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Weather: Sunny. A chance of showers with a slight chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the mid 90s. Chance of rain 40 percent. Monday Night: Partly cloudy with a slight chance of thunderstorms. A chance of showers, mainly in the evening. Lows in the lower 70s. Chance of rain 40 percent.
- 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:
Palm Coast hosts a Memorial Day Ceremony at 8 a.m. at Heroes Memorial Park, 2860 Palm Coast Pkwy. NW, Palm Coast (1/2 mile west of the Flagler County Library). Parking is available along Corporate Drive and at the Library.
Flagler County hosts its Memorial Day ceremony at 10 a.m. in front of the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell, featuring special guest speaker retired United States Marine Corps Col. Mark Thieme. He was appointed in 2023 by Governor Ron DeSantis to the position of executive director of the Florida State Guard.
Notably: On June 12, 1987, Ronald Reagan delivered one of his most memorable speeches when he stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, next to the Berlin Wall as well, and challenged Mikhail Gorbachev: “If you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” The speech took its place among the great addresses in American history. Reagan penned not a word of it. By then he was a tired, old, forgetful, entirely disengaged (as opposed to mostly disengaged, as he had been for his entire presidency and governorship) president, ravaged by the Iran-Contra scandal that should’ve cost him his job (he ably lied and convinced every investigation that he had no idea, no idea, as Captain Renault would say, that the profits from trading missiles for hostages with Iran were being diverted to fund the Nicaraguan Contras, in violation of the Boland Amendment that forbade American support: thank you, Oliver North, whom Reagan loved to the end) and soon to be re-ravaged by the Senate’s 58-42 rejection of the bigoted and contemptuous Robert Bork as a Supreme Court justice. The Berlin speech was the work of Peter Robinson, a standard-issue right-winger who likes to think he’s not a standard-issue ideologue who’s since been working at the Hoover Institution, one of the standard-issue pillars of sanitized Birchers that gave rise to Reagan and the rest of them, culminating in the current vomitory for a White House. At any rate: good speech. Except that what has never been part of the Reagan story, that story so richly mythical, is that Reagan walked back those words. In a White House meeting on September 23, 1988, he told Eduard Shevardnadze, Gorbachev’s foreign affairs minister, that “it had perhaps been unrealistic to have suggested then that the Berlin wall be torn down in its entirety,” according to Max Boot in his Reagan, published last year, and that he would be satisfied if the two sides of Berlin would “work together.” Fourteen months later, the Berlin Wall came down–not because Reagan called for it, but because the Soviet Union was led by man who, well before the Brandenburg speech, had realized the absurdity and finiteness of Lenin’s ash heap.
—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.
May 2025
Palm Coast City Council Workshop
Flagler County School Board Information Workshop
Book Dragons, the Kids’ Book Club, at Flagler Beach Public Library
Budgeting by Values: A Virtual Class to Learn Budgeting Skills
NAACP Flagler Branch General Membership Meeting
Flagler County School Board Meeting
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) Meeting
Separation Chat: Open Discussion
The Circle of Light A Course in Miracles Study Group
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 9-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
For the full calendar, go here.
President Reagan sought today to undercut Europe’s perception of Mikhail S. Gorbachev as a leader of peace, bluntly challenging the Soviet leader to tear down the Berlin wall. Speaking 100 yards from the wall that was thrown up in 1961 to thwart an exodus to the West, Mr. Reagan made the wall a metaphor for ideological and economic differences separating East and West. […] The Berlin police estimated that 20,000 people had turned out to hear the President, but some observers thought the crowd was smaller than that. The Soviet press agency Tass said that Mr. Reagan, by calling for destruction of the wall, had given an ”openly provocative, war-mongering speech” reminiscent of the cold war. Before the speech, Mr. Reagan peered across the wall from a balcony of the old Reichstag building into East Berlin, where a patrol boat and a gray brick sentry post were visible. Later, when asked how he felt, he said, ”I think it’s an ugly scar.” Asked how he regarded a perception among some people in Europe that Mr. Gorbachev was more committed to peace, Mr. Reagan said, ”They just have to learn, don’t they?” Administration officials had portrayed the speech as a major policy statement. But the main new initiative was a call to the Soviet Union to assist in helping Berlin become an aviation hub of Central Europe by agreeing to make commercial air service more convenient. Some Reagan advisers wanted an address with less polemics but lost to those who favored use of the opportunity to raise East-West differences and questions about Mr. Gorbachev’s commitment to ending the nuclear arms race and his internal liberalization policies.
