2025-12-19 16:01:26
Investigation: Sick Ukrainian children exploited in fraudulent charity campaigns linked to US, Israel: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/19/investigation-sick-ukrainian-children-exploited.html
Investigation: Sick Ukrainian children exploited in fraudulent charity campaigns linked to US, Israel: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/19/investigation-sick-ukrainian-children-exploited.html
So in another dream I just woke up from, I was talking to someone about "the idea problem" (that it's becoming harder to monitize ideas, from a vox article written by an AI cooked reporter).
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-it-could-happen-here-30717896/episode/executive-disorder-white-house-weekly-46-313675864/
Basically, I was arguing that the majority of inventions target men because patriarchy puts economic control in men's hands. As men have started to help more with childcare, there have been more inventions related to childcare. (I don't have any idea if this is true. Seems legit, but I'm just relating my dream. I think I was also oversimplifying a bit to "men" and "women" because of my audience, but anyway it was a dream.) There's actually more low-hanging fruit, I pointed out, related to making care work easier.
So I argued that the real problem was a failure to invest in research into solving that problem. Today there are all these boondoggles built around killing people. What if, instead of all this government research into killing people, we dumped a ton of money into making it easier to support a household? That would be great for the economy. (Being asleep, I seem to have forgotten that working people need money.)
In the blur of being just awake I started thinking about how you could kickstart the US economy by taking the money from the AI boondoggle and other autonomous murder bots and create something like a program to build robots for housekeepers. You'd still be funding tech with government money, so the same horrible people get paid, but you're now actually solving real problems. It wouldn't even matter if it was a boondoggle, honestly. Just dumping money into something other than murdering people is good enough.
I imagined first if there was a program to fund a robot housecleaner, like robot dog with AI some laundry pickup, that would be provided, free of charge, to help people with children. It would work the same as the military boondoggle where a private company makes the government buy a piece of hardware from them and then also pay them to service it for some number of years. But instead of that hardware sitting around waiting to kill someone, it would be getting brought to people's houses to help them.
Then I thought, hey, you could even boost the economy more if you just had government funding for doulas and housecleaners and paid them a living wage. Hey, you could really kickstart the economy by nationalizing healthcare and including doula support as part of all births. Oh, and you could also just include the optional household help for families with children until the kids turn 18.
None of this is perfect (I don't actually think most of this is possible from any state), but the point is that it's actually wildly easy to figure out all kinds of ways to invest in the economy and monitize ideas as long as you aren't entirely focused on the same old "make money from spying on people and killing them." Funny that. Like they said in the podcast, maybe "finding ideas" isn't the problem.
Hope you enjoyed the weird semi-awake brain dump/rant.
By this spring, the World Food Program still had not received funding,
ran low on supplies
and was forced to stop feeding many of Kenya’s refugees.
In Kakuma, the third-largest camp in the world,
WFP cut rations to their lowest in history,
trapping most of the 308,000 people in the camp with almost nothing to eat.
They began to starve,
and many — mostly children
— died because their malnourished bodies couldn’t fight off infections
Moth…
»TikTok signs deal for sale of U.S. unit after yearslong saga:
TikTok has signed a deal to divest its U.S. entity to a joint venture controlled by American investors, per an internal memo seen by Axios«
When will the children & young people (all people) finally realize that dss Internet is decentralized and not about a few power-hungry corporations?
(A rhetorical question in my dream of freedom)
🤷
What @… says is what a lot of us have been lamenting since the ICE invasion started. Shouldn’t local police protect citizens from ICE?? Why this hasn’t happened is a really good question. Factors to consider:
- “Obstructing a federal agent” is illegal, and local police / politicians feel constrained by that (even if the agents themselves don’t seem constrained by the actual law at all, only by what they think they can get away with)
- Police can in theory cite federal agents for e.g. traffic violations or illegal plate swapping after the fact, as long as they’re not “obstructing” the agents — but how do you cite a masked person with fake plates who refuses to give ID?
