BHS - 8A – Senior Hamas Leader Killed | Handel and the House Whisperer

Israel strikes refugee camp killing hundreds including senior Hamas leader. Limited Gaza evacuations begin Rafah. California weighs ending climate credit for cow poop. Host of ‘Home with Dean Sharp’ joins the Bill Handel Show to discuss fireplaces.

Episode Transcript

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You're listenings KFI AM six forty theBill Handles show on demand on the iHeartRadio.
F Ladies and gentlemen, you're Textrickplay. I just like waking up
to the sound of your sweet voice. And now it's showtime. Bill Handle

(00:22):
Jim six forty bill Handle. Here. It is a Wednesday morning, November
one, the last couple of monthsof the year. And then we start
all over again, don't we.Dean Sharp's gonna be here at a thirty
this morning, and it's gonna befun. So about fireplaces this morning.
That's kind of neat. And evenif you don't have a fireplace, excuse

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me, you can have a fireplace. And Dian'll explain all that to us
at eight thirty. Now on theMid East Front, there are some very
good news and then there is aboy not so good news. Let's start
with the good news. As youknow, the only exit out of Gaza
is through the rafa, the roughshape, well what they call it the

(01:07):
rafa, the what's the word I'mlooking for on this one? The rafa
connection between Gaza and border crossing,Queen, Yeah, border crossing. There
you go, Well, you knowwe sometimes you just grope for a word,
and it's at the tip of yourtongue, and thank you. I'll
go to you. Amy, keepon listening, and I'm gonna go to

(01:29):
you every time i want to sayborder crossing. Okay, I'm here for
you, all right, thank you. But that's the only way to leave
Gaza done. The ones that arein Israel, there are a couple between
Israel and Gaza close down. You'renot gonna see them open anytime soon.
Now Egypt has closed it off,Hamas has closed it off. You can't
cross. And there has been acall for foreigners. People who hold foreign

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passports. Now a lot of themare Palestinian as well as foreign passports,
Palestinian Americans, Palestinian Brazilians, PalestinianGermans who have been stuck Hamas wouldn't let
him out. Well, finally thatis starting to change. Hamas is letting
them out. A lot of negotiationbetween even the United States is and the

(02:20):
negotiations, but it's mainly Katar Egypt. Certainly Hamas is part of the negotiation,
and so that's loosening up a littlebit. The other good news is
that humanitarian aid going into Gaza isloosening up a little bit medicine. Food
is going in, not fuel,not yet, because Israel still maintains that

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fuel can be grabbed by Ramas,which has a history of knowing that because
Hamas controls everything. By the way, Hamas is entire economy is taxing what
comes in to Gaza. That's howthey make their money. And so Israel
is leary and rightly so, ofallowing fuel in the country, arguing that

(03:09):
hey, this could be compromised,this could be grabbed by Kamas, and
we're similarly not going to let thathappen. That's going to help the war
effort, all right. So otherthan the fuel, the good news is
a very limited amount of goods,humanitarian goods are going into Gaza. Now.

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The bad news Israel launched the strikeyesterday in one of the refugee camps
that are in Gaza. These wereestablished in nineteen forty eight, by the
way, when Israel became a state, and this particular, this particular refugee
camp called Jabaliah one hundred and tenthousand people. These are refugees in Gaza.

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It was bombed yesterday by Israel,and I think it's one of those
bunker buster bombs that goes down totake out the take out the tunnels that
are underneath buildings, which of coursemeans the building is going to go.
And this was massive. Israel says, we went after one of the commanders,
one of the people that led andplanned the attack October seventh. That's

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who we're going after. That's whowe got. And unfortunately, twenty buildings
were destroyed, and dozens, ifnot hundreds of Palestinians, civilians innocence were
killed or severely wounded. And theinternational reaction has been instant, and it
has been vicious. A second onejust went the same area, and it's

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just been reported now that a secondmajor bombing took place. Israel is going
balls to the walls on this one, not even not even stopping, certainly
allowing some humanitarian aid, no issueabout that to come in. But as
far as the ground forces and theair forces attacking Gaza, it is not
stopping. And I'll tell you whyit's not going to stop. And I

