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JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 1, Block A:  Jim McTague, Barron’s Washington, in re: “The breadth of payroll job growth in August was widespread across services industries but poor in goods-producing industries. Mining jobs fell by 9,000 in August, the twenty-third straight monthly decline totalling 225,000 jobs lost, or one-quarter of industry employment. Manufacturing jobs fell by 14,000 in August and construction jobs fell by 6,000. Private service-producing industries added 150,000 jobs over the month.” –Gus Faucher, PNC Financial Services Group
Moderating Jobs Growth Fuels Fed-Hike Debate U.S. hiring cooled in August but remained consistent with steady job growth capable of holding down unemployment, leaving Fed policy makers to interpret mixed signals before their meeting this month. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 151,000, and the jobless rate was steady at 4.9%. 
Economists React to the August Jobs Report: ‘Hiring Fell Back to Earth’  ;  How economists and analysts reacted to slower hiring and steady unemployment in August   ;  http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/09/02/economists-react-to-the-august...
Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 1, Block B:  Simon Constable, Forbescom, et al.; in re: Forbes: Apple Tax Brawl -- Just Another Nail in the E.U. Coffin http://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconstable/2016/09/01/apple-tax-brawl-just-another-nail-in-the-e-u-coffin/#415e3f054090
Forbes: ObamaCare Now on Life Support and You Are Going to Pay http://www.forbes.com/sites/simonconstable/2016/08/18/obamacare-now-on-life-support-and-you-are-going-to-pay/#b63b0795c94c
U.S. News: 5 Reasons Why You're Bad at Investing https://www.thestreet.com/story/13672757/1/small-investors-are-worried-which-means-you-shouldn-t-be.html U.S. News: Why Resource-Rich Economies Are Really Cursed
http://money.usnews.com/investing/articles/2016-08-30/why-resource-rich-economies-are-really-cursed?src=usn_tw
Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 1, Block C:  Amity Shlaes, author, economist, & president of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation; Chuck Dixon, https://dixonverse.wordpress.com/ *; Paul Rivoche, Advertising Storyboards • Animatics • Illustration • Comics • Graphic Novels; all  in re: Clinton Cash: A Graphic Novel, by Chuck Dixon and Brett R. Smith.   The #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel inspired by Peter Schweizer's bestselling exposé, which the New York Times called "the most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle."
"Every American needs to buy it, read it, and become fully literate in the Clinton scams... It’s like the most explosive candidate opposition file that every American can access." — Breitbart News
Based on the New York Times bestseller Clinton Cash by Peter Schweizer, this graphic novel retells in high-definition detail the tale of the Clintons' jaw-dropping auctioning of American power to foreign companies and Clinton Foundation donors.
Inside, readers will learn why Hillary Clinton approved the transfer of 20% of all U.S. uranium to Putin's Russia; why Bill Clinton's speaking fees soared during Hillary's tenure as Secretary of State; how the Clintons bilked Keystone Pipeline investors; how Hillary's brother scored a rare "gold exploitation permit" from the Haitian government; and so much more.
Stunningly illustrated, hilariously retold, and inspired by the blockbuster book that reshaped the contours of the presidential election, Clinton Cash: A Graphic Novel brings to life Hillary and Bill's brazen plot to fleece the planet for maximum profit.
"Thank goodness, then, for Peter Schweizer and his blockbuster exposé Clinton Cash." —New York Post
https://www.amazon.com/Clinton-Cash-Graphic-Chuck-Dixon/dp/1621575454/ref=la_B001HOL26O_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472860336&sr=1-1
* Also: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_5_9?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bad+times+chuck+dixon&sprefix=bad+times%2Caps%2C209
Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 1, Block D:  Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura, New York Times, in re: A 600-Year-Old Money Pit in the Scottish Highlands—ISLE OF MULL, Scotland — Anyone who has despaired over home improvement should spare a thought for Sir Lachlan Hector Charles Maclean of Duart and Morvern.
The Scottish lord has been repairing his home since he inherited it from his father in 1990, with no end in sight.
His is no ordinary house. Rather, it is a crumbling 14th-century castle — with a dungeon — that has collapsed ceilings and rainwater seeping through its 16-foot-thick walls pretty much all of the time — even during summer, which can be exceedingly wet and blustery in Scotland.
The cost of repairs? So far, 1.5 million pounds, or $1.94 million, and counting.
Located on the Isle of Mull, off the western coast of Scotland, his home, Duart Castle, is the ancestral seat of the Macleans, one of the oldest clans in the Scottish Highlands. The 74-year-old chatelain’s ancestors have been involved in centuries of battles pitting Catholics against Protestants and the Scottish against the English in rivalries that still resonate.
“What does one do with a property like this?” Sir Lachlan, the 28th chief of the clan, asked rhetorically one recent afternoon as he sipped tea in his living room, probably one of the snugger parts of the castle where he and his wife, Rosie, have retreated, though it was still mildly damp with a whiff of stale curry.
Strong rains lashed against the windows, and the constant buzz of drilling forced him to speak up. The Macleans’ private living room was cluttered with modern bric-a-brac while, just below, tourists tramped about in the stately banquet hall looking at clan paraphernalia and trying to locate a public toilet. There are, in fact, two toilets, but they are both unusable — one put in nearly a century ago, and another 600 years ago. . . .   Duart, which means black point in Gaelic, a nod to the black volcanic rock where the castle stands, is one of the last surviving clan castles still privately owned.
Maintaining it is a moral responsibility, Sir Lachlan said. “It is a sort of focal point for the clan,” he added, as he carefully descended a narrow staircase that was designed in 1360 to be just wide enough to allow one man wielding a sword. (A sign nonetheless read: “We apologize for any congestion on the stairs.”)
The castle receives about 25,000 visitors a year, some of them part of the Maclean diaspora living in the United States, Canada and Australia. The name Maclean can be spelled in at least 15 ways.
People are increasingly searching for their heritage and their identity, Sir Lachlan said, leading some to visit Duart Castle. In a globalized world, “people are becoming less sure about themselves,” he said. “And they want to find home.”
He recalled meeting one visitor, a Maclean from Australia, who had promised his family back home that he would visit Duart Castle. As the visitor was leaving, he turned to Sir Lachlan and said, “Thank you for looking out for us.” A young woman in Florida, another Maclean, sends monthly donations from her supermarket wages.  . . . http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/31/world/europe/isle-of-mull-scotland-maclean-duart-castle.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
 
Hour Two
Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re: Any nation that achieves primacy finds it narcotic; Spain, suffering from that addiction, lost the Thirty Years’ War then went on to have a stunningly successful next century.  Pray that the US can move into a comparable new phase. http://warontherocks.com/2016/08/no-more-of-the-same-the-problem-with-primacy/ (1 of 2)
Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 2, Block B: Michael Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re: Any nation nation that achieves primacy finds it narcotic; Spain, suffering from that addiction, lost the Thirty Years’ War then went on to have a stunningly successful next century.  Pray that the US can move into a comparable new phase.  http://warontherocks.com/2016/08/no-more-of-the-same-the-problem-with-primacy/ (2 of 2)
Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 2, Block C:   Mary Anastasia O’Grady, WSJ, in re:  Venezuela: its parlous economic condition, the roiled election landscape there, and the very recent disappearance of a remarkable young pacifist leader.  (1 of 2)
Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 2, Block D:  Mary Anastasia O’Grady, WSJ, in re:  Venezuela: its parlous economic condition, the roiled election landscape there, and the very recent disappearance of a remarkable young pacifist leader. Also Mexico and Colombia (FARC).  (3 of 2)
 
Hour Three
Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 3, Block A:  Sebastian von Gorka, The Gorka Briefing, & author of Defeating Jihad, & Institute of World Politics, in re: Asymmetrical and fixed warfare units. Russia: major weapons systems and vast competence. Also, a new way of fighting, v. Crimea and Donbass.  Not quite Sun-tzu’s winning without fighting, it’s winning without fighting so much. Unspecified local forces, penetration of security svcs and confusing allies; and a very sophisticated war of deception: you lead the enemy down a decision tree that plays to his own in-built prejudices and where he’ll make the wrong decisions – all before you destroy his capital.  Natl Defense Academy of Latvia. Destroy the enemy’s will: a series of eight phased operations; nonmilitary asymmetric warfare.  RT, the Moscow Kremlin’s TV, has a motto, “Ask more questions.” Crimea ops were prepared at least five years in advance.  Cold War proxy wars (more nuanced; non-kinetic dirty work; sowing discontent: “Resistance is useless”). Special forces in balaclavas with no rank insignia.  Naval “exercises” let you broaden the perimeter.  Then forced escalation – massing of troops along Ukraine, then mop-up operations.   A comprehensive set of phases.  http://thegorkabriefing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/militaryreview_20161031_sg.pdf (1 of 2)

Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 3, Block B: Sebastian von Gorka, The Gorka Briefing, & author of Defeating Jihad, & Institute of World Politics, in re: Asymmetrical and fixed warfare units. Chinese PLA officer on making trouble for the troublemakers [that’s you, dear reader].    . . .  Don’t be overdramatic or overambitious: one atoll here, one sliver of land there, but when you commit, throw everything at it – propaganda, media, espionage, subversion, everything. Multi-dimensional . . . synchrony.  The only two powers truly able to do these today are Russia and China.  . . .  We have created a political overlay on national security analysis; Beltway.  Divide countries into three baskets: those one can intimidate, and those to co-opt, and those that just are big (like the US), and for these just cause trouble.  The US doesn’t have an equivalent way of dealing around the world.  http://thegorkabriefing.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/militaryreview_20161031_sg.pdf   (2 of 2)
Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 3, Block C:  Sean Wilentz, Princeton, in re:  Republicans and Democrats: where we’re at now. (1 of 2)
Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 3, Block D:  Sean Wilentz, Princeton, in re:  Republicans and Democrats: where we’re at now. (2 of 2)
 
Hour Four
Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 4, Block A:  Patrick Tucker, DefenseOne, in re:  More to worry about: AI controlling major defense systems, with less human oversight capability. US no longer is in the lead in writing code; if US doesn’t increase its ability to compute this stuff, we’ll soon be at a disadvantage.  . .  .  Deception to confound rules-based logic (e.g., “I don’t want you to solve this, I just want you to listen”): need this in face of rising autonomous weapons.  Humans do parallel processing, computers don’t.  Human decision-making is still the best tool in most of he military decisions we're discussing,  Example Russia has deployed machines with guns that automatically fire on anyone approaching some missile installations. DoD has ethical obligations that our adversaries do not.   Can lead to faster decision-making power than the US can. Pressure on the US to have robots make more and more decisions. 
See:  The phrase OODA loop refers to the decision cycle of observe, orient, decide, and act, developed by military strategist and United States Air Force Colonel John Boyd. Boyd applied the concept to the combat operations process, often at the strategic level in military operations. It is now also often applied to understand commercial operations and learning processes. The approach favors agility over raw power in dealing with human opponents in any endeavor.
To Counter Russia’s Cyber Prowess, US Army Launches Rapid-Tech Office  8:00 AM ET On Wednesday, Army Secretary Eric Fanning announced a new Rapid Capabilities Office to accelerate the development of cyber, electronic warfare, and position-and-timing gear. Read that to mean: outfitting troops to stand up to the IT and EW prowess of adversaries like Russia, according to one expert who spoke to Defense...
Russia-Backed DNC Hackers Strike Washington Think Tanks   August 30, 2016 Last week, one of the Russia-backed hacker groups that attacked Democratic computer networks also attacked several Russia-focused think tanks in Washington, D.C., Defense One has learned. The perpetrator is the group called COZY BEAR, or APT29, one of the two groups cybersecurity company CrowdStrike blamed for the DNC hack, according...
DOD Science Board Recommends “Immediate Action” to Counter Enemy AI   August 25, 2016 The Defense Science Board’s much-anticipated “Autonomy” study sees promise and peril in the years ahead. The good news: autonomy, artificial intelligence, and machine learning could revolutionize the way the military spies on enemies, defends its troops, or speeds its supplies to the front lines. The bad news: AI in commercial... (1 of 2)
Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 4, Block B:  Patrick Tucker, DefenseOne, in re: Cyberpenetration of fewer than ten (unknown) US think tanks, which received what looked like spearphishing msgs;  secret Apt29 software opened up: Falcon. Exfiltrated data.  A live person in a bunker somewhere is looking at your data.  Looks like the Russian state. [There are also indications that it was not Russia. —ed.] (2 of 2)
Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 4, Block C:  Richard A Epstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover; in re: Last week, the National Labor Relations Board held that the graduate students of Columbia University who work as teaching assistants, including any research assistants “engaged in research funded by external grants,” are statutory employees protected under the National Labor Relations Act, and thus entitled to join an elected union of their own choosing. The Board’s decision was notable because a long list of research universities, led by Yale University, had filed a brief, warning against the undesirable consequences that could follow from this ruling . . . http://www.hoover.org/research/graduate-students-protected-employees (1 of 2)
Friday  2 August 2016 / Hour 4, Block D:   Richard A Epstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover; in re: Last week, the National Labor Relations Board held that the graduate students of Columbia University who work as teaching assistants, including any research assistants “engaged in research funded by external grants,” are statutory employees protected under the National Labor Relations Act, and thus entitled to join an elected union of their own choosing. The Board’s decision was notable because a long list of research universities, led by Yale University, had filed a brief, warning against the undesirable consequences that could follow from this ruling . . . http://www.hoover.org/research/graduate-students-protected-employees (2 of 2)