Tag: infrastructure

Race Hustlers Redux: How Low Can the Grievance Grifters Go?

One would think that the liberal race fizzgigs would look at the soon-to-be smoldering ruins of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and want to avoid the humiliation that goes hand-in-hand with lying about racism and funding it when there isn’t enough to go around, but no.

The SPLC is accused of paying millions of dollars to so-called “white supremacists,” including helping to fund and plan the now-infamous Charlottesville riot on Aug. 11, 2017, where a woman was murdered.

A Klan-hugger at the SPLC, Heidi Beirich, also got busted for paying Nazis to be more “Nazi,” including the goose-stepper she was sleeping with. 

The SPLC allegedly bribed white supremacy-types to remain in their bigoted battalions even when they wanted to leave. It also paid Beirich $190,000 per year, not counting the mad stacks she funneled into a joint account with her Klan-man cicisbeo. After all, if the truth were revealed that white supremacists are harder to find than Nancy Pelosi’s keys after a five-martini lunch, the donations would stop, Beirich would have to get a real job, and, even worse, racism might actually die in the United States. And without a racist boogeyman to scare black people, how can the Democratic Party trick black folks into voting for them?

Despite the SPLC’s shameful obloquy, the original attention-starved cockalorum bumboy himself, Don Lemon, couldn’t wait to beclown himself for clicks by joining the mayor of Gary, Ind., Eddie Melton, to blame “racism” for the reason Gary residents were still without power 13 days after a massive storm blew in.

What neither of these delusional tools discussed was that power linemen were being attacked by Gary residents as they tried to restore power.

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Trump Declares National Emergency to Secure U.S. Power Grid From Foreign Cyber Security Threats

President Donald Trump declared a national emergency Aug. 26 to secure the national power grid, citing unusual and extraordinary foreign cyber and security threats.

The order prohibits certain foreign-made bulk-power system electric equipment, including software, that poses cybersecurity or operational risks, from being purchased or installed in the United States.

“Certain foreign actors are increasingly creating and exploiting vulnerabilities in the United States bulk-power system, which provides the electricity that supports our national defense, vital emergency services, critical infrastructure, and economy,” Trump said in the order.

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The Left Cries ‘Racism’ as Residents in Majority-Black City Have Been Left Without Power for Two Weeks – Then Community Notes Reveals the Damning Truth

An inconvenient truth regarding out-of-control crime has blown up another racial hoax attempted by the radical left regarding an unfortunate circumstance in a major majority-black city in America.

Thousands of residents of Gary, Indiana, have been left without power for two weeks following severe storms with 100-mph winds on August 11 that destroyed the region’s electrical grid.

This has created a massive humanitarian crisis, as many families are resorting to cooking meals in public parks because so many grocery stores are closed and they’re desperately trying to prevent more food from spoiling.

The delay is certainly tragic and has left thousands of residents in the 76.2% black city suffering. But instead of utilizing intellectual curiosity, leftists on social media quickly cried ‘racism.’

But X’s Community Notes quickly nuked the race-baiting angle with the real reason for the delays.

It turns out that some residents of Gary decided to shoot at NIPSCO crew members who were attempting to restore power to the city.

Why should utility workers risk their lives when the people of the community make it clear they are unwelcome?

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METAPHOR ALERT: Barack Obama Elementary School in Virginia Closed Indefinitely Due to Mold and Rodents

Barack Obama Elementary School in Virginia has been closed indefinitely due to an infestation of mold and rodents. You could not make this up.

All of the other schools in the area are open for business. The school that is named for former President Obama is the only one with this issue.

At least one parent in the video report below claims that this is the second time that mold has closed the school.

CBS 6 in Richmond reports:

Mold forces indefinite closure of Barack Obama Elementary as new school year begins

Barack Obama Elementary School will not open this week due to mold, and students will temporarily relocate to Clark Springs Elementary School while remediation continues.

Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras said in a message to families Monday that teachers and staff setting up classrooms discovered “additional areas of mold growth (for example, behind bulletin board paper),” prompting the district to send everyone home for additional cleaning and testing.

“All of this is realistically going to take several days. So we will not be returning to the Obama building this week. Our goal is to do so by Monday,” Kamras wrote. “In the interim, we are working to get Clark Springs Elementary School ready as a temporary space. We’ll have more information about that by tomorrow. For now, school is closed on Tuesday.”

“Roller coaster is a good word,” said Samieh, a parent of students at the school for the past seven years, of the past five days. “The information keeps kind of cascading of ‘This is what’s going to happen. Oh, actually, it’s not what’s going to happen. Oh, we’re good. Oh, we’re not good.’.”