- Some police are visibly supportive of ICE, chumming it up with them and giving literal fist bumps; a nontrivial subset are outright closet Nazis. A lot of people don’t really see any need to go past “ACAB” as a full explanation for all of this — and certainly The ACAB Hypothesis is…um, not really being proved false right now in Minneapolis.
- I think some police quietly resent ICE for stepping on their turf, but that does not seem to have boiled up into actual confrontation in MSP. One police leader here painted it in early Dec as “some people want to instigate a confrontation between Minneapolis Police, and that’s not going to happen.” Police culture says that police should be a neutral party in a dispute between ICE and residents, and actually protecting residents would be taking sides. (Duh, yes, taking sides that way is your literal job, you dumbasses…but I digress.)
- Some police (especially leadership) really want to get on the community’s good side after the murder of George Floyd, and see this as an opportunity, but unfortunately this has materialized entirely as non-interventionist support: “We responded to a 911 call and help a distressed resident after her husband was abducted!” “We transported children left parentless on the streets by ICE safely back to their home!” “Our officers volunteered at the food shelf!” OK, nice, good for you buddy.
So yeah, I’m wondering this too, and am bitter about it. https://tilde.zone/@n1xnx/115928447564126393
It is a vile scandal that 2 of the biggest AI companies in the world attack children by inciting them to self-harm, and by generating sexually exploitative imagery of kids for profit. I wanted to document this so that people in tech will stop saying they don't know: https://www.anildash.com/2026/02/18/threat…
"Yes, this is about AI. The AI industry can only succeed if it separates people from their joy and their confidence. An industry run by people who were not raised with love, attempting to steal it from others."
(Original title: How to raise children)
https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archiv
Wrt to a certain article going around today:
I think if your parents are abusive and/or say or do certain abominable things and you don’t cut them off, there’s something wrong with you.
Which would make perfect sense being raised by people that were abusive to you.
Gotta break the cycle. If you don’t do it for yourself, think about how it affects people you love like your partner or children.
Russian drone hits civilian car in Odesa Oblast, killing mother and injuring 3 children, governor says: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/18/russian-drone-hits-civilian-car.html
A new ProPublica investigation reveals new details about a sprawling ICE detention complex
where families describe horrific conditions inside, such as being served contaminated food,
with children and parents at times finding worms in their meals.
Lights are reportedly left on for 24 hours a day.
South Texas Family Residential Center, in the town of #Dilley a few dozen miles from …
RFK Jr.'s theories about vaccines are about to be tested (Sophie Gardner/Politico)
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/01/11/the-diseases-rfk-jr-says-children-dont-need-to-be-routinely-vaccinated-for-00720396
http://www.memeorandum.com/260111/p74#a260111p74
“So I would advise and caution against purchasing an AI toy for Christmas and think about other options of things that parents and kids can enjoy together that really build that social connection with the family, not the social connection with a parasocial AI toy.”
Many of these toys are happy to engage in discussions inappropriate for children, such as dangerous activities or sexual practices. Some are programmed to cause addiction.
I’m confused. When did MTG become the voice of reason and the sane one in the US Republican Party…?
bird.makeup - Tweet https://bird.makeup/users/repmtg/statuses/2000597575901327850
Young people were very important to the Nazis. To this end, Hitler set about influencing children both inside and outside school (CCEA) - BBC Bitesize #fascism
@…
This is about glucagon rescue devices.
Endo told me I need to get one. Said there are two groups especially in need of them. Young children and elderly. Said not to hurt my feelings but I am solidly in the second group.
Wow that is some expensive stuff! Debating if I really need it or not. Been able to handle lows myself for over 50 yea…
Did you know the average human large intestine is about 1.5 meters long? [1]
#SuperBowelFacts
[1] https://www.chp.edu/our-services/transplan
Several Ukrainian children abducted to Russia returned in initiative backed by Melania Trump, White House says: https://benborges.xyz/2026/02/13/several-ukrainian-children-abducted-to.html
Need to actually ban smartphones before, say 16. A non-internet phone is more than sufficient for safety purposes. It isn't just social media but the mindless scrolling of mostly USAmerican drivel videos and the like. I know children who will do it for hours, in preference to any worthwhile activity.
