Photo, left:  Globalization - see Hour 2, Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, on how modernity has been built around a Western vision of a unified world, a global order.  The "international community" is a familiar fairy tale.  The US lack of capacity to orchestrate an effective response now leads us toward de-globalization. For an obscure example of globalization:
Orang Asli (lit. "original people", "natural people" or "aboriginal people" in Malay) are the indigenous people of Peninsular Malaysia. Officially, there are 18 Orang Asli tribes, categorised under three main groups according to their different languages and customs.   The Semang and Senoi groups, being Austroasiatic-speaking, are the autochthonous peoples of the Malay Peninsula. The Proto-Malays, who speak Austronesian languages, migrated to the area between 2500 and 1500 BC.  . . . Orang Asli kept to themselves until the first traders from India arrived in the first millennium AD. Living in the interior, they bartered inland products like resins, incense woods and feathers for salt, cloth and iron tools. The rise of the Malay sultanates, coinciding with trade in Orang Asli slaves, forced the group to retreat further inland to avoid contact with outsiders. The arrival of British colonists brought further inroads in the lives of Orang Asli. They were targetted by Christian missionaries and became subjects of anthropological research.
Slave raids into Orang Asli settlements were also quite common in the 18th and 19th centuries. These slave-raiders were mainly local Malays and Bataks, who considered the Orang Asli as 'kafirs', 'non-humans', 'savages' and 'jungle-beasts. The modus operandi was basically to swoop down on a settlement and kill off all the adult men. Women and children were captured alive, as they are 'easier to tame.' The captive Orang Asli slaves were sold off or given to local rulers and chieftains to gain their favour. Slaves trade soon developed and even continued into the present century despite the official abolition of all forms of slavery in 1884. . . . [and so on.]  A form of reverse process is visible as governance in the Mahrgeb and Middle East dissolves and chaos takes over great swathes.  What grows in a petri dish of anarchy and chaos are new warlords. The Sykes-Picot frontiers barely obtain today; massive waves of immigrants are shifting European demographics and governmental structures, suggesting that the Peace of Westphalia is also ending.  One step after another, the Western vision of nation-states since the Renaissance dissolves into an unknown future.
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Hour One
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 1, Block A: Christopher Harmer, senior naval analyst, Institute for the Study of War, in re:  British, French and German air forces aligned to fight ISIS, and deconflict with Russian military. US military has been tactically (PR-wise, so to speak) spectacular and strategically irrelevant.  It was reported that the US just now is getting around to hitting a few of the massive numbers of ISIS oil tanker trucks.  Turks:  have been facilitating al Q and ISIS fighters in order to sabotage Kurds.  No American leadership.  Air warfare is perfect for fighting an industrialized enemy, e.g,, Germany or Japan. However, vs a dismounted infantry that's based on terrorizing and integrating with a local population. US has no useful reporting on the ground so sends out planes of which 75% return without having dropped any.  Washington has decided not to take any risk of civilian casualties.   ISIS understands that the more it integrates with civilians, the less likely the US will do anything.  ISIS ths gets to set the terms of the battle: ISIS is integrated with and physically co-located in the civilian population. 
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 1, Block B: Christopher Harmer, senior naval analyst, Institute for the Study of War, in re: YPG: Kurds in Syria.  New force heading into Raqqa? The vast majority of locals do not want to live under a caliphate; want a secular state.  Peshmerga are capable fighters: a neighborhood watch group that 's armed; not trained or equipped to do major offense.  Taking Sunni fight into ISIS is not a Peshmerga task.  RAF with Typhoons launching off Cyprus. . . . What's the efficacy of applying more airpower to a failed strategy?  There are plenty of ISIS adherents not inside the ISIS caliphate territory.  Russians are making war on enemies of the Assad regime.  Russians are successfully using rotary-wing aircraft and  - above all - they have a clear and coherent strategy. They understand what their strategy is and their tactics are in support of that.  As Vietminh said: Grab them by their belts.
