Data Centers & Water

From League of Women Voters:

DATA CENTER GOLD RUSH - Diving into Water Demands

Tuesday, December 9 at 6 p.m.

ONLINE 

Most of the recent articles and webinars on data centers focus on their energy use, but there is another significant concern: Water use. The reality is, in this modern gold rush, there are more proposed hyperscale data centers than our water resources can support. These proposed projects don’t fit into our permitting and regulatory systems. CURE is a leader on the rapidly emerging issues around data center development. 

As a leader on the rapidly emerging issues around data center development in the upper Midwest and nationally, CURE will share lessons learned about how a lack of transparency harms communities across the country. The reality is, in this modern gold rush, there are winners and losers, and currently there are more proposed hyperscale data centers than our infrastructure and resources can support. These proposed projects don’t fit into our permitting and regulatory systems. We will look at why this matters for our communities, with a focus specifically on water.

REGISTER HERE: https://tinyurl.com/WILWVDataCtrs

La Crosse School Board candidate info

Monday at 5 p.m. the School District of La Crosse will hold an info session for those who are interested in running for one of three seats in April.

The session will be held at the new admin space on the south side of Central (2405 Travis Street) which is accessible by MTU 2 & 4.

RSVP by emailing lsteiger@lacrossesd.org or calling 608-789-7659.

From the SDLC Board of Education website:

School Board Election

An election will be held in the School District of La Crosse on Tuesday, April 7, 2026, for the following offices to succeed the present incumbents listed.  The terms of office for school board members include three (3) year terms beginning on Monday, April 27, 2026.

Incumbents are Scott Neumeister, Trevor Sprauge and Deb Suchla.

A February Primary will be required if there are more than 6 candidates with ballot access.

Election Resources

Wisconsin Association of School Boards (WASB) Guide for Candidates

Wisconsin Elections Commission:

• • Election Administration Manual for Wisconsin School District Clerks (rev. Jan. 2021)
  • Election Administration Manual (general; including municipal elections)  (rev. Aug. 2024)
  • Elections Commission Forms
  • Ballot Access Checklist for School Board Candidates (2026 Election) (revised 05/2025) New! 
  • Wisconsin Elections Commission Website

Wisconsin Ethics Commission:

• • Campaign Finance Overview for Local Candidates (rev. Sept. 2023)
  • Ethics Commission Forms (select “Form” in “Document Type”)
  • Campaign Finance Registration Statement for Local Candidate Committees, Form CF-1L (revised 10/2024) 
  • Campaign Finance Checklist for School Board Candidates (2026 Election) New!
  • Individual Donor Contribution Limits Based on 2020 Census Data (see also the February 9, 2022 WASB Legal & Policy Newsletter)
  • Ethics Commission Guideline ETH-1304 related to lawful and unlawful anonymous contributions (issued October 2023)
  • Wisconsin Ethics Commission Website

Know Your Rights

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS WORKSHOP  (Rapid Response)

Tuesday, Dec. 2 at 5 p.m.

Onalaska High School

Learn best practices for rapid response and about Voces de la Frontera's state-wide Community Defense Network.

Register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfamkiTAIBw3cG0NVSyMUU2ZhdWOb28VKfSP9JVHR6aQfS4LQ/viewform

We Ain't Buying It

 From Indivisible:

With the holiday season approaching, let’s make our dollars count.  

We have power as consumers and we can leverage that power to protect our democracy and send a powerful message to companies: When you support Trump, we don’t support you.

Join the We Ain’t Buying It* campaign and take action over Thanksgiving to pressure companies to stop colluding with the Trump administration and enabling their authoritarian overreach.

*My antivirus identifies the campaign site as malicious, so I am not linking to it.

Our Targets:

We’re focused on companies that are capitulating to the Trump administration and going along with their harmful, authoritarian policies. 

• Target caved to Trump and rolled back their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.
• Home Depot has done nothing to protect immigrants in their stores as ICE continues to conduct violent raids on their property.
• Amazon has funded the Trump administration through donations and discounted government contracts (including for ICE), all in exchange for massive corporate tax breaks. 

These corporations think that they profit when they go along with Trump’s attacks on our democracy. But we can make it clear that there is a price to pay for enabling authoritarianism.

Our Ask:

Our ask is simple: Target, Home Depot, and Amazon must stop undermining our democracy by collaborating with, and enabling, the Trump administration. Reinstate their DEI policies, refuse to cooperate with ICE, and withhold funding to Trump’s authoritarian regime. 

Read more about how to participate at https://indivisible.org/campaign/we-aint-buying-it

###

From 50501:

Thus, Nov 27th | Thanksgiving

Don’t Spend a Dime; Spend Family Time

Fri, Nov 28th | Blackout Black Friday

Sat, Nov 29th | Shop Small Saturday

Focusing on shopping small, immigrant, and BIPOC businesses.

Sun, Nov 30th | Circulate the Dollar

Focus on mutual aid and supporting one another!

Mon, Dec 1st | Cyber Shutdown

A day for digital blackout

Google & AI & You

Reports are circulating that Google has updated its policies to allow it to scrape your emails and attachments and other Google spaces to train its AI. 

Here's one report:  Gmail might be harvesting your emails to train AI—here's how to opt out, along with instructions for turning "Smart Features" off. If you turn it off, you will also lose some features like spell check. 

Apparently, Google says it does not look through your emails for its AI. 

However, this is just one front in the war against our AI overlords. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing the Trump regime of its use of AI to surveille social media. "The lawsuit alleges that the Trump administration’s program violates the First Amendment and the Administrative Procedure Act by using artificial intelligence to monitor and penalize lawful speech on social media platforms. The plaintiffs in the case include the United Automobile Workers (UAW), the Communications Workers of America (CWA), and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), labor organizations representing millions of American workers, many of whom are visa holders or lawful permanent residents. These unions report a significant chilling effect on their members' participation in speech and organizing activities due to fear of immigration consequences tied to their online posts."

And, there are concerns that DOGE-harvested data is being used to train Elon Musk's AI. "Most critically, government databases track entire populations over time, not just digitally active users. They include people who never use social media, don’t shop online, or actively avoid digital services. For an AI company, this would mean training systems on the actual diversity of human experience rather than just the digital reflections people cast online."

There are certainly other concerns about AI including its use among health insurance corporations to deny claims (soon coming, per the Kaiser Family Foundation, to Medicare) and the rise of data centers which are driving up electricity costs and using millions of gallons of water, and the misunderstanding of what "Artificial Intelligence" actually does. 

On the other hand, Cory Doctorow, author of the new book Enshittification, says AI is a Bubble. We'll see.

Anyway, turn off the AI training if you want.