Homeland Security Department spokesgoon Tricia McLaughlin described the pitch to The New York Times as a “celebration of being an American.” She said, “We need to revive patriotism and civic duty in this country.” This “reality” game show is guaranteed to be the worst since the last Trump reality game show, The Apprentice. If this sounds heartless, keep in mind that it’s being considered by Kristi Noem, who thought she’d score cool points with MAGA world by bragging about murdering a puppy. But, the idea was pitched by the same jackoff that created Duck Dynasty (fun fact: I was mostly raised where that redneck show is based). He previously pitched this hateful idea to the Obama and Biden administrations, but since they’re not stupid racists, they rejected the idea. Along comes Trump, where they’re listening.” Read the full Jones at Substack.
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Weather: Mostly sunny. Highs in the mid 90s. West winds 5 to 10 mph. Wednesday Night: Partly cloudy in the evening, then becoming mostly cloudy. Lows in the lower 70s.
- 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:
The Flagler County Contractor Review Board meets at 5 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. Staff liaison is Bo Snowden, Chief Building Official, who may be reached at (386) 313-4027. For agendas and details go here.
Flagler County’s Technical Review Committee Meeting at 9 a.m., first floor Conference Room, at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. The Technical Review Committee (TRC) is a quality control committee that provides technical review of project plans. Staff Liaison is Gina Lemon, 386-313-4067.
The Palm Coast Planning and Land Development Board meets at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall.
The Marineland Town Commission holds an emergency meeting at 6 p.m. at the DEP Marineland Field Station (GTMNERR) main conference room, 9741 North Oceanshore Boulevard, Marineland. The meeting is to swear in Dewey Dew as mayor after the death of Gary Inks, and to appoint a vice mayor and a commissioner. The legality of the meeting may be questionable.
Compass at Margaritaville, the new hotel in downtown Flagler Beach, holds a ribbon-cutting at 10 a.m. at 111 South Daytona Avenue.
Separation Chat, Open Discussion: The Atlantic Chapter of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State hosts an open, freewheeling discussion on the topic here in our community, around Florida and throughout the United States, noon to 1 p.m. at Pine Lakes Golf Club Clubhouse Pub & Grillroom (no purchase is necessary), 400 Pine Lakes Pkwy, Palm Coast (0.7 miles from Belle Terre Parkway). Call (386) 445-0852 for best directions. All are welcome! Everyone’s voice is important. For further information email [email protected] or call Merrill at 804-914-4460.
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library: Do you enjoy Chess, trying out new moves, or even like some friendly competition? Come visit the Flagler County Public Library at the Teen Spot every Wednesday from 4 to 5 p.m. for Chess Club. Everyone is welcome, for beginners who want to learn how to play all the way to advanced players. For more information contact the Youth Service department 386-446-6763 ext. 3714 or email us at [email protected]
Notably: It was a signature of Ronald Reagan’s 1980s: the slithering lies of Joe Isuzu and his television ads “in which,” the Times reported, “an unctuous car dealer’s fibs were unmasked, with the subtitle “He’s lying,” was one of the most-talked-about campaigns of the 1980’s. The campaign, for passenger cars and trucks, was developed by Della Femina McNamee, an agency that no longer exists. While it spread the Isuzu name, the campaign, which ended in 1989, did not sell many cars. “You either hated him or you loved him,” Mr. Perry said. “But you didn’t necessarily buy a car from him.” They were the creation of Ron Travisano, who also came up with the more successful “Meow, meow, meow, meow” commercial jingle for Ralston Purina (“The cat food that cats ask for by name”) and the “Blue Nun” wine campaign. Travisano died in January at 86. Joe Isuzu was actor David Russell Leisure, who is not dead.
—P.T.
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“While running for president in the late 1970s, Mr. [Ronald] Reagan employed considerable license in his oft-told story of the “Chicago welfare queen” who came to symbolize failings in the poverty program. As Mr. Reagan told it, she had 80 names, 30 addresses, 12 Social Security cards and collected benefits for “four, nonexisting deceased husbands.” Her illegal receipts totaled “over $150,000,” he used to say. According to Mr. Cannon’s book, the real welfare recipient was convicted in 1977 of fraud for using two aliases to collect 23 checks totaling $8,000. Despite the public record in the case, Mr. Reagan continued to tell his faulty version of the story well into his first term.”
