Podcast 209

Obama Makes A Move. ‘On The Road’ Podcasting continues on the second leg of the Chicago to Phoenix trip. Iowa, Nebraska and half of Colorado in one day? The travel reverie is interrupted with a speech from the President, and instant analysis. Apparently the US now has a strategy to “degrade and destroy” the ‘Islamic State’. The strategy – we are told most emphatically – does not include ‘troops on the ground fighting on foreign soil’, but features aid, training and a coalition of Arab states in the region. What is your reaction to the President’s speech? To what degree are the current problems in Iraq the result of his policies. Did he play fast and loose with the ‘facts’ in the speech? Did it feel like a campaign speech? Or, might all of this be a reaction to being stung by the media for actually saying he did not have a strategy just two short weeks ago? Will the speech help the President’s sinking popularity ratings, and democrat prospects for 2014? Most importantly, will the Administration’s plan actually work? The President’s speech sounded erie on scratchy AM radio, from a distant town, while traveling all alone on a deserted rural freeway, passing through Western Nebraska and Eastern Colorado. While it is right and proper for a politician to ballyhoo his successes and downplay his failures, one wonders whether the attempt to ‘degrade and destroy’ ISIS – if it fails – could be the beginning of a substantially more dangerous crisis. Have we seen this pattern before? It sure feels like it. Talking about the same things day after day, outrage over celebrity news, or how sportsmen conduct their personal affairs, while international affairs contain the specter of spinning out of control. Only time will tell. Plus, observations on small towns in Nebraska, Sod Houses, giant tunnels, mountains, and plans for the rest of the trip, where you would live if you could live anywhere…Vail, Colorado would do, in a pinch! Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul.

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Podcast 208

On The Road. 2700 Miles from Chicago, Illinois to Phoenix. The first leg of the trip takes The Bob Davis Podcasts from Chicago to the middle of Iowa, and a pouring rain. What is the take away from the IMTS; The International Manufacturing and Technology Show? For people breaking under a steady diet of doom, gloom and alarm from the media … for those who think ‘manufacturing’ in America is ‘dead’, this would have been a very instructive experience. Innovation in America is not dead. A manufacturing and technology show that filled Chicago’s McCormick Center, with big and small businesses from across the globe. The first experience of ‘The Big Trip’ is that innovative things are going on everyday in this country, it’s just that the people who run our media don’t understand any of it. If the United States ever is able to generate dynamic economic growth again there are many innovations that will produce many new products, each of them a revolution in itself. Slow growth means only the big companies have the cash to invest in new technology. It is hard to watch engineers, managers, academics and small business owners spend almost 6 hours in a workshop talking about these processes, and then find out our media has spent all day talking about an NFL player who beat up his wife. Sitting at a ‘Pilot’ in Western Iowa right now, cursing slow upload speeds, and trying to decide whether to push on to Nebraska, or crash in the front seat of the Crown Vic. Follow the rest of the trip with podcasts everyday from the Road. Chicago to Arizona, and all the buffalo Jerky and Macadamia nuts you can eat! Sponsored by Sedation And Implant Dentistry of Saint Paul.

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Podcast 17

While I had worked in New York City and lived in New Jersey for almost two years, I had never been to the Jersey shore. I never even went to the shore during all the years I lived out east in Virginia and Maryland. So I was amazed by what I saw taking a road trip from Cape May to Atlantic City and points north. Really cool. I am back from my trip out east! Join me as I check out the Jersey Shore, and make some observations about change in our lives, and America.

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