The John Batchelor Show

Friday 15 February 2013

Air Date: 
February 15, 2013

Photo, above:  Ozymandias     I met a traveller from an antique land
 Who said: 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
 Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
 Tell that its sculptor well those passions read   
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
 And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
 Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
   Nothing beside remains. Round the decay  Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
  The lone and level sands stretch far away.'   ---Percy Bysshe Shelley.  See: Hour 4, Block A:  Fouad Ajami, Hoover Institution, in re: The Pharaoh Fell, but His Poisonous Legacy Lingers, Wall Street Journal

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 1, Block A: Jim McTague, Barron’s, in re: Sequester. “The probability is rising that Congress won't act to prevent the sequestration spending cuts taking effect at the start of next month. On paper, that would reduce spending by $110bn per year, equivalent to 0.7% of GDP, for nearly a decade. Even if Congress doesn't come up with a last minute deal to avoid the cuts, however, they are only likely to be in effect until a budget for fiscal year 2014 is agreed, hopefully sometime in May. If Congress can't agree on a budget deal, the sequestration will be a relatively minor problem, because the deadlock would probably trigger a government shutdown.”

The Democrats' sequester proposals: You can't be serious  Los Angeles Times

Members of Congress left Washington on Friday for their annual Presidents Day state (or district) work period, planning to resume toward the  . . .

How Republicans can win the sequester fight   Washington Post

Democrats come up with $110 billion plan to delay sequester -- Republicans reject it  NBCNews.com

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 1, Block B:  Michael Riley, Bloomberg, in re: who are the Chinese hackers? What is APT 1-22?   The brand-new operations center of the cybersecurity firm Mandiant is deceptively tranquil. Rooms in the third-floor office, overlooking a lagoon in Redwood City, Calif., are playfully named after locations on the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek, including a kitchen called 10-Forward.

    In one large central control room, dubbed the Bridge, a dozen security analysts peer quietly at their computer monitors, looking for anomalous activity on the computer networks of Mandiant’s hundreds of corporate clients around the world. A large computer display on the wall shows an image of the Earth, seen from space, that highlights in-bound and outbound network activity in each country. Mandiant monitors the entire planet, yet a printout taped to the desk of one analyst suggests that, these days, the company has a more specific focus. “To accuse the Chinese military of launching cyberattacks without solid proof is unprofessional and baseless,” reads an excerpt
from a recent Chinese government statement. Jennifer
Ayers, who manages the Red-wood City facility, removes the printout and folds it in half. “We’re not supposed to editorialize,” she says.

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 1, Block C: . Peter Berkowitz, Hoover Institution, in re: 10 Ways Liberal Education Fails Students -- and Society  Real Clear Politics; 1 of 2

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 1, Block D:  Peter Berkowitz, Hoover Institution, in re: 10 Ways Liberal Education Fails Students -- and Society  Real Clear Politics; 2 of 2

Hour Two

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 2, Block A:  . Michael Vlahos, Naval War College, in re: Drone Killings vs Jefferson Davis's Partisan Ranger Act vs Franz Lieber's 1863 War Rules for Lincoln;  1 of 2

The Civil War is a useful metaphor — also, the rules of engagement whereby we went after Japanese cities in World War II. Lieber and our bombing ROE (against Japan mostly) in WWII speak to the new American (Union) ethos of legal frameworks ueber alles, while Davis's harkens back to the freebooter/Viking raider/pirate tradition of Anglo-American arms that we see exalted by Andrew Jackson, et al. — and which has its resonance today among mujahideen fighters (and their Saudi/Gulf prince supporters) today. Globalist Analysis > Global History

Canada, the Savage Invader?

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 2, Block B:  . Michael Vlahos, Naval War College, in re: Drone Killings vs Jefferson Davis's Partisan Ranger Act vs Franz Lieber's 1863 War Rules for Lincoln; 2 of 2

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 2, Block C:  .Gretchen Morgenstern, in re: How do you get to be a ratings agency? On the Waiting List at the Debt-Rating Club: Legislators have tried to open the world of credit-ratings agencies to more competition. But for one small firm, it’s been tough to gain federal recognition

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 2, Block D:   Sid Perkins, Science magazine, in re:  the common mammal ancestor; the shrew or large rat, furry-tailed ancestor to us.   7 FEBRUARY 2013 | SCIENCENOW    Ancestor of All Placental Mammals Revealed   Tiny, furry-tailed creature rose from the ashes of the dinosaurs

Hour Three

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 3, Block A:  Dune Lawrence, Bloomberg, in re: on the trail of Chinese cyberspies, a portrait of a Chinese hacker. Reports over the past month have proven that the US is the target of a sustained cyberespionage campaign, with China as the most aggressive attacker. Chinese makers of malware, code that attacks corporate and government computers, don’t trip up a lot. Malware expert Joe Stewart was able to track every move of one hacker who did – and Bloomberg News then traced Zhang Chang-he to the gates of Chinese military university, the People's Liberation Army's Information Engineering University. 1 of 2.  Read the full story…

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 3, Block B:  . Dune Lawrence, Bloomberg, in re: on the trail of Chinese cyberspies, a portrait of a Chinese hacker. Reports over the past month have proven that the US is the target of a sustained cyberespionage campaign, with China as the most aggressive attacker. Chinese makers of malware, code that attacks corporate and government computers, don’t trip up a lot. Malware expert Joe Stewart was able to track every move of one hacker who did – and Bloomberg News then traced Zhang Chang-he to the gates of Chinese military university, the People's Liberation Army's Information Engineering University. 2 of 2.  Read the full story…

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 3, Block C:  . Richard Epstein, Hoover Institution Defining Ideas, in re:  The Boy Scouts' Dilemma ; 1 of 2

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 3, Block D: Richard Epstein, Hoover Institution Defining Ideas, in re:  The Boy Scouts' Dilemma ; 2 of 2

Hour Four

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 4, Block A:  Fouad Ajami, Hoover Institution, in re: The Pharaoh Fell, but His Poisonous Legacy Lingers, Wall Street Journal

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 4, Block B:  Brooks Barnes NYT, in re: Thomas Tull producing Jack and the Beanstalk, going for “creative” in Hollywood.     Film Financier Faces a Critical Juncture

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 4, Block C:  Robert Cutler, Carleton University Institute of European, Russian & Eurasian Studies,  in re:  China buys Canada's oil company Nexen and also Buzzard oil field.     Nexen-Cnooc Tie-Up Gets US Approval.  
‪Nexen Inc. (NXY) said early Tuesday that the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. has approved Cnooc Ltd.'s $15.1 billion.

CNOOC-Nexen deal wins US approval, its last hurdle   Reuters India

Friday  15 Feb 2013 / Hour 4, Block D:   Kate Galbraith, NYT and Texas Tribune, in re: Big Coal vs Sierra Club in East Texas Sierra Club Takes Aim at Old Coal Plants in East Texas - NYTimes ... Staring across a lake at the oldest coal-fired power plant in Texas, Mayor Roy W. Hill thinks . . .

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Music:

Hour 1: Appaloosa, Crysis, Ides of March

Hour 2: Infamous, Babylon AD

Hour 3: Tomorrow Never Dies, Babylon AD, Ides of March

Hour 4: Assassin's Creed, Infamous

 

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