To include your event in the Briefing and Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
Weather: Sunny, with a high near 93. Saturday Night: Mostly clear, with a low around 77.
- 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:
Last day of Primary Election Early Voting today in Bunnell, Palm Coast and Flagler Beach from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at five locations. Any registered and qualified voter who is eligible to vote in a county-wide election may vote in person at any of the early voting site, regardless of assigned precinct. According to Florida law, every voter must present a Florida driver’s license, a Florida identification card or another form of acceptable picture and signature identification in order to vote. If you do not present the required identification or if your eligibility cannot be determined, you will only be permitted to vote a provisional ballot. Don’t forget your ID. A couple of secure drop boxes that Ron DeSantis and the GOP legislature haven’t yet banned (also known as Secure Ballot Intake Stations) are available at the entrance of the Elections Office and at any early voting site during voting hours. The locations are as follows:
- Flagler County Elections Supervisor’s Office, Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell.
- Flagler County Public Library, 2500 Palm Coast Pkwy NW, Palm Coast.
- Palm Coast Community Center, 305 Palm Coast Parkway NE.
- Palm Coast’s Southern Recreation Center, 1290 Belle Terre Parkway.
- Wickline Senior Center, 700 South Daytona Avenue, Flagler Beach.
See a sample ballot here. See the Live Interviews with all local candidates below.
Flagler County Commission Greg Feldman (Dis. 2, R) Theresa Pontieri (Dist. 2, R) Anna Jones (Dist. 4, R) Drew Moss (Dist. 4, R) Leann Pennington (Dist. 4, R) Flagler County School Board Cathy Moon (Dist. 1) Jill Woolbright (Dist. 1) Will Furry (Dist. 2) Rob Wood (Dist. 2) Christy Chong (Dist 4) Ron Long (Dist. 4) Trevor Tucker (Dist. 4) Palm Coast City Council Tony Amaral Jr. (Dist. 2) Jeani Duarte (Dist 2.) Jimmy Hengy (Dist. 2) Dylana Dee Galery (Dist. 4) John Kvederis (Dist. 4) Ramon Marrero (Dist. 4) Darlene Shelley (Dist. 4) The candidates' interviews will be live-linked the day their interview publishes. |
The Saturday Flagler Beach Farmers Market is scheduled for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. 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.
Chess Meet-Up At the Flagler Beach Public Library, 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the library, 315 7th St S, Flagler Beach. It’s free. All ages, all skill levels. Flagler Beach Chess is a community-driven organization dedicated to promoting the game of chess in Flagler Beach, Florida, and surrounding areas. We seek to bring together players of all skill levels and provide opportunities for friendly competition, socialization, and skill development. We believe that chess is more than just a game – it’s a way of life. Our community is built around a shared love of strategy, critical thinking, and intellectual challenge. Whether you’re a beginner or an experienced player, we invite you to join us for a game or two, learn from other players, and share your own knowledge and expertise. Join us today and become a part of our chess community. Every third Saturday of the month.
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.
| The Latest Jail Bookings |
|---|
| j-260821 |
| Source: Flagler County Sheriff's Office. Note: the Sheriff's Office redacts or censors the names of migrants arrested under authority of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The federal agency requires the redactions, according to the Sheriff's Office. |
Notably:In my continuing attempt to detox from this election season with a Bertrand Russell vaccine from his 1961 collection (Fact and Fiction), I found a couple of pages where Russell tries to play La Rochefoucauld, the French moralist and the greatest writer of maxims beside Yogi Berra. Russell called them his “newly discovered maxims of La Rochefoucauld.” “I cannot pretend that, at all points, I am in agreement with the epigrammatic Duke,” Russell wrote back then. “Indeed, there is only one of the ensuing maxims in which I wholeheartedly and unreservedly believe. This one is the Nineteenth. Some readers may feel that to accept it completely is to incur a logical paradox. To them, I can only say: remember that life is greater than logic.” The maxims:
1. Men do as much harm as they dare, and as much good as they must.
2. The purpose of morals is to enable people to inflict suffering without compunction.
3. The advantage of duty is that it can always be neglected.
4. People never forgive the injuries they inflict nor the benefits they endure.
5. Since the effects of all actions are incalculable, actions intended to do harm, do good, and actions intended to do good, do harm. It follows that evil intentions should be encouraged.