–From a Wall Street Journal article, Oct. 11, 2000.
Dennis C Rathsam says
As TRUMPS appruval sores past 50%! His tax cuts will save Americans money! No tax on TIPS, OVERTIME, & SOCIAL SECURITY!Our border is closed, and TRUMPS DEPORTING them at a record rate! That’s what he was elected to do. We now have the plans for a golden dome to cover the USA from our enemies. Call TRUMP anything you want, it shows how ignorant you are. democrates go after TRUMP daily, they have nothing left! The jackass scandal, of lying to the American people, & covering up unsuccessfully the failures & INCOMPITANCE of the Biden folly! Between fake news lying & covering up, & Dr Jill,s elder abuse. The democrats are drowning in quick sand. Americans will remember all this crap, for years to come. Lies, decete,& cover ups. No real American will grab your hand, as the quicksand claims the body. In all my 72 years, Ive never seen a sitting president, eatten alive by his own friends, & the party he served for over 50 years….. I hope your all proud of being a JACKASS!
starryid says
Is this comment appropriate for a 501-3C establishment?
Pogo says
@Suicide by trump
… continues:
https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+kills+bee+research
Sherry says
Not to confuse the radicalized Maga Cult members with actual “Facts” beyond Fox. . . but the latest poll numbers show trump’s approval ratings still at less than 50%. Take a look:
https://www.realclearpolling.com/latest-polls
Ray W, says
Reuters reports that Argentina’s agricultural “heartland”, after receiving several months of “abundant” rainfall, saw widespread flooding during a three-day deluge of even more rain, leaving some corn fields over three feet deep in standing water. Some farm roads are now impassable. City dwellers in the Buenos Aires province faced evacuation from their homes. Chicken and pig farms have been impacted.
Per the article, Argentina is the world’s largest exporter of soybean oil and soybean meal, and the third-largest exporter of corn.
One region saw up to 15.75 inches of additional rainfall, while another saw 13 inches.
An Argentine grain farmer told Reuters:
“Everywhere you looked was like a sea of water. … Some of the farmland in lower regions is completely covered in water and will be very had to harvest. Some people even lost their farms.”
May is harvesting time in Argentina, so a portion of the country’s soybean and corn crops have already been harvested and stored prior to transport. Argentine soybean farmers commonly store harvested soybeans in “silobags” strategically placed on high ground. Some of the silobags, capable of storing up to 200 tons each, flooded.
Delays in harvesting soybeans, per Reuters, invite crop disease or even “pod openings” in the field, increasing the potential risk of crop loss.
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
Motor Trend, a publication long considered a leader in the automotive press, reports that Musashi Seimitsu, a Japanese manufacturer of “motorcycle gearboxes and gearing for EV reduction transmissions”, hints that it may be currently testing an e-bike equipped with the world’s first successful 3D-printed and fully-functional solid-state battery, using a process that allows for custom shapes and sizes.
According to the Motor Trend article, Musashi Seimitsu financially backs an American start-up, San Jose-based Sakuu, that is attempting to commercialize a multi-material electrolyte chemistry breakthrough achieved by researchers at Harvard’s John A. Paulson’s School of Engineering and Applied Science, via Sakuu’s proprietary 3D printing process. Sakuu’s electrolyte chemistry “is designed to control and contain the lithium metal filaments or ‘dendrites’ that can form on the anode, particularly during fast charging, threatening to pierce the separator layers and short-circuit the battery.”
Sakuu also partners with NGK for its wealth of knowledge of ceramics and with Porsche Consulting for its wealth of knowledge in factory design.
Sakuu’s announced goal is to produce solid-state EV batteries with twice the energy density of “prevailing lithium-ion chemistries” at 30% less weight.
