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Weather: Sunny. Highs in the upper 60s. North winds 5 to 10 mph. Sunday Night: Clear. Lows around 40. Northwest winds 5 to 10 mph.
- 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:
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students: 9:30 to 10:25 a.m. at Grace Presbyterian Church, 1225 Royal Palms Parkway, Palm Coast. Improve your English skills while studying the Bible. This study is geared toward intermediate and advanced level English Language Learners.
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]
A Christmas Carol at Athens Theatre, 124 North Florida Avenue, DeLand, Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2:30 p.m. Adult $30, Senior $28, Student/Child $12; Groups of 8 or more, $25 per ticket. A $5 per ticket processing charge is added to all purchases. As the historic Athens Theatre does not have an elevator, the balcony is not accessible to anyone with a wheelchair or walker. Get ready to unwrap the true spirit of the holidays in an unforgettable experience with A Christmas Carol, a musical adorned with original enchanting melodies by the maestro Milton Granger and performed by a live band. This festive explosion of joy and redemption promises to transport you into the heart of Dickens’ timeless tale. With a live band providing the soul-stirring soundtrack, this production transforms into a captivating celebration of the season, weaving together the magic of music and the power of Dickens’ iconic story. Join the festivities as you embark on Scrooge’s transformative journey.
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center: Nightly from 6 to 9 p.m. at Palm Coast’s Central Park, with 55 lighted displays you can enjoy with a leisurely stroll around the pond in the park. Admission to Fantasy Lights is free, but donations to support Rotary’s service work are gladly accepted. Holiday music will pipe through the speaker system throughout the park, Santa’s Village, which has several elf houses for the kids to explore, will be open, with Santa’s Merry Train Ride nightly (weather permitting), and Santa will be there every Sunday night until Christmas, plus snow on weekends! On certain nights, live musical performances will be held on the stage.
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.
Notably: The top of the front page of the Sept. 25 edition of Le Temps, the Swiss daily, featured a story about the death by suicide of an unidentified 64-year-old American in the woods outside Schaffhouse near the German border. The American had slipped herself inside the Sarco, closed the lid, and a few minutes later, died. I don’t know why proponents and purveyors of assisted suicide choose such rudimentary means, or terminology, for their wares. Kevorkian and his strange VW bus, and now, The Sarco. The Sarco’s method isn’t the problem, but why call it that? Sarco is short for sarcophagus, a word most people outside of New Orleans or Levantine civilizations have no reason to know. My idea of a sarcophagus is either the sumptuous Roman tombs of Tyr in Lebanon, or the more cryptic tombs of Christian influencers, like Thomas Moore’s in Canterbury. Maybe the name is not the point. The purpose is nobler than the name: to give an individual the ultimate right. We do not choose to be born. It should absolutely be our right to choose to die. The reasons, I think, are either secondary or none of others’ business: in the choice is the freedom to die without giving accounts. “The Sarco represents the future of dying,” The Last Resort, the organization that, well, birthed the Sarco, states on its website. The Sarco is a “A 3D-printed capsule that gives the user the ultimate control over the timing of her/his death. The Sarco works by lowering the level of oxygen in the capsule to lethal levels. The person inside breathes normally. Consciousness is lost within seconds. Death follows peacefully a few minutes later.” It takes an organization to make it happen (you can’t just buy a sarco, choose a nice spot in the woods and go. Well, you can, but someone has to pick up what remains.) So there is complicity, and therefore legalities. The inspiration for the Sarco was Tony Nicklinson, the Brit who died at 58 after suffering from “locked-in syndrome,” “an incurable condition in which a patient loses all motor functions but remains awake and aware, with all cognitive abilities. He had spent the last seven years paralyzed from the neck down and unable to speak, feed himself or even clean his own teeth, communicating through a system that allowed him to write messages on a computer screen by blinking his eyes,” according to the New York Times. British authorities had denied him the right to end his life. He died six days later. Dr Philip Nitschke got to work on the Sarco. What followed is summed up in a headline in the Independent: “Suicide machine that could be controlled by the blink of an eye sparks euthanasia debate.” Then, “The Last Resort was founded by a small international collective of human rights advocates.” Its director is Dr Florian Willet, who was present at the time of the American’s death in the Swiss woods. The woman was not charged except for the cost of the nitrogen used to kill her. Here’s the issue: Immediately afterward, Swiss authorities arrested Willet, because the Sarco was not lawful, even though assisted suicide is. As one paper describes it: “Switzerland seems to be the only country in which the law limits the circumstances in which assisted suicide is a crime, thereby decriminalising it in other cases, without requiring the involvement of a physician. Consequently, non-physicians have participated in assisted suicide. The law has explicitly separated the issue of whether or not assisting death should be allowed in some circumstances, from that of whether physicians should do it. This separation has not resulted in moral desensitisation of assisted suicide and euthanasia.” Willet has been in prison for 64 days. Allegations have emerged: strangulation marks around the American woman’s neck, though “The woman had skull base osteomyelitis, a rare bone infection that a source close to the Last Resort suggested may have caused the neck marks,” the London Times reported. The Last Resort called the allegation “ridiculous and absurd.” Before her death, the American woman is quoted as saying that her two grown-up children “completely agree that this is my decision — and they are behind me 100 per cent,” and described preparations for her death as a “wonderful” experience that was “easy and less traumatic than I expected.”
—P.T.
 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. |
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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.
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
A Christmas Carol at Athens Theatre
Al-Anon Family Groups
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Flagler County Commission Morning Meeting
Beverly Beach Town Commission meeting
Nar-Anon Family Group
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
For the full calendar, go here.
The problem with spectacle as an end to itself is that it crowds out actual quality. It’s one thing to watch a farcical fight; it’s another entirely when farcical fights are all that are left. This echoes Martin Scorsese’s complaint about comic book movies. The problem is not that all comic movies are bad; the problem is that if studios only focus on making comic book movies, it’s what audiences will expect — and they’ll slowly become accustomed, even inured, to the declining quality. We are seeing this phenomenon not just in boxing or in other sports, but in many aspects of American society, from silly stuff (an influencer entering the ring against a legendary but over-the-hill boxer) to food commerce (a YouTuber puts his name on a restaurant chain but ends up being accused of serving raw meat to customers) to, perhaps inevitably, cabinet appointments (a famous television host gets a high-profile nomination, but doesn’t somebody actually have to run the place?).
—From Will Leitch’s “Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson Is the Absurd Spectacle We Deserve.” The New York Times, Nov. 18, 2024..
Ed P says
Splitting up families? What about the 122,731 unaccompanied immigrant minors who crossed the southern border in 2021 and 128,904 in 2022. Some as young as 2 years old…all alone some 2500 miles. That’s cruel as well as horrifying. How many died and never made the entire journey? Any outrage for allowing this to continue? What about the abuse they endured? How many came with only 1 parent? No data available.
Then once they arrive, over 300,000 children have been track of? Do we believe they are all ok and living the good life here in America? Are 1/2 safe? Who knows?
The fact is less than 50% of all illegal immigrants are migrating from areas that would actually justify an asylum claim and even fewer of those will qualify. The reality is that many won’t show up for hearings and are ordered to leave but don’t. They are the ones along with convicted criminals must go immediately.
Does the law worry about putting a US citizen who is convicted of a crime to prison?
No, the law is the law. The family is split.
How many families in this country don’t have a 2 parent household? Divorce rates contribute to 25.1 % of children living with a single parent-3.8% live with neither. How can we solve the worlds problems when we suck at solving our own.
If there was a better process I’m speculating that the Biden administration would have already endorsed. Doing nothing and praying was the plan for the last 4 years and it’s just not working.
Pogo says
@Not if, but when
… will pay-per-view, Elon’s virtual existence for biological units, mass deportation, and trumplandian ingenuity come together with nitrogen gas?
Go back inside, and back to sleep — all these people will be given a shower, and taken care of, on their way to New Coast — the country of the future.
— Paraphrasing the aftermath of the protest massacre in the 1965 film Dr. Zhivago
Ray W, says
The EPA just released its 50th annual Automotive Trends Report, focused on personal vehicle (cars, SUVs and light trucks) for the 2023 model year. The EPA uses model year dates, not calendar year dates.
Here are some bullet points:
– All fourteen large automotive manufacturers are in compliance with “EPA’s light-duty GHG program requirements through the MY 2023 reporting period.”