6. Manners is the pretence that you think your interlocutor is as important as yourself.
7. Liberty is the right to do what I like; licence, the right to do what you like.
8. A pacifist is one who is always determined to annoy everyone.
9. Discipline and indiscipline are the twin children of Authority.
10. Pythagoras and Plato thought to get the better of Zeus: but they forgot that Aphrodite as well as Pallas Athene is his daughter.
11. “Truth” is a governmental concept.
12. Religion is a department of politics.
13. Friendship may be defined as a common enmity.
14. Arithmetic is a dastardly attempt of the Administrator to impose His authority upon the flux.
15. Vagueness is the rebellion of truth against intellect.
16. We must let our opponents think-if they can.
17. Philosophy is the art of using in an impressive manner words of which you do not know the meaning.
18. An eminent philosopher has stated: “That all knowledge begins with experience is not open to doubt.” But he would have been hard put to it to say what he meant by “knowledge” and what by “experience.” Familiarity with the words made him mistakenly suppose that he knew what they stood for.
19. It matters little what you believe, so long as you don’t altogether believe it.
20. A Realist is a man who confirms the prejudices of the man who is speaking.
https://youtu.be/PVpeLtTB8Qw?si=i4PuQ7cEX3VuBooz
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.
[MEC id=”163848″]
For the full calendar, go here.
39.—Interest speaks all sorts of tongues and plays all sorts of characters; even that of disinterestedness.
40.—Interest blinds some and makes some see.
41.—Those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things.
42.—We have not enough strength to follow all our reason.
43.—A man often believes himself leader when he is led; as his mind endeavours to reach one goal, his heart insensibly drags him towards another.
44.—Strength and weakness of mind are mis-named; they are really only the good or happy arrangement of our bodily organs.
45.—The caprice of our temper is even more whimsical than that of Fortune.
46.—The attachment or indifference which philosophers have shown to life is only the style of their self love, about which we can no more dispute than of that of the palate or of the choice of colours.
47.—Our temper sets a price upon every gift that we receive from fortune.
48.—Happiness is in the taste, and not in the things themselves; we are happy from possessing what we like, not from possessing what others like.
49.—We are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose.
–From La Rochefoucault’s actual Maxims.
Pogo says
Keep it Short and Simple
…is not a bad idea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle
Ray W. says
This from a story published by The Cool Down
A Massachusetts-based company is conducting an up-to-60 homeowner pilot program involving use of a company-specific home-based bi-directional EV charging system that is controlled by a central company-designed software system. While not fully described in the article, a total of 100 participants will fill out the study. Owners of certain EV models can opt into the program. Participants get the charging system installed at no cost, provide they agree to make available to the company data about patterns of electricity use through December 31, 2027. If the pilot program works as anticipated, any future homeowners who opt into the program will have to pay for charging system installation.
Once adopted into the study, the homeowner’s EV can be used as a reserve battery to power the house during either outages or periods of high electricity use, such as times of extreme weather. And, for purposes of the study, the home cannot have either solar panels or any form of other type of battery storage system.
The idea is for the homeowner to obtain electricity from the grid to charge the EV battery when electricity is comparatively less costly and then power the home from the EV battery when electricity is comparatively more costly. The bi-directional system, hypothetically, could save participants up to $1,300 per year. And participants are encouraged to sign up for other programs that allow other utility companies to manage how their EVs can better utilize overall electricity use.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
If I understand the parameters of the pilot program, and I admit that I may not fully understand what the company is trying to do, a company is gathering data to learn how best to utilize EV batteries where homeowners do not already have either solar panels or battery storage systems. Then, the company intends to use the results of the study to persuade others to buy its bi-directional charging systems in an effort to build a number of mini-grids under its control. It will buy electricity in bulk when prices are low and use it to charge the batteries and it will sell electricity in bulk from the batteries when prices are high, using numerous EV batteries as a group to have a different type of decentralized electricity storage system.
