Next up is the 2026 Botetourt Comprehensive Plan, but I think we’d better recap this series first. We’ve seen how a favorite corporate practice is to find something public, inexpensive… Read more The 2026 Botetourt Comprehensive Plan: Bend Over →
Contrary to Botetourt’s “News Flash” of July 3, planning commissions are required by Va. Code § 15.2-2223 to publish a “comprehensive plan” which may, among other things, “provide for the continued availability, quality, and sustainability of groundwater and surface water.” Consequently, it’s no surprise that Botetourt’s Comprehensive Plan of 2010–in effect while the Board of Supervisors conducted their secret negotiations with Google–had a lot to say about water: The Code further holds, in § 15.2-2232, that a comprehensive plan “shall control the general or approximate location, character and extent of… Read more The Botetourt Data Center, The Planning Commission, and Broken Promises →
Marshall McLuhan tells us that every technology is a prosthetic, and every prosthetic entails an amputation. We lost our legs (and visible abs) to the automobile. Memory died with the printing press. Apple’s advertisements for its new “airpods” tell us what artificial intelligence proposes to amputate. Apple plans to launch these in 2027. They will have tiny cameras built in, not to take photos, but to be the eyes of your phone’s artificial intelligence. One ad I viewed boasted that the airpod cameras would scan your refrigerator for ingredients, and… Read more The Botetourt Data Center: Don’t Fear the Hamster Kaiju →
No proper article this time, but rather a data dump. Below I will paste portions of the Va. Code which Botetourt doubtless forgot to cite in its recent “News Flash”… Read more Notes for the Planning Commission Meeting 7/13/26 →
In discussing the “inverted fascism” of public-private partnerships (e.g. the water monopoly) I mentioned that, theoretically, under fascism proper the government was the master in its union with corporations. Theoretically… Read more The Water Authority: The Legacy of Fascism →
“The Story of America Makes Everyone Free” proclaims whitehouse.gov on the same page disclosing the creation of a public-private partnership, “Freedom 250,” tasked with “engaging all levels of government, the… Read more The Botetourt Data Center & the Lie of Freedom →
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread. -Anatole France I began this series with one question: how can a decision of the Botetourt Board of Supervisors drain Roanoke’s water supply? Answering it has taken me through municipal government code, various contracts concerning the Botetourt data center installation, the agendas and minutes of the Botetourt Board of Supervisors, and the authorizing statutes for the Water Authority, for Appalachian Power, and for county government. … Read more The Botetourt Data Center: Bilious Corporate Prerogative →
Data centers are not yet a partisan issue. There is plenty here for conservative and liberal alike to hate. The writers of our reality have a way of, with time,… Read more If It’s Not Love, Then It’s the Data Center That Will Bring Us Together →