Thursday 26 June 2014
Photo, above: Sarens transports the 16 new lock doors of the Panama Canal. The gigantic doors (with weights between 1.900t and 4.300t and measuring 58,7m x 10m x 34,7m) are moved with SPMT's onto Sarens' barge Paula at the factory in San Giorgio di Nogaro (Italy). The doors are then brought to an STX sea-going vessel in Trieste. At their arrival in Panama all 16 lock doors will be unloaded with SPMT's at the Atlantic side of the Canal. Later eight of them will be taken to the Pacific side, thus crossing the Panama Canal. See Hour 1, Block D, Patrick Chovanec, chief strategist at Silvercrest Asset Management, TRAVELS WITH PATRICK New lock doors for Panama Canal – photo courtesy of Sarens Group.
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-host: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal editorial board & host of OpinionJournal.com.
Hour One
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Mary Kissel, Wall Street Journal editorial board & host of OpinionJournal.com; in re: Kevin McCarthy's first out-loud statement as GOP Whip is, "Nah" to Eximbank. Tax-payer-backed insurance was for decades backed by Dem-GOP cronyism. Its charter next expires at he end of September. Supposed to help the clients of US companies that export US goods. Lets say an Indian co wanted to buy Boeing planes: the money goes directly to the Indian firm. Bank distorts . . .
A suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt killed at least seven and injured 36 others in the Baghdad neighborhood of Kadhimiya, police said, NINA reported June 26. The exact number of victims has not been confirmed, and police sources said the number of victims may increase.
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 1, Block B: Edward W Hayes, criminal defense attorney par excellence, in re: Chen Guangiao promised to give $300 to each guest; the host instead handed the funds over to the charity. Homeless New Yorkers angered when free lunch doesn’t include $300 ‘dessert’ for all Philanthropist Chen Guangiao proved there is such a thing as a free lunch, but the homeless people who got a gourmet meal at Loeb Boathouse in Central Park became disgruntled when they were made to sing a Chinese communist song and then didn’t get the $300 cash each that they said they were promised.
In an only-in-New-York moment, an eccentric Chinese millionaire fed some 250 homeless people a fancy lunch at the Loeb Boathouse in Central Park on Wednesday — but was thanked with Bronx cheers.
Chen Guangbiao, a recycling tycoon, provided the fine food, and he personally performed magic tricks and sang “We are the World” — and all it got him were shouts from the belly-full crowd.
The homeless people he had helped blasted him as a “fraud” and a “thief” and worse because the $300 each had expected to receive was instead given in lump-sum to a shelter where they had been staying — New York City Rescue Mission.
“The meal was lousy, the cash didn’t come,” said Clarence Taylor, 52, as the ungrateful throng railed in frustration. “Prey on somebody else. Why are you preying on the homeless?”
Another unhappy homeless man, Ernest St. Pierre, vowed he wouldn’t leave until Chen coughed up the cash.
“These people have hope,” he said. “They’re hoping Chen delivers the money.”
Before Chen’s philanthropy led to controversy, there was spectacle — and plenty of it. [more]
1989 attack on a woman, the Central Park Jogger: police arrested young men, said they were "wilding" – attacking people indiscriminately. Rounded up minors, put them in jail for 5 to 10, did about 8 years. They all confessed, but each confession differed materially from all the others.
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 1, Block C: Patrick Chovanec, chief strategist at Silvercrest Asset Management in re: TRAVELS WITH PATRICK anent the 4 June anniversary of Tien An Men, Patrick began tweeting photographs on 15 June, when the original protest began, and scoured the Web for photographs. Mary Kissel says that seeing the stream of pictures was one of the most emotional experiences she's had. The photos made utterly clear that, among other things, it was a massacre, and not limited to Beijing. "The past is prologue," and this is highly relevant today: how China deals with corruption political economy, press freedoms – all constrained by what happened in 1989. Kazakhstan: Patrick was there to attend the Asia Dvpt Ban annual meeting in Astana. Lt of the bldg of this new city was financed by Middle East – one of the highest NPL – nonperforming loan – situations in the world. In Caspian, have a major field that could rival anything in Saudi Arabia. Sulphur gas, dangerous, corrodes pipes, hard to deal with. Has to be exported via either Russia or China. It's a benign dictatorship, so to speak. Nursultan Nazarbayev is clever, has maintained independence by good relations with Russia, China, and the US. Australia: commodities, minerals boom; no recession in the past 30 years, but concerned about the big slowdown on China. The Dutch disease. The danger is to treat the boom as though it'll last forever.
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Patrick Chovanec, chief strategist at Silvercrest Asset Management, in re: TRAVELS WITH PATRICK Panama Canal Zone: fastest-growing economy in ht Americans, 8 or 9% PA, money that's fleeing Venezuela and Argentina. Canal opened in 1914; now they're digging a whole new set of lock on Atlantic and Pacific sides. New doors just delivered: 10 stories high, just standing there. When this new project began they didn't even know about the growing US LNG export from the Gulf through Panama to the Pacific. The old locks are too small for the huge container ships now used; some of those go around Cape Horn or Good Hope to save money. China speaking of drilling a new canal in Nicaragua.
Mary went to the Bureau of Economic Analysis for stats; she tweeted them and people went bonkers. Brussels: fall-off in bond yields – went up then fell again, Even so the debt-to-GDP ratios are higher now than before Spain and Portugal have good tax and labor reforms; France intends to ; but huge unemployment and inflation tending toward zero. I heard a senior European leader be asked, is the euro crisis over? "Yes, it’s over, but some problems remain." Wrong: it's not working well. A main question is, should Europe have a single currency? Lack the tools to rebalance; instead, the Germans say, "Everyone in Europe should run suplusses"- unhh, with whom? Need at least a two-tier currency system (north-south)
Hour Two
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 2, Block A: Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution, Chicago Law, in re: Time to Retire the 'Redskins'? (1 of 2)
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 2, Block B: Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution, Chicago Law, in re: Time to Retire the 'Redskins'? (2 of 2)
npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2013/12/30/242429836/why-being-gypped-hurts-the-roma-more-than-it-hurts-you
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 2, Block C: Daniel Henninger, WSJ WONDER LAND, in re: Rand Paul's Reagan How much of Reagan's foreign policy would Rand Paul have supported? [more] Book highly recommended by Dan Henninger - Revolution by Martin Anderson. See Chapter 14, "Reagan's Advisors." Remarkable assemblage of foreign policy advisors prepared a blueprint for the tie that Reagan might win the presidency.
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Anatoly Zak, RussianSpaceWeb.com & author, Russians in Space, the Past Explained, the Future Explored, in re: Angara to go on its maiden voyage – special report. Angara is a modularly–designed vehicle for different payloads, including very small and quite large payload mass. Angara 7, heavy-lift to be used mostly for manned space vehicle, is still in design stage.
- After many delays, the first launch of the Angara rocket is set for June 27, 2014, at 18:15 Moscow Time (10:15 a.m. EDT, 2:15 p.m. GMT). The custom-built rocket designated Angara-1.2 Piervy Polyot (First Flight), or Angara-1PP, will blast off from Russia's northern launch site in Plesetsk (near Arctic Circle) and carry a simulated cargo on a ballast to near Kamchatka.
NEW, June 26: ANGARA HOME PAGE | ANGARA'S FIRST MISSION | NEW: Origin of the Angara project | NEW, June 17: URM-1 module | NEW, June 17: URM-1 module | NEW, June 17: URM-2 rocket module | Preparations for the first Angara mission |Angara-5P | Angara-3 | Angara's launch facility in Plesetsk | Angara's launch facility in Vostochny
Hour Three
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 3, Block A: Tunku Varadarajan, Hoover & Daily Beast, in re: The U.S. played its usual bustling game today, but the gulf in class between the two teams was laid naked with the first five minutes. German passed to German passed to German, the ball scarcely leaving a Teutonic boot, as the Americans chased and lunged to no avail. After 20 minutes of suffocating control, the Germans appeared to ease up, as if convinced that their opponents couldn’t possibly win (so why bust a gut in piling on the goals?). [more]
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 3, Block B: Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: As China’s Yutu lunar rover barely continues to survive, unable to move, its scientists prepare to publish their results. But other systems and scientific instruments — a panoramic camera, infrared and X-ray spectrometers and a ground-penetrating radar — are operating normally, says Zheng: “The rover can still carry out measurements from the fixed location and send scientific data to the ground station.” . . . Yutu’s penetrator radar has detected several layers underneath its path, says Long Xiao, a planetary scientist at China University of Geosciences in Wuhan. Under the surface soil, known as regolith, it found a layer of debris from a crater-forming impact and two layers of lava flows, made of basalt.
Though the rover lost its ability to rove within days of landing on the Moon, the mission is certainly an overall success for China. When they send their next rover to the Moon this first experience will serve them very well.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/secret-alien-base-mars-marine-3745652
The Curiosity science team celebrates the completion of a full Martian year since the rover’s landing. This is mostly a press event aimed at convincing the world that the project is accomplishing its goals. Though they are justified in touting the many significant things about Mars and the past environment in Gale Crater that Curiosity has uncovered, we mustn’t forgot that the main goal was always to climb the slopes of Mt Sharp in order to study its geological layers and thus the long term geological history of Mars. The rover has not yet done this, and because of the greater-than-expected wheel damage the rover is experiencing, is at risk of not being able to get where it has to go.
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Michael Auslin, AEI, in re: Japan Emerges from Security Isolation A submarine agreement with Australia helps Japan look like an attractive security partner in Asia. [more]
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 3, Block D: Peter Berkowitz, Hoover & Real Clear Politics, in re: Affirmative Action and the Demotion of Truth
Hour Four
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 4, Block A: Wilson by A. Scott Berg, PART 2 of 3 (5 of 12)
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 4, Block B: Wilson by A. Scott Berg, PART 2 of 3 (6 of 12)
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 4, Block C: Wilson by A. Scott Berg, PART 2 of 3 (7 of 12)
Thursday 26 June 2014 / Hour 4, Block D: Wilson by A. Scott Berg, PART 2 of 3 (8 of 12)
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