Topics for the March 19th Radio Show

This week marks the move of the live broadcast of the radio show to Tuesday mornings.  Going forward we will be broadcasting our weekly show at 10:30 AM Central.  To listen to the show live head over here and to listen to previous episodes head over here.   

Wobbles’ Selections/Topics –

Topic:  North Korea or What is the Maniac Midget Up to Now?

Headline:  How a crazy, nuke-obsessed Kim Jong-un might actually be good for America

Opening Paragraph:  There is no tangible evidence that North Korea's young Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un, is actually crazy. In fact, there's very little tangible evidence at all about North Korea's new First Secretary of the Workers' Party slash First Chairman of the National Defence Commission slash Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army slash Chairman of the Central Military Commission slash Marshall of the Republic slash husband slash father.

Headline:  U.S. lawmaker questions North Korean leader's 'stability'

Opening Paragraphs:  (CNN) -- A top U.S. congressman expressed concern about the "stability" of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after months of provocative statements and behavior from the nuclear-armed communist state.

"You have a 28-year-old leader who is trying to prove himself to the military, and the military is eager to have a saber-rattling for their own self-interest," said Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. "And the combination of that is proving to be very, very deadly."

Topic:  Mayor Bloomberg (a.k.a. Doofus Doomberg)

Headline:  NYC Large-Sized Soda Ban Denied. Now What?

Opening Paragraph:  Soda: 1. Mayor Michael Bloomberg: 0. The New York City mayor's newest obesity-fighting proposal to limit the sales of sugary drinks to 16 ounces or less at restaurants, theaters, and food carts was dismissed by a state supreme court judge on Monday-just one day before the health code would have taken full effect. Considering Bloomberg's success in banning trans fats and smoking in public places, this decision came as a total surprise to most, including the businesses that had already edited their menus and ordered smaller serving cups. Perhaps the most shocked was Bloomberg himself, as well as his administration.  

Headline:  Feds Save Sodas From Bloomberg

Opening Paragraphs:  New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made a goal of his third term in office to make his constituency as healthy as possible, in spite of themselves. He has gotten a law passed to force restaurants to place calorie counts on their menu items, and has attacked salt and sugar vigorously.

Topic:  Benghazi

Headline:  Sen. Graham claims Benghazi survivors 'told to be quiet' by administration

Opening Paragraph:  Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, in an extensive interview with Fox News, alleged that the injured survivors of the Benghazi terror attack have been "told to be quiet" and feel they can't come forward to tell their stories -- as he urged the House to subpoena the administration for details if necessary.

Headline:  Where Are the Benghazi Survivors?

Opening Paragraphs:  Benghazi is back in the news with the arrest of a suspect Thursday being held in Libya. This could spur Congress to renew efforts to shine light on the attack on the U.S. consulate on September 11, 2012.

Wounded survivors of the terrorist attack, however, are still under wraps. As reported by The Hill newspaper, Senators are applying pressure again. One option is to subpoena the survivors; another is to hold up confirmation for the new ambassador to Libya, Deborah Jones, who would replace murdered U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens.

Wobbles’ Brought to You by Star Trek Story of the Week:  4D Printing Is The Future Of 3D Printing And It’s Already Here

Opening Paragraphs:  3D printing is over 20 years old, but it feels like we’re just finally starting to truly unlock the potential of the technology. The continued march of technology is relentless, however, and some inventors are already thinking about what comes next.

The next big thing may very well be 4D printing, a new technology from Skylar Tibbits, an architect, designer and computer scientist. The core concept behind this new technology is self assembly.

It may sound strange and far out, but it’s actually quite simple. 4D printing is being billed as a process where synthetic objects can change and adapt themselves to the environment.

Nubs’ Selections/Topics –

Headline:  Rand Paul wins CPAC presidential straw poll

Opening Paragraphs:  NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is this year's winner of the Conservative Political Action Committee straw poll, an unscientific survey of conservative political activists attending the event.

Paul, whose father, Ron Paul, won the straw poll twice in recent years, secured 25 percent of the votes. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio came in second with 23 percent. The poll, which American Conservative Union President Al Cardenas described as "not scientific" but still "pretty cool," provides a brief snapshot of the thinking of a small group of conservative activists three years before the party's next primary elections.

Headline:  Show mercy, don't rush to condemn, new pope urges

From the Story:  VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis, speaking to an overflow crowd of more than 150,000 in St Peter's Square, urged the world on Sunday to be more forgiving and merciful and not so quick to condemn other people's failures.

"A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just," he told the cheering crowd from the window of the papal apartments overlooking the square.

[...]

Since his election on Wednesday as the first non-European pope in nearly 1,300 years, Francis has signaled a sharp change of style from his more aloof predecessor, Benedict, and laid out a clear moral path for the 1.2-billion-member Church, which is beset by scandals, intrigue and strife.

"Brothers and sisters, good morning," he said, using a familiar style that has already become his hallmark.

He wove his address from the window as well as his earlier homily around the Gospel story of the crowd that wanted to stone a woman who had committed adultery but was saved by Jesus.

Jesus told them "let he among you who is without sin, cast the first stone" and then told the woman "go and sin no more".

"I think even we are sometimes like these people, who on the one hand want to listen to Jesus, but on the other hand, sometimes we like to stone others and condemn others. The message of Jesus is this: mercy," he said at the morning Mass.

[...]

Before he entered the tiny church of Santa Anna for the morning Mass, Francis stopped to greet well-wishers who had lined up outside a nearby Vatican gate.

He chatted and laughed with many of them before pointing to his black plastic wrist watch and saying: "It's almost 10 o'clock. I have to go inside to say Mass. They are waiting for me."

Inside, he wore the purple vestments of the liturgical season of Lent, which ends in two weeks on Easter Sunday.

At the end of the Mass, he waited outside the church and greeted people as they left the building, like a parish priest, asking many of them: "Pray for me".

His last words before he left the window were: "Have a nice Sunday and have a nice lunch".

Nubs’ Neat Story of the Week:  Hundreds of Dinosaur Egg Fossils Found

Opening Paragraphs:  Researchers in northeastern Spain say they've uncovered hundreds of dinosaur egg fossils, including four kinds that had never been found before in the region. The eggs likely were left behind by sauropods millions of years ago.

Eggs, eggshell fragments and dozens of clutches were nestled in the stratigraphic layers of the Tremp geological formation at the site of Coll de Nargó in the Spanish province of Lleida, which was a marshy region during the Late Cretaceous Period, the researchers said.

Nubs’ Religious Philosophical Topic of the Week:  Divinity & Nature

Summary:  This topic is taken from a blog post I wrote in 2009 and fits in with a discussion that took place this week on our Facebook page.

Opening Paragraph:  I was watching Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers Program 2: The Message of Myth yesterday and the role that nature plays in myth was brought up as part of the discussion. There was a basic distinction shown in how different myths and religions view nature. Nature is either seen as something that is corrupt and must be conquered by man (as in the Judea-Christian traditions) or it is seen as an expression of or part of the divine (as in the Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, and Native American traditions). I had never noticed this distinction before, but now that it has been pointed out, it is very glaring.