No Kings 4: Oct 17th

 

COMING: 

NO KINGS 4: FAIRBANKS VOTE EARLY

OCT 17TH

NOON TO 2:00 PM

Fairbanks Municipal Voting has Started

 

When: Early voting begins at the Noel Wien

Library on Monday and ends Oct. 1. Election Day

is Oct. 6

Where: Find your polling place here:

https://bit.ly/4rjFhsa 

Why: Learn where candidates stand on issues

facing our community at 

https://bit.ly/4y0ZMfT

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ENDORSEMENTS FROM PLANNED PARENTHOOD:

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Interior Democrats Candidate

Endorsements:

As voting gets underway, we want to reiterate the candidates

endorsed by the Interior Democrats for this fall’s elections. We

are endorsing Mary Peltola, Bill Hill, and JKT.

October 6 Municipal Election

• Scott Crass — Borough Assembly

• Nick LaJiness — Borough Assembly

• Alexis Howell — Borough Assembly

• Sean Holland — School Board

• Tim Doran — School Board

• Tom Allen — City Council

November 3 General Election

• Crystal Jones — House District 36

• William Hunt — Senate District Q

• Rep. Ashley Carrick — House District 35

• Rep. Maxine Dibert — House District 31

• Joy Beth Cottle — House District 34

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Don't Vote for the Fake Democrat!

 

Heads up: A candidate on your ballot does not live in Alaska, has never been to Alaska, and intentionally runs in elections across the country from his place in federal prison to pull votes away from progressive candidates.


🚫 Eric Hafner is a fake “Democrat” in federal prison in New York. Hafner has never even been to Alaska.


⭐️ Nonpartisan Bill Hill is the only candidate endorsed by the Alaska Democratic Party. Bill is a fisherman, teacher, and lifelong Alaskan running for Congress to bring down healthcare and fuel costs.


👉🏻 Why this matters: Not everyone knows the details and are simply voting by the letter next to someone's name.


🌟 Call to action: copy and paste this to a friend and let them know: Don’t vote for an outside spoiler candidate who can’t do the job from prison in New York, vote Alaskan Bill Hill for Congress!

I asked ChatGPT how to solve the Data Center Problem: This is What it Said--

 

WHAT TO DO ABOUT DATA CENTERS. 

I asked Chatgpt how to solve the problems created by so many new Data Centers, and this is what it said.

Deseradi, 8/24/26




There is a lot of anger right now against data centers because they use so much electricity and water that sometimes the cost of electricity goes up and the water becomes bad for humans. How real is this problem in the US? And how can it be solved?

Yes. The problem is real, but the strongest version of the claim—“data centers are making electricity and drinking water unaffordable everywhere”—is too broad. The impacts are highly local. In some communities, especially places with constrained electric grids or scarce water, the effects can be substantial. In others, a new data center may have relatively little effect on household bills or water supplies.

What has changed recently is the scale and speed of construction, particularly for AI. The numbers are large enough that this is no longer just a theoretical environmental concern.

1. Electricity: this is probably the more immediate national problem


Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's 2025 update estimates that U.S. data centers could consume 11.8% of all U.S. electricity by 2030, with a plausible range of 9.5%–15.3%. That is an enormous increase from about 4.4% in 2023.

And the problem isn't simply the amount of electricity. It's where and when the electricity is needed.

A giant AI data center can suddenly add hundreds of megawatts of demand to a local grid. If the grid doesn't have enough generation or transmission capacity, somebody has to pay for:

new power plants
transmission lines
substations
distribution infrastructure
grid upgrades
additional reserve capacity

This is already happening. The EIA says data centers are driving much of the current growth in U.S. electricity demand, with particularly rapid growth in Texas and the PJM region. Its modeling found that unusually rapid demand growth could push Texas's 2027 wholesale electricity price 79% above its baseline forecast.

PJM, which serves much of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, is also facing rapidly increasing demand and has projected roughly 70 GW of additional demand by 2038, much of it from large new energy users such as data centers.

So when residents say:

"Why should my electric bill go up because Amazon/Google/Microsoft wants to build an AI factory?"

That is a legitimate policy question.

And there is an important distinction here: a data center doesn't inherently have to raise residential rates. It raises rates when the utility's rate structure or regulatory decisions allow some of the infrastructure costs to be shifted onto ordinary customers.


2. Water: also real, but much more geographically dependent

The water issue is somewhat different.

Data centers use water primarily because computers generate enormous amounts of heat. Traditional evaporative cooling can consume substantial quantities of water.