Sakuu has named its 3D-materials printing process “Kavian”; it calls its battery technology “Swift Print.”
As background, batteries have a cathode and an anode, with electrons travelling through an electrolyte medium between them. Due to the wide variety of available electrolyte materials, the number of electrolyte chemistries seems endless. Same, too, for anode and cathode chemistries. Sakuu’s anode material is unique, in that it is made of pure lithium, instead of a compound of metals.
Per the Motor Trend reporter, Sakuu holds over 80 patents on its proprietary electrolyte chemistry, but I might be wrong in my interpretation of this point; it might be over 80 patents for the entire manufacturing process.
Sakuu also designed its 3D printer upon a “binder-jet” technique developed at MIT.
Sakuu’s Kavian printer can print ceramics, glass materials, metals, and polymers in single layers.
The 3D printer process deposits powder particles on a surface and then applies a liquid curing agent to the deposited powder particles to form a thin surface layer, perhaps 25 microns deep (human hair is 70 microns in size). The printer then applies atop the cured surface layer a metallic current collector a couple of microns deep, using a metal jet deposition process. As the materials accumulate into a battery, quality checks of each layer occur via AI to “minimize defects and scrappage.” Sakuu’s printer recycles any waste material inside the machine.
Thus, Swift Print solid metal batteries resemble a layer cake, with extremely thin layers. One common problem with standard lithium-ion solid-state batteries is a “boundary separation” between battery layers. According to the article, “[u]sing a 3D printer to deposit each layer directly on the one beneath eliminates this problem.”
Another lithium-ion solid-state battery problem is accurately and uniformly forming channels or voids in the metals where needed. Sakuu has a “special sauce/enabler” that it calls “PoraLyte”, which can be injected by the printer where needed. The PoraLyte burns off during a sintering process, leaving behind the channels or voids as designed.
At this point, another aside is needed. Battery power density can be measured in two ways: watt-hours per liter, which measures power density by volume, and watt-hour per kilogram, which measures power density by weight.
Sakuu claims that the theoretical maximum watt-hour power density by liter of volume is 1200 watt-hours, but battery lifespan decreases as power density rises toward the theoretical maximum. Sakuu’s batteries are designed with a watt-hour power density per liter maximum of 800, which is still far higher than current liquid-state lithium-ion battery maximums of between 350-500 watt-hours per liter. One other advantage to the Kavian 3D printing process is that it permits reductions in wasted space inside each battery by 10% to 15%.
In summary, using Sakuu’s 3D Kavian printing process, a variety of raw materials feed into each machine and completed batteries eventually emerge from each 30-foot-long printer. A single printer is claimed to be capable of printing 500 complete EV batteries per year. A factory floor populated with multiple 3D printers is expected to reduce today’s factory footprints by 44%, to lower capital expenditures by 23%, to cut the number manufacturing steps by 69%, and to lower manufacturing costs by 33%.
Make of this what you will.
Skibum says
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,
Either answer is correct, that we know.
Despite that verdict, he now runs the circus show,
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe
He hates the “messicans”, he hates the blacks,
He is increasingly unhinged, those are the facts.
With this “citizen game” he makes a mockery in 4 acts,
Choosing who to let in, and who he wacks.
Can’t you see him for who he really is?
Are you deaf and blind to his former show biz?
He is the most unconstitutional president we have ever had says Liz,
Geez, people, this horrible man is no business wiz!
Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,
Donald Trump has got to go,
Hurry up, hurry up America, don’t be slow,
Eeny meeny, miny, moe.
Yes, I’m a poet and don’t I know it.
Ray W, says
A European lawn care equipment manufacturer, Kress, now makes a battery that charges from zero to full in 8 minutes. Warranted for 3000 charge cycles, it has integrated Bluetooth technology allowing for remote viewing of its status.
My elder son and his long-term significant other, who have an all-electric lawn service, are trying out a Kress backpack blower; they say its power is unmatched, and it charges so fast that they seldom have power problems during their daily schedule.
