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Weather: Mostly sunny, with a high near 80. Breezy, with a southwest wind 6 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph. Thursday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 45.
- 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:
In Court: A trial is scheduled in courtroom 401 before Circuit Judge Dawn Nichols in the case of Shawn Peter Cona, who faces a third degree felony charge for written threats to kill. He was arrested in November 2024 After sending allegedly threatening texts that were intended for his girlfriend but accidentally went to his sister in law, who then sent copies of the written threats to 911.
Town of Marineland Commission Meeting, 6 p.m. in the main conference room at the GTMNERR Marineland, 9741 N Oceanshore Boulevard, St. Augustine. See the town’s website here.This meeting is scheduled for March 27.
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Central Park, from noon to 2 p.m. in Central Park in Town Center, 975 Central Ave. Join Bill Wells, Bob Rupp and other members of the Palm Coast Model Yacht Club, watch them race or join the races with your own model yacht. No dues to join the club, which meets at the pond in Central Park every Thursday.
The Bronx Wanderers at the Fitzgerald Performing Arts Center, 7 p.m. (Flagler Auditorium, 5500 State Road 100, Palm Coast), $54-$64. Book here. What comes to mind when a father, his sons, and their two high school classmates get together and form a show? For starters, you can say a diverse recipe of hilarious personal stories, a vast repertoire of songs spanning all genres and decades, and one family’s journey together through life and music. The Bronx Wanderers pride themselves on being one of the only shows able to entertain audiences of all ages in one sweeping musical tour deforce. With no focus on one specific genre or artist.
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.
Notably: Last month one of the Conversation pieces here was about “when going childless is an ethical choice.” It’s not an uncommon choice. Parents who had the good fortune not to have had that choice made for them, or who seem to endorse the fact that they were allowed to live (the alternative being a cyanide pill, to put it crudely) are now opting not to have children not simply because they don’t want them–an entirely defensible choice: there is no moral or ethical difference between those who choose to have children and those who don’t. J.D. Vance, that scummy schmeer of warmed-over Thomism, claims ion one of those statements indistinguishable from something you’d hear on the old Infowars that people “become more attached to their communities, to their families, to their country because they have children.” But there are people who choose not to have children as an affirmative denial of not having them. As the Conversation piece put it: “Rather than emphasize the damage new humans cause to the planet, this new anti-natalism emphasizes the harm life brings to the unborn. By not having children, these philosophers argue, people help the unborn avoid the inherent painfulness of life.” I find that odd, the pain of life being that contrast necessary to understanding more deeply the joys of life. I’m not sure how the life-deniers resolve the paradox between their denying life to the child they might have had, willfully denying that life that is, and the fact that they themselves are alive, living, experiencing pain and pleasure–and continuing to live. It’s one thing if they choose to end their life on the same ethical grounds: why bring into the world a life I am not myself willing to live? That has a certain logic to it. But to live on while denying a life rings false. Follow the logic (can we really call it an ethic?) to its logical conclusion: that sort of denial would then be equivalent to Jim Jones in the jungles of Latin America distributing the Koolaid, or, to take the analogy to an even grimmer conclusion, to the justification of a cataclysmic life-ending event, a comet striking the earth, a nuclear holocaust that wipes life off the planet, since, after all, such an end would surely prevent any more human suffering in a now-nonexistent future. If that sort of reasoning is good for one, then why not for the planet? The grimness–the grimeness–of the thought has no end. If I’m missing something, I’ll (happily) continue mulling it over. Or ask my children about it.
—P.T.
Pogo says
@Calendar entry
https://www.google.com/search?q=NewsNight+Conversations+on+Tuesday+April+2+at+6+p.m.+at+the+Orlando+Science+Center
Pogo says
@Ordinary people
My Old Friend Is Helping Elon Musk Destroy America
For Steve Davis, Musk’s right-hand man at DOGE, life has always been a game — but Musk’s game increases inefficiency and makes
people’s lives worse
by ADAM GREEN
March 20, 2025
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-elon-musk-doge-steve-davis-friend-1235300013/
“Things are sweeter when they’re lost. I know–because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned
Ed P says
Can the lefts’ entire political position be described in 3 words, “against everything Trump.” ?
