Greatest Global Influence

Putin may be an independent actor; Xi certainly is but Trump is NOT. He's a tool of the billionaire class. What CretinYahoo is, besides a monster, I don't know, but although I resist it, sometimes the old International Jewish Conspiracy myth comes to haunt. How much does old royalty and inherited alliance influence the revival of fascism and feudalism? We all need to want to know, more than we want to see whatever touted new movie just came out.
We are ruled by:
Xi Jinping, Putin, Bezos
Musk (800 billion), Nvidia (computer chips, data centers, robotics)
Gates, Zuckerberg
AI, energy, weapons, and news company magnates
General Dynamics, Northrup Gruman, LockheedMartin, Boeing
SaudiAramco, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon/Mobile, Chevron, BP
Larry Fink, Blackstone, Blackrock, Vanguard, Fidelity Investments
European Central Bank, JPMorgan Chase Bank, Bank of America, City of London
Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung
Rothschilds, Rockefeller, DuPont, Mellon, Vanderbilt (Blenheim Palace custodian), Agnelli (Exor Holding Co), the Walton family(Walmart)
Michael Bloomberg, Murdock
Johnson & Johnson

'Data Centers' and the Neofascist World Order

That those who 'data centers' are designed to fleece PAY for them is OBSCENE.

Just a couple years ago, most, including myself, hadn't heard of these monstrosities being surreptitiously built and operated "to maintain our competative edge over China" and help 'justify' SpaceX and ICE.

Data centers help produce "infotainment" and make possible a world wide prison without walls: every movement, every purchase, every thought tracked, analyzed and monitored for extraction and compliance.

A vast majority of Americans oppose their construction. People are pushing back against the complexes for a variety of concrete reasons:
Resource Drain: Data centers demand unprecedented amounts of electricity and water. A single facility can consume as much energy as 100,000 households, straining the power grid and driving up utility bills for everyday consumers. Water supplies are heavily tapped for cooling servers, especially in drought-prone areas.
Low Local Value: Developers tout job creation and economic growth, but after initial construction, data centers employ only a few dozen staff, bringing little long-term local economic benefit.
Quality of Life: The facilities are massive, warehouse-style buildings that generate constant 24/7 noise from cooling systems and traffic from construction. Many also rely on dirty backup diesel generators that produce air pollution. Perhaps worst, they raise ambient temperature in the surrounding area.
Data centers are particularly noisy places: average noise levels reach 92 decibels in server areas; inside noise levels reach up to 96 decibels. Noise typically reaches 60 to 95 decibels at the property line, from continuous cooling systems running 24/7. Backup diesel generators peak at 80 to 105 decibels, comparable to a motorcycle or leaf blower. Noise levels above 85 decibels are harmful to hearing. The humming and low-frequency vibrations travel from 1,500 feet to two miles away, penetrating walls and tree buffers - impacting even residential communities. Communities located within 500 to 3,000 feet frequently complain about inaudible, ultra-low-frequency "infrasound" (below 20 hertz), which cannot be blocked by standard sound walls and cause sleep disruption and elevated stress.
Data centers, especially gas-powered data centers, emit significant pollutants: nitrogen oxides, methane, volatile organic compounds, and fine particulate matter. These pollutants cause respiratory diseases and cardiovascular conditions, and elevate cancer risks among nearby communities.
Data centers also generate light pollution. Hyperscale facilities require all-night lighting that disrupts the natural (circadian) rhythms of the body, including melatonin production (the hormone that regulates sleep) and sleep-wake cycles. Light pollution disturbes migration patterns and habitat development among birds, butterflies, bats, cats, and turtles—to name but a few.
The long-term impacts of both noise and light pollution include hearing loss, stress, insomnia, and decreased quality of life.

Public Subsidies: data center developers receive massive tax breaks, meaning local funds are diverted from public services to benefit large tech corporations.
Tech Skepticism: Data centers are a physical, highly visible symbol of AI, fueling broad public anxiety about the pace of technology, data privacy, resource allocation, and class conflict.

