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Weather: Partly sunny with a chance of showers. A chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the upper 80s. Northeast winds 10 to 15 mph with gusts up to 25 mph. Chance of rain 50 percent. Thursday Night: Partly cloudy with a chance of showers and thunderstorms in the evening, then mostly clear after midnight. Lows in the mid 70s. Northeast winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 50 percent.
- Daily weather briefing from the National Weather Service in Jacksonville here.
- Drought conditions here. (What is the Keetch-Byram drought index?).
- Check today’s tides in Flagler Beach here.
- tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
Election Primary Early Voting is available today from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at four locations. Any registered and qualified voter who is eligible to vote in a county-wide election may vote in person at the early voting site. According to Florida law, every voter must present a Florida driver’s license, a Florida identification card or another form of acceptable picture and signature identification in order to vote. If you do not present the required identification or if your eligibility cannot be determined, you will only be permitted to vote a provisional ballot. Don’t forget your ID. A couple of secure drop boxes that Ron DeSantis and the GOP legislature haven’t yet banned (also known as Secure Ballot Intake Stations) are available at the entrance of the Elections Office and at any early voting site during voting hours. The locations are as follows:
- Flagler County Elections Supervisor’s Office, Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell.
- Flagler County Public Library, 2500 Palm Coast Pkwy NW, Palm Coast.
- Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE.
- Flagler Beach United Methodist Church, 1520 South Daytona Avenue, Flagler Beach.
See a sample ballot here. See the Live Interviews with all local candidates below.
Flagler County School Board Derek Barrs, Dist. 3 Janie Ruddy, Dist. 3 Lauren Ramirez, Dist. 5 Vincent Sullivan, Dist. 5 Flagler County Commission Andy Dance, Dist. 1 Fernando Melendez, Dist. 1 Kim Carney, Dist. 3 Bill Clark, Dist. 3 Nick Klufas, Dist. 3 Ed Danko, Dist. 5 Pam Richardson, Dist. 5 Palm Coast Mayor David Alfin Peter Johnson Alan Lowe Cornelia Manfre Mike Norris Palm Coast City Council Kathy Austrino, Dist. 1 Shara Brodsky, Dist. 1 Ty Miller, Dist. 1 Jeffrey Seib, Dist. 1 Dana Stancel, Dist. 3 Ray Stevens, Dist. 3 Andrew Werner, Dist. 3 |
Drug Court convenes before Circuit Judge Terence Perkins at 10 a.m. in Courtroom 401 at the Flagler County courthouse, Kim C. Hammond Justice Center 1769 E Moody Blvd, Bldg 1, Bunnell. Drug Court is open to the public. See the Drug Court handbook here and the participation agreement here.
Story Time for Preschoolers at Flagler Beach Public Library, 11 to 11:30 a.m. at the library, 315 South Seventh Street, Flagler Beach. It’s where the wild things are: Hop on for stories and songs with Miss Doris.
 Keep Their Lights On Over the Holidays: Flagler Cares, the social service non-profit celebrating its 10th anniversary, is marking the occasion with a fund-raiser to "Keep the Holiday Lights On" by encouraging people to sponsor one or more struggling household's electric bill for a month over the Christmas season. Each sponsorship amounts to $100 donation, with every cent going toward payment of a local power bill. See the donation page here. Every time another household is sponsored, a light goes on on top of a house at Flagler Cares' fundraising page. The goal of the fun-raiser, which Flagler Cares would happily exceed, is to support at least 100 families (10 households for each of the 10 years that Flagler Cares has been in existence). Flagler Cares will start taking applications for the utility fund later this month. Because of its existing programs, the organization already has procedures in place to vet people for this type of assistance, ensuring that only the needy quality. |
Notably: Here’s something the 6-3 Supreme Court majority of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the decision that criminalized homeless people sleeping in public, were not much interested in, from Jack London’s People of the Abyss: “But, O dear, soft people, full of meat and blood, with white beds and airy rooms waiting you each night, how can I make you know what it is to suffer as you would suffer if you spent a weary night on London’s streets! Believe me, you would think a thousand centuries had come and gone before the east paled into dawn; you would shiver till you were ready to cry aloud with the pain of each aching muscle; and you would marvel that you could endure so much and live. Should you rest upon a bench, and your tired eyes close, depend upon it the policeman would rouse you and gruffly order you to “move on.” You may rest upon the bench, and benches are few and far between; but if rest means sleep, on you must go, dragging your tired body through the endless streets. Should you, in desperate slyness, seek some forlorn alley or dark passageway and lie down, the omnipresent policeman will rout you out just the same. It is his business to rout you out. It is a law of the powers that be that you shall be routed out.” So it is not new of course, but a return to norms we thought we had gotten beyond generations ago. It is part of the court’s lurch for its 1920s sensibilities. All six in that majority could fit inside Taft’s interpretive girth.
