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Weather: Partly cloudy with showers and thunderstorms likely. Highs in the lower 90s. Lows in the mid 70s. Chance of rain 70 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:
The Saturday Flagler Beach Farmers Market is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. today at its new location on South 2nd Street, right in front of City Hall, featuring prepared food, fruit, vegetables , handmade products and local arts from more than 30 local merchants. The market is hosted by Flagler Strong, a non-profit.
Coffee With Commissioner Scott Spradley: Flagler Beach Commission Chairman Scott Spradley hosts his weekly informal town hall with coffee and doughnuts at 9 a.m. at his law office at 301 South Central Avenue, Flagler Beach. All subjects, all interested residents or non-residents welcome. The gatherings usually feature a special guest.
Democratic Women’s Club of Flagler County meeting at 9:30 a.m. at the Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE.
Grace Community Food Pantry, 245 Education Way, Bunnell, drive-thru open today from 10 a.m. to 1 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.
Random Acts of Insanity’s Roundup of Standups from Around Central Florida, 8 p.m. at Cinematique Theater, 242 South Beach Street, Daytona Beach. General admission is $8.50. Every third Saturday RAI hosts Live Standup Comedy with comics from all over Central Florida.
Notably: According to Martin Amis, Elvis once said, “There was a party at the Statue of Liberty, but I’d already read publicly of me going to it so I felt it was done already.” No wonder we keep thinking that news of his death was fake. I’m surprised by how the New York Times played his death. He got two columns above the fold, which is not minor, but on the left side, the lead story going to a non-story about Brezhnev depicting “Carter’s overture as a positive move.” Carter, who just then must’ve been weeping at least a little. Elvis’s funeral remains one of the South’s five biggest. The other four? Jefferson Davis, Huey Long, Bear Bryant, and Martin Luther King Jr.
—P.T.
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.
August 2025
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Democratic Women’s Club
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Random Acts of Insanity’s Roundup of Standups from Around Central Florida
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
Al-Anon Family Groups
East Flagler Mosquito Control District Board Meeting
Flagler County Commission Evening Meeting
Nar-Anon Family Group
For the full calendar, go here.
Elvis is a perfect example of why the South-is-dead theory is such a crock. One need only surf the Internet-the least intrinsically Southern medium imaginable-to see how it has become yet another cultural vehicle used to spread the gospel, whether it’s the neo-Confederates on the Southern League home page, the Bubba chauvinists, or the Elvis cultists. Thus, one can spend a day-and Vernon Chadwick no doubt has many times-surfing from the Elvis Home Page to Disgraceland to the First Presleyterian Church of Elvis the Divine, Elvis and Jesus, Jesus and Elvis, the Lesser Elvis Banishing Ritual of the Sequined Pentagram, the First Church of Jesus Christ-Elvis, the 24-Hour Church of Elvis, and other Elvis sites without end, where the faithful can partake of such wisdom as “The King’s Prayer,” at the Greater Las Vegas Church of Elvis. With solemn cyber-reverence, it pays homage to the King and castigates false prophets like Billy Ray Cyrus’s “Achy Breaky Heart,” the quintessence of faux country, nouveau Nashville at its most heretical:
Our King, who art in heaven Hallowed by thy hips.
Thy Graceland come, Thy song be sung.
In Reno as it is in Vegas.
Give us this day our fried chicken.
And forgive us our Achy Breaky
As we forgive those who step on our blue suede shoes.
And lead us not into line dancing,
But deliver us from Billy Ray.
For thine is the Graceland,
and the rhinestones,
and the rock ‘n’ roll,
Forever and ever.
Viva Las Vegas.
–From Peter Applebaum’s Dixie Rising: How the South Is Shaping American Values, Politics, and Culture (1996).
Ed P says
The self deportation policy currently in effect pays a $1000 stipend per individual and a free plane ticket home.
Initially my opinion was that it was ridiculous. The actual number of people who would participate would be almost zero. And that the actual cost of a forced deportation must cost significantly more than this program.
But, is also provides a humanitarian alternative to being rounded up by any government enforcement agency. Not ideal or what some would say is compassionate but remember that only 35-50% of Illegals will ever qualify for amnesty and citizenship. Just the reality.