F.B.I. Treating San Bernardino Attack as Terrorism Case — The woman who, with her husband, killed 14 people in San Bernardino  ;  ISIS's Syria HQ: Is there anything to bomb in Raqqa? - CNN.com What is life like for those stuck inside Raqqa, the ISIS stronghold in northern Syria? What is life like in the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa, Syria? - BBC News  ;  Secret video shows life inside Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa - BBC News
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 1, Block C: Harry Siegel, New York Daily News, in re: Harry Siegel, New York Daily News, in re:  Why is Mrs Clinton not more forthright about the threat to New York?  What's holding her back is Libya . . . she's got a 50-point lead ; her Iraq vote is why she's not now president; it was pushing hard for the US to get in the air war in Libya – a dreadful failed state that's on her record.   . . .  http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/harry-siegel-crippled-america-article-1.2453359 / Let’s talk Trump, as Trump would: He’s a liar. A racist. A guy born on third base who thinks he hit a triple, a TV pitchman who gets paid to play a mogul — one with open contempt for the schmucks dumb enough to buy his shtick, and even more contempt for the schmucks who don’t buy it.
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 1, Block D: Liz Peek, The Fiscal Times, in re: . . . Germany has made such a mess of its energy policy that last year it would n up burning lignite. one of the dirtiest power sources in existence. 
Is President Obama representing the United States at the Paris climate conference, or is he chasing his personal legacy? Though The New York Times has called Obama an “improbable environmental champion,” noting his late-to-the-party green allegiance, it seems that he has caught the bug. Given that his other legacy achievements like Obamacare and the Iran nuclear deal are proving unpopular, and given his widely criticized lack of leadership in confronting terrorism, it may be that trying to rein in carbon emissions is the only game left for the foundering Commander-in-Chief.
    This one, too, lacks broad backing from voters.  Americans have shown themselves delightfully dogged in their skepticism about climate change and the need for government action to prevent it. Though they are inundated daily with claims that storms, diseases, droughts – and even terrorism – are the inevitable result of a warming Earth; when even the Pope admonishes the faithful to care better for the planet, and the president sternly lectures that climate change is the most pressing issue of our time – level-headed Americans resist.
     Environmentalists would have you believe otherwise. For instance, a recent New York Times/CBS News poll generates this Times headline: “Two-Thirds of Americans Would Back a Binding Global Treaty.”  That seems pretty conclusive, until you review the rest of the survey. When asked how concerned they are about global warming or climate change, 45 per cent of respondents said they worry a “great deal – 15 per cent” or a “fair amount – 30 per cent” – while 56 per cent said they worry “only a little” or “not at all.” Boom – there goes Obama’s consensus that the Earth’s warming is our most urgent problem. http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2015/12/02/Three-Reasons-Americans-Won-t-Back-Obama-s-Paris-Climate-Accord
 
Hour Two
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re:  Yemen, Syria, Libya have collapsed.  What were the Great Powers doing when they gathered in Paris to talk about  - climate?  See New York Times, July 5, 1938, in Evian in Hotel Royale on Lac Leman: conference convoked by FDR on refugees.  July 1938 was the eve of catastrophe; Hitler and Stalin were eyeing huge chunks of Europe for land-grabs and power arrogation.  Cf:  today 150 world leaders gather to talk about climate.  [Heaven help us.] The Evian conference did not result in Jews's being accepted into France or Germany; only in Shanghai (where Japan and China were in a brutal war).  A terrible threat to the world system, itself.  The SU has entirely acceded to the destruction of the intl Law of the Sea by merely watching China's construction of fake islands in the South China Sea.    Middle East disintegrating, US stands back to let Putin take the lead. US has ignored a Muslim revival for fifteen years.  . . . Eritrean, Mahgrebi refugees.  They're not the problem - they're the symptom! Comparison between Evian and today's Paris conference: excellent. All this is symbolic and speaks to a US withdrawal from the world You can be isolationist and still do airstrikes and targetted assassinations.  Crisis could emerge in the near future. Modernity has been built around a Western vision of a unified world, a global order.  The "international community" is a regular fairy tale.  US lack of capacity to orchestrate an effective response leads us to a de-globalization.  Since 1800, a long upward progression of a vision of a united world; right now, that's in doubt.    http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/congress-moves-to-sabotage-the-paris-climate-summit ;  http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/09/opinion/in-1938-the-world-knew.html
Until Nov. 9, 1938, the wishful could argue that Adolf Hitler's ravings were worse than his bite. Then came Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass. Instantly the world grasped the horror, recognized that the Nazi orgy of hate was plunging into savagery a country known for its learning and literacy. Yet the sequel was more deplorable. Western democracies, having witnessed the prelude to genocide, did nothing to help the victims. That, as much as the broken glass, needs recalling today.
