Forced to listen to people say they don't like him

Today I had lunch with my friend and debate partner. After our usual discussion of personal adventures he turned to discussing Israel and Gaza. In particular he wanted to talk about my post from a week ago in which I wrote:

What would be the situation today if Israel had been kind to the Palestinians? What if Israel made sure the Palestinians had nice homes, like the homes of the West Bank settlers but without the settlers taking over the land? What if Israelis made sure the schools in Gaza were great, that the people there had what they needed to flourish on their own terms, rather than being packed into what amounts to a prison? What if the Israelis made sure the Palestinians were prosperous enough that they wouldn't want their society jeopardized by Hamas?

My friend said being kind takes two people. Israel tried being kind and Palestinians rejected that kindness. At our earlier lunch my friend said that Hamas has a policy to commit genocide on Israel and Israel does not have a policy of genocide on Gaza. I wondered: Though Israel does not have such a policy might Netanyahu and his far right supporters have such a policy? The severity of the destruction of Gaza can give that impression and I suspect that’s why so many people are protesting on behalf of the Palestinians. See the news reports of Columbia University over the last few days in which protesters were arrested. My friend said the severity of Israel’s attack is because of Hamas. We hear about the civilians caught in the destruction. We don’t hear about the military need that resulted in that destruction. And that military need is because of the nature of Hamas. They brought the war with their attack even they knew the destruction that would happen to their own people. I had heard, perhaps a few months ago, that one goal of Hamas in this war is to make Israel look so brutal that international opinion would turn against Israel. If true, they’re succeeding, at a great cost to their own people. My friend also said that when this war is over the politics in Israel will be vastly different. Much or all of the far right will be tossed out. umbra of the Daily Kos community wrote:

From Electrek (Industry blog): In a major clean energy benchmark, wind, solar, and hydro exceeded 100% of demand on California's main grid for 30 of the past 38 days. Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering Mark Z. Jacobson has been tracking California's renewables performance. Jacobson notes that supply exceeds demand for "0.25-6 h per day," and that's an important fact. The continuity lies not in renewables running the grid for the entire day but in the fact that it's happening on a consistent daily basis, which has never been achieved before. At the two-week record mark, Ian Magruder at Rewiring America made this great point. "And what makes it even better is that California has the largest grid-connected battery storage facility in the world (came online in January ...), meaning those batteries were filling up with excess energy from the sun all afternoon today and are now deploying as we speak to offset a good chunk of the methane gas generation that California still uses overnight."

Good news! Though ... this was not for 24 hour periods but only parts of the day. And it was for Feb-Apr the time with the least load on the system. jamiewertz of the Kos community discussed how the Steelton-Highspire School District in rural Pennsylvania went solar. They did it out of financial necessity – this was a way cut their costs. They worked out a deal with McClure Company, which provides energy services. The cost of the solar panels is paid back in energy savings. The solar panels were installed over a landfill, school property that could not be used for anything else. They now save $200K a year in energy costs. Harsh Goenka posted a cartoon of a sweating boy talking to the sun.

Boy: Dear Sun, Please go to Settings > Display > Brightness! And reduce it...Tooo hot to handle! Sun: I have not changed any settings... Please go to your settings and... (1) Increase number of trees (2) Reduce carbon emissions levels (3) Reduce concrete jungles (4) Increase number of lakes. Basically switch to human mode from auto mode.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his By the Numbers part of his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos:

Estimated amount it would cost for all the nations in the Paris Climate Accord to reach their goals by 2050, according to a study published in the journal Nature: $6 trillion Expected economic damage due to the climate crisis by 2050: $38 trillion

I told my friend and debate partner that I’ve been reading some articles about the nasty guy’s hush money trial, though certainly haven’t tried to read everything. I also ignored the live blogging by those in the courtroom. He said he’s been reading a lot more of the trial and even downloaded the questionnaire given to prospective jurors. He thinks he could be impartial. I thought in the course of writing this blog I’ve written about the nasty guy over 500 times. None of those have been complementary of him. So, I would say that I can’t be impartial. So the jury and the alternates have been chosen and opening arguments are next week. Which means the nasty guy and his trial will be in the news most nights perhaps until June. Walter Einenkel of Kos wrote:

Because criminal defendants are required to be present in the courtroom, the famously thin-skinned Trump has been subjected to a wide variety of people’s opinions of him—forcing him outside the bubble of bootlickers that normally insulates him from reality. Daily Beast reporter Jose Pagliery noted on social media site X that during juror questioning Thursday, Trump was “forced to sit down & hear several say they don't like his character. Slumped back in his chair, arms folded, big frown, furrowed brow. Angry as people trash him.” It’s impossible to know how much this is bothering Trump, but the fragility of his ego is legendary.

John Richards posted a cartoon of the bailiff swearing the nasty guy before he gives testimony: “Do you swear to tell the (snicker) truth, the (snort) whole truth, and nothing but... Sorry, judge, I can’t… I just can’t...” Ruben Bolling of Kos, in his Tom the Dancing Bug comic, wrote we need to get back to traditional American values. Interlopers are ruining our way of life. Those interlopers don’t respect law and order and are committing horrific crimes. They want to impose their religion despite the traditional separation of Church and State. They despise our founding principle of democracy.