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from Faucet Repair
27 February 2026
Still night (working title): found a stack of old Polaroids over the weekend that I hadn't looked at in probably a year, and instantly there was a freshness to their format from a painting perspective—the image as a container being contained. Thought of Marisol's 1961 Family Portrait lithograph, of approaching and reacting to the edges of the source and going from there. Ken price too, value absolutes and the neat/organized but skillfully loose layered application in so many of his small ink and acrylic drawings/paintings. The photograph I worked with was of a scene of surfaces supporting half-emptied glasses and bottles at Yena's old flat in Vauxhall. The pheromone-thick air of that night, one of many nights, and the edges on which the images in those memories balance.
from bios
5: Trust An Addict
He arrived back beaten. It was obvious the beating was fake. We had pooled our money and he had gone to buy from the dealer who sells stone. He was gone for four hours. I had already hustled more and smoked and was merely simmeringly pissed off. Tell me you smoked it all and it's fine. He clung on to the story and I had no choice but to act like I believed him. For whatever reason he needed that freedom. Here, in the clutch of this transient community, you get aligned with acting like you believe and working with the remnants.
I needed him because he provided me a place to stay, he needed me because I was better at spinning, and in that burnt out third floor roofless room, I began to see the lies in his truths and the truths in his lies and had no choice but to accept that he had his reasons, he made no explanations.
“If you have relapsed I will no longer help you,” and so you cannot say that you have relapsed. You want to be able to tell the truth. But you will tell small lies to survive the withdrawal, the hunger, the elements.
And the shame of this will slowly demand more oblivion. It is the dishonesty's shame that leads to the justifications. It is the asking and not achieving what you honestly wanted to do that leads to the over-explaining. Of trying to explain to yourself the lack of ability to explain the lack of ability.
The help was just enough to maintain where I was, not enough to get out of it. It was hard enough for people to survive through the day, how could I expect any sort of total solution from any one individual. They had the distractions of their everyday traumas. Sometimes I knew the help would set me back. But the prospect of being foodless, drugless, unnumbed was not something to embrace for the sake of the greater good. It was hard enough to survive through the day. Constantly crawling toward evaporating levers of change, there is always some form of oblivion to embrace. Without the privilege of distraction, the only choice is between oblivions.
The sorry story that accosts you huddled in pity me pose on Long Street is just another performance. Another strategy for survival. The insistence of woe reaps more reward than mere hunger. And then woe becomes who you are. You cannot let people see the small moments of joy.
In days spent performing sadness there is little room for the distraction of joy. Even the spending is a grim reminder of the soon lack.
You distance yourself from yourself by talking in third person, the royal we, instead of I, you say you.
Waiting for the lights to change, putting loose coins into the hands of the man holding up the black plastic bag at the traffic lights. At least he's trying. At least you've helped in some small way.
You distance yourself from the problem by helping in some small way.
In the drug houses there is a community of Smalls, Sdudlas, Ntombis, BoyBoys, MaLevens, the people change, the names are always the same. It is impossible to have anything of your own. To stick to oneself is to invite suspicion, or theft. To have nothing openly for long enough, is to invite sharing. The meagre spoils of the day made less in sharing is a kind of insurance against lack, when without maybe someone here will help, and so everyone shares, in a balance between fears.
There is no linear path to get here. Some people are born here. There is no time in the day to even get to home affairs to get a new ID. Some people here were born without being entered on the record. Survival is time consuming. There is no space for breathing. There is a basic scrabbling for the end of each day that is hard to translate. There are people with genuine kindness that will help in case of emergency, and they do not understand that every day is an emergency and emergencies are invented that they will understand. Lies containing truth. The choice so often is between honesty or survival.
The old man has two beds in his room. One for him, one for newspapers and cats. He lives on the second floor of a milked with rot perhaps old boarding house, a faded five stars on the gate. To get to his place you pass through a dishevelled drinking place , climb steps above the brothel, it has that particular smell that these places have: husks of cockroach eggs, cracked windowsill paint strata, wood decayed in bodily fluids, electrical shorting, forgotten fires, paper damp with age – a smell no amount of hope can mask. His neighbours talk to him only to mission cigarettes, boiling water from his, the only kettle, and advice.
He wakes at 4:30am amongst the mewling of kittens and cats waiting to be fed, and he irons his suit, as threadbare as the financial district he will walk to in order to ply his trade. He needs to look respectable, it's for his own sake. He mends his suits in the late morning, after returning from, he calls it, pan-handling, after doing his modest dose of heroin, and then reads the morning papers and returns to work around two in the afternoon. He needs the heroin and the repaired suits in order to endure getting the money for the heroin and the suit repair. The cats are his survival.
Huddling in the lee of the stench at the scrap for crack recyclers, I clutch the pipe against the clawing hands, then into a garbage bag to try grab windless space to inhale some small dots of smack. There is no time to breathe. I must get more cans. I must dig in more bins to stave off reality. This is not a party.
Someone buys me a hoodie. It's summer in Durban. They will not give me money for food, or drugs or medication but they buy me a hoodie. Give it to me with the price tag still on. One thousand two hundred rand. We both know that I will sell the hoodie for drugs, not even getting cash so I can get food, the merchants only pay in drugs for clothes. I cannot exchange it, without a recipient I will be arrested for shoplifting. I get two hundred rands worth of drugs.
Chop Wood. Carry Water.
There is a methadone program here. At seven in the morning they line up to receive their daily dose. Methadone has a twelve hour half life, by seven tonight everyone here will be in withdrawal. There is no nightly dose. There is no methadone on weekends. And so the attempt to get clean results in higher tolerance. The dose never reduces, it is not tracked, this is not a reduction program. This is not a pathway away from daily addiction, this is another way to maintain. The nurse and admin person upfront have no time for my questions, “we are trying to help you, do you want or not?”.
I follow him straight line from the traffic lights at the mall where I have spent the afternoon withdrawing, watching him work the passing cars, trying to not shit in my pants. Before when I have had money I have shared resources with him and now he is helping me. We are passing time here while he waits for his end of day daily peace job,of which he often boasts. There is an older man up the road just before the old zoo who pays him to feed the monkeys in the fading light. This old man sits on his balcony and throws down bags of fruit and an envelope containing a hundred rand. We fight for the fruit with the monkeys while feeding them, he has pulled in maybe another hundred or two at the lights. I do not ask. We in the now darkness head down the alley, to the side gate that leads into the stolen apartment complex where he pays rent in kind.
The gate is blocked by the sleeping figure of an old man. We have to move him, “Don't wake him.” I interpret this as kindness. An old brown sherry bottle rolls off, tinkling decorously toward the gutter, the old man grunts, “don't fucking wake him.” Why not? “He's my father and he will want to come inside. Never trust a wetbrain”. Slipping inside the gate, up the filth littered stairs. Tripping over recalcitrant rats unabated. He has lived, alongside his family in various forms for his whole life. From here by the tracks, past the factories, the mall, up to the old zoo, these few square kilometres have been his whole life. He almost finished school just over there. He almost got a job in another town once and would have left from the train station over there. He has no electricity, no television, no phone, can hardly read, no size-able ambition other than this daily avoiding of withdrawal. The nightly comfort in the distractions and rituals of oblivion, is his only allotted purpose.
He always makes sure he has one cap of heroin to wake up to, so that he can get to work calmly, “you cannot hurry the money,” he smiles as he takes small joy in his morning ritual.
At the traffic lights he fights over his place with a woman on crutches, “the bitch can walk.”
And besides, he has been here his whole life. He has pride in this work, knows all the people in the cars. He has an impatient conversation with a man through the car window. The light goes green. A shrug, “says he'll be back later,” shouting now, “I could have asked three other cars, these larnies, always over-explaining, always a story with them, they can't just say no.”
from targetedjaidee
Gratitude.
