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Weather: A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 2pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 94. Heat index values as high as 107. Calm wind becoming southeast 5 to 8 mph in the afternoon. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. Friday Night: A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 10pm. Partly cloudy, with a low around 75. South wind 3 to 6 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:
The Flagler County Cultural Council (FC3) meets at 11 a.m. at the Tourism Development Office, 120 Airport Road, Palm Coast, in the 3rd-floor conference room. The meetings are open to the public. Contact info@flaglerartsandculture.com for additional information. See: “Over Mayor’s Objections, Palm Coast Signals It’ll Extend Agreement with Cultural Council to Manage $100,000 in Grants,” and “How Peter Johnson’s ‘Bullshit’ Trespass Led to Sunshine on FC3 Cultural Board and Its Accountability to Palm Coast.”
The Friday Blue Forum, a discussion group organized by local Democrats, meets at 12:15 p.m. at the Flagler Democratic Office at 160 Cypress Point Parkway, Suite C214 (above Cue Note) at City Marketplace. Come and add your voice to local, state and national political issues.
| The Latest Jail Bookings |
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| 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: Reading these lines from a very young Camus made me think of our old and eternal friend Bob, who would have loved this: “Accepting life, taking it as it is? Stupid. How else can we do it? Far from us having to take it, it’s life that seizes us and silences us when the opportunity arises. Accepting the human condition? I believe, on the contrary, that revolt is in human nature.
It’s a sinister charade to pretend to accept what is imposed upon us. We must live first. So many things are capable of being loved that it’s ridiculous to appear to choose suffering. Charade. Simulation. We must be sincere. Sincere at all costs, even against ourselves.
Besides, neither revolt nor despair. Life with what it has. To accept or to revolt is to confront life. Pure illusion. We are in life. It strikes us, mutilates us, spits in our faces. It also illuminates us with sudden, wild happiness that makes us participate. It’s short. That’s enough. But make no mistake: the pain is there. There’s no room for hesitation. Perhaps, deep down, it’s the essential part of life. Our contradictions, the mystics, and J.C. Love. Communion. Certainly, but why bother with words? See you later.”
https://youtu.be/Ll-N201wVqQ?si=aelcFK9ghT8YRmcY
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To tell you the truth, I hate this. I hate Wispr Flow so much. I hate that so many people in the world are lauding this like it’s the greatest invention, when actually I think it’s making everyone sound a little like an idiot, and now everybody has to read everyone else’s idiot words. I wish I could describe elegantly how much I hate it with some kind of handy, clever metaphor, but that kind of creativity comes to me through writing with my hands. Because writing, when it comes down to it, is a higher form of thinking. Writing takes time and editing and a deep level of commitment. Writing is a rigorous process to understand your own thoughts and then lay those thoughts out in a way that convinces or inspires or moves other people. But speaking is not that process. Speaking out loud can be tremendously useful when you need to deliver instructions or talk something out with another person or jot down a quick brainstorm while you are in the middle of washing your face in the bathroom or something.
–From “Everyone’s Using This A.I. Dictation App That I Want to Murder With a Hammer,” by Amy Wang, The New York Times Magazine, Aug. 19, 2026.
Ed P says
Mandatory federal spending with net interest on the debt is about 75% of the national debt.
To lay the issue at any single administration is naive. It’s everyone fault/problem.
The math is becoming the issue, if only 25% of the spending is discretionary, it’s becoming “mathematically “ difficult to “reduce” the debt.
Socialism is not, nor can it, ever solve this crisis.
40% of US households pay ZERO net individual income tax.
70% of all individual income tax comes from the top 10%
And yet, people scream taxes aren’t fair. So what would be then?
~51% of the federal revenue comes from payroll taxes and adding in SS +Medicare makes individual taxpayers directly responsible for about 85% of the entire federal budget.
Corporate, excise, estate, and tariffs account for the balance.
Here’s the rub. The country is broke. It’s running massive deficits.
