I have been hiking twice already this week, taking advantage of the sunshine to explore the hills and mountains above Los Angeles in the aftermath of three weeks of rain. I have discovered breathtaking waterfalls and rivers flowing with water that are normally bone-dry. It is a spectacular experience.
But all of that water, or most of it, is rushing out to the sea and not being captured for use. And Californians are wondering where the billions of dollars taxpayers approved for water bonds, including reservoirs, are being spent.
To give you a sense of the numbers: Three weeks of rain dumped 32 trillion gallons of water on the state, according to Fox News (https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/california-atmospheric-rivers-32-trillion-gallons-rain-water). California's water use is about 42 billion acre-feet per year, or 1.4 trillion gallons per year, according to the Desert Sun (citing USGS - https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2014/08/21/usgs-estimates-vast-amounts-water-used-california/14400333/). So that's a LOT of water.
Typically, 50% of water in California is devoted to "environmental" use -- i.e. the forests, the rivers, the estuaries, the ecosystem as a whole. So if we presume that half of those 32 trillion gallons could be allowed to remain in the environment, while the other half -- theoretically -- could be devoted to human uses (agricultural, industrial, residential), if the storage capacity existed.
That means that enough rain fell on California to supply the water needs of the population for the next DECADE. Only a very small part of that will be captured.
This week's show will be slightly different from the norm: we'll focus on clips and topics, rather than guests -- and that, hopefully, will mean more input from the callers (unless you are all watching football on opening weekend).
Topics:
- The state of the economy
- The fight against crime
- The midterm election fight
- The struggle for peace between Russia and Ukraine
- The airstrike on the Venezuelan drug cartel
- The attempt to sink Kennedy
- The war in Gaza
- The case against Harvard
- The Trump presidency
Tune in: SiriusXM Patriot 125, 7-10 p.m. ET / 4-7 p.m. PT
Call: 866-957-2874
This week's Torah portion includes several laws about conduct in civic and personal life, the common theme of which is boundaries -- setting bounds to what one may do at home, at work, and even in the battlefield.
One noteworthy passage concerns Amalek, the evil nation that attacked the Children of Israel as they made their Exodus from slavery to freedom. Deuteronomy 25:17-19 commands Jews to obliterate Amalek's memory.
The South African government accused Israel of genocide on the basis of a story about Amalek in the Book of Samuel, in which King Saul was commanded to wipe out the entire evil Amalekite nation.
Because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted this week's portion -- "Remember what Amalek did to you" (25:17), the South African government claimed he was commanding soldiers to commit genocide.
It was an absurd and malevolent misreading of the Bible and of Jewish tradition. The commandment, as observed by Jews today, is to remember the evil of Amalek and fight ...