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
Reuters reports that after spring frosts Rostov Governor Yuri Slyusar declared a state of emergency May 19th for farming, this after bad weather in the region last year caused a 76% rise in insurance payments to farmers. Rostov is the third Russian farming region to be placed under a state of emergency this year, after April and May frosts.
In 2024, Russia’s entire production of grain dropped by 14% from 2023 levels.
With projections of a lack of rain during the 2025 growing season, the head of the Russian Grain Union told a reporter for a Russian newspaper:
“The problems affected not only winter crops but also spring crops. They simply won’t have enough time to gain the necessary strength.” According to the Russian news reporter, only the upper layers of soil have sufficient moisture.
Despite Rostov’s grain harvest yield falling by 22% in 2024, and its wheat harvest yield dropping by 38%, overall grain revenues rose by 13% in 2024. On the other hand, expenses rose by 35%. Profit margins fell from 16% in 2023 to 8% in 2024.
Russia’s Agriculture Minister said frost damage for the spring is estimated thus far at 10% of the 2024 level of crop damage, but a lack of moisture in the soil is the “next big risk.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I argue that a bigger picture is at work. Last year, the Wall Street Journal reported on the state of the Russian labor market. Milkmaids were commanding compensation on par with IT workers. Dairy stores were putting butter under lock and key after thefts of butter skyrocketed. At that time, Russia’s unemployment rate was 2.1%, a level that most economists say is highly inflationary. Another report has potato prices nearly doubling over the past 12 months.
When Rostov agriculture output drops by 22% in 2024, yet revenues rise by 13%, that is a sign of hyperinflation. Expenses rose 35%, too, another sign of hyperinflation. I just posted a comment about Russia’s largest harvest equipment manufacturer announcing plans to lay off its entire workforce in June, citing rapidly falling demand for any of its products, saying farmers cannot afford new tractors when the lending rate is 25% to 30%.
Can it legitimately be argued that Russian leaders somehow persuaded themselves that the Ukraine would collapse within days if invasion; that they never calculated that they would have already lost the war by 2024? In 2024, the Ukraine, blessed with some of the most productive soil in the world, produced 13% of the world’s wheat. Russia was second at 12%, even with far more arable land. Do these facts explain, in part, why Russia wants to steal Ukrainian agricultural wealth?
Like our Revolutionary forefathers, the Ukrainians are fighting for liberty, for their homeland, for their freedom. The Russians seek plunder.
Ray W, says
Tech Xplore reports that researchers at Australia’s Monash University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering recently published a paper focused on a new membrane the team developed for use in “flow” batteries.
“Flow” batteries, in existence for decades, are best used in stationary commercial systems, but their slow charging speeds have made such batteries impractical for use in home applications with solar systems.
Current lithium-ion home battery system alternatives cost as much as $10,000 for home systems. “Flow” batteries should prove to be much less expensive, were the membrane obstacle to be overcome.
In a research paper, the Monash University research team wrote:
“We’ve engineered a membrane that finally makes organic flow batteries competitive for residential and mid-scale storage. It opens the door to systems that are not only cheaper, but also safer and simpler to scale.”
The researchers also wrote:
“The key was improving ion selectivity; letting the good ions through quickly while keeping unwanted ones out. Our new membrane achieves this balance, allowing fast, stable operation even at high current densities. … We outperformed the industry-standard Nafion membrane in both speed and stability — running 600 high-current cycles with virtually no capacity loss — that’s a major leap for this kind of battery.”
“We’ve developed a new type of membrane inside the battery that guides the flow of materials better — kind of like adding lanes to a highway. That means faster charging, longer battery life and better performance overall.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Flow batteries store energy in liquids, as opposed to in metals such as sodium or lithium or iron or aluminum or manganese. Sometimes, flow batteries are called “water” batteries.
But to me, the point is the rapidity with which breakthroughs in battery technology are now taking place. It is almost as if the floodgates to a much less expensive energy future have opened.
Laurel says
Would somebody please get Dennis down off the rafters before he hurts himself?
Kennan says
Skibum,
You outdid yourself!
Well done!😎👍🏻