Photo, left: A cascade of gas centrifuges at a U.S. enrichment plant.  Iran, a predator state at war with its neighbors, is confirmed to have roughly 10,000 centrifuges with which to produce highly-enriched uranium, whose purpose in Iran obviously is not civilian nuclear power but is to provide the weapons-grade explosive material of a nuclear bomb. The gas centrifuge process uses a large number of rotating cylinders in series and parallel formations. Each cylinder's rotation creates a strong centrifugal force so that the heavier gas molecules containing 238U move toward the outside of the cylinder and the lighter gas molecules rich in 235U collect closer to the center. It requires much less energy to achieve the same separation than did the older gaseous diffusion process, which it has largely replaced and so is the current method of choice and is termed second-generation. It has a separation factor per stage of 1.3 relative to gaseous diffusion of 1.005, which translates to about one-fiftieth of the energy requirements. Gas centrifuge techniques produce about 54% of the world's enriched uranium.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Co-hosts: Mary Kissel, WSJ, and Malcolm Hoenlein Conference of Presidents.
 
Hour One
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 1, Block A: Mary Kissel, WSJ, in re:  This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate ... the Oscars are coming up later this month and one movie in particular ... is creating a lot of consternation with in the Academy ... arts in Review Editor Eric Kingston joins me Eric so American Sniper were all talking about it ... I in this is this issue when for a lot of awards ... well it's been nominated for gone for six or something like that but it's it's very gets ... the most interesting Oscar race because ... it's created a Copel split of a kind I've never seen a new meaning the cyclicals well on the one hand it's been blowing out the box office in it hasn't been on general release even a market that already the highest gross gross and no film of all I think they got numbers on that will put that up on the screen but ... um at the same time you've got what you might call the store when will we people like ... Howard Dean and Bill Maher and and Michael Moore denouncing it does ... warmongering so did the analytical split here you gotta put it this way and and um ... Hollywood is famously known as being ... leaning one out of the The Fair Hollywood Hollywood is given other ... and ... you know conservative I can use that term ... war films awards haven't ... they have and they haven't that's that's what makes this so fasting because on the one hand ... you have a movie light on the hurt locker the was nominated for nine Oscars one six ... but then zero dark thirty was nominated for sixty one we Wall e I didn't understand I was so ... that that's kind of ... that that there's a split there and then the other interesting thing answers there is a wild card here in the form of ... Clint Eastwood that his film he directed that he ... co produced it ... so ... it's beyond all these nominations for his last movie Gran Torino which has occurred riffic film and widely claimed ... did you get a single and why is that because Connie's has a Republican is that is up a winding in Trondheim well I think I think Grant Reno was seen as politically incorrect somehow he this this this kind of ... this Korean War veteran who seemed ... to be racist at the beginning but ... in fact is the redeems him self but I think Hollywood most of ... the two top so it so when he comes to American Sniper ... it is a toxic because it shows ... the sniper ... field confronting more all ... the land mines in the movie is a is it because the anti seen shooting women in church on any what is it about this movie will settle SEC will well I think I think what upsets the people who ... have been upset by is that it's good this man is ... when women and children what ... what ... appeals to people about it is the moral clarity because the enemy is showing doing things the enemy is doing ... that we are reading about ... ice is doing in the media day and day out and ... get it dramatize is the conflict as an office no film has previously it's the film as ... moral clarity a great producer ... it's it's killing at the box office and in were still adding in discussion and then we
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 1, Block B:  Edward Hayes, Esq. criminal defense attorney par excellence, in re:   At the end of the movie Goodfellas, Mary Kissel on a plane sees Eddie Hayes as the lawyer. / Broken windows and DeBlasio's/Mark-Viverito's tale of 2 cities: does tolerating disorder in public spaces create a safer city? The broken windows theory of policing:  If you can control pubic order, you can reduce crime.
 In the words of New York City's City Council speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito:  Turnstile jumping,” she said, pointing to a signature Bratton priority, “to me is something minor, and I don’t think a young person’s life should be derailed because of it. This particularly impacts young men of color and their communities. It’s a systematic issue when it seems to be impacting one part of the community more than others.”

The policing New York needs  It sounds simple: cops need to go where the crime is, but without needlessly putting some kinds of people in jail or shooting innocent ones in stairwells.  Wednesday morning, 27-year-old officer Peter Liang left his house in Bensonhurst and drove to downtown Brooklyn to first turn himself in, and then plead not guilty to manslaughter, official misconduct and other charges for killing a 28-year-old man who’d committed no crime.

