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Weather: Mostly sunny. Highs in the lower 80s. Tuesday Night: Mostly clear. Lows in the mid 60s.
- 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 Daytona Beach (a few minutes off from Flagler Beach) here.
- Tropical cyclone activity here, and even more details here.
Today at a Glance:
General Election Early Voting is available today in Bunnell, Palm Coast and Flagler Beach from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at five locations. Any registered and qualified voter who is eligible to vote in a county-wide election may vote in person at any of the early voting site, regardless of assigned precinct. 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.
- Palm Coast’s Southern Recreation Center, 1290 Belle Terre Parkway.
- 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.
Palm Coast Mayor Cornelia Manfre Mike Norris Palm Coast City Council Ty Miller, Dist. 1 Jeffrey Seib, Dist. 1 Ray Stevens, Dist. 3 Andrew Werner, Dist. 3 Backgrounders Manfre’s and Norris’s Final Clash Temper and Temperament at Tiger Bay Forum Stevens and Werner Sharpen Differences |
In Court: Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols hears pre-trials for much of the day.
The Palm Coast City Council workshop previously scheduled for today is cancelled. The council is not meeting again until Nov. 12.
Palm Coast’s Residential Drainage Citizens Advisory Committee meets at 6 p.m. at City Hall.
The NAACP Flagler Branch’s General Membership Meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. at the African American Cultural Society, 4422 North U.S. Highway 1, Palm Coast (just north of Whiteview Parkway). The meeting is open to the public, including non-members. To become a member, go here.
Fall Horticultural Workshops at the Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE., 6:30 p.m on Tuesdays, 10 a.m. on Fridays. Join master gardeners from the UF/IFAS Agricultural Extension Office for these workshops that cover a variety of horticultural topics. $10 a workshop.
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy, 8 p.m. at Cinematique Theater, 242 South Beach Street, Daytona Beach. General admission is $8.50. Every Tuesday and on the first Saturday of every month the Random Acts of Insanity Comedy Improv Troupe specializes in performing fast-paced improvised comedy.
 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. |
Notably: I had a misconception about country music when I first arrived in the United States in 1978. I thought it synonymous with the soundtracks of westerns we grew up on in Beirut, watching them at the Embassy or the Concorde cinemas. That was itself anachronistic. The soundtracks were generally written by Italians–Ennio Morricone, Nico Fidenco (also big for the softcore porn of Emanuelle movies), Frencesco De Masi–who invented the sound of westerns no less than Aaron Copeland invented the sound of the west from his Brooklyn studio. With that misconception in mind, and feeling nostalgic for those sounds–another irony: I was nostalgic for the western sounds I heard in Beirut, now that I was in America–I asked my second father what record he might recommend. He suggested Willie Nelson’s “Red Headed Stranger.” I bought it. This must’ve been 1979 or 1980, five years after the album appeared. It was Willies breakthrough. I did not hear the sounds of the Embassy. I heard better. My love affair with country, and with Willie especially, began. I had no idea what the songs were about, though I’d eventually catch on many years later that the concept album traced the story of a fugitive who murdered his wife and lover. I couldn’t stop listening. “Just As I Am,” “Can I Sleep In Your Arms,” and of course “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain,” a song that to this day discombobulates my cosmology and yo-yos me up and down the abyss of nostalgia by way of existential shutters. For all the thousand and one songs Willie’s written, this one is not one of his. Fred Rose wrote it, Hank Williams sang it, Gene Autry sang it, Conway Twitty sang it. But no one had ever sung it like Willie, or given it that place in the Red Headed Stranger cycle that, in Willie’s words, “expressed the overall theme and tied all the loose ends together.”
—P.T.
Now this: We need a break, even if this is a repeat. It never gets old. Neither does he.
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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.
Flagler County Drug Court Convenes
Flagler County Canvassing Board Meeting
Story Time for Preschoolers at Flagler Beach Public Library
Flagler Tiger Bay Club Guest Speaker: Carlos M. Cruz
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Town Center
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
For the full calendar, go here.
I didn’t fault the other trippers who used acid to blow their minds in their search for a deeper truth -or just ’cause they wanted to try a new high. For my part, though, experimenting with LSD convinced me that I had already found the high that worked for me. My love affair with pot became a long-term marriage. It was, by far, the smoothest of all my marriages. Pot and I got along beautifully. Pot never brought me down, never busted my balls. Pot got me up and took me where I needed to go. Pot chased my blues away. When it came to calming my energy and exciting my imagination, pot did the \trick damn near every time I toked.
–From Willie Nelson’s It’s A Long Story: My Life (2015).
Pogo says
@Something that matters
As stated
https://www.rawstory.com/housing-crisis/
And now, back to the exciting world of tomorrow; and flying cars, and little pink houses… all in a row in an octopus’s garden beneath the sea.
