Podcast 368

Asteroid. As a huge asteroid comes within striking distance of the Earth – relatively speaking – one wonders whether the now controversial Jade Helm exercise in the American West, and the mood of people in the last few weeks is connected somehow. While the object in question (1999 FN53) will come only within about four million miles of earth it’s the one they don’t see that will hit us. Begging the question, if they knew an object that was over a mile wide and could do catastrophic damage to the planet, would they tell us? This is a great story that provokes all kinds of questions. So much of our lives these days depends on supposedly making precise predictions about the future that are expected to be correct, even about outlier events. Yet life is rarely predictable and very messy. A person’s life can be changed in a blink of an eye, as can the life of a nation. This podcast shares one friend’s story of instant change. Probably everyone has a story about something that happened, and after that, their lives were different. There’s plenty of books, TV shows and movies about these kinds of situations, from The Walking Dead to Jericho and of course the Mad Max movies. What happened? Sometimes the show’s story line tells us and sometimes they don’t. Not knowing is half the fun, and maybe that’s what keeps us watching. Oddly enough, at the same time a new survey from Pew says that fewer and fewer Americans identify with the Christian Faith, provoking an honest personal observation about religion, religious people and the movie ‘Left Behind’, with Nicholas Cage. What role does religion play in our lives? After 9/11, people were more likely to go to church and identify with a faith. As the old saying goes, there’s no atheists in Fox Holes. Or are there? One of the topics of the Bob Davis Podcasts is often technology, disruption because of technology, and the impact it has on the way we work. This has been a topic of discussion on these podcasts since almost the start. Suddenly a lot is being written about autonomous machines, robotics, 3D printing, and automation in industries that have never been automated before. Now, we’re starting to see the first impact of truly autonomous machines in retail, fast food and semi skilled labor and a lot is being written about the impact. Sometimes the writer tries to persuade the reader that it must be stopped, other times writers appear to be trying to predict a jobless future because of these machines. What will happen and how do we get ready for it. A lot of things to think about in this unusual, candid and off beat midweek update. Sponsored by Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. 

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Podcast 364

Why Do I Do What I Do? A question from a drunk friend proves surprisingly difficult to answer. Why do I do podcasts? The pat answer isn’t good enough. Part of the reason is to prove podcasting is a viable medium for listeners and advertisers. In fact, far superior to radio in many ways. Another reason I podcast is because I do not want to contribute to the scream and outrage orgy that has become talk radio in this country, and what now passes for broadcast and cable ‘news’. Still, it’s a hard question to answer when there are so many ways to answer it. I am sure I’ll be talking about this in future podcasts. In fact, as I write this, and in retrospect I think I should have talked longer about this question, “Why do you do what you do?”. Have you ever thought about that? Why do you do what you do? Whatever it is. When you actually consider a question like that, its kind of a hard question to answer. Yes, there are updates for the beginning of the week (in podcast time). 3 more candidates will join the three hundred and fifty nine other people in the race for the Republican Presidential Nomination. GOP strategists claim all of these candidates show the Republicans have more diversity. On the other hand, if the Republicans have twenty candidates on stage in early debates, again, the chances the party is going to look ridiculous are good, or maybe it will make Jeb Bush look presidential. This week Carly Fiorina, Mike Huckabee and Doctor Ben Carson. Will it be a repeat of 2008 and 2012? Only time will tell. Meanwhile, former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley may – may – throw his hat into the ring on the Democrat side, saying we haven’t had a plan for our cities since, uh Jimmy Carter. It was revealed this week the Clinton Global Initiative took money from the US Taxpayer, and other governments. Talk about crony capitalism! Finally, driverless car tech is here, and here ahead of the law (shock!), and all sorts of scientific news, reversing aging, editing DNA, Robots for small business and more. Happy Monday from the Deck, in the velvet full moon lit night. It’s officially Tiki Torch Weather. Sponsored by X Government Cars! 

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Podcast 360

Updates! The Correspondent’s dinner is a colossal waste of time, and discussions now center on how to fix it. How do you fix it when the news reporters who should be in Baltimore covering riots are ‘the story’ at a glitzy, hollywood style celebrity roast, including the President. How is the public to expect objectivity in its nightly news given that kind of display. NBC Nightly News, as predicted, has reportedly asked Brian Williams to find the door as more evidence of his ’embellishments’ emerge. Williams has done irreparable harm to NBC News. The Comcast-Time Warner deal is kaput. It can only be hoped complaints about customer service at both companies contributed to it. It’s starting to become apparent that the balance of power, when it comes to energy, is shifting in favor of the United States. Fracking made it possible, and today’s technology made fracking so efficient oil companies can scale them up or down at much cheaper costs, and exploration is cheaper as well. With the US the second or first largest oil producer, and controlling as much as ten percent of the world’s oil production, substantive changes in middle east policy are now possible. The new reality also extends to how we deal with countries like Venezuela and Russia, not just the Middle East. Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison wants to end so called subsidies to the ‘evil’ oil companies. What are subsidies, what tax breaks and loopholes specifically apply here and who really benefits? Meanwhile real subsidies for wind power, ethanol, electric cars, light rail and rail roads that deliver the oil – rather than the Keystone Pipeline – continue. Who benefits? The top selling car at GM is not a gas-electric, or even the fully electric Volt. It’s the Suburban, Yukon and Escalade as people trade in their electric cars for SUV’s, now that gas is cheaper. The war on the car, the individual and independent-government-free living continues. Latest in the struggle is the Southwest Light Rail project now expected to cost Minnesota Taxpayers 2 billion dollars, which shocked and appalled Governor Dayton. The solution? Kill the project. The aging hippie governor and his 60 year old pals at the Hennepin County Council, City Councils and a duchy known as ‘The Met Council’ have a vision. That vision is our return to the early 20th century city utopia, where cars were scarce and trains carried people from residential areas of big cities downtown. Forget that those cities, at that time, were hardly utopias. The last, best hope of these statists is the Millennial generation, which they expect will move into downtown, thus populating the expensive (1500 to 3000 a month) high rise apartments, and drinking in the bohemian bars and coffee shops, and in general contributing to something called ‘the creative class’. Truth is, Millennials are moving to the suburbs and the exurbs because housing is cheaper, and there are yards for their new families. Babies and toddlers don’t prefer sitting in outdoor coffee cafes, riding around on bikes and getting tattoos. Is the statist dream of returning to the early 20th century city doomed? Sponsored by X Government Cars. 

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