Photo, left: PLA Honor Guard, Beijing
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Co-hosts: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com. Dr. David M. Livingston, The Space Show. Peter Navarro, author, Crouching Tiger: What China's Militarism Means for the World, on his book and documentary (http://crouchingtiger.net/)
 
Hour One
Wednesday   9 December 2015  / Hour 1, Block A:  Charles Burton, professor at Brock University, in re: Beijing's pollution Red Alert: 800,000 people die annually from the pollutin – but many of he culpable corporations are owned by the government, and its job is to keep everybody employed.  In California we're seven days on the jet stream from Beijing and irt lands on us. Not Schadenfreude.  Senior Chinese leadership has fabulous air filtration systems at home, in the car and at work. Of course, the citizenry has no way to address the problem directly. They tolerate problems – until they don't.  Cloud covers hundreds of miles all directions – covers a good portion of northeast China.  Polluting industries were just moved south –air is chewy. Nut Brother, performance artist uses a vacuum cleaner to suck in the toxic air and has actually produced a brick from the poison.  Children being poisoned.    China, a coal-base economy, builds a power plant every two weeks. Indoor cooking is often on coal – and China produces not cola but lignite. The deal is, "You be silent on everything and we'll give you a job." This time, the elite also damage your children's lungs for life.  A cold front is supposed to arrive tomorrow to clear this up –but another inversion expected next week.   http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-35026363 ;  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/01/chinese-vacuum-cleaner-artist-turning-beijings-smog-into-bricks
Wednesday   9 December 2015  / Hour 1, Block B: Nitin Gokhale of BharatShakti.in [shakti = power; Bharat =India] makes its own high-performance aircraft; about $150 billion over the coming years.  . . . China relies heavily on missiles; not dogfights with Indian pilots. who historically are better than Chinese copilots, but to take the Indian air force out on the runway.  With China massing on the Tibetan Plateau – missile shield plus long-range __, with 5,000-plus km range; asymmetric warfare.  China stole its next-gen fighters directly from the US. Modi in Russia conferring on buying arms; fifth-gen will be built in Russia.  Bldg a fleet, own design and dvpt bureau, has blt its own ships and subs.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/indian-pakistani-security-officials-hold-talks-in-bangkok/2015/12/06/df9d86ce-9c18-11e5-9ad2-568d814bbf3b_story.html
Wednesday   9 December 2015  / Hour 1, Block C:  Jeff Coughlin, NASA Ames, Kepler scientist at SETI Institute, in re: Several thousand exoplanets reported. Some don't exist. Kepler looks at over 200,00 planets in search; look for periodicity in light thinning; we wind up with abt 20,000, of which many things are not what we're looking for, then we whittle it all down to 4- or 5,000 "planet candidates." We now have 1,000 confirmed planets.  Most likely false positive is a [gas/] giant; Jupiter is 11 times the size of Earth – if you saw a 1% dip in brightness, that'd be consonant with a Jupiter blocking.  . . .  As you get toward 3x or 10X or 100x the same of Jupiter, you get many more false positives; then we test.  . . .  Of the ones that are very close to size, energy reception and _ to us, we have only one really closer to Earth. But as you go toward small planets, the number jumps up rapidly.  The Earth is not special – we're common!
Reports of false positives from exoplanet reports. http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/34087/20151204/half-keplers-exoplanets-arent-really-false-positives-discovered.htm  ;  http://finance.yahoo.com/news/half-exoplanets-kepler-finds-might-033125920.html
Additional data and research help us better understand the implications of the measurements taken by Kepler, which are available at the public archive. The ground-based observations by Santerne, et al., strengthen and confirm expectations that many of these giant candidates are very likely not planets, but rather a smaller star orbiting another star. More than half of the stars in the sky are double or binary stars. These stars orbit one another and when one eclipses the other from the vantage point of the spacecraft, a change in brightness is detected, similar to that produced by a transiting planet. 
The high false positive rate measured by Santerne et al includes candidates with estimated sizes many times greater than that of Jupiter. The Kepler Mission does not designate false positives based on estimated size alone. This is done on purpose to ensure the viability of our catalogs when future observations refine the properties of each candidates' host star. It is expected that these candidates with very large estimated sizes are likely to be eclipsing binaries, as reported in the Santerne results.
To verify a candidate's planet-hood, additional analyses, including ground-based observations, are required. While the ambiguity concerning the true planet-hood status of giant candidates remains significant, this ambiguity does not exist for the confirmed or validated planets, and current literature suggestions false positive estimates to much more limited -- 10 to 20 per cent -- for the smaller candidates.
Wednesday   9 December 2015  / Hour 1, Block D: David J Feith, WSJ Hong Kong, in re: . . . With Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, India's goals are somewhat at variance with those of the US.  . . . As China moves a bit too close into India's ports, will India find itself despite internal disagreements within the Indian mil abt the US, there's a lot more alarm about China – 360 degrees: China supports Pakistan's nuclear program and other aspects of troublesome foreign policy; and Chinese nuclear subs in the Indian Ocean  - "China doesn't need nuke subs for piracy patrols; why are they there?"  Seems that China is trying to contain India from all sides, including he sea.  Note also that China controls a lot of India's water supply from the Tibetan Plateau.  India's shopping for a 4.5 and 5 generation fighter in Moscow. India's relations with Russia are longstanding.  The Great game, the Workd Island, the Pivot Nation – Russia.
The U.S.-India Strategic Test  These democracies share concerns about China, but bilateral cooperation could be stronger.  - As China challenges the liberal international order, which countries will push back and which will roll over? The answer will shape U.S. national-security policy for decades to come—and perhaps no country’s decision is more important than India’s.
Hence the intense regional interest recently trained on the waters off India’s Malabar coast, where the U.S., Indian and Japanese navies exercised together for the first time since 2007, when China loudly protested Japan’s participation. India’s days of deferring to Chinese sensitivities are over, say advisors to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Alarmed by China’s “expansionist mindset” (in Mr. Modi’s words) and “moves to contain India” by land and sea (per Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha ), New Delhi is buying new weapons, touting ties with the U.S. and stressing liberal norms such as freedom of navigation.  Thus we see signs of an incipient realignment in U.S. foreign policy. While traditional U.S. allies in Europe appear unable or unwilling to help curb Chinese aggression, India is growing stronger and becoming a more important partner.
Yet relations between the world’s largest democracy (India) and its oldest (America) aren’t easy to manage. And recent advances may not be quite as promising as they first seem.  Look more closely at the Malabar exercise. On the plus side, it sent Beijing a message and enabled closer cooperation in the sophisticated art of submarine-hunting. But behind the scenes there was tension.  India initially wanted to send only two combatant ships to the drill, as it had last year, until the U.S. pressed for a third. India also kept its aircraft carrier docked for maintenance despite the U.S. sending its USS Theodore Roosevelt. The U.S. wants to make Japan’s participation permanent and perhaps add Australia, but India has so far demurred.
Such difficulties may reflect Indian hesitation about institutionalizing ties with the U.S. Last year Mr. Modi and President Barack Obama issued an ambitious joint “vision statement” promising several security initiatives. One was to “upgrade” the Malabar exercise. But, as one senior diplomat here emphasized, Mr. Modi’s statement was mostly a product of his own office and wasn’t fully supported by the professional bureaucracy. India may have abandoned its Cold War doctrine of nonalignment, but many officers and officials here remain suspicious of perceived overalignment with Washington. They also have practical differences with the U.S.   To India’s east, on issues concerning China and the Pacific, Indian and U.S. interests are generally in harmony. But to India’s west, concerning Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, those interests often clash.
This dynamic helps explain the U.S.-Indian defense trade. Indian purchases of U.S. arms have skyrocketed to some $10 billion from virtually zero since the U.S. lifted sanctions on India’s nuclear program a decade ago. Indian deployments of U.S.-built P-8 surveillance planes, C-130 transport planes and Apache helicopters boost bilateral trust and interoperability.  Yet there are limits. India hasn’t bought U.S. fighter jets, not least for fear that Washington could cut supplies in the event of an Indo-Pakistani war, as it did in 1965. India also refuses to sign three “foundational” monitoring and information-sharing agreements that are standard for U.S. arms buyers, forcing the U.S. to strip some sensitive technologies from the systems it sells, including the P-8 that India flew at Malabar. Perhaps most important, bilateral defense ties were by this point supposed to extend far beyond exercises and occasional arms transfers. In 2005 . . .    http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-india-strategic-test-1449165764
 
Hour Two
Wednesday   9 December 2015  / Hour 2, Block A: Peter Navarro, professor at the University of California, Irvine, & author of the just-released book and documentary, Crouching Tiger: What China's Militarism Means for the World, in re: his book and documentary (http://crouchingtiger.net/) In Beijing there's no democracy, a military cult. China challenging the US in Asia and elsewhere. Crouching Tiger: What China's Militarism Means for the World, identifies a topic that clearly will not be discussed in the US presidential campaign, more's the pity.  Would you buy a gift made in China to give to someone for Christmas or Hannukah?  We've lost 70,00 factories, countless jobs.   As we buy a Vizio screen we're funding the rapidest military build-up in ages – in China.  Note the intentions of Imperial Japan that held it could conquerby Divine Right – same this thing in China, buy hisotirocal right, incl Taiwan, East and South China Seas and even part of India – Arunachal Pradesh.  If you were president, would you send in two strike carriers atop defend Taiwan, CHjna is doing ht same thing.  Imperial Japan; China depends on French chips and German propulsion systems.  China us bldg fortress garrisons to push theUS out of 50% of the world's population. Ghe really big issue for the US is what China wil be doing ian the most vibrant portion of the world. 
Wby isn't this being discussed?  First, the moderators. Also, there;s a prevailing ideology back to Kissinger: If we economically engage with China it'll become stabler.  Clearly ahs not worked, a bankrupt philosophy, but mainstream media cleave to it.  The 1970s were a time of defeatism and pessimism in the US; then Reagan changed the narrative.  Nixon, Kissinger, Carter were al wrong We do not have to co-exist with these tyrannies.    Sun-tze: The acme of skill is to win without fighting, Chinese strategy is to build such a humongous arsenal, incl cyber and psychological , the we'll just withdraw. China's Plan 2049!  Adm Lu Wa-ching's memos  . . . The Stalin theory: push steel in and if it's soft, keep pushing, US is down from 600 to 200 ships!  China's fortress garrisons: seized at gunpoint from Vietnam and Philippines in the 1970s and 1980s.  How long have we got before we're lost"?  This presidential election.  No – China will defeat itself. 
Wednesday   9 December 2015  / Hour 2, Block B: Alan Tonelson, independent economic policy analyst who blogs at RealityChek and tweets at @AlanTonelson, in re: General Motors said it'll sell Chinese-made cars in the US – GM could profitably build and sell the same cars within the US but has chosen not to.   Pres Obama refused to attach any US-made production requirements on his GM bail-out.  China maintains a 25% tariff on any car imported into China – but he US has a 2.5% tariff for imported cars. And that' s only the tip of the iceberg. If in 2009 Americans had known that in 2015 China would be selling American cars to us, would the bailout have gone through?  Egad.  And the factories in China have no pollution control and run the  staff as slave labor. Who'll buy these cars? Not the unemployed automobile workers.  What's being imported is the Envision SUV – the most profitable car.   And lets trust the feds in its car inspections! Volvo?  That's likely, too – Chinese market is growing more slowly than expected.  http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2015/12/06/envision-this-china-made-cars-to-flood-u-s/
Wednesday   9 December 2015  / Hour 2, Block C: Sadanand Dhume, AEI, in re:  Narendra Modi comes from the BJP, formerly home to Hindu extremists.   The old, socialist, left-leaning elite in India refuse to speak of Islamic radicalism; they insist on pretending it doesn't exist. The ruling party will not speak f problems in its own camp, but the larger Indian elite is sort of Bernie Sanders writ large, no talk of global jihad. It's as though the editorial board of The Nation was in charge; even seven years after Mumbai, the intelligentsia is struggling to have the discussion. If you speak of Muslim extremists you're no longer invited to diner.  We have Bernie Sanders on one side and Trump on the other; can't say, "Most Muslims are peaceful but there is that group that's dangerous" – and you're excluded.  Hindu extremists are easily opposed by the elite, who, like the American elite, are happy to complain about the other side but can't look at  their own foibles. Indian Right paints he problem with too broad a brush – "The problem is all the 180? million Muslims"  –   which is absurd.    Modi wants to address this but his hands are tied, since he comes from a Hindu nationalist background and would be skewered.  / India's Biased Debate on Intolerance: India’s left-leaning intellectuals are right to call out bigotry and violence by Hindu extremists whenever they see it. But if they’re genuinely interested in creating a secular country rooted in individual rights, it's time to start speaking up just as firmly against Islamist extremism. 
Wednesday   9 December 2015  / Hour 2, Block D:  Bob Zimmerman, behindtheblack, in re:
Hour Three
Wednesday   9 December 2015  / Hour 3, Block A: Monica Crowley, Fox, & Washington Times Online opinion editor; in re:  Cruz's chances in Iowa; Donald Trump; the remainder of the political field. (1 of 4)
Wednesday   9 December 2015  / Hour 3, Block B:  Monica Crowley, Fox, & Washington Times Online opinion editor; in re: Cruz's chances in Iowa; Donald Trump; the remainder of the political field. (2 of 4)
Wednesday   9 December 2015  / Hour 3, Block C: Monica Crowley, Fox, & Washington Times Online opinion editor; in re: Cruz's chances in Iowa; Donald Trump; the remainder of the political field. (3 of 4)
Wednesday   9 December 2015  / Hour 3, Block D: Monica Crowley, Fox, & Washington Times Online opinion editor; in re: Cruz's chances in Iowa; Donald Trump; the remainder of the political field. (4 of 4)
 
Hour Four
Tuesday 8 December 2015  / Hour 4, Block A: Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, by Timothy Snyder  Part III of III (segment 1 of 4)
Tuesday 8 December 2015  / Hour 4, Block B: Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, by Timothy Snyder  Part III of III (segment 2 of 4) 
Tuesday 8 December 2015  / Hour 4, Block C: Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, by Timothy Snyder  Part III of III (segment 3 of 4)
Tuesday 8 December 2015  / Hour 4, Block D: Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, by Timothy Snyder  Part III of III (segment 4 of 4)