To include your event in the Briefing and Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Weather: Showers and thunderstorms likely. Mostly sunny, with a high near 89. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Sunday Night: Showers and thunderstorms likely. Partly cloudy, with a low around 74. Chance of precipitation is 60%.
- 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:
Bethune-Cookman University Concert Chorale is in concert at Palm Coast United Methodist Church Sunday at 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. 6500 Belle Terre Parkway, Palm Coast. The guest preacher for the day will be Rev. Albert Mosley, the newly appointed president of Bethune-Cookman University and an active member of The United Methodist Church. Mosley will be preaching at 8:30 and 10:30 a.m.
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]
Gamble Jam: Musicians of all ages can bring instruments and chairs and join in the jam session, 2 to 4 p.m. Note that in a temporary change from the regular schedule, Gamble Jam will be the 2nd and 4th Sunday of each month through August 17. The program is free with park admission! Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area at Flagler Beach, 3100 S. Oceanshore Blvd., Flagler Beach, FL. Call the Ranger Station at (386) 517-2086 for more information. The park hosts this acoustic jam session at one of the pavilions along the river to honor the memory of James Gamble Rogers IV, the Florida folk musician who lost his life in 1991 while trying to rescue a swimmer in the rough surf.
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.
Juxtapositions: Reading More Matter the other day, John Updike’s 1999 brick collecting his reviews and other miscellanea, he writes the obligatory–for him–pages on golf. He was an avid golfer. He wrote short stories about golf, essays about golf, introductions about golf, which next to sex was his metaphysical substitute for a meaningful deity. And he wrote this: “What a beautiful thing a swing is, what a bottomless source of instruction and chastisement! The average golfer, if I am a fair specimen, is hooked when he hits his first good shot; the ball climbs into the air all of its own, it seems-a soaring speck conjured from the effortless airiness of an accidentally correct hit. And then he or she, that average golfer, spends endless frustrating afternoons, whole decades of them, trying to recover and tame the delicate wildness of that first sweet swing. Was ever any sporting motion so fraught with difficulty and mystery?” endless frustrating afternoons, whole decades of them, trying to recover and tame… It reminded me, sadly and painfully, of this line from Beth Macy’s Dopesick (2018): “‘It was like shooting Jesus up in your arm,’ Brian said of his first IV injection. ‘It’s like this white explosion of light in your head. You’re floating on a cloud. You don’t yet know that the first time is the best. After that, you’re just chasing that first high.'”
—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 County Drug Court Convenes
Model Yacht Club Races at the Pond in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Palm Coast Beautification and Environmental Advisory Committee
Flagler Beach City Commission Meeting
Palm Coast Concert Series
Free For All Fridays With Host David Ayres on WNZF
Friday Blue Forum
For the full calendar, go here.
By the end of 2000, Purdue had passed out fifteen thousand copies of an OxyContin video called “I Got My Life Back: Patients in Pain Tell Their Story,” without submitting it to the FDA for review, as required by the agency. The video, available for checkout from doctors’ offices, lauded OxyContin’s effect on patients’ quality of life and minimized its risks. The doctor-narrator heralded the new term “pseudo addiction,” wherein opioid-seeking patients “look like a drug addict because they’re pursuing pain relief…[when in reality] it’s relief-seeking behavior mistaken as drug addiction.” He then repeated Haddox’s favorite sound bite: that opioid analgesics caused addiction in less than 1 percent of patients. The source of this claim was a one-paragraph letter to the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine written in 1980. The letter was never intended as a conclusion on the risks of long-term opiate use, one of the authors would much later explain, yet it was trotted out repeatedly during OxyContin’s first decade. At Dine ’n’ Dash gatherings and in doctors’ offices from the coalfields to the California coast, this letter about an unrelated initiative was repeated and tweaked until its contents no longer resembled anything close to the authors’ intention, like an old-fashioned game of telephone gone terribly awry.
–From Beth Macy’s Dopesick (2018).
Ray W, says
In 1994, then-Senator Joe Biden and Representative Jack Brooks c0-sponsored the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, an act designed to provide funds to police agencies all around the country for hiring a total of 100,000 new police officers; the new officers were supposed to be added to street patrolling, not administrative staff.
$9.7 billion in other funding provided by the bill authorized new prison construction. $6.1 was allocated for crime prevention programs.
