During the recent heat and thick smoke event here in the Lake Erie area of Ohio, I spent some time looking at the Air Quality Index website (AirNow.gov) which is a great site to refer to if you have concerns about being able to breathe during such events. One feature is an interactive map showing where fires are located across the country and in Canada as well as their size and status in being fought. It struck me how many states have ongoing multiple fires right now and one that particularly surprised me is Florida. There are ongoing fires all over the state! Same with many other states in the US not in the usual California and northwestern states of the US that get most of the media attention. Seems to me the US is producing a lot of its own smoke so they should not be pointing fingers at Canada for all the blame, especially since we are responsible for most of the damage to the atmosphere to blame for the fires in the first place. It takes a lot of water to fight wildfires. People who have suffered through years of drought where their wells went dry know exactly what it’s like to suddenly have no water and now the rich and incessantly greedy are going to not only kill us financially with AI, but they’re going to steal one thing we can’t survive without and that’s water.
It all boils down to greed with the already obscenely filthy rich money grubbers. What do they care? They don’t have to deal with the foul disasters they create. They’ll go live somewhere nicer. We tax payers are being financially raped in every possible way while the prostitutes in Congress take bribes in the form of donations to legislate tax loopholes and incentives to these developers that we also have to pay for as well as the real physical and financial ruin they cost to the people living with resulting drought problems, higher electric bills, and cost of living.
It is shocking to see how many of these data centers there already are across the country. And who benefits? How many people have already lost jobs, homes, water, had property devalued by the greed of the same culprits who brought us the financial disasters of the past 20 years? How many of us lost big chunks of our retirement packages because of those greedy crooks? Now we’re blamed for not saving enough for retirement? I feel I’m owed about $100K plus interest because of them and their greed just in retirement losses alone. Now we’re having to worry about running out of water and the resulting financial ruin from that and now they have gutted Medicaid and are about to do the same to Medicare too because corporations don’t like having to contribute to SS withholding every payday. Oh how those billionaires must suffer! We need to stop all government tax incentives, subsidies, deductions, breaks, and corporate campaign donations. Enough!
Kinda makes you understand why Maximillian Robespierre thought the solution was cutting the heads off rich people ... (Of course be careful what you wish for.)
Does the share button work anymore? I click on my articles or others, PC or phone. Nothing happens. If I do a refresh, then the share dialogue pops up.
It's behind a soft paywall that can be finessed. Wants me to turn of my ad blocker (LOL). I can do that, and while the page is loading turn Ad Block Plus back on. I used to do that but I'm kind of done with it. If you won't let me read it for free, I'll just walk on by. If I can't read that article, I'll find the same information in another one that's free. Individual nuggets of data and text in the digital age no longer have any intrinsic value.
I'm hard with Cory Doctorow and the CopyLeft movement.
I 💙 that I can like this with a blue heart. But more than anything who in their right mind would vote for a politician bought by tech industries supportive of building dozens of data centers in “pristine” real estate in protected wildlife areas, ocean front and beaches, that would drive up electricity costs, noise pollution and levels, and take valuable water resources. I support David Jolly for Governor of FL and I live in IL. FL voters do not need to support the data centers’ takeover of natural resources
Preach it, Rick. I’m a 6th generation Floridian who moved back after retirement to deep red Dixie County to take care of my 94 year old mother (5th generation Floridian), along with my sister who also moved back. Even here they don’t want Data Centers. I grew up on the Suwannee River and now it’s low, the springs are all low, and we’re in a drought. People’s wells are drying up. In our neighboring county (Taylor), they’re fighting the data centers along with the Koch Brothers company who once again want to massively pollute the Fenholloway River. Byron Daniels and his cronies are just the modern day carpetbaggers who came to rape Florida. And thanks to our government, they’re letting them.
I'm getting pretty impatient for the closeted gay / degenerate stuff to come out. We can't all dine out on hints forever. What this guy Byron Donalds into, anyway?
I'm hoping it involves a 55-gallon drum of kidney suet like in one of the adventures described in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 ;)
Sorry, Rick, I don't get why anyone wants to move to Florida. Or any other red state, for that matter. Not just old folk, but young families, knowing that the historical reputation of Florida public education is horrendous. Let's not talk about 'private' primary education. Let's see, "If Jesus had six Denars, and Judas had thirty, who was the greater?"
I remember Florida long before you were born. When Sanibel Island was 'pristine' and the accommodations were simple single story motels, owned by some guy who actually lived there and worked it himself. I remember 'space coast' when you could rent a place along US-1 and walk across it to fish on the banks of the Indian River. I remember tourist traps where huge numbers of mega-gators congregated because they got a free meal in order to amaze the tourists. I've been to Florida once since those days, and that was still a half century ago, and went to Orlando, not for visit the 'newly opened' Disney World, but friends who had moved there for do graduate work.
Now I'm very environmentally inclined. There is absolutely nothing positive about the consumptive aspects of data centers for physical needs. But what about the consumption of data? They can't get enough. The Post Office sells it to them, the state and counties sell it to them, the credit card companies sell it to them, Amazon sells it to them, let alone the grocery and box stores. What people need to ask themselves is "How much privacy, and safety, do I have left?" All the data centers are there to do is collect data on people, not corporations. Then sell the massaged data on to someone else, all without any responsibility of how it will be used.
Skynet would be a breeze compared to the world the Tech Bros are creating so they can live in multiple Ultra Mega Mansions in multiple countries which they fly to in one of their personal jets. It's not about the betterment of anything, except their bank accounts and their massive egos. And the government continues to indemnify them in order to promote 'growth'.
Wow. That ad is brutal. I love it!! Dems should be running a version of that in every single state. Because no one, and I mean NO ONE, wants data centers. Her in rural VA, mayoral candidates, REPUBLICAN candidates, all are running on “no data centers here” platforms.
Also, pregnant pigs?
I lived in Tampa in the late 60’s - dad was stationed at McDill while training on a new jet before going to Vietnam. I have hated to watch the state sell itself off to crooks and assholes. Floridians deserve better.
OK...another Virginian...howdy 4legsgood, from one from the western part of the state! I'm not sure in which rural area of Virginia you live. However, here in the Western part citizens are fighting madly to keep a Google Data center from gulping water - 2 million gallons a day with the Authority authorizing Google to use up to 11 million gallons - from the Western Virginia Water Authority reservoirs.
I'm in Arizona and spent this past Monday in 100 plus heat protesting in front of my city council building against a data center the council is trying to sneak by. Arizona also has been sold off to outside interests by the rapacious GOP.
During the recent heat and thick smoke event here in the Lake Erie area of Ohio, I spent some time looking at the Air Quality Index website (AirNow.gov) which is a great site to refer to if you have concerns about being able to breathe during such events. One feature is an interactive map showing where fires are located across the country and in Canada as well as their size and status in being fought. It struck me how many states have ongoing multiple fires right now and one that particularly surprised me is Florida. There are ongoing fires all over the state! Same with many other states in the US not in the usual California and northwestern states of the US that get most of the media attention. Seems to me the US is producing a lot of its own smoke so they should not be pointing fingers at Canada for all the blame, especially since we are responsible for most of the damage to the atmosphere to blame for the fires in the first place. It takes a lot of water to fight wildfires. People who have suffered through years of drought where their wells went dry know exactly what it’s like to suddenly have no water and now the rich and incessantly greedy are going to not only kill us financially with AI, but they’re going to steal one thing we can’t survive without and that’s water.
It all boils down to greed with the already obscenely filthy rich money grubbers. What do they care? They don’t have to deal with the foul disasters they create. They’ll go live somewhere nicer. We tax payers are being financially raped in every possible way while the prostitutes in Congress take bribes in the form of donations to legislate tax loopholes and incentives to these developers that we also have to pay for as well as the real physical and financial ruin they cost to the people living with resulting drought problems, higher electric bills, and cost of living.
It is shocking to see how many of these data centers there already are across the country. And who benefits? How many people have already lost jobs, homes, water, had property devalued by the greed of the same culprits who brought us the financial disasters of the past 20 years? How many of us lost big chunks of our retirement packages because of those greedy crooks? Now we’re blamed for not saving enough for retirement? I feel I’m owed about $100K plus interest because of them and their greed just in retirement losses alone. Now we’re having to worry about running out of water and the resulting financial ruin from that and now they have gutted Medicaid and are about to do the same to Medicare too because corporations don’t like having to contribute to SS withholding every payday. Oh how those billionaires must suffer! We need to stop all government tax incentives, subsidies, deductions, breaks, and corporate campaign donations. Enough!
Kinda makes you understand why Maximillian Robespierre thought the solution was cutting the heads off rich people ... (Of course be careful what you wish for.)
David Jolley needs to shout this from the rooftops!
Does the share button work anymore? I click on my articles or others, PC or phone. Nothing happens. If I do a refresh, then the share dialogue pops up.
Can you confirm this with your share button?
Well, here's a timely article relative to the data center debate from Reuters yesterday I just read...
'Massive disconnect of power roils largest US electric grid'
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/massive-disconnect-power-roiled-largest-us-electric-grid-2026-07-22/
A harbinger of (other) things to come...?
It's behind a soft paywall that can be finessed. Wants me to turn of my ad blocker (LOL). I can do that, and while the page is loading turn Ad Block Plus back on. I used to do that but I'm kind of done with it. If you won't let me read it for free, I'll just walk on by. If I can't read that article, I'll find the same information in another one that's free. Individual nuggets of data and text in the digital age no longer have any intrinsic value.
I'm hard with Cory Doctorow and the CopyLeft movement.
I think it would be splendid to surround Naples with Data Centers so Rick Scott and Donalds have to listen to them all night and all day.
The noise was the best part of the ad. Git 'em, git em, Rick!
I 💙 that I can like this with a blue heart. But more than anything who in their right mind would vote for a politician bought by tech industries supportive of building dozens of data centers in “pristine” real estate in protected wildlife areas, ocean front and beaches, that would drive up electricity costs, noise pollution and levels, and take valuable water resources. I support David Jolly for Governor of FL and I live in IL. FL voters do not need to support the data centers’ takeover of natural resources
The Bible says we should be good stewards of the Earth's bounty.
Byron Donalds' Jesus operates a strip mining backhoe.
You also have Orlando's Airport terminal. Beautiful. Built into a hotel. Why didn't anyone else think of this?
Thank you for the article, Mr. Wilson. A drug dealer and one who thinks democrats are terriost.
All you have to do to mock the grotesquerie at the heart of his candidacy with the least effort possible is to spell his name Byron Donald's ;)
Preach it, Rick. I’m a 6th generation Floridian who moved back after retirement to deep red Dixie County to take care of my 94 year old mother (5th generation Floridian), along with my sister who also moved back. Even here they don’t want Data Centers. I grew up on the Suwannee River and now it’s low, the springs are all low, and we’re in a drought. People’s wells are drying up. In our neighboring county (Taylor), they’re fighting the data centers along with the Koch Brothers company who once again want to massively pollute the Fenholloway River. Byron Daniels and his cronies are just the modern day carpetbaggers who came to rape Florida. And thanks to our government, they’re letting them.
I'm getting pretty impatient for the closeted gay / degenerate stuff to come out. We can't all dine out on hints forever. What this guy Byron Donalds into, anyway?
I'm hoping it involves a 55-gallon drum of kidney suet like in one of the adventures described in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 ;)
Let’s put a data center in Donnie’s backyard since he seems to like them.
Sorry, Rick, I don't get why anyone wants to move to Florida. Or any other red state, for that matter. Not just old folk, but young families, knowing that the historical reputation of Florida public education is horrendous. Let's not talk about 'private' primary education. Let's see, "If Jesus had six Denars, and Judas had thirty, who was the greater?"
I remember Florida long before you were born. When Sanibel Island was 'pristine' and the accommodations were simple single story motels, owned by some guy who actually lived there and worked it himself. I remember 'space coast' when you could rent a place along US-1 and walk across it to fish on the banks of the Indian River. I remember tourist traps where huge numbers of mega-gators congregated because they got a free meal in order to amaze the tourists. I've been to Florida once since those days, and that was still a half century ago, and went to Orlando, not for visit the 'newly opened' Disney World, but friends who had moved there for do graduate work.
Now I'm very environmentally inclined. There is absolutely nothing positive about the consumptive aspects of data centers for physical needs. But what about the consumption of data? They can't get enough. The Post Office sells it to them, the state and counties sell it to them, the credit card companies sell it to them, Amazon sells it to them, let alone the grocery and box stores. What people need to ask themselves is "How much privacy, and safety, do I have left?" All the data centers are there to do is collect data on people, not corporations. Then sell the massaged data on to someone else, all without any responsibility of how it will be used.
Skynet would be a breeze compared to the world the Tech Bros are creating so they can live in multiple Ultra Mega Mansions in multiple countries which they fly to in one of their personal jets. It's not about the betterment of anything, except their bank accounts and their massive egos. And the government continues to indemnify them in order to promote 'growth'.
Spoken like a true conservation voter and I used to work the League of Conservation Voters.
Conservationism is neither left nor right, but aspects of both.
Protecting Byron's Ass Act/Data Center Donalds👍👏👏
Wow. That ad is brutal. I love it!! Dems should be running a version of that in every single state. Because no one, and I mean NO ONE, wants data centers. Her in rural VA, mayoral candidates, REPUBLICAN candidates, all are running on “no data centers here” platforms.
Also, pregnant pigs?
I lived in Tampa in the late 60’s - dad was stationed at McDill while training on a new jet before going to Vietnam. I have hated to watch the state sell itself off to crooks and assholes. Floridians deserve better.
OK...another Virginian...howdy 4legsgood, from one from the western part of the state! I'm not sure in which rural area of Virginia you live. However, here in the Western part citizens are fighting madly to keep a Google Data center from gulping water - 2 million gallons a day with the Authority authorizing Google to use up to 11 million gallons - from the Western Virginia Water Authority reservoirs.
I'm in Arizona and spent this past Monday in 100 plus heat protesting in front of my city council building against a data center the council is trying to sneak by. Arizona also has been sold off to outside interests by the rapacious GOP.