What are some things you are grateful for today? I am grateful for the following:
- Woke up clean
- My children are safe (for now)
- My marriage & how awesome we are together
I saw my therapist yesterday (my therapist understands that I am a part of this program and doesn't judge me). And I came to the realization I have to love my spouse for how they are & who they are. And in doing so, I have to forgive them. Ya know what I mean. I have struggled with the perceived notion that they were in on this type of thing; truth of the matter is that we weren't ourselves for most of last year. So, just for today I choose happiness, grace, & love.
I have come to realize that my ability to offer forgiveness to those around me is actually a gift. Do I struggle with the emotions of the aftermath? Absolutely. I am human and I have to process these things. Even when I feel extremely low and full of sorrow, I still pray. I ask God to remove those nasty feelings when its time. I know I have to feel my emotions and process them. Sometimes, those get heavy.
The amount of betrayal I have suffered recently has been absolutely insane. But that is what this program is about. Further isolation (or at least make it seem as though). Part of my program is “parental alienation”. What is that? Well, a false narrative has been fed to my children & I am being treated with a 10-foot pole and being kept from my children. Even with clean screenings & doing my part. My parents are actively trying to keep my children from me to make it seem as though “I abandoned them”. That way if I ever mess up, I get my “rights terminated”. My spouse's ex did just that actually. They cut contact between my spouse and their kids once the ex found out about me. That was sometime in 2020. Well, in 2024 the ex reaches out and tries (keyword tries but fails miserably) to “be kind and supportive” because my spouse's parent had passed. Well interestingly enough, my parents had decided to help my spouse get the right to see their kids and hired an attorney. THAT day that my parents wrote the check – the ex calls my spouse (LMAO). I cannot make this shet up.
The ex was trying to be “civil” with their own agenda. Always hidden motives. They spent over an hour talking on the phone about how they do not like me (mind you, I have never met this individual). How the kids would never call me “Mom” or whatever (I knew I was never getting the chance to meet my step kids anyway). So that didn't hurt. They were adamant about their religious views (I could care less, it's their children together, they can practice whatever they want). Hilariously enough: I had a blog going in 2024 off of Wix; the ex tells my spouse that “one of their kids” found my blog (-_–). Seriously? So, the kids are stalking me and out of ALL the websites on Wix...your kid finds mine? Insert eye roll. That poor kid, dude. Being thrown into the mix without having done anything. But...that's their parent and I pray for them every day.
I firmly believe that gangstalkers need to be brought to justice. They need to be exposed & brought to justice. I think my spouse's ex needs help mentally, with the level of obsession they exhibited, literally up until November of last year (since 2020). (LMAO) I start talking about the experiences I have had & I get told that I am “crazy” or whatever narrative has been sold to them to come and attack me Insert eye roll. It is so pathetic. What these idiots don't seem to understand is: the more they gang up on me, the more obvious it is to me that I am a child of God & that terrifies whatever evil motives they have in doing what they are doing. You know what I mean. They tell on themselves.
But at the same time: Not one of them is willing to sit down with me & tell me, human to human, “Hey. Here is why I do not like you.” Not. One. They click up like pessies to slander and defame (LMAO). It is hilarious, I am serious. It's like watching roaches run in the same direction, altogether. But yeah. That is where my mind is today.
To my fellow TIs: I pray today is good to you. You small wins are valid & should be celebrated. You matter. I am grateful you're here.
Jaide owwt*
Edinburgh – En stad där historia, kultur och naturskönhet möts
from 
Platser
Edinburgh, Skottlands majestätiska huvudstad, är en stad som andas historia och charm. Belägen på östra kusten, med sin dramatiska siluett av slott, medeltida gränder och vulkaniska kullar, är staden en perfekt blandning av gammalt och nytt. Här kan du vandra genom tusen år av historia, njuta av världsklasskultur, och samtidigt uppleva en modern, levande stad med en unik karaktär.
Historiska landmärken och arkitektur
Edinburghs mest ikoniska landmärke är utan tvekan Edinburgh Castle, som reser sig stoltsamt på Castle Rock. Slottet, som har fungerat som kungligt residens, militärfästning och fängelse, är en symbol för Skottlands turbulenta historia. Här kan du se de skotska kronjuvelerna, Stone of Destiny, och den berömda kanonen Mons Meg. Utanför slottet ligger Royal Mile, en livlig gata som sträcker sig ner till Holyrood Palace, kungafamiljens officiella residens i Skottland. Längs Royal Mile hittar du historiska byggnader, museer, traditionella pubar och affärer som säljer allt från tartanplädar till whisky.
Ett annat måste är Holyrood Abbey, en vacker ruin som ligger intill Holyrood Palace. Abbotet grundades på 1100-talet och är en påminnelse om stadens religiösa och kungliga förflutna. För den som är intresserad av arkitektur är St Giles' Cathedral ett besök värt. Katedralen, med sin imponerande gotiska stil och färgstarka fönster, är en av Skottlands mest kända kyrkor.
Kultur och evenemang
Edinburgh är också känt som en av världens ledande kulturstäder. Varje år i augusti omvandlas staden till en scen för Edinburgh Festival Fringe, världens största konst- och kulturfestival. Under festivalen fylls gatorna av artister, komiker, musiker och teatergrupper från hela världen. Det är en tid då staden verkligen lever upp till sitt rykte som en plats för kreativitet och innovation.
För litteraturälskare är Writers' Museum ett besök värt. Museet hyllar tre av Skottlands största författare: Robert Burns, Walter Scott och Robert Louis Stevenson. Här kan du lära dig mer om deras liv och verk, och se originalmanuskript och personliga föremål.
Om du är intresserad av vetenskap och innovation, bör du besöka National Museum of Scotland. Museet erbjuder en fascinerande resa genom tid och rum, från dinosaurier och forntida skatter till modern teknik och design. Det är ett perfekt ställe för både barn och vuxna.
Natur och utsikter
Edinburgh är inte bara en stad för historiker och kulturälskare – den erbjuder också fantastiska naturupplevelser. Arthur's Seat, en utdöd vulkan, är stadens högsta punkt och erbjuder en magnifik utsikt över hela området. En vandring upp för berget är ett måste för den som vill uppleva stadens skönhet från ovan. Om du föredrar en lugnare promenad, är Princes Street Gardens en perfekt plats att slappna av på. Parken ligger mitt i staden och erbjuder en grön oas med vackra blommor, fontäner och utsikt över Edinburgh Castle.
För den som vill utforska utanför stadskärnan, är Leith ett trevligt område att besöka. Detta hamnområde har genomgått en förvandling och är nu känt för sina trendiga restauranger, barer och konstgallerier. Här kan du också besöka Royal Yacht Britannia, drottning Elizabeth II:s tidigare kungliga yacht, som nu är ett museum.
Mat och dryck
Edinburgh har ett rikt utbud av restauranger, från traditionella skotska pubar till moderna fine dining-restauranger. Ett måste är att prova haggis, Skottlands nationalrätt, som serveras med “neeps and tatties” (rotfrukter och potatis). För den som är modig kan man också prova whisky – Skottland är ju känt för sin whisky, och Edinburgh har flera destillerier och whiskybars där du kan lära dig mer om tillverkningsprocessen och smaka på olika sorter.
Om du föredrar något sött, bör du prova en shortbread eller en Cranachan, en traditionell skotsk dessert gjord på havregryn, hallon, grädde och whisky.
Praktisk information
Edinburgh är en kompakt stad, och det mesta kan nås till fots. För längre sträckor finns det ett välutbyggt kollektivtrafiksystem med bussar och spårvagnar. Staden har också en internationell flygplats, vilket gör den lättillgänglig för resenärer från hela världen.
När det gäller boende finns det något för alla smaker och budgetar. Från lyxiga hotell på Princes Street till mysiga bed and breakfasts i Gamla stan, eller moderna hostels för backpackers – Edinburgh har allt.
Hunger as Norm, Politics as Always
Somalia’s hunger is not a breaking story. It is a baseline.
Every few years, the photos and headlines return: emaciated children, dry riverbeds, queues for food distributions. Donors convene pledging conferences, agencies refresh their emergency plans, politicians promise coordination. Then the rains come, or the news cycle moves on, and the crisis is reclassified from “famine” to “acute food insecurity.” But for millions of Somalis, hunger never fully leaves. It stretches and tightens with the seasons and the political calendar, becoming a normal condition to be managed rather than an intolerable failure to be ended.