The district had already pushed back Barack Obama Elementary’s first day from Monday, Aug. 24, after air quality tests showed elevated mold spore levels inside the building.

Kamras said the mold growth stemmed from an HVAC outage that caused mold to spread in the school’s basement and on some furniture. The district also received reports of rodents in several rooms.

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Indiana’s Blackout Exposes America’s Decaying Power Grid

Tens of thousands of people in northwest Indiana have been living without electricity for more than a week, yet this disaster received little national attention until residents had already entered what they described as “survival mode.” The blackout began after an August 11 derecho produced winds approaching 99 miles per hour, destroying power lines, transmission equipment, and utility poles across the region. More than 300,000 NIPSCO customers initially lost service, representing over 60% of the utility’s system and the largest outage event in its history. As of August 20, approximately 68,000 customers reportedly remained without power, with parts of Gary warned that full restoration could take until August 25.

This is not merely an inconvenience caused by a summer storm. Schools have closed, businesses have lost inventory and revenue, families have thrown away spoiled food, and people who depend upon refrigerated medicine or electrically powered medical equipment have been placed at risk. Traffic signals stopped working, communications were interrupted, and residents were forced to line up at community centers for hot meals and a place to charge their phones.

The national media will discuss an outage when it affects an airport, Wall Street, or a wealthy neighborhood. When working-class communities in Gary and Lake County lose power for more than a week, the story remains largely local until the suffering becomes impossible to ignore. There has been reporting, but the scale of the national response bears no relationship to the severity of what happened. If 68,000 customers in Manhattan had remained without electricity for nine days, every network would be broadcasting live from the streets and Congress would already be demanding hearings.

NIPSCO says the damage was unprecedented and that crews must replace or repair approximately 300 distribution poles and 44 transmission poles in Gary alone. More than 600 line workers have reportedly been involved in restoration efforts. Nobody should diminish the severity of a derecho with hurricane-force winds, nor blame crews working in dangerous conditions. The problem is that a natural disaster has exposed how little redundancy exists in the system. When a single series of storms can knock out electricity to most of a utility’s customers and leave tens of thousands disconnected for more than a week, the grid has become a single point of failure for the entire community.

America has built an economy in which virtually nothing functions without electricity. Food cannot be preserved, fuel pumps cannot operate, electronic payments fail, mobile phones eventually die, and many modern appliances become useless. Hospitals and emergency facilities possess backup generators, but ordinary households and small businesses are expected to fend for themselves. The government promotes the electrification of vehicles, heating, cooking, and transportation while the grid required to support this dependence remains vulnerable to trees, flooding, aging poles, overloaded transformers, and severe weather.

The American Society of Civil Engineers has repeatedly identified the country’s energy infrastructure as requiring massive investment. Much of the national transmission and distribution network was constructed decades ago for a completely different economy. Demand is now increasing from data centers, electric vehicles, manufacturing, air conditioning, and the attempt to electrify still more activities. The government cannot simultaneously increase dependence upon electricity and ignore the physical system that distributes it. That is not an energy transition; it is building society around a vulnerability.

Wealthier households can purchase whole-home generators, battery systems, hotel rooms, and replacement food. A low-income family may lose hundreds of dollars in groceries and have no money to replace them. An hourly worker may lose wages because a workplace or school is closed. Parents must choose between remaining home with children and reporting to work. Insurance deductibles can exceed the value of the property destroyed, while public assistance often arrives after the immediate crisis has passed.

Governor Mike Braun declared a statewide disaster emergency, deployed the Indiana National Guard, and requested federal assistance after the storms caused deaths, flooding, displacement, and widespread infrastructure damage. Those measures are necessary, but emergency declarations address the aftermath rather than the underlying vulnerability. The political system operates from crisis to crisis because preventive investment requires planning beyond the next election. Money is found instantly after disaster strikes, but routine maintenance is treated as an expense to be postponed.

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Ontario Premier Threatens to Cut Electricity to U.S. — Trump Warns Consequences for Canada Will Be ‘Far WORSE’

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is threatening to cut electricity supplies to the U.S. amid the ongoing trade war with President Donald Trump.

Ford said Monday that “everything is on the table” after Washington imposed 50 percent tariffs on roughly $20 billion of Canadian goods.

Ontario currently supplies enough electricity to power approximately 1.5 million American homes and businesses, particularly in neighboring states including Michigan, Minnesota and New York.

“We power 1.5 million homes and businesses,” Ford said. “Everything’s on the table. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

He also threatened to completely halt exports of critical minerals from Ontario.

“I’ll cut them off,” he said. “You won’t get a grain of sand out of Ontario.”