To date, over 1 million individuals have participated. Proving that there is an alternative and reinforcing that any immigrant that has over stayed a visa, has already had a deportation order, or has any criminal issue pending should accept the offer.
Factor this into the equation when vilification of ICE occurs. The illegal immigrants actually had a choice, on their timetable, and isn’t financially crippling.
Pogo says
Tim says
Ice = gestapo
Melt those Nazi bitches!
the new Nazis doing the same as the old Nazis! Stop the GoP terrorism! Stand your ground! the gop human traffickers and their child rapist don’t care much for humans !!
Jim says
In America, we now have a federal police force – ICE – going anywhere they want; any time they want and just taking people off the streets, out of their homes, from their work, kid’s sports fields and anywhere else they decide. Unless you are just totally dense, you have to see that this effort is completely directed at putting fear in the migrant community and, quite frankly, letting the American citizens know that the federals can get anyone at anytime. It’s not subtle.
These “officers” wear masks and are dressed in full battle gear in these raids. When did wearing masks while representing the police become standard and acceptable? No names or ID on the uniforms. This is what we see in Russian and other authoritarian regimes. This isn’t supposed to be in the US. And don’t tell me it’s for their own protection. Throughout this country, federal, state and local police do their jobs daily wearing full identification and with no masks. These men and women handle the absolute worst kind of criminals that exist. They do their jobs and we can respect them for that. How do you respect ICE agents?
Now ICE has been “superfunded” by the government. They’ve got plenty of money and they are going to expand massively over the next few years. Now, you might ask yourself, if we’re deporting every single person we can find and if the number of arrests at the borders is near an all time low, what need will there be for this huge, armed, masked, unidentified federal police force? Common sense is that the number of “targets” are dropping. What could the federal government possibly do with a large force like this? I have some thoughts and none of them are good.
And what quality of “police” will ICE be made up? It seems they have lowered and raised age limits to open the gates to more “candidates”. What training will they get? Is ideology a concern or will they favor candidates who want to “bust heads” and get all the “bad guys” (note: less than 1/3 of the people ICE has taken into custody have any legal issues at all and legal issues include such critical items as speeding tickets, possession of marijuana or other less than lethal crimes.) Of course, they are targeting the “worst of the worst”. Anyway, what we’re really watching is the formation of the American version of the Nazi “brown shirts”. These were Hitler’s thugs who ran wild through Germany terrorizing anyone who dared question or protest the Nazis. If you don’t know that history, take the time to read up on it. Trump will soon have his goon squad and he’s got the right team in place to put them to work. Noem, Bondi, Lyons, Hegseth, Vance all are perfect minions to make sure Americans are properly treated by the government so long as we all tow the line and keep our mouths shut.
And, one final question for MAGA. If all these fine “accomplishments” of the Trump administration are so well received by the citizens of this country, why is it necessary to redistrict Texas to gain seats in next year’s elections? I’d expect that a party who is comfortable that they are doing what’s best for we citizens and “MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” would be excitedly looking forward to those elections to gain more seats in the House and Senate based on their fine results. But, no, Republicans decide to redistrict mid-decade (which historically has only been done after a census) with the stated goal of gaining five more Republican seats. One thing is for sure, cheating, lying and stealing is no longer done behind closed doors by the Republicans, It’s out in the open for all of us to see.
Sherry says
Your dollar is worth over 10% LESS since trump took office. . . This from Yahoo Finance on August 8th:
Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham warned on Thursday that Americans need an 11% increase in net worth just to maintain purchasing power following the dollar’s significant decline since President Donald Trump‘s inauguration.
Dollar Index Shows Sharp Decline From Inauguration
The U.S. Dollar Index has fallen from 109.29 on Trump’s January 20 inauguration to 98.07 as of Thursday—a 10.26% decrease.
Pogo says
@Gone with wind (2025)
Aug 16 (Reuters) – Hurricane Erin, the first hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic season, has become a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Saturday. The storm is currently 105 miles (170 km) north of Anguilla, with maximum sustained winds near 160 mph (255 km/h).1 hour ago
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/erin-strengthens-category-5-hurricane-nhc-says-2025-08-16/