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Weather: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 2pm. Sunny, with a high near 94. Heat index values as high as 102. Calm wind becoming southeast 5 to 8 mph in the morning. Tonight: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms before 10pm. Partly cloudy, with a low around 75. Southeast wind 5 to 7 mph becoming southwest after midnight.
- 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:
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village: The city’s only farmers’ market is open every Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. at European Village, 101 Palm Harbor Pkwy, Palm Coast. With fruit, veggies, other goodies and live music. For Vendor Information email [email protected]
That Girl Lay Lay, 7 p.m. at the Florida Theater, 128 E Forsyth St #300 Jacksonville. This gifted Nickelodeon Star and emerging music sensation That Girl Lay Lay is poised to grace stages far and wide, captivating audiences with her electrifying stage presence. The Growing Pains tour guarantees an unforgettable experience, spotlighting Lay Lay’s remarkable talent, infectious energy, and undeniable charisma. Audiences can anticipate a vibrant and immersive show that showcases Lay Lay’s evolution as an artist and her knack for connecting with fans of every generation
Grace Community Food Pantry, 245 Education Way, Bunnell, drive-thru open today from noon to 3 p.m. The food pantry is organized by Pastor Charles Silano and Grace Community Food Pantry, a Disaster Relief Agency in Flagler County. Feeding Northeast Florida helps local children and families, seniors and active and retired military members who struggle to put food on the table. Working with local grocery stores, manufacturers, and farms we rescue high-quality food that would normally be wasted and transform it into meals for those in need. The Flagler County School District provides space for much of the food pantry storage and operations. Call 386-586-2653 to help, volunteer or donate.
Al-Anon Family Groups: Help and hope for families and friends of alcoholics. Meetings are every Sunday at Silver Dollar II Club, Suite 707, 2729 E Moody Blvd., Bunnell, and on zoom. More local meetings available and online too. Call 904-315-0233 or see the list of Flagler, Volusia, Putnam and St. Johns County meetings here.
 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 qualify. |
In medias res: This doesn’t bode well for the lawsuits in Florida challenging book bans. From the Aug. 9 New York Times: “A law in Iowa that bars public schools from having books that depict sexual acts can take effect, following a ruling by federal appeals court judges on Friday. The ruling overturned a preliminary injunction issued in December by a federal judge. The case will now go back to District Court. The law, known as Senate File 496, was signed by Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds in May 2023, and bans any titles that describe sexual acts from K-12 schools, with the exception of religious texts. The law also limits instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity before seventh grade, which has led some schools to remove books that address those issues. After the law was passed, thousands of books were banned from schools around the state, according to The Des Moines Register. Titles that have been removed include classics and popular fiction like “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker, “Looking for Alaska,” by John Green, and “The Handmaid’s Tale,” by Margaret Atwood.”
—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
Scenic A1A Pride Meeting
Blue 24 Forum
Acoustic Jam Circle At The Community Center In The Hammock
Flagler County’s Cold-Weather Shelter Opens
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
It’s Back! Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
For the full calendar, go here.
I was in no state to talk about freedom. It was a word that had become a minefield. Ever since conservatives started laying claim to it (Freedom Tower, freedom fries), liberals and progressives had started backing away from it toward new definitions of the social good according to which people would no longer be entitled to dispute the new norms. Protecting the rights and sensibilities of groups perceived as vulnerable would take precedence over freedom of speech, which the Nobel laureate Elias Canetti had called “the tongue set free.” This move away from First Amendment principles allowed that venerable piece of the Constitution to be co-opted by the right. The First Amendment was now what allowed conservatives to lie, to abuse, to denigrate. It became a kind of freedom for bigotry. The right had a new social agenda too, one that sounded a lot like an old one: authoritarianism, backed up by unscrupulous media, big money, complicit politicians, and corrupt judges. All of this, the complexities created by new ideas of right and wrong, and my desire to protect the idea of freedom—Thomas Paine’s idea, the Enlightenment idea, John Stuart Mill’s idea—from these new things, was beyond my power to articulate. My voice was weak and faint. My body was in shock. Talking about miracles was about as much as I could manage.
–From Salman Rushdie’s Knife (2024).
Pogo says
@Our pulse has a sound
The human heart, lubb-dup, lubb-dub, lubb-dup…
And the world’s? The thud and groan of pump jacks, windmills and turbines squeak and howl.
People’s, and the world’s, blood (and oil) pay for each other; they flow, leak, and gush — in drops, rivers, floods and terrible fountains.
Our eulogy
Ray W. says
Dodge recently announced the release of its 2025 “Ramcharger” truck, which can be described as an “extended range electric vehicle.”
Like a diesel electric-drive locomotive that uses an engine to generate electricity (so it is not new or novel technology), the 174 HP V-6 engine (the base V-6 gas-only truck engine is rated at 305 HP) does not have a transmission, which reduces weight; the truck relies solely on front and rear electric motors with a combined HP of over 330 to move. With the supplemental ICE, the battery need not be as large, so weight is cut there, too. Normal plug-in charging systems can be used to keep the battery fully charged whenever one leaves home. The truck is not classified as a hybrid vehicle because hybrid vehicles use transmissions to move when the gasoline engine kicks in.
As most trips are short distance for most people, the battery charge should seldom be depleted enough to automatically start the engine to generate electricity. Since the engine does not directly move the truck, it can be set to run at the most fuel-efficient RPM needed to generate electricity to maintain battery charge.
Range is estimated at up to 690 miles of continuous driving on a tank of gas, but no fuel tank capacity specification is listed, yet. Dodge lists standard fuel tank capacity as 23 gallons for its 1500 series of gas-powered trucks, which means that the new vehicle, if it uses the standard tank, would average up to 30 MPG when the engine is needed for longer trips. It seems possible, if not probable, that a smaller gas tank will be used to save space and weight, as the battery needs to be placed underneath the body for weight distribution factors, among other concerns, but that is just speculative inference.
Ray W. says
Per The Cool Down, Heidelberg Materials (formerly known as HeidelbergCement AG and one of the world’s largest building materials companies) jointly collaborated with Metsa Wood (one of Europe’s largest engineered wood products companies) to create a new laminated form of concrete that, depending on application, can be strong enough to supplant steel in certain construction applications lower than six stories.
The product sandwiches layers of “climate-improved” concrete that absorbs carbon pollution around a layer of insulation and “laminated wood veneer.” The product is 60% lighter than the standard concrete it is designed to replace and is between 2-3 inches thinner. The product is promoted as having a post-construction use impact on the climate some 15% to 25% below that of traditional concrete. Its manufacture produces 30% to 50% less climate impact.
No information on direct cost comparison was included in the article.
Make of it what you will.