At the heart of the European Union, Belgium exemplifies better than perhaps any other Western European country the extent to which political elites seem to almost relish the degree to which Europe is being Islamized.

In July 2026, Israel’s Channel 12 News aired a report warning that Hamas terrorists, including high-ranking members of the organization’s Al-Qassam Brigades, now live in Antwerp — some of whom, according to local Gazans opposed to Hamas, are receiving Belgian citizenship.

“Little Gaza,” as the neighborhood in northern Antwerp is called in the report, has a large population of Gazans from Khan Younis, a major Hamas stronghold. Hamas-linked residents there traffic in illegal narcotics, run shops and restaurants, and send the proceeds to Hamas in Gaza, according to the interviewed Gazans, who only dared speak anonymously out of fear of revenge from local Hamas supporters.

“You feel as if you are visiting Palestine”, one Arab said. The local baker, who sells only Gazan specialties, agreed that walking on that street was like “walking in Khan Younis.”

According to the Channel 12 report:

“In little Gaza in the heart of Antwerp you get the scent of the Strip, literally. From restaurants… to shops and supermarkets, most business owners come from Khan Younis. The names of the stores also reflect the character of the immigrants here: From ‘Haifa market’ on the way to ‘Rafah Market’, and, of course, ‘Al Quds….’

“Some people here in the street support Hamas, they are also from Gaza. Others say it’s a terrorist organization. But no one dares to say that out loud, because they know that this terrorist organization can get anybody through their people, who are also here…voices against Hamas are only a whisper in Gaza because of fear from the threats of the terrorist organization. But the strange thing is that they are also afraid here in Antwerp, in Belgium, in Europe…”

The journalist, an Israeli, asked a Gazan whether he personally knew anyone from Hamas living in Antwerp. The man responded:

“The man who investigated me when I was in Israel is in Antwerp…and now has a Belgian citizenship. He was even a leader in Hamas in the regiment of Din Al-Qassam… he collects money…. all these businesses they [Hamas] opened here. Donations are collected through banks. They have businesses here, they have drugs.”

“They send money to Hamas and support them,” said another local Gazan. He mentioned fundraisers for the children of Gaza as one way to drive donations.

“Europe should wake up. If they remain silent it will be destroyed from within. It is almost already destroyed. If Europe does not wake up and prosecute these people… these people are not only Hamas. These people are against freedom, against democracy, against secularism, they are against the basic principles of the country they live in.”

Belgian politicians, however, do not appear particularly bothered by this increasing political, cultural and demographic threat. After the report was issued, Belgian federal MP Sam van Rooy, who also serves as a representative in the Antwerp City Council for the Vlaams Belang party, requested a city council emergency session, but could not find enough votes to get one.

According to Van Rooy:

“This particularly worrying report shows that Hamas members and terrorists not only live in Antwerp and operate shops and restaurants, but also sponsor Hamas in Gaza and threaten opponents of Hamas,” They have no place in our city and must be tracked down, detained, and deported.”

No meeting was held; no other party found it necessary.

This indifference to the security of the local Christian and Jewish communities, the city and country at large, is particularly jarring after documentation exposed that Hamas was planning an October 7-style mass attack against Jewish and Israeli targets in Europe, scheduled to coincide with the second anniversary of the October 7, 2023 atrocities.

Already in February 2024, Belgium’s Minister of Justice Paul Van Tigchelt confirmed that Belgian authorities are fully cognizant of Hamas’ activities in the country. He implicitly made it quite clear that no one could care less. “So far, we know that Hamas is active in Belgium through various companies. The activities (…) focus on lobbying and fundraising,” he remarked at the time.

Hamas, in fact, has much more than shops and restaurants in Belgium. It has front companies operating next to the European Commission and the EU Council.

Perhaps one might argue that the Belgian government, which has shown itself to be extremely anti-Israel, does not care that Hamas raises funds in the country: the victims are “only” Israelis and Jews. So far.

Europe’s status, however, has changed. German Federal Prosecutor General Jens Rommel – whose office has been arranging the arrests of nine of the Hamas suspects behind the European October 7 terrorist plot – warned in June that Europe no longer mainly serves as a place where terrorist organizations generate funds to finance their terrorism.

“Rather, Germany and other European countries are now increasingly being viewed as operational areas for possible attacks. This becomes particularly evident in the case of Hamas. To prepare attacks in Europe, their foreign operatives, sympathizers, or individuals connected to organized crime acquire and smuggle weapons. They often hold European citizenship, or residence permits within the Schengen Area, allowing them to move freely. They are highly mobile and extensively networked, and some possess significant financial resources.”

