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

Podcast 204

Is Life A Holo Deck? A new experiment being conducted by Fermilab may prove the theory space and time are in fact 2 dimensional. Might this suggest reality is a computer? With a finite memory? What if we really are on a Holo Deck? The first reaction to a statement like that is to say, “Everything is already decided!” I take the other tack. What if we can influence our reality locally, and in the rest of the world by our actions. Developments in the Ukraine, Iraq, recession in Europe, Japan and below par growth in the US, it does feel like the world is hurtling toward a negative outcome, at least in the short term. Yet, as with a hundred years ago, we are on the edge of a brand new age predicated on the technology we have watched evolve over the last fifty years. Are we going to be able to make this transition? As the election in the US looms, how much of our path is determined by decisions already made, how much impact do we have on the future? Is it a World War I scenario? Is it an Interwar Scenario? Find out how a story about the fabric of reality, a visit by the Jehovah’s Witnesses, gel into some ideas about people getting involved and influencing these outcomes. Manifesting doesn’t necessarily mean thinking about it, and then it happens. Sometimes you have to do a little work. If life is a computer, we ought to be able to hack it. Sponsored by X Government Cars.

Podcast 186

4 Percent Economic Growth? Ebola. Hamas. Aliens. Updates on all the big stories for your weekend, from the Bob Davis Podcasts. The Podcasting world welcomes Jason Lewis and Jessie Ventura to its ranks. Both broadcasters can’t find a home with traditional ‘over-the-air’ radio stations, so are moving to podcasts. This means more and more talk listeners will be using their home computers, portables, iPads, iPhones and other devices to get good talk radio, not the radio. Good for us Podcasters, bad for the rapidly imploding world of broadcast, especially what passes for talk radio in broadcast radio. The economic news is good, and while it is celebrated, there are some caveats everyone should know about. And, inflation is back, despite people like Professor Paul Krugman denying it. Ebola continues to spread, and while authorities caution that the disease has to be in an advanced stage and you have to have very close contact with the infected to get it, they’re restricting flights in and out of the areas of Africa infected. On the US Southwestern border, Scabies, TB and Chicken Pox are emerging among the illegal aliens being held, and moved all over the United States. In the Middle East, the Israeli left is furious with John Kerry, and now President Obama, who is doubling down on what many on the left in Israel and the US believe was a terrible mistake by the US Secretary of State; A cease fire agreement which seemed to grant all the advantages to HAMAS in Gaza, and not Israel. Is this another foreign policy debacle brewing, as the Israeli left – big supporters of Obama – now consider the US President to have switched sides. While unions fight for higher minimum wages for Retail and Fast Food Workers, look out … robots and machines are taking their places at the biggest companies. And, over 3500 days without  a major hurricane in Florida, and the great lakes are inverting — with very low water temperatures for this time of year. What happened to Global Warming? Sponsored by Baklund R & D