Calling this “normal” is not a moral judgment on Somalis; it is a description of how the system currently works. Droughts, floods, displacement and high prices interact with fragile institutions, insecure roads, missing infrastructure, and a relief economy that keeps people just above the survival line without changing the underlying structure. Politics, meanwhile, continues as always: competition over territory and rents, short-term bargains, and symbolic announcements about resilience that rarely translate into the boring, patient investments that would make chronic hunger exceptional again.
To understand why hunger behaves like a norm in Somalia, it helps to separate three layers: climate, infrastructure and markets; and politics.
The climate layer is the one most often named: multi-season droughts, erratic rains, rising temperatures, and then destructive floods. For rural and pastoral households, this means more frequent and sharper shocks to pasture, water and livestock. Climate is not new in Somalia, but the speed and volatility of current patterns mean less time to recover between shocks. Even in good years, many households are one failed season away from crisis; in bad years, the line between “poor” and “famine-affected” is thin.
Infrastructure and markets translate these shocks into hunger or resilience. In large parts of Somalia, there are few reliable rural roads, limited cold storage and warehouses, weak irrigation, and patchy electricity. When a drought hits, traders can only move food and water so fast and so far; when prices spike globally, import-dependent markets pass that cost straight to consumers. Water trucking, private boreholes and small-scale irrigation schemes play a vital role, but they are fragile and expensive. There is no dense, climate-ready “infrastructure of adaptation” – no network of wells, storage, small dams, feeder roads, energy and communications robust enough to absorb shocks and keep food and water physically accessible.
In this vacuum, markets do function, but they do so under extreme stress and with high margins. A trader in a remote district is not a villain for charging more when fuel prices and security risks climb. Yet for households spending most of their income on food, these price shifts are the difference between eating twice a day and once, between staying in place or joining an IDP camp. Mobile money and remittances soften the blow for some families, but they are unevenly distributed and cannot substitute for missing public systems.
Over this sits the political layer. “Politics as always” in this context means that hunger is deeply shaped by decisions on security, representation, and resource allocation, but rarely treated as the central test of those decisions. Territorial control and clan bargaining shape where roads are built, where health posts and schools survive, where local government functions; they also influence how quickly humanitarian aid reaches certain areas, which communities are visible in national plans, and whose suffering becomes legible to donors. In some places, negotiations with armed actors determine whether food can move at all. In others, the presence of an international compound guarantees attention to nearby camps, while villages just beyond the security perimeter remain invisible.
Humanitarian actors, for their part, are caught between genuine commitment and structural constraints. Funding is short-term and volatile; appeals are chronically under-financed; programmes are often designed for one- or two-year cycles. “Resilience” has become a standard word in project documents, but much of the architecture still revolves around emergency response. When drought looms, plans are activated, NGOs scale up, and cash or food is distributed. When the immediate emergency fades, budgets shrink, teams are reassigned, and the opportunity to systematically build water, storage, roads and safety nets is lost again. No single agency chooses this pattern, but together they reproduce a system where survival is the outcome, not transformation.
The result is a grim equilibrium. Rural and peri-urban households adapt as best they can, diversifying income, migrating, sending children to cities, relying on relatives abroad. Local markets and private providers fill gaps with water, transport, and basic services where possible. Humanitarian pipelines prevent full-scale famine in many areas, especially when early warning works and funding arrives on time. Politicians manage the optics, balancing domestic expectations and donor relationships. Hunger moves up and down the scale, but it rarely drops out of the picture.
This is what “hunger as norm” looks like: a country where food insecurity is not an exceptional shock but an ordinary risk, managed each year through a mix of coping strategies, emergency aid, and selective infrastructure fixes. Climate change tightens this equilibrium; each cycle becomes harder to manage without deeper structural change. Yet the politics of the state, the incentives of donors, and the business models of many actors remain aligned with continuity rather than disruption.
Breaking this norm does not start with a new slogan, but with a different way of asking questions. Instead of “How many people can we feed this season?”, the core questions become: which investments in water, roads, storage, energy and basic services would permanently reduce the population living one shock away from hunger? How can social protection systems be built to deliver predictable support before people exhaust their assets? What forms of local government and accountability are needed so that drought response is a matter of public policy, not ad hoc negotiation? And how should external actors change their own funding and programming logic to support that shift, rather than reproducing the emergency cycle?
Politics will not disappear from these choices; it will always shape who benefits first, which regions and clans see more investment, and how institutions are built or blocked. But politics can operate inside a fundamentally different structure – one in which the baseline is that most Somalis are food secure most of the time, and hunger has returned to what it should be: a signal of exceptional failure, not an expected part of life.
For now, that is not the system Somalia has. The system Somalia has is one where climate shocks are intensifying, infrastructure for adaptation is thin, markets are stressed, and the relief economy sits on top of a fragile political order. As long as those fundamentals remain unchanged, hunger will continue to behave like a norm, and politics will continue as always.
The question for Somali policymakers, practitioners, and their partners is whether they are prepared to treat this as unacceptable normality and reorganise their work accordingly – or whether the next drought and the next set of photos will once again be absorbed into a familiar, lethal routine.
from targetedjaidee
Healing Out Loud.
That is what I am doing. Ya know, sometimes I get angry & very upset with how things have transpired. But at the same time: I am grateful I can feel these types of emotions & let them go after.
Today's verse is as follows:
Psalms 91 NIV 1Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”
Imagine that! I am firmly protected & blessed by the Most High. He is my dwelling place, and He is the reason I am alive today. I am beyond grateful this morning, guys.
I really hope you have a blessed day!
Jaide owwt*
Sombra
from 
Atmósferas
Esta sombra, que es mi sombra, no tiene ojos pero sé que mira, no tiene boca pero sé que calla. No tiene rabo pero sé que es mono. Esta es la sombra del animal.
Esta sombra es lo que pienso cuando no hay testigos y lo que oculto cuando parezco claro. Esta sombra es memoria y desmemoria, caprichosa e indolente.
Esta sombra tiene corazón de piedra, enajenada sombra de mis días.
Aparece y desaparece, capaz de mezclarse entre las sombras, conspirar, retorcer, fagocitar.
Sé que es ella y tú también. Es mi sombra, es tu sombra, la raíz, las sombras, nuestras sombras, nuestra única gran sombra que clama por más sombra.
Missing again
from An Open Letter
Today I went to the gym and worked from home, and not really any friends were online today. And so I felt lonely. Completely honest, I haven’t felt that way in a long long time. I’m so used to having E there, and I would virtually never have to actually deal with loneliness. I forgot how miserable of a feeling it is. I know that this is just a one day thing, but that feeling of isolation is miserable. I really wanted to almost reach out to her again, partially because some of me feels like she’s also lonely. But that’s probably not the case, and regardless it doesn’t help me at all to think about that. I think I ultimately just need to recognize this feeling, and then let it pass. I do remember however how enticing it is to have a partner that you codependent with. Never having to worry about loneliness is a nice thought. Never having to be alone again. Except that’s not how it works, and it’s almost like saying how alcohol is nice because you never have to feel bad again. I will just make more friends, and it will be OK. And regardless it’s just one day. There are so many other things that I want to do like playing songs on the guitar, creative projects, etc. Oh yeah and reading, I really wanna try reading during the day at some point.
So many words
from 
Talk to Fa
The more I tap in, the more excessive words feel.
2026-03-01
from Two Sentences
Took the time to catch up on sleep. Did a 7 mile long run after, then kept experimenting with Gastown.
∞
from Talk to Fa
I am a hopeful romantic. Everything is possible. I really believe that.