In Belgium, however, such concerns seem to play no role whatsoever. In 2024, the country received half of all Palestinian asylum applications submitted in the entire EU. In that year alone, 3,281 Palestinians were granted formal refugee status by Belgium.

A Hamas terrorist from Khan Yunis, Mohannad al-Khatib, who participated in the October 7, 2023 massacre but calls himself as a freelance journalist, was able freely to enter Belgium to claim asylum there. Belgian authorities were only alerted to his terrorist background because the Antwerp-based Jewish Information and Documentation Center (JID) compiled information about him appearing in footage inside or near Israeli territory during the Hamas invasion.

Ralph Pais, vice-chair of JID, said:

“It is incomprehensible that volunteers and citizens could identify this man through open sources, while our security services apparently never noticed him. The material clearly shows that he filmed the violence, applauded it, and openly expresses support for Hamas, rocket attacks, and martyrdom.

“Anyone in Europe who wants to protect synagogues, schools, churches, metros, or events has every interest in ensuring that terrorists do not enter unnoticed. This is not a Jewish problem, but a European problem. We demand full transparency about how such individuals gained access to Europe, and immediate security checks by the competent authorities.”

Although Al-Khatib’s application was ultimately rejected by Belgium, he remained in the country — where he apparently continues to live — and is free to travel throughout the EU. Nobody cares.

Twice already, Hamas has thanked Belgium for its support. Perhaps Belgium and other countries that align with and harbor terrorist groups should be viewed as security threats to Europe?

Robert Williams, Gatestone Institute

Libertarian commentator and self-described internet troll was arrested at the airport in New Orleans after “failing to show up for his immigration hearing” in July, according to DHS.

Milo Yiannopoulos, a self-described libertarian and professional internet troll who became known for his controversial right-wing political views, is in ICE custody.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told NBC News that ICE arrested Yiannopoulos, a United Kingdom national, on Thursday at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport in Kenner, Louisiana.

The DHS spokesperson said Yiannopoulos legally entered the U.S. on May 14, 2019, through New York City, but then “chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws.”

Yiannopoulos was taken into ICE custody Thursday after “failing to show up for his immigration hearing” on July 22, prompting an immigration judge to issue a final order of removal against him, according to the spokesperson. “He will remain in ICE custody pending removal,” the spokesperson added.

TMZ first reported Yiannopoulos’ ICE arrest.

Yiannopoulos has ties to Kanye West, known now as Ye, and previously served as the rapper’s chief of staff when Ye tried to run for president in 2020 and 2024. He also worked at Ye’s clothing brand Yeezy, but resigned from that job two years ago after the singer announced he was launching an adult entertainment studio under his Yeezy brand, TMZ reported.

Ye is scheduled to perform in Louisiana Friday night at the New Orleans Caesars Superdome. It’s unclear whether Yiannopoulos was in the state to attend the concert.

A former editor for Breitbart, the conservative internet publication President Donald Trump once considered one of his favorite news sources, Yiannopoulos resigned from the role in 2017 amid backlash to his reported comments about teens and sexual abuse.

The DHS spokesperson said that the Trump administration is “working diligently to ensure that aliens in our country illegally can no longer fly unless it is out of our country to self-deport.”

Nicole Acevedo, NBC News

Earlier this month the California Democrat Party held a vote to endorse the California billionaire tax which is on the ballot in November. As I described here, it was a surprisingly close vote which failed when it first came up and barely passed on a second attempt.

The pitched and often emotional vote over Proposition 40 exposed deep fissures in the state party over how to respond to growing grassroots anger over wealth inequality. And the endorsement, which narrowly failed to clear the 60% threshold on its first vote, only occurred after two delegates switched sides on a subsequent round. 

Delegates and observers erupted into cheers after 61% of the 235 executive board delegates in attendance voted to support Prop. 40.

Insiders revealed that the deciding moment was the intervention of Rep. Maxine Waters.

A first floor vote barely failed on Sunday, but then Waters walked in to cheers, according to two attendees. On a re-vote, she turned to a room full of around 200 board members and proxy voters with her card in hand. The motion cleared the 60 percent margin it needed by less than two percentage points.

And with that vote the state party was formally behind the wealth tax proposal known as Prop. 40. But earlier this week Democrats in San Francisco held their own vote and came out strongly against the tax. Unlike the state level vote, this one wasn’t close.

The San Francisco Democratic Party broke with the statewide party Wednesday, voting overwhelmingly to oppose a proposed tax on California billionaires — the latest sign of how the measure had divided Democrats across the state.

Of the 22 members present, 17 voted to oppose Proposition 40, a one-time tax of 5% on California’s billionaires. The vote came after the lengthiest debate of the night, with supporters of Prop. 40 questioning who the local Democratic Party represented: billionaires and the wealthy? Or the working class?

