Podcast 351

Thanking Contributors. Podcasting from the driveway in Los Angeles, California. Finally, the list of contributors to the Mobile Podcast Command Unit 8! Thanking all those who have contributed to the mobile podcast project, or at least as many as we can find documentation for. If you sent a contribution, and your name is not mentioned, email The Bob Davis Podcasts and you will be thanked. From Los Angeles, the plan is to head north on the Pacific Coast Highway, to NAPA, and points East. We’ll keep you updated as we roll. In thanking the contributors and sponsors, a little radio history and podcasting history in this installment. The Bob Davis Podcasts also just hit another milestone in terms of feeds and audience, which is great news. This is the week Rand Paul announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for President. A lot of reaction to out of context statements the Senator made in his speech. What’s the reaction to simply finding the text of the speech online and reading it? Pretty good. It looks more and more like the left will try to make ‘Global Warming’ one of the centers of their campaign to take back the US Senate and retain the White House in 2016. How? By personalizing it. Now it’s all about the President’s daughter’s asthma, even though there’s no scientific link to asthma and ‘Global Warming’. If they’re not demonizing anyone who doesn’t agree with the orthodoxy on the issue, look for them to be telling stories about how grandma was killed by Global Warming. In other words, you killed grandma because you didn’t agree with them on the ‘Climate Change Issue’, and by the way, let’s depopulate the planet and get rid of capitalism, because they cause ‘it’ too. Sigh. Meanwhile people continue to rank all other issues and problems has having a higher concern than ‘Climate Change’, especially when you ask them to allocate resources to solve those problems. Hey, isn’t Warren Buffett concerned about the environment? Isn’t that why he opposes the Keystone Pipeline and hauls oil, highly profitably hauls oil by the way, in rickety train cars that are prone to cause fires when they derail? While Tim Cook of Apple decries the injustice Indiana’s Religious Freedom law, and claims the state is ‘closed’ to gay people, Apple does business in countries that actually kill people for being gay. Imagine! And then there’s the drought in California, which continues despite recent rain. Plus some radio history and some new news regarding feeds for the Bob Davis Podcasts. (Editor’s Note: For some reason I referred to Warren Buffett and an ‘Interloper’. I don’t know if that word really describes the sage of Omaha. And, I referred to Fundamentalist Christians as ‘Iconoclasts’. Who knows where that came from, because Iconoclast really doesn’t describe the Christian Right either. Sigh. But I’m not editing those missives out.) Sponsored by X Government Cars! 

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Podcast 346

Shore Power! Live from the Mobile Podcast Command Unit 8, now with Shore Power! As the power issue begins to resolve on Unit 8, we’re able to produce studio quality podcasts from the road … and try out the new coffee maker. Since everything now is powered up, that means the printer works and that means getting back into the news flow. The big story we’re watching is still the negotiations with Iran. Reportedly the US and the 5 (or 6) nations negotiating with Iran will sign a 3 page letter, after which economic sanctions will be lifted. But, it is also reported that Iran will be able to continue enriching uranium, and could be on a one-year path to having a nuclear weapon. Depending on who you read, or talk to, economic sanctions either worked, or didn’t. Considering the fact that Iran seems to be getting the best of the west, and especially the Obama administration in these negotiations, this looks like a major win for them. It also gives President Obama a ‘feather in his cap’ toward his legacy. Will an agreement with Iran produce long term problems in the middle east? Is this a good deal? Also percolating is the hysteria about Indiana’s new ‘religious freedom’ law. And, back in the Twin Cities (Editor’s Note: Remember I am in Scottsdale, Arizona right now) them fight over what the state pays commissioners and other ‘important’ state government functionaries continues. Meanwhile despite all the talk about millennials moving into hip downtown sections of decaying northern cities, new census data shows people moving to less dense suburban cities. How does this trend counter the standard sell of Light Rail, walkable cities, and downtown venues subsidized by taxpayers? The chair of the Met Council wasn’t supposed to get a 5 figure raise (from 61 thousand a year to 120+) but apparently he has. “It’s a full time job”, say those ‘in the know’, not a part time job. A part time job for 61 thousand a year? Nice. Getting a raise that almost doubles your pay, for any reason. Priceless. In any case, another example of a chief executive that simply ignore the legislature, whether it’s republican, or democrat. And about 100 residents of a Minnetonka apartment complex is suing the hated Met Council to stop the Southwest Light Rail. They say the train will ruin the peaceful atmosphere for biking and hiking behind the complex. What ruins LRT? That is the question. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating and Baklund R&D.

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Podcast 324

Winter and The Donner Party. Updates on the big stories for your weekend. Yeah, it’s cold people, but can we at least use the real temperature rather than wind chills? Was it really -41 in Bemidji, Minnesota the other day, or did just feel like -41? What does -41 feel like? Now of course comes the cavalcade of idiotic financial media stories about the ‘deep cold’ of 2015, and the ‘economic effects’ of people not being able to get to their jobs. In New England? Vermont? Massachusetts? Minnesota? These people, of course, have no experience with such economy killing cold, right? Another economic fairy tale that has died a horrible death is the idea that cheap gas ‘acts like a tax cut’. In reality it appears that the cheaper price of oil isn’t just due to increasing production, but to slackening demand, which ought to cause some concern. A new economic fairy tale is the idea that increasing minimum wages at Wal-Mart (announced as a Public Relations gimmick) will somehow create ‘wage inflation’ which will be good for the economy. Doesn’t seem to be any decrease of wages at federal agencies like the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS currently boasts over eighty thousand employees, and wants to add ten thousand more, ostensibly to do work related to Obama Care taxation enforcement, except only some 400 new employees will be doing that work. What will the others do? Order out for lunch. Buy new chairs. Go to expensive conferences during the winter in Las Vegas. Whatever. Everyone agrees that green and yellow smoke spewing smokestacks, and rivers that explode into flame are bad; We used to call things like that ‘pollution’. These days apparently there is so little pollution that amateur astronomers are complaining that there’s too much ‘light pollution’, they can’t see the little dipper, even with a telescope. Go ahead, tell me to turn off my front porch light. Demand the IDS turn out the lights at night. Hell, go ahead and turn out the street lights. Just don’t call it ‘Light Pollution’. Because when you do that, we call it ‘Mouth Pollution’ as in, SHUT IT! All the talk is that the new iWatch isn’t enough, Apple is going to build a car. The story has been all over the financial media that last few days. Finally someone has debunked it. Find out why in this podcast. So, it’s cold. We know it’s cold. Just imagine you are a pioneer taking the road less traveled in 1847. You come to a wonderful spot high in the Sierra Nevada’s. You say, “This is good. It’s late fall. It’s nice here. Let’s stay and rest up before we head down into the place that will someday be known as the Golden State”. 4 months later half your party is dead, you’re eating Dad for dinner and you realize … You’re the Donner Party! It’s one of the enduring stories of conquering the west, and it should make all of us happy we have hot coffee, steaks in the freezer and ‘Game of Thrones’ to watch. Sponsored by Baklund R&D. 

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