The John Batchelor Show

Friday 1 February 2013

Air Date: 
February 01, 2013

(Photo, above:  Brent Stirton of South Africa, a Getty Images photographer working for National Geographic magazine, has won first prize Nature Stories for the "Rhino Wars" series. The picture shows a female rhino in Tugela Private Game Reserve, Colenso, Natal, South Africa, November 9, 2010, that four months earlier survived a brutal dehorning by poachers who used a chainsaw to remove her horns and a large section of bone in that area of her skull. The female rhino survived the dehorning and has joined up with a male bull who now accompanies her. Rhino horn is now worth more than gold on the international market. South Africa alone has lost more than 400 rhino to illegal poaching.)

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 1, Block A: Henry Miller, Hoover Institution, in re: Lisa Jackson leaves EPA what next for the job killers of EPA? See Forbes.com column, "Lisa Jackson: The Worst Head of the Worst Regulatory Agency, Ever." "...A senior presidential appointee who epitomizes all of those flaws is EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who has a cynical, hyper-regulatory, damn-the-science philosophy that resembles the Europeans’ innovation-busting “precautionary principle,” the view that until a product or activity has been definitively proven safe, it should be banned or at least smothered with regulation. Jackson – who has just announced her resignation — seems unaware that regulation has costs, direct and indirect; that regulators should strive to limit the intrusiveness of oversight to the level that is necessary and sufficient; and that her agency has myriad deficiencies in both policies and personnel."

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 1, Block B:  Ken Anderson, Hoover Institution, in re:  The Briefing: Denial of Territory to Terrorist Groups in US Counterterrorism Strategy Advancing a Free Society

"Over the last four years, nearly all the attention of commentators—supportive and critical alike—regarding US counterterrorism operations abroad has been focused on drone strikes. While drone warfare issues are important, it is a mistake for the public debate over US counterterrorism operations abroad to be so narrowly confined to targeted killing without considering the broader objective of denying terrorists territory.

"Increasingly, the US government’s counterterrorism strategy has embraced the view that although targeted killing of identified terrorist leaders is highly successful and essential, long-term strategy must also ensure that terrorist groups neither gain control of territory nor maintain territorial safe havens in which to regroup, train, rebuild, and finally launch attacks abroad.  Counterterrorism thus has a territorial element separate from targeted killing.

"Territorial denial takes two distinct forms.  One form targets terrorists who establish safe haven in some ungoverned or lightly governed part of a weak state, or who are allowed such by a sympathetic state.  The terrorist group is able to inhabit territory as a matter of “physical” geography—it gets a place to hide—but it does not politically govern the territory or its population. The other form of territorial denial focuses on terrorists attempting to establish governing control of the areas they inhabit...."

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 1, Block C: . Michael Rubin, AEI, in re: Deciphering Iranian decision-making and strategy today. Iran's dictatorship is a nontraditional one in which the supreme leader often wields veto power rather than issuing direct orders. In recent years, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has grown stronger and has upset the traditional balance by which Iran's clerical class maintains control. Export of revolution remains a central tenet of the Islamic Republic. Recent political debates affirm the regime's view that Iran should export its ideology violently and not only through soft power.

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 1, Block D:  Edmund Lee, Bloomberg, in re: ads at the Superbowl.  "Super Bowl Sponsors Justify Record Rates with Online Hits."  The Feb. 3 pro football championship, which draws more than 111 million US viewers, offers marketers such as Coca-Cola Co. (KO) and PepsiCo Inc. (PEP)’s Doritos a rare chance to make big leaps online, whether it’s increasing Twitter followers or Facebook fans. Super Bowl advertisers bank on an extended online audience to justify and add value to their costly TV buys, said Rob Norman, chief digital officer of GroupM, the media buying unit of WPP Plc, (WPP) the world’s largest ad company.

Hour Two

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 2, Block A:  . Richard Epstein, Hoover Institution, 1750 The End of Charity? Defining Ideas (Hoover Institution); 1 of 2  "The latest fiscal cliff has led the President and Congress on a manic quest to find new sources of revenue for a federal government that is congenitally unable to live within its means. That extra revenue can come in only two ways. We can raise tax rates, clamp down on tax deductions, or do some combination of the two.  In approaching this issue, the Obama administration has had all of the wrong instincts. It has been adamant in its insistence that all changes on the revenue side increase the level of progressivity. The Tax Reform Act of 2012 thus moves the top marginal rates up to 39.6 percent, without accounting for the Medicare override of 3.8 percent that hits all taxpayers in the maximum tax bracket, making their combined rate 43.5 percent, which is above the Clinton norms. Since taxable deductions are not allowed against the Medicare excise tax, the administration has already taken a first step toward its goal of limiting the deductions that are available to high-income taxpayers."

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 2, Block B:  . Richard Epstein, Hoover Institution, 1750  The End of Charity? Defining Ideas (Hoover Institution); 2 of 2

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 2, Block C:  . Margot Kiser, Newsweek, in re: The Economics of Extinction: Africa's Elephants and Rhinos in ... »  You wouldn't think a room as big as a warehouse could feel this airless— not even a maximum-security warehouse, like this one. At the same ...

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 2, Block D:  Brian Chen, NYT, in re: OpenTable to Acquire Foodspotting for $10 Million OpenTable, the online reservation business, says it is acquiring the start-up Foodspotting to make booking a table a bit more intimate and social.

Hour Three

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 3, Block A:   Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 (Vintage) by Sir Max Hastings; 1 of 4

"A work of staggering scope and erudition, narrated with supreme fluency and insight, it is unquestionably the best single-volume history of the war ever written. . . . Oddly enough, good single-volume histories of the war are relatively rare. By and large, its sheer scope intimidates writers: while there are hundreds of books about individual episode, from the Battle of Britain to D-Day, surprisingly few historians have tried to pull all the threads together. But Hastings, as the author of several splendid volumes on various aspects of the conflict, is the ideal candidate to conquer this historiographical Everest.  His book is at once a 'global portrait,' emphasizing events in Asia as well as in Europe, and a 'human story,' saturated in the details of ordinary people’s experience. . . . Hastings has a terrific grasp of the grand sweep and military strategy of the war, showing how a combination of Russian blood, American industry and German incompetence made the allied victory inevitable. But what makes this book so compelling are the human stories. . . . This is the book he was born to write." The Sunday Times.

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 3, Block B:  . Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 (Vintage) by Sir Max Hastings; 2 of 4

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 3, Block C:  . Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 (Vintage) by Sir Max Hastings; 3 of 4

"[A] huge, majestic book . . . . The Second World War took place in the skies, the oceans and the lands of five different continents. It encompassed fighting in Arctic blizzards, as well as in jungles and deserts. Any military history must encompass all of this and more. And at the same time it must reconcile the grand strategy of generals and politicians with the more violent experiences of ordinary soldiers . . . Hastings shapes all these stories, almost miraculously, into a coherent narrative. Overlaid upon this tapestry is an analysis of how the war brought out the best and the worst in people, how it could be won only through the use of astonishing brutality and how it changed society forever." The Telegraph.

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 3, Block D:   Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 (Vintage) by Sir Max Hastings; 4 of 4

Hour Four

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 4, Block A:  Jeremy Rabkin, Hoover Institution, in re: stop Internet piracy with letters of marque [in the days of fighting sail, a Letter of Marque and Reprisal was a government license authorizing a person {known as a privateer} to attack and capture enemy.] 1 of 2  We the Cyber Warriors by Jeremy Rabkin and Ariel Rabkin  Defining Ideas (Hoover Institution)

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 4, Block B:  :  Jeremy Rabkin, Hoover Institution, in re: stop Internet piracy with letters of marque [in the days of fighting sail, a Letter of Marque and Reprisal was a government license authorizing a person {known as a privateer} to attack and capture enemy.]  2 of 2  We the Cyber Warriors by Jeremy Rabkin and Ariel Rabkin  Defining Ideas (Hoover Institution)

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 4, Block C:  Your Killer Emotions by Ken Lindner (Jan 1, 2013); 1 of 2

''I love this book! It is a great tool for all of us. In our everyday lives, all of us deal with a range of complex issues and challenging emotional choices that are impactful to our journeys. In Ken Lindner's Your Killer Emotions, he presents a compendium of vignettes leading to comprehensive and systematic prescriptions for making real-life decisions. With the meticulousness of a surgeon, Lindner creates tried and true therapeutic interventions for the emotionally confused, disabled, and compromised. This is a must-read! Armed with this new tool box of techniques and protocols, the reader can better meet the challenges that life brings.'' --Bert R. Mandelbaum, MD, DHL - Physician for the U.S. Olympic Soccer Team

Friday  1 Feb 2013 / Hour 4, Block D:   Your Killer Emotions by Ken Lindner (Jan 1, 2013); 2 of 2

''Ken Lindner's phenomenal book, Your Killer Emotions puts you in the driver's seat of your life! It enlightens, empowers and provides an essential foundation for achieving success, health, well-being and fulfillment. It provides, in a clear and compelling way, a true, essential life compass that directs and motivates you to manage negative, self-destructive, and self-defeating behavior and to redirect your emotions in a way that harnesses a positive and strategic force. Lindner's book opens the door to this positive emotional force and gives you the tools you need to help keep you on track and allow your greatest talents, skills, and aspirations to flourish, and for you to succeed in the areas you value most!'' --Don Browne, Former President of Telemundo Communications Group; Executive Vice President, NBC News; and member of the Broadcasting Hall of Fame

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Music

 

 

 

 

Hour 1: Skyfall, Syriana, Crysis

Hour 2: Crysis, District 9, Darkspore

Hour 3: Valkyrie

Hour 4: The Raid