Unlike other contentious votes held on Wednesday night, it only took one round of voting for the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee to break with California’s statewide democratic party in rejecting the billionaire tax.

Opponents of the tax pointed out that the people being targeted, about 200 billionaires in the state, could simply leave.

Members of the Democratic County Central Committee, the local party chapter, said California would suffer from billionaires fleeing the state.

“[My union is] particularly disturbed, because we feel it sets up an uneven playing field for California,” said Patrick Boileau, a DCCC member and the political director of the Operating Engineers Local 3. “The billionaires that are going to be taxed with this measure also have the ability to vote with their feet and move out of California.” 

Supervisor Matt Dorsey put it bluntly: “This is terrible public policy.” 

Lanier Coles, a DCCC member who was diagnosed with a chronic neurological disorder at 28 and had trouble getting healthcare coverage, said she opposed Prop. 40 because it is not “a long-term viable solution to provide affordable healthcare.” 

But the more progressive members of the committee didn’t want to hear about the problems.

“California needs this money now,” said Michael Nguyen, a progressive DCCC member. “There are reasonable questions here around implementation, long-term revenue projections, but those questions cannot become an excuse for doing nothing.”

Gordon Mar, another member, agreed. “The bottom line is Prop. 40 is the only proposal before voters and on the table, more generally, that approaches the scale of this crisis.”

What’s really happening here is that no one in the party seems to have any real problem with the idea of a wealth tax or taxing billionaires and seizing what they own. The only reason some unions and Democrats object to this is that it was created by the SEIU to commit at least 90 percent of the money to state-funded healthcare services. 

That means the powerful teachers unions and lots of other unions won’t get a cut. And that’s why many of them oppose this. Had the SEIU agreed to split the spoils of this terrible idea a bit more evenly with other unions, there would be universal support and San Francisco Dems would be happy to vote for it.

In any case, Party member Peter Gallotta gave the most impassioned plea to soak the rich and stick it to Fox News.

The richest people in California do not need the San Francisco Democratic Party to be their shield. Billionaires already have plenty of lobbyists, political allies, and money to fight for their interests. They do not need this party to join them. Meanwhile, working families who are barely holding on here in San Francisco and across the state are paying their taxes. Billionaires making ungodly sums of money with more wealth than they could ever spend in their lifetimes can afford to contribute more. That should not be controversial for Democrats, especially San Francisco Democrats. And it should come as no surprise that this body is considering doing the bidding of the billionaires given its cozy relationship with some of the loudest opponents of Prop 40, including, and I will say names, Chris Larson and Gary Tan. But this vote, I want to be clear, has consequences. When opponents of a billionaire tax can point to San Francisco Democrats and say even they agree with us, that is politically damaging. It is politically damaging for all of us and for what it means to be a San Francisco Democrat. We should not hand billionaires and Fox News a talking point against this measure.

That’s the voice of legalized theft. He’s defending this effort to single out a handful of people and seize their stock in companies they created. And if he’s willing to do it once, he (and the rest like him) will do it again and again as many times as it takes until everyone who creates something valuable knows to stay away from California. 

Seizing from people who build things is a short-sighted and ultimately destructive way to govern. Hopefully the voters in California are wise enough to recognize that this November.

John Sexton, Hotair

Picture the feelings of Lake Ontario this morning. It was christened Lac Saint-Louis by Samuel de Champlain, but it’s woken up to Canada calling it William and the US calling it Pat – or rather, Lake America (without the “of,” as Trump helpfully specified in his video on Truth Social).

Although Lac Saint-Louis is surely a better and more historically founded name than Lake America, one can sympathize with the American compulsion to rename things. After all, what would Texas be without a little American intervention? (Mexico, as it happens.) But while President Trump has the map out on his desk and a good pen in his hand, there are a few other names he might like to update.

First of all, from up north here, calling your capital Washington, DC seems like a wasted opportunity. You already have Washington State. Why don’t you add George to the capital and call it George Washington, DC? It’s much catchier, it fleshes out the historical reference and it would save an awful lot of confusion. Or better yet, you could simply call it America City. Like New York City, Kansas City, Sin City and all those other great American cities. It would fit right in.

Canada has heard that America is feeling uncomfortable because the oceans on either side of it have alien, foreign-sounding names like Atlantic and Pacific. Here there is no room for subtlety or historical allusion, because other countries also have coastlines on these oceans and you don’t want there to be any lack of clarity about who’s most important. Best to keep it simple: in the east, Ocean of America, and in the west, American Ocean. So the coast with America City borders on the Ocean of America, and the coast with Washington State borders on the American Ocean. As a bonus, the new name would send a clear message to China.