丘の上にある家に帰る
from 下川友
今日は、なんだか自分の中のいろんな面が顔を出した一日だった。 今日も僕は、あらゆる面において一人だった。 家族も友達もちゃんといるけれど、それでも一人だなあといつも思っている。
朝、顔に日焼け止めを塗っていたとき、ふと「左右で色が違ったらどうなるんだろう」と思って、右半分だけ塗ってみた。鏡の中の自分が、ちょっとした実験動物みたいで、思わず笑ってしまった。
そのままの顔で陶芸教室へ。 今日は最初から「誰とも話さないって決めたんだ」って、隣に座ったおじさんに宣言してみた。普段はよく喋るから、たまにはこういう日があってもいいかなって思って。 でも結局、土をこねながら「この粘土、ちょっと乾いてません？」って話しかけてしまった。おじさん、少し笑ってた。
帰り道、団地のエレベーターに乗るとき、誰もいないのに「今、団地がアツいんだよね」ってつぶやいてみた。誰に向けて言ったのか、自分でもよくわからないけど、なんだか気分がよかった。
午後は、チラシが風に乗って飛んできそうな時間を見計らって、玄関前にイスを出して待ってみた。案の定、ふわっと一枚、舞ってきた。手に取ってみたら、地域の陶芸展の案内だった。今日の自分にぴったりすぎて、また笑ってしまった。
夕方、公園に行って、グローブを二つ持ってベンチに座った。 学校帰りの子どもが通りかかったから、目で「どう？」って誘ってみたけど、スルーされた。まあ、そんな日もある。
夜は、録画してあった紅白を持ち寄って、友人たちと鑑賞会。 「このシーン、巻き戻していい？」って、誰よりも早くリモコンを握ってた。 みんな笑ってたけど、ちゃんと巻き戻させてくれた。
ふとした拍子に、昔の友だちの名前をインターネットで検索してみた。 何かを知りたいわけじゃない。ただ、今もどこかで元気にしてるといいなって思っただけ。
そういえば、アロハシャツをタンスの奥に隠してたんだった。 「いつか着る日」を、自分でも忘れるようにして。 でも、今日みたいな日は、ちょっとだけ思い出してもいいかもしれない。
学校の授業中、退屈で机に突っ伏して寝ていたら、隣の女子に話しかけられた。 「君って、寝てるときも髪が整ってるんだね」って。 そうなのか。僕は、寝てるときも髪型がキマっているんだ。
机の引き出しから、昔もらったパンフレットを引っ張り出して、赤ペンで線を引いた所を確認する。 昔の自分はこんな所に線を引いていたのかと、昔と今の距離を測る。
僕にとっての一日の終わりは、夜寝る時じゃない。 一日の終わりが、放課後なのが、この僕である。
Okay this is one of a few political related posts I post onl
from Mitchell Report
⚠️ Warning: Political Rant
Okay, this is one of the few politically related posts I make each year because politics are so divisive. So here’s your warning: if you’d rather not read political commentary, feel free to stop here.
The recent armed action against Iran has me conflicted. I believe it's more of a distraction and a pretext than a genuine strategic necessity. While the issues we face in America come from the neglect of both parties, Trump seems to be using these problems to his advantage. This situation should have been addressed years ago when Iran first began developing its nuclear program. The United States is skilled at acting as a global police force and solving immediate problems but not at handling long-term challenges such as nation building. We have never successfully created a functioning foreign democracy.
Historically, outside powers that try to build nations in their own image often fail in the long run. They either cannot fully erase local culture, or they create deep resentment in the process. The British Empire tried to project its institutions and values onto places like India and large parts of the Middle East, disrupting older political and cultural systems. When the British Empire withdrew, it left behind borders and governments that did not always match local realities, which helped fuel instability that continues today. There are certainly aspects of our own Constitution that could be improved, and Trump has exploited some of its weaknesses.
While I don't completely disagree with action against Iran, it should have happened years ago, just like with Cuba. The situation in Cuba also should have been resolved long ago. I believe the United States should help guide Cuba until it becomes a stable modern democracy, intervening firmly if it begins to stray.
What concerns me most now are the costs in lives, money, and timing. I fear this situation might serve as a pretext to interfere with the upcoming elections or to distract from other issues such as the release of the Epstein files and broader corruption. If this administration were honest, I might believe the urgency. But after so much misdirection, self-dealing, and falsehoods, I can't give this president the benefit of the doubt anymore. That ended with January 6th.
On top of that, he hasn't delivered on most of his campaign promises. My bills keep rising, and while a few prices have gone down, those savings are offset elsewhere. Every time it seems the economy might recover, he makes comments that hurt it further. Tariffs are taxes, and the public ultimately pays them. If any other president behaved this way, there would be outrage in Congress. Yet for some reason, this one is treated differently from any president I've seen in my lifetime.
I only hope Congress learns from this experience. And I don't want to hear any Republican complain if a future Democratic president takes similar actions. Our political system has several deep problems. One of the largest is the lack of adequate representation. I've said it for years: 435 Representatives and 100 Senators for over 330 million people isn't right. We should have at least one representative for every 50,000 citizens.
We also need new constitutional amendments; term limits, stronger limits on presidential power, and real consequences for any president who forgets that they are a steward of the people, not a monarch. Congress itself must also move away from party dominance. Partisan politics are destroying this country. I'm glad I left both parties and now consider myself a proud independent.
End of rant.
#opinion #politics
Lent 2026 Day 13 - Even When He Is Silent
from Dallineation
Occasionally I listen to a podcast called “The God Minute”. These are daily prayer and meditation programs that last 10-15 minutes. They are a wonderful way to help me focus on God and on sacred things. And they often feature wonderfully curated, beautiful music that draws your thoughts heavenward. One of the songs from today's podcast caught my attention.
The song is called “On the Nature of Daylight” and is performed by VOCES8 on their album “Nightfall” released in 2024. VOCES8 is an a capella octet from England and their music is, in a word, divine.
I decided to listen to the entire album today while I worked. And then I listened to two more of their albums!
But the song that brought me to tears is from that same album “Nightfall” and is called “Even When He Is Silent” by Kim André Arnesen.
Here are the lyrics:
I believe in the sun, even when it's not shining I believe in love, even when I feel it not I believe in God, even when He is silent
Here is the recording by VOCES8:
And here is a beautiful performance of the piece by St. Olaf Choir:
This song was a desperately needed lifeline for me – a timely gift from a loving God. It resonated with me on a deeply personal level and expresses my current spiritual, mental, and emotional state better than words ever could.
The description of the St. Olaf Choir video says the text of the lyrics was found in a concentration camp after World War II. I wanted to know more about that, and a web search revealed many different stories and explanations for the text's origin. But I found a blog post that seems well-researched and says the original text – somewhat different from the lyrics of the song – was likely found in Cologne, scratched on the wall of an underground passageway that likely served as a refuge from the Gestapo.
I believe in the sun, though it be dark; I believe in God, though He be silent; I believe in neighborly love, though it be unable to reveal itself.
Whatever the circumstances or origins, the words and music are profound and moving. And exactly what I needed today.
I daresay it's also what the world needs today.
#100DaysToOffload (No. 143) #faith #Lent #Christianity #music
from As.No.One
Who am I to write during the times that we face today? Honestly, I am no one. That's right. Officially, No One. I am whispered about, blamed when there's nothing else to blame, put on the spot, invisible yet always seen. Just like you, I am me. No one.
Recently, my thoughts have been loud and nowhere to voice it. Hopefully today, my words can at least be seen for no one in particular but really just for me. I genuinely hope that these words today can reach out, from wherever one may read this. I want thought and passion. I wish for the days again where words meant something. Where words didn't get muddy with propaganda. Or words that could touch the very soul that belongs to someone. My dream is for my words today to reach someone, anyone, maybe no one.
As I write to myself, I must ask myself, the very question that I think we all face as no one. What am I to do today?
Do I have answer? Does anyone?
Probably like most, I woke up today in my bed in a room that had electricity. My clock sitting on my bedside table gave me the measure for what I was hoping to do this day. Laundry. Dishes. Maybe go for a walk. Sadly, none of those things happened. Instead, I found myself pondering about the news and only found myself more sad. The news of death does not come as a shock anymore. The fight between many people all over is numbing to hear. A crime that was committed for many years by many people with no repercussions. And with no one caring about anyone except for their own.