– “Over the course of 50 years, there have been many notable vehicle emission and public health accomplishments. Since EPA began keeping data in 1975, vehicles today are roughly 99% cleaner for common pollutants (such as hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and particle emissions) which can help alleviate adverse health effects such as asthma and heart problems, and limit hospital stays and cancer. In addition, fuel economy in the United States has improved from 13.1 miles per gallon in MY 1975 to 27.1 mpg for MY 2023 vehicles.” The 2022 figure was 26.0 mpg.
– “For MY 2023, new vehicle real-world CO2 emissions decreased to a record low of 319 grams per miles. By saving an additional 18 grams per mile of CO2 on each vehicle produced in the United States in MY 2023, the impact on climate change is reduced.”
– “EVs and PHEVs are accelerating the downward trend in new vehicle real-world emissions. These vehicles have reduced CO2 emissions by 38 g/mi and improved fuel economy by 2.2 mpg in MY 2023.”
– “In MY 2023, the combined category of battery-electric vehicles, PHEVs, and fuel cell vehicles increased from 6.7% of production in MY 2022 to 11.5% of production in MY 2023 and are projected to reach 14.8% of production in model year 2024. …”
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
A “senior official” at Nissan told a Financial Times reporter: “We have 12 to 14 months to survive. This is going to be tough. And in the end, we need Japan and the US to be generating cash.”
Nissan’s head of manufacturing held a news conference last month: “Globally, we currently have 25 vehicle production lines. Our current plan is to reduce the operational maximum capacity of these 25 lines by 20 per cent.”
“Nissan chief executive Makoto Uchida is taking a 50 per cent pay cut and it has now been reported that chief financial officer Stephen Ma is stepping down.”
Last March, Nissan vowed to cut costs of manufacturing electric cars by 30% in response to “super cheap” Chinese EV models.
Nissan plans to cut 9,000 workers as part of its effort to cut costs by $2.6 billion.
Mr. Uchida says: “We weren’t able to foresee that hybrid electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids would be so popular.” He also said: “This has been a lesson learned and we have not been able to keep up with the times.”
Forbes reports that cheap Chinese EV options have been “hacking away” at Nissan’s market share: “The root of the problems stem from a wave of cheaper EV alternatives coming from China that are flooding the global market and stealing market share away from the Japanese company.”
Nissan’s worldwide sales dropped to 3.4 million last year. Sales during this year’s first half slumped 3.8% more to 1.59 million.
Nissan may run its debt to a record high $6.6 billion by 2026.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
A wave of inexpensive, reliable and innovative Chinese-designed EVs, PHEVs, and EREVs are cutting into legacy manufacturers’ market shares all over the world.
I will repeat this many times.
Ford’s CEO told a European podcaster that he had been driving a Chinese EV for six months and that he didn’t want to give it up. He said that the American automobile industry is years behind the Chinese carmakers. Although he is not the only one to say this, he also said that if Chinese EV makers enter the American automobile marketplace, it will be an “extinction level event.”
The Biden administration just imposed a 102.5% tariff on all Chinese-made EVs.
The EU erected trade barriers, too, but it was recently announced that Chinese EV manufacturers agreed to voluntarily raise their prices in exchange for the EU repealing the trade barriers. Imagine that. Chinese car companies will agree to make more profit in exchange for the EU allowing them to enter the European car marketplace sans trade barriers.
Mercedes Benz and BMW recently told investors to expect lower profits. VW threatens a 10% pay cut for its employees and has announced for the first time in its history that it will shut not just one, but three, factories.
America stupidly gave up its manufacturing expertise and innovation capacity in battery design decades ago. American industry stood by and watched as Chinese car companies invested in improving their battery manufacturing capabilities and lowered manufacturing costs.
The gullible among us listened to the professional lying class of one of our two political parties and blindly accepted every argument against EVs and rejected any argument in favor of EVs. Now, Chinese-made EVs of all kinds cost less to make, less to sell, less to drive, less to insure, less to repair and less to maintain than comparable ICE models.
The main hope we have of winning the race for electrification of our personal transportation industry is to focus on emerging solid-state battery technologies. We have already lost the race for developing liquid-state lithium-ion batteries.
Read Nissan’s CEO’s comments again. Nissan is learning its hard lesson. It ignored what was coming, burying its corporate head in the sand. There is a chance Nissan will not survive as a company.
Yes, it is thought Honda might buy into Nissan, like Hyundai bought Kia out of bankruptcy. But Honda’s worldwide market share has been affected, too, and it is betting on solid-state batteries that are close to entering into mass production, but a full ramp-up seems years away.