No offense intended on this next one, and of course Canadians understand people who live there have a lot of feelings about this. We don’t want to be insensitive or anything. But do you really need two Dakotas? Dakota is a very nice name. But is the relative location of these two states truly the most important thing about them? To be honest, the North-South thing sounds a bit like an ideologically fractured east Asian country. Maybe the northern one could be renamed American Frontier. That actually sounds pretty cool, and would nip any would-be Kim Jong-uns in the bud.

Now this is more about home decoration, but we do think that having your nation’s most important building painted white is a bit of a missed opportunity. What about a new, patriotic color scheme? Red, white and blue suits the Home of the Stars and Bars.

There’s a classic Cold War joke about the space race, in which the Russians get to the moon with a space tanker full of paint and color it a bright Soviet red. The US, not to be outdone, sends up a tanker of white paint and a giant made-in-America stencil. When they’re finished their work, the moon projects the victor’s slogan: Drink Coca Cola. There’s a lesson here for contemporary America: stay on message.

On that note, why not rename Disneyland Americaland?

Disney is one of America’s biggest exports, after all. And then you’d have an Americaland just east of Paris, which would be kind of cool. All it would take is one tiny executive order. And McDonalds sounds Scottish; AmericaBurger sounds way better. (Best merge with Five Guys while you’re at it). Would you like freedom fries with that?

At the end of the day, Lake Ontario doesn’t really mind. It’s had name changes before. Canada has more important things to worry about, like a trade deal. Call it what you want, just don’t call us late for dinner.

The Irish Rovers sang about the biggest mixup that you have ever seen: he was christened David Anthony, but still in spite of that, his father called him William while his mother called him Pat.

Picture the feelings of Lake Ontario this morning. It was christened Lac Saint-Louis by Samuel de Champlain, but it’s woken up to Canada calling it William and the US calling it Pat – or rather, Lake America (without the “of,” as Trump helpfully specified in his video on Truth Social).

Although Lac Saint-Louis is surely a better and more historically founded name than Lake America, one can sympathize with the American compulsion to rename things. After all, what would Texas be without a little American intervention? (Mexico, as it happens.) But while President Trump has the map out on his desk and a good pen in his hand, there are a few other names he might like to update.

First of all, from up north here, calling your capital Washington, DC seems like a wasted opportunity. You already have Washington State. Why don’t you add George to the capital and call it George Washington, DC? It’s much catchier, it fleshes out the historical reference and it would save an awful lot of confusion. Or better yet, you could simply call it America City. Like New York City, Kansas City, Sin City and all those other great American cities. It would fit right in.

There’s a classic Cold War joke about the space race, in which the Russians get to the moon with a space tanker full of paint and color it a bright Soviet red. The US, not to be outdone, sends up a tanker of white paint and a giant made-in-America stencil. When they’re finished their work, the moon projects the victor’s slogan: Drink Coca Cola. There’s a lesson here for contemporary America: stay on message.

Canada has heard that America is feeling uncomfortable because the oceans on either side of it have alien, foreign-sounding names like Atlantic and Pacific. Here there is no room for subtlety or historical allusion, because other countries also have coastlines on these oceans and you don’t want there to be any lack of clarity about who’s most important. Best to keep it simple: in the east, Ocean of America, and in the west, American Ocean. So the coast with America City borders on the Ocean of America, and the coast with Washington State borders on the American Ocean. As a bonus, the new name would send a clear message to China.

No offense intended on this next one, and of course Canadians understand people who live there have a lot of feelings about this. We don’t want to be insensitive or anything. But do you really need two Dakotas? Dakota is a very nice name. But is the relative location of these two states truly the most important thing about them? To be honest, the North-South thing sounds a bit like an ideologically fractured east Asian country. Maybe the northern one could be renamed American Frontier. That actually sounds pretty cool, and would nip any would-be Kim Jong-uns in the bud.

Now this is more about home decoration, but we do think that having your nation’s most important building painted white is a bit of a missed opportunity. What about a new, patriotic color scheme? Red, white and blue suits the Home of the Stars and Bars.

On that note, why not rename Disneyland Americaland?

Disney is one of America’s biggest exports, after all. And then you’d have an Americaland just east of Paris, which would be kind of cool. All it would take is one tiny executive order. And McDonalds sounds Scottish; AmericaBurger sounds way better. (Best merge with Five Guys while you’re at it). Would you like freedom fries with that?

At the end of the day, Lake Ontario doesn’t really mind. It’s had name changes before. Canada has more important things to worry about, like a trade deal. Call it what you want, just don’t call us late for dinner.

