2, Block C:  Samuel M. Katz: Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism's Money Masters, by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner & Samuel M. Katz; in re:  in pursuit of funds for terrorism. Operation Green Lantern: an intell-driven mil and special-ops program researching bank and other records for some of the most heinous suicide bombings. Fave bank of Hamas and Islamic Jihad: The Arab Bank [in Gaza?].  Israelis finally raided the bank for records: global transactions from $100 to hundreds of thousands, for military ops staged against civilians.  Solving this was the masterpiece of Meir Dagan, Mossad. His family had been wiped out in the Holocaust.  He was a soldier who despised war; was deeply shaken by the deaths in the 1982 war.  . . . If you suffocate the money flows, . . .   Eventually, obtain triple damages, can have court rulings to repay the damaged people – or take over buildings on Fifth Avenue.  Suddenly, instead of its costing only $30,000 for every million transferred, could be a half-million.  Thus the suicide bombings slowly came to a end.  
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 2, Block D:   Samuel M. Katz: Harpoon: Inside the Covert War Against Terrorism's Money Masters, by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner & Samuel M. Katz; in re:   . . .  Global gangsters hauling in money from heroin, cocaine, every kind of illegal commerce. Canadian-Lebanese Bank.  Wall Street figured out that the money transfers they were facilitating were from and to big-time murderers. “There’s nothing you can do to make the enemy love you; that’s an infantile notion.” However, if you can remove his ability to wage war, you can co-exist. 
 
Hour Three
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 3, Block A: Joe Pappalardo, author, Spaceport Earth, and Popular Mechanics; in re:  Macgregor, Texas, and Van Horn, Texas.  Macgregor: Sightings of Tesla spacecraft testing? Yup.
Van Horn: Blue Origins and Jeff Bezos visit from time to time; townspeople also are very happy.  After a small crash on Bezos’s property, the local fire dept rushed in, had no idea what was being tested and were mightily puzzled.  . .  .
Last shuttle launch, 2011, at Cape Canaveral.  Money being spent by NASA at a drunken rate. Thought they had to mitigate every scintilla of risk and so overoverspend. Apollo was incomprehensibly expensive. A Hollywood production. The shuttle launch was bittersweet – T-shirts saying, The End. In the midst of this, Elon Musk said, Come on out and see how we do this!
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 3, Block B:  Joe Pappalardo, author, Spaceport Earth, and Popular Mechanics; in re:   In 1945, an island in the Atlantic Ocean: Wallops Island, Virginia; two adventuresome guys decide to test rockets over the water.   In 2002, Musk wanted to buy Russian rockets, was prevented from doing so.  Mohave Desert: experimental spacecraft and other craft.   . . .
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 3, Block C:  Joe Pappalardo, author, Spaceport Earth, and Popular Mechanics; in re:  Boca Chica, Texas. “It doesn't look like much . . .”    Months and moths go by with no sign of a space port.  The road goes down to the shore; off to the side is the hamlet of Boca Chica, with no septic system.  At that point Falcon 9 didn't exist yet; three engines were on their sides at Cape Kennedy
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 3, Block D:  
 
Hour Four
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 4, Block A:  Hugh Wilford,  "America's Great Game: The CIA's Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East" (1 of 4) Archie and Kim, two Roosevelt boys (Oyster Bay branch).   Motoring expedition from Sinai through all territory to Beirut.  Brutal behavior in all the capitals.   Archie was in Army intell; in ’44 was  [aligned with] OSS.  At that time, the US still had a good reputation . . .
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 4, Block B:  Hugh Wilford,  "America's Great Game: The CIA's Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East" (2 of 4)
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 4, Block C: Hugh Wilford,  "America's Great Game: The CIA's Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East" (3 of 4)
Friday  12 January 2018 / Hour 4, Block D:  Hugh Wilford,  "America's Great Game: The CIA's Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East" (4 of 4)
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