The John Batchelor Show

Author (Photo: File:Cityscape of Qayyarah town on fire.The Mosul District, Northern Iraq,) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War by Sebastian Gorka. America is at war. The fight against global jihad has cost 7,000 American lives and almost $2 trillion, and yet, most Americans do not understand what is at stake. The public lacks knowledge and safety because two presidents and their administrations neglected the most basic strategic question: who is the enemy? Presidents Bush and Obama both named the global jihadi movement—a movement with an intent to destroy the West—“violent extremism.” Their tidy term was an attempt to maintain peace with the Muslim community. But when they failed to appropriately name the enemy, they failed to fully understand Islamic extremism. This failure is why the U.S. has been in Afghanistan for sixteen years with no end in sight. But this war is eminently winnable if we remove our ideological blinders, accurately name our enemy, and draw up a strategy to defeat the ideas that inspire terrorism. So says Dr. Sebastian Gorka, one of the most experienced and sought-after authorities on counterterrorism. Dr. Gorka has been one of the intelligence community’s go-to experts on counterterrorism since 9/11. He’s been called to brief Congress and the Marine Corps and was asked to analyze the Patriot’s Day Boston Marathon Bombing for the US government. Dr. Gorka’s report for the trial of Dzhokhar "Jahar" Tsarnaev was widely circulated in counterterrorism circles and the media because it accurately painted a picture, not of a teenager on the cover of Rolling Stone, but of a terrorist. Dr. Gorka is respected by peers because he understands our enemy is not "terror" or "violent extremism." Our enemy is the global jihadi movement, a modern totalitarian ideology rooted in the doctrines and martial history of Islam whose goals are to build an empire, suppress “false Muslims,” and engage in guerilla warfare against infidels. Taking his cue from the formerly top-secret analyses that shaped the U.S. response to the communist threat, Dr. Gorka has produced a compelling profile of the jihadi movement—its mind and motivation—and a plan to defeat it. https://www.amazon.com/Defeating-Jihad-Winnable-Sebastian-Gorka-ebook/dp/B01C911682/ref=la_B01GOASLXC_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1500162169&sr=1-1

Author (Photo: Artist's impression of a M dwarf star surrounded by planets. Image credit: NASA/) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow Newborn only 20 Light Years from Earth. Ken Croswell, @ScientificAmerican "...The discovery was an accident. Zuckerman was studying more distant young stars and noticed that EQ Pegasi might be moving with them. Then he saw that both stars were abnormally luminous—a sign of their youth. A star forms when an interstellar cloud of gas and dust collapses under its own weight. As gravity squeezes the gas, it heats up, as compressed gas will do, until it shines—and a new star is born, but one that owes most of its light to gravity rather than to nuclear reactions. During this so-called pre–main-sequence phase, the star is larger and therefore brighter than it will be when it is more mature. The star slowly shrinks and fades until it reaches the main sequence, the stage when nuclear reactions at the stellar core convert protons into helium and supply the star with all of its energy. Earth’s sun shone for 50 million years as a pre–main-sequence star. EQ Pegasi consists of two red dwarfs, stars that are much cooler, fainter and smaller than the sun. Such stars outnumber all other stellar types put together but are so dim that not a single one is visible to the naked eye. A red dwarf evolves slowly and lingers in the gravity-powered pre–main-sequence phase for more than 100 million years, outshining main-sequence stars of the same color. "The two stars in the EQ Pegasi system seem to be sitting above the luminosity that they would have if they were just ordinary main-sequence stars," Zuckerman says. As he and his colleagues report in the November 20 issue of The Astrophysical Journal, EQ Pegasi sports the nearest pre–main-sequence stars to Earth...." https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-pair-of-stellar-newborns-shine-brightly/

Author (Photo: ) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow Reagan: The Life– by H.W. Brands. PART 4 of 6. “No one loved a good story better than Ronald Reagan. His own story—synonymous with the American Century and reflected in his political evolution from New Deal Democrat to Washington-phobic conservative—has never been told better. Studded with fresh insights, empathetic and yet constructively critical, it may well be H. W. Brands’s finest book. Certainly it confirms Reagan’s place as the conservative FDR, a transforming leader whose influence on his country’s politics and governance is arguably greater than the day he left the White House.” —Richard Norton Smith, author of On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller “National treasure H. W. Brands, who gave us the definitive single-volume biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt, completes his biographical tour d'horizon of twentieth-century politics with this superb life of Ronald Reagan. In doing so, Brands tracks the paths we wandered through the depression and the Second World War, the battle against communism, and the conservative revolution. How did we get to today’s angry, polarized nation? Read Brands’s life of Reagan, and find out.” —John A. Farrell, author of Clarence Darrow and Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century About the Author H. W. Brands holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. A New York Times bestselling author, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography for The First American and Traitor to His Class. https://www.amazon.com/Reagan-Life-H-W-Brands/dp/0307951146