I am no different. I have already established that I am no one.
These past many years, we have all been through it. From being locked inside in fear of disease that some would say was a common cold, to being on the brink of civil war, to also being at the brink of World War 3. And I can tell you now, I miss my childhood. This time is not for the weak. This time is for the resilient. It is a time for no one.
I can keep going to work every day, as my coworkers and I discuss all the events that go on outside of our bubble, but no one really cares. I say, “How are you,” as if I already don't know. Most likely the same answer will be given. “I'm good.” No one is good. No one is happy. Everyone is sad. As someone once said, “He has only time to be a machine.” Is that all one can be? To live day in day out, with expectations from peers, family, elders, and corporations to just do what they want you to do. There are hardly times that I can afford to give myself pleasantries. And when I do have time, I must fill it with the urge to get all my chores done so I do not lose my place as no one and be lower than no one. And we all have seen what becomes of someone who is lower than no one. Holding up a carboard sign at a corner of a street, with clothes that don't fit and matted hair, and resorting to the few things that could hopefully take the mind off of the shame of what was lost.
No one is a machine. With each minute that passes by, we are like clockwork. Traffic starting at 7:30 in the morning, while we all rush to go to our jobs that pays us every two weeks, only to be in that same traffic around 5 o'clock in the evening just to come home and do it all over the next day. Most of us eat around noon while we sit with our coworkers, we see every day and talk about the mundane things. How's the significant other? How are the kids? Are you still in search for a house on the market? Did you hear what happened yesterday? And yet no one fully grasps the potential that we could reach. Just like machines, we function as we have been programmed. To work and be led by what is outside our bubbles, when really no one cares about what is in our bubble.
From a young age, this has been our program. We go to school most starting around 8 in the morning. Each child sitting at a desk listening to what is being taught, some getting punished for asking questions outside of the norm, and we would sit there until noon to eat and play with our friends, just to then go back to that desk. A bell dismissed us around 3 in the afternoon, just for us to go home and do the nagging task of homework. Just to do it for the next twelve years of our lives. And some will take it further for another four to ten years to specialize in something just to get a small jump in that field of work. Do you see the similarity?
This might be just a thought; can we reach out and pop that bubble? Is no one ready to step away from what has been or is everyone afraid? Has anyone proven that we are resilient? Are we still no one?
I am not asking for revolution but if someone is out there who wants to start it, I say no one needs it. No one can win with war. Though they say there are victors. But what did those victors have to do to survive? What I am asking has already been asked.
What am I to do today?
There is so much that we cannot see even when it is right in front of us. And if we are afraid, then let's be strong together. Be resilient. I ask no one to be more than the mundane. That's the goal for today. Be more than a machine. To be more than what no one has been programmed to be.
Child Safety vs. Data Center Dollars: Utah and the Unwinnable AI Debate
from 
SmarterArticles
In December 2025, Governor Spencer Cox stood before an audience of government officials, business leaders, and academics at the Utah AI Summit in Salt Lake City and announced a vision he called “pro-human AI.” The initiative would spread across six areas: workforce development, industry, state government, academia, public policy, and learning. It would invest $10 million in AI-ready workforce curriculum. It would position Utah as a national model for responsible artificial intelligence governance. And it would do all of this while the state simultaneously prepared to host some of the largest data centre campuses on the planet, facilities whose combined energy demands could consume four times the electricity that Utah residents and businesses currently use.
The tension between these two commitments is not incidental. It is structural. Utah has become, perhaps more than any other state, a laboratory for testing whether a government can credibly regulate the harms of artificial intelligence while aggressively courting the industry that produces them. Governor Cox has articulated this duality with a clarity unusual in American politics: “Let's use this technology to benefit humankind, and let's regulate it to make sure they don't destroy humankind. I don't think that's a contradiction. I think that's common sense.” The question is whether common sense can survive contact with the economic incentives now converging on a stretch of desert southeast of Delta, Utah, where a 20-million-square-foot data centre campus is already under construction.
Sandboxes, Disclosure Rules, and a Very Light Touch
Utah's regulatory framework for artificial intelligence is, by design, the lightest in the nation. The Artificial Intelligence Policy Act, Senate Bill 149, signed into law on 13 March 2024 and effective from 1 May that year, created the country's first Office of Artificial Intelligence Policy and established what the state calls a “learning laboratory” for AI innovation. Businesses can apply to test AI systems under state supervision, receiving temporary regulatory mitigation in exchange for consumer safeguards and transparency commitments. If a product deceives a customer or causes harm during the testing period, the developer works with regulators toward a reduced penalty. The idea, borrowed from Utah's earlier financial technology sandbox programme launched in 2019, is to encourage small AI developers to innovate without paralysing fear of enforcement.
The Act's substantive requirements are modest. Certain licensed professions, including mental health providers, must disclose upfront when a person is interacting with AI. Other professions, including telemarketing, must disclose AI usage only if asked. Violations carry an administrative fine of up to $2,500 and a civil penalty of up to $5,000. Compared to Colorado's SB24-205, which includes algorithmic discrimination prohibitions, impact assessment mandates, and risk management requirements, Utah's approach is deliberately permissive. As the IAPP noted upon the bill's passage, Utah brought generative AI into the consumer protection realm while stopping well short of imposing the kind of obligations that might deter investment.
Subsequent legislation has added layers without fundamentally altering the architecture. In March 2025, Governor Cox signed SB 271, the Unauthorized AI Impersonation Act, extending existing identity abuse laws to cover commercial deepfake usage. A separate bill barred mental health chatbots from selling Utahns' personal health data or using it to target users with advertisements. The 2025 legislative session also extended the Act's expiration date by two years, to July 2027, while SB 226 narrowed disclosure requirements so that they apply only when a consumer directly asks or during “high-risk” interactions. Each adjustment further refined the core philosophy: regulate the use of AI where it touches vulnerable populations, but leave the development of AI technology essentially untouched.
This philosophy is one Governor Cox has articulated explicitly. “The government should not be regulating the development of AI,” he told the AI Summit audience, “but the minute you decide to use those tools to give my kid a sexualised chatbot, then it's my business, and it's the government's business.” It is a line that draws an appealingly clean distinction between creation and deployment, between the forge and the marketplace. It is also a distinction that becomes harder to maintain when the state's economic strategy depends on making Utah the forge itself.
Building the Forge: Operation Gigawatt and the Data Centre Rush
At the One Utah Summit in October 2024, Governor Cox unveiled Operation Gigawatt, an initiative to double the state's power production within a decade by adding four gigawatts of capacity. The plan targets nuclear and geothermal energy as its centrepieces, alongside an “all of the above” approach that nominally includes solar and wind, though those resources have faded from the practical conversation. Cox has framed the initiative in the language of geopolitical competition, warning of a new global “arms race” over who will ultimately control artificial intelligence technologies and the energy they need. The motivation is straightforward: data centres need power, and Utah's main electricity provider, Rocky Mountain Power, does not have nearly enough.
The scale of what is being built is staggering. Creekstone Energy is developing the Delta Gigasite in Millard County, a 20-million-square-foot campus that would be the world's largest data centre complex, eclipsing the current record holder in Inner Mongolia. The company plans to manage 10 gigawatts of capacity at the site, drawing from a mix of solar, natural gas, and power from the Intermountain Power Project, with nuclear under active evaluation. In December 2025, Creekstone signed a memorandum of understanding with Salt Lake City-headquartered EnergySolutions to study the integration of at least two gigawatts of next-generation nuclear power, with a target for commercial operation between 2030 and 2035. Creekstone's CEO, Ray Conley, described nuclear as having “the potential to complement our multisource approach and support the growth of large-scale AI and digital-infrastructure development.”
Less than a mile away, Joule Capital Partners is building a 4,000-acre, four-gigawatt data centre campus focused on AI workloads, set to begin operations in 2026. Initial plans call for six buildings, each powered by 69 Caterpillar natural gas generators. The battery storage system is permitted to accept cleaner electricity sources, including fuel cells and a nearby geothermal project under construction by Fervo Energy, as well as small modular nuclear reactors should they become commercially available. But for the foreseeable future, the power will come from burning natural gas.