(05:11):
don't think it's ever going to stop. By the way, Bolivia just cut
relations with Israel and no longer recognizesIsrael. You've got other countries that have
recalled their ambassadors, all left wingcountries left wing governments and the United States
is now calling for not so muchIsrael stop, but pay more attention to

(05:31):
civilians. Israel says, we can't. For example, in this case,
you had the Hamas hierarchy, oneof their command centers underneath these buildings.
As a matter of fact, Israelsays, and again this is from the
idea of that there big command centerwhere the senior Hamas leadership meets every day,

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is under the second biggest hospital inGaza, because that's what Hamas does.
So now the question is if thewhole world is going to turn against
Israel, which I think it's goingto, if this keeps ongoing in thousands
and thousands, Well it's already thousandsand thousands, but tens of thousands of
Palestinians are killed and Israel's not stopping. Wouldn't Israel turn around and stop at

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some point? Not for a longtime. And I'll tell you why,
because the way Israel looks at this, the way they looked at the October
seventh attack, and Benjamin Natanyau,who said that this is an existential threat
to Israel. The very survival ofIsrael as a country is at stake,

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and We're never going to let thishappen again. And as I told you,
this comes out of the memory ofthe Holocaust where Jews were led to
their death like sheep. Now there'sa bunch of reasons that I'll give into
that, because they weren't just sheep. I mean a lot more complicated than
that. But the wipe being outof an entire people, and that's what
he sees Hamas wanting to do.And it's true. Hamas's charter is the

(07:08):
destruction of Israel, and Israel says, not on our watch, that's never
gonna happen. Never. What isthe phrase that came out of the Holocaust,
never forget, never again. Andso that's the thinking behind Israel's attacks

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and the problem for Gaza and Hamas. It's Israel that is holding all the
arms. They're the well trained forces, They're the one They have a world
class army, air force, navy, they even have a submarine fleet.
Did you know that Gaza does nothave a submarine fleet. Gaza does not

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have an air force, Gaza doesnot have artillery to the extent that the
Gosen, the Palestine forces, thereis some training, nothing like Israel.
And by the way, every singleIsraeli is in the reserves. The entire
country is an army. Okay,so much for that second major attack.

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You can tell I'm a little exerciseabout this. I've been to Israel many,
many times. I have many friendsin Israel, and my grandparents perish
in the Holocaust, So you thinkI'm a little bit biased, just a
little tidy bit right now. Youknow, California is the dairy capital of
the United States. One point sevenmillion cows, every one of them producing

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a lot of cow manure, everyone of them farting like crazy and belching.
So we are the I guess,the capital of cow farts in the
United States. I think that's fairto say. And so what happens,
Well, all that manure, well, you can only use it for fertilizers

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so many places. And by theway, they don't use it as maneure.
Particularly, it's industrialized maneure that's manufactured. So what do you do with
it all, Well, you canuse it to create natural gas. So
instead of pumping natural gas out ofthe ground, you have all this can

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manure that can be used to producenatural gas. And the way it's done,
the technology is well it's very complicatedas well as very easy. What
they do is they take all thisstuff and they put it into I assume
a large pit, and then it'sdigestors they actually call them manure. Digestors,

(09:50):
do whatever they do and out ofthe other end way great way to
put it. Out of the otherend comes as natural gas. That's used
as well natural gas, it's usedas fuel. And here's the problem.
It's a huge paradox here in California, because California wants the methane that is

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produced by cows, which is hideouslydangerous. Methane is far far, it's
more it's it's just so much morenegative to the environment than carbon dioxide.
It affects the negatives, our climatechange and all of that to a much
greater stent than carbon dioxide does.And so getting rid of methane is a

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big, big hit instantly. SoCalifornia is giving a lot of credits to
these companies that are producing digestors andusing digesters to create this natural fuel.
So here's a bunch of grant money. At the same time, California is
cutting out natural all natural gas,all fossil fuels. Now calminure is fossil

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fuel. Well, maybe it isfour million mile four million years from now,
but right now it is not.But it is the equivalent of fossil
fuels. There's no difference. It'sstill collecting the methane and using it to
create fuel. So what's happening.We want that that calmnever to be used
to create fuel, particularly the methane, instead of going in the atmosphere.