Yet we are drifting toward socialism.
We already have a spending problem, where do we get more when the current spending and interest charges are piling up a deficit of $114.2 million per hour.
Spending, waste, fraud and abuse all have to be national priorities. Asking the wealthy to pay more is beyond naive or gullible.
Socialists want to redistribute wealth. How soon do you think it will take to trickle down to those who have the net worth of the middle class?
Reality is upon us.
Jim says
Ed P says, a few thoughts in response to your comment.
In Trump’s two terms (so far), the national debt has risen $11.1 Trillion which is slightly over 25% of the entire national debt. For the record, Biden contributed $8.4 Trillion as well. Between the two of them, that’s an almost 50% increase.
Your statistics on who pays the most and least on taxes is both correct and misleading. What is the income level of those 40% paying ZERO net individual income tax? What is found is that the income range is $15,750 to $34,700 depending on age and marital status. I own my home, my cars and have no debt other than credit cards which I pay off on time each month. I know I would struggle on $34k/year. I don’t know how I could make it on $15k.
For an income of $250k/year, the average tax is $65,832 per year which is 25% of gross income. So, that person/family has to live on $184,868 per year or $15,347/month. That monthly income almost equals the yearly income of the lowest income earner not paying taxes.
So, what’s my point?
Somebody at the bottom of the income level in this country probably deserves a tax break in order to give them a chance to at least survive. I would hope we’d agree on that. I can live with folks making $35k/year and less not paying any tax. I don’t think any of them are living the high life on that income.
But if you’re making $250k/year or more, I think you could be expected to pay substantially more and still not significantly affect your lifestyle. I hear you screaming “Socialism”! Did you know that in WWII, the maximum marginal income tax rate in the United States reached 94% in 1944 and 1945. This unprecedented rate, established under the Revenue Act of 1942, applied only to taxable income exceeding $200,000 (equivalent to roughly $2.5–$3.7 million today). That means those poor bastards making $200k or more had to subsist on $12k/year! Or in today’s dollars, they’d have to make it on $150k/year (assuming the $2.5M income level).
Now, I’m not proposing we implement a 94% income tax on anyone. I am pointing out that, in our capitalistic past, our government has taxed higher income citizens significantly higher levels for the good of the entire country. I guess they had some socialistic tendencies when trying to deal with a crisis (WWII).
Now, I’m all for going after spending, waste, fraud and abuse. Should we spend time debating the great job Trump and Musk did with DOGEing the federal government? I’ll just say, by Musk and several of the youngsters involved in that effort, they didn’t save any money. So, while I’m all for going after all of it, the fact is that the government has shown very little ability to actually go after spending, waste, fraud and abuse. In fact, Trump has pardoned a few people who were found guilty of these things and, in some cases, erased their requirement to repay those victims of their crimes. So I don’t expect much from this administration.
So what do we do?
One saying that has always stuck with me is this: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.
Here are some of my thoughts:
1. Eliminate PAC’s from any and all contributions to politicians.
2. Set a reasonable limit on contributions from individuals and companies to politicians. I think it ought to be no more than $1k but that’s just my opinion. I don’t think people like Musk should be allowed to spend $250M on any campaign. Just because you have a lot of money shouldn’t justify putting your fat finger on the scale.
3. Redraw all political districts without allowing gerrymandering. Ideally, every district in this country should be a potential swing district in every election. That probably isn’t feasible but we should strive for that. No party should ever be comfortable that they’ll always win a district. I call that just keeping everyone honest.
4. Require all candidates to live within their district with some minimum residency requirement. An elected official should live with the citizens he/she represents.
5. Vote for candidates who put a priority on cutting spending and actually working to reduce/eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. Every time they come up for election, require a public review of what they’ve done with receipts. (Kind of like a job review most everyone else goes through each year).
6. Raise taxes on the wealthiest income earners in this country. Call it socialism if you want. The way I see it, our capitalist leadership during WWII did it for the good of the country. Our current situation is not actually a war but it is a national crisis and it should be treated as such.
Another comment I’ll just throw out there. Our current president is spending $900M on pet projects from the ballroom to the Arc de Trump to a helicopter pad with his name on it as well as a walkway around the Lincoln Memorial (will it be the Trump Walk?). And let’s don’t forget the Reflecting Pool fiasco which is somewhere north of $20M now. None of this spending has been approved by Congress (which I still believe is responsible for approving all expenditures of federal monies). My point here is that Trump is not proving to be a good manager of federal money so this fallacy that we need a “businessman” running the country is laughable. Now, maybe if we had a businessman with a proven track record of staying in budget, cutting costs and meeting the goals of his business, that might work. Trump is not that. Further, the Republican party, the so-called “party of fiscal conservatives” is that in name only.
So, maybe socialism isn’t the answer. That is certainly debatable. But we’re definitely heading into the sewer on our current path. There has to be change.
To all, sorry for the long post. I just had to get it out of my system….
Dennis C Rathsam says
TRUMPS spending more money on keeping Iran from having a nuclear bomb, & exporting the millions of invaders Biden & Harris let in. Inflation is down, stock market is doing quite well. Murders & violence, in the big cities that ICE stepped in is the lowest in years, in a few short days NY is deporting thousands. While the numnuts mayor of Chicago, loves the black on black crime…He cant get enough municipal workers to clean the blood off the streets! Every city TRUMP introduced ICE, crime & murder has almost disappeared. He has cleaned the graffiti, off our national monuments, from the Biden administration! Washington D.C. is clean & safe again…Why did the Democrates let this get so out of hand? Because they wanted too!
Ray W. says
Per a BBC story, when sufficient water is available, the Panama Canal Authority normally permits 36 vessels to cross the isthmus either way each day. But water insufficiency looms. Starting September 3rd, cuts to crossings will phase in. By September 15th, crossings will limited to 32 ships per day.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
A couple of things.
This is not the first time that a lack of rainfall has restricted Panama’s canal crossings. In the past, shipping companies were able to pay extra to reserve spaces in the crossing queue. But the BBC story doesn’t address this issue. Will crossings be first come, first serve? Or will shippers pay to cut into the queue, forcing other ships to divert to west coast American or Canadian ports so that cargo can be shipped by truck or rail? Either way, shipping costs are likely to rise.
And, because there is no gasoline pipeline connecting Houston-based refineries to Arizona, much less to California, significant quantities of gasoline and diesel fuel and jet fuel have to be shipped to the west coast, much of it from Texas and Louisiana seaports though the Panama Canal. This explains why refined combustible products cost so much right now on the west coast.
But the main reason for high California fuel prices is not exactly what some people want us to believe. California has a large oil-bearing shale rock formation. Decades ago, more than one million barrels per day flowed from it directly to California refineries. But the structure and geology of California’s shale rock differs from the structure and geology of shale rock formations east of California. Fracking and horizontal drilling barely works in California. Too many faults and folds in the formation and it is not clay-based like shale rock in the Permian Basin and elsewhere. That one million barrels or more of crude oil per day from the basin has dropped to under 100,000 barrels per day today. California no longer produces enough crude oil to fulfill California refinery needs; crude oil must be shipped in from elsewhere, making refinery products more costly compared to prices for Texas-based refinery products. Yes, California has stringent fuel requirements that add to the cost of California fuel, but that is a lesser reason for the price differences.
The Trump administration just announced that a new Texas crude oil refinery will be built and that a new gasoline pipeline will be constructed to transport the refined fuel to Arizona, but who knows whether either will actually be built? And Canadian crude oil port terminals on its Pacific coast are loading significant quantities of crude oil for transport to California refineries, so that helps. And if a second Canadian crude oil pipeline from the Alberta oil fields to the Canadian Pacific coast is built as planned, that will help even more.
Pogo says
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w3E3eFMsLg
Laurel says
“Jeffrey David Sachs is an American economist and public policy analyst. He is a professor at Columbia University, at which he was formerly director of The Earth Institute and currently director of the Center for Sustainable Development.”
– Wikipedia
Many of you are familiar with Jeffery Sachs. Y’all need to take a few minutes and hear what he has to say. So many keep referring to “common sense” yet I see very little of it. Let’s face reality. It’s time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJUr7YiHfsM
Ray W. says
A short-while ago, I commented about Base Power, an Austin-based Texas startup that wants to profit from recharging home batteries using wholesale electricity purchased when prices are comparatively low and then selling electricity drained from the same home batteries back into the wholesale grid when prices are comparatively high. The company will also sell electricity to participating homeowners at nine cents per kilowatt-hour.
I decided to check further.
ERCOT maintains a “Grid and Market Condition Chart” that is updated every five minutes.
At 9:01 am CT, the ERCOT grid had a combined overall generating capacity of approximately 170,000 MW, if every last power plant is operating at maximum output.
Some 15,000 MW of the grid’s fossil fuel generating capacity was off-line due to either “forced” outages necessitating repair or scheduled outages for maintenance; almost all of today’s outages are due to forced outages.
At 9:01 am CT, total generating capacity, with some of the total on standby awaiting a command to start up, was 102,949 MW. Actual grid demand at that time was 67,881 MW.
At 9:00 am CT, a time of low demand, wholesale electricity was selling for $20.93 per MW-hour.
At 8:00 pm CT, a time of likely peak demand, the projected price per MW-hour will be $123.55.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
The business model is to buy a lot of electricity low, provide some of what you buy at a low set price to participating homeowners, and then later sell the rest high. It strikes me that if the company can buy a lot of energy at under $25 per MW-hour and then sell some, but not all of it, at a fixed nine cents per MW-hour, and then sell the rest of it at over $120 per MW-hour, there just might be a lot of room for profit.
Don’t get me wrong. Texas is currently under a major heat dome right now. Heat domes act like a lid on a pot holding in heat. Wind slows. Grid demand might set a record high today. Opportunity for profit today may be as good as it gets. In mild weather conditions during March and April or October and November, opportunities for significant profit will likely be fewer. These mild days are when renewables power almost all of the seasonally-low ERCOT grid demand.
Ray W. says
Per an Oil Price US story, “first gas” from a natural gas shale basin located near Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, named the Beetaloo Basin, has been extracted. Hoped to rival in size the huge American Marcellus shale formation, recoverable natural gas reserves in the Beetaloo may be as much as 500 trillion cubic feet.
As an aside, the today’s landed price for a cubic foot of natural gas (one million BTUs) on the Asian market with delivery to either Japan or South Korea in October is $22.61. Landed price is defined as the all-in delivery price, including costs of extraction, costs of pipeline transport, costs of liquefaction, costs of LNG tanker transport and costs of regassification at the final delivery point. In comparison, today’s landed price for delivery of a cubic foot of compressed natural gas to the Henry Hub, a facility located in Louisiana, is between $2.79-$2.82. Quite a difference.
The reporter writes of the Beetaloo Basin eventually reaching output of as much as one billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, enough to add roughly nine percent to Australia’s existing liquified natural gas export production, though the associated infrastructure needed to reach that new daily export quantity, including liquefaction capacity, has yet to be built. The company that opened America’s first liquefaction train in the lower-48 states, Cheniere Energy, took seven years from permitting to buildout.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
I have to wonder whether the coming and potentially huge supply of exportable Australian natural gas will, in time, cut into existing American LNG exports to Southeast Asia or Japan or South Korea or China. A number of new American LNG export facilities are already under construction but will they be needed if new natural gas basins are exploited all over the world. Another huge natural gas basin spans the Persian Gulf into both Oman and Iran. Australia, Cyprus, Argentina, India and a number of other nations are searching for natural gas basins, with some efforts using newly-certified deep-water drilling equipment designed after the Deepwater Horizon ecological disaster.