–From Gerald Boyd’s report from Berlin, “Raze Berlin Wall, Reagan Urges Soviet,” The New York Times, page 3, June 13, 1987.America in memoriam.
Pogo says
@A better man has gone
… beyond the Times’ paywall:
Marcel Ophuls
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Ophuls
Getting past the moderator here? Doubtful.
Dennis C Rathsam says
I thought you hit the bottom, but this one tops the cake. Your no American, & certainly not a patriot.Your a very deranged man! This is not what Memorial Day is about, its to remember the men who died to keep America free! You have no skin in this game, none of your family died protecting America! GOD BLESS AMERICA! & GOD BLESS PRESIDENT TRUMP!
Ray W, says
CNBC reports that BYD stock dropped significantly (8.25%) from last week’s record high valuation after the company announced short-term price reductions through the end of June on 22 of its EV and PHEV models.
The Seagull received a 20% price reduction to $7,780. The dual-motor Seal sedan’s price dropped 34% to $14,268. BYD’s Han line of sedans saw 10.35% price reductions on average, and its Tang line of SUVs fell by an average of 14.3%.
While this past weekend’s visitation figures have yet to be released, Citi analysts expect foot traffic figures in China’s BYD showrooms to rise by 30% to 40% over the previous weekend, and the analysts forecast “robust sales growth” for all lower priced Chinese new energy vehicles.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Numerous automotive journals report that BYD’s manufacturing costs per kilowatt-hour of energy storage for its new line of LFP Blade II batteries has dropped significantly over the past year.
It is no secret that chemists know how much energy potential is contained in a gallon of gas, and they also know how much it costs to manufacture a kilowatt-hour of battery storage capacity in the LFP Blade II line of batteries.
In comparison to gasoline engines that convert, at best, around 40% of the energy contained in a gallon of gas into useful power, with the remaining 60% lost out the exhaust pipe, or through the radiator, or through frictional losses, electric motors convert into usable power almost all of the power stored in a car’s battery.
The comparison price point between gasoline and battery storage is said to be about $100 per kilowatt-hour of battery storage capacity. BYD’s LFP Blade II batteries are said to now cost as low as $53 per kilowatt-hour of battery storage to manufacture, and the price is still dropping.
With batteries comprising the bulk of the cost of an EV, any reduction in the cost of building a car battery drops the cost point at which an EV can be profitably sold. This was the lesson Henry Ford taught the emerging American automobile industry when he introduced Ford’s Model T in 1908 at $495 per car, and the price soon dropped to $395 per car. This is the same lesson BYD is teaching the world’s legacy automakers right now. I repeat what Ford’s CEO said late last year. If Chinese EVs were allowed to enter the U.S. car marketplace sans tariffs right now, it would be “an extinction-level-event” for all three of America’s legacy automakers. Not my words; his words.
It is claimed by industry reporters that BYD has already built the factory capacity of its battery manufacturing segment to twice current battery demand, which means it has not yet reached peak battery manufacturing efficiency.
Ray W, says
Russia’s Telegram channels are distributing a narrative created by President Putin that the Ukraine forced Russia to invade because the Ukrainian people executed a “coup in Ukraine in 2014” and that the Ukraine had been “suppressing Donbas”; he added during a meeting with Russian businessmen:
“People there were being killed from helicopters and planes. They forced us to do what we are doing now. And they are trying to make us the ones to blame.”
This was not the narrative from three long years ago.
At the outbreak of the Russian invasion, the official stated goals of the “special military operation” were to carry out a “demilitarization” and “denazification” of the Ukraine.
Now, Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov is saying he is ready to achieve Russia’s goals by methods other than the “special military operation.” And Putin stated in December 2024 that he regrets not launching the “special military operation” earlier than he did.
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
According to Bloomberg, Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, just announced that previous range restrictions on munitions supplied to the Ukrainian military were lifted after the Russian military recently unleashed the largest drone barrage since the Russian Army invaded the Ukraine in 2022.