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 2, Block B: Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re: http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/congress-moves-to-sabotage-the-paris-climate-summit   On Tuesday, at a news conference in Paris, President Barack Obama exhorted negotiators to keep in mind what is at stake at the summit. “This one trend—climate change—affects all trends,” Obama said. “This is an economic and . . . "
Even as he spoke, Congressional Republicans were doing their best to undermine him. That same day, the House approved two resolutions aimed at blocking regulations to curb U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions. The first would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from enforcing rules aimed at cutting emissions from new power plants; the second would prevent the agency from enforcing rules targetted at existing power plants. Together, these rules are known as the Clean Power Plan, and they are crucial to the Americans’ negotiating position in Paris. (The Clean Power Plan is central to the United States’ pledge, made in advance of the summit, to cut its emissions by twenty-six per cent.) The House votes, which followed Senate approval of similar resolutions back in November, were, at least according to some members, explicitly aimed at subverting the talks. Lawmakers want to “send a message to the climate conference in Paris that in America, there’s serious disagreement with the policies of this president,” Ed Whitfield, a Kentucky Republican, explained.  . . . 
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 2, Block C:  Gene Marks, Washington Post, in re:  (1 of  2)  The five best technologies of 2015 for your business  http://www.inc.com/gene-marks/the-five-best-technologies-of-2015-for-your-business.html
Obama's Small Business Scorecard:  A C   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/2015/11/16/gene-marks-president-obamas-small-business-scorecard/
Watch for U.S. recession, zero interest rates in China next year, Citi says   http://reut.rs/1OFDO71
CEO optimism hits three-year low http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2015/dec/02/ceos-optimism-hits-3-year-low-20151202/
Uber CEO disrupts an old-guard business gathering in Boston    http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/techflash/2015/12/uber-ceo-disrupts-an-old-guard-business-gathering.html
How to Survive a Worker's Comp Claim   http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/252822
More employees getting fired after shopping online at work     http://fortune.com/2015/12/01/online-shopping-work-fired/
How millennials are upending the transportation industry   http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/postlive/how-millennials-are-upending-the-transportation-industry/2015/12/02/ca1ff434-9917-11e5-aca6-1ae3be6f06d2_video.html
First commercial flight lands in Antarctica http://www.outsideonline.com/2039531/passenger-plane-lands-antarctica
The Year in Beer: U.S. Brewery Count Reaches All-Time High of 4,144 http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151202006001/en/Year-Beer-U.S.-Brewery-Count-Reaches-All-Time#.Vl8nb5rJJGI.twitter
Bluetooth Internet of Things Functionality Is Coming in 2016 http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/SmallBusinessTrends/%7E3/D5p4MgP27iA/bluetooth-internet-of-things-functionality-in-2016.html
Man Discovers Amazing New Way to Clean Up Dead Leaves http://www.littlethings.com/leaves-backyard-hack-clean-rake/
Mattress Startup Casper Is Bringing Its One-Model-Fits-All Approach to Pillows and Sheets http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/252975
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 2, Block D: Gene Marks, Washington Post, in re: (2 of 2)
 
Hour Three
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 3, Block A: Ray Kelly, past Police Commissioner of New York City, in re: (1 of 2) Vigilance: My Life Serving America and Protecting Its Empire City http://www.wsj.com/articles/he-served-and-protected-1441684800
Mr. Kelly had been on-scene at the precursor to 9/11—the 1993 truck bombing of a World Trade Center parking garage, when, he writes, “the modern age of Islamic jihadist terrorism came to New York.” Much of Vigilance is devoted to Mr. Kelly’s transformation of the NYPD into a relentless antiterror force. Recruiting top talent from the CIA and the military, he created an intelligence division and a counterterrorism bureau. He posted detectives in foreign capitals to work with local authorities and began to monitor social media for leads. He beefed up New York’s participation with the standoffish feds in joint operations.
