We take callers during this show.

SHOW AUDIO:

 Link is usually posted within about 72 hours of show broadcast.

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio), a listener call-in show  airing live every Monday night from 9-10 PM (CT) on KPFT-FM 90.1 (Houston). My engineer is Bob Gartner.

Listen live on the radio or on the internet from anywhere in the world! When the show is live, we take calls at 713-526-5738. (Long distance charges may apply.)

For the purposes of this show, I operate on two mottoes:

• You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts;
• An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.

SIGNOFF QUOTE: The Daily Edge (@TheDailyEdge) 5/22/16, 20:12 “REMINDER: Politicians who want to inspect your genitalia before letting you pee still call background checks for gun buyers ‘too intrusive’.”

POSSIBLE TOPICS:

• TEXAS: REGISTER TO VOTE FOR THE GENERAL ELECTION
  • To vote in November 8th’s presidential elections, you have to be registered by October 8th. It will be here before you know it, so make sure YOU are registered!
  • HarrisVotes.com or VoteTexas.gov.
    • Next Election: May 24, 2016 – Primary Runoff Election
    • State and Local races in runoff

• PBS’ series Genius by Stephen Hawking: If a star is a grain of sand, 300 billion stars would weigh 416 tons, according to Stephen Hawking.
• ZurichVoice: When 3D Printing Gets Into The Wrong Hands – Forbes, By Bryan Borzykowski (©2016 Zurich American Insurance Company
  • Drugs
  • Weapons
  • Transport
  • Risks of theft and/or malicious changes to digital templates.
  • The “Tylenol” tampering crime on a much vaster scale.
• Obama lifts arms sales ban on Vietnam: Geopolitical implications
• Differences between Liberals, Conservatives, Libertarians and neo-Conservatives
  • Left–right politics, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    • History of the terms: The terms “left” and “right” appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president’s right and supporters of the revolution to his left. One deputy, the Baron de Gauville, explained, “We began to recognize each other: those who were loyal to religion and the king took up positions to the right of the chair so as to avoid the shouts, oaths, and indecencies that enjoyed free rein in the opposing camp.” However the Right opposed the seating arrangement because they believed that deputies should support private or general interests but should not form factions or political parties. The contemporary press occasionally used the terms “left” and “right” to refer to the opposing sides.^[9]
  • Greens and Libertarians: The yin and yang of our political future, by Dan Sullivan (originally appearing in Green Revolution, Volume 49, No. 2, summer, 1992)
    • … Libertarians tend to be logical and analytical. They are confident that their principles will create an ideal society, even though they have no consensus of what that society would be like. Greens, on the other hand, tend to be more intuitive and imaginative. They have clear images of what kind of society they want, but are fuzzy about the principles on which that society would be based.
    • Ironically, Libertarians tend to be more utopian and uncompromising about their political positions, and are often unable to focus on politically winnable proposals to make the system more consistent with their overall goals. Greens on the other hand, embrace immediate proposals with ease, but are often unable to show how those proposals fit in to their ultimate goals.
    • The most difficult differences to reconcile, however, stem from baggage that members of each party have brought with them from their former political affiliations. Most Libertarians are overly hostile to government and cling to the fiction that virtually all private fortunes are legitimately earned. Most Greens are overly hostile to free enterprise and cling to the fiction that harmony and balance can be achieved through increased government intervention.
    • Amongst published researchers, there is agreement that the Left includes anarchists, communists, socialists, progressives, anti-capitalists, anti-imperialists, anti-racists, democratic socialists, greens, left-libertarians, social democrats, and social liberals.^[5][6][7]
    • Researchers have also said that the Right includes capitalists, conservatives, monarchists, nationalists, neoconservatives, neoliberals, reactionaries, imperialists, right-libertarians, social authoritarians, religious fundamentalists, and traditionalists.^[8]
• Bernie and the DNC ‘Conspiracy’
  • Bernie and the anti-DNC conspiracy.
    • Yes he’s an independent and has no love for the Democratic Party or he would be a member of the Democratic Party.
    • What if he were a Democrat? What if he always was or had become one? Would that make a difference if everything else remained the same
    • Lyndon LaRouche was a registered Democrat,
      • LaRouchies are still a bain of the Democratic Party, and sometimes win primaries.
    • “Is Bernie Sanders a Democrat?” – Politifact, By Linda Qiu on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2016 at 5:45 p.m.
    • NYT Now: Bernie Sanders Makes a Campaign Mark. Now, Can He Make a Legacy?
• Trump Suggests Only Those Who Give Him Money Will Have White House Access, By Jason Easley on Sun, May 22nd, 2016 at 1:01 pm
  • When asked about a list of Republican mega donors who are refusing to give him money, Trump said, “These are people that won’t have access to the White House, and they understand that like they do every other candidate. They endorse people like Jeb Bush. They would have had total control over Jeb. They would have had total control over many of the other people.”
  • Trump’s answer was an admission that his White House would be a pay to play operation.
  • Donald Trump is a … candidate who is under the delusion that government is like a business.
• Payday Lenders
  • Usury: noun the illegal action or practice of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest. Archaic interest at unreasonably high rates.
  • Interest Caps
  • ‘Choice’
  • Are the many high-interest payday lenders a direct result of bank deregulation and the attendant fees and penalties that came with them?
  • How this Missouri man wound up paying $50K in interest after taking $2,500 in payday loans: ws/20onFHy pic.twitter.com/8krVicitx1

• Time for a return of the 2 ½ contingency war strategy?
  •  Will we ever see a return of the “Peacetime Army”?
  • Threat from Russian and Chinese warplanes mounts – USA Today

o Trump Report:

• Dan Quayle: Trump is ‘more qualified’ than Clinton in this election, Eliza Collins, [USA TODAY] 12:55 p.m. EDT May 12, 2016

  • The former vice president, who served under George H.W. Bush, appeared on NBC’s Todayshow Thursday and said that Trump was more qualified than Clinton in this particular election because people want an outsider.
  • “On paper, you’d say, well, she’s more qualified. But you know what? He’s more qualified in the sense that the American people, I think, want an outsider,” Quayle said. “And they want an outsider this time. She’s not an outsider, so if you’re looking for an outsider, no, she’s not qualified, and he is.”
• Trump: Rescind Obama’s transgender directives, but ‘protect everybody’, by Michael Hiltzik and Robert Costa (Washington Post) May 16, 2016 at 5:37 PM
  • Donald Trump vowed Monday that if elected president he would rescind the Obama administration’s new directivesaimed at protecting transgender people against discrimination in schools and health-care coverage.
  • But even as Trump accused the administration of federal overreach and argued that such matters should be addressed by the states … Trump said in an interview with The Washington Post that the government must act “to protect all people” and that he was eager to learn more about the movement for transgender rights.
  • [According to Trump], “It is a very, very small portion of the population, but as I said, you have to protect everybody, including small portions of the population,”
• Obama: Trump shouldn’t make Supreme Court pick, USA TODAY, 5-16-2016 ‎WASHINGTON – President Obama suggested Monday that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump isn’t qualified to nominate justices to the Supreme Court – and therefore the Republican-controlled Senate should give his nominee a hearing and a vote…

o How much do the Saudis own in U.S. Treasuries? After four decades, it’s no longer a secret, by Michael Hiltzik (LA Times) 5-16-2016

• The Treasury Department on Monday opened the curtain on one of our longest-lasting, and strangest, state secrets: how much U.S. debt does Saudi Arabia own?
• The Treasury Department on Monday opened the curtain on one of our longest-lasting, and strangest, state secrets: how much U.S. debt does Saudi Arabia own?
• The answer, as of March, is $116.8 billion. That may sound like a lot, but it places the Saudis only at 13th on the list of major foreign holders of treasuries. Leading the roll among the foreign holders of $6.3 trillion in securities are mainland China ($1.245 trillion) and Japan ($1.137 trillion).

o Government Debt in the United States – Debt Clock:  (www.usgovernmentdebt.us/): Total Federal Government Debt in 2016. At the end of FY 2016 the gross US federal government debt is estimated to be $19.3 trillion, according to the FY17 Federal Budget.