In November, Liang and partner Shaun Landau had been in East New York’s Pink Houses on a vertical patrol — going to the roof of a housing project and then walking down the stairs and out the lobby — intended to ensure a building’s common spaces are safe for residents.

When they entered the stairwell, the light on the eighth-floor landing was out and Liang drew his gun. Akai Gurley and girlfriend Melissa Butler, in the hall one flight below, got tired of waiting for a slow elevator. They opened the stairwell door to walk down.

Liang’s gun went off, and a bullet ricocheted off a wall and struck Gurley in the chest. With no idea who’d shot, the couple sprinted down the stairs. The officers ran into the hall, where — horrifically — they talked for minutes about whether or not to call in the shooting. When they finally went down the stairs, they offered no care to the man they’d shot as he lay dying.


If that account of Liang’s actions, as conveyed by Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson, holds up, the actions of the young cop — with just 18 months on the job — are morally indefensible.

They are certainly exceptional. But with record-low crime and Mayor de Blasio having declared victory in his clash with police union leaders last year, the lingering question remains: How much policing — and what sort of it — does the city need?

The tension is that cops need to be where major crimes happen, so they rightly cluster in the neighborhoods where violence is highest, and hope lowest. That’s why they’re in the buildings where roofs leak, stairwells are dark and elevators fail, the ones the federal government gave up on long ago.

It’s a point that cops and their critics actually agree on, that policing can’t be separated from broader social conditions. That cops aren’t why New York City has one of America’s most segregated school systems and, by some measures, the most segregated housing of any big city. They’re not why the ladder of opportunity here has had half of the rungs sawed off.

To the contrary, many of the remaining rungs are there because of the incredible drop in crime over the last quarter century.

But with crime down, the damage that sometimes results from those interactions between cops and citizens has driven a much larger share of the conversation about policing.