A senior prosecutor at the time, I had many conversations with police officers about their feelings. Some worried that the officer(s) soon to be added to their agencies might be lost when the federal funding sunsetted, as their city commissions might not step up and continue to fund the positions. Most welcomed the idea of more officers on the streets.
The crime rate began dropping. Much of the literature of the day, and of today, too, pointed to the crime rate starting in 1992 or 1993 its long drop down to today’s comparatively low crime levels.
In time, most of the local city commissions stepped up and continued funding for the additional officers.
One of the programs funded by the legislation was a pioneering effort to address a high murder rate in Chicago. I have commented about this program several times before, but it is evident that the many memory impaired among the FlaglerLive community believe that Chicago’s homicide level is related to Democratic Party policies.
Indeed, in the 2016 presidential campaign, President Trump based a portion of his campaign on the rising homicide rate in Chicago, blaming the rise on Democratic policies.
The pioneering effort to address Chicago’s high murder rate focused on neuropsychological studies that proposed that the murder rate would drop if communities could identity those young people who had been subjected during their childhood to seven or more of the 10 categories of “Adverse Childhood Experiences”, such as being the victim or sexual abuse, or as a young child watching a loved one being murdered.
The pilot program focused on identifying such children at age 16 or 17 and then providing a mentor (similar in plan to a community big brother or sister), job training, and individualized educational tutoring for a year.
In the first year of the program, just under 400 Chicago youth were identified as having experienced seven or more of 10 ACE categories; they were the first to receive the individualized assistance.
Each year for the next 19 years, new 16- and 17-year-olds were identified as the most victimized of the city’s youth. They, too, received assistance in the three identified responses.
Chicago’s homicide totals plummeted. But the funding was designed to last 20 years, at which time the assistance would be sunsetted. In 2014, Congress did not renew funding for the pilot program. Chicago’s homicide rate immediately began to rise.
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
As follow-up to the comment about Chicago’s yearly homicide totals, here are the 10 Adverse Childhood Experience categories:
Emotional Abuse – Experiencing verbal abuse or emotional neglect.
Physical Abuse – Suffering physical harm or injury from caregivers.
Sexual Abuse – Involvement in sexual activities without consent.
Emotional Neglect – Lack of emotional support or affection from caregivers.
Physical Neglect – Failure to provide basic physical needs like food and shelter.
Parental Separation – Experiencing divorce or separation from a parent.
Substance Abuse – Living with a caregiver who has substance abuse issues.
Mental Illness – Having a caregiver with untreated mental health problems.
Domestic Violence – Witnessing violence between caregivers or in the home.
Incarceration – Having a family member who is imprisoned.
Again, the pilot program was designed to identify those 16- or 17-year-olds in Chicago who had experienced or been exposed to seven or more of the 10 ACE categories.
Ray W, says
Here are the annual Chicago homicide totals drawn from Chicago Police Department records. Please recall that money for the pilot program started late in 1994 and that the funding expired late in 2014.
1990: 854 homicides.
1991: 928 homicides.
1992: 943 homicides.
1993: 855 homicides.
1994: 931 homicides.
1995: 828 homicides.
1996: 796 homicides.
1997: 761 homicides.
1998: 704 homicides.
1999: 643 homicides.
2000: 633 homicides.
2001: 667 homicides.
2002: 656 homicides.
2003: 601 homicides.
2004: 453 homicides.
2005: 451 homicides.
2006: 471 homicides.
2007: 448 homicides.
2008: 513 homicides.
2009: 460 homicides.
2010: 438 homicides.
2011: 436 homicides.
2012: 507 homicides.
2013: 422 homicides.
2014: 420 homicides.
2015: 491 homicides.
2016: 778 homicides.
2017: 658 homicides.
2018: 569 homicides.
2019: 506 homicides.
2020: 774 homicides.
2021: 797 homicides.
2022: 723 homicides.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
In either 2014 or 2015, I attended a presentation by a neuropsychologist; he spoke of success of the Chicago pilot program and of the possible political reasons for its demise. He predicted that the Chicago homicide rate would jump up and he posed to conference attendees that Republicans would be using the issue as a talking point during the 2016 campaign.
To summarize: In 1994, a Democratic-controlled House passed an act that provided funding in the next fiscal year for a pilot program that ended up having all appearances of success during its 20-year run. The money for fiscal year 1994-95 provided funds for the last three months of 1994. When a Republican-controlled House cut off funding for the pilot program, the funding for fiscal year 2013-2014 through the first nine months of 2015.
Can it be successfully argued that the simple act of identifying the most damaged children among us and providing job training, educational tutoring, and a respected adult presence in those children’s lives at a critical time of transition to adulthood can achieve a reduced homicide rate? If this is so, how can enough Democrats see this approach in 1994, and enough Republicans be blind to this approach in 2014?
And does any FlaglerLive reader believe that President Trump did not raise the issue of a rising Chicago homicide rate in his 2016 presidential campaign?
Brynn Newton says
Such an interesting depiction by Clay Jones of that obelisk on the National Mall.
Laurel says
Ray W.: I believe I remember that Trump said “The crime in Chicago stops right here, and right now” in his 2016 run. His Presidency did not stop crime “…right here and right now.” As your stats show, it increased from that point on. Now, his overreach, where he doesn’t belong, Constitutionally, will exasperate the citizens of Chicago.
Pogo says
@Golf
… like tennis, yachting, hunting lodges, and their ilk, is a convenient place for white collar criminals to conduct business; there’s always “the publicly available” version to provide an alibi that all may relate to: “…well, my buddies and I ran into each other by happy coincidence…” I remember just the other day departing my Citation, after a soothing massage by a wonderful young woman who is taking care of her parents, while working her way through Columbia; her doctoral thesis on societal conditions implicated in the probability of hair extensions leading to unwanted attention from people encountered in nightclubs is essential research heretofore suppressed by the colonial patriarchy’s systematic exploitation of the cosmos and all life.
And, as has been observed by many — golf is a good way to ruin a nice outdoor walk,
Sherry says
Thank you for all the factual information about crime rates in Chicago Ray W. What a wonderful program. . . addressing the “root” causes. How tragic that so many prefer prisons to psychological solutions.
Cue the “haters” that blame poor upbringing.
“It Take a Village” to care for and nurture one another.
Sherry says
OOPS! “It Take”s” a Village”. . .
Ray W, says
Money Digest reports on an ownership strategy adopted by John Deere, a strategy that may or may not become more common. In essence, John Deere has begun to monopolize the maintenance and repair of its products.
According to the reporter, John Deere now interprets the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998, made a part of the standard product purchasing agreement signed by the buyer at the dealership, as permitting the company to prohibit farmers from either repairing or maintaining the John Deere products that they buy or from taking those products to third-party mechanics for repairs or maintenance.
The company has designed its computer management system to shut off whenever a certain fault is determined by the system. All repair and maintenance work must now be funneled through dealerships authorized to repair broken or damaged items, after which repair is completed, the mechanic resets the operating system’s default setting.
In the American copyright system, according to the reporter, buyers of goods have long had an ownership interest, known as the “first sale” doctrine, as a result of which doctrine buyers have the right to repair or maintain the products that they purchase. But repair and maintain is not the same thing as copy. Under this doctrine, a buyer of a CD may use the product or lend it or sell the original to a third party, but he or she cannot copy the original CD and then sell the copy to a third party.
So far, so good.
John Deere is interpreting DMCA is giving it the right to consider the purchase of its products as a “license” to use the product, not as a right of outright ownership, as John Deere says it retains the right of ownership of its installed operating system software, software that by necessity operates the product.
If a sensor fails, or a window breaks, or a light bulb winks out, setting off a different sensor, the software that operates the product may stop working. An owner cannot simply buy a new light bulb or a new sensor and install it; he or she must have the operating system reset by a dealer or distributor after the light bulb or sensor is replaced. The purchaser cannot analyze the computer on his or her own to determine the fault. Nor can he or she go to an independent farm repair shop to analyze the fault. The farmer must take the product to a John Deere dealer to have a problem analyzed via a computer code check and then get a system reset.
The fact that the repair process may take time, as in weeks or months of time depending on how long the mechanics are behind in working on other customer’s products, or the fact that the repair or maintenance is now more costly is irrelevant. If a harvester is immobilized at the wrong time due to an easily fixed fault, say during a harvest window of a few days or weeks means that a farmer might miss an entire harvest before the product is repaired and the operating system is reset.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Some 15 years ago, a young assistant Public Defender whose office was next to mine talked of his older-model pick-up truck that had begun to intermittently misfire, but only after the engine had warned up to full operating temperature.
I asked him if his temperature gauge had reflected a high temperature reading recently and then the gauge dropped to zero. He said it had and that he had had to add fluid to the radiator.
I told him the fix was easy. a copper-wire ignition sensor had partially melted due to excessive engine heat and that a new part would cost about $15 or so. I gave him the name of a mechanic I knew whose shop was on the young man’s way home. I called the mechanic and asked if he could put the sensor in for about $20 dollars. He agreed. All the mechanic had to do was put the truck up on a lift, remove one bolt, unplug the old sensor from the crankcase, put in the new sensor, tighten the bolt and the repair would be complete. The next day the young assistant PD told me that his truck was running fine again.
When one races or works on racing motorcycles as long as I did, even if it was off-and-on, one comes across a lot of different scenarios. I always listened to other mechanics and racers as they described their own bike problems.
My team’s Yamaha race bikes had the ignition sensor out in the open on the right side of the crankcase cover next to the crankshaft that had a magnet imbedded in it. If a radiator was damaged by a crash during a race, or if a head gasket failed and pressurized the cooling system, pushing out the radiator fluid during a race, the ignition sensor would overheat, and the copper wiring would melt, and the engine would start to misfire. Once the cooling system was repaired, the sensor could be replaced in a few minutes, and the misfire would go away.
I can’t imagine having to take a race bike to a Yamaha dealership just to replace a simple part. But who knows. One day, the John Deere interpretation may become a common part of a motorcycle or car purchase contract.
Ray W, says
According to a Fortune report, Chevron, the nation’s second-biggest crude oil exploration and extraction company, is rewriting its business model away from the “boom and bust” exploration model to a more stable and more profitable model.
Here are some bullet points from the article:
– In the late 19th century, the Texas Pacific Railway tried and failed to build a rail link between Texas and California. But the company held 3.5 million acres of Texas land.
– The Permian Basin oil boom hit in Texas in the 1920s. In 2001, at a time when the Permian Basin was thought played out, Chevron bought much of the railroad land for $36 billion. Bruce Niemeyer, Chevron’s president of “shale and tight”, the term for Chevron’s onshore American oil and gas operations, told the Fortune reporter that in 2001 the company’s shale position was believed to be depleted:
“There was a time in our company’s history where there wasn’t a lot of attention to it because the Permian had peaked and was on this long and slow decline. … But we made a deliberate decision to hold it. We have a history of big fields getting bigger.”
– A few years later, the Shale Revolution began, due to improvements in horizontal drilling and fracking chemicals technology that “unlocked” huge reservoirs of crude oil previously thought inaccessible.
– Chevron, itself, did not get too directly involved in the Shale Revolution, as it retained the right to explore only a small part of its vast Permian holdings. Instead, Chevron engaged in joint venture partnerships that provide income to Chevron without requiring capital outlays by Chevron. Right now, Chevron has a partial stake in 20% of all of the Permian Basin’s wells.
“‘Up to this point in shale and tight, there’s been a lot of brute force,’ Niemeyer said, … ‘Where we’re headed next is we’re going to get more out of the wells, but it’s going to require a different kind of insight and the ability to connect things together, and AI is going to be a big part of that.'”
– But Chevron initially utilized these partnerships just like other oil extraction companies, i.e., it, and they, focused on growth and the “one big gusher” ideology, instead of an approach of managed cash flow generation that provides for “steady, sustained profitability.” In other words, Chevron decided to hop off the spending treadmill of the “growth” paradigm and to hop onto a steady pumping strategy that provides “healthy profitability without the constant cry for ‘Drill, baby, drill.”
– This past July, Chevron spent $53 billion to acquire a stake in what the reporter describes as possibly that largest oil discovery of the 21st century, an offshore Guyanese oil field. By buying Hess, Chevron also acquired Hess’s holdings in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale oil basin and a 30% share of Hess’s associated Midstream pipeline business in the Bakken.
– Now, per the reporter, Chevron is in a position of strength, enabling it to “plateau” its American oil output and still turn enough of what it extracts into cash for dividend hikes. By plateau, Chevron means continuing to pump one million barrels of oil per day from its American holdings. And it should be noted that Chevron is ramping up exploration efforts in Africa, South America and the Eastern Mediterranean, among other possibilities.
– As an example of the American “plateau” strategy, Chevron has cut its number of active drilling rigs from 13 to nine, with further drops in numbers anticipated. Since Chevron’s rigs now drill longer and longer horizontal bores and since Chevron is drilling more wells per location using just one rig, overall output can be kept stable.
– Said Chevron’s Niemeyer:
“There’s been a period of time in shale and tight in this industry where a lot of the attention was on growth — as much growth that you could have. … The pivot for us is from growth, which is where the attention was for the last few years, to one of cash flow generation. We are adjusting activity to manage it on a plateau and focus on becoming extremely efficient in what we do. … Given the portfolio we have, we’ll be able to do that out to the end of the next decade.”
– Said Biraj Borkhaturia, an RBC Capital energy analyst, Chevron could cut shale spending by about $1.5 billion annually and still keep production volumes “relatively even.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
OPEC+ has just about erased its recent reduction of 2.2 million barrels of oil output per day. We are finally seeing a significant drop in gasoline prices at the pump, due to OPEC’s decisions. Many American exploration companies, not just Chevron, have been holding back on expending capital on drilling for more oil. Worldwide oil production is going to be less and less reliant on American oil as more and more large deposits are found in far-off lands. Brazilian output is growing. Guyana’s output is growing. Kazakhstan’s output is growing. Oil has been found off the southeast coast of Cyprus and off the coast of Argentina.
A new financial reality in the oil industry may be emerging. Chevron thinks so.
Ray W, says
Last month’s senseless and nihilistic New York City shooting that left four people dead has law enforcement officials alarmed about a rise in shootings for which no reason can be discerned.
According to a FOX News report, nihilistic acts of violence are those that lack any ideological motive other than a person’s need to gain approval in extremist online communities.
A New York City-based psychotherapist told FOX News: “It isn’t about money, ideology, or revenge; rather, it’s violence born of emptiness. … Other acts of violence, however twisted, usually have a motive that can be identified. … Nihilistic violence is different because the act itself is the message: a statement of meaninglessness, a way of saying ‘nothing matters, so I’ll be destructive.”
Of 2024’s terrorist attacks in Western countries, 65% were not associated with any belief system held by the perpetrator, a percentage figure up significantly from that of recent years. But an inability to tie a perpetrator’s beliefs to an act of terror may be due to the offender combining numerous ideologies to justify acts of violence.
The Department of Justice recently named the concept: “Nihilistic Violent Extremism”, with the following definition:
“Criminal conduct within the United States and abroad, in furtherance of political, social, or religious goals that derive primarily from a hatred of society at large and a desire to bring about its collapse by sowing indiscriminate chaos, destruction, and social instability.”
A profile of a nihilistic terrorist can be as follows:
“The common thread is alienation and despair. … These are people who feel invisible, powerless, or irrelevant. In that state, violence becomes a way to exist, to be noticed, to make a statement. It’s a perverse attempt to transform inner emptiness into outward impact.”
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
An AUTOPOST articles focuses on BMW’s new iX3 electric SUV.
The new model is claimed by BMW to “incorporate 33% recycled materials” and to “slash CO2 emissions from the supply chain by 35%. The vehicle’s carbon footprint will be offset after the vehicle is driven 13,359 miles.
The iX3 will incorporate AI features, offer state-of-the-art interior design, and travel 400 miles on a charge. 80% of the wheel carrier and swivel bearing aluminum content is recycled, as is 70% of the aluminum used in the wheels.
The high-voltage battery power system has 50% “secondary” cobalt, lithium and nickel.
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
Defending this morning on Meet the Press President Trump’s effort to end the Russian war upon the Ukraine by give-and-take negotiations, Vice President Vance said:
“If you go back to World War Two, if you go back to World War One. If you go back to every major conflict in human history, they all end with some kind of negotiation.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I ask all FlaglerLive readers to comment on whether World War Two ended with any kind of negotiation between the Allied Powers and the governments of Germany and Japan.
Ray W, says
An Interesting Engineering story posits that a German battery company, Voltfang, is turning used EV batteries into refrigerator-sized stationary battery storage systems.
Before conversion, technicians completely test the used EV batteries. If suitable for stationary battery storage use, the former EV batteries can be used by companies with “high energy demands.”
Such an application can be used to recharge car batteries or provide off-grid power storage, or by used for an emergency reserve power supply.
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
John Lonergan submitted an opinion column to The Hill for publication.
The theme? That China is more likely to invade Siberia than it is likely to invade Taiwan.
Given China’s “resource hunger” and Russia’s weakened geopolitical presence, the author argues that the economic gain from taking Siberian resources overshadows the economic gain from taking Taiwan, particularly when comparing the costs of invading Taiwan.
The author points out that Hitler was stopped by a 22-mile-wide Channel. The Taiwan Strait is 100 miles wide and much more heavily defended.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies concluded that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would “come at a staggering cost to all parties.” The worldwide economic cost of the invasion could reach or exceed $10 trillion. Taiwan’s semiconductor production, if disrupted, would cripple the world’s supply chains, including China’s supply chains.
Siberia’s vast reserves of oil and natural gas, its proved deposits of gold, diamonds and rare earth minerals, its vast amounts of fresh water, each would offer sustenance to China’s “resource-strapped economy.”
Given that the North China Plain, home to agriculture and industry, supports 20% of China’s population with 5% of its native freshwater supply. And fresh water is crucial to China’s future. Siberia’s Lake Baikal, alone, holds 20% of the world’s freshwater.
Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine has, over the past three years, diverted much of Russia’s military force away from the East, leaving the 30 million Russians who inhabit the 6-million-square-mile Siberia relatively undefended. A leaked Russian Federal Security Service document, reported in the New York Times, details Russian fears of China’s encroachment into Siberia. Far Eastern Russian garrisons have been stripped of experienced personnel, and the best quality equipment has been sent west, replaced by Soviet-era equipment, a finite resource, and undertrained conscripts.
China has begun to use the name “Haishenwai” in place of Vladivostok, on official maps.
According to the author, China risks international isolation, and economic collapse, should it decide to invade Taiwan. But the West would be unlikely to intervene against China’s interests should China take some or all of Siberia from Russia.
Make of this what you will.
Ray W, says
APM RESEARCH LAB recently asked the question: HOW ABNORMAL ARE THE REVISIONS IN THIS MONTH’S JOBS REPORT?
The author, basing his research on the 300 months of jobs estimates issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), answered the question by concluding that the revisions to May and June’s initial estimates by 125,000 and 133,000, respectively, were indeed larger than normal, but not at all unprecedented.
In those 300 months of data releases, the BLS revised the initial estimates downward by more than 100,000 jobs 10 times, including May and June of 2025. In those same 300 months of data releases, the jobs estimates were revised upwards by more than 100,000 jobs 21 times.
In September 2008, the biggest downward revision, by 244,000 jobs, occurred. In November 2021, the biggest upward revision, by 437,000 jobs, occurred. Many other revisions were larger than those for this past May and June.
To me, that means over the past 25 years, initial jobs estimates have been revised upwards or downwards by more than 100,000 jobs 31 times, or more than 10% of the time.
And, according to BLS “summary data”, since 2003, the average monthly revision was up 51,000 and down 51,000.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
Statistically, the sizes of the May and June revisions to the initial BLS jobs estimates do not meet the definition of abnormal. Abnormal has its own definition, which means that a thing deviates beyond the range of the normal. The size of the May and June revisions is larger than normal, but not at all unprecedented as the author puts it, but since it has happened 31 times in 30 years it is by no means abnormal.
Ed P says
Root causes?
If statistical information is anywhere near accurate, Chicago homicide victimology is:
79% black 15%Latinx. 84% between ages 20-39
Past 12 months 95% of homicides in Chicago are black/Latinx.
Homicide stats fail to disclose the whole picture.
Total violent crimes(reported) 28,443 in 2024. Total population 2.7 million
It feels like gas lighting or a straw man argument to suggest any type of progress or reduction.
Chicago has a history of political corruption, dating back to its incorporation in 1883. It has been a de facto monolithic entity of the Democratic Party.
Maybe it’s cultural issues ingrained in the residents and the leaders…finger pointing isn’t working. Appears that tamping it down to an acceptable level has been the mission.
Real question. Why can’t it be solved?
Sherry says
@Brynn. . . I noticed that also. Ole’ Fred Trump drawn well, wouldn’t you say? Clay is a “Master” of political cartoons!