Among the resources flowing south are high-grade nickel and uranium refined in Ontario, materials with significant importance to American manufacturing, energy production and national security.

“What would they do without the high-grade nickel that we ship down to the U.S.?” Ford asked.

Ford suggested Canada could eventually go even further by using its enormous supplies of oil and potash as leverage against Washington.

The threats come after trade negotiations between the two countries collapsed Friday.

Prime Minister Mark Carney walked away from negotiations after deciding that Trump’s demands were unacceptable.

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Tech Giants Scramble to Calm Public Anger over AI Data Centers

In July, roughly 1,000 Georgia residents gathered at the Effingham County College & Career Academy to hear what OpenAI could offer their community. They also faced protesters angry about the impacts of AI data centers.

The Wall Street Journal reports that a day after announcing plans for a new data center near Savannah, Georgia, OpenAI held an open house for residents’ questions. Attendees passed protest signs reading “I didn’t vote for AI” and “You can’t drink data!!!” Inside were OpenAI-staffed booths with facility information, QR codes to a job board, site renderings and a taco bar. OpenAI pledged the community $80 million, plus up to $71 million in coding credits for local students.

OpenAI Chief Global Affairs officer Chris Lehane called the open house “an important piece” of winning community support. “People really do want to know, like, ‘Are my electricity bills gonna go up or not? Is this gonna impact my water supply? Am I gonna pay more or less in taxes?’” he said.

Open houses, multimillion-dollar pledges and free food were not standard for an industry that typically won approval through speed, confidentiality and political connections. That’s changing as grassroots backlash threatens the buildout’s momentum. Companies add job guarantees and water investments to deals, cite facilities that cut tax burdens, and frame AI’s impact around opportunity, not job losses.

“The politics of data centers have become more prominent and unambiguous across the country,” said Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith. Microsoft, he said, saw the need for a community-focused approach after the issue surfaced in last November’s elections, including New Jersey’s governor’s race, which Democrat Mikie Sherrill won after campaigning on electricity prices. “As soon as, especially, the New Jersey race was over, it was clear that this was on a different trajectory,” he said. Two months later, Microsoft announced commitments on electricity, water use, jobs and taxes.

Opponents cite rising electricity prices, environmental effects and noise; some object to AI itself over job-loss fears or broader social harm. Clifford Young, chair of Ipsos Public Affairs, said the backlash reflects a “broader-based belief that the system is broken and no longer working for the average person… it’s become, I would say, even a poster child for it.”

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U.S. Infrastructure Strikes Have Left Iranians in the South Without Livelihoods

When U.S. missiles struck the harbor outside in the port city of Badar Abbas last month, Sajjad saw his livelihood literally go up in smoke.

The small wooden fishing boat that had supported the 56-year-old and his family for years was reduced to a charred husk, along with dozens of other boats lining the docks. Sajjad told Drop Site News that nearly every fisherman he knows lost a vessel that night. Replacing a single boat now costs around 2 billion tomans (around $1,050)—far beyond what most families can afford.

“Both my children are in university,” Sajjad said. “Everything depended on that boat. Soon, I may not even be able to pay their tuition.”

When U.S. strikes resumed in early July following a two-month pause, the attacks focused heavily on southern Iran. Interviews with residents in hard-hit southern provinces like Khuzestan, Hormozgan, Sistan, and Baluchestan describe strikes not only on military facilities, but also on critical civilian infrastructure, including fishing ports, bridges, telecommunications networks, power plants, hospitals, and transportation corridors.

Dozens of communications towers have been knocked offline in repeated attacks, disrupting internet and telephone services. One attack on a transmission tower near Tappeh Aluakbar in Bandar Abbas killed five people, including a woman who died shielding her son with her body, local residents told Drop Site.

Transportation infrastructure has sustained similar damage. Alireza, a resident of Hormozgan who studies screenwriting and is carefully tracking recent events in the hopes of making a documentary about the war, described strikes on Tappeh Aluakbar overlooking Bandar Abbas, bridges linking Bandar Abbas to Khamir and Rudan, railway infrastructure, and key transportation routes connecting the province. At one destroyed crossing, road crews carved a temporary dirt route through a dry riverbed within hours simply to keep vehicles moving.

The damage extends to the sea as well: Alireza estimates that roughly 300 civilian fishing boats have been destroyed across Bandar Abbas, Bandar Lengeh, Sirik, and Jask, affecting the livelihoods of thousands of people. Two maritime search-and-rescue vessels operating near Bandar Abbas, Qeshm, and Hormuz Island were also put out of service.