o India to ‘divert rivers’ to tackle drought, By Navin Singh Khadka Environment reporter, (BBC World Service) 16 May 2016

• India is set to divert water from its rivers to deal with a severe drought… [affecting] At least 330 million people are … affected by drought in India.
• The drought is taking place as a heat wave extends across much of India, with temperatures in excess of 40C (~104^oF).
• The Inter Linking of Rivers (ILR) has 30 links planned for water-transfer, 14 of them fed by Himalayan glaciers in the north of the country and 16 in peninsular India.
• Environmentalists have opposed the project, arguing it will invite ecological disaster but the [Indian] Supreme Court has ordered its implementation.
• Of its 29 states, nearly half were reported to have suffered from severe water crisis this dry season.
• The federal government in Delhi has had to send trains carrying water to the worst affected places.

o Libya: US backs arming of government for IS fight, (BBC.com) 5-15-2016

• The US and other world powers have said they are ready to arm Libya’s UN-backed unity government to help it fight the self-styled Islamic State (IS) group.
• Speaking in Vienna, US Secretary of State John Kerry said world powers would back Libya in seeking exemption from a UN arms embargo.
• He said IS was a “new threat” to Libya and it was “imperative” it was stopped.
• Last month, the Libyan government warned that IS could seize most of the country if it was not halted soon.
• There is a risk that future arms shipments will either fall into the wrong hands, or exacerbate the civil conflict there between rival militias.

 

 SOURCES WHICH MAY BE RELEVANT TO OTHER DISCUSSION:

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• The Next Step in Animal Welfare? Breed a Better Chicken, by Maryn McKenna, (nationalgeographic.com) March 24, 2016
  • A … program … announced last week by the Global Animal Partnership, a nonprofit that works with farmers and retailers to improve animal welfare, asks chicken farmers to change the breeds of the birds they are raising to a more hardy, slower-growing breed. …
  • So what the new GAP standard asks producers and retailers to do is to switch to broilers that have been bred to grow more slowly and in a more balanced manner: gaining no more than 50 grams of weight per day, which translates to a bird that lives 56-62 days instead of 35-42.
  • To investigate whether the change was feasible, GAP commissioned a working group of major chicken producers… , and involved Whole Foods, which evaluates all its meat purchases using the 5-step GAP scale. “All of our suppliers were interested…’” [said] Theo Weening, Whole Foods’ global meat buyer… “Some of them had long histories in the chicken industry, and they remembered when chickens were slower-growing and had more flavor. So when GAP came up with the standard, I went back to the suppliers, and they said, let’s work together, instead of having one guy make it to the finish line first.”
• What Are Cats Trying to Tell Us? Science Will Explain, By Carrie Arnold [National Geographic] PUBLISHED March 28, 2016
  • Nearly all New York State pet owners talk to their pets like they’re fellow humans, according to a recent poll.  Many believe their dogs and cats can respond with barks or meows that communicate hunger, fear, or simply the need to pee.  But do the animals tawk back in a Brooklyn accent? That’s the sort of thing Swedish cat lover and phonetics researcher Suzanne Schötz is working to find out. After executing this strategy on every government program except the military and corporate welfare, is it now the turn of the Supreme Court?
• The Science of Meow: Study to Look at How Cats Talk: A new project is underway to decode kitty communication—and figure out if cats really like all that baby talk.
  • What Are Cats Trying to Tell Us? Science Will Explain
    [National Geographic Society]:

• The dos and don’ts of open carry, By Robert Arnold – Investigative Reporter (click2houston.com) Posted: 9:37 AM, December 31, 2015 Updated: 10:04 AM, December 31, 2015
• TERMINOLOGIES: Words Matter
  • The term “Conservative” is so inaccurate as currently used by the Media, the Media and all of us really need to rethink their classifications and terminology.
  • There are Liberals/Progressives and there are Conservatives. Both of those are fine and serve a useful purpose in civil opposition to each other.
  • Today’s “Conservatives” are conservative in name only

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