Photo, above: Cliffs overlooking Jericho. Photo taken by Bantosh

Jericho is a city located near the Jordan River in the West Bank. It's believed to be one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world. Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of more than 20 successive settlements in Jericho, the first of which dates back 11,000 years (9000 BCE), almost to the very beginning of the Holocene epoch of the Earth's history.  Jericho is described in the Hebrew Bible as the "City of Palm Trees". Copious springs in and around the city attracted human habitation for thousands of years

In 2007, it had a population of 18,346. The city was occupied by Jordan from 1949 to 1967, and has been held under Israeli occupation since 1967; administrative control was handed over to the Palestinian Authority in 1994. 

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 1, Block A: Daniel Henninger, WSJ WONDER LAND, in re: Ferguson, USA 
Fifty years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a Ferguson doesn't need to happen.

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 1, Block B:  Liz Peek, The Fiscal Times & Fox, in re: Obamacare undermines job creation. The ACA has been the most important of a number of White House policies that have discouraged job creation at a time when the country is struggling to put people back to work. At last tally, there were 92 million adult Americans who are not working (like stay-at-home moms), are unemployed, retired or disabled. The workforce participation rate is at a decades-long low. This is unsustainable, and Obamacare is not helping. Companies have limited their hiring and also the number of hours their employers work because of the bill and have faced increased uncertainty. Meanwhile, because of the ACA, Americans no longer need to work to get health benefits – maybe a good thing for individuals, but not for a country whose safety net must be funded by an ever-greater workforce.

In short, there’s still meat on the bones of the Obamacare carcass; Republicans running for office should get out their knives and forks.

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 1, Block C:  Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution/Defining Ideas, Chicago Law, in re: Setting Krugman Straight (1 of 2)

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 1, Block D: Richard A Epstein, Hoover Institution/Defining Ideas, Chicago Law, in re: Setting Krugman Straight (2 of 2)

Hour Two

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 2, Block A: Dr. David H. Grinspoon, Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Astrobiology, Library of Congress. in re: Mars; the search for extraterrestrial life.

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 2, Block B:  Gene Countryman, KNSS Wichita, in re: Happy National Aviation Day Happy Aviation Day and Happy Birthday, Orville Wright. Today, Aug. 19, is National Aviation Day. That’s thanks to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who established the day in 1939 to commemorate Orville Wright’s birthday.

Here are eight other aviation related figures (Data supplied by CIT Aerospace): 1.5 million: The number of people in the air on planes at any one time.   238.6 feet: The length of the mega Airbus A380, which is as long as eight buses and has enough room on its wings to park 70 cars.  5 percent: Percentage of the world’s population that has ever been on an airplane.  6 million: The number of parts it takes to make a Boeing 747.  94 million: Passenger volume last year at the world’s busiest airport — Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

1784: The first recorded flight by a woman, Elisabeth Thible, a French opera singer who rode in a hot air balloon.  207 feet: The world distance record for a paper airplane flight, held by Stephen Krieger from the U.S.  33 hours, 30 minutes: The time it took Charles Lindbergh to fly across the Atlantic in 1927.

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 2, Block C:  Michael Vlahos, Naval War College, in re: EYELESS IN GAZA — ARE WE BLIND TO AN ENDURING REALITY OF WAR? In this new century of war, Americans have lost their way. We have become existentially unmoored. The very language we use to describe war — with strangely disconnected words like “asymmetric” or “hybrid” — tells the world how confused and uncertain we feel when it comes to using military power effectively. But war has not changed in 10,000 years. Gaza tells us it is the same, right near the same biblical site — Jericho — where war first began. The real problem is not that we do not know what war is, but that we refuse to see what is right in front of us and always has been. The big question for us is why we keep ourselves blind.

Sun Tzu said, “In generalship . . .   the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.” Then why did we besiege walled cities with such ardor for the next 2,500 years? Was Sun Tzu wrong, or are we humans just stupid? The fight in Gaza represents a fight for a fortress. Contemporary reinforced concrete, built-up into the densest human landscape, can make as good a fortress as any formally walled place from antiquity.

Humanity’s biggest battles, its most decisive struggles, its bitterest and most intimate conflicts, the final resting place of all the lore of war: they are all, always in the cities. And cities — since the first mud brick courses were laid in late Chalcolithic Jericho 10,000 years ago — represent in the living bones of their buildings, human fortification. So it was in Troy VII, when Achilles . . .  (1 of 2)

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 2, Block D: Michael Vlahos, Naval War College, in re:  EYELESS IN GAZA — ARE WE BLIND TO AN ENDURING REALITY OF WAR? In this new century of war, Americans have lost their way. We have become existentially unmoored. The very language we use to describe war — with strangely disconnected words like “asymmetric” or “hybrid” — tells the world how confused and uncertain we feel when it comes to using military power effectively. But war has not changed in 10,000 years. Gaza tells us it is the same, right near the same biblical site — Jericho — where war first began. The real problem is not that we do not know what war is, but that we refuse to see what is right in front of us and always has been. The big question for us is why we keep ourselves blind.

Sun Tzu said, “In generalship . . . the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities.” Then why did we besiege walled cities with such ardor for the next 2,500 years? Was Sun Tzu wrong, or are we humans just stupid? The fight in Gaza represents a fight for a fortress. Contemporary reinforced concrete, built-up into the densest human landscape, can make as good a fortress as any formally walled place from antiquity.

Humanity’s biggest battles, its most decisive struggles, its bitterest and most intimate conflicts, the final resting place of all the lore of war: they are all, always in the cities. And cities — since the first mud brick courses were laid in late Chalcolithic Jericho 10,000 years ago — represent in the living bones of their buildings, human fortification. So it was in Troy VII, when Achilles . . .  (2 of 2)

Hour Three

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 3, Block A: Give Me a Fast Ship: The Continental Navy and America's Revolution at Sea by Tim McGrath  (1 of 8)

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 3, Block B: Give Me a Fast Ship: The Continental Navy and America's Revolution at Sea by Tim McGrath  (2 of 8)

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 3, Block C: Give Me a Fast Ship: The Continental Navy and America's Revolution at Sea by Tim McGrath  (3 of 8)

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 3, Block D: Give Me a Fast Ship: The Continental Navy and America's Revolution at Sea by Tim McGrath  (4 of 8)

Hour Four

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 4, Block A: Give Me a Fast Ship: The Continental Navy and America's Revolution at Sea by Tim McGrath  (5 of 8)

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 4, Block B: Give Me a Fast Ship: The Continental Navy and America's Revolution at Sea by Tim McGrath  (6 of 8)

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 4, Block C: Give Me a Fast Ship: The Continental Navy and America's Revolution at Sea by Tim McGrath  (7 of 8)

Friday  22 August  2014 / Hour 4, Block D: Give Me a Fast Ship: The Continental Navy and America's Revolution at Sea by Tim McGrath  (8 of 8)

..  ..  ..  ..  ..  ..