They suck up water. 17.4 billion gallons annually in the US, and burn 4% of all US energy use. Globally, they use more than only 10 countries. In some cases they warm land around them by 16 degrees F. There has clearly been insufficient environmental impact assessment.
They eat up land. The average data center is the equivalent of 450 football fields.
They're the beating heart of the AI revolution, require specialized servers and immense elerctrical grids, and encroach on every aspect of our lives.

There are almost 12000 "data centers" (half of them in the USA, 87% of existing centers in urban zones.), primarily owned by Big Tech cloud providers and investment firms. Top Owners include Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, and Meta. "Colocation Providers' include Equinix, Digital Realty, and QTS Data Centers. Investment & Private Equity Firms have bought in: Because data centers are highly lucrative, many are now owned by major financial players who fund construction and lease the properties to operators.Top Owners: Blackstone, DigitalBridge, and KKR. A newer wave of operators, specialized AI/Neocloud Providers, focuses primarily on providing high-density computing power for AI workloads. Top Owners: CoreWeave, Lambda, and xAI.

32 countries globally host specialized AI computing data centers: Germany has 500+ facilities, UK also 500+; China: 360+ facilities, France 340+, Canada and India both 280+; Australia 270, Japan: 250+ and Italy 210 (major hub: Milan). Emerging hotspots for massive data center construction include Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, Mexico, and Chile.
140 countries have some, but nearly 150 nations lack significant domestic AI infrastructure. Major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) have no data centers in over 100 countries across Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, in Ethiopia, Libya, Zimbabwe, Angola, Vietnam, Cambodia, Mongolia, Iraq, Yemen, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay and small island nations. Absence of hyperscale data centers results from unreliable electrical grids, lack of local undersea fiber-optic cable landings, and largely, low commercial demand.
Even Myanmar has commercial data centers. The market is small but established, with most facilities located near Yangon. Key data center facilities and operators include True IDC Myanmar, established in 2015 as a joint venture providing standard IT managed services and colocation; Myint & Associates (M&A) Data Center; Golden TMH Telecom (GTMH); plus telecom operators like Ooredoo which operate localized data centers and landing stations such as the Campana submarine cable landing station.

Water shortages, blackouts, increased cost of living... hey, at least data centers benefit needy billionaires.