According to Chancellor Merz:
“There are absolutely no range limits anymore for weapons delivered to Ukraine, not from Britain, the French or from us — also not from the Americans. … That means Ukraine can defend itself by attacking military position also in Russia.”
According to an Interfax interpretation of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s comments, an interpretation adopted by the Bloomberg reporter, if Mertz’ statement is confirmed, the act of allowing the use of long-range strikes could undermine political settlement efforts, with Peskov calling such a decision “dangerous.”
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
An economist submitted a column on the state of our federal deficit to MSNBC, titled: The bond market is an economic lie detector test. And Trump is failing it.
As a foundation statement, the author writes:
“… We still have one of the world’s strongest, most productive economies, the dollar is still the world’s dominant currency, and default risk on our sovereign debt remains just about zero.”
In his opinion piece, he argues that the U.S. Treasury bond market has a mind of its own, and it is not interested in what either President Trump says about the deficit, neither does it care what former President Biden said about the deficit; it’s focus is on two things only:
1. What is the yield on the loan they give to the government when they invest in U.S. Treasuries? and 2. What is the level of safety of investing their money in U.S. Treasuries?
According to the economist, not so long ago, he, like many of his peers, argued that the level of the national debt was not worthy of obsession, but he has changed his mind.
First, he argues that the U.S. national deficit in 2024 was $1.8 trillion, constituting 6.4% of the U.S. gross domestic product. This was before the House passed its spending bill late last week, which the economist estimates from preliminary calculations might add some $5 trillion over time to the deficit. As the proposed House budget’s terms become better understood, global investors will make their own decisions about the size of the new deficits that will be added to the already existing deficits.
Relying on the Wall Street Journal’s chief economics commentator, Greg Ip, the editorial author wrote:
“[T]he deficit implications of this budget ‘would be higher than any other sustained stretch in U.S. history, and more than almost any other advanced economy. … Before 2023, [U.S. deficits] accounted for half of advanced economies’ deficits, according to the International Monetary Fund. From 2023 through 2030, it will be two-thirds.'”
And economist Larry Summers commented to the Atlantic that:
“In a short amount of time, … the fiscal picture has gone from comfortably in the green-light region to the red-light region.”
According to the author, “[t]his combination of ever-increasing debt (which to be fair, predated Trump; he just making it a lot worse), slower growth and the pervasive sense that neither the administration nor the congressional majority even know or care about these risks, is leading lenders to the U.S. government to insist on a higher return for buying those IOUs known as Treasury bonds.”
Given this new reality, he adds, bond investors are not purchasing T-bills at the older lower lending rates. Last September 30-year Treasury notes were at about 4%. This past Friday, 30-year Treasury notes were at about 5%.
The author adds:
“To make matters worse for all of us, the interest rates on U.S. Treasurys are benchmarks for other key rates throughout the economy, including those on credit cards, auto and mortgage loans. Mortgage rates climbed above 7% last week, and their momentum is solidly in the wrong direction.”
The editorial column concludes:
“Actions have consequences, and financial markets don’t subscribe to the administration’s alternate reality where everything’s fine and under control. In fact, the bond market is loudly saying everything is far from fine — and the folks under control are out of control.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I have long admitted that I am not an expert in the field of economics, but I do maintain that I am a curious student.
One thing I have learned over the decades is that the American economy is capable of withstanding significant economic shocks, provided that long-accepted economic theories and principles, and not magical political thinking (described in an economics book about a decade ago as “zombie economics”, meaning that economic theories long proven nonviable can still drive political party debates, regardless of party), drive the policy estimations of the government, regardless of which political party holds the reigns.
For quite some time in recent years, Fed Chair Powell has been speaking to various audiences about the level of American debt and the concurring size of the American deficit, saying that there may soon come a time when the American debt will become “unsustainable.”
For more than a decade, American deficits were considered sustainable due to T-bill lending rates of a manipulated overly low 2% or less, in large part due to the politically independent Fed’s manipulations of the markets by application of the economic tools at its disposal. Those days seem to be gone, economists increasingly say. The author of the column at issue argues that investors are sending a message that the American economy is no longer under control.
Moody’s, the third of the three ratings agencies to downgrade the U.S. borrowing status, seems to have capitulated to the interrelated ideas that both U.S. spending is out of control, and that the already existing level of U.S. debt is out of control, after 44 years of ever-higher deficits maintained by administrations of both of our political parties.