Keir Starmer tells MPs he is open to social media ban for young people | Keir Starmer | The Guardian
AI toys for kids talk about sex and issue Chinese Communist Party talking points, tests show
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ai-toys-gift-present-safe-kids-robot-child-miko-grok-alilo-miiloo-rcna246956
On July 18, a mild, overcast night in Nairobi, Kenya, a team of Donald Trump’s top foreign aid advisers
ducked into a meeting room at the Tribe Hotel,
their luxury accommodations in the city’s diplomatic quarter,
for a private dinner.
To press the urgency of the situation in East Africa, the embassy officials enlisted Dragica Pajevic,
a World Food Program veteran of more than two decades.
Pajevic arrived at the Tribe Hotel early. She brought props. The b…
Just finished "Endgames" by Ru Xu, sequel to "Newsprints." I was happy to see the characters from the first book get their endings, but Xu feels incredibly out of her depth writing about the politics of empire and the power/complicity of the press, which completely dampened my enjoyment.
As just one example, there's a ton of interesting nuance to explore behind the idea of a disabled imperial ruler and how disadvantage/persecution (from which you have been effectively shielded) does not justify harming others. This book explores none of that.
I think it does serve as a great example of how severely one limits one's own imagination when one buys into the myth of nationhood as natural/inevitable/good. It's not that Xu's politics are especially authoritarian, I think, but that she's just (been kept?) resoundingly naïve, and so her plot resolution feels childish (or perhaps that's an insult to children).
#AmReading #ReadingNow
With all the Government talk around the western world about Internet "safety", and using the tired old lines about "protecting the children" when in reality they just want to lockdown the Internet like they've wanted to from the start. Just remember these words.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." ~ Benjamin Franklin
About 400 immigrant children were detained longer than the recommended limit, ICE admits (Valerie Gonzalez/Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/immigration-ice-children-detained-lawsuit-dilley-75530212ec0959eda2b42aada3fbe46a
http://www.memeorandum.com/251209/p147#a251209p147
It gets mentioned in a lot of stories about X/Grok but rarely linked to - this is the UK legislation regarding deepfake "intimate images". (Note that this relates to adults - other legislation relates to images of children.)
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpg…
"Shell-funded school materials accused of downplaying fossil fuels’ climate impact"
#Shell #FossilFuels #Climate
This week, ProPublica published a story I wrote
based in part on interviews with parents and children being held at the nation’s only operating detention center for immigrant families in Dilley, Texas.
I had asked some of the parents to see if their children would be willing to write to me about their experiences inside.
-- More than three dozen did.
One of those letters came from 9-year-old Maria Antonia Guerra Montoya from Colombia.
Her letter was written on…
Idea: Animated movie about two children who meet a magical reference management software for bibliographic data and befriend it: "My Neighbor Zotero".
If you want to see someone completely disconnected from reality (who is also in charge of a company that interacts with millions of children thanks to Roblox), have a read here: https://www.
Russia sends children from occupied Ukraine to North Korean camp for ‘re-education,’ investigation finds: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/07/russia-sends-children-from-occupied.html
I don't think I'm ever going to enjoy gifts.
I can get why people would give them to children. After all, children don't have their own budget. However, I'm talking about occasional gifts, not a new toy every second week, because "we must outcompete the other grandparents". But to adults?
Once I've heard that you should gift people with what they won't buy themselves. Well, that's won't work for me. I'm a minimalist. If I don't need something, I don't want to have it. Unnecessary junk is only emotional burden to me.
I can get why you'd enjoy something handmade. But something people bought? If I need something, I can buy it myself, when I need it. And I definitely don't need people to prove to me that they never cared to learn who I am, and just buy whatever they like or whatever is "fashionable"; which usually means exactly the opposite of what I'd prefer (i.e. something minimalistic). Or even worse, I don't need people manipulating me through gifts.
Sweets? Besides my diabetes, I don't really enjoy expensive shit that people generally buy because it's what's advertised. For the money they waste on it, I'd buy three times as much sweets I'd actually enjoy.
Gift cards? Oh yes, "you aren't supposed to give money, so let's just give the equivalent of money that's actually worth less than money". Actual money? And here we reach the true nonsense; we exchange the same amount of money, so it's just pointless gesture. Unless one of us gives less money…
What I'd really like, as a gift? Maybe that people would finally bother accepting me as who I am. The absolute minimum of caring that I hate consumerism, and not fueling it "for me".
#AntiCapitalism #minimalism #ActuallyAutistic
This article suggests that research in 3D rendering contributed to machine- assisted assassinations of children in Gaza.
It is a topic very close to my heart. When I was starting my academic career at the dept. of Digital Storytelling of ZGDV in Darmstadt, Germany, I took a lot of inspiration by colleagues from the Institute of Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California. Their work was funded by DARPA and a lot of it was about military training. Let alone the fact t…
Pressure grows on No 10 as Burnham backs Tory call for social media ban for children | Social media | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/jan/11/kemi-badenoch-says-tories-would-ban-under-16s-from-addictive…
Wouter constant is talking about permissionlessness. Nostr is a protocol that doesn't need some central server to authenticate your requests. Which is good. But this means that, say, children can use it without parents permission.
Online safety act and others are closing down the internet to protect them kids. So can nostr have accounts that do need permission? Can it be made kid safe? Of only to satisfy crazy governments under parent pressure.
Weboftrustfoundation exists to try and build kidstr, some kind of nostr for children.
Mostly just asking questions so far. How can it work? How can it avoid labelling vulnerable people to exploit?
#nostr #permissionlessness #nostrshire
"Never forget: whenever Elon Musk walks up to a podium to bullshit you about colonizing Mars or whatever, he is walking on the bodies of dead children. He yanked their food and medicine away while telling lies and cracking stupid jokes."
From: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/
Slain Minnesota lawmaker's children call on Trump to remove social media video amplifying false claims about her death (Raquel Coronell Uribe/NBC News)
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/slain-minnesota-lawmakers-children-call-trump-remove-social-media-vide-rcna252231
http://www.memeorandum.com/260104/p66#a260104p66
Series C, Episode 07 - Children of Auron
SERVALAN: Deral? What are you talking about?
GINKA: Did you know he persuaded the woman Franton to remove some cells from one of the placentas and replace them with his own.
SERVALAN: Whose cells did he replace?
https://blake.torpidity.net/m/307/551<…
Ukrainian NGO returns 18 children from Russian-occupied Kherson: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/05/ukrainian-ngo-returns-children-from.html
I'm currently serving on district grand jury. I am forbidden by oath from ever revealing any details about any case we hear. But in general, some of the hardest details to hear are of child sexual abuse of various kinds, followed by violence against women, almost always sexual.
https://www.
I posted this video about how nice Books Upstairs is and I am sorry to say that I have received *Domestic Mockery* for my voiceover.
My children opine that I sound like I am doing an ASMR video. They are asking when I will start tapping on the books’ spines.
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNR2mc2kG/
Turned on #Christmas Pandora playlist for the first time this year. And of course the first song was all about it being ok to abuse peers for being different and having the authority figure ignore it until he needs you for something important for him, not because it's wrong.
The "Now that we know your difference is useful we'll stop treating you like shit and pretend it never happened" is a perfect topper.
Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a great lesson for children. /sarcasm
#autistic #neurospicy
🤬 National poll: Less than half of parents say swearing is never OK for kids
#swearing
How to talk about climate change with children!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJ_8ZOouZgU
Ukraine returns 1,859 abducted children, Zelenska says in Paris: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/02/ukraine-returns-abducted-children-zelenska.html
Google’s AI Nano Banana Pro accused of generating racialised ‘white saviour’ visuals https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/dec/04/google-ai-nano-banana-pro-racialised-white-saviour-images?CMP=Share…
Fascist paramilitary invaders gassed thousands including children during the Labor Against I.C.E. Rally and March (Portland, OR - 