Photo, above: Chester Square, Belgravia.  See Hour 2, Block B:  Sarah Lyal, A Slice of London So Exclusive Even the Owners Are Visitors  

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 1, Block A: Daniel Henninger, WSJ, in re:  WONDER LAND  Capitalism's Corruptions

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 1, Block B:  Robert Zimmerman, behindtheblack.com, in re: Canada Pulls Out of U.N. Treaty to Combat Desertification ... - Science



news.sciencemag.org › News ›  Withdrawal from the desertification convention suggests that Harper is still in a fit of pique. Noting that Canada was one of the first countries to ..   
Canada Pulls Out of U.N. Treaty to Combat Desertification - Science ...


 Canada Pulls Out of U.N. Treaty to Combat Desertification. 
Canada quietly pulls out of UN convention to combat drought ...



 Now it looks as though Canada won't participate. ... Drought and desertification are thought to be made worse by the effects ... Silencing our scientists ...

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 1, Block C: . Jeff Foust,  Space Review, in re:   Several states are completing to host a planned commercial launch site for SpaceX, with Texas in the lead.   That competition and growing interest by local and state economic development organizations are attracting commercial space businesses.

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 1, Block D:  Robert M Cutler, Carleton University, in re: the China-Russia meeting underscores entente over Central Asia. 

" The success of the recent summit meeting between Russia's President Vladimir Putin and China's President Xi Jinping is significant not only for the notable agreements reached between the two sides but also for the notable absence of disagreements over Central Asian affairs. Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, observers inevitably speculated about prospects for Russo-Chinese competition in Central Asia. However, a Sino-Russian entente had already begun gradually to close over Central Asia by the time the American military established a presence in the region in support of operations in Afghanistan. Today, cooperation between China and Russia over energy outside Central Asia and a deepening amity among their leaders and advisors signify that that bilateral entente is re-asserting itself as the U.S. diminishes its profile in Central Asia.

 ". . . In diplomacy anniversaries are seldom celebrated by accident, so the choice by Russian and Chinese leaders formally to mark the Sixth Congress of the Chinese Communist Party of China (CCP), held in Moscow in June-July 1928, can only attract attention. This was the only CCP  Congress ever held outside China, as the CCP had barely survived the Nanchang Revolt, in which they rose up against Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang during the so-called First Great Revolution (1923-27). It ended only a week before the Sixth World Congress of the Communist International (Comintern), held that July-August also in Moscow. While the Sixth CCP Congress marked the ascendance of Zhou Enlai, who argued against immediate revolution and in favor of winning over the masses in the countryside, the Sixth Comintern Congress marked the ascendance of Stalin over Bukharin and the proclamation of socialists and social-democrats as class enemies. It is interesting to note that this doctrine contradicts the political practice of Xi's father, a close comrade of Mao, in Xinjiang in the early 1950s and elsewhere throughout his career. Before his purge, rehabilitation, and retirement, the elder Xi was also on friendly terms with the Dalai Lama, before the latter sought asylum in India. The Chinese media avoid these matters."

Hour Two

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 2, Block A:  . Kate Galbraith, The Texas Tribune, in re: In a dusty lot off the main highway in this South Texas town, Vern Sartin pointed to a collection of hose hookups and large storage tanks used for collecting wastewater from hydraulic fracturing jobs. Tracks made by trucks taking wastewater to the Gonzales disposal well. An estimated 30 to 40 truckloads arrive every day.  “We run about 30 to 40 trucks a day, 24-7,” Mr. Sartin said. “Depending on how the oil fracking is going out there, if they’re hustling and bustling, then we’re hustling and bustling.” Mr. Sartin is a watchman at a disposal well operated by Gulf Coast Acquisitions, where each day oil and gas companies dispose of wastewater by pumping it deep underground. Wastewater disposal wells like this one are becoming a common landmark in the drilling regions of Texas as the water-intensive practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, continues to spread. In the fracking process, several million gallons of water, combined with sand and chemicals, are sent down a well to break up rock and retrieve oil and gas. Some of the fluid comes back up, along with additional underground water. Most of this wastewater is trucked to disposal wells and injected thousands of feet underground for permanent storage. But those wells have caused concern about truck traffic, accidents and the possibility for spills and groundwater contamination. Texas oil and gas regulators may soon tighten the rules for the construction of the wells, and they are encouraging drilling companies to reduce waste by recycling more water.

Water for Fracking is a multi-part series exploring the rising use of water for hydraulic fracturing in Texas. It examines the concerns of rural counties at the center of the drilling boom, and looks at the measures oil and gas companies are taking to reduce water use, including recycling; using more brackish water; and even experimenting with water-free fracking. The series also examines the state's rapidly increasing reliance on disposal wells, where wastewater from fracking operations gets buried. This series is a collaboration between The Texas Tribune and StateImpact Texas.