Fed Chair Powell recently stated that were the U.S. economy to grow rapidly over an extended period of time, we could ease ourselves out of the current negative fiscal situation, but that effort would require adhering to economically acceptable fiscal practices, and not to any form of magical political thinking, something the several governments and legislators in recent decades haven’t been able to do.
Ray W, says
The Cool Down reports that, for the first time, a San Jose-based startup battery-maker, QuantumScape, has developed a manufacturing process for a battery now in the prototype testing stage that lacks an anode at final assembly. The battery, when charging for the first time, builds its own anode by collecting lithium ions, leading to manufacturing cost savings.
QuantumScape cofounder Tim Holme told the Cool Down that “[l]ithium metal is the best anode. It’s better than graphite and better than silicon. …” Per Mr. Holme, “[i]f you want to make a big step in cost, energy per mass and energy per volume, the biggest change you could make is to eliminate the anode.”
Current lithium metal battery anodes are made from either silicon or graphite, which require either greater expense or subjection to unstable foreign supply chains.
“QuantumScape’s design uses a ceramic separator combined with an organic liquid. The makeup prevents troublesome dendrite growth. Those are metal-branched structures that plague lithium-metal packs. The cathode is made from either iron or nickel; the former is cheaper, and the latter material performs better. …” The company says its pack is good for up to 500 miles on a charge, with a fast-charge time of less than a quarter hour.
QuantumScape has formed partnerships with a number of automakers, including Volkswagen.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
American innovation continues to impress.
Ray W, says
A decade ago, per an Interesting Engineering article, scientists theorized that “boron atoms would cling too tightly to copper to form borophene, a flexible, metallic two-dimensional material with potential across electronics, energy, and catalysis.”
New research supports the prediction, but in unexpected ways.
Rice University theorist, Boris Yakobson, told the reporter:
“Borophene is still a material at the brink of existence, and that makes any new fact about it important by pushing the envelope of our knowledge in materials, physics and electronics.”
The latest finding has boron atoms forming “a defined 2D copper boride — a new compound with a distinct atomic structure”, which is called borophene. In essence, borophene “grows” on copper in a form that results in “strong covalent bonding.”
Known borophene compounds result with boron atoms forming with silver and gold, but never before with copper. A corresponding author on the paper, Mark Hersam, associated with Northwestern University, said:
“2D copper boride is likely to be just one of many 2D metal borides that can be experimentally realized.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
For decades, American-based research teams have made many, many breakthroughs in the metallurgical sciences. It can be argued that American-based researchers still lead the world in these fields of study.
While graphene as a 2D substance was realized by a British researcher at a British university, graphene can be absorbed into a copper substrate without forming a “distinct alloy”, while boron does form a unique alloy with copper.
We may be seeing one possible future in the constantly evolving forms of battery technology.
It would be yet another shame if this new American technology were allowed to languish until it is picked up by a foreign nation to our future detriment, just as American industry let lithium ferrous phosphate battery technology languish until it was picked up out of bankruptcy by Chinese battery makers.
American legacy automakers now pay Chinese battery makers to provide a technology originally developed by American researchers.
Ray W, says
According to Interesting Engineering, “[r]oughly 1 percent of global energy use goes into separating crude oil into gasoline, diesel, and heating oil. That, in turn, generates about 6 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions, mostly from the intense heat required to boil and separate it by boiling points.
“Now, MIT engineers have developed a groundbreaking membrane that can filter crude oil components by their molecular size, potentially replacing energy-hungry heat-based methods.”
The membrane “sieves” crude oil molecular compounds by shape and size without any use of heat, potentially reducing cracking energy requirements by up to 90%.
Senior author of the study, associate professor Zachary P. Smith, told the reporter:
“Instead of boiling mixtures to purify them, why not separate components based on shape and size?”
Derived from widely used and easily manufactured reverse osmosis membranes that are used in desalination plants, the new membrane resists swelling and “performs well with both light and heavy hydrocarbons.” They “replaced a flexible amine bond with a rigid amine bond, making the film more stable and hydrophobic.”
