Image, above: The Geologic Time Scale was assembled by geologists to show the history of Earth. Fossil evidence in sedimentary rocks was the basis for understanding Earth's evolution from 4.5 bya to present.  Another geologic time scale spiral.

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 1, Block A: Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD, and Thomas Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor, in re: One this day 150 years ago: The Army of the Potomac; Union spy saw the Confederacy closing in on Gettysburg; Meade; Beauford.  Cavalry critical; on second and third day, Meade's army withstood the attacks of ht4 Confederacy. Intell is critical in war.  Tom Joscelyn and Bill Roggio are the intelligence-gatherers of today, Deliberate murder of a Catholic priest in Syria kidnapped in late June: brutal video beheading by al Nusrah Front (= al Qaeda); they pull out a kitchen knife and try to hack the three men's heads off. Seems to be a legitimate video; confirmed by the Vatican. Absolutely gruesome.  Here, gone "full Khmer Rouge" on the priest and others.  There's a black box in where al Q ends and other groups begin.  we need to know what the US is committing itself to in Syria and in the Levant. Three men executed – by whom? And what do we have to do with it?

Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 1, Block B: Bill Roggio, Long War Journal and FDD, and Thomas Joscelyn, Long War Journal senior editor, in re: Father Francois Murad. Video speaker's Arabic is accented, not native speaker, cd be Central Asia or Chechnya; wearing a Pashtu hat.  Vid released by __;; watch only the first 1 minute and 15 seconds. People recording n cell phones, cheering; children playing.  Pres Obama has committed the US to supporting the Free Syrian Army; how can we know that US isn’t going to al Nusrah?  Can't  - guns, like money, are fungible.  Bigger problem:: Qatar, our duplicitous quasi-ally, is now very active.  Qatar has been a lucrative fundraising envt for all kinds of groups. Qatar is arming and funding its own favorite groups.  Vatican has asked for the release of two other Christians.

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Warning: The video below includes extremely graphic content. Three men, including a Catholic priest, are beheaded, and their heads are then displayed atop their corpses.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2013/07/syrian_jihadists_beh.php#ixzz2XqbtYcOx

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Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 1, Block C:  Mona Charen, NRO; Lara M Brown, political analyst and author; Salena Zito, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review & Pirates fan, in re:  Half a million dead in the Civil War; 150 years later, are we again a nation divided against itself –"cannot stand"?  Lee was sitting in his HQ, Meade in his, each thinking tat the day went well enough and that he can win the battle on the morrow. Meade points to Cemetery Ridge, "take it if practicable." Sometimes I feel that we haven’t been this divided except in the Civil War – but the Seventies were divided. We're in a very heated time in the country, but not where we were in the war.  This isn’t even as bad as the 1880s. The 960s brought tremendous unrest and violence; we're more placid now – but we're surely divided, 52/48 or closer. Liberty and equality are in tension with one another; the Democrats prioritize equality, the Republicans prioritize liberty. Hamilton:  the Supreme Court, "the least-dangerous branch," is no longer that, as it makes policy. Policy from the Bench creates unrest, not to be settled, and takes decisions from the hands of the people Next: challenging State laws allowing marriage other than between men and women. I'm perfectly content to accept the decisions of my fellow citizens, but not of five lawyers sitting on a court. Southern Northeast, West, Midwest; Red and Blue States – is that what we want? That's how politicians want to divide us up. "It sells soap."  We're certainly better if we turn the TV off. Member of Congress shoot a man and was acquitted on the basis of temporary insanity – couldn't happen today.  What's worrisome is that our times of greatest strife have been those of greatest economic stress – and we're headed to debt an unfulfillable obligations, thence

Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 1, Block D: Gordon Chang, Forbes.com, in re: Chengdu, capital of Szech'uan Province: building 500 m x 100 m x 100 m (space equals that of three Pentagons), created for economic output, like Terminal 3 in Beijing airport; plus a whole new airport (unneeded) for Beijing – all to keep the economy functioning.

Hour Two

Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 2, Block A:  Gopal Ratnam, Bloomberg, in re: Edward Snowden and his thumb drives in Russia.

Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 2, Block B:  Reza Kahlili, author, A Time to Betray, in re:  Green Chariot + Silk Cocoon – programs to create ICBMs and deliver nuclear warheads. Collaboration with China; in Iran, only three men know the details.  Assembling a uranium bomb; completion 2014. Iran is buying dual-use tech from China, paying DPRK to dvp; and Pakistan:  A Q Khan and gang have entered Iran to work on warhead. Iran got original centrifuges from Khan China is behind a great deal of North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs. Individuals and back-channels to conceal the govts involved.  China recently proclaimed it'd crack down on North Korea – ha-ha; total fraud. China uses Iran and DPRK as proxies in negotiations.  Iran has 10,000-plus centrifuges at Natanz, alone. Working on ballistic missiles (N Korean program).

Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 2, Block C: Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey  (1 of 2)

Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 2, Block D: Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey  (2 of 2)

Hour Three

Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 3, Block A:  Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: Morsi. Gaza. West Bank. Egyptian military (defense minister) issues ultimatum: solve these political problems wthin 48 hours or else.  {" Egypt's army has given the country's rival parties 48 hours to resolve a deadly political crisis.  It would offer its own "road map" for peace if Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and his opponents failed to heed "the will of the people", it said. The statement came after anti-government protesters stormed the Cairo headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood.") Ramifications of Muslim Brotherhood's Egyptian failure cross natl borders to Libya, Tunisia, et al.  US amb to Egypt jumped into the fray [undignified]. Egyptian mil helos flying above demos with Egyptian flag as a sign to demonstrators. 

   Gaza, an island of malpractice – a million-odd people held hostage by a gang named Hamas, that depends on smuggles g routes.  Diesel generators, food, everything, either cut off or at risk.  Tanks mobilizing on Egypt-Gaza border; Cairo sees backlash vs its economy and danger from Hamas.  Islamic Jihad groups thought that when Morsi won Hamas would get huge benefits; not.  Islamic Jihad and Hamas in a spitting match, blew rockets into Israel in the fight. Cement went from $95 to $117. 

     Abbas, Netanyahu, Kerry.  Cairo protests. Egypt's army has given the country's rival parties 48 hours to resolve a deadly political crisis.  It would offer its own "road map" for peace if Islamist President Mohammed Morsi and his opponents failed to heed "the will of the people", it said. The statement came after anti-government protesters stormed the Cairo headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood.  Abbas in cute negotiations, saying he'll talk, then not talk, then talk,  Kerry on fifth trip in five months. Shuttle Jordan-Israel.

Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 3, Block B: Malcolm Hoenlein, Conference of Presidents, in re: Catholic priest. Qatar.  Priest, Father Francois Murad, executed by al Nusrah Front, part of Free Syrian Army (and in fact al Qaeda in Syria).  Christians from Indonesia to Algeria to Nigeria to Iran, all under attack by Islamists. In Syria, Christians are now aligned with Alawites/Assad because they’re terrified of the Islamists.  Saudis sending antiaircraft weaponry, Qataris sending shoulder-fired; Russians sending a new form of the S300 – Syria is becoming a warehouse of weapons.  Putin has blt what he wants; protected his billions in mil sales, has heads of state begging him.  Nasrallah is anxious abt his own situation; opposition in Lebanon vs Nasrallah. reports that Hizballah has lost 500 men, which constitutes a huge loss. Qatar:  Cut-out, financier. Father transferred power to his son: father's health is failing, he deposed his own father.  Prime minister foreign minister, many others: all out; fresh faces.        

       Syrian forces have launched a major offensive against rebel-held parts of the city of Homs.  Aircraft, tanks and mortar units attacked several areas, activists say. Unverified footage showed clouds of smoke from explosions across the city.  Syrian state TV said the army had achieved a "great success" in Homs after "killing many terrorists".  The attack follows gains in Homs province by the forces of President Bashar al-Assad in recent weeks. Turkish protests.  Syrian civil war.  

 

Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 3, Block C: Lincoln Unbound: How an Ambitious Young Railsplitter Saved the American Dream--and How We Can Do It Again, by Rich Lowry. (1 of 2)

Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 3, Block D: Lincoln Unbound: How an Ambitious Young Railsplitter Saved the American Dream--and How We Can Do It Again, by Rich Lowry. (2 of 2)

