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Weather: Sunny, with a high near 68. West wind around 6 mph. Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 47. West wind 3 to 5 mph.
- 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 hearing in the bankruptcy sale of Marineland Dolphin Adventure is scheduled for 10 a.m. before Delaware Federal Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Silverstein at 824 North Market Street in Wilmington. See: “Bankruptcy Judge Rejects Marineland Sale for Now, Ordering Community Bidder to Be Considered” and “Mystery Development Company Buys Marineland Dolphin Adventure for $7.1 Million, Outbidding Hutson.”
River to Sea Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee meets at 9 a.m. at the Airline Room at the Daytona Beach International Airport. The TPO’s planning oversight includes all of Flagler and Volusia counties, with board representation from each of those jurisdictions. See the full agendas here. To join the meeting electronically, go here. The committee is responsible for reviewing plans, policies, and procedures and rank priority projects as they relate to bicycle and pedestrian issues within the TPO planning area. See the full agendas here. To join the meeting electronically, go here.
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!
The Circle of Light Course in Miracles study group meets at a private residence in Palm Coast every Wednesday at 1:20 PM. There is a $2 love donation that goes to the store for the use of their room. If you have your own book, please bring it. All students of the Course are welcome. There is also an introductory group at 1:00 PM. The group is facilitated by Aynne McAvoy, who can be reached at [email protected] for location and information.
Diary: In matters of what is too narrowly considered “belief”–meaning belief in god, a reductive definition I reject–I am non-binary: I neither believe nor disbelieve. I find both postures untenable as much for being postures (that is, for being projections more often intended for mass consumption than for one’s personal, unadvertised, humble search for meaning) as for being undemonstrable. I acknowledge that they’re undemonstrable only by the very narrow, infinitesimal standards of human knowledge. I don’t mean to debase human knowledge: I’m not Augustinian. But a journalist’s first responsibility is to perspective. On earth we think we are the center of the universe. Our innate arrogance, inseparable from our innate creativity and genius for beauty and destruction, imagines our store of knowledge immense, despite our own evidence that it isn’t so: after a planetary history of 5.5 billion years, the cave painters emerged only 15,000, 25,000 years ago at most, and spent ten millennia or more painting the same poor bison and horse over and over again, however sublimely (repetition helps to develop skills). My Phoenician ancestors devised our alphabet only 6,000 years ago or less, and that only for the dullest of CPA practices of the time. The Odyssey and its less mature predecessor are at best 2,800 years old. FlaglerLive, that third and final segment of the Homeric trilogy, is only 16 years old. For all our hothouse self-congratulations, I picture all that knowledge as Micromegas, had he traveled beyond Saturn, might picture our local group of galaxies (itself a grain of sand’s atom in the universe), detecting our earth somewhere in the mist: as a lonely, insignificant smudge of next to nothing. To go from smudge to Augustinian proof of god’s existence is, as stretches of dark matter from here to Galaxy GN-z11 (the farthest yet recorded, is why I’m enshrining it in my smudge), a stretch. All that said, our lives are eternal Odyssean searches for home, and on the approach of Thanksgiving what drunk uncle might we not honor but Augustine and his conception of the human soul as being part of god, a conception he manufactured, I think, as part of his pre-Cabalistic attempt at proving the existence of god. I have trouble respecting a thinker whose entire philosophy is based on self-loathing, particularly a very smart thinker who requires me to have no pleasure not only of the flesh but of the mind: what hypocrisy is that, Hippo? But of all Augustine’s wacky ideas, this matter of soul pleases me, at least to the extent that it is part of the search that should never end. What if my soul, all our souls, are part of an oversoul? And shit, if as I wrote that last line I did not suddenly realize I was myself retreading old ground. This is the Hegelian idea, which I also loathe for its predeterminism. Why then did it appeal to me this morning when I read it in an analysis of Augustine’s idea of the soul? I don’t think it’s the predeterminism of it that I was imagining, or the ridiculous Hegelian idea that all tends toward a greater ideal, but the plurality of it, the idea that all our souls are as if in a hyper-democratic way not the creation of the creator, but the creator itself, that we are all as much our own creation as “his,” if the creator is to be so stupidly reduced to a sex. We are creation, creation is us. Our soul as synapse. Obviously the idea is as silly and reductive as any attempt either to explain creation or, more absurdly, to ascribe it to a creator. But who said the road back to Ithaca had to be so dull and humorless?
—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.
December 2025
Holiday Plant Class Series
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry
Weekly Chess Club for Teens, Ages 10-18, at the Flagler County Public Library
Flagler Beach Library Writers’ Club
Flagler Beach Planning and Architectural Review Board
Palm Coast City Council Meeting
Bunnell Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
Flagler Beach United Methodist Church Food Pantry Evening Hours
Random Acts of Insanity Standup Comedy
In Court: Ex-Firefighter James Melady Docket Sounding
In Court: Kristopher Henriqson
Palm Coast Code Enforcement Board Meeting
Separation Chat: Open Discussion
Flagler Beach Library Book Club
For the full calendar, go here.
Augustine (354–430) began by declaring that Rome was being punished, not for her new faith, but for her old, continuing sins: lascivious acts by the populace and corruption among politicians. The pagan deities, he wrote, had lewdly urged Romans to yield to sexual passion—“the god Virgineus to loose the virgin’s girdle, Subigus to put her beneath a man’s loins, Prema to hold her down… Priapus upon whose huge and beastly member the new bride was commanded by religious order to stir and receive!” Here Augustine, by his own account, spoke from personal experience. In his Confessions he had described how, before his conversion, he had devoted his youth to exploring the outer limits of carnal depravity. But, he wrote, the original sin, and he now declared that there was such a thing, had been committed by Adam when he yielded to Eve’s temptations. As children of Adam, he held, all mankind shared Adam’s guilt. Lust polluted every child in the very act of conception—sexual intercourse was a “mass of perdition [exitium].” However, although most people were thereby damned in the womb, some could be saved by the blessed intervention of the Virgin Mary, who possessed that power because she had conceived Christ sinlessly
–From William Manchester’s A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance (1992).
Dennis C Rathsam says
The Jackasses tryed to break TRUMP, The Jackasses tryed to stop TRUMPS deals. SCHUMER, was schooled once again. Dems passed OBAMACARE…ITS NOT WORTH THE PAPER ITS PRINTED ON! OBAMA THE Dems knew it wouldn’t work without government assistance….. Now the shits hitting the fan.
Jim says
And Donald Trump said “I love the poorly educated…”
Laurel says
When I think of Lucy Van Pelt, I also think of Linus Van Pelt, her little brother. Lucy *taught* Linus so much bad information, that he would have to unlearn all that she told him, and learn the real truth. That’s appropriate here, too.
Laurel says
How about that new 50 year Trump mortgage loan? That means you’ll never own your own home, great deal! Your interest rate cost will double, and if you sell your home, your equity will be nil. Gee, thanks Trump! Helping out the average fellow follow the dream!
Let’s see what the bankers will do…
Lousy investment.
Art of the deal.
The dude says
One more step towards the “company store” economic model the Kleptocracy and pedo-rapists wish to impose upon us.
Debt literally from the cradle to the grave, with confiscation of any assets “owned” upon death to satisfy any outstanding debt.
Sherry says
@ dude. . . a really great analogy! Meanwhile, the “rich get richer”. . . and that is trump’s motivation for much of what he does!
Laurel says
A great way to control the middle class, and steal their equity.
The dude says
Somebody call 911… the english language is being murdered here right before our eyes…
Ray W. says
According to WTLV-TV Jacksonville, pursuant to an “Advanced Air Mobility” plan, Florida’s Department of Transportation is constructing a facility in Polk County to test electric air taxis prior to approval for their public use.
The four-to-six passenger taxi’s will be vertical take-off and landing aircraft, or eVTOL, with a speed range between 120 mph and 200 mph.
The initial travel corridors will be between Jacksonville and Daytona Beach and Jacksonville and Tallahassee.
Here is language from the Advanced Air Mobility plan:
“By creating seamless aerial links between economic and population centers, … this network will offer both business and leisure travelers, (sic) faster and more flexible alternatives to traditional ground transportation.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
No word on cost, but changes are coming to the way we move about the country. I think its a good idea, but so what? If over time electric aircraft bring down travel costs and improve convenience, win, win!
If economically feasible, Flagler, St. Augustine, Savannah, and more could become air taxi locations feeding into Jacksonville.
Laurel says
Now that I like!
Sherry says
It will be interesting to see how “Traffic is Controlled” in that airspace. What could go wrong, especially at those speeds?
Laurel says
If the vehicles will talk to each other the way drones do, it would be fantastic! You know, like the way Chinese New Year displays do.
Ray W. says
In its annual World Energy Outlook, the International Energy Agency (IEA), which differs from the EIA, though both are energy news outlets, has redrawn an earlier prediction about “peak” crude oil production.
The IEA has, for the past five years, used an “aspirational” scenario that prioritized governmental net zero policies to project that crude oil demand would reach its international peak before 2030.
This year, the IEA used a governmental “stated policies” scenario and came up with revised predictions.
Now, the agency projects crude oil demand growth to peak somewhere around 2050, at 113 million barrels of crude oil extracted each day, due to an oncoming “Age of Electricity”.
Said IEA secretary-general Fatih Birol:
“With energy security front and centre for many governments, their responses need to consider the synergies and trade-offs that car arise with other policy goals – on affordability, access, competitiveness and climate change.”
In the new scenario, demand for electricity will rise faster than overall demand for energy of all types. This will mean that oil and natural gas extraction will “rise over the long term.” Solar power will be the fastest growing source of electricity. Nuclear power will “accelerate”, perhaps by as much as a third by 2035.
2025 investments in data centers could reach $580 billion, more than the $540 billion invested by the crude oil and natural gas industry into energy extraction.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I have long maintained that the developed world consists of roughly one billion people. That means that at least seven billion other people might not have what the developed world has, i.e., personal transport and climate-controlled homes and a set of electronic paraphernalia.
Who is to say that those in the lesser developed world cannot have what we have? Who is to say that a young, well-educated professional married couple in Vietnam cannot have their own car and their own modern home and all of the electronic paraphernalia that makes for an easier life? Or in Liberia? Or in Uruguay?
Demand for electricity is going to rise all over the world, both this year and for many coming years, and not just for data center needs.
Ray W. says
In a scenario somewhat reminiscent of President Trump standing on a platform while exhorting January 6th participants to walk to the capitol building to whatever end they imagined best, federal prosecutors accused Oakton, Virginia resident, Peter Stinson, a 33-year career Coast Guard veteran with numerous sharpshooting awards, of one count of soliciting the assassination of President Trump, an offense punishable by up to two decades in prison.
Mr. Stinson, online, described himself as anti-fascist.
Numerous posts to Mr. Stinson’s 3,000 followers on Bluesky, plus posts to X and Reddit, consistently followed an assassination theme, but only one post was set out in the Indictment: “Take the shot. We’ll deal with the fallout”.
Of all the posts he created, one received two likes. “No likes, not retweets, no comments”, said Jen Golbeck, a university professor who studies “extreme online rhetoric.”
She added:
“There’s a lot of people online rooting for Trump to die, and in that context, what he posted is so common that it feels like an alternate universe that he would be charged with anything, let alone solicitation of murder. … On the one hand, I would not encourage anyone to post those thoughts on social media. … On the other hand, I can’t count the number of people who I saw post similar things. … It’s a very common sentiment. There’s social media accounts dedicated to tracking whether Trump has died.”
At trial, the government argued:
“He repeatedly expressed his hatred for President Trump, shared information about what kinds of tools would be needed to carry out a successful assassination, [and] advised potential assassins on the need to ‘practice, practice, practice.'”
Defense counsel, relying on Brandenburg v. Ohio, a 1969 USSC case, argued that Mr. Stinson never solicited a specific individual to carry out the assassination and that “mere encouragement is quintessential protected speech.”
Under the Brandenburg rationale, in a court filing by defense counsel, “[c]riminal solicitations excluded from First Amendment protection require proof of serious proposals involving ‘a hiring or partnership arrangement.'”
According to the reporter, the Brandenburg decision permits prosecution of “speech advocating the use of force or illegal conduct … only when it intends to produce imminent lawless action or is likely to incite it.”
The trial judge denied the government’s request to characterize Mr. Stinson as a member of Antifa. The trial judge denied a defense motion for dismissal on grounds of “selective prosecution.”
The judge gave a jury instruction:
“]T]he First Amendment protects ‘speech that merely, without more, encourages or advocates that others should engage in violence — even violence against political figures or the government — at some indefinite point in the future.'” But, speech that “was directed and likely to produce imminent lawlessness by others” was not protected speech.
The jury deliberated for less than one day and rendered a verdict of not guilty.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I haven’t forgotten Craig Boda. I first met him in the year before I graduated from law school, when he worked for my father. Some 35 years ago, or so, after he left my father’s employment, Craig defended a corrections lieutenant who had talked while intoxicated one evening in a bar of his plans to illegally smuggle Spanish gold that he hoped to find on the seafloor after he retired. By chance, he talked to a law enforcement officer who was in normal clothing. The corrections officer went to trial on his verbalized fantasy. At the end of the government’s case, the trial judge dismissed the charge. You can’t convict for amorphous fantasy. Much more is needed.
We all fantasize aloud in one way or another. Some of us want the Dolphins to win. Some dream of hitting the lottery. Some fantasizing is healthy. Some is destructive. Some, under narrow circumstances, is criminal.
I am not saying I fully understand what Charlie Kirk said he stood for. But I was one of the first on the FlaglerLive site to condemn his murder. I don’t hate President Trump. I oppose him because he is a vengeful person who uses retribution for political gain. He is an inveterate liar. Both of these things are worthy of opposition. I describe him in my comments as Mr. Trump or President Trump. I don’t wish illness or harm to him. I just want him to stop lying and to stop promoting vengeance and retribution. If his tariff policy turns out to stimulate our economy and bring other nations to a more favorable trade situation, all the better for us all. I believe in narrowly tailored tariff policies that seek a particular economic outcome over a particular period of time.
But I spent over 30 years in courtrooms as a lawyer and I can read, watch and listen. Many of President Trump’s policies resemble policies that our founding fathers warned against. No one person, in their ideal liberal democratic Constitutional republic, was ever to have unlimited political power for an indeterminate period of time. Congress is supposed to be a check and balance on the executive. The courts are supposed to be a check and balance on both the executive and the legislature. Much of what is obvious to the eye violates our founding father’s scheme of checks and balances. The courts continue to rule against the Trump administration. Independent agencies continue to resist the Trump administration.
A trial judge after a 10-hour hearing extended a previous ruling prohibiting the use of tear gas in Chicago, except under certain conditions. After the extension by the judge, a video of an immigrant in a Best Buy parking lot shows an ICE vehicle driving by the immigrant’s car. In the video can be seen some type of gas being sprayed by the driver of the ICE vehicle into the other car’s passenger compartment through the open driver’s door window.
There is a moral imperative to oppose these things.
And there is a sickness upon the land. We are hiring many of the worst among us to deport many of the best among us.
Sherry says
Thank you again Ray W.! A well thought out, reasonable presentation of your thought processes, with an eloquent ending. I’m right there with you on our “moral imperative”!
Ray W. says
This, according to an Inquisitr story, about a Fullerton Police Department officer in the vicinity of the City of Santa Ana.
A police officer, according to his report, spotted a vehicle braking to a stop, after which stop a man stepped out. The officer wrote in his report that he saw the man pull out a gun and point it toward a woman astride a bicycle located behind the vehicle.
The Fullerton police officer approached the man, whose vehicle bore no markings identifying it as an ICE vehicle and who himself bore no identifying language printed on the clothing he wore. The man produced a badge identifying himself as an ICE officer. The ICE officer explained that the woman had been following him “for a long distance” while recording his activities on her cell phone.
The Fullerton officer wrote:
“The Fullerton Police Officer informed the agent that he could not assist with someone following or recording him if no crime had occurred, and that local law enforcement (Santa Ana PD) was en route.” He did add that he would help the ICE agent if the situation involved “immediate officer safety.”
According to the reporter, a video of the incident was uploaded, from which video it can “clearly” be seen the agent holding a firearm near his chest and pointing it at the woman.
The woman was identified as a “community watch member.” On the video, as the ICE agent approaches the Fullerton officer, the woman says, “What are you doing? What the [expletive] is your problem.” The agent retorts: “You can’t be following us like that.” The woman responds: “I live here! It’s okay to pull your gun on a woman? What the [expletive language].”
After a number of incidents involving criminals impersonation ICE officials, the FBI recently released a statement instructing ICE officials to identify themselves:
“Due to the recent increase in ICE enforcement actions across the country, criminal actors are using ICE’s enhanced public profile and media coverage to their advantage to target vulnerable communities and commit criminal activity. This not only affects the victims and communities but also has broader negative consequences on law enforcement agencies.”
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I post comments about stories in which federal judges are finding that ICE agents have lied the them under oath for a reason. Agents say what they say, only to have the defense play video of the events that show otherwise. This type of evidence is critical to many a defense argument. This is why so many people are recording ICE agents wherever they go.
Some people just say whatever they want to say whenever they want to say it. We call this lying, but to some, lying for political gain is a virtue.
We are hiring some of the worst among us to deport some of the best among us.
Ray W. says
This from The Telegraph, a British news outlet.
Estonian-based Frankenburg Technologies, headed by a former government chief civil servant, has produced an anti-drone rocket about the size of a “baguette.”
That CEO told the reporter:
“We are not apologetic about the fact we manufacture weapons. … We are not afraid to say we are manufacturing them to take down Russian long-range drones. … And we are not all apologetic about the fact that this will be the most-needed capability in the Western world in the next five to 10 years.”
The reporter referred to a recent drone incursion from Russia into Poland. F-16’s were tasked with shooting down the drones, with less than complete success. Each missile fired by the F-16 cost roughly 500,000 pounds. Each Russian drone cost one-tenth that amount.
The reporter posed the question:
“How do you stop barrages of hundreds of drones without bankrupting your country?”
Hence comes the impetus for the Estonian rocket.
The goal is not to design an “exquisite” rocket; it is to design a rocket just good enough to do what is needed.
The Estonian-designed Mark 1 has a range of only 2 kilometers. Right now, still in the design state, the rocket is “around” 56% effective. In time, the CEO hopes to hit 90% effectiveness.
Some of the best engineering minds in Europe have been hired to help with the project.
According to Fabian Hoffmann, a “missile technology” expert:
“There are quite a lot of experts who can build warheads, or sensors or engines. But there are not that many people who can integrate all these sub-systems into a functioning, workable missile – probably a few dozen.” These expert engineers learn from mistakes made over decades. They possess experience that is difficult to “codify” or write down.”
Frankenburg’s CEO told the reporter:
“There’s a lot of people who wake up in the morning, read the news and are angered by the injustice going on in the world. … And we’re one of the very few places in Europe where you can put your talent to work in somehow ending this madness.”
Two European-based factories have already been set up, with the capacity to manufacture “hundreds of missiles per day.”
Make of this what you will.