Jane Stannus, The Spectator

Any alleged ‘right’ of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.” (Ayn Rand)

It seems so obvious. It really seemed obvious back in the 1960s, when Rand wrote it. Part of her brilliance and foresight was her understanding that it needed to be said even back then — and much more now.

Everything that AOC, Mamdani and the rest of the now fully radicalized Democratic Party claim as a “right” actually belongs to another — not to them. The under-40 snowflakes who will never grow up, the biggest group cheering on socialism, are morally untenable, although they fancy themselves as morally superior.

All socialism is theft.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

Socialism is not optional. The government monopolies it creates and the impoverishment that results are mandatory. Unless you are a politically connected elite, you must and will participate in it all. The ignorant, brainwashed fools who claim there’s a difference between Communism and socialism ignore a crucial point: Once the misery of socialism sets in, the censorship and political prison camps are inevitable–to shut you up.

It’s hard to fathom that America, of all places, comes closer to Communism every day. But if you take a minute and listen to the magnitude of the utterly faulty thinking everywhere today, you have to marvel that it hasn’t gone even further. Once the total end of freedom comes in America (if it does), the final collapse will come quickly. Most of us will wonder how it could have happened so fast.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

• Stephen Weese

It’s all about how and where.

It seems that everyone is talking about data centers these days; they’ve taken over the Internet with memes and conspiracy theories. As a computer professor, I decided to apply an academic research regimen to the situation and cut through the exaggeration and emotion that often accompany these current polarizing issues.

Two important points to begin with: AI’s water and power usage. As I have demonstrated in my previous article, data centers use about 0.02% of the water supply in the US according to recent sources, and most future data centers are already planned to use advanced cooling technology that requires very little water. While it is true that data centers require a lot of electricity, their impact on power systems and customers has been greatly exaggerated. Bloomberg’s often-cited piece on the subject mentions that at the highest instance, one area of the country experienced a 267% increase in wholesale costs. This data describing one area in one instance has been used incorrectly to state that it is the expected or average raise (rather than the high end), and it doesn’t even account for the fact that this is wholesale power costs, which does not translate directly into consumer costs. (Often the tech companies will offset these increases.) What this data does tell us is that there are places where we simply should not build data centers. This is one problem that should be avoided. The other problem is companies acting unethically.

One of the most egregious examples of unethical data center implementation is xAI’s Colossus near Memphis, Tennessee. The company promised years ago that it would not rely on local water supply for cooling. Not only does it continue to use local water daily, but the proposed solution has been delayed. In addition, xAI ran as many as 35 unpermitted methane gas turbines at Colossus 1 beginning in June 2024, generating up to 421 MW without any preconstruction or operating air permits under the Clean Air Act. If there was ever an example of how not to build a data center, it is this one.

Another prime example is Project Blue in Tucson, Arizona. Beale, the project developer, actively deceived the city and used the local water supply to clean dust from the data center. And they used a lot of it. This caused Tucson to shut down its water supply. Not only that, but city staff and Amazon had signed an agreement to keep knowledge about the center secret from its residents for three years. It’s no wonder that many communities are suspicious of tech companies coming into their neighborhoods and deceiving them about their plans and the benefits they will bring.

There are cases where companies are unethical in their approach to data centers, and there are cases in which the location is just not suitable. Sometimes, both points of failure occur. Colossus 1 is an example of both, where the deception was extreme and its use of water is actively causing problems with the local aquifer.

An example of poor location choice but good ethics is Microsoft’s West US 3 in the Phoenix area. Microsoft separately agreed to invest $40 million directly into the water utility. Microsoft is testing a new zero-water cooling strategy, and it published its water use and other relevant information in its Environmental Sustainability Report. However, it built these data centers in the middle of an extremely arid, low-water area. There are reasons for doing this, but, generally speaking, drawing water from a nearby desert city’s supply is not ideal. It’s not entirely bad news, in that it has spurred Microsoft to invest in new cooling strategies that do not draw on the local water supply. This problem should not affect future data centers as much because of the new cooling technologies that require little to no water from the local supply.

You probably haven’t heard of too many examples of successful data center developments, and that’s partly because “something worked; everything is just fine” is not a common news story. However, CNN recently reported on exactly that: Quincy, Washington, is home to over 30 data centers and has experienced an incredible boom as a result.

The data centers now cover an estimated 57% of Quincy’s property tax revenue, funding a wave of public infrastructure projects: a $15 million aquatic center, a 143,000-square-foot indoor sports complex, a $120 million high school, a new hospital, library, police and fire stations, paved sidewalks, sewage systems, and a wastewater treatment plant.

Residential electricity rates in the county rose 3.5% last year, while large industrial users, such as the data centers themselves, absorbed a 9.1% increase. The data centers there are paying for their own added infrastructure and generation costs rather than spreading those costs to households.

Another advantage of this site is that it has abundant cheap hydroelectric power. As for water, Microsoft partnered with the city to build a $30 million water reuse facility. The only real caveat here is that the data centers generated so much revenue and development that housing prices have risen across the area.

All Commentary

Wednesday, August 26, 2026Image Credit: Custom image by FEE

Economics

Artificial Intelligence

Data

ethics

The Truth About Data Centers

• Stephen Weese

It’s all about how and where.

It seems that everyone is talking about data centers these days; they’ve taken over the Internet with memes and conspiracy theories. As a computer professor, I decided to apply an academic research regimen to the situation and cut through the exaggeration and emotion that often accompany these current polarizing issues.

Two important points to begin with: AI’s water and power usage. As I have demonstrated in my previous article, data centers use about 0.02% of the water supply in the US according to recent sources, and most future data centers are already planned to use advanced cooling technology that requires very little water. While it is true that data centers require a lot of electricity, their impact on power systems and customers has been greatly exaggerated. Bloomberg’s often-cited piece on the subject mentions that at the highest instance, one area of the country experienced a 267% increase in wholesale costs. This data describing one area in one instance has been used incorrectly to state that it is the expected or average raise (rather than the high end), and it doesn’t even account for the fact that this is wholesale power costs, which does not translate directly into consumer costs. (Often the tech companies will offset these increases.) What this data does tell us is that there are places where we simply should not build data centers. This is one problem that should be avoided. The other problem is companies acting unethically.

One of the most egregious examples of unethical data center implementation is xAI’s Colossus near Memphis, Tennessee. The company promised years ago that it would not rely on local water supply for cooling. Not only does it continue to use local water daily, but the proposed solution has been delayed. In addition, xAI ran as many as 35 unpermitted methane gas turbines at Colossus 1 beginning in June 2024, generating up to 421 MW without any preconstruction or operating air permits under the Clean Air Act. If there was ever an example of how not to build a data center, it is this one.

Another prime example is Project Blue in Tucson, Arizona. Beale, the project developer, actively deceived the city and used the local water supply to clean dust from the data center. And they used a lot of it. This caused Tucson to shut down its water supply. Not only that, but city staff and Amazon had signed an agreement to keep knowledge about the center secret from its residents for three years. It’s no wonder that many communities are suspicious of tech companies coming into their neighborhoods and deceiving them about their plans and the benefits they will bring.

There are cases where companies are unethical in their approach to data centers, and there are cases in which the location is just not suitable. Sometimes, both points of failure occur. Colossus 1 is an example of both, where the deception was extreme and its use of water is actively causing problems with the local aquifer.

An example of poor location choice but good ethics is Microsoft’s West US 3 in the Phoenix area. Microsoft separately agreed to invest $40 million directly into the water utility. Microsoft is testing a new zero-water cooling strategy, and it published its water use and other relevant information in its Environmental Sustainability Report. However, it built these data centers in the middle of an extremely arid, low-water area. There are reasons for doing this, but, generally speaking, drawing water from a nearby desert city’s supply is not ideal. It’s not entirely bad news, in that it has spurred Microsoft to invest in new cooling strategies that do not draw on the local water supply. This problem should not affect future data centers as much because of the new cooling technologies that require little to no water from the local supply.

You probably haven’t heard of too many examples of successful data center developments, and that’s partly because “something worked; everything is just fine” is not a common news story. However, CNN recently reported on exactly that: Quincy, Washington, is home to over 30 data centers and has experienced an incredible boom as a result.

The data centers now cover an estimated 57% of Quincy’s property tax revenue, funding a wave of public infrastructure projects: a $15 million aquatic center, a 143,000-square-foot indoor sports complex, a $120 million high school, a new hospital, library, police and fire stations, paved sidewalks, sewage systems, and a wastewater treatment plant.

Residential electricity rates in the county rose 3.5% last year, while large industrial users, such as the data centers themselves, absorbed a 9.1% increase. The data centers there are paying for their own added infrastructure and generation costs rather than spreading those costs to households.

Another advantage of this site is that it has abundant cheap hydroelectric power. As for water, Microsoft partnered with the city to build a $30 million water reuse facility. The only real caveat here is that the data centers generated so much revenue and development that housing prices have risen across the area.Data Center Location and Ethics Matrix

As you can see, there are definitely ways to build, and examples of ethical and beneficial data centers. The benefits to a local community are substantial. Not only do local tax revenues increase, but data centers come with the benefit of being a generally low-traffic, relatively quiet development. Revenues can increase without needing to build many new roads, or bring large amounts of noisy traffic.

This goes along with the fact that we simply need more data storage. Yes, AI is driving much of the current surge, but we have continually created more data and need a place to store it. We take pictures with our cell phones, leave voice notes, and write emails. With self-publishing, so many people now are writing books. So many songs are written and digital videos made. All of that goes into data centers. All of your apps: data centers. All of the Internet: data centers. Nearly all human knowledge is now stored in these data centers; they are the modern archives of human creativity, education, and achievement.

Efficiency gains in AI are real and dramatic. OpenAI’s Sam Altman has pointed out that ChatGPT models have become roughly 1,000 times more efficient at a given level of intelligence in less than two years. But this doesn’t mean data center demand will eventually shrink; it means the opposite. Every time a computing resource has gotten this much cheaper, historically we haven’t used less of it; we’ve found a thousand more uses for it. Drops in data-storage prices didn’t lead to people using less data; now no one deletes anything. Altman’s prediction that we will use AI and data in the same way that we use utilities such as water and the Internet will likely come true, and in some ways, it already has.

This is not only happening in the United States. China, Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia are all rushing to build data centers, and they are encountering very similar issues. This is a global phenomenon, and, the way things are going, data centers will be as much a part of modern infrastructure as airports, phone lines, and railroads, which people once opposed. Farmers once believed sparks from railroad tracks would burn their land, and doctors at the time warned the human body couldn’t survive driving at speeds over 20 miles per hour. We see the same patterns of resistance to new technology repeated throughout history.

The truth is, data centers themselves aren’t the problem. Poor location choices and unethical business practices cause the failures we’ve seen. If we’re wise about where we build and who we trust, we can avoid the pitfalls and reap the rewards.

Foundation for Education (FEE)

• Stephen WeeseStephen Weese is a computer professor and consultant in CS, IT, and AI. He also works in media and is the CEO of Marvelous Spiral Studios.

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There’s something big the mainstream media don’t want to tell you about these disruptive and dangeorus events.

Jeffrey Folks | August 29, 2026

Soon it will a long, hot Labor Day weekend, and police in many cities are bracing for multiple teen takeovers.

These takeovers, usually of crowded downtown areas, are organized on social media and escalate rapidly into large-scale brawls involving the use of fists, knives, and guns.  Bystanders and police are hurt, and businesses are damaged and have their hours curtailed.

Footage from a large teen takeover from the Wisconsin State Fair in Milwaukee has aired on national media, with commentators noting that “these kinds of takeovers have become all too common.”  What was not said is that “these kinds of takeovers” are largely, though not entirely, black teen takeovers.  Although white teens are certainly guilty of committing crimes, teen takeovers are mostly relegated to blacks.  The question is, why?

Certainly, the Wisconsin State Fair takeover involved mostly blacks, including women punching, kicking, and brawling, and striking a police officer.  As Fox News states, “malls, beaches, and restaurants become battlefields.”  In New Jersey, Georgia, Wisconsin, Detroit, and other states, “massive crowds of juveniles overwhelm public spaces.”  One of the most violent of these occurred at a Washington, D.C. Chipotle Grill restaurant, where a group of teens entered the location and began fighting and throwing chairs.  What the report failed to indicate is that all of the teens shown in the video of the event appeared to be black.  Outside the Chipotle, hundreds of teens reportedly brawled in the streets.  None of the commentators noted that the vast majority of these teens were black, despite the fact that footage of the event showed it to be so.

Similar teen takeovers have occurred at a shopping mall in Glendale, Wisconsin; in downtown Detroit; and in Chicago, and at many other locations.  Body cam footage from the Glendale takeover showed police battling black teens and teens striking police officers.  Additional video showed dozens of black teens brawling, but this was only a small number of those participating in a takeover said to have been organized on social media.  It’s important to note that though most of those involved in the so-called Bayshore Mall takeover appear to have been black, the overall black population of Glendale, Wisconsin, is 16 percent.  Whites constitute 65 percent of Glendale’s population, but by and large they are not out there rampaging and causing harm.  What has been causing a disproportionate number of black youths to participate in these violent takeovers?

In another recent takeover, hundreds of teens reportedly flocked to the Chicago Loop and began fighting and looting.  These footage shows that most of the participants were black.  In Charlotte, North Carolina, over 40 teen takeovers have occurred so far this summer, with most of those on the videos I have seen being black.  In Charlotte, blacks constitute 33 percent of the population; whites and Asians constitute over 40 percent.

Chicago’s 57th St. Beach takeover involved an estimate 400 to 500 teens, again largely black, as one can see in video of the event.  Chicago’s population is 28 percent black.  Why are so many of the teen takeovers black events?

The fact that these takeovers involve mostly black teens is rarely if ever mentioned in media accounts.  That fact by itself — the fact that the media refuse to identify black participants by race despite identifying some of those at the Tybee Island, South Carolina, mêlée as white female teens — may well be one reason blacks feel free to flock to these events: society refuses to face the facts and hold them accountable because they are black.  Likewise, the chance of being arrested and punished is almost nil.

It would be better, for the public at large and for participants in the takeovers themselves, to identify the problem exactly as it is: not a problem with “teen” takeovers, but with “black teen” takeovers, and to move from there toward solutions.  Solutions will never be found if the truth is suppressed and endless excuses are made for exactly those responsible.  There is a problem with a certain segment of blacks youths in America today, and that problem needs to addressed head-on.

Conservatives care about the well-being of all persons, and especially about the well-being of our youth.  In every teen takeover, young people are injured and sometimes killed.  Above all, conservatives value human life, and the lives of our young, white and black, are put at risk every time a takeover occurs.  Only a forceful response can save these precious lives.

At its core, there is a problem with the way our society makes excuses for the behavior of black youths.  Too often the story is that offenders have grown up in difficult circumstances.  So did millions of whites, but most of them do not go about breaking curfews and engaging in violence.  There’s also the suggestion that since black Americans have historically suffered from slavery and Jim Crow, the failings of present-day blacks — including lawlessness — should be overlooked, almost as a sort of non-monetary reparations.  But black American teens have never experienced discrimination; if anything, they receive preference in schooling and hiring and can look forward to future promotions ahead of whites.

The problem is not past discrimination.  It is the way black teens, especially males, are being brought up today and the failure of parents and society to correct them when necessary.  At its foundation, that failure is the result of society’s refusal to hold blacks to the same standards as whites.  Until that happens, black teen takeovers, violence, and other lawlessness will continue.

American Thinker

Maybe he thought it was strip steak?

A Houston dad got a shocking surprise when a DoorDash driver delivered food to him and his daughter while as naked as a jaybird.

Kiante Matlock said he was inside his home playing video games with his daughter Monday when he got a phone notification alerting him the order had arrived.

But when he checked his Ring camera, he realized to his horror that the driver who dropped off the food was stark naked.

The incredible footage showed the driver, who had shoulder-length dreadlocks, placing their order on the front porch and then casually walking back to his car like nothing was out of the ordinary.

Matlock, who said he uses the delivery service fairly regularly, said he couldn’t believe what he was seeing was real.

He discarded the food and reached out to DoorDash, which was equally appalled at the situation and refunded his money.

“What this consumer experienced was abhorrent, and we’ve reached out directly to offer our support. This man’s behavior was vulgar and completely unacceptable, and as soon as we were made aware, our team permanently removed their access to our platform,” the company said in a statement to Fox 26 Houston.

“We do not tolerate sexual harassment or misconduct of any kind, and we stand ready to assist law enforcement with any investigation.”

Fabiana Buontempo, New York Post

See the picture? That’s Darline Graham. She’s the faux conservative President Trump picked to be South Carolina’s next U.S. Senator. [photo courtesy of Corey Allen]

Wow. America really is going down. It’s not just New York and California anymore.

The left is going way, way, way left. And the right is going left.

It seems to be happening so fast. So decisively and unequivocally. Coast to coast. North and South.

America is ill. Politics and elections are not the cause; they are a reflection of just how unwell the whole culture is.

I only have two comments about Darline Graham winning the nomination for her brother’s seat in South Carolina.

1) Assuming Graham wins in November, how long before she buckles and becomes the Amy Coney Barrett of the U.S. Senate?

2) Will she necessarily even win in the general election? Watch her debate performance against Ralph Norman. She was utterly horrible. Kind of like Joe Biden on a good day. If she loses, South Carolina will be sending a woke Communist pediatrician (Annie Andrews) to the Senate, a woman who claims that you’re not a “real doctor” unless you support hormonal and genital alteration of minors. But frankly: How much different will the Democrat’s voting record be from the Republican’s? Is the Republican even a Republican? You have to vote her into office to find out.

Just watch. A year from now, President Trump will complain about what a disappointment Darline Graham is, and a disgrace to her brother’s legacy. But the Senate will be stuck with her, long after Trump leaves office.

The left and the right are both going left. It’s a frightening prospect. But it seems to be what most want, or are at least willing to let happen without a fight. If even South Carolina no longer has any pro-liberty voices, and DeSantis is leaving the scene in Florida soon, what chance does liberty have for lasting out even another generation?

If you have children or grandchildren, tremble for them. They will experience the greatest material and psychological downturn in all of human history.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason