The John Batchelor Show

Thursday 2 April 2015

Air Date: 
April 02, 2015

Photo, left: Près de Lausanne, au bord du Lac Léman.
Le Lac Léman, appelé aussi parfois lac de Genève, est un grand lac des Alpes et une région touristique de Suisse. Le lac est à cheval sur la Suisse (cantons de Genève, de Vaud et du Valais) et la France (département de la Haute-Savoie). C'est le plus grand lac d'Europe occidentale avec une superficie de 582 km2. Il est alimenté par le Rhône.
En dehors de la ville et du canton de Genève, la plupart des destinations dans la région du lac Léman sont soit dans le canton suisse de Vaud, soit dans le département français de Haute-Savoie. Pour sa part, Vaud est le plus grand canton de Suisse romande et le troisième du pays. La géographie est variée, avec les montagnes du Jura dans le nord, une plaine vallonnée dans le centre et dans le sud-ouest des Alpes. Les principales attractions de la région sont les villes et les villages qui entourent le lac, les possibilités pour le ski et la randonnée dans les montagnes, et bien sûr le lac lui-même.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents.
 
Hour One
Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 1, Block A:  Michael Ledeen, FDD, in re: If," "if," "if." Khamenei needs, first, money; in Farsi: "Sanctions will end contemporaneously with confirmation of Iran's compliance" – but "after confirmation" in English.
Who'll inspect? The IAEA has never even been to Parchin.  The way Rouhani and Zarif convinced Khamenei to come to the negotiating table was by saying, "Don’t worry, Obama is desperate and we've got him where we want."  The recent Iranian defector has confirmed this.  . . .  Today Pres Obama was eager to confer with the king of Saudi Arabia and with Mr Netanyahu. "He's [Netanyahu] worried about Congress, that it might pass new sanctions and bills that would restrict his ability to make new deals."   Bibi is displeased: there's no agreement – just what the WH, the EU, and Zarif, said it is: a framework, a context.  Of course, that's existed for the last five years.  And then there's the secret agreement.  Don't expect to see an inspector at Parchin – we're not even entitled to ask for that until a real agreement is reached and signed. This thing has no one's signature on it.   If," "if," "if."
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Obama of Arabia   Just last night, a friend referred to Obama’s desperate pursuit of an alliance with Iran as “Lawrentian” (as in Lawrence of Arabia), which I like. It helps us focus on the current embarrassment, with Kerry tenaciously talking day after day to Jarif (the “charming” one who had to be asked to stop shrieking at the secretary of State), obviously desperate for something that could be called an agreement.
Sure, Kerry wants a Nobel Peace Prize, and no doubt believes an Iran deal would win it for him, but there’s more to it than that. There’s the president’s long-standing passion to embrace the Islamic Republic. Much like Lawrence’s passion for the Arabs, it’s not just a geopolitical conviction, as you can see from this WaPo piece by Greg Jaffe, which is one of the best I’ve read that tries to explain Obama’s passion in terms of a serious world-view:
The Iran negotiations also reflect Obama’s abiding belief that the best way to change the behavior of hostile governments with spotty human rights records isn’t through isolation or the threat of military force, but persistent engagement. In recent years, Obama has pushed to open up trade and diplomatic relations with countries such as Cuba and Burma.
“He believes that the more people interact with open societies, the more they will want to be part of an open society,” said Ivo Daalder, Obama’s former NATO ambassador and head of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
As if the Iranian people needed to “interact” with us to want to be part of an open society! They know that already, as demonstrated by the regime’s increasingly violent repression. But Obama doesn’t talk about Iranians’ desire for freedom, as he would if that were a central element in his Persian passion. Instead, as Jaffe tells us in useful detail, this is an intensely personal matter:
As the negotiations have progressed, Obama has become more personally involved in the talks, said current and former aides. He can describe in minute detail the number and type of centrifuges that Iran would be allowed to retain under a deal . . .
The negotiations are . . . personal for the president. Obama was dismissed as dangerously naive in 2007 by then-candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton for suggesting that he would engage in “aggressive personal diplomacy” with Iran . . .
“There’s a determination to prove the Republicans wrong,” said Smith, “and to prove the world wrong.”
Of course it’s personal, it’s very Lawrentian. It’s not just the leftist myth that all that’s wrong with the Force is America’s fault and, thus, carrying the illogic to its wild conclusion: the way to make things right is to castrate America and turn from old allies to the enemies we’ve wronged in  the past. If that were the driving principle, Obama (as he promised, lest we forget) would be working much harder to embrace Vladimir Putin.
But no, his heart is with Khamenei and Rouhani.
I wish I knew why . . .  but then, perhaps there is no “why.” In affairs of the heart, explanations really don’t apply, do they?
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Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 1, Block B:  Eli Lake, Bloomberg, in re: Mohamed Javed Zarif, 54 years old.   "A very very slippery character" foreign minister of Iran. Has been cultivating US relationships for thirty years; dv[d a sort of camaraderie with the press. Iran has a right to dvp nukes and always will be peaceful.  Sanctions are unfair and unjust. What Zarif can do: he has a Ph.D. in intl relations and is a scholar – it’s radically different from dealing with lower-grade rogue states such as North Korea.    Zarif clearly has got the best of Kerry. 
UN, EU and US sanctions will effectively be lifted once Iran is meeting the terms of the deal, says Zarif. Kerry" IF Iran is seen to be cheating then t he sanctions will "snap back" – which sanctions? The catch is that Iran has to be [virtuous] for twenty years – do you think this is likely?  recall [similar agreements] with Saddam Hussein?  We’re counting on Iran to keep its word for two or three decades.  Zarif is such a smoothie – "Of course we'll keep our word; don’t disappoint me on this."  Zarif has already [only a few hours later] said that the White House fact sheets were [inaccurate].  Zarif tries to explain away the Supreme Leader's saying he'll obliterate Israel.  Pres Obama has promised to brief the House leaders on the contents of this agreement.  If he Senate wants to know about Zarif, ask the FBI, which has investigated him for years on the Alawi Fdn – hundreds of millions of dollars, which skirted US sanctions and [was determined to be acting illegally].  buff.ly/19LAXtA 
Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 1, Block C:  Charles Pellegrino in re: Jurassic IV & biomorphing!  - 'Jurassic Park' scientist aims to hatch a dinosaur using DNA from birds. Some might say that only a bird brain could come up with such a plan, but scientist Jack Horner is hoping to use living birds to hatch a dinosaur. Horner, the technical adviser on Jurassic Park and professor of palaeontology at Montana State University believes that a modern bird’s DNA contains a genetic memory that could be ‘switched on’ again, resurrecting long-dormant dinosaur traits. What’s more, he’s looking for a helper to assist in the retro-engineering of a prehistoric beast. . . . '  He told LiveScience: ‘I'm looking for a postdoctoral researcher. An adventurous postdoc who knows a lot about developmental biology and a little bit about birds.’
     Horner explains that to make a dinosaur, he would start with the genome (the whole hereditary information encoded in the DNA) of an emu. ‘Emus have all the features we need in order to make a Velociraptor-sized dinosaur,’ he says. ‘If I were to make a dinosaur, that is where I’d start.’ Far-fetched as this sounds, his work is supported by other leading academics.
     Sean Carroll, a geneticist at the University of Wisconsin, says: ‘The inventory of genes in a bird would be very similar to the inventory of genes in a dinosaur. ‘It is differences in the decision-making that takes during development that make the difference between a chicken and a tyrannosaurus.’ Chew this over: Brachiosaurus are shown in this shot from the Terra Nova series. If we are going to bring back dinosaurs, some would argue vegetarians like these might be sensible
     Hans Larsson, a palaeontologist at McGill University in Canada, conducted an experiment recently into the evolution from dinosaurs’ long tails into birds’ short tails more than 150 million years ago. Looking at a two-day-old chicken embryo, he made an unexpected discovery. Expecting to see between four and eight vertebrae present in the developing spine, his microscope instead picked out 16 vertebrae - effectively a reptilian tail. As the embryo developed, the ‘tail’ became shorter and shorter, until the young bird hatched with only five vertebrae. Larsson says of the significance of the find: ‘For about 150 million years, this kind of a tail has never existed in birds. 'But they have always carried it deep inside their embryology.’
     So, the blueprint for a dinosaur remained locked inside the modern-day bird. Larsson now believes that in a hundred years or so, geneticists could retro-engineer animals that appear identical to Mesozoic dinosaurs.  [more]
   Up to 80% of the therapod genetic core is already in the ostrich and the emu.  "Genetically enhance . . .  a dinosaur."  . . .
Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 1, Block D: Daniel Henninger, WSJ, in re: . . .  North Korea signed agreements, made specific and exacting promises, and lied and lied.  . . .  Today's announcement: they're not trying to prevent Iran from achieving an atomic bomb but merely to reduce the breakout time within a year. The infrastructure will be there.  As for sanctions:  of course Iran will cheat. That’s to put in motion a particular process with IAEA inspectors, filing complaints with the UN SC – all  of which takes months and months and months, while the Iranians will continue bldg their bomb.  Sen Corker is on entirely the right track: the Congress – i.e., the American people – need to be apprised of and involved with the arrangements. 
Hour Two
Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 2, Block A:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: Dramatic announcements from Lausanne on the tentative framework of caution.  Framework existed before and simply continues.  If, tentative, framework. The Israeli PM is alarmed: he holds that this framework threatens the State f Israel in a number of ways: doesn't block the path to a bomb, while the conclusions are said to be structured (everyone has a different version) so there's no end of enrichment, not any facility dismantled, not known that he phases provide regional security; tends to legitimize Iran's nuke program and bolsters its economy, Arab nations and Israel assume that the new income streams will expand activities in Yemen, Golan, Somalia.  Zarif himself recently tweeted that he president's portrayal of this is "all wrong.,"  said the White House is "all spin." Olli Heinonen repeatedly says he has no confidence, the present regime is [unreliable.]  The word "Parchin" comes up again and again in connection with weaponization and miniaturization.   Iran removed layers of soil and covered the hidden place with six layers of concrete. Eighteen months of negotiations, no one has the sense that this is __.  Iran proudly broadcasts how it manipulates its interlocutors.  This begins when? – Says the US: when the IAEA says it’s satisfied that the terms of the agreement are in place and will remain in place; but no one has ever seen Parchin, and Iran wants the sanctions lifted on Jun 30: "the day the agreement goes in to effect."  No indications of snap (unannounced) inspections; will get billions in relief. Already has started a nuclear arms race in he Middle East. 
Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 2, Block B: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re:  . . .  Iran is fraught.  Sen Menendez has been a leader in the doubts about Iran; has stepped down as Ranking Member of Sen Foreign Relations C'ee, vey effective; is under investigation by the Department of Justice.  Palestinians and the ICC:  50+% of American people disapprove of pres Obama's dealing with Iran and Palestine(?).  Gen Herzog, IDF retired, on Golan Heights:  IAF airstrike where the son of Mughniya, the mass murderer, was killed along with an Iranian IRGC official. Clear that Iran is working with Hezbollah to build yet another front in Lebanon.  Using precision-guided missiles, of great danger to Israel.  Al Nusah sits at he border w ith Israel and keeps it quiet.  There's no mention of the fact that Iran [is an actively predator state].  David's Sling tested again successfully.
Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 2, Block C:  Christopher Scalia, WSJ, in re: In The Wall Street Journal, Christopher Scalia writes that GOP politicians sneer at the kind of general education that Jefferson saw as a bulwark of self-government. http://www.wsj.com/articles/christopher-scalia-conservatives-please-stop-trashing-the-liberal-arts-1427494073
Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 2, Block D:  Andy Sullivan, Reuters, in re: Reuters has a story this morning that I thought would be of interest. We have an exclusive that reports that several Republican governors likely to run for president have secured hundreds millions of dollars under Obamacare while working to dismantle the healthcare law, according to a Reuters review of federal spending records. Governors Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Chris Christie of New Jersey, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and former Texas Governor Rick Perry, all staunch opponents of President Barack Obama's 2010 Affordable Care Act, have collectively applied for and won at least $352 million through grant programs set up by the law, federal records show. The action is at odds with the public stance of all four potential candidates, who have blasted the law as an unprecedented expansion of government and called for its repeal.  Full story online here.
Hour Three
Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 3, Block A: Josh Rogin, Bloomberg, in re: Skeptical Senate Puts New Iran Sanctions on Hold President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have won a three-month reprieve from the threat of additional Congressional sanctions on Iran with the announcement Thursday of a political framework for a nuclear agreement.
Senator Mark Kirk, the Republican co-author of a bill imposing more sanctions against Iran, told us after Obama's speech that he did not expect a vote on the legislation he wrote with Democrat Robert Menendez before June 30. That's the deadline the U.S., Iran and five other great powers have set to finish negotiations for a final nuclear agreement.  Obama and Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, had warned that passage of those sanctions would destroy the nuclear talks.  "I think we will give them till the end of June," Kirk told us. He also insisted that the framework deal was more generous to the Iranians than Chamberlain's offer to Hitler at Munich, and that Congress would be "an over-watching presence" in the coming months as negotiators continued the talks.
The delay of the Kirk-Menendez bill doesn't mean the fight between the White House and Congress over Iran will wait until July -- quite the contrary. A bill written by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker that would mandate a Congressional review of any deal . . .
Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 3, Block B: Francis Rose, Federal News Radio, in re: VA scandal. Firings, questions, across he US.
Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 3, Block C: Farhad Manjoo, NYT, in re: In Silicon Valley, Auto Racing Becomes a Favorite Hobby for Tech Elites. When you get past the noise and the smell, the unbearable heat, the G-force, the surprising physical exertion and, always, the constant threat of injury or death — auto racing, like much else, comes down to math. There is an optimal path around a racetrack, a geometric arc of least resistance. It is the driver’s job to find this sweet spot of physics and stick to it, lap after lap, as consistently as a microprocessor crunching through an algorithm. 

For tech people — who are accustomed to finding and manipulating hidden math — hitting the arc can be a moment of particular pleasure. “When you’re really in the zone in a racecar, it’s almost meditative,” said Jeff Huber, who has been driving racecars for more than a decade. “You’re working on this pursuit of perfection, of getting the braking point just right, the braking pressure just right, finding the limit of adhesion when you’re going around the corner. There’s this balance that you’re feeling and managing all the time, of just barely being in control, right at that perfect limit.” . . .
Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 3, Block D:   Phillip Terzian, Weekly Standard, in re: the second burial of #RichardIII. My Kingdom for a Hearse tws.io/1OXDAZE
 
Hour Four
Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 4, Block A: The Sphinx: Franklin Roosevelt, the Isolationists, and the Road to World War II, by Nicholas Wapshott (1 of 4)
Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 4, Block B: The Sphinx: Franklin Roosevelt, the Isolationists, and the Road to World War II, by Nicholas Wapshott (2 of 4)
Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 4, Block C: The Sphinx: Franklin Roosevelt, the Isolationists, and the Road to World War II, by Nicholas Wapshott (3 of 4)
Thursday  2 April 2015  / Hour 4, Block D: The Sphinx: Franklin Roosevelt, the Isolationists, and the Road to World War II, by Nicholas Wapshott (4 of 4)
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