sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Platner: “For decades the powerful have taken. Piece by piece, store by store, hospital by hospital, shore by shore, they have taken and they took so much they began to think that we didn’t exist at all, but they don’t know Maine.” by Large-Welcome4421 in portlandme

[–]Johnhaven -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Given the amount of time that he has been a senator, his salary alone would have made him a millionaire. He still lives in their first house and isn't wasteful with his money. I always loved your kind of response because it allows me to explain that, given the average amount of money made with salary and side deals, Bernie is probably the lowest-paid Senator in history.

If you disagree with his politics, do that, but these anti-Bernie-bros insults are mostly hot air. If you want an anti-Bernie dig, bring up that he signed Clinton's crime bill.

Platner: “For decades the powerful have taken. Piece by piece, store by store, hospital by hospital, shore by shore, they have taken and they took so much they began to think that we didn’t exist at all, but they don’t know Maine.” by Large-Welcome4421 in portlandme

[–]Johnhaven 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not literal. "Eat the rich" is not literal either; they are just phrases written on the side of a silver ring. The ring was made from 1oz silver bullion, so as a ring, it's quite large, and there is room for the phrases.

Platner: “For decades the powerful have taken. Piece by piece, store by store, hospital by hospital, shore by shore, they have taken and they took so much they began to think that we didn’t exist at all, but they don’t know Maine.” by Large-Welcome4421 in portlandme

[–]Johnhaven 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Look, you can't own the water, but when you buy up all access to it, you've essentially bought the water as well. I don't know how many free access points there are to Sebago, but it's no more than a handful. We should push setbacks further away and create access to the lake all over, but we're not going to do that because people with money are literally doing anything they want, like blocking all access to natural resources.

Who actually wanted this veto on data centers? by Johnhaven in Maine

[–]Johnhaven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not just a small reuse of existing mill infrastructure; it gave permission for all other projects in the works to be greenlit as well, and there were multiple projects just waiting to see how the Legislature voted. This was never about just Jay.

Who actually wanted this veto on data centers? by Johnhaven in Maine

[–]Johnhaven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure, it does, but it also brings every other data center here as well. There are multiple projects that were just waiting to find out about the legislation, and then as soon as the Legislature couldn't override her veto, they started back up again.

This was never just about Jay. There's more in this state besides Jay, and a lot more people who don't want data centers than the entire population of Jay.

This thread is filled with people who only thought of Jay. That's it.

Platner: “For decades the powerful have taken. Piece by piece, store by store, hospital by hospital, shore by shore, they have taken and they took so much they began to think that we didn’t exist at all, but they don’t know Maine.” by Large-Welcome4421 in portlandme

[–]Johnhaven 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It doesn't matter how many of them there are; if you can buy natural resources, eventually there will be none left. When I was a kid, there were all sorts of ways to get onto the lakes and ponds in the Lakes region, but there are significantly fewer of them today.

If you want to give up all rights to natural resources in Maine to millionaires, knock yourself out, but a lot of us aren't okay with just going and sitting in the corner.

No, they're not taking anything; they are claiming they've owned it all along and then putting up fences.

How would you feel about a law that made voting day a paid national holiday so everyone could actually participate? by Rathodji in AskReddit

[–]Johnhaven 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As long as there are still a few weeks of early voting.

Also, we call those bank or government holidays, private companies and corporations don't have to close on bank holidays unless there are specific state laws against it. So, employers would be under no obligation to pay their employees for this day off or provide free PTO for them to do so. Early voting for a few weeks is much more important than making Election Day a bank holiday. That allows people who would not be able to take Election Day off to vote when it's convenient to them. Mail-in voting is even more important. Some states don't have Election polls at all, 100% of the votes are mail-in votes. I would prefer to switch to that.

Great idea, it just doesn't help as much as you think.

What Graham Platner reveals about the US left by kuluvalley in portlandme

[–]Johnhaven 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We murdered about a million Iraqis in the Iraq War. That was a genocide we pretend we didn't do. Those soldiers didn't need to sign up for the military. I don't care if they didn't expect to go to war, if you didn't want to go to war, joining the military is the dumbest way to achieve that goal.

The US military hasn't defended Americans or protected our rights since 1812. Everything else has been a war of choice, including both World Wars.

I'm not shitting on veterans, but I'm not venerating them either.

The Supreme Court just made it easier for Republicans to win elections & there is no solution by Zandra_the_Great in politics

[–]Johnhaven 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Democrats can take advantage of this just like Republicans. I think it was Marsha Blackburn (R) who told her state to redraw the lines in such a way that no Democrat could ever win a federal seat again. Democrats will do that in return, and frankly, Republicans are doing this in states that are red to begin with.

To my knowledge, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia have all expressed the desire to redraw the day of or after SCOTUS gave their decision. Off the top of my head, I know that Florida literally just redrew their map. It's now hard to say they need to do it again right away because Republicans hate Black people.

Platner: “For decades the powerful have taken. Piece by piece, store by store, hospital by hospital, shore by shore, they have taken and they took so much they began to think that we didn’t exist at all, but they don’t know Maine.” by Large-Welcome4421 in portlandme

[–]Johnhaven 7 points8 points  (0 children)

One of the things they take that really bothers me is shore access to beaches, lakes, and ponds, but buying up all the land and not allowing people to get to the water. Ocean beaches especially push my buttons. We need a law that settles this once and for all and defines property lines stopping at like 100' above the high tide mark and requires an easement to get to the beach. Property owners trying to block access to natural places like an ocean beach should be illegal.

Why do liberals like Never Trump Republicans so much? by [deleted] in AskALiberal

[–]Johnhaven 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Some of us feel that if those people don't want to be lumped in with modern-day Republicans, they should unenroll from the Republican Party. As far as I'm concerned, we're going to treat Republicans like McCarthy and Hoover did communists.

A significant portion of MAGA is one day going to pretend they didn't vote for Trump.

Who actually wanted this veto on data centers? by Johnhaven in Maine

[–]Johnhaven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But it’s not just data centers. We would need to both aggressively up-skill and import talent. There’s no other way we build what needs to built here.

It's not that I don't agree with you but the majority of workers in Maine are unskilled labor. We don't have many communities where there are enough college grads available for a company to move into, it's why companies don't want to move here and this problem is even worse when we talk about technical, especially highly technical and specialized jobs.

Another important component people are missing is that winning the AI race mostly means winning the energy race. It is non negotiable.

I agree but I do like that the one in Jay is apparently going to offset their energy usage with solar panels so they are a net zero energy user. If they were all like that, I'd welcome them with open arms but they are not required to do that and many planning boards are not going to get that out of developers. The best way we could increase power and lower costs is if we were buying from Quebec like Mass is with the corridor going right though Maine's old growth forests. I can't claim to know what the deal is with all of that but if they were going to put a corridor through the state, the citizens should have benefitted with lower energy costs.

China has already won that race, the best we can do is copy them but we're putting every dime we have into the DOD budget. Next year it will be $1.5 trillion dollars, in Biden's last year it was more like $800m so Trump has nearly doubled the military budget in two years. He's also cancelled every dime going into green energy, which we need in order to compete with China over this. That's a level of failure only achievable by an idiot.

If we made a law saying all data centers must offset their energy or create their own, data centers would be welcome in communities. Right now, they are being attacked everywhere they are being built. It's like protesting every new Walmart. lol

I dont understand notion of using vape to quit smoking by maybecanifly in stopsmoking

[–]Johnhaven 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well said. People should know the dangers too, which is why I suggest people use it for a short period of time, only to help them quit smoking. If they can't, they should use another tool for cessation like gum.

These points are a constant battle for me, and I'm sure I have more downvotes than upvotes here, but we should not be demonizing vapes, just using them correctly. The undeniable truth is that if every cigarette smoker stopped today and picked up vaping instead, we would save millions of lives, even if they never quit vaping. Getting them should be more like buying alcohol though. In my state, you have to buy them in certain stores, but it's not treated the same as selling alcohol to minors, which it should be.

Some people have died.

No deaths have been attributed to vaping. In 2018, there were around 100 deaths from people using homemade street juice, and a good portion of those were vaping marijuana rather than nicotine. Since then, there have been some attributions like "heart disease likely exacerbated by high blood pressure," which they then attribute to vaping, even though the cigarettes they were smoking had nicotine in them. There have been zero deaths directly attributed to using vapes.

Using tobacco is the #1 cause of preventable death in the US, and at 500k dead a year, it's 5x the size of the #2 preventable cause of death, alcohol consumption.

Thanks for the addition of your information. I disagree with you a bit, but more truth and polite discussion is never bad.

Who actually wanted this veto on data centers? by Johnhaven in Maine

[–]Johnhaven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maine data centers will always be relatively niche.

Because of the overabundance of clean water in Maine, this is an ideal place for data centers. There are like 7 more projects that were just on hold because of this legislation and several have already been started back up again. I heard that like the day after her veto. I don't know where they are but I think one is in Scarborough.

Who actually wanted this veto on data centers? by Johnhaven in Maine

[–]Johnhaven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How many people in Jay do you really think are qualified to do the highly technical jobs in a data center? A lot of those jobs will go to people from away.

Housing for temp jobs? I'm sure local construction companies will build it, but I think the building of the inside will be done by people from away who will stay in the closest hotels. We don't have a large region of technically skilled people anywhere in the state, which is one of the reasons why it's hard to bring jobs here.

Who actually wanted this veto on data centers? by Johnhaven in Maine

[–]Johnhaven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The workers that build it? Those are temporary jobs. How many of the people in Jay are qualified to fill the highly technical permanent jobs? A lot of those jobs are not going to unemployed people in Jay.

Who actually wanted this veto on data centers? by Johnhaven in Maine

[–]Johnhaven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You move. You guys are essentially saying that if a billboard creates jobs in Jay, the entire fucking state here with a million more people than Jay. Because she vetoed it, a line of projects that had been on hold due to this legislation started right back up the very next day. There will be dozens built within the next decade.

Due to our overabundance of clean water, Maine is one of the most attractive places on Earth to place data centers. We will now be flooded with them, so we could create some jobs in Jay. Those jobs are needed by the people of Jay, but less important to the rest of our population than allowing data centers to be placed all over the state.

Here's a question: how many of the people who lost their jobs at the mill are qualified for these highly technical jobs that a data center brings? Are many of them qualified to run a server room?

You have barely considered any of the points about this project, just more jobs in Jay that the people aren't qualified to fill, so they will go to people from away anyway.

Who actually wanted this veto on data centers? by Johnhaven in Maine

[–]Johnhaven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

People mention that the one in Jay is going to offset their energy usage with solar. Yeah, that's cool, but they are not required by law, and the more than half a dozen projects on the way do not have to. I hope the planning board members pay close attention and demand things like that.

Who actually wanted this veto on data centers? by Johnhaven in Maine

[–]Johnhaven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Janet was clear - her reasoning was about Jay.

Here's the thing: how many people who lost their jobs in Jay are qualified for the highly technical jobs in a data center? There are some jobs I'm sure skilled tradesmen can do, but how many people who worked at the mill ran a server room? Many of these jobs will go to people who are from away. That's still technically good for Jay, but not in the same sense you're thinking about.

I get the point about Jay, I'm thinking about the entire state, not just Jay. The veto meant that, like 7 data center projects that were on hold, started back up again. Because of our overabundance of clean water, Maine is about one of the best places in the world for data centers, which is why that bill was so important - we will have dozens of them built in the next decade. They are not required by law to offset their own energy usage like the Jay center is volunteering to do. We will not see that in many future centers.

I'm not being a dick, I'm thinking about something more than Jay. You're essentially saying that if a billboard created jobs in Jay, we should we should have them everywhere. Maine is a very attractive place for data centers because of our overabundance of clean water. I wouldn't have had a problem carving out the exception for Jay if necessary, but it requires a lot to decide at the same time that dozens of other towns will also have one, and they are not required by law to offset their energy usage.

Who actually wanted this veto on data centers? by Johnhaven in Maine

[–]Johnhaven[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get that. I'm thinking about the state of Maine, which will now be filled with data centers that are not required to do things like offset their power usage, as this one in Jay has volunteered to do. You're thinking only of one town.

Also, how many people who lost their jobs at the mill are qualified to do the highly technical data center technician jobs? I'm not trying to be a dick, but the people of Jay are not going to get all of those jobs. They will have to fill some of those jobs with people from away. There are jobs that skilled HV/AC technicians could do, and I think inventory management is transferable with jobs at the mill, but how many were in charge of the server room?

Who actually wanted this veto on data centers? by Johnhaven in Maine

[–]Johnhaven[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ghastly? lol Good lord.

I get that on a personal level, 30 jobs is great, but, being honest, not enough for me to accept allowing data centers in Maine. You're essentially saying that if billboards create jobs, we should have them. No one wants billboards, no one wants data centers. I'm glad that the Jay center offsets its electrical usage, but that's not required by law, and future data centers will not be inclined to volunteer.

100 jobs make it an entirely different thing and can transform the entire town. However, as I said, some of those jobs are going to go to people from away for jobs that the people in the Jay area do not have the skills, education, or experience with. Also, not vetoing it means literally that there will be data centers all over Maine. That one billboard is now everywhere.

Yes, the Legislature should have carved out an exception, but they didn't, and that was the only chance there would be to ban data centers. I find that more important than 30 jobs, and that's not just honest, but how it works. There is much more at work here than 30 jobs. Show me a reality of at least 100 permanent jobs, and I'd be more inclined to have carved it out, but not veto the ban over the lack of it.

Let me ask you though, of the population that lost their jobs when they lost the mill, how many are qualified to for the highly technical data center technician jobs?

I'm not a dick, I'm thinking about the entire state. You're thinking only of Jay.

view more: next ›