According to Associate Professor Smith, “[t]he polyimine material has porosity that forms at the interface, and because of the cross-linking chemistry that we have added in, you now have something that doesn’t swell.”
During manufacture of the membrane, using an industry-standard “interfacial polymerization” process, triptycene, a monomer, helps form precise shape-persistent pores in the membrane.
Testing shows a 20-time increase in toluene concentration “in a mixture with triisopropylbenzene.”
And the membrane “effectively” separates naptha, kerosene, and diesel from industrial oil samples.
Smith theorized that a membrane could replace the initial stage of a crude oil fractionation column”, and that one “could partition heavy and light molecules and then you could use different membranes in a cascade to purify complex mixtures to isolate the chemicals that you need.”
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
In Goldman Sachs’ most recent energy note to its investors, analysts predict a slowdown in drilling activities in the Permian Basin.
Even though Permian Basin energy extractors enjoy the lowest average operating costs among the country’s many shale rock formations, many oil extractors are curbing drilling activities, “driven by uncertain oil prices, a U.S.-China trade war and a possible U.S.-Iran nuclear deal.”
Diamondback Energy and ConocoPhillips, among other shale producers have reduced “drilling and well-completion activity as well as capital spending.”
OPEC+ nations began ramping up production in recent months; the nations meet on June 1 to consider ramping up combined oil production by another 411,000 barrels per day, starting July 1.
Unless international demand rebounds, a situation thought unlikely with President Trump continuing to threaten the EU with a 50% tariff hike beginning on June 1, threats of a “supply surplus” continue to destabilize crude oil futures.
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
The Cool Down reports on a proposal by Penn State-affiliated researchers to repurpose abandoned oil and gas wells (orphan wells) into compressed air geothermal energy storage facilities.
Citing to the existence of some 130,000 “undocumented orphan wells, many of which are uncapped and leaking oil and natural gas into the environment, and the potential of 3.9 million more wells of other types across the country, the geothermal process involves capping the wells and using excess energy produced during daylight to compress air in the wells. At night, the compressed air can be released to drive turbines that provide additional electricity into the grid when needed. Using already existing wells saves on up-front costs. Capping the wells to avoid leaks is a bonus.
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
Speaking to a New York City audience of Mortgage Banker Association attendees, New York Fed President John Williams said that “amid lots of uncertainty and some signs in recent data that there could be trouble ahead”, the economy “is doing very well,” according to a Reuters story.
He added that “Fed interest rate policy is slightly restrictive of growth and is ‘well positioned’ for what lies ahead.”
He also said that “[i]ts going to take some time to get a clear view” on the future of the economy, given recent government policy shifts. Clarity on the impact of import tariffs may not come quickly. Williams cautioned that certainty may not come even by July. Nonetheless, “the economy is doing very well.”
On the topic of investors fleeing U.S. markets, Williams stated that “we’re not seeing major changes” in investor deployments of cash in U.S. markets, but he acknowledged “some price effects” in the Treasury bond marketplace.
The reporter wrote:
“[W]ith all the volatility and uncertainty, investors are reflecting on ‘how they want to invest their portfolios.'”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
The ongoing trend of Fed officials repeatedly speaking of the relative strength of the Biden economy transitioning into the Trump economy.
I have long cautioned against focusing too closely on short-term economic data that, while important for what it is, is too transitionary to use as a base for any modeling purposes. Fed official after Fed official says the American economy is in a good enough position to permit their caution in predicting outcomes.
I will type this over and over again.
The American economy, built on the backs of some 340 million Americans spending money, and some 160,000 people earning paychecks, can be quite resilient.
Yes, investors overreacting to short-term news may drive stocks up and down in wild gyrations, but the overall economy shrugs this off.
For the past three-and-a-half years, the Fed has intentionally focused on weakening the labor market with its higher lending rates, but it has yet to stop the continual rise in the number of people who are receiving paychecks each month, which is the metric on which the Bureau of Labor Services bases its jobs added numbers. Positive jobs numbers have grown each month, with the exception of two months during the initial phases of the pandemic, for the past 14 years, an unprecedented length of time.
Commenter after commenter writes that Democrats have destroyed the American economy, but that dog stopped hunting a long, long time ago. Theirs is nothing more than a fever dream of delusion, yet they cleave to it as tightly as they can.
Oy, vey!