On late night TV, liberal audiences are clapping when watching videos of burning teslas at dealerships.
If the far embraces issues that are resonating with the American public in the 20-30 % approval range, how are they going to make any inroads during the midterm elections?
Ray W, says
For the past week or so, strident voices on either side of an issue have posted comments to the FlaglerLive site.
The issue? Is Trump’s commentary on Canada becoming a 51st state a true expression of what he thinks or is it nothing more than boastful jesting?
CityNewsEverywhere published excerpts from Laura Ingraham’s Tuesday night interview with President Trump, mixed in with its reporter’s commentary:
“Trump continued his inflammatory comments directed at Canada during an interview with Laura Ingraham on her Fox News political show ‘The Ingraham Angle,’ maintaining that Canada has treated the U.S. unfairly and is ‘meant’ to be the 51st state.
“‘Here’s my problem with Canada,’ Trump seethed. ‘Canada was meant to be the 51st state because we subsidize Canada by $200 billion a year. We don’t need their cars, we don’t need their lumber, we have a lot of lumber.
“‘We don’t need their energy, we don’t need anything, we certainly don’t want their automobiles … millions of automobiles are sent in, I’d rather have them made in Michigan, I’d rather have them made in South Carolina.
“Ingraham pushed back, saying the trade deficit with Canada is actually $60 billion. She also pointed out that Trump is ‘tougher with Canada than you are with some of our biggest adversaries.
“‘Why?’ she asked.
“‘Because it’s meant to be our 51st state,’ he shot back before directing his anger at the previous Trudeau administration.
“‘I deal with every country directly or indirectly, one of the nastiest countries to deal with is Canada. Now this was Trudeau … good old Justin, I call him Governor Trudeau, his people were nasty and they weren’t telling the truth, they never tell the truth. They’d say ‘we don’t charge,’ well they do, they charge tremendous.’
“Trump cited his oft-repeated claim that Canada has a 250 per cent tariff on dairy products, without mentioning that it is only applied if a considerable quota is exceeded — or that he signed off on that deal himself during his first term as President.
“The U.S. also has similar tariff-rate quotas in place on commodities such as sugar, an international trade attorney told the Canadian Press recently.
“When Ingraham asked Trump straight up what his end game is, he replied: ‘My end game is I don’t want to have a big deficit. I don’t want to see the United States of America, and you say $60 billion and I say $200 billion — it doesn’t matter ” I don’t want us to pay $60 billion or $200 billion dollars to a country, that if they were a state, it would be our biggest, most beautiful, it would be great.’
“‘This state, it would be cherished, we’d take care of it, the people would pay half of what they are paying now. Canada pays very little for defence,’ he added. ‘They think we’re going to defend them.'”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Maybe Trump still jests. Maybe not. I don’t know. Nor does, I suppose, anyone else. Such is life in a chaotic world.
The only things I know are that Trump is a vengeful person who inflicts retribution on anyone who opposes him and that his modus operandi as the leader of the professional lying class of one of our two parties is to lie at will regardless of the setting in hopes that the more gullibly stupid of his followers will launder his lies.
Did Canada have a trade surplus of $200 billion with the U.S. last year? Of course not. Ingraham is far closer to the actual trade deficit with her assertion of $60 billion, but Trump is compelled to lie. Perhaps $200 billion sounds better in his mind’s eye as he is lying. After all, he could have said $250 billion. Oh, wait! He did say $250 billion once!
But that isn’t the point. President Trump told Laura Ingraham that “it doesn’t matter” whether the true amount is $60 billion or $200 billion! But it does matter. One figure is the truth. The other is a lie.
As an aside, apparently this needs to be repeated and repeated.
