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JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW 
 
Hour One
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 1, Block A: Dan Henninger, WSJ, in re;  http://www.wsj.com/articles/are-democrats-soft-on-terror-1466029974?tesla=y
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 1, Block B:  Henry I Miller, Hoover, in re:  Whole Foods: report of unsanitary prepared foods.  The predictable sanctimony from top management and the ossified Board?   http://www.wsj.com/articles/whole-foods-must-clean-up-its-act-fda-says-1465936379
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 1, Block C:  Eric Trager, Washington Institute and author; in re:  Just returned from Egypt and the UAE; PolicyWatch text on Russia's $25 billion loan to Egypt for constructing a civilian nuclear power facility at Dabaa.  This costly project is intended to bolster the regime domestically and signal its independence of Washington abroad.   http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/egypts-costly-nuclear-project
Eric Trager, Ph.D.; Esther K. Wagner Fellow,The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and author, Arab Fall: How the Muslim Brotherhood Won and Lost Egypt in 891 Days
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 1, Block D: Eileen Norcross, Mercatus Center, in re: The latest State Fiscal Rankings from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, released today, give the most complete snapshot available of the fiscal picture in all 50 states and Puerto Rico.
Eileen Norcross in today's Fiscal Times:    A Puerto Rico may soon be under the financial oversight of a congressionally appointed control board, thanks to 10 years of growing debt, outmigration and a declining economy. This board would be tasked with ending a fiscal free-fall that has been driven by a combination of federal tax policy, economic regulations, local financial mismanagement and a bloated public sector.
Were it not for Puerto Rico’s opaque accounting practices, we may have seen this coming in time to avoid such dire circumstances and such a drastic solution. The territory ’s crisis is uniquely rooted in 75 years of misguided U.S. policy interventions, but it still holds lessons for all of the states in the union.  Like the 50 states, Puerto Rico issues a Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) each year to disclose its short- and long-run finances. Ideally these reports provide policymakers and the public with a clear picture of a government’s current position, underlying risks and future trends. In reality, even many policymakers lack the expertise to use these complicated documents.
The information is right in front of us, but if we don’t pay attention, we risk missing the warning signs of the next state or territorial fiscal crisis. In the newest edition of the Mercatus Center’s state fiscal rankings, Olivia Gonzalez and I take the most recent CAFR (from FY 2014) from each state and Puerto Rico, sort the comparable data and rank their fiscal health. Not surprisingly, Puerto Rico ranks dead last. It has little cash to keep the lights on in the short-term. Its revenues only cover 88 percent of its yearly expenses. And the island’s total debt exceeds its GDP by 13 percent.
Right above Puerto Rico in the rankings are Connecticut (50), Massachusetts (49), New Jersey (48), Illinois (47) and Kentucky (46). Their fiscal numbers are not quite as alarming as Puerto Rico’s, though they also have little ready cash on hand. Each has a troublesome long-running habit of issuing debt to cover ongoing spending, along with a history of underfunding pensions. Several northeastern states are also dependent on the financial sector for revenue, exposing them to industry swings. To be sure, these states have comparatively manageable debt and are on better footing than Puerto Rico. But they have something big in common: The faulty accounting that plagues Puerto Rico’s financial statements also obscures the full costs and risks of U.S. pension systems.
Economists continue to stress that U.S. pensions are understating their debts by almost $2 trillion. Fiscal health depends not only on economic resiliency, but on how a government measures and manages its fiscal resources. With poor accounting, it’s possible for any state to gradually slip from sound to unstable.
When viewed in context (like rankings), CAFRs can tell us a lot. Digging deeper tells us even more. Two of the top five states — Alaska (1) and North Dakota (4) — are flush with cash, revenues and assets. But they are highly dependent on oil revenues to cover spending. Shortly after their FY 2014 financial reports were published, oil prices started their plunge from $100 per barrel to the current level near $50. That translates into a significant drop in revenues, which they rely on to cover their spending.  Alaska ranks first, but only due to a reserve fund that is projected to dwindle in the coming years, meaning something has to give. State spending accounted for 28 percent of residents’ personal income in fiscal 2014, which is double the U.S. average of 13 percent. Now, Alaska has a multi-billion-dollar deficit to close, and lawmakers are considering reducing the resource rebate given to residents, re-instituting the income tax and rolling back oil and gas tax credits.
The rest of the top five, Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota are on better footing, though like all states, they have room to improve.
So how does a state know when it hits the fiscal point of no return? As Alaska proves, it is possible to be flush with cash in one year and scrambling to close a budget deficit the next. Even if CAFRs only tell us so much, financial reporting is not just a paper exercise. We must use them as tools to solve problems before they leap off the balance sheet and into residents’ lives, rather than as a post-mortem.
Eileen Norcross is the director of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University’s State and Local Policy Project and author of the newest edition of  Ranking the States by Fiscal Condition.
 