In Eagle Mountain, Meta's data campus is expanding, a large QTS data hub is under construction, and Google is waiting to build on 300 acres it owns within city limits. Google has already delayed its Eagle Mountain build due to energy constraints, prompting the city council to explore constructing small nuclear reactors. In Brigham City, a $750 million partnership between Hi Tech Solutions and Holtec International, announced in November 2025, aims to create what Cox described as “a complete civil nuclear energy ecosystem from start to finish.” The plan envisions up to ten Holtec SMR-300 small modular reactors for civilian and military use, a manufacturing hub, and a workforce training centre developed with Utah's universities and technical colleges. The first reactor is not expected to come online until the early 2030s.
A February 2026 investigation by The Salt Lake Tribune, published in partnership with Grist, reported that data centres planned for Utah could consume as much as four times the electricity the state currently uses. Industry analysts expected both the quantity of data centres and the amount of power they consume to quadruple over the next four years. Joule's applications filed with the state indicate an initial output of one gigawatt, roughly a quarter of Utah's current annual electricity consumption, but public statements suggest the eventual target exceeds four gigawatts.
The environmental costs are not limited to carbon emissions. Water, in a state engulfed in a decades-long drought, is an equally pressing concern. The Salt Lake Tribune found that the NSA data centre in Bluffdale consumed more than 126 million gallons between October 2024 and September 2025, enough to meet the annual indoor needs of nearly 800 Utah households. Until recently, data centres in the state were not required to report their water use. State Representative Jill Koford, a Republican, introduced legislation in 2026 to require aggregated water use reporting, acknowledging that “we really don't have any statewide guardrails for reporting and transparency.” This is the same state whose governor stood on the shores of the drying Great Salt Lake in late 2025 pledging to help refill it in time for the 2034 Winter Olympics.
This is the economic engine that “pro-human AI” regulation must coexist with. In March 2025, the Utah Legislature passed SB 132, allowing private companies with energy demands of 100 megawatts or more to build their own generating stations that operate off the public grid. The bill's sponsor, Senator Scott Sandall, specifically cited data centres as the impetus. The legislation was designed to prevent the costs of massive new energy infrastructure from being passed to existing ratepayers, but it simultaneously codified the principle that data centre operators can bypass the regulated utility system entirely, generating their own power on their own terms.
Children, Algorithms, and the Companies Utah Needs
The centrepiece of Governor Cox's moral argument for state-level AI regulation is child safety. His rhetoric on this subject is forceful and specific. “It's one thing if we're fighting China and you're developing your model,” he said at the 2026 Politico Governors Summit in Washington, D.C. “But once you start selling sexualised chatbots to kids in my state, now I have a problem with that, and I'm going to get involved there, and the Supreme Court is going to back me up on that.”
Utah has indeed been among the most aggressive states in the nation at addressing algorithmic harms to children. In 2024, the legislature passed two significant bills. HB 464 created a private right of action for minors who suffer adverse mental health outcomes arising from excessive use of algorithmically curated social media services, with a rebuttable presumption that the platform's algorithms caused the harm. Damages start at $10,000. SB 194, the Utah Minor Protection in Social Media Act, required social media platforms to implement age verification, embedded parental controls, and default privacy settings for minor accounts, including mandatory parent-scheduled social media breaks, daily usage time limits, prohibition of autoplay functions, and a blackout window from 10:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m.
These were not tentative measures. They represented a genuine attempt to hold social media companies accountable for design choices that optimise engagement at the expense of adolescent wellbeing. The legislative intent drew directly on years of research and disclosure. In 2021, Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, disclosed thousands of internal documents confirming that Meta was aware of Instagram's negative impact on teen mental health. Facebook's own internal research found that 13.5 per cent of teen girls said Instagram worsened suicidal thoughts, and 32 per cent reported that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse. A second whistleblower, Arturo Bejar, testified before Congress in 2023 that Meta's top executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, had ignored internal warnings for years. The business incentive driving these design choices is substantial: research has estimated that social media platforms generate nearly $11 billion annually in advertising revenue from users aged 0 to 17, creating a powerful structural motivation to keep minors engaged regardless of the consequences.
The problem is that the courts have not been kind to Utah's ambitions. On 10 September 2024, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby issued a 39-page ruling granting a preliminary injunction against SB 194, blocking the law from taking effect. NetChoice, a trade association representing Google, Meta, Snap, and X, had argued the law violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Judge Shelby agreed that NetChoice was “substantially likely to succeed on its claim that the Act violates the First Amendment,” finding that the law imposed content-based restrictions and was not narrowly tailored to achieve the state's goals. He also noted that Utah had “not provided evidence establishing a clear, causal relationship between minors' social media use and negative mental health impacts.” The state appealed; a three-judge panel of the Tenth Circuit heard arguments in November 2025, with the outcome still pending.
The ruling illustrated a fundamental asymmetry. States can pass laws condemning algorithmic harms. Courts can block those laws as unconstitutional. And the companies whose business models depend on maximising adolescent engagement continue operating largely unchanged. The same companies that Utah's child safety legislation targets are, in many cases, the same companies whose data centre operations Utah is working to attract.
The Federal Collision and the Shape of Compromise
The conflict between state-level child protection and federal deregulatory pressure reached its sharpest point in February 2026. Representative Doug Fiefia, a Utah Republican, introduced HB 286, the Artificial Intelligence Transparency Act, which would require frontier AI companies to publish safety and child protection plans, produce risk assessments for original AI models, report safety incidents to the state's Office of AI Policy, and face civil penalties of $1 million for a first violation and $3 million for subsequent violations. The bill also included whistleblower protections for employees who report safety concerns.
The White House responded with remarkable force. On 12 February 2026, the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs sent a letter to Republican Utah Senate Majority Leader Kirk Cullimore Jr. declaring itself “categorically opposed to Utah HB 286” and calling it “an unfixable bill that goes against the Administration's AI Agenda.” White House officials had spent two weeks urging Fiefia not to move the bill forward and, according to reporting by Axios, did not offer specific changes that could make it acceptable. A source told Axios that the White House official indicated “there's nothing Fiefia can do to make him happy.”
The intervention was extraordinary. A Republican administration was pressuring a Republican-controlled state legislature to abandon a transparency bill with overwhelming bipartisan public support. A January 2026 poll by Public Opinion Strategies found that more than 90 per cent of Utah voters supported every component of HB 286, with approximately 80 per cent signalling strong support. Seventy-eight per cent wanted lawmakers to prioritise AI safety bills. Seventy-one per cent worried the state would not regulate AI enough. And 61 per cent opposed President Trump's executive order blocking state AI legislation.
National polling told a similar story. The Institute for Family Studies surveyed 6,200 voters and found that 90 per cent chose child safety over preventing states from passing AI regulations that could burden tech companies. This included 89 per cent of Trump voters and 95 per cent of Harris voters.
The resolution has been a familiar one in American politics: the ambitious bill was set aside, and a more modest alternative advanced. House Speaker Mike Schultz pointed to Fiefia's other bill, HB 438, the Companion Chatbot Safety Act, as “the bill we're going to move forward with for sure.” HB 438 requires AI chatbots to obtain consent before sharing user data, clearly disclose advertisements, and treat minors with special care. Companion chatbots designed to simulate intimate relationships must notify young users every hour that they should take a break, that the chatbot is not a real human, and that companion chatbots may be unhealthy. It is a useful bill. It is also a substantially less threatening one. Not everyone views the retreat as a compromise; the Libertas Institute, a Utah-based libertarian think tank, argued that HB 286 represented “government overreach in AI development,” contending that broad paperwork mandates and significant penalties would burden developers without meaningfully protecting children.
The Subsidy Landscape and Who Pays
Understanding the structural tension in Utah's position requires looking beyond legislation and into the economics of data centre incentives. In April 2025, Good Jobs First, a nonprofit watchdog organisation tracking economic development subsidies, published a report finding that at least ten states were already losing more than $100 million per year in tax revenue to data centres. Texas alone was losing an estimated $1 billion in fiscal year 2025.
A follow-up report in November 2025 revealed that of 32 states with tax incentives for data centres, 12 failed to disclose even aggregate revenue losses. Those 12 “dark” states included Utah. Good Jobs First found that states which had computed their returns determined they were losing between 52 and 70 cents for every dollar spent on sales tax exemptions.
Utah's own incentive structure is layered. Senate Bill 114, passed in 2020, provides sales and use tax exemptions for qualifying data centres of 150,000 square feet or more. The Economic Development Tax Increment Financing programme offers post-performance tax credit rebates of up to 30 per cent of new state revenue over project lifespans of five to twenty years. The Rural Economic Development Incentive Programme provides even more generous terms for investments in rural areas, with rebates of up to 50 per cent of new state revenues.
These incentives exist because every state wants data centres, and the companies building them have the leverage to choose among dozens of competing jurisdictions. The result is a dynamic in which the same state government articulating a “pro-human” vision for AI is simultaneously offering financial inducements to the companies whose products generate the harms that vision purports to address. This is not hypocrisy in the conventional sense. It is the structural reality of federalism in a market economy where capital is mobile and tax bases are not.
What Genuine Sacrifice Would Actually Look Like
The most revealing question about Utah's “pro-human AI” framework is one that almost no one in the state's political establishment is willing to answer directly: what would genuine misalignment between child safety and economic growth actually require policymakers to sacrifice?
The honest answer begins with acknowledging that the business models Cox condemns and the economic development he celebrates are not merely adjacent. They are, in many cases, the same activity viewed from different angles. Meta's data centres process the same algorithmic recommendation systems that HB 464 identifies as causing adverse mental health outcomes in children. Google's computing infrastructure powers the same engagement optimisation that keeps adolescents scrolling past the curfew hours SB 194 attempted to enforce. The AI models that Creekstone's Delta Gigasite will train and serve are, in significant part, the same models whose deployment Utah's transparency legislation seeks to regulate.
Genuine sacrifice would mean accepting that some categories of AI development are incompatible with child safety and refusing to host them, even at the cost of losing investment to competing states. It would mean conditioning data centre tax incentives on compliance with child safety standards, not merely at the point of consumer interaction, but at the level of model design and training data. It would mean treating the development and deployment of AI as a continuum rather than maintaining the convenient fiction that the forge bears no responsibility for the sword.
It would also mean confronting the energy and environmental costs honestly. The nuclear infrastructure that Operation Gigawatt promises is at least a decade away from delivering meaningful power. TerraPower's plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming, the only firm nuclear project in Rocky Mountain Power's portfolio, will not come online until around 2032, and Utah will share its projected 500 megawatts with other western states. Holtec's SMR-300 reactors in Brigham City are even further out. In the interim, Utah's data centres will run overwhelmingly on natural gas, with the Novva data campus in West Jordan going so far as to request a presidential exemption from the Clean Air Act to operate diesel generators while its natural gas plant is completed. Residents near Joule's Millard County site will hear the equivalent of more than 400 semi-trucks idling around the clock, producing emissions year-round.
The “pro-human” framing allows these contradictions to coexist by promising that the harms are temporary and the benefits permanent: nuclear power will eventually replace natural gas, AI-ready workers will thrive in the new economy, and robust regulation will tame the technology's worst impulses. It is a compelling narrative. It is also one that depends on outcomes that have not yet materialised and on regulatory mechanisms that courts have already begun to dismantle.
Substance, Symbolism, and the Gap Between Them
To its credit, Utah's approach contains real substance that distinguishes it from mere performance. The regulatory sandbox model, whatever its limitations, represents a genuine attempt to learn from AI deployment rather than simply permitting it. The child safety bills, even when blocked by courts, have articulated legal theories that other states are building upon. Governor Cox's willingness to defy a White House of his own party on the question of state regulatory authority is not trivial. When he told the Politico Governors Summit, “States must help protect children and families while America accelerates its leadership in AI,” he was staking out a position with real political costs.
Representative Fiefia has framed the dynamic with precision: “There's been a narrative that's out there around AI that you either have innovation or you have safety, and you can't have both at the same time. I think there's a way to thread that needle.” The question is whether threading the needle is the same as solving the problem. A threaded needle holds fabric together; it does not change the fabric's nature.
The fabric, in this case, is an economic model in which the social media and AI companies that generate documented harms to children are also among the largest investors in the energy and computing infrastructure that Utah is actively courting. Meta is expanding in Eagle Mountain. Google owns 300 acres there. The data centres being built in Millard County will serve the same AI ecosystem whose consumer-facing products trigger the very harms Utah's legislature has spent three years trying to address.
A framework that regulates the use of these technologies while subsidising their development is not a contradiction in the logical sense. Both things can be true simultaneously: AI can create genuine economic value and AI can harm children. But the framework becomes something closer to managed contradiction when the economic incentives that reward development are orders of magnitude larger than the penalties that punish misuse. A $5,000 civil penalty for failing to disclose AI usage is not in the same moral universe as a 50 per cent tax rebate on hundreds of millions of dollars of data centre investment.
Ten Gigawatts of Unresolved Questions
What makes Utah's experiment genuinely important is that it is happening at all. Most states are not even attempting to articulate a coherent framework for AI governance. They are either passing no legislation or passing legislation that the federal government promptly threatens to preempt. Utah is doing something more ambitious and, consequently, more revealing. It is attempting to build a pro-human AI agenda inside an economic structure that is fundamentally organised around accelerating AI deployment.
The $10 million investment in AI-ready workforce development is real. So are the $750 million in private investment flowing into Brigham City's nuclear ecosystem. The poll numbers showing 90 per cent of Utah voters supporting AI safety regulation are real. So are the tax exemptions that make Utah competitive in the race for data centre investment. These are not contradictions that can be resolved through better messaging or more precise legislative drafting. They are contradictions that reflect a genuine structural problem in American technology governance: the entities that create the most powerful technologies are also the entities with the most economic leverage over the communities that host them.
The honest version of “pro-human AI” would not pretend these tensions do not exist. It would name them, measure them, and create mechanisms for democratic accountability when child safety and economic growth genuinely conflict. It would require that data centre incentives include enforceable conditions tied to the downstream behaviour of the AI systems those centres support. It would treat transparency not as a disclosure requirement that applies only when a consumer thinks to ask, but as a structural obligation embedded in the business relationship between the state and the companies it subsidises.
Utah is not there yet. No state is. But the distance between where Utah stands and where genuine “pro-human” governance would require it to go is the distance between a political brand and a binding commitment. Closing that gap would require sacrifices that no state, and no governor, has yet been willing to make: turning away investment that fails to meet safety standards, conditioning tax benefits on verifiable child safety outcomes, and accepting that some forms of economic growth are not worth their human cost.
The data centres will be built. The nuclear reactors, eventually, will follow. The question that Utah has raised, whether a state can simultaneously serve as an engine of AI expansion and a guardian of the humans that expansion affects, remains genuinely unanswered. The answer will not come from summits, initiatives, or branding exercises. It will come from the moments when the state must choose between a tax dollar and a child's safety, and what it does when nobody is looking.