For many people, EVs are driven only a few times per day. The rest of the time the vehicles can be plugged into chargers. During an extreme heat or cold event, when electricity demand is at its highest, the company can take homes off the grid or draw down stored energy to sell at a profit and it will pay the homeowner to enable it to do so. All the homeowner needs to do is keep the bi-directional charger plugged in the
whenever the EV is sitting idle in the garage or on the driveway.
I infer from the story that the company will not draw down any battery too far during times of high electricity demand. But, again, I might be wrong.
If I correctly understand the purposes of the pilot program, is this yet another example of American ingenuity? Has someone found a way to help EV owners save money and still make a profit for himself? Can the existence of a company-managed mini-grid help reduce grid demand during extreme weather events? Can such mini-grids spread out demand fluctuations, i.e., levelize any grid peaks and valleys?
Laurel says
This cartoon is a bullseye.
Ray W. says
Here is an intriguing idea!
Much has been argued over the years about solar power plants taking farmland out of agricultural use. In response, some solar farms are being erected over underdeveloped industrial brownfields or in a way that permits grazing by either cattle or goats, or on land already made less arable by saltwater intrusion into water tables.
The Cool Down reports that a company named Solar Landscape is taking advantage of a newly-authorized Illinois state program aimed at diversifying the electricity grid by allowing homeowners to invest in community solar programs. But this new program does not require displacement of farmland. The idea uses a previously underutilized resource, i.e., it uses storage facility rooftops.
If I properly understand the concept, Flagler County does not for all appearances suffer from a shortage of storage unit businesses. Someone in Illinois government, either in the legislative branch or in the executive branch, or both, accepted the idea that storage facilities could profit by leasing rooftop space to solar power companies and that homeowners who cannot afford rooftop solar systems on their own might benefit by investing in community solar power.
Per the article, so far, 60 storage business sites have been approved for rooftop solar installations, with 10 of the project sites already having solar panels operating on rooftops.
Per the reporter, the company’s business model is to create 300 arguably temporary, as least in my mind, construction jobs, utilize 5 million sq.ft. of formerly underproductive Illinois storage unit roof space, produce up to 44 megawatts at buildout of local level solar power, and save participating Illinois homeowners up to $36 million in energy costs.
Justice, Illinois’ mayor told the reporter that while he has long opposed solar farms because of the impact on good farmland and because solar projects send money to China, which country makes most of the solar panels being used in existing solar farms, he wholeheartedly supports storage unit rooftop solar farms because the energy produced locally can be taxed. He added:
“This is going to be an excellent addition to this village.”
A ComEd spokesman stated that the utility company supports the state-authorized initiative.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
One of today’s biggest nationwide electricity issues is a shortage of grid transmission line capacity to handle a rapidly increasing energy load driven by increasing number of data center buildouts. A related issue is an aging and inefficient grid transmission line network. High tension transmission lines connected to 60-year-old transformers can carry only so much electricity from distant rural power plants into more densely populated urban centers.
Is it reasonable to argue that bringing new energy generating projects onto storage unit rooftops located directly in municipalities can both increase local electricity supply and reduce electricity demand on long distance high tension transmission lines? To argue that power projects themselves can bring revenues directly into municipal coffers. To argue that renters, and homeowners with roofs that cannot accept solar panels for a variety of reasons, can invest in community solar projects in order to reduce their own utility bills? To argue that storage facility property valuation increases could provide additional real property tax revenues?
If all it takes is a little legislation and an smidge of executive approval to make this type of program feasible, why not here? After all, according to some FlaglerLive commenters, the county has no lack of potentially underutilized storage unit rooftop space.
As an aside, is it reasonable to argue that I present as a more economically conservative commenter than the majority of the no-longer conservative Republicans who repeatedly contribute intellectually inaccurate ideas about the ever-changing status of our country’s economic health?
My positions are simple: To oppose the many vengeful and hateful and dishonest commenters who wander among us. To promote ideas that are more economically valid to the many, not just ideas that are politically valuable to the few.