“While the focal point has been . . . " [more]
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 1, Block C: Janet Albrechtsen,  The Australian, opinion columnist,  in re: The Abbott brouhaha is a wonderful moment to debate Australian governance, and the unhappiness with the Liberals, following the unhappiness with Labour.  We also show impatience with our parties.  What is to be done with the fragile Mr. Abbott, and why he disappoints.  Also, love the word "spill":  a dreadful mess in politics.  In the last seven years we've had five prime ministers, Sounds like Italy. We ad Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, then Kevin Rudd again. Voters all dissatisfied with politicians.  Parties so driven by opinion polls; when the polls go down, the party starts to look for a new leader.   . . .   By 2037 our national debt will be one trillion dollars. It's been on Tony Abbott's shoulders to fix the problems of the Rudd/Gillard budgets – although it’s not easy.  . . .
Tony Abbott survives to what end?   Tony Abbott reveals details of alleged Sydney Islamic State video The Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, told Parliament on Thursday that security agencies showed . . .  Tony Abbott fails another leadership test  How Tony Abbott came within 11 votes of oblivion
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 1, Block D: Rick Outzen, Pensacola Independent Daily News, in re:  The Florida Panhandle is Bush country, but Marco Rubio is very attractive- young, energetic, politically savvy, and not from the dominant [ethnic group].   Jeb Bush is very swiftly locking up a lot of the big money.  The Jeb Bush machine is already in New York; he's talking to big names, and not all Republicans. Marco Rubio, however is glamourous.  Rubio doesn’t have as much depth as Bush does. "Jeb looks flat, older, whereas Rubio give s wonderful speeches off the cuff.  Rubio, Cruz, Walker, Rand Paul.   The GOP always does, "Whose turn is it next?"
Jeb Bush talks immigration, education, releases emails as he eyes 2016 bid  In a visit to Florida's state capital on Tuesday, Republican Jeb Bush focused on …  What Professor Marco Rubio gets right about running for president  In a piece about Marco Rubio's side gig as a professor at Florida International University, ...
Hour Two
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 2, Block A: Mike Doran, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute (Washington, D.C.); in re:   Obama's Secret Iran Strategy  In the administration of President George W. Bush, Doran served in the White House as a senior director in the National Security Council, where he was responsible for helping to devise and coordinate United States strategies on a variety of Middle East issues, including Arab-Israeli relations and U.S. efforts to contain Iran and Syria. He also served in the Bush administration as a senior advisor in the State Department and a deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Pentagon.  Recent articles:    http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2015/02/obamas-secret-iran-strategy/ (long but important)
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 2, Block B: Amb Dennis Ross, counselor and William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Prior to returning to the Institute in 2011, he served two years as special assistant to President Obama and National Security Council senior director for the Central Region, and a year as special advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; in re: US/Israel relations; efforts to revive peace talks; Jordan vs. ISIS
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/02/12/Iraq-says-Jordan-offers-all-military-means-in-is-fight-.html        http://www.newsweek.com/jordan-goes-all-against-isis-how-long-306093       http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2015/01/28/why-netanyahu-the-churchill-of-our-time-must-speak-before-congress/2/  http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=11563
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 2, Block C: Olli Heinonen, Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. His research and teachings include: nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, verification of treaty compliance, enhancement of the verification work of international organizations, and transfer and control of peaceful uses of nuclear energy.  Before joining the Belfer Center in September 2010, Olli Heinonen served 27 years at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. Heinonen was the Deputy Director General of the IAEA, and head of its Department of Safeguards. Prior to that, he was Director at the Agency’s various Operational Divisions, and as inspector including at the IAEA’s overseas office in Tokyo, Japan;  in re: Iran negotiations, centrifuges, inspection/verification      http://www.wsj.com/article_email/kissinger-on-iran-1423527223-lMyQjAxMTI1NzE4MDMxNjAxWj?cb=logged0.5660503269850035
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 2, Block D:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re:
Hour Three
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 3, Block A: Bob Zimmerman, behindtheblack, in re: Another Falcon 9 launch success   The competition heats up: A Falcon 9 rocket today successfully put a NASA solar observation satellite into orbit.  They have also said that they have achieved splashdown of the first stage, though no details yet on how soft that splashdown was.
Update: SpaceX reports that “the first stage successfully soft landed in the Atlantic Ocean within 10 meters of its target. The vehicle was nicely vertical and the data captured during this test suggests a high probability of being able to land the stage on the drone ship in better weather.”
The last two satellites in Russia’s missile warning constellation have failed.  In January the last two satellites in Russia’s ballistic missile warning system shut down, with the first of the next generation replacement constellation not scheduled to launch until June.  “Oko-1 was part of Russia’s missile warning system. The system employed six satellites on geostationary and highly elliptical orbits. The last geostationary satellite got out of order in April last year. The two remaining satellites on highly elliptical orbits could operate only several hours a day. In the beginning of January, they also went out of order,” Kommersant said.  The new generation early warning satellite Tundra was planned to be launched in 2013. However, the launch was postponed several times as the apparatus was not ready to be put into operation, sources in the aerospace industry told the daily.
Increasingly I am reminded of the Cold War, when our competition was the bloated, inefficient, and poorly managed Soviet Union. The communist nation was definitely a threat, as they got a lot accomplished through sheer brute force and determination. Their long-term problem was that it was an amazingly inefficient system, guaranteed eventually to fall apart.
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 3, Block B: James Gorman, NYT, in re: Atlantic Corals: Colorful and Vulnerable  Possible protections for fragile ecosystems from fishing in and around 15 ocean canyons are being considered. / http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/science/atlantic-corals-colorful-and-vulnerable.html?ref=science&_r=0
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 3, Block C: Elbridge Colby, Center for New American Security, in re: Nuclear Weapons in the Third Offset Strategy: Avoiding a Nuclear Blind Spot in the Pentagon’s New Initiative  Concerning the Third Offset Strategy focus on how nuclear weapons will factor into the warfighting “regime” the new initiative envisions:  Colby recommends the Pentagon "must studiously think through how the offset strategy can be shaped and implemented to deter, discourage and, if need be, control for and respond to adversary nuclear employment." [more]  (1 of 2)
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 3, Block D: Elbridge Colby, Center for New American Security, in re: Nuclear Weapons in the Third Offset Strategy: Avoiding a Nuclear Blind Spot in the Pentagon’s New Initiative  Concerning the Third Offset Strategy focus on how nuclear weapons will factor into the warfighting “regime” the new initiative envisions:  Colby recommends the Pentagon "must studiously think through how the offset strategy can be shaped and implemented to deter, discourage and, if need be, control for and respond to adversary nuclear employment." [more]  (2 of 2)
Hour Four
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 4, Block A: Paul M. Barrett, author, Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who'd Stop at Nothing to Win.  (1 of 4)
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 4, Block B: Paul M. Barrett, author, Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who'd Stop at Nothing to Win.  (2 of 4)
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 4, Block C: Paul M. Barrett, author, Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who'd Stop at Nothing to Win.  (3 of 4)
Thursday  12 February 2015  / Hour 4, Block D: Paul M. Barrett, author, Law of the Jungle: The $19 Billion Legal Battle Over Oil in the Rain Forest and the Lawyer Who'd Stop at Nothing to Win.  (4 of 4)