Trump’s administrative negotiated the trade agreement that he now claims is a bad agreement. He signed the agreement into law. He agreed to the 250% Canadian tariff on milk products, but he just can’t be honest about the fact that there is no tariff on American milk product exports into Canada until a negotiated import ceiling has been exceeded. Since 2018, when the agreement was signed, the ceiling has never been hit, and the 250% tariff has never been imposed.
Likewise, the trade agreement has an American tariff on Canadian-origin sugar, should any be brought into the U.S. in an amount greater than the pre-set and negotiated ceiling.
Pogo says
@FWIW (this ought to be very familiar)
What Aristotle Knew About Oligarchy That We Forgot
Ray W, says
Out of curiosity, I looked for articles addressing the use of graphene in asphalt. The substance, in my mind, being the hardest substance known to science, and waterproof, too, might be a good additive.
I found a British paper on the subject, dated June 13, 2022, issued by theconstructionindex.
“Nottingham Transportation Engineering Centre at the University of Nottingham has been working with Kent County Council (KCC) and its highways contractor Amey to assess the pros and cons of using Gipave to repair and resurface road pavements.
“The research, part of the [22.9 millions pound Sterling] Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transport (ADEPT) Smart Places Live Labs programme, builds on the Gipave trial KCC and Amey undertook in July 2020, where core samples from the Gipave asphalt carriageway showed improvements in many structural factors, including fracture toughness, stiffness modulus and fatigue. …
“Gipave is a graphene-enhanced polymeric supermodifier that involves melting pellets (containing graphene and recycled plastics) into the aggregate mix when the stone is mixed with bitumen. The resulting product has been shown to extend expected surface lifetime by approximately 2.5 times over its non-Gipave alternative – expecting to last up to 25 years.”
The asphalt alternatives compared to the Gipave substance were Gipave vs stone mastic asphalt (SMA), Gipave vs asphalt concrete (AC) and Gipave vs polymer modified bitumen (PMB). … One site lasted four times longer with Gipave than SMA before top-down cracks started appearing. … Modeling showed a 32% reduction in cost over its lifetime, despite initially having a higher cost.
As an aside, the cost of producing graphene is plummeting. According to a presentation by the manufacturer of the world’s first commercial graphene-enhanced liquid-state lithium-ion battery, Real Graphene, in 2010, graphene cost $1000 per cubic centimeter (cc) to produce. Now, it cost $0.01, or one cent per cc to produce.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I recall the comment thread attending a story about how much money it costs to resurface city roadways, as opposed to fully repaving the same roads. It was explained that only so much money was in the budget each year for repaving. It was thought that resurfacing might make the money go further.
Well? Here we are. It strikes me that if city engineers in Nottingham can provide a cost-effective and longer lasting roadway for its residents by using an additive that is rapidly becoming less and less expensive to obtain, it might be done here, too.
This is an ancient memory, but I know of a rust-colored road surface in Astor, running south off of S.R. 40, right across from the post office. The paving company used a sintered metal slag from a Birmingham steel mill. The slag, a steel by-product, was sintered into shards (the same process used to make sintered steel brake pads and shoes) at the mill and transported by rail to Astor, where it was mixed into the asphalt. It has been there for over thirty years, though it is breaking down now.
As I knew of the project, when I stumbled across an article out of Oregon, as I recall the state, I read it with interest. A state project had used the same process of mixing sintered slag from a west coast steel mill when laying asphalt for a highway. Over 20 years of use, the roadway was still in use, having required much less expense for maintenance and repair over the decades.
Sherry says
Thank you Pogo. . . I actually read the Rolling Stone article you posted regarding the characteristics of just one DOGE employee= Terrifying! To “sick” people like that, we all appear to be no more than something akin to blips in a video game. . . just like Musk, Nihilistic to the extreme!
Again. . . Here is the link Pogo posted: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/trump-elon-musk-doge-steve-davis-friend-1235300013/ Each and every one of you should read this article, regardless of who you support.