My books

1. A Little Knowledge by Joel Barlow 2008, 2010 - A series of related essays on knowledge and the reality we live in, including a good bit of history, physics, linguistics, anthropology and philosophy.
2. The Road From Kaliyuga to Ragnarök by Joel Barlow 2020 - Essays on mythology, the deification of mortals, reality, fabulous frauds, assertions of superiority, challenges in the world we live in, emotional weather, orders of infinity, ancient history, hoarding compulsion and French poetry, sensibly and rationally adjoined.
3. Dignity, Too by Joel Barlow 2009, 2010 - George wants to beat the system - to exist within it lacks dignity. There MUST be a way. He reads of ancient wisdom, of communes and hippies, of "alternative" this and that... refuses to settle for a drab life with boss, debts, homogenous mimicry of neighbors, a straightjacket of rules, inside all day, everything antiseptically packaged. Bad enough to be a Midwestern nobody, without hope of wealth, fame or glamour. People on the coasts might THINK they were smarter or more talented, than he or his ilk, but they weren't. Well, maybe than his ilk, but not than George himself, who certainly did not consider himself a naif.
4. Enticing Siam by Joel Barlow 2006 - Concise details for navigating the rich culture and society, with sections on pop-culture, folk beliefs, festivals, food, tribes, weather, sports, interesting places, herbal medicines, Siamese cats, fighting fish, orchids, and a concise history with intimate examination of Golden Triangle drug trade, plus background on Chinese immigration.
5. IuMien Tao, Ultima Altai by Joel John Barlow - A treatise on how the world’s arguably oldest still revered belief system relates to early East-West interface, mythology and modern understandings, with information on the Iu-Mien people and their art and beliefs, and a bit of poetry.
6. The Dollshop on Gogo Row - by Joel Barlow 2010 - Might a man who marries a waitress get a cook and maid in the bargain? If he marries an Asian bar-girl, will he retain any friends? And even if he does, will the fun go on? Three men and their bar-girl friends, all out to find fun, insight and the joys of cross-cultural contact, if not love, discover instead magic, new social bonds, secret workings, a dangerous plot protected in high places, in another magical story of the Land-of-Guiles.
7. Dream of Self by Joel John Barlow 1976, 1980. illustrated by Jonathan Lethem - poetic essay of a time when one could still struggle to be easy and free, reveling in faded splendor and grandiosity, self-indulgence and lust for adventure.
8. Lost Lanna Found, by Joel Barlow 2005 - History and some contemporary details of as fine a place as any.
9. Going to Laos, by Gene Ballou (Joel Barlow). A novel of alternative social conventions in the New World we made 10. A Web of Connected Curiosities, 2000, 2020:
“Little Sister™ Corp, the ONLY one owned by all its customers, works for YOU – offering HOPE! Joining costs nothing. Log in & become a member of the largest co-op of all, employed with genuine advancement potential no matter who you are, or what your education.
Little Sister™ & HomefieldAdvantage™ will teach you all you need to advance, while YOU earn where-with-all to pay your way to increasingly valuable positions in its structure. ANYONE can become a member of the assemblage: an editor, analyst, promoter, distributor, supervisor, even an executive.
It’s up to YOU, with a little help from Little Sister™ herself – always a joy to be with, guaranteed.
With sections on
Information & advertising
The history of alcohol
The punch-card loom & reactive systems Ethical Ecological Economics
Programed Instruction
History of Museums
Assassins of the Old Man in the Mountain Emin Pasha; Hsuang-tsang; Vasco de Gama; Ibn Batutah
& Shendi Bazaar.
If interested to receive as an attachment, inquire at jobarlow53 at yahoo.

cartoons

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Aphorisms

Snobby suffers fools like a fish out of water.
the rich are different; they have more money
lie down with dogs wake up with fleas
best way to have a friend is 2b1
to exceed one's level of competence suck up
popularity is but a hairstyle
u can pick your friends' noses but it kills the friendship
judge not but evaluate carefully
a rising tide lifts all boats not ankored too tightly
all are equal in God's eye but money always notes differences
the best deoderant is money

Aladin Sane's genie lamp

Illusion, illusion; all is illusion (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

As so much of our confusion arose due to insufficient mansplaining, I'll attempt to set the record straight (pronouns it, its and it's) regarding matters pertainent and consequential, i.e. how the Mideast has become viewed in the Midwest.
It all started when Richard Burton (1984, Cleopatra, Equus, On the Waterfront, Apocalypse Now), famed fencing duelist fluent in 1000 languages, stole stories of flying Persian carpets from his friend John Payne (author, er, translater of "The Book of a Thousand Knights and One Night"). These stories include Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves.
Things got confused as Arabs once conquored Persia and drove out its Zoroastrianist worshipers of the dog (fox) star Sirius (coiners of the phrase "Be Sirius"). The astral plane, er, plain, er zeplin, or what have you, remains far off.
Zoroaster, of ancient Persia about 4000 years ago, spoke of moral dualism between good and evil, his teachings laying a foundation for the 'Abrahamic faiths' whose hatreds yet guide our days (and modern knights). In the 7th century CE, the rise of Islam and the ensuing Muslim conquests caused a decline of Zoroastrianism; many adherents relocated to the Indian subcontinent, where some became progenitors of today's Parsis. Once numbering in the millions, the total Zoroastrian population is now between 110,000 and 120,000, most residing in India (50,000–60,000, most in Mumbai), Iran (15,000–25,000, mostly in remote hamleta), or North America (22,000 in California, New York and Texas).
It was from the great exodus that stateless Aryans (Persians) became brown-skinned people with a red third eye (the blind one) and also that Europeans were able to become more successul barbarians, trading stories and legends and eventually meet the Dogan people of Mali and attribute to them origin on a planet orbiting the Dark Star Sirius B, but that's another story. Like the one about Richard Burton "discovering" Lake Victoria (Ukerewe, Nam Lolwe, 'Nnalubaale or Nyanza to those that led the explorers to their 'discovery')... Let's get back to Iran ("Iran so far away, couldn't get away")...
Some of the refugees from Persia went on further east to manage, as Brahmin Hindus, ritual for Buddhists in Angkor, Ayudhaya and KrunThep. How this relates to Branch Dravidians and the Zorro Ranch remains Classified, but when Heroika Kirk replaces Trusti Scabbord, a Hindu without a third eye, as Adult in the Room, matters may well become more muddied.
In the mid 700s, non-Arab Islamic converts in Persia, resentful over being relegated to lower social standing, replaced the Umayyads with the Abbasids, descendants of Muhammad's Uncle Abbas... these folk hold thr Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, Ali, as his successor (Imam). Sunnis say it was Abu Bakr... There's a further matter of Hidden Imans, but let's leave it as a split was made, wars were fought, masses died but enduring enmity didn't - Islam is no more united than other religions. Persia became Iran, Semites became confused with Semites, friends became enemies and enemies friends, and fortunately most of us understand that our betters have what the rest of us do not and will do whatever they can with that.

History's fiction, but the discipline of Iranian soldiers (or Cuban ones) is not, and I, for one, am not betting on my "betters"!

Persia is reputed to have been the base for the Grand Exalted Order of Assassins ("Shaken, not stirred") but the tales of Scheherazade hold far more truth than the million or so of Marco Polo. Repression of women, suppression of the Baha'i faith and the mass deaths from wars with Iraq can be held against Iran, but who's been better? Bahama? Cuba? Iceland?

Absurd stereotyping has given us tribes with special powers (a la PK Dick's "Clans of the Alphane Moon): Laurenz van der Post even gave !San Bushmen specially placed cartilege... Margaret Mead managed to turn Samoans into hobits. See also Napoleon Chagnon's Yanamamo, the Inuit of Duncan Pryde, Frank Waters (Hopi), Carlos Castanda (Yaqui) and fantasies of the Sami (Lapp), Cheyene, Shoshone, Seminole, Tarahumara, Scythians, Khazars, the builders of Angkor and Borabadur, and my favorite, the Albigensians (Cathars murdered to a man, woman and child by order of Pope Innocent III). Boaz, Bateson, Colin Trumbell, Levi-Strauss, Malinowski, and even TE Lawrence contributed to this... And let's not forget: Palestineans don't exist. Which could take us where I'm loath to go...

Need & self-sabotage

To blame voters for the deep do-do we're in is absurd. Might as well blame consumers for the deluge of bad, misleading products on offer now. Sure some shop &/or vote better than others, but who's to blame for the housing crisis? Certainly not the general public, regardless of how misled they have been, led being the key term. Socieies have famously overthrown tyrants: the royal "abdolutism" of James I (of Bible fame) led to Oliver Cromwell. Russia, China, France, Haiti, most of "Latin" America and even the USA have all had revolutions, for what they were worth. People tried to check oligarchs through unions but ended up hosting two blood-sucking parasites instead of just one (oh me; I forgot the Church. Make that a Holy Trinity). We need a better re-set button; we had the Courts, but let corrupt political parties appoint the judges. We had a co-op movement but got seduced by paid employees. Other countries have recall mechanisms and often still maintain "cottage industry" - and the US, if it wants to survive, should too. But desire, perhaps even need, to self-sabotage is difficult to overcome.