—P.T.
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The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
In Court: Splash Pad Case
Flagler and Florida Unemployment Numbers Released
Blue 24 Forum
988 Suicide Prevention Walk
Flagler County Canvassing Board Meeting
Jake’s Women, By Neil Simon, at City Rep Theatre
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Democratic Women’s Club
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Flagler County Public Library Book Club
Jake’s Women, By Neil Simon, at City Rep Theatre
Random Acts of Insanity’s Roundup of Standups from Around Central Florida
For the full calendar, go here.
In a civilisation frankly materialistic and based upon property, not soul, it is inevitable that property shall be exalted over soul, that crimes against property shall be considered far more serious than crimes against the person. To pound one’s wife to a jelly and break a few of her ribs is a trivial offence compared with sleeping out under the naked stars because one has not the price of a doss. The lad who steals a few pears from a wealthy railway corporation is a greater menace to society than the young brute who commits an unprovoked assault upon an old man over seventy years of age. While the young girl who takes a lodging under the pretence that she has work commits so dangerous an offence, that, were she not severely punished, she and her kind might bring the whole fabric of property clattering to the ground. Had she unholily tramped Piccadilly and the Strand after midnight, the police would not have interfered with her, and she would have been able to pay for her lodging.
–From From Jack London’s People of the Abyss (1903) .
Ray W. says
According to the Wall Street Journal, Natron Energy, a California battery company founded in 2012, already produces sodium-ion batteries for industrial companies in a small Michigan factory. Natron announced a $1.4 billion plan to construct a larger sodium battery factory in North Carolina to supplement its current production capacity.
Sodium-ion batteries use a compound of iron and manganese, instead of lithium, cobalt and rare earths “that pose supply-chain and human rights risks. …” They are “less fire-prone and can operate in colder climates, proponents say.”
Sodium-ion batteries use a compound, called Prussian Blue, to more rapidly charge and discharge electricity, which makes them more useful to industries that need sudden bursts of power, such as “data centers and oil drillers.” The batteries level out the energy supply inhering in applications that involve peaks of energy demand.
The chemical structure of Prussian Blue has empty spaces into which sodium ions can fit during charging. This means, unlike lithium-ion batteries, a sodium battery doesn’t expand and contract during charge and discharge cycles.
Sodium-ion batteries are not yet small enough to fit into cars, but Chinese battery and auto giants CATL and BYD are known to be developing sodium battery technology. Northvolt, owned by VW and BMW, claims to have developed its own advanced sodium-ion battery.
According to the Journal, in the last two years, many businesses have pledged a total of $100 billion to build new EV and other types of battery factories in the U.S. Some have already failed.
It is inferred from the failures that other battery makers might fail, too. Just look at the American automobile industry. From dozens of carmakers early in the 20th century, by the 70’s, only three remained. One of those final three is now owned by a foreign parent company.
On the other hand, the need for battery storage at an industrial scale, as opposed to a different need for new types of EV batteries, means that there likely is a rapidly growing marketplace for large sodium-ion batteries that store electricity generated from intermittent sources such as wind and solar.
If sodium-ion batteries can be made more cheaply from commonly and widely available materials (iron, manganese and sodium), if the batteries charge and discharge more quickly, if the batteries last longer, if the batteries are less environmentally toxic, if the batteries catch fire less often and operate better in colder climates, and if the batteries do not use cobalt, which relies on child labor in foreign countries to extract, then the batteries will likely find a place in the international marketplace.
Once again, there is a plethora of technological advances in multiple international industries underway. The world is rapidly changing. Roughly one billion people constitute the developed world. Seven billion people living in the underdeveloped world want the same comforts of a climate-controlled home, the advantages of personal vehicle transport, the health derived from clean water and better food, including proteins derived from meat and fish. All of these perceived wants demand more and more electricity that will be available when they want it.
Make of this what you will.
As an aside, U.S. retail sales are up 1% month over month. This on top of news earlier this week that producer inflation is down yet again, and that core CPI inflation is down yet again. The Keynesian economic theory behind the passage of $2.9 trillion in unfunded stimulus money signed into law by former President Trump seems to be working in the short-term. The passage of another $3.0 trillion in unfunded stimulus money signed into law by President Biden seems to be working in the short-term. Over the long term, the debt created by the injection of most of the $5.9 trillion has its own unknown costs. The only accurate way to characterize this burst of spending is Trudenomics and Trudenflation. Blaming either of both political parties for the economic disruption experienced by the economies of the entire world is useless. The pandemic is to blame.
Trudenomics continues to work as planned. Trudenflation, expected to occur as a result of the spending, continues to drop. The Fed’s raising of the lending rate, designed to cool a heating economy, is working. The fabled “soft landing” remains possible. The nation has not been destroyed. Yes, the pandemic wreaked damage on some worse than others. Yes, the political class of one of our parties seems bent of portraying falsely the state of the overall economy. On an individual scale, plenty of people are worse off than they were four years ago. Most are better off than they were four years ago.
Time to comment again on a Nietzsche quote:
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
Pogo says
@Furthermore
“US has lowest life expectancy among rich, English-speaking countries, study says
David Matthews, New York Daily News
Updated Wed, 14 August 2024 at 7:59 pm GMT-4·1-min read
A new study has found that Americans have the lowest life expectancy of similar English-speaking countries.
The researchers from Penn State University who conducted the study compared mortality rates from 1990 to 2019 from six English-speaking nations and found that people in Canada, Ireland, the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand all on average live longer than their American counterparts.
In the U.S., the average life expectancy for men is 76.5 while the average for women is about 81.5 years. In Australia, on the other hand, women lived nearly four more years and men five more years than men and women America.
The study also found that men and women in California and Hawaii lived longer than other Americans — though still not as long as Australians — while people in the Southeast’s life expectancy is well below the U.S. average (72.6 for women, 69.3 for men)…”
Worth repeating, “…The study also found that men and women in California and Hawaii lived longer than other Americans — though still not as long as Australians — while people in the Southeast’s life expectancy is well below the U.S. average (72.6 for women, 69.3 for men)…”
Hooray for the Free State of Florida and the newnighted states of ‘Murica.
Now this
Ray W. says
The Cool Down reports that Ateios Systems, an Indiana battery company teamed up with Oak Ridge National Labarotory to develop a dry curing method to produce batteries. The process is named “RaiCure Technology.”
The technology uses a “light-based” curing method at room temperature. Electrodes are coated with “dry materials mixing.” The coated electrodes are cured by exposing the electrodes to the “light-based” form of radiation. Current battery production methods are relatively energy reliant, as they use heat and toxic solvents to cure electrodes. Unlike 95% of today’s batteries that use polymers known as PFAS, according to the reporter, Ateios’s method uses zero PFAS, commonly called “forever chemicals.”
According to an Ateios press release, their room temperature dry cure method reduces manufacturing costs by 20%, increases battery density (capacity to store electricity) by 50%, and reduces energy consumption by 82%.
Cheaper to produce. More energy dense. Uses less electricity in the manufacturing process, zero PFAS forever chemicals. Companies that produce lithium-ion batteries for small applications like smart watches or automobile key fobs could use this breakthrough.
Make of this what you will.