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We're going to take it and useand create fuel with it. But at
the same time, we're trying toget rid of all fossil fuels, and
we're paying for the fossil fuel createdfrom methane. We're actually subsidizing it.
At the same time, we're goingto zero fossil fuel use by twenty thirty

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five. So we're looking at that'sa big, a little conflict there,
don't you think. And so Californiais looking at this and figuring out which
way are we going to go?And you've got people on both sides of
the coin. And here's the onefor the environmentalists, and that is,

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we want to get rid of fossilfuel, use fossil fuel gases, and
how do we do it, Well, we don't do it with fossil fuels.
We do it with cows, butcows also cause all these emissions both
themselves and as far as the naturalgas that's created by the way, that

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is natural gas in a big,big way, isn't it When you think
about that, And so which wayare we going to go? We're going
both ways. And that's the problem. And when you talk about it's the
biogas industry. Basically it produces thiscombustion fuel. The state is on a
path to phase it out, especiallyfor cars and trucks, but at the

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same time phasing out the dairy credits, the dairy credits because they encourage natural
gas production, emission of greenhouse gases, and it is a total complete conflict.
What do you do with that?At this point, they don't have
an answer. They really don't becausewhile the answer is in a vacuum,

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the answer is clearly what a neatway to take calmnure? And instead of
allowing the methane to escape, yougrab it, you use it for fuel.
So the methane isn't used, butyou have all the other all the
other fossil fuel that's going up inthe air. The emission is going up,
and none of that, none ofthat is fun. So I gotta

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tell you, I've got an electriccar, bought my electric car, and
I love it. So when Isee gas prices go up, by the
way, when they go three dollarsa gallon, I just laugh. Yeah,
okay. And I have a solarsystem at home, so I plug
my car in during the day tocharge it. So it costs me about

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nothing to charge the car. Exceptsorry about that, except that the power,
the electricity that is created by mysolar system is still well, that
one is the sun, but allthe other electricity comes from power plants,

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and that uses fossil fuels. Theanswer clearly is just using solar panels or
nuclear energy, which is a wholeworld unto itself. It's complicated stuff,
isn't it. It really is alternativeenergy. That's what's going to happen for
sure. And of course the oilcompanies are jumping in on that because they're

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not going broke when there's no oilanymore, will they? All right,
we still have plenty of show,and this one is always fun. Dean
Sharp Handle in the house Whisper segmentHome with Dean, Saturday six to eight
a m. Just prior to Handleon the law and Sunday morning nine am
to twelve, and he can bereached at home with Dean morning, Dean.

(15:07):
Oh yeah, timing all right,hold on you know, no,
hold on a second, Dean,I did that wrong. Okay, hold
on, hold on, no,no, you know I do not have
to be followed by these minstrels everywhereI go. Let's just do it,
oh right, do it all right? Yeah, you know. Sometimes I
get the timing, sometimes I don't. This is a morning where my timing

(15:31):
has been a little bit off.Timing. Timing, timing, That's what
I said, not my time.You know it is eight thirty seven.
It's not okay. In any case, let's move on, Dean. Good
morning to you. Good morning Bill. Okay today, and I really enjoy
this just for you know, alittle inside baseball with everybody. Dean is

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the one that sends me the topicsbecause Dean, number one knows this,
number two knows the audience. AndI don't have to look it up because
I would repeat myself every three weeks. So, Dean, here's something we
have not talked about before, andthat is the world of fireplaces and like

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everything else in the world of buildingand home remodeling and just items you buy
for the house. The technology hasexploded to where everybody could have a fireplace,
and you can do anything with atraditional fireplace. You can do anything
with a new fireplace. You don'teven venting in many cases. So let's
talk about fireplaces, all right.So fireplaces in southern California is a tricky

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subject. That's why this Saturday showis there still a place for the fireplace
and a twenty first century home.So that's got to be the first topic
of discussion, because you know,it's a valid question. You know,
I started out by asking this,how is a fireplace like your appendix?
It's like your appendix, and thefact that all fireplaces, really they are

