Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Facebook Goes To Iowa, Wisconsin Not A Contender

An alert and quite irate reader notified me of this story about Facebook deciding to build a $1.5 billion data center in Iowa:
Facebook is planning to build a $1 billion data center project in Altoona, Iowa, that will cover 1.4 million square feet and serve as what the company says will be “the most advanced data center in the world.”
The article reports that it was down to Iowa or Nebraska. No mention of Wisconsin ever being a contender.

Why not? Where was Scott Walker and his Economy Destroying Cronies?

Reading the article can give us clues why. For example, the second paragraph (emphasis mine):
The Des Moines Register, quoting sources in the state legislature, said the data center, code-named “Catapult,” will be built in two $500 million phases. When completed the total cost of the data center is expected to hit $1.5 billion. As part of the deal, Facebook is also seeking wind energy production tax credits that would require legislative action.
Oops. That could present a problem when we have cartoon caricatures like State Senator Frank Lassee, who has a severe phobia of windmills.

Reading on, we find another hang up:
The Register reports that the Facebook facility will be located in what is being called a “data center corridor,” due to its access to an extensive interstate fiber-optic cable system that is already installed within the city and running along Interstate Highway 80. It is in proximity to adequate power and water utilities. Land is affordable and has low natural-disaster risks. It is accessible to interstate highways.
Oops. They did it again!

Thanks to Walker's myopia, Wisconsin lags in the area of broadband availability and speed:
A lack of reliable and affordable broadband service in many areas in Wisconsin is hampering the ability of individuals and businesses to capitalize on new technologies, the chief executive of the state's economic development agency said Thursday.

Wisconsin ranks 22nd among states in average broadband speed and 26th in adoption of broadband service faster than 4 megabits per second, according to new figures from Akamai Technologies, a Cambridge, Mass., firm that tracks global broadband trends.
The article doesn't say, but I would hazard to guess that Walker's insipid postings about getting hot ham and rolls on Sundays or Tonette's chili also only served to shoot our chances down.

11 comments:

  1. Wind energy? Broadband fiber optic cable? Data center?

    These liberal concepts are pure science fiction to the GOP Tea Party.

    They know the future is oil shale from Canada. Open pit mining. Prisons. Those jobs don’t need much education that burdens the taxpayers with paying for public schools. When will the liberals learn that?

    Next thing these liberal science fiction writers will bring up is stem cell research for advanced medical treatments. The cesspool of Communists at the University of Wisconsin in MADison would be leading the research. The Horror! The Horror!

    Time for liberals to realize that Scott Walker has reversed the Marxist Communist state slogan of “Forward” (www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/05/03/forward-for-communism-is-obamas-new-forward-slogan-really-a-coincidence/) to BACKWARD!

    All Hail Scotty! May the tissue be with you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The real Marxist Communists are Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Ron Johnson. Last week Walker cozied up to the Communist Chinese like they were his long lost sister. Johnson embraces the “creative destruction” of America’s manufacturing base by sending the jobs to Communist China. They are the real traitors.

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    2. Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republican lawmakers do act like Communist Chinese. They passed a law to ban gathering by four or more people at the state Capitol unless they are granted a permit from the police. This is exactly what the Communist Chinese would do to shut down dissent and to criminalize free speech.
      http://cognidissidence.blogspot.com/2013/04/crackdown-at-capitol.html

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    3. And let's not forget, Ron Johnson loves to use prison labor (see China) at far less cost than a person off the street. Imagine, if you have 6 employees you only pay $2 per hour, and if they weren't prison labor you'd have to pay them $12 an hour. That's a savings of over $125,000 when you figure in taxes, etc.

      What business couldn't be profitable with an automatic profit like that?

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  2. "...The article reports that it was down to Iowa or Nebraska. No mention of Wisconsin ever being a contender...."

    Bullseye!

    4:55 and 7:20, well said.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This just demonstrates how public infrastructure investments pay big dividends in the long run. Iowa built it's fiber optic network in 1991-1993 while Wisconsin twiddled it's thumbs under Tommy Thompson and the techno-phobic Republicans. This is another victory for the Wisconsin Flat Earth Society.

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  4. Anonymous was right on target when he said of the GOP Tea Party:
    "They know the future is ... prisons." That could well be THEIR future!

    ReplyDelete
  5. ...and let me add: If the divinely-guided,private sector always does a better job than the Guv'mint, where the hell is OUR broadband network in Wisconsin? I would like to thank the "Job Creators" for under-investing and over-charging the suckers for mediocre internet service. Perhaps crappy service on every level is what we can expect in a state that seems destined to become the Appalachia of the mid-west.

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  6. Hey, now. We may have never been a contender for Facebook but let's all take a moment in the spirit of bipartisan friendship to congratulate the Governor on a successful $200 million ginseng deal.... Thank you Governor Doyle. (Oh and thanks for renewing it, Scoots.)

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  7. Yep. Heck a lot of us growin' ginseng in our back yards.

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  8. But Herr Gub'ner doesn't want companies like Facebook here in WI. Those are family-supporting jobs with benefits, the kind that boost a state's morale and make people much harder to manipulate and less likely to beg for scraps.

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