Author (Photo: ) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow Richard Nixon: The Life by John A. Farrell. PART 3 of 4. “Beautifully written and deeply insightful . . . A bracing portrait of a man untethered from principle and ideology, driven throughout his life to win at any cost and thereby palliate his deep-seated insecurities . . . Nixon was not an easy man to understand. And even now, his failures and accomplishments are not easy to classify. In Farrell’s capable hands, however, we see Nixon in his entirety—and we can’t help but wonder what he means for our politics today.” —William Howell, San Francisco Chronicle "[Nixon is] an electrifying subject, a muttering Lear, of perennial interest to anyone with even an average curiosity about politics or psychology. The real test of a good Nixon biography, given how many there are, is far simpler: Is it elegantly written? And, even more important, can it tolerate paradoxes and complexity, the spikier stuff that distinguishes real-life sinners from comic-book villains? The answer, in the case of Richard Nixon, is yes, on both counts.” —Jennifer Senior, The New York Times “A stack of good books about Nixon could reach the ceiling, but Farrell has written the best one-volume, cradle-to-grave biography that we could expect about such a famously elusive subject. By employing recently released government documents and oral histories, he adds layers of understanding to a complex man and his dastardly decisions . . . Outstanding.” —Aram Goudsouzian, Washington Post "With a mix of morbid fascination and deep empathy, Farrell humanizes Nixon, but he doesn't let him off the hook . . . The dichotomy between brooding schemer and extroverted leader has long defined the Nixon dynamic. But with Richard Nixon, Farrell has etched those history-shaking contradictions into the most vivid—and the most startling—relief to date." —Jason Heller, NPR.org “An extremely valuable introduction to the life and times of one of our most consequential presidents. Farrell gives us a Nixon rich in both character flaws and great accomplishments, the latter fueled by his transformational vision. It’s a worthy look at a fascinating president.” —Ray Locker, USA Today “Though there have been many previous books about Nixon, Mr. Farrell’s comprehensive, one-volume biography is welcome . . . In lively, vigorous prose, he takes readers through Nixon’s career, offering incisive judgments and revealing details along the way.” —Robert K. Landers, Wall Street Journal “Superb . . . the most formidable attempt yet made to put Richard Nixon in perspective.” —Steve Donoghue, Christian Science Monitor “Farrell is an exceptional writer . . . It may not have been Farrell’s intent to produce a cautionary tale about the dangers of a presidency run aground on lies, paranoia, prejudices, and delusion, but that’s what he’s accomplished.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Farrell’s blockbuster portrait of Nixon is revelatory—filled with fresh reporting shedding new light on the roots of our own dark political moment. He shows that dirty tricks, October Surprises, and anti-elitist resentment were among the gifts Nixon bequeathed to our own presidential politics.” —Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right “John A. Farrell has once again delivered a rich, precisely written portrait of the past to help us understand the present. He traces the origins and turning points of one of the most complex, complicated and fascinating presidents of the modern age with flair and narrative skill. Each page is a joy to read, on the way to a very satisfying whole.” —John Dickerson, moderator of CBS’s Face the Nation and author of Whistlestop “Brilliant, ruthless, a president who combined some enlightened policies with inner darkness, Richard Nixon stands alone in the history of ...

04-27-2016 Nature-Science (Photo: ) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow Antarctica's whole ice sheet is only 34 million years old. Dan Lunt. University of Bristol. Ice sheets such as those on Greenland and Antarctica today not only respond to changing climate but can also cause climate to change. Their sizes have fluctuated substantially in the past. In particular, Antarctica was effectively ice-free until its ice cover began to expand rapidly at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary around 34 million years ago (see the figure). Recent research, including a report by Galeotti et al. on page 76 of this issue (1), helps to identify the mechanisms that led to this rapid ice sheet growth. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/352/6281/34 How Antarctica got its ice by Caroline H. Lear, Dan J. Lunt

