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Wednesday’s Forum
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19 responses to “Wednesday’s Forum”
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The pushback against AI and, more specifically, data centers boils down to money. Specifically, who is paying for the power infrastructure and who is getting the benefits. The everyday public just senses that they are going to be hosed.
Anyway, here is an article that goes deeper (much deeper) into the issues about power and the conflict between tech and citizens and state and federal regulators.
A bit of a slog but I found it interesting.
The Political Constraint on America’s Data-Center Power Buildout
Washington has treated the power needed for artificial intelligence mainly as a physical buildout problem. Those constraints are real. But another constraint is forming around who carries the cost and risk of demand that may not arrive.
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Federal regulators and regional grid operators govern the wholesale side of the system, while states largely oversee retail rates and local distribution. No institution has authority spanning both the wholesale treatment of uncertain demand and the retail allocation of its costs. Each can address the part it controls without settling who carries the remaining risk.And that is the core of the problem.
Anyway, a lot more detail on an important issue which goes deeper than our shallow politics.
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It’s much more complicated than the pledge for data center developers to “build, bring, or buy the power they need,” which the administration and big tech companies agreed to earlier this year.
To avoid grid connection issues, many of the projects have been Bypassing the Grid: How Data Center Developers Are Building Their Own Power Plants. But efficiency and environmental protection are not major considerations…
Power generation efficiency is out. Speed to power is all that developers care about. AI data centers can generate $10–12 million per MW annually, or $10–12 billion per GW. Bringing a data center online even a few years early could result in tens of billions in revenue that would otherwise be forgone. In this environment, developers are willing to overlook inefficiencies that could cost millions of dollars.
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I don’t know how all this will work out. But I have some idea who’s making the decisions. Hosed.
My local city commission in FL just adopted a feeze on data center construction, but explicitly not on processing the current application, for 18 months. I read this as a hope the opposition will blow over, or the state or feds will have overriding regulation, by the time they’d have been ready to dig anyway.
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This disaster is not getting enough attention.
Navy not returning to damaged Bahrain base ‘anytime soon,’ top officer says
The Navy’s highest-ranking officer told sailors during a town hall on Monday that it would be a while before the service would return to its main logistics hub in the Middle East after it was heavily damaged early in the Iran war.
Answering a displaced service member’s question about retrieving personal goods from the base they previously called home, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle said the Navy would not be using Naval Support Activity Bahrain for the foreseeable future.
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Retired Navy Capt. John Cordle recently described the loss of NSA Bahrain as having “profound tactical and strategic repercussions.”“The more we learn about the attacks on the U.S. Naval Support Activity in Manama, Bahrain, during the opening days of Operation Epic Fury, the clearer it becomes why the news of its near destruction was not initially reported or acknowledged,” Cordle said.
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And now I’m wondering if this is connected to the stories we have been seeing about long deployments creating problems for sailors aboard ships such as USS Abraham Lincoln
Those ships weren’t getting stuff they would normally get from NSA Bahrain? Maybe there isn’t good alternatives for Greyhounds to cargo up?
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I will try to find the article I read about this a while back–yes, the damage at the logistics hub is absolutely why the ships weren’t being supplied.
It was almost immediately a logistical problem, and instead of fixing the supply chain, the Fox News Weekend Anchor chose to focus his attention on firing more people, etc. He is truly incompetent.
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Big tech giants booked a more than $160bn windfall last quarter from investments in other AI companies, flattering their earnings and raising concerns that paper gains are overstating the strength of the AI boom. Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia and Microsoft all reported substantial boosts to their pre-tax profits in their most recent results from the ‘other income’ line in their accounts, which largely comes from valuation gains on equity stakes in other leading AI companies. These one-off valuation boosts, derived in large part from enthusiasm around AI, risk distorting the financial picture at a time when investors are closely scrutinising tech earnings to gauge the health of the AI ecosystem. “A couple of years ago investors started to ask about the circularity of [Big Tech] revenues,” said Ben Snider, chief US equities strategist at Goldman Sachs. The profit boost from AI investments now “raises the question of whether the growth these companies are reporting is based on underlying demand or if it is misleading in some way,” he added.
From a piece in FT.
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Cruelty is the point of the current regime’s policies. Therefore, it should be no surprise that a young Haitian man killed himself after his TPS standing was revoked and he was forced to wear an ankle monitor.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/springfield-ohio-haitian
https://youtu.be/UzhqIMKhq1I?is=0JTrAzA6eensX-jPThis is one of the victims we can see, because he had friends and family. He had a public life where he shared his graduation, his time in JROTC, his first day at college, his soccer team, his ambitions for becoming a neurologist. There are other human beings we don’t see, because they are imprisoned, suffering even greater levels of cruelty.
In another thread this morning, I highlighted how fascists delight in their contempt for the weak. It would be instructive to see how people are talking about this suicide at the fascist watering holes online.
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I found it interesting that Putin supports Iran in its current situation vis-a-vis the USA. https://www.cfpublic.org/2026-09-02/putin-signals-support-for-iran-in-ongoing-war-with-the-u-s
We should rename the Caspian sea the American Sea. -
One thing I did not realize prior to reading it in Politico…that mid-term “convention” Trump is throwing in Dallas? He’s apparently CHARGING Republican lawmakers to attend.
“The 45 Republicans cited a variety of reasons for skipping the first midterm convention put on by a major party in more than four decades. Some cited prior obligations such as fundraisers or events in their districts that were planned before the convention was scheduled in June. Others had personal conflicts, like weddings and family events, and still others raised qualms about the five-figure-minimum fees that party officials want attending lawmakers to pony up.”
Good. Grief.
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Again, I will point out that we have a spare Dakota, a spare Carolina, a spare Virginia and we don’t really use our Wyoming. The Palestinians want to stay where they are*, but we can make a Jewish homeland in one of our spares if Israeli Jews really want to be separated.
I think West Virginia has real potential, as I think banjo and klezmer might create some truly unique and beautiful sounds together. And possum and falafel is a classic. Only one of those statements was a joke.
We can bring over a little dirt for the whole “God gave this land to the tribe of Israel” stuff. If a wire around a neighborhood can be a “wall**,” then a few handfuls of dirt can be the “land.”
*: perhaps someone could pay the Palestinians to want to leave. 8M Palestinians, give them $1M each, and that’s only $8T. Many countries that would otherwise balk at accepting refugees would be far less reluctant to accept millionaire immigrants.
**: walls can have doors and openings. If you keep expanding the size of the door, you just have doorframes abutting each other. And isn’t a couple of poles sticking out of the ground with a wire between them a door frame?
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Didn’t Sheldon Cooper try something like this already?
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I’m sure glad I’m retired.
In his July 15, 2026, memorandum, “Health and Human Performance Optimization to Enhance Military Readiness,” the Secretary of War directed mandatory testosterone deficiency screenings for all Service members aged 30 and older during their Periodic Health Assessments, with optional screenings available for warfighters under the age of 30.
Consistent with this memorandum, on September 2, 2026, the Director of the Defense Health Agency issued comprehensive clinical guidance to the Military Departments and medical care providers. Effective immediately, this guidance addresses both male testosterone deficiency and female hormonal optimization. It establishes uniform screening and treatment pathways across the DHA enterprise. It also underscores the availability of clinical training for all primary care providers and assigns responsibility for compliance.
Do I really want to know the difference between male testosterone deficiency and female hormonal optimization?
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