Justly proud of his department’s record, he devotes nearly 50 pages of the book to a meticulous reconstruction of 16 terrorist plots against the city that were thwarted on his watch. And he details how NYPD security concerns pressured developers and politicians to radically redesign the glass-sheathed skyscraper built to replace the fallen World Trade Center.
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 3, Block B: Ray Kelly, past Police Commissioner of New York City, in re: (2 of 2) Vigilance: My Life Serving America and Protecting Its Empire City http://www.wsj.com/articles/he-served-and-protected-1441684800
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 3, Block C: Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution, Chicago Law, in re:  (1 of 2) It is a sign of the times that there is an active movement at Princeton, led by the students of the Black Justice League, to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from the School of Public and International Affairs and from the Wilson House at Princeton. The main charge against Wilson was that he was a racist for overseeing, as President of the United States, the systematic removal of black employees from the federal civil service long after it had been desegregated. He was also a sympathizer of the Klu Klux Klan. His resegregation policy provoked a huge backlash from the NAACP, which had previously endorsed his 1912 presidential campaign given his promises to be “President of the whole nation” and to supply black citizens an “absolute fair dealing" . . .   http://www.hoover.org/research/does-woodrow-wilson-belong-princeton
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 3, Block D: Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution, Chicago Law, in re: (2 of 2)  It is a sign of the times that there is an active movement at Princeton, led by the students of the Black Justice League, to remove Woodrow Wilson’s name from the School of Public and International Affairs and from the Wilson House at Princeton. The main charge against Wilson was that he was a racist for overseeing, as President of the United States, the systematic removal of black employees from the federal civil service long after it had been desegregated. He was also a sympathizer of the Klu Klux Klan. His resegregation policy provoked a huge backlash from the NAACP, which had previously endorsed his 1912 presidential campaign given his promises to be “President of the whole nation” and to supply black citizens an “absolute fair dealing" . . .    http://www.hoover.org/research/does-woodrow-wilson-belong-princeton
 
Hour Four
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 4, Block A:  Mike Giglio, Buzzfeed, in re:  http://www.buzzfeed.com/mikegiglio/airstrikes-alone-wont-stop-isis-inside-the-war-on-the-ground#.qxl4jLyj8
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 4, Block B: Mike Giglio, Buzzfeed, in re: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mikegiglio/syrians-who-fled-isiss-capital-say-theyre-against-the-groups#.ksm0OKNOz ; http://www.buzzfeed.com/mikegiglio/the-ground-war-against-isis-outside-raqqa-gets-a-fresh-sense#.jmR3oAZoe
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 4, Block C: Sid Perkins, Science Now, in re: Three of Earth's largest extinctions may have been caused by loss of essential element ; Tyrannosaurs were probably cannibals
Friday 4 December 2015 / Hour 4, Block D: Sid Perkins, Science Now, in re: How to take a dinosaur’s temperature ; 1 Oct 2015 Climate: Volcano-asteroid combo may have done in the dinosaurs
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