Hour Four

Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 4, Block A: Simon Constable, Dow Jones, in re: A decline in the number of spots on the sun could warm up the market for natural gas.  These spots, which scientists have observed for centuries, are caused by changes in the magnetic fields on the solar surface, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration says. Scientists aren't sure why, but when the number of visible spots declines, temperatures on Earth tend to be lower. This matters for investors because the sun is entering another period of fewer spots. You can profit from this situation if you focus on two things.   FIRST, TRACK THE NUMBER of sunspots. It isn't a random number. Rather, the count rises and falls in a fairly predictable cycle. Nineteenth-century British economist William Stanley Jevons noted that the pattern of business cycles in the United Kingdom seemed to coincide with the regular ups and downs of the solar cycle. His discussion of the phenomenon appeared in 1878 in the scientific journal Nature.  There is a high correlation between global temperatures and the number of spots observed on the sun, says Don Coxe, proprietor at Chicago-based Coxe Advisors. Case in point: from 1645 to 1715—an abnormally long solar cycle—sunspots all but disappeared, and that coincided with a mini-ice age when, among other things, England's River Thames froze.  These days the cycle is about 11 years, says David Hathaway, a scientist at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "We are now in the smallest sunspot cycle in 100 years," he says. The peak of the current cycle will be about 67 spots, says NASA, which would be the lowest number since 1907, when the cycle reached only 64. That also coincided with lower-than-average U.S. temperatures.  Hathaway says the spot count should decline from here as the cycle plays out. He posts regular forecasts on the spot count on the Marshall Center website—if you want to track it. It's worth noting that Hathaway says there is an "observed relationship" between temperatures on Earth and the sunspot cycle, but he says there are lots of other factors involved in determining climate, such as volcano activity. In short, correlation doesn't equate to causation. Still, if the correlation holds and the temperature drops, you are halfway to making money.  SECOND, TRACK THE NATURAL-GAS market, Coxe says. "You can assume because of the low level of sunspot activity that we will have colder winters and shorter growing seasons than expected," he says. Those colder winters will drive up natural-gas prices, as people use more of the fuel to heat their homes and businesses. In 2008, temperatures fell an average of 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit for the year, and natural-gas prices rose 25% in the winter months. That year the sunspot count dropped close to zero. In addition, the shorter growing seasons for crops will also drive up demand for natural gas to make more fertilizer. Natural gas is used to make nitrogen-based plant food, which is vital to growing corn and rice. Typically, a shorter growing season means more fertilizer is required. Natural-gas futures closed Friday at $3.56 per million BTUs.  Original post here.

Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 4, Block B:  Dr. David H Grinspoon, Astrobiology chair, Library of Congress; astrobiology curator, Denver Museum of Nature & Science, in re: The Anthropocene is the name of a proposed new geological time period (probably an epoch) that may soon enter the official Geologic Time Scale. The Anthropocene is defined by the human influence on Earth, where we have become a geological force shaping the global landscape and evolution of our planet.   According to this theory, the present epoch -- still known as the Holocene, which started 11,000 years ago -- would have ended somewhere between the end of 18th century and the 1950s (when the Anthropocene began). The earlier time limit considers the increasing amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere that is mostly due to the burning of fossil fuels for energy to power our growing industrial technology.   We may consider this process to have started in 1784, with the invention of the steam engine by James Watts. The present high levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere are probably causing the climate to change to a long warm period. The later time period takes into account the increasing background radiation from the nuclear tests by US and USSR military during the beginning of the Cold War. This new frontier in the geological timeline is potentially . . .  [more]

Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 4, Block C:  Michael Grabell, propublica, in re: It’s 4:18 a.m. and the strip mall is deserted. But tucked in back, next to a closed-down video store, an employment agency is already filling up. Rosa Ramirez walks in, as she has done nearly every morning for the past six months. She signs in and sits down in one of the 100 or so blue plastic chairs that fill the office. Over the next three hours, dispatchers will bark out the names of who will work today. Rosa waits, wondering if she will make her rent.  How to Fit 17 People in a Minivan  In cities all across the country, workers stand on street corners, line up in alleys or wait in a neon-lit beauty salon for rickety vans to whisk them off to warehouses miles away. Some vans are so packed that to get to work, people must squat on milk crates, sit on the laps of passengers they do not know or sometimes lie on the floor, the other workers’ feet on top of them.  This is not Mexico. It is not Guatemala or Honduras. This is Chicago, New Jersey, Boston.  The people here are not day laborers looking for an odd job from a passing contractor. They are regular employees of temp agencies working in the supply chain of many of America’s largest companies – Walmart, Macy’s, Nike, Frito-Lay. They make our frozen pizzas, sort the recycling from our trash, cut our vegetables and clean our imported fish. They unload clothing and toys made overseas and pack them to fill our store shelves. They are as important to the global economy as shipping containers and Asian garment workers.  Many get by on minimum wage, renting rooms in rundown houses, eating dinners of beans and potatoes, and surviving on food banks and taxpayer-funded health care. They almost never get benefits and have little opportunity for advancement.  Across America, temporary work has become a mainstay of . . . [more]

Labor Sharks and Kelly Girls  Many people believe that the use of temp workers simply grew organically, filling a niche that companies demanded in an ever-changing global economy. But decades before “outsourcing” was even a word, the temp industry campaigned to persuade corporate America that permanent workers were a burden. The industry arose after World War II as the increase in office work led to a need for  . . . [more]

Monday  1 July  2013 / Hour 4, Block D: Chuck Blahous, Hoover, in re: The Federal Fiscal Predicament: What Seems Better Is Actually Worse  e21, Economic Policies for the 21st Century

 

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Music

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