Dennis C Rathsam says
Despite your constant bashing of TRUMP, your tasteless cartoons, most Americans have different ideas. Looks to me the bloom has fallen off the Harris rose. TRUMP is pulling away, as team Harris looks to Clinton & Obama for help. Clinton stated at the rally for Harris that Lekin Rielly would still be alive today, if the border was closed. Then Obama told blackmen that they have to vote for Harris…. WHAT!!!! Don’t blackmen have a brain? I’m sure they can make up thier minds on who is the better candidate. Many black voters, like the Hispanics are leaving the demoRATT plantation. After many years of lies, & failed policies they are finding greener pastures in the GOP. Without THIER support, Harris faces a loss of magnificant proportions, in 2 weeks. America is ready to turn the page on all this wokism, flip flops, & lies! TRUMP is about to make history again!
Laurel says
My God, Dennis, you really do live in another dimension!
Trump staged the McDonald’s thing at a closed restaurant, with selected supporters. Was this supposed to be comedy? Want some fries with your dogs, cats and geese?
Very Presidential.
How about mutely swaying to 39 minutes of Ava Maria and YMCA at a Q&A session instead of answering questions?
Great diversion from being accountable.
Sorry, Dennis, but I cannot fathom ANYONE voting for that ass Trump. You know, the Arnold Palmer tool admirer.
What the Trumplicans are showing me that they believe that an incompetent con, felon, rapist white male is better than an intelligent, competent, sharp-witted, black female. Same old prejudiced story.
Any woman voting for Trump is especially disappointing to me.
Ray W, says
Hello Laurel.
Perhaps this will help.
HuffPost reports that the conservative Australia United party’s only member of Australia’s Senate, Ralph Babet, recently posted this comment to X:
“Anyone with half a brain would support Donald J. Trump for president.”
Sorta puts Dennis C. Rathsam in perspective, doesn’t it?
Laurel says
Hello Ray W.: Ooohhh! Guess who is getting good at snarky?
I believe Dennis is a good and caring person, but he is just so far deep in the b.s. slung at him and so many others.
Trumplicans have enjoyed the double standard system for so long that they refuse to let go at any cost…even their own.
Skibum says
“Anyone with half a brain would support Donald J. Trump for president.” That might be what is ailing his supporters. Had a large part of my brain been surgically removed, I doubt I would be able to make good decisions either. My sympathies are with them.
Laurel says
Skibum: The part they still have is an enlarged amygdala.
Ray W, says
I see that Dennis C. Rathsam himself is deciding for Black men that they should reject President Obama’s partisan comments. Ironic, isn’t it?
Laurel says
Okay, you’ve been hiding that snark for some time now.
The Geode says
I am a “Black Man” who refuses to listen to or take serious a “half-black man” that has NO IDEA what it is to be a “Black Man”, had NO experiences as a “Black Man” and did absolutely NOTHING to halp a “Black Man”. So, NO. Black Men aren’t the same as black women. We are NOT a “monolith”. Some of us will vote OUR best interest. Mine is with Trump. Don’t care who likes it just like I don’t care who you vote for.
I don’t speak for Black Men, and I sure as heck won’t listen to someone that think we are only good for “fodder” for the “Democrat’s cannon”…
Laurel says
No matter what party, or color, you align yourself with, what Trump did to the Central Park Five, is to me, unforgivable. To this day he has not apologized for his calling for their executions. They are now suing him, and I wish the jury would hand them Trump’s selfish ass.
Back who you please.
Ray W, says
Hello The Geode.
Thank you.
I don’t care who likes my comments either. That is perhaps the main reason that I now end use in most of my comments the phrase, “Make of it what you will.”
Ray W, says
A headline from a new Business Insider article: “2 of the world’s biggest oil producers are looking for new ways to power their economies.”
The gist? Behind the US, both Russia and Saudi Arabia, each producing 11% of the world’s crude oil in 2023, are looking for diversification in their economies in the face of EIA predictions of a possible peak of production sometime around 2030.
Here are some bullet points from the article:
– “Oil prices have been depressed this year because China — the world’s largest oil importer — is in a prolonged economic downturn. The US’s massive boom in oil production over the last 15 years has also kept prices low.”
– “International benchmark Brent crude futures are down about 4% this year to date to around $74 a barrel, and US West Texas Intermediate futures are down 1.3% so far this year to around $70 per barrel.”
– Matthew Huber, a Syracuse University energy, climate politics, and resource geography professor, said: “The explosion of electric vehicle adoption in China (and presumably or eventually in the US and Europe) means the writing is on the wall and we’re going to reach ‘peak demand’ for oil sometime soon. It was always a good idea to diversify one’s economy away from just oil but now more than ever.”
– From the article, “In 2016, Saudi Arabia launched a grand Vision 2030 plan to transform its oil-dependent economy into a more diversified one that includes tourism and sports as key growth pillars.”
– Oil revenue accounts for about 40% of Saudi Arabia’s GDP.
– Saudi Arabia had a price target of $100 per barrel, but has become frustrated with today’s low oil prices (arguably because other OPEC member nations have not been adhering to agreed-upon production restrictions).
– Saudi Arabia has talked of increasing crude oil production, seeking to gain market share at the expense of higher profit margins.