(17:03):
vestigial organs that are left over froman era gone by, And so it
begs the question do we really needor want a fireplace in our house?
How a fireplace is not like yourappendix? Though, and this gets towards
the answer is that you know,your appendix, as useless as it may
be, was even when it wasin full use, whatever the heck it

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did, was never at the heartof your body. It was never your
heart, it was never your lungs. It was never at the center,
but the fireplace used to reign supremeat the center of a home. In
fact, even the phrase hearth andhome, right, it just tells you
the pre eminent place of the fireplacebecause it's where you cooked, it's where
you stayed warm, it's where thefamily gathered, and so on and so

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forth. So the question of dowe still need them, I say yes,
not from a heating perspective, obviously, not from a cooking perspective,
but because because the magic of openflame has been buried bill buried into our
DNA, especially if you're a pyromaniac, it's very, very important in your

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life. I think I would saythat it has an important effect on every
human being. In fact, therewas a study out of the University of
Alabama that was done not too longago that our reaction to fire is physically
ingrained in us. Now right,are you watch a fire. I'm not
talking about a wildfire or the firethat's burning down your house. I'm talking

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about a controlled, contained, safefire. Your blood pressure decreases involuntarily,
muscles relax involuntarily, you become calmer, more sociable. You should really try
this, bill. Fire lights alimited area in a zone, it creates
kind of an intimacy zones. Sothere are so many reasons, and we'll
talk about all of that on Saturday. But in terms of Southern California fireplaces,

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it's tricky because the state for environmentalpurposes keep shutting down and putting more
and more regulations on traditional fireplace tothe point where new construction and major remodels
you cannot put a traditional fireplace backin your home in the same way that

(19:17):
we're all used to now. WhenI built the Persian Palace nineteen ninety nine,
moved into the year two thousand,I put in a fireplace, and
it's a wood burning fireplace. Notthat I've ever burnt, not that I've
ever burnt wood in it, becausethat's just a pain of cleaning up in
the ashes and all that crap.But I could, except under law,

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I can't, or can I stillburn wood in it if I wanted to?
No, yeah, you can,you can. That's one of the
cool things to encourage people if you'vegot a wood burning fireplace or a wood
slash gas fireplace. Every wood fireplacecan be retrofit to burn gas logs,
by the way, but not necessarily. The other way around. But if
you have a wood burning fireplace,you are still legally allowed to use it

(20:03):
all you want, except on noburn days, which is something that is
like most people like, what whatis that the AQMD has established now on
certain winter days from I believe now, we're in it from November through February
of every year as they measure airquality control and the moisture in the atmosphere.

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They don't want unnecessary smoke filling upthe area, and so there are
no burn days. And if youburn your fireplace or your wood fire pit
on no burn days, you're subjectto like a five hundred dollars fine.
Yeah, I don't know how theyenforce that, you know, I've never
heard of enforceability on that one.But I can't imagine either. I don't
think they are a fireplace cops.Yeah, probably not a fireplace police.

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But one thing, when you talkabout a fall day and a wood burning
stove down the street, the smellof a wood burning stove in the air,
oh my god, it doesn't getbetter than that. It's extraordinary,
it is. It affects you onlevels you it does. I mean,
it's just one of the greatest smellsof all time. And by the way,

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to your point and when you saidthis and it instantly resonated with me,
is how we are now genetically programmedto enjoy and look positively on fire.
Because when you think, and we'retalking about when human beings, even
proto human beings, when we firststarted walking, what was the first thing
that we conquered? Fire? Absolutelymillions of years ago. So by now,

(21:33):
of course it's ingrained genetically in ourbeing. All right, let's continue
on with our fireplace conversation, andthat is well, two things. Number
one, you have a fireplace andyou're not using it, which a lot
of people don't. And you cando a lot of stuff with fireplaces,
which I'm looking at them all incrediblydumb, and fireplaces where you didn't think

(22:00):
you could have one, or yeah, you should have one if you want
the flavor, if you want theambience, and the technology today is just
astounding. Let's dive into that fora minute. Okay, So yeah,
so you can have you know,I know he said in the last segment
that California has really limited fireplaces andthe kind of fire but you can still