07-15-2017 (Photo: Menlo Park: El Camino Real.) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules Twitter: @BatchelorShow Pacific Watch: Evicting the well-employed RV campers of Silicon Valley's El Camino Real. @JeffBliss1 "In Palo Alto, people living in RVs along El Camino Real* are bracing for an impending crackdown. *El Camino Real ("the King's Highway") is a major north-south thoroughfare on that side of the Bay. Historical note: El Camino Real refers to the 600-mile road connecting the 21 Spanish missions in California (formerly Alta California), along with a number of sub-missions, four presidios, and three pueblos, stretching at its southern end from the San Diego area, all of the way up to the trail's northern terminus at Mission San Francisco Solano in Sonoma (just above San Francisco Bay). cbsloc.al/2tOn3oC

07-15-2017 (Photo:Exuma ) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules Twitter: @BatchelorShow Where's the big money from the Fyre Festival fiasco? @DarkCityfm Steve Warner DarkCity.fm Billy McFarland, the cofounder of the musician-booking app Fyre Media and its disastrous Fyre Festival, was arrested by federal authorities on Friday on a wire-fraud charge. He was released Saturday on $300,000 bail, but not before aspects of his lifestyle were revealed in a hearing. According to The New York Times, McFarland is making payments on a Maserati with a suggested retail price of $110,000 and renting a Manhattan penthouse apartment for $21,000 a month. He is currently being represented by a public defender. At the time of his arrest, he had $5,000 in cash on him. McFarland's "lavish lifestyle" was a cause of concern for the court, said Assistant US Attorney Kristy Greenberg. She questioned whether McFarland was of the limited means typically required to be appointed a public defender. http://www.businessinsider.com/fyre-festival-founder-billy-mcfarland-has-a-lavish-lifestyle-2017-7

Author (Photo:File:Trump Tower Atrium.jpg ) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow Trump Tower and the Soviet Union after 1984. @CraigUnger @TheNewRepublic "...Trump made his first trip to Russia in 1987, only a few years before the collapse of the Soviet Union. Invited by Soviet Ambassador Yuri Dubinin, Trump was flown to Moscow and Leningrad—all expenses paid—to talk business with high-ups in the Soviet command. In The Art of the Deal, Trump recounted the lunch meeting with Dubinin that led to the trip. “One thing led to another,” he wrote, “and now I’m talking about building a large luxury hotel, across the street from the Kremlin, in partnership with the Soviet government.” Over the years, Trump and his sons would try and fail five times to build a new Trump Tower in Moscow. But for Trump, what mattered most were the lucrative connections he had begun to make with the Kremlin—and with the wealthy Russians who would buy so many of his properties in the years to come. “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets,” Donald Trump Jr. boastedat a real estate conference in 2008. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” The money, illicit and otherwise, began to rain in earnest after the Soviet Union fell in 1991. President Boris Yeltsin’s shift to a market economy was so abrupt that cash-rich gangsters and corrupt government officials were able to privatize and loot state-held assets in oil, coal, minerals, and banking. Yeltsin himself, in fact, would later describe Russia as “the biggest mafia state in the world.” After Vladimir Putin succeeded Yeltsin as president, Russian intelligence effectively joined forces with the country’s mobsters and oligarchs, allowing them to operate freely as long as they strengthen Putin’s power and serve his personal financial interests. According to James Henry, a former chief economist at McKinsey & Company who consulted on the Panama Papers, some $1.3 trillion in illicit capital has poured out of Russia since the 1990s. Semion Mogilevich. At the top of the sprawling criminal enterprise was Semion Mogilevich. Beginning in the early 1980s, according to the FBI, the short, squat Ukrainian was the key money-laundering contact for the Solntsevskaya Bratva, or Brotherhood, one of the richest criminal syndicates in the world. Before long, he was running a multibillion-dollar worldwide racket of his own. Mogilevich wasn’t feared because he was the most violent gangster, but because he was reputedly the smartest. The FBI has credited the “brainy don,” who holds a degree in economics from Lviv University, with a staggering range of crimes. He ran drug trafficking and prostitution rings on an international scale; in one characteristic deal, he bought a bankrupt airline to ship heroin from Southeast Asia into Europe. He used a jewelry business in Moscow and Budapest as a front for art that Russian gangsters stole from museums, churches, and synagogues all over Europe. He has also been accused of selling some $20 million in stolen weapons, including ground-to-air missiles and armored troop carriers, to Iran. “He uses this wealth and power to not only further his criminal enterprises,” the FBI says, “but to influence governments and their economies.” https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate

Author: (Vice President Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev speak as the press looks on in part of what came to be known as the Kitchen Debate, July 24, 1959. ) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow Richard Nixon: The Life by John A. Farrell. PART 2 of 4. “Beautifully written and deeply insightful . . . A bracing portrait of a man untethered from principle and ideology, driven throughout his life to win at any cost and thereby palliate his deep-seated insecurities . . . Nixon was not an easy man to understand. And even now, his failures and accomplishments are not easy to classify. In Farrell’s capable hands, however, we see Nixon in his entirety—and we can’t help but wonder what he means for our politics today.” —William Howell, San Francisco Chronicle "[Nixon is] an electrifying subject, a muttering Lear, of perennial interest to anyone with even an average curiosity about politics or psychology. The real test of a good Nixon biography, given how many there are, is far simpler: Is it elegantly written? And, even more important, can it tolerate paradoxes and complexity, the spikier stuff that distinguishes real-life sinners from comic-book villains? The answer, in the case of Richard Nixon, is yes, on both counts.” —Jennifer Senior, The New York Times “A stack of good books about Nixon could reach the ceiling, but Farrell has written the best one-volume, cradle-to-grave biography that we could expect about such a famously elusive subject. By employing recently released government documents and oral histories, he adds layers of understanding to a complex man and his dastardly decisions . . . Outstanding.” —Aram Goudsouzian, Washington Post "With a mix of morbid fascination and deep empathy, Farrell humanizes Nixon, but he doesn't let him off the hook . . . The dichotomy between brooding schemer and extroverted leader has long defined the Nixon dynamic. But with Richard Nixon, Farrell has etched those history-shaking contradictions into the most vivid—and the most startling—relief to date." —Jason Heller, NPR.org “An extremely valuable introduction to the life and times of one of our most consequential presidents. Farrell gives us a Nixon rich in both character flaws and great accomplishments, the latter fueled by his transformational vision. It’s a worthy look at a fascinating president.” —Ray Locker, USA Today “Though there have been many previous books about Nixon, Mr. Farrell’s comprehensive, one-volume biography is welcome . . . In lively, vigorous prose, he takes readers through Nixon’s career, offering incisive judgments and revealing details along the way.” —Robert K. Landers, Wall Street Journal “Superb . . . the most formidable attempt yet made to put Richard Nixon in perspective.” —Steve Donoghue, Christian Science Monitor “Farrell is an exceptional writer . . . It may not have been Farrell’s intent to produce a cautionary tale about the dangers of a presidency run aground on lies, paranoia, prejudices, and delusion, but that’s what he’s accomplished.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Farrell’s blockbuster portrait of Nixon is revelatory—filled with fresh reporting shedding new light on the roots of our own dark political moment. He shows that dirty tricks, October Surprises, and anti-elitist resentment were among the gifts Nixon bequeathed to our own presidential politics.” —Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right “John A. Farrell has once again delivered a rich, precisely written portrait of the past to help us understand the present. He traces the origins and turning points of one of the most complex, complicated and fascinating presidents of the modern age with flair and narrative skill. Each page is a joy to read, on the way to a very satisfying whole.” —John Dickerson, moderator of...

Author ( Ronald and Nancy Reagan aboard a boat in California, 1964 ) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules http://johnbatchelorshow.com/blog Twitter: @BatchelorShow Reagan: The Life– by H.W. Brands. PART 3 of 6. “No one loved a good story better than Ronald Reagan. His own story—synonymous with the American Century and reflected in his political evolution from New Deal Democrat to Washington-phobic conservative—has never been told better. Studded with fresh insights, empathetic and yet constructively critical, it may well be H. W. Brands’s finest book. Certainly it confirms Reagan’s place as the conservative FDR, a transforming leader whose influence on his country’s politics and governance is arguably greater than the day he left the White House.” —Richard Norton Smith, author of On His Own Terms: A Life of Nelson Rockefeller “National treasure H. W. Brands, who gave us the definitive single-volume biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt, completes his biographical tour d'horizon of twentieth-century politics with this superb life of Ronald Reagan. In doing so, Brands tracks the paths we wandered through the depression and the Second World War, the battle against communism, and the conservative revolution. How did we get to today’s angry, polarized nation? Read Brands’s life of Reagan, and find out.” —John A. Farrell, author of Clarence Darrow and Tip O’Neill and the Democratic Century About the Author H. W. Brands holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin. A New York Times bestselling author, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography for The First American and Traitor to His Class. https://www.amazon.com/Reagan-Life-H-W-Brands/dp/0307951146