Hour Two
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 2, Block A: Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re:  . . . with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Washington repeated swore to keep NATO at [a respectful distance, to wit,] never to press right up to a Russian border.  NATO has baldly, blatantly been doing exactly what it committed not to do—which not surprisingly has scared Russians across all the time zones, let alone the gaggle of hawks in the Kremlin who are pushing Putin, noticeably to his displeasure, to take a more pugilistic stance against NATO.  . . . Note the Balkans, Greece, and   Russia: the West seems to have a profound and fairly unconscious antipathy against Orthodox societies.   In the seven years before WWII, Hitler was able to overturn the balance of power, esp in citing the Versailles Treaty, which Germany loathed; I can see a path whereby Russia might follow the same path. Perhaps in a compact with China.  We’re probably seriously damaging our future by forcing Russia into the arms of China.   (1 of 2)
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 2, Block B: Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re: . . .  The United States is not only patronizing Russia but forcing it into an existential situation.  Washington doesn’t even seem t have any clue about this Washington and its administrative minions seem never to have read Russian history. This is totally unnecessary and not at all a good idea.  No Brest-Litovsk in Ukraine!  Syria: the last thing we ever want to do is make Russia an enemy again – look at he map from the Arctic to the Caspian. (2 of 2)
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 2, Block C:   Fernanda Santos, NYT, in re:  Wildfires, Once Confined to a Season, Burn Earlier and Longer.   Increasingly, fire crews are making calculated decisions to let blazes consume the land, concentrating their efforts on safeguarding communities and watersheds. Increasingly, fire crews are making calculated decisions to let blazes consume the land, concentrating their efforts on safeguarding communities and watersheds.
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 2, Block D: Ken Croswell, New Scientist, in re: the Tadpole Galaxy!  https://www.newscientist.com/article/2089016-tadpole-galaxy-spawns-stars-after-eating-invisible-gas-cloud/ .
 
Hour Three
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 3, Block A:  Ask the Astronaut: A Galaxy of Astonishing Answers to Your Questions on Spaceflight, by Tom Jones.   Ever wondered what space is really like? Thanks to his 25 years of training for, flying in, consulting on, and writing and speaking about space, astronaut and spacewalker Tom Jones can answer that question and many others. What do you feel on liftoff? What is weightlessness? Where do you sleep in space? Can you see the Great Wall of China? Jones answers every question you’ve ever had about space in Ask the Astronaut. His blend of wit, personal experience, and technical expertise shines in each answer, and together all the answers illuminate the true space experience from start to finish. His engaging and informative responses remind readers of historic space achievements, acquaint them with exciting new ambitions, make them feel like they have experienced space firsthand, and even inspire an urge to explore space themselves. Jones covers everything from the training process for new astronaut candidates and the physical sensations and challenges of rocketing into orbit to what it's like to live, work, and walk in space. Jones also explores the future of spaceflight, both professional and commercial, in the years to come. Ask the Astronaut is a delight for all readers, especially armchair astronauts, and younger, 21st-century space explorers. (1 of 2)
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 3, Block B:   Ask the Astronaut: A Galaxy of Astonishing Answers to Your Questions on Spaceflight, by Tom Jones.   Ever wondered what space is really like? Thanks to his 25 years of training for, flying in, consulting on, and writing and speaking about space, astronaut and spacewalker Tom Jones can answer that question and many others. What do you feel on liftoff? What is weightlessness? Where do you sleep in space? Can you see the Great Wall of China? Jones answers every question you’ve ever had about space in Ask the Astronaut. His blend of wit, personal experience, and technical expertise shines in each answer, and together all the answers illuminate the true space experience from start to finish. His engaging and informative responses remind readers of historic space achievements, acquaint them with exciting new ambitions, make them feel like they have experienced space firsthand, and even inspire an urge to explore space themselves. Jones covers everything from the training process for new astronaut candidates and the physical sensations and challenges of rocketing into orbit to what it's like to live, work, and walk in space. Jones also explores the future of spaceflight, both professional and commercial, in the years to come. Ask the Astronaut is a delight for all readers, especially armchair astronauts, and younger, 21st-century space explorers. (2 of 2)
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 3, Block C: Gregory Copley, StrategicStudies director; GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs; & author, UnCivilization, in re:  Strategic Policy in an Age of Chaos and Opportunity, A Five-Part Presentation.
1. Grand Strategy; 2. The Next Era of Security; 3. The Terrorism Phase; 4. Strategic Will, and 5. Current Security Challenges 
The Capstone presentation by  Gregory R. Copley, to the Eighth National Security Programme of  The Canadian Forces College,  Toronto: June 13, 2016 
The world, and Canada, will be in a dramatically different situation within the next few years, so what we will discuss this morning is likely to be very different from what you have discussed over the past months of this course. You will, in your careers, face an exceptionally complex and fluid situation. I will attempt to simplify this today, but in many respects it is beyond simplification if it is to be addressed meaningfully. So this will be a complex briefing, which I hope will become clear by the end. 
The 20th Century gave us two world wars, a string of major revolutions and lesser wars, the advent of powered manned flight and space travel, nuclear weapons, and the creation of a hundred or more new sovereign states. But the 20th Century will seem like a stable and predictable age, a natural progression of human society, when compared with the 21st Century. The linear extrapolation of the path of technological and scientific progress we have known has already been disrupted.  The decline in US global authority since the end of the Cold . . .  (1 of 2)
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 3, Block D:   Gregory Copley, StrategicStudies director; GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs; & author, UnCivilization, in re:  Strategic Policy in an Age of Chaos and Opportunity, A Five-Part Presentation.
1. Grand Strategy; 2. The Next Era of Security; 3. The Terrorism Phase; 4. Strategic Will, and 5. Current Security Challenges   /  The Capstone presentation by  Gregory R. Copley, to the Eighth National Security Programme of  The Canadian Forces College,  Toronto: June 13, 2016 
The world, and Canada, will be in a dramatically different situation within the next few years, so what we will discuss . . . (2 of 2)
 
Hour Four
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 4, Block A:  The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb, by Neal Bascomb (1 of 4)
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 4, Block B:  The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb, by Neal Bascomb (2 of 4)
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 4, Block C: The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb, by Neal Bascomb (3 of 4)
Friday  17 June 2016 / Hour 4, Block D:   The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb, by Neal Bascomb (4 of 4)
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