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 2, Block B:  . Sarah Lyal, in re:  A Slice of London So Exclusive Even the Owners Are Visitors  For many recent superrich foreign buyers, London is just a stop in a peripatetic international existence.

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 2, Block C:  . Mary Anastasia O'Grady, Wall Street Journal, in re: THE AMERICAS Two Easters in Castro's Dungeons

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 2, Block D:   Henry Miller, Hoover, in re:  "What We Can Learn From 'Negative' Clinical Trials"

Hour Three

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 3, Block A:  Jim McTague, Barron's Washington, in re: Hiring in U.S. Tapers Off as Economy Fails to Gain Speed  Employers added only 88,000 jobs in March, a pace of growth too sluggish to make a big dent in the backlog of idle workers. The jobless rate dipped to 7.6 percent from 7.7 percent.

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 3, Block B:  . Ken Croswell, Scientific American, in re:    If our solar system had been born with more iron, Jupiter might have kicked Earth into the Sun

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 3, Block C:  . Richard Epstein, Hoover , Chicago Law, et al., in re: his latest Defining Ideas article, “The Persecution of Joseph Bruno." In this article, it's asserted that, “The government’s endless prosecution of the retired Republican politician is a criminal justice travesty.” In 1932, the United States Supreme Court decided the landmark case of Powell v. Alabama. The legal ruling created a sensation at the time. The Alabama state prosecutor sought to railroad nine black men, the “Scottsboro Boys,” in a capital case involving their alleged rape of two white women. The defendants were convicted and each was sentenced to the death penalty, even though they were only given their state appointed lawyers on the morning of the first trial. The Supreme Court reversed the conviction on the grounds that the men were deprived of due process. Eighty years later, the criminal justice system is in better shape, but prosecutorial zeal can still pose a real threat to liberty unless judges are alert to its dangers. Consider the complex prosecution of former New York Senate Majority Leader, Joseph L. Bruno, a man in his ninth decade of life….

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 3, Block D:   Richard Epstein, Hoover , Chicago Law, et al., continued

Hour Four

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 4, Block A:  Coolidge by Amity Shlaes (1 of 4)   Amity Shlaes, author of The Forgotten Man, delivers a brilliant and provocative reexamination of America's thirtieth president, Calvin Coolidge, and the decade of unparalleled growth that the nation enjoyed under his leadership. In this riveting biography, Shlaes traces Coolidge's improbable rise from a tiny town in New England to a youth so unpopular he was shut out of college fraternities at Amherst College up through Massachusetts politics. After a divisive period of government excess and corruption, Coolidge restored national trust in Washington and achieved what few other peacetime presidents have: He left office with a federal budget smaller than the one he inherited. A man of calm discipline, he lived by example, renting half of a two-family house for his entire political career rather than compromise his political work by taking on debt. Renowned as a throwback, Coolidge was in fact strikingly modern -- an advocate of women's suffrage and a radio pioneer. At once a revision of man and economics, Coolidge gestures to the country we once were and reminds us of qualities we had forgotten and can use today.

Shlaes's work. This book's timing is propitious." Read the full review.

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 4, Block B:  Coolidge by Amity Shlaes (2 of 4)     "History has paid little attention to the achievements of Coolidge because he seemed to be unduly passive. Yet Amity Shlaes, as his biographer, exposes the heroic nature of the man and brings to life one of the most vibrant periods in American economic history." (Alan Greenspan)

   "To read Amity Shlaes's well-crafted biography is to understand why Reagan so admired the famously reticent man whom Shlaes calls 'our great refrainer.'" (George F. Will)

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 4, Block C:  Coolidge by Amity Shlaes (3 of 4)     "Amity Shlaes's extraordinary biography describes how a single politician can change an entire political culture -- a story with plenty of echoes today. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, doyenne of the Washington salons, first disdained Coolidge, then admired him. After reading Coolidge, every reader will, too." (Anne Applebaum)

   "A marvelous book that is in many respects as subtle and powerful as Coolidge himself. Shlaes's masterly command of economics, policy, and personal portraiture illustrates the times, talents, character, and courage of the consummate New Englander." (Mark Helprin)

   "Coolidge is a welcome new biography of a great American president. Amity Shlaes shines fresh light on a leader of humble persistence who unexpectedly found himself in the presidency and whose faith in the American people helped restore prosperity during a period of great turmoil. Amidst today's economic hardships and an uncertain future, Shlaes illuminates a path forward -- making Coolidge a must-read for policymakers and citizens alike." (Paul Ryan)

   "Amity Shlaes's new biography carries a different and highly relevant message.... Read Coolidge, and better understand the forces bearing on the President and Congress almost a century later." (Paul Volcker)

Friday  5 April  2013 / Hour 4, Block D:  Coolidge by Amity Shlaes (4 of 4)

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Music

Hour 1: Knight & Day, Star Trek, Babylon AD