References & Sources
Deseret News. “Gov. Cox launches Utah's pro-human AI initiative at 2025 AI Summit.” Deseret News, 2 December 2025. https://www.deseret.com/business/2025/12/02/gov-cox-announces-utah-pro-human-ai-initiative/
The Salt Lake Tribune. “Utah will push for 'pro-human' AI, Gov. Cox announces, as Trump backs ban on state regulations.” The Salt Lake Tribune, 2 December 2025. https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2025/12/02/pro-human-ai-utah-gov-cox/
Utah Legislature. “S.B. 149 Artificial Intelligence Amendments.” 2024 General Session. https://le.utah.gov/~2024/bills/static/SB0149.html
IAPP. “Private-sector AI bill clears Utah Legislature.” IAPP, March 2024. https://iapp.org/news/a/utah-brings-gen-ai-into-consumer-protection-realm-with-bill-passage
KUER. “Trump is pressuring Utah on an AI bill. Gov. Cox says states should lead on policy.” KUER, 19 February 2026. https://www.kuer.org/politics-government/2026-02-19/trump-is-pressuring-utah-on-an-ai-bill-gov-cox-says-states-should-lead-on-policy
StateScoop. “Utah governor announces 'pro-human' AI plan, condemns federal preemption scheme.” StateScoop, December 2025. https://statescoop.com/utah-gov-spencer-cox-pro-human-ai-plan/
Axios. “Scoop: White House pressures Utah lawmaker to kill AI transparency bill.” Axios, 15 February 2026. https://www.axios.com/2026/02/15/white-house-utah-ai-transparency-bill
Deseret News. “Utah lawmakers respond to Trump White House memo on AI bill.” Deseret News, 17 February 2026. https://www.deseret.com/politics/2026/02/17/utah-legislature-responds-to-trump-administration-letter-targeting-state-regulations-for-artificial-intelligence/
Deseret News. “Will Trump administration allow Utah AI child protection law?” Deseret News, 22 January 2026. https://www.deseret.com/politics/2026/01/22/utah-legislature-supports-bill-to-force-ai-chatbots-to-care-about-kids-it-might-conflict-with-trump-executive-order-on-state-ai-regulations/
The Salt Lake Tribune. “Utah's data centers may consume quadruple the energy currently used in the state.” The Salt Lake Tribune, 9 February 2026. https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2026/02/09/utahs-data-centers-may-consume/
KSL. “World's largest data center campus could be coming to central Utah.” KSL.com, 2025. https://www.ksl.com/article/51355852/worlds-largest-data-center-campus-could-be-coming-to-central-utah
Power Magazine. “Utah Groups Look at Nuclear Options to Power World's Largest Data Center Site.” Power Magazine, December 2025. https://www.powermag.com/utah-groups-look-at-nuclear-options-to-power-worlds-largest-data-center-site/
BusinessWire. “Creekstone Energy, EnergySolutions Partner for Opportunity to Provide Nuclear Power for AI, Data-Infrastructure Demand.” BusinessWire, 11 December 2025. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251211115059/en/Creekstone-Energy-EnergySolutions-Partner-for-Opportunity-to-Provide-Nuclear-Power-for-AI-Data-Infrastructure-Demand
Governor Spencer J. Cox. “NEWS RELEASE: Gov. Cox unveils 'Operation Gigawatt.'” Governor's Office, October 2024. https://governor.utah.gov/press/news-release-gov-cox-unveils-operation-gigawatt/
Fox 13 Now. “'Operation Gigawatt' to boost Utah's energy supply with nuclear, geothermal power.” Fox 13, 2024. https://www.fox13now.com/news/politics/operation-gigawatt-to-boost-utahs-energy-supply-with-nuclear-geothermal-power
Deseret News. “Gov. Spencer Cox announces major nuclear energy hub in Utah.” Deseret News, 17 November 2025. https://www.deseret.com/utah/2025/11/17/gov-cox-announces-site-for-utah-nuclear-power-plant/
NucNet. “Utah Announces Plans To Deploy Up To 10 Holtec Small Modular Reactors.” NucNet, November 2025. https://www.nucnet.org/news/utah-announces-plans-to-deploy-up-to-10-holtec-small-modular-reactors-11-2-2025
First Amendment Center. “Federal judge temporarily blocks Utah social media law aimed at protecting children.” Middle Tennessee State University, September 2024. https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/post/federal-judge-temporarily-blocks-utah-social-media-law-aimed-at-protecting-children/
Utah News Dispatch. “Judge blocks Utah's social media laws, writing they likely violate the First Amendment.” Utah News Dispatch, 11 September 2024. https://utahnewsdispatch.com/2024/09/11/judge-blocks-utah-social-media-law/
Byte Back Law. “Utah Legislature Repeals and Replaces Utah Social Media Regulation Act.” Byte Back, March 2024. https://www.bytebacklaw.com/2024/03/utah-legislature-repeals-and-replaces-utah-social-media-regulation-act/
Institute for Family Studies. “Americans Want A.I. Safeguards By a 9-to-1 Margin.” IFS, 2025. https://ifstudies.org/blog/americans-want-ai-safeguards-by-a-9-to-1-margin
Institute for Family Studies. “Utah Poll: Voters in the Beehive State Want AI Safeguards.” IFS, January 2026. https://ifstudies.org/blog/utah-poll-voters-in-the-beehive-state-want-ai-safeguards
Good Jobs First. “Cloudy with a Loss of Spending Control: How Data Centers Are Endangering State Budgets.” Good Jobs First, April 2025. https://goodjobsfirst.org/cloudy-with-a-loss-of-spending-control-how-data-centers-are-endangering-state-budgets/
Good Jobs First. “Cloudy Data, Costly Deals: How Poorly States Disclose Data Center Subsidies.” Good Jobs First, November 2025. https://goodjobsfirst.org/cloudy-data-costly-deals-how-poorly-states-disclose-data-center-subsidies/
NPR. “Whistleblower's testimony has resurfaced Facebook's Instagram problem.” NPR, 5 October 2021. https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043194385/whistleblowers-testimony-facebook-instagram
CNN. “Meta ignored warnings on Instagram's harm to teens, whistleblower says.” CNN, 7 November 2023. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/07/tech/meta-ignored-warnings-instagrams-harm
Transparency Coalition AI. “TCAI Bill Guide: Utah's HB 286, the AI Transparency Act.” Transparency Coalition, 2026. https://www.transparencycoalition.ai/news/tcai-bill-guide-utahs-hb-286-the-ai-transparency-act
KSL. “Deadly AI relationships with children? One Utah lawmaker wants to make it illegal.” KSL.com, 2026. https://www.ksl.com/article/51437202/deadly-ai-relationships-with-children-one-utah-lawmaker-wants-to-make-it-illegal
Latitude Media. “Utah is taking a different approach to new data center load.” Latitude Media, 2025. https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/utah-is-taking-a-different-approach-to-new-data-center-load/
Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity. “Unleashing the Power of AI. Utah's Pro-Human Leadership.” State of Utah, 2025. https://business.utah.gov/news/unleashing-the-power-of-ai-utahs-pro-human-leadership/
Libertas Institute. “HB 286: Government Overreach in AI Development.” Libertas Institute, 2026. https://libertas.institute/bill/hb-286-government-overreach-in-ai-development/
CNBC. “In race to attract data centers, states can forfeit hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue to tech companies.” CNBC, 20 June 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/20/tax-breaks-for-tech-giants-data-centers-mean-less-income-for-states.html
Nextgov/FCW. “Republican governor asserts states' right to legislate AI.” Nextgov/FCW, 19 February 2026. https://www.nextgov.com/artificial-intelligence/2026/02/republican-governor-asserts-states-right-legislate-ai/411530/
Inside Privacy. “Utah Repeals and Replaces Social Media Regulation Act.” Inside Privacy, March 2024. https://www.insideprivacy.com/social-media/utah-repeals-and-replaces-social-media-regulation-act/
Grist. “Can you build data centers in a desert without draining the water supply? Utah is finding out.” Grist, January 2026. https://grist.org/technology/utah-data-center-water-supply-meta-novva/
The Salt Lake Tribune. “Can Utah become a data center hub without draining its water supply?” The Salt Lake Tribune, 12 January 2026. https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2026/01/12/does-utah-have-enough-water-be/
Utah News Dispatch. “Bill to force data centers to publicly disclose water use advances.” Utah News Dispatch, 23 January 2026. https://utahnewsdispatch.com/2026/01/23/bill-to-force-data-centers-to-publicly-disclose-water-use-advances/
Courthouse News Service. “Utah urges 10th Circuit to reinstate social media law for minors.” Courthouse News, November 2025. https://www.courthousenews.com/utah-urges-10th-circuit-to-reinstate-social-media-law-for-minors/
Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer
Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.
His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.
ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk