Walter Campbell, former prosecutor, judge and now “visiting judge,” came into the backroom at Bert’s with a purple haze of language about his person. He took off his coat, through it on a chair in the corner and said “I am so sick to death of these damn democrats I want to commit mortal sins.”
“What the hell, Walter!” Herb Stratton said. “What flew up your butt?”
“He’s pissed because he’s been taking a mountain of crap on The Daily Yapper’s Facebook page over a letter to the editor he wrote about data centers,” Will Sturgill said.
“I guess I missed it,” I said. “What the hell happened Walter? Did you come out for data centers.”
“No,” Walter said. “It’s not a case of for or against data centers. It’s a matter of “how and “where” and that’s what I said and a mess of Democrat purists are bombarding me with shallow and hysterical thoughts. Just another example of why Democrats can only win when someone else does something so awful folks with nowhere else to go vote for them. They can’t create a real national party outside of a crisis because they have a thousand factions who think they are the pure ones, God’s anointed.”
Walter put in his usual order – an omelet with everything in the kitchen on it – the told his story of woe.
“Here’s what I said. I agreed data center are energy and land hogs and are going to jack up local energy costs and overwhelm infrastructure. I reckon I was OK with the holier-than-thou types up to that point. Then I decided to actually apply thought and reason to the discussion.
“I pointed out that those who were rabidly opposing data centers, and with some good reasons, also did all of their research on the internet and a lot of them might have resorted to artificial intelligence. Which means they are using data that has to be centered somewhere.
“We’ve crossed the Rubicon on this issue. We are going to build data center. I pointed that we ought to build them in areas where they will have the least impact on people and the land. We need to require that those centers foot their own bills for electricity and other utilities. They need to be required to pick up the tab for any expansion of highways, bridges and the like.
“But, I said we ought to have some national standards on how they are constructed, like we do with nuclear power plants. We also should have national programs that incentivize the builders to use wind and solar as opposed to fossil fuels.”
“Pardon me, but what the hell is wrong with that. Sounds logical to me,” Dean Etheridge asked.
“I guess the Federal government is OK when it’s passing housing laws, anti-discrimination laws, environmental laws all for the common good but it’s a horrible, invasive trampler of state and local rights when it comes to doing the same thing for data centers,” Walter said.
“Since I suggested we really need to manage this at the local, state AND Federal levels I have been roundly and publicly castigated by Democrats. Bunch of white-wine-sipping organic food-munching purists. They can take common sense suggestions and turn them into assaults on all that is holy. Damned if I knew I had to crawl before some council of do-gooders and have myself bathed in the aura of their perfection before I spoke out.”
“Yeh, I read some of those comments on the Facebook page,” Sam Robertson said. “You’d have thought you came out and endorsed Donald Trump. That one lady in particular sure thought she owned the issue. What was it she said – ‘you should publicly apologize for denigrating all the hard-working people who are fighting to keep us safe from data centers.’”
“Then there was that guy who said you must have some sort of investment in the thing,” Reuben said.
“Yeh, him. Never listen to a man who ties the arms of his sweater around his neck and wears open-toed sandals on a rainy day,” Walter said.
“So, Walter what are you going to do?” I asked.
“I am going to eat my omelet, have three cups of coffee then go home and see how else I can use simple logic and concise thought to cause strokes galore among those who have all the answers, despite not understanding the questions. I am bound for pissing some people off.
“Effin political party purists. One of ‘em is a mob of white nationalist thugs and the other one’s viper’s nest of holier-than-thou know-it-alls who think everyone is wrong but them and you wonder why this country has gotten so effed up,” he added.
From there we moved on to mumble about baseball’s opening day and inability of any of our teams to make it out of the first two rounds of March Madness. Important stuff.