(22:22):
have a fireplace, a gas burningfireplace with real flames in your home full
scale, but it has to bethis kind of fireplace. It's called a
direct vent fireplace. It's a sealedand closed unit. There are some cons
to it, for sure, whichI'll talk about in a second, but
the pros or this. Instead ofa massive chimney or a flu coming out
of it, these fireplaces vent morelike a water heater, which means you

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can vent them up, you canvent them horizontally, you don't have to
have a big chimney thing going on, and it means you could configure them
in a lot of cool ways.They're also super efficient in terms of the
way that they heat up a room, way more efficient then a traditional fireplace,
which is why and this leads tothe con on these They typically have

(23:07):
a kind of a meager flame.And it's not because I have people ask
me all the time, Come on, Dean, these things suck. Can
they can they not put a bigflame in there? Well, they can,
but you're dealing with a fireplace thatis eighty to ninety percent efficient,
and so a big flame means massive, massive heat pouring out into the room.

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A traditional fireplace, by the way, Bill is and one of the
reasons you can enjoy it from liketwo blocks away. Is because a traditional
fireplace is only ten percent heating efficient. Ninety percent of what you are burning
the wood in that fireplace is goingright up the chimney and out for the
neighborhood to enjoy. The direct ventfireplace is the inverse of that. They're

(23:51):
about eighty to ninety percent efficient,so they really do heat up a room
really nicely, but the flame canbe meager. Now that looks great if
you've got a contemporary look, becausethey make those great little fire lines.
But I have been telling direct Ventmanufacturers for years, every single one that
I work with, put the flamesinside the log set. And you know

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what, Finally, in the lastcouple of years, a couple of manufacturers
have started to do it. Idon't know if it's because of me bugging
them, but I'm going to takecredit for it. That picture that I
showed you there under the direct Ventfireplace, those flames are coming out of
the logs, and so it dispersesthis flame throughout the whole log set.
This looks as realistic as a woodburning fire in which the logs themselves are

(24:40):
actually on fire, and so itis a huge step forward for direct vent
fireplaces. Yeah, if I hadbuilt a house today, and I'm sure,
especially anything approaching a modern house,the fireplaces are no longer those square
fireplaces. They are rectangular. Theyare much smaller in terms of hythe What

(25:03):
they do is they look like anoversized fortune cookie. If you were gonna
build one, if you were gonnaburn one up, that's what you would
see. Well. Yeah, andagain in a contemporary environment we have limitless
possibilities. There are fireplaces that aremodular, that come in modular three foot
sections. We've put in a twentyfour foot long linear fireplace before in the

(25:25):
right room, turning a corner.It's an amazing effect. But let me
touch on this right before we're outof here. If you rent, or
if you don't even have a fireplace, you can still have open flame inside
your house because the world of ethanoltabletop fire burners has really come into its

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own. Ethanol there, we're justbasically talking about denatured alcohol, and most
of these manufacturers sell their own specificbrand or mixture. It is. It's
a real fire. You have totreat it safely, but you get that
linear flame effect. You can putone of these units on top of your
dining room table. You can putit on your coffee table in your living

(26:07):
room. It's not a massive youknow, a heat generator, but you
fill up the reservoir. It'll burnfor several hours before it's done, and
it's lovely and it's you don't anybodycan have one, and they are non
vented because the fuel like kind oflike a sterno burner, a sterno can
you know, on a buffet.The fuel burns perfectly clean. There is

(26:30):
no off gasing, no residue,no carbon monoxide, and so any you
can have it in your apart ifyou want. That's cool. And you
know, basically a campfire in themiddle of your living room where you can
sit around and sing songs. Lovethat idea. Hi, Dean, it's
fireplaces this weekend for you. Andthere's there's a world of this. We
only touched on this just even didn'teven scratch the surface. Dean. Saturday

(26:55):
morning, six to eight am.Sundays nine am to twelve. I will
catch you this weekend, Dean.Have a good one. Thank you.
Bill. All right, coming upGary and Shannon, Oh tons of news
to talk about. They're on fromnine to one. I'll see you tomorrow
morning. Everybody with the morning crew. Uh, this is KFI AM six
forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to the Bill Handle

(27:18):
Show. Catch My Show Monday throughFriday six am to nine am, and
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.