– Anton Siluanov, Russia’s finance minister, recently said: “We are moving towards reducing the share of volatile income and reducing Russia’s dependence on oil and gas in favor of boosting our domestic economy.”
– Oil revenue accounts for about 20% of Russia’s GDP.
Make of this what you will. Me? Saudi Arabia can fund its diversification projects either by producing less and driving up international crude oil prices, possibly at the expense of long-term market share. Or it can attempt to increase long-term market share by increasing production and driving down international crude oil prices, at the expense of overall revenue.
In May 2021, OPEC+ chose the production reduction route, but apparently a number of member nations have been violating the agreed production curbs by exporting more oil than agreed. And U.S. crude oil production has been slowly ramping up. We are now by a significant margin the world’s largest crude oil producer.
But Saudi Arabia possesses one crucial advantage. Its oil is pooled in underground lakes. Extracting pooled oil is far less expensive than fracking shale oil formations. Saudi oil costs roughly $8 per barrel to extract. U.S. shale oil costs roughly $25 per barrel to extract. Saudi Arabia can punish other OPEC+ nations whose extraction costs are higher by producing more oil and driving down prices. They did this to American shale oil producers about a decade ago. Many American energy companies went bankrupt or sold out to larger oil companies. They did it to Russia, too.
Right now, Saudi Arabia has the infrastructure in place to export 12 million barrels of crude oil per day, give or take. It produced on average around 9.5 million barrels per day in 2023, according to EIA figures. Overall, OPEC+ currently has by definition about 4 million barrels of excess capacity, meaning that the member nations, within 30 days, could bring online another 4 million barrels of crude oil production per day and sustain that level for 90 days.
I have long maintained that for almost four years now, OPEC+ has been manipulating the international marketplace for crude oil to increase its oil revenues. There is evidence that many of the largest American shale oil producers have joined in that manipulation. Saudi Arabia has been at the forefront of the OPEC effort. It needs high prices to fund its transition announced in 2016 from an economy heavily dependent on oil revenue to a more diversified economy.
We have all paid a price for the price manipulations. The gullible among us err in blaming Biden. The evidence, for years, has been that Saudi greed drives the manipulations. It takes money, sometimes a lot of money, to create new domestic market sectors. Saudi economists see a closing window on worldwide demand for crude oil and insist on getting as much revenue as possible while the getting is good. The rest, including American shale oil producers, are riding the coattails.
–
Dennis C Rathsam says
Thank you all for such support! Sleep well & prosper…. Your prosperity, & your family wealth will be rewarded when TRUMP is re ellected. Let not your heart be troubled, a real president is on the way! God bless America… & God bless President TRUMP
Skibum says
Dennis, I’m quite sure Hannity would call you “a true patriot”… for no reason whatsoever other than just saying it. So, are you getting your backpack ready to travel to D.C. on Jan. 6? Sharpening your sticks and/or clubs? Checking to make sure you have extra bear spray, a gas mask, and one of those “Don’t tread on me” patches sewn on your shirt sleeves? Whatever you do, remember to include a piece of scratch paper with one of those 1-800-NEEDALAWYER numbers, you know, just in case. And you can be damn sure Donald J. Trump will NOT pay for your lawyer or foot your bail bond to get you out of the pokey that night after Congress certifies VP Kamala Harris as the next president of the United States. No, he will be too busy sulking in his dinning room at Mar-A-Lago while his servants run about trying to find more ketchup bottles for him to throw at his gaudy gold leafed walls.
Ray W, says
The U.S. Geological Survey just finished exploring a small portion of the Smackover Formation, an ancient seabed stretching from Texas to Florida, for the presence of lithium dissolved in liquid salt water. The estimate is between 5 and 19 million tons of dissolved lithium in just southwestern Arkansas.
According to David Applegate, the USGS director, “[l]ithium is a critical mineral for the energy transition, and the potential for increased U.S. production to replace imports has implications for employment, manufacturing and supply chain resilience.”
According to the principal researcher involved in the study, Katherine Knierim, “[w]e estimate there is enough dissolved lithium present in that region to replace U.S. imports of lithium and more.”
The estimate pertains to what is “in place”, not to what may actually prove to be economically recoverable. Current methods to extract lithium from brine pumped from ancient seabed formations involve pumping the brine into pools and allowing the water to evaporate; “it is much less energy intensive than traditional hard rock mining. New methods of extraction are currently being tested.
“Technology developed by researchers at Stanford University can sustainably extract lithium from brines at a price that is 40 percent less than today’s extraction method. The dominant technology costs about $9,100 per ton.”
Make of this what you will. Me? I recently commented on two mining operations just west of Charlotte that involve hard rock formations, not liquid lithium extractable from brine formations. Malicious disinformation spreaders have been claiming after Hurricane Helene flooded nearly the entire western portion of North Carolina that the Biden administration intends to force people from their ancestral lands to get at the hard rock lithium formations, when in reality the two existing mines involve land purchased in one case decades ago and in the other years ago. Now, it seems that there are more recoverable and cheaper deposits of lithium brine in southwest Arkansas that can meet American battery needs for the near future.