Podcast 343

Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. The Road Trip continues all the way to California. Usually I do not write these notes for each podcast in the first person, but I am writing this from a Starbucks in Amarillo, Texas. The WIFI is being very temperamental and it’s driving me nuts! This has been a long day of travel, and doing podcasts. This is the second of two podcasts for your weekend, and there will be two on Sunday. In this podcast I wanted to give you a flavor of what being on the road is like, where my mind wanders and what I have been thinking about. Being on the road definitely has the effect of allowing me to take a more philosophical tone on some of the issues we’re dealing with these days. I love being on the road, and I love the new Mobile Podcast Command vehicle. My sister calls it the Bob Mobile. My friend Margaret calls it the ‘Wambulance’. Ed Johnson at X Government Cars calls it the “Bob Cat”. Cruising south on I35, on through to Oklahoma City, then picked up I40 through western Oklahoma, and onto Texas. I’m sorry but I forgot I have to go through Texas. Then its on to New Mexico, into Phoenix for a few days by the pool, and then onto California. This isn’t all fun and games though. This shakedown cruise is all about learning how to use all these tools on the fly, and integrate them into the systems in the Mobile Command Unit. That way when we scramble for a real story, I should be able to do everything on the fly. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. Thanks for your support and interest. Having a riot! Sponsored by Baklund R & D. 

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Podcast 337

Global Warming & The Left. In the midst of a solar storm, just ahead of a full solar eclipse and the Spring Equinox, a lot is going on in the heavens and here on Earth. As Europe braces for power outages due to the solar eclipse, suddenly Global Warming returns as the left tries to make it a cornerstone issue for the 2016 narrative. Will it succeed? As two traders are making headlines with a research piece that uses the Global Warming’s own data to devastate their position that ‘warming’ poses an existential threat to the world, a new movie conflates people who favor capitalism and free markets with ‘dangerous climate change deniers’. Former Vice President Al Gore demands that ‘deniers’ be ‘punished’ and a US Congressman demands the financial records of a scientist who has the temerity to disagree with the climate change bolsheviks. Really? Now Free Market advocates — capitalists — are to be persecuted? What is an actual ‘existential threat’? Might it be suggested that an existential threat to America is anyone, or anything that wants to do away with free markets and capitalism? Major environmental groups gathered last year in Venezuela (that wellspring of freedom), said ‘the structural causes of climate change are linked to the current capitalist hegemonic system.’ But, if anything science isn’t settled. For decades we have been hearing first freezing, and then warming end-of-the-world scenarios that have spurred some great movies (Mad Max) and some not so great movies (Water World). Peak Oil, Peak Food, over population, Peak Water, massive poverty, famine and world wide collapse. Oh, and the one about Manhattan being underwater by the 2000’s, that didn’t turn out so well either. In 2016 the left will try to pull together Climate Change, Inequality, Minimum Wage Fairness and Justice and use populist tactics to drive home a powerful theme; Only they can help us from imminent collapse and destruction. You take these ideas on faith, because there’s no proof of the problems, or proposed solutions. The existential threat facing the United States is the political left in this country no longer believes in science, the rule of law, or basic economics, if it ever did. What it believes in, is using science, law and economics as a means to an end. Because it is a social movement, based on subjective ideas, dissent will not be tolerated. In the next few decades we will create one of two worlds. A world where an individual can harness their creativity to create growth for everyone, or a world where our creative impulse is shackled and eventually destroyed. What is the purpose of the US Constitution and government if it is not to protect our rights. This is the one thing we have to get right. What happens when politicians actually have the fight? Ask two winners; Scott Walker and Benjamin Netanyahu. Sponsored by Baklund R&D. 

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Podcast 294

Dry Cycle. The update turns into a discussion of the fallibility of media, even your favorite cable news channel. This weekend, Fox News had to correct itself and apologize profusely for reporting there are ‘no go’ zones in Europe, where non muslims fear to tread, and the police won’t enter. Everyone was talking about it all weekend after Fox anchors and guests apparently got it wrong. These are neighborhoods in England and suburbs in France that are about as forbidding as LA’s Compton, or Chicago’s South Side. While Europe has been more lenient allowing Sharia Law, it does not mean muslim ‘enclaves’ have sprouted, even though allowing a separate law for Muslims in a modern, western democracy is not a good idea. That said, the President and the Pope continue to support limits on free speech. President Obama even went so far as to say he doesn’t consider terrorism a existential threat, which it most certainly is, then said Europe has to do a better job ‘integrating’ its Muslims. Maybe he fell for the No Go story too. This provokes a whole conversation about how to wean yourself from cable news and talk radio, develop multiple sources of information, deal in facts, avoid the emotion spewing out of talk radio and fox news, and use your tools to find and develop deeper knowledge on key subjects. The need to fill the airwaves, pushes under financed and poorly managed outlets to spew out incorrect information, relying on ping ponging viewers back and forth between the latest outrage and the latest breaking news. The good news? That kind of media’s glory days are behind it, as it gives way to on demand audio (podcasts), You Tube, NetFlix and future on demand video services. A recent survey reports that most millennials don’t ever watch broadcast television, seldom watch cable news channels, and download virtually all their entertainment and information. In an on demand world, the daily outrage may not work as well, as people seek out information, rather than people screaming at each other. The latest example? NASA says 2014 was the hottest year on record? Do you know by how much? Do you know what the margin of error is in that estimate? The answer might surprise you. Finally, Arizona and other states are passing laws which require high school seniors to pass citizenship exams in order to graduate. Good idea? Sponsored by Baklund R&D. 

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