A recent USGS synthesis notes that a 100-MW data center can consume around 2 million gallons of water per day, although actual consumption varies enormously with the cooling system and climate.

And some of that water is genuinely consumed, rather than merely withdrawn and returned. Water evaporated during cooling doesn't go back into the local water system.

The problem becomes particularly serious when a data center is put somewhere like:

Arizona
Nevada
parts of Texas
Southern California
other drought-prone regions

rather than somewhere with abundant water.

A 2026 study found that data-center cooling could require an additional 697 million to 1.45 billion gallons of peak water capacity per day nationwide by 2030 under some scenarios. Importantly, the researchers emphasize that the burden would be highly concentrated in the communities hosting the facilities.

That's a crucial point.
The national average can be misleading.

Suppose data centers consume a relatively modest percentage of America's total water.

That doesn't mean much to a town whose water system is already operating near capacity and suddenly has a customer wanting hundreds of thousands or millions of gallons a day.

It's analogous to electricity:
Nationally: perhaps manageable.
Locally: potentially enormous.


3. But there is an important misconception about "ruining the water"

I'm more cautious about the claim that data centers generally make water "bad for humans."

That's not normally what happens.

The bigger concern is depletion and competition for water, rather than a data center routinely contaminating a community's drinking-water supply.

Cooling systems can produce wastewater containing concentrated minerals and treatment chemicals, and poorly managed discharge can create environmental problems.

But the much more common concern is:

"Is this facility consuming water that our community cannot afford to lose?"

That's a very different problem from:

"Is this facility poisoning our drinking water?"

The first is a significant and growing issue in some locations. The second should not be generalized to data centers as a whole.




4. The really interesting thing is that many of these problems are solvable

I don't think the appropriate response is:

"Stop building data centers."

Nor do I think the appropriate response is:

"Build as many as the technology companies want and let taxpayers deal with the consequences."

There is a much better middle ground.
I would establish a basic principle:
If a data center creates a substantial new infrastructure requirement, the data center—not existing residential customers—should pay the incremental cost.

That single principle could dramatically change the economics.

For example, suppose:

Company wants a 1-GW data center.

The utility determines that it requires:

$600 million in transmission upgrades
$300 million in substations
$400 million in additional generation
$100 million in other infrastructure

The company shouldn't simply be allowed to connect to the existing system and have those costs spread among millions of households.

The new load should pay its proportional share.

Pennsylvania's new rules are moving in this direction: the state is requiring data centers to address their power costs and environmental impacts more directly.


5. I would also require "full-cost" electricity contracts

This is perhaps the most important reform.

A data center should have a special electricity rate reflecting:

Generation + transmission + distribution + capacity + grid upgrades + reliability costs.

And there should be a requirement that the contract is long enough to protect the utility and its other customers if the data center shuts down.

Otherwise you can end up with a situation where:

Data center arrives → utility builds enormous infrastructure → data center later leaves → ordinary ratepayers are left paying for it.

That's backwards.

The risk should primarily belong to the company creating the extraordinary demand.



6. Require data centers to bring new power—not just consume existing power

This is another potentially powerful solution.

For very large facilities, I would require the developer to demonstrate where its electricity is coming from.

For example:

Option A
Build or finance new solar/wind generation plus storage.

Option B
Finance new nuclear generation.

Option C
Enter into long-term contracts for new generation and associated transmission.

Option D
Provide its own generation and storage sufficient to reduce its demands on the grid during emergencies.

The key is that:

Buying a certificate saying "we purchased renewable energy somewhere" shouldn't automatically qualify.

If a data center consumes enormous quantities of electricity from a constrained grid in Virginia while buying renewable-energy credits from a wind farm hundreds of miles away, that doesn't necessarily solve Virginia's capacity problem.


7. Make data centers interruptible during grid emergencies

This is an idea I particularly like.

A household can't easily be told:

"Turn off your refrigerator for three hours."

A hospital can't be told:

"Please shut down."

But an AI data center potentially has much more flexibility.

Some computing workloads can be shifted to another facility or scheduled at another time.

Therefore, large data centers could receive lower electricity rates in exchange for agreeing to reduce their load during grid emergencies.

PJM is already considering mechanisms involving large loads and emergency curtailment.

That could actually make data centers useful to the grid rather than merely a burden on it.



8. Water needs an equivalent system

I'd apply essentially the same principle to water.

Before approving a large data center:
The developer should have to disclose:

maximum gallons/day
average gallons/day
seasonal peak consumption
source of the water
percentage that is potable
percentage that is recycled
wastewater production
expected water consumption during drought
impact on the community's water capacity

And importantly:
Peak demand should matter—not merely annual consumption.

A water system can survive a data center consuming 500,000 gallons/day fairly comfortably if that demand is predictable.

But if it suddenly needs several million gallons on the hottest days of summer, that can require a completely different water infrastructure investment.



9. Don't use drinking water if you don't need drinking water

This is one of the easiest solutions.

Data centers can potentially use:

reclaimed wastewater
treated sewage effluent
industrial water
captured rainwater
closed-loop cooling
air cooling
hybrid cooling systems

rather than municipal drinking water.

Modern cooling technologies can dramatically reduce water consumption, and some new facilities can operate with little or no water for cooling.

The technology isn't the main obstacle.

Economics and regulation are.

If pristine municipal water is cheap, while installing a sophisticated recycling system is expensive, developers have an incentive to use the cheap water.

So government should change the incentives.



10. Here's the policy I'd favor

If I were designing a national framework, I'd establish something like a Data Center Community Impact Standard.

Any data center above a certain size—say 50 or 100 MW—would have to demonstrate five things before receiving approval:

1. Power neutrality
It pays the full incremental cost of generation, transmission, and grid upgrades attributable to it.

2. Water neutrality
It cannot consume more local water capacity than the community can sustainably provide without reducing existing users' reliability.

3. Infrastructure neutrality
It pays for the infrastructure expansion that it causes.

4. Emergency flexibility
It must be capable of reducing electricity consumption during grid emergencies, unless it supplies sufficient independent generation.

5. Transparency
Electricity and water consumption must be publicly reported.

That last one is surprisingly important.

Research published in 2026 points out that data-center water-use reporting remains inadequate, making it difficult for communities to determine the actual consequences of proposed projects.




11. And I'd change the tax-break system

This may be the biggest political issue.

States have been offering enormous tax incentives to attract data centers because they bring investment and property-tax revenue.

But if a community gives a company hundreds of millions of dollars in tax benefits while simultaneously spending hundreds of millions upgrading the electric grid and water system for that company, the economic benefit can be much less impressive than it initially appears.

The better approach is:

No major tax subsidy unless the community can demonstrate a net economic benefit after accounting for infrastructure, electricity, water, environmental and public-service costs.

And the calculation should be public.

No secret agreements.
No nondisclosure agreements hiding the deal from residents.
No assumption that "jobs" automatically make everything worthwhile.



12. There is actually a fascinating opportunity here

The enormous electricity demand of AI could also accelerate America's energy infrastructure, if handled correctly.

The United States needs more:

transmission
nuclear power
solar
wind
geothermal
storage
efficient natural-gas generation
advanced grid management

anyway.

If data-center companies pay for a substantial portion of that new infrastructure, they could effectively become anchor customers financing America's next generation of electricity infrastructure.

That's potentially beneficial.
The danger is allowing the opposite arrangement:
Private company gets the economic benefits while the public absorbs the infrastructure costs.
That's the fundamental issue, in my view.




My bottom line
I'd rate the concerns this way:



Concern
How real?
Biggest problem

Huge electricity consumption
Very real

Rapid local demand growth

Higher electricity prices

Real in some regions

Infrastructure/capacity costs shifted to ratepayers


Grid reliability
Very real

Insufficient generation/transmission


Huge water consumption

Very real in some locations

Local water scarcity


Data centers "using up America's water"
Overstated nationally

Water problems are highly regional
Data centers making drinking water unsafe

Possible locally, but overstated as a general claim
Wastewater/discharge and depletion issues

Data centers inevitably harming communities
No

Depends enormously on location and regulation


Problem can be solved
Yes

Mostly through siting, pricing, technology and regulation

And there's one particularly important conclusion from the recent research:

We shouldn't treat "data centers" as one homogeneous thing.

A 20-MW facility in a water-rich area with closed-loop cooling and abundant generation is a completely different proposition from a 1-GW AI campus in a drought-stricken community whose electric grid is already constrained.

The location and infrastructure arrangement may matter more than the mere existence of the data center.

That's why I think the best policy isn't an outright national ban or moratorium. It is essentially "you can build it, but you must pay your own way and you cannot make the community less able to provide affordable electricity and water to its existing residents."

That principle is increasingly showing up in state policy because the backlash has become politically significant in 2026.

If you'd like, I can also dig into the other side of this question: exactly how much a typical household's electric bill could rise because of a large data center, who actually pays those costs, and which states are doing the best—and worst—job of protecting ordinary ratepayers.

Thank you to those who attended No Kings II rally, and how to keep in the loop

 Greetings!

Thank you for all coming out to the No Kings II rally on Saturday, Oct 18th. When we stand up against the things that are currently happening in this country, people notice. Trump and his office has downplayed the protests but his popularity is lower than ever.

Keep up your efforts to write your elected officials and let them know how you feel (yes, even the Republican ones). It's not a time to be silent.

OTHER PROTESTS AND EVENTS:

Follow current issues and find other protests listed on our protest hub:

https://fbx.rf.gd/?i=1 

GOOD BLOGS TO FOLLOW:

Heather Cox Richardson

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/letters-from-an-american/id1730358737 

Daily Beans 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily-beans/id1473747182 

Rachel Maddow

She also has books that outline historical events leading up to the current time.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rachel-maddow-show/id294055449 

—————————-

TRUSTWORTHY NEWS

For mainstream news, here's a list of how each news outlet stacks up:

Grading the Press

What newspapers get an “A” and which get an “F” on reporting current US news.

https://www.stopthepresses.news/p/im-handing-out-pro-democracy-grades 

———————-

IS MAGA A FASCIST MOVEMENT?

I really liked this thoughtful, sensible video about the origins of fascism and the philosophies behind it. Check this out.

Is MAGA a Fascist movement? Oscar nominated filmmaker Matthew Cook Explains Fascism so you can decide for yourself.

https://substack.com/@lincolnsquare/note/c-160983703?utm_source=notes-share-action 

Thanks for all you do, and keep heart. 

Gandhi is credited with this quote:

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it—always." 

And remember, our resistance must be peaceful in order to retain the moral high ground.

Deseradi

farnorth.indivisible@gmail.com

—----------------------------------------------

Sent via Mobilize to the 19 attendees on 10/20/25

A Crisis Like no Other in our Lifetimes

 

Andrew Coyne of the Toronto Globe and Mail

MJ Taylor 

It takes the courage of a Canadian Journalist to really tell it like it is. Apparently, no journalist in the U.S. has the courage to say these things this clearly: I don't think any US journalist has written as tough (and spot-on) a portrayal of the threat facing us as this Canadian, Andrew Coyne of the Toronto Globe and Mail.

>>Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.

The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.

There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.

The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.

At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric.

At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.

The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.

Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fueled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.

Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.

We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”

Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.

All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.

All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.<<

Posted on FB by The Problem With Jon Stewart

LINK

https://www.facebook.com/?__cft__[0]=AZU5ICsUalR5E5W4DoOJJG_9wZRNLDk4tfmU_jIXiPxOoLJfj1zHr3VuK3CKcuD-1Hh1p_7nuWD3UyvylyU8JGYTHSyiZMY4L_IqWIDxu9zXG_Xxo3hZ-Us_iWJn1oKqoPYUcHvIEgbvS98CforazKP1JH4orodLX7osdMcpejbp0x9S0xQQBmHppP9QSRZ6ziLXUtvmlLJVzsSDM183dqS5cv_6frs_at7qPSScbttbIA&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-y-R#?hif

CBS Cancel's Stephen Colbert's Late Night show

Boooo!

Possibly for Political Reasons?


Following the announcement of the cancellation of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" and the retirement of "The Late Show" franchise in May 2026, several channels are available for viewers to express their concerns and disappointment to CBS.

 
To contact CBS regarding the cancellation, you can use the following methods:

--Online Feedback Form: Fill out a feedback form on the CBS website to submit your message to the appropriate department.
--Phone: Call CBS customer service at + (888) 274-5343 for immediate assistance with your inquiry.
--Social Media: Reach out to CBS via their official accounts on platforms like Twitter (@CBS), Facebook, or Instagram to engage with them directly.

 
If you wish to send a letter to Stephen Colbert, you can address it to him at the Ed Sullivan Theater. You can also reach out to him via his agent, manager, or publicist, with contact information available online.

Some politicians, like Senator Elizabeth Warren, have suggested that the cancellation might be related to political reasons, especially given Colbert's criticism of Paramount's settlement with Donald Trump. If you believe this to be the case, you may consider contacting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to express your concerns about potential political interference in the media.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/18/media/colbert-cbs-late-show-cancel-paramount-trump