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Map, left: The Arabian maritime trade route (750-1500 AD). See Hour Three, Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs, on Egypt’s Return to Strategic and Economic Centrality.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 1, Block A: Liz Peek, Fiscal Times & Fox; in re: A Hillary Clinton Presidency Means Four More Years of Obama Policies  Four more years! That’s what Hillary Clinton promised voters during the Democratic debate – another term of President Obama’s policies, only “more so.” Since only 27 percent of the country thinks we’...
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 1, Block B:  Tyler Rogoway, FoxtrotAlpha, in re: F-16 Takes Battle Damage from Small Arms Fire over Afghanistan A U.S. Air Force F-16 [state-of-the-art avionics, navigation, electronic warfare suite; powerful radar] was struck by ground fire, causing damage to one of its horizontal stabilizers during a mission over Afghanistan last Tuesday, according to reports released today. fire [Hit in its horizontal stabilizer; had to punch off all external armaments, dropped to below.]  The stricken jet returned to base to make an emergency landing after dropping its external fuel tanks and its air-to-ground munitions as a precaution.
The incident happened while the F-16 was operating over eastern Paktia province, an area that is largely controlled by the Taliban, who claimed to have shot down the jet. No details have been released as to how low the F-16 was flying when it was struck or by what caliber of weapon,
Photos taken of what they say is the F-16’s wreckage, show a pair of crushed drop tanks, two 500lb class Mk 82 warheads and what looks like part of an AGM-65 Maverick missile. No actual aircraft wreckage is shown.  [video] This recent incident is just another reminder of the risk still posed to American forces taking part in the longest war we have ever fought. It also comes after President Obama has announced a freeze on the withdraw of American forces from Afghanistan, as large parts of the country seem to be descending back into the hands of the Taliban. ISIS militants are said to be present the majority of Afghanistan, an issue that has larger geopolitical implications than the Taliban’s resurgence. ;  U.S. Pilot Killed in F/A-18 Hornet Crash near RAF Lakenheath in England (Updated)
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 1, Block C: Daniel Henninger, WSJ, in re: Trump and 9/11
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 1, Block D: Peter Berkowitz, Hoover, in re: A Misguided Resolution to the Culture Wars Thirty years after the phrase came into vogue, the culture wars are alive and well—and more heated and complex than ever. A comprehensive peace is not in the cards. But in 2016 a decided advantage will go to the presidential candidates who understand the enduring grounds on which reasonable members of the rival camps can agree to disagree.
Republican primary voters’ enthusiasm for a billionaire businessman and reality show celebrity reflects the culture wars’ persistence. Despite the contrast between the paltry policy specifics that he has offered and his crude boasts that by force of will he can upend Washington’s dysfunctional ways and put the country back on track, Donald Trump continues to lead the Republican pack. Much of his support stems from revulsion among the grassroots to cultural elites in both major political parties. Then there are the issues. Abortion, same-sex marriage, race relations, immigration, guns, and God divide much of the GOP base from the Democratic Party base. The fault lines, though, do not end there. These cultural issues, with the exception of guns, also disunite social conservatives and libertarians within the GOP.
Typically, conservatives are perceived to be on the defensive in . . .
 
Hour Two
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re: Kerry Announces New International Meeting on Syria  Mr. Kerry is visiting Jordan and Saudi Arabia this weekend for further consultations. ... must be decided by the Syrian people,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in ...  ;  Kerry: US to Join Multinational Talks on Syria  ;  Kerry, Lavrov Explore New Ideas to Change 'Dynamic' on Syria
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 2, Block B:  Michael Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re: US admiral: Policymakers to decide South China Sea patrols  PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — The U.S. Navy's top commander in the Pacific says it's up to policymakers in Washington whether his sailors patrol ...
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 2, Block C:  Gene Marks, Washington Post, in re: Policy 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2015/10/22/gene-marks-why-hillary-clinton-could-be-your-small-business-president/ ; It's crunch time at small businesses due to a looming ObamaCare requirement.
 Employment   Employees are increasingly calling in sick even when they feel great
Food service workers go to work when sick
Consumers    Harley-Davidson to Ramp Up Marketing as Sales Skid  ; Home builder confidence hits 10-year high 
Tech   Twitter hires New York Times editor-at-large for its Moments channel ; 44 Percent of Shoppers Go to Amazon First; Are You There? ; A 23-year-old Google employee lives in a truck in the company's parking lot and saves 90% of his income
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 2, Block D: Nicholas Casey, NYT, in re: 1920s–1948: Racially Restrictive Covenants, including in a Long Island hamlet: Are you German?
 
Hour Three
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 3, Block A: Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs, in re:  The Global Nexus at the Suez, Red Sea, and Horn of Africa; Why the Region Is Becoming Increasingly Central to the Emerging Global Strategic Framework
Historical trends are combining once again to make the Mediterranean-Red Sea-Indian Ocean linkage the nexus in a dynamic phase of the evolving global strategic architecture. The relationships of states within the region, and the relationships of the regional states to the rest of the world is changing, and will evolve significantly over the coming few years.
This Mediterranean-Red Sea-Indian Ocean region is an indissolubly-linked set of subzones, a reality which has often been inadequately understood from a strategic perspective.
The great societies and the historical and modern states at the linkage between Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, are rarely considered in an holistic fashion. Focus on the region has been mainly about crises and superpower competition. The prospect now exists, however, for the region to gradually emerge as a major, integrated economic trading zone; perhaps the next major global marketplace, linking Africa, the Middle East, and the Mediterranean.
So if I can make one point today it is that all of the elements of this greater strategic theater are interconnected, interactive, and collectively are critical to the emerging global balance. What happens around the Eastern Mediterranean littoral and around the Indian Ocean theater impacts the Persian Gulf, Arabia, and the Red Sea/Horn; and vice-versa. If we look just at the littoral states of the Suez-Red Sea-Horn, we see a population base of some 316-million people, and a combined 2014 GDP estimate of at least $1.5-trillion.1 And this grouping interacts, of course, with its neighbors in Africa, Europe, and the Indian Ocean Basin.  . . .
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 3, Block B: Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs; in re: Egypt’s Return to Strategic and Economic Centrality  Egypt is in the process of rebuilding its capabilities and its prestige. On October 18 and 19, 2015, it held the first round of its legislative elections, a process to be concluded on November 22-23, 2015, leading to the re-establishment of a new Parliament which will be co-equal with the Presidency — a Presidency with fixed terms of office — as a branch of government.
The Cold War was over when, in 1995, my book, the Defense & Foreign Affairs Handbook on Egypt, was published, noting in its introduction:
Egypt has always given the world insights into the lessons of history, should we care to learn from them, and the tools to move forward to secure a more positive future. It is not surprising as the world moves from the stable, superpower-dominated Cold War era to a more fluid, multipolar strategic environment, that Egypt should be the key to much of what will happen in terms of global security in the coming decades. The country is geopolitically placed at the nexus of trade routes, as well as the hub of several cultures and religions.1
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 3, Block C:  Jeffrey Mervis, Neon, in re: "Ecology's tough climb" (in Science Magazine)
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 3, Block D:   Patrick Tucker, Defense One, in re  http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/10/meet-man-reinventing-cia-big-data-era/122453/?oref=d-river An exclusive interview with CIA's new director of digital innovation about his agency’s biggest change in decades. The CIA will stand up its new Directorate for Digital Innovation on Thursday. It’s the first directorate the agency has added since 1963 and the biggest change to America’s key spy service since before the moon landing. The new office will look beyond the spycraft of today to the very big question of how to turn the vast amounts of data that the agency collects into useful insight for analysts, agents, the agency, and the nation. The goal is to turn chatter and daily digital exhaust into a window into the future. Defense One visited CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., for an exclusive interview with CIA Deputy Director Andrew Hallman, picked by CIA director John Brennan to lead the new office. To encounter Hallman is to meet a man who is, in appearance and mannerism, the living embodiment of a more stately era of spying. He’s poised, articulate, thin, looks at home in a suit with suspenders and his favorite show is “Mad Men.” (He seems both more adult and more a Boy Scout than Don Draper.) Though he has the bearing of a Cold War operative, Hallman is also deeply in touch with the promise, potential, and hype surrounding big data and the interconnected era.
“The days of attending a cocktail party and writing up your notes are over,” Hallman told us. “A digital world challenges the way we work in a clandestine world. We have to come up with new ways to  . . .
http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2015/09/years-pentagon-hooked-everything-internet-now-its-big-big-problem/122402/?oref=d-river  . . . “We are trying to overcome decades of a thought process…where we assumed that the development of our weapon systems that external interfaces, if you will, with the outside world were not something to be overly concerned with,” Adm. Michael Rogers, the commander of Cyber Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee today. “They represented opportunity for us to remotely monitor activity, to generate data as to how aircraft, for example, or ships’ hulls were doing in different sea states around the world. [These are] all positives if you’re trying to develop the next generation of cruiser [or] destroyer for the Navy.”
But in a world where such public interfaces are points of vulnerability, Rogers said, adversaries develop strategies based on stealing Pentagon data, and then fashion copycat weapons like China’s J-31 fighter, which many call a cheaper cousin to the F-35. “That’s where we find ourselves now. So one of the things I try to remind people is: it took us decades to get here. We are not going to fix this set of problems in a few years,” Rogers told the senators. “We have to prioritize it, figure out where is the greatest vulnerability.”
http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2015/09/next-wave-cyberattacks-wont-steal-data-theyll-change-it/120701/?oref=d-river
 
Hour Four
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 4, Block A:  Roger Stone, author, The Clintons's War on Women
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 4, Block B:  Henry I Miller, MD, Hoover, in re: "Kids Need Fruits and Veggies, Not False Alarms about Food Risks," coauthored with Jeff Stier.  
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 4, Block C: Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution, Chicago Law, in re:  The Federal Reserve is once again uncertain about whether [or not] to raise the interest rate above the near-zero level where its lingered since December 2008. As recently as September 24, 2015, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen warned the financial markets that the low rates would not be kept forever, and that firms should adjust by gradually increasing wages. But less than one month later, her plan seems to have been derailed by the disappointing performance in wages, job creation, and consumer spending. Regardless of what the Fed decides, there is almost nothing that monetary policy can do to stimulate the labor markets. The current stagnation in labor markets is being driven by progressive policies that give government too much control . . .    [more]  (1 of 2)
Friday  23 October 2015 / Hour 4, Block D: Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution, Chicago Law, in re:  The Federal Reserve is once again uncertain about whether [or not] to raise the interest rate above the near-zero level where its lingered since December 2008. As recently as September 24, 2015, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen warned the financial markets that the low rates would not be kept forever, and that firms should adjust by gradually increasing wages. But less than one month later, her plan seems to have been derailed by the disappointing performance in wages, job creation, and consumer spending. Regardless of what the Fed decides, there is almost nothing that monetary policy can do to stimulate the labor markets. The current stagnation in labor markets is being driven by progressive policies that give government too much control . . .    [more]  (2 of 2)
 
 
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