The John Batchelor Show

Friday 17 April 2020

Air Date: 
April 17, 2020

"The common law is one of the great intellectual achievements of Western civilization." —RIchard Epstein
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Hour One
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 1, Block A: Henry Miller, Pacific Research Institute, in re: Risks that will test our mettle: we’ll need lots of tests, readily available. Also, must have antibody tests. Need to know penetrance, incidence of asymptomatic illness, and what the true case lethality is. Serology tests? . . . Testing appropriate cross-sections.  . . . What titer will confer immunity? Several varieties of this virus.
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 1, Block B:  Henry Miller, Pacific Research Institute, in re: Contact tracing.  Science mag, 14 April: thee control knobs with which we can control the outbreak. 1. Isolating patients and contact tracing; 2. border restrictions; 3.  continue social distancing.  Small mutinies starting to occur against present restrictions.
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 1, Block C: Richard Epstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover, in re:  Joe Biden at the 1991 Clarence Thomas hearings, picks up a book, Takings: Eminent Domain, and asks if Thomas believes this which he affirms; then Biden reveals his apparent contempt for the Constitution.  “Thee are limits to the state’s ability even to threaten to take property; v 1978, Penn Central: air rights over the terminal were valuable. Wanted to put up a 55-story tower, to which the public objected.
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 1, Block D:  Richard Epstein, Chicago Law, NYU Law, Hoover, in re:   Senator Biden deriding the Constitution.  . . .  The common law is one of the great intellectual achievements of Western civilization.
 
Hour Two
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 2, Block A:  Devin Nunes, CA-22; in re: Devin’s podcast; His interview with Laura Trump. 
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 2, Block B:  Devin Nunes, CA-22; in re:   The FBI was not forthcoming in its information on the Steele dossier. Declassification of the Horowitz report. The Russia hoaxers are nowhere to be seen. There were people in the FBI who, after Crossfire Hurricane was in full motion, said that Steele was compromised. Looks like a traditional dirty op funded by Clinton campaign and run by Fusion GPS.  They added fraudulent and negative information to persons on Google.
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 2, Block C:  Chris Riegel, Scala.com, in re:  China reports 6.8% contractions.  The truth is probably much greater than 6.8. Life in the US after the virus: the knowledge economy, where people can work at home.   Companies that knit people together will prosper?  . . . Said that 25,000 retail stores could close by the end of this year.
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 2, Block D: Dan Henninger, WSJ editorial board and Wonder Land column; in re:   Laisser-faire in the days to come, in the time of the virus.   We can't survive a slow, U-shaped recovery; will need radical thinking to get a V-shaped recovery, and laisser-faire seems like the right philosophy.  Used to be, “Laissez-nous faire,” meaning, “Let us do it.”  There are people who work sixteen hour a day; unshackle them.  The gig economy is essentially dead — Airbnb, Uber, Lyft.  Open the can-do spigot by stripping government down. Govt by order has created a bare-bones economy; now we need a bare-bones government.
 
Hour Three
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 3, Block A:  Gene Marks, The Guardian, the Philadelphia Inquirer, TheHill , in re:  The Payroll Protection Program.  The  first $350 bil is exhausted.  You put in your app, the bank submits to the SBA, you get an “e-trans” number; then the money has to get to the bank and then to you. SBA says it’s processed 1.6 million applications.  Democrats reject the proposed replenishment of cash unless a half-dozen other major recipients are included.  Mark Cuban.  Kabbage, Lendio, Paypal, Square.  The country’s two leading leaders[?]: Mnuchin and ____ have been calm and reassuring. Impressive.  Also: Zuckerberg (Facebook):  put $100 mil into a fund to go to small businesses.  
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 3, Block B:  Gene Marks, The Guardian, the Philadelphia Inquirer, TheHill , in re:  
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 3, Block C:  Bill Gertz,  , in re: The origins of the virus that shut down the planet, and the best economy in history.  In Jan 2020, the suspicion that the virus may have originated in a lab in Wuhan. World media now speculating on exactly that. The Wuhan Institute of Virology (Wuhan Center for disease control and prevention, and the National Biosafety Lab, built by the French, who hesitated because they knew that in China there’s no distinction between mil and civilian work).  The key element of these labs is that for 12 years they’ve been doing research into bat viruses.   China has boasted of its obsession with viruses; it’s uncovered 2,000 new viruses. Among these are several hundred corona viruses. China has been totally irresponsible in covering up, deceiving, and deflecting criticism.  Hsi Chun-li/Xi Jun-lee reported in Jan that it's clear that one of these viruses could have escaped.  Government crackdown.  First patient in Wuhan was an elderly man who appeared at a hospital on December 1; he had no connection to the lab.  Government now says it must have been in November so it can claim that the US Army brought into China and spread the virus .   A Chinese blogger identified a woman researcher at the lab as patient zero.  All of a sudden, her picture and biography on the website went missing. It’s now thought that it was at her funeral when the disease spread to the rest of Wuhan. The problem with the wet market.  Critics of the lab-leak theory.
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 3, Block D:  Jeff Bliss, Pacific Watch, in re: Traffic on the Santa Monica freeway suggests hat things are heading toward returning to normal.  Today, Californians are restless and have contempt for the politicians. Basketball at 4.3 feet separation.  Huntington Beach (“Surf City, USA”), south of LA.   The 1918 Spanish influenza. 
 
Hour Four
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 4, Block A: Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re:  In the time of the virus, the reopening: California, Oregon and ___ —deep blue—and East Coast states, almost deep blue; and Ohio and Midwestern states.   I could never have imagined that what’s unfolding before us would look similar to the  [  ] end of the Civil War.  The sub-confederations are coming together.  Symbolic but heavily freighted. Portentous.  American governance: a slow devolution back toward the kind of relations that obtained during the Articles of Confederation. President Trump is condemned for having failed to respond as though this was WWII and closed down the nation.   Developing:  21 blue states and 28 red states; and some would split in two.  Gold and silver in 1892, the Cross of Gold speech. Pennsylvania in twain, with Biden proudly proclaiming himself as eastern; the western half can't vote for him because he’s promised to end all their jobs.  Wide economic despair in patches in the reopening.  America dividing itself into states, and loyalty to a state.  “Liberate Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota” — Pres Trump tweet. 
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 4, Block B: Michael E Vlahos, Johns Hopkins, in re:  The states break themselves into congregations. Blue states have been provoked by, “Liberate Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota.”  The people of Michigan have already rebelled.  People are not thinking nationally now, they’re thinking in terms of states.   I’ve become focused on state politics more than I’ve ever been in my life.  States putting up roadblocks, closing entrance to those who don't  have an in-state license. Like 1816.  Close New York City in July-August.  “At that rate, tumbleweeds will be rolling across Times Square.” Divisions that formerly were hortatory now have become dividing lines in existential policies.  Coalesce dynamics that have been building for years; de facto Constitutional [matter].   The existential divide doesn't hit you day to day, but when it suddenly does, [it smacks you], is deeply personal.  The solution of going separate ways is preferable to an actual civil war.    Before 1860, there was real anger.   A heinous example: post-Civil War, the South after 1876 was able to become an autonomous part of America. 
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 4, Block C:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack, in re: Rocket lab was for small-sat launches,  but is __ from Ariane Space. Space Force; Russian anti-sat tests. Weightlessness affects cardiovascular, bones, brain.  White matter in brain increases in volume and may never revert.
Friday 17 April  2020  / Hour 4, Block D:  Robert Zimmerman, BehindtheBlack, in re: The asteroid Benu, a sort of gravel pit; practice landing for a grab-and-go.  Spectacularly enormous supernova 3 billion LY away.