Kharg Island, Iran’s principal oil export terminal, has long featured in discussions among U.S. officials and defense analysts as a strategically significant site and was bombed in March during the U.S.-Israeli aerial campaign. According to an Iranian military analyst who spoke to Drop Site on condition of anonymity for security reasons, if the U.S. ever sent ground troops to take over the island, Iran’s ability to reinforce Kharg would depend heavily on the transportation networks running through Hormozgan.

“They’re not simply destroying roads,” the analyst said. “They’re reducing Iran’s ability to move personnel, equipment, and supplies before any future operation ever begins.”

Residents and medical workers in Khuzestan also describe the toll on civilians caused by the bombing campaign, particularly children.

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La.: New Orleans 911 turns to AI call triage amid staffing shortages

New Orleans is among the first major American municipalities to integrate an AI voice agent into its 911 emergency call workflow as a limited triage tool.

Overseen by the Orleans Parish Communication District (OPCD), the system — known as AI Emergency Call Triage and powered by software from Carbyne — has been in use on the 911 line since approximately 2023. This is following development work that began around 2022, the department added.

A separate AI agent for the city’s non-emergency 311 service was planned and began rolling out later, around spring 2026.

OPCD reportedly handles more than 1,000 emergency calls per day. The AI tool was designed to reduce workload pressure on human dispatchers during high-volume periods, particularly by filtering redundant reports of the same incident. It functions strictly as a triage layer rather than a replacement for human operators.

Under current protocol, the AI agent activates primarily when all human call-takers are busy and an incoming call originates within roughly 200 meters of a previously reported incident (most commonly a traffic collision). The system asks whether the caller is reporting that known incident.

If the caller confirms they are, the AI can provide reassurance or updates that help is already on the way. If the caller indicates a different or new emergency, or requests a human, the call is immediately routed to an available dispatcher. All calls remain logged and recorded.

OPCD Executive Director Karl Fasold has since defended the limited deployment, noting that 911 centers nationwide face staffing shortages and budget constraints. Filtering duplicate calls during major incidents frees human staff to focus on life-threatening or novel emergencies, he argued.

While other cities, including Atlanta and Seattle, have similarly adopted AI tools for supporting functions such as precise caller location, real-time translation, or dispatcher prompts, New Orleans stands out for using a conversational AI agent that can directly field a narrow subset of active 911 calls under the specific conditions described above.

However, public-safety advocates have voiced growing concern through the media, questioning how well the AI handles panicking callers, heavy accents, ambient noise, or covert distress calls like domestic violence. Critics also cite cybersecurity vulnerabilities and the risk of hallucinated or inaccurate responses during fast-moving crises.

“I was a 911 dispatcher for 11 years and this is the worst idea you could possibly think of,” warned one online critic and alleged former dispatcher. “You have scenarios where the person can’t speak well [or have strong accents] — or if they’re in a domestic situation and they pretend to call for pizza or something — you have to be able to determine how someone feels or pick up on what they aren’t saying.”

Nonetheless, OPCD officials maintain that the tool operates under strict conditions and oversight, has performed reliably in its limited role, with early monitoring showing no false positives or negatives in audited periods, and is not used for other categories of 911 calls.

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Wildfires Reveal the Risks of a Net Zero Electricity Grid as Climate Activists and Politicians Exploit Wildfire Tragedies says Friends of Science Society

Canada plans to spend $1 trillion on building out an east-west ‘clean energy’ power grid as part of its net zero climate plan, but Friends of Science Society says, while additional power generation is needed, net zero should not be the rationale, in this new video “Change Climate Change: Stop Net Zero Nonsense.” 

Canadian physicist, William van Wijngaarden, in a presentation for the International Climate Science Coalition shows there is no human-made climate crisis, thus no need for net zero targets. Wijngaarden says net zero goals will cause serious damage to society.

Part of that damage is the convoluted effort to “electrify everything” using so-called “clean energy.”

Footage of evacuees trying to navigate downed power lines in British Columbia show why “electrify now” and “electrify everything” to reach Net Zero climate targets is a bad idea, says Friends of Science Society. As reported by CBC on July 30, 2026, dozens of power poles, transmission lines, lines and transformers are down; large sections of British Columbia lost electrical power, as is happening in other wildfire locations. Without conventional ICE vehicles, people in a net zero EV world would be stranded.

As tragic wildfires rip through British Columbia, Ontario, Spokane, Oregon, and Europe, climate activist journos like some at Associated Press and Grist, and politicians like former Washington governor, Jay Inslee, wrongly exploit these tragedies, by conflating wildfire and human-caused climate change, says Friends of Science Society. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as explained in plain language by Roger Pielke, Jr., “The IPCC has not detected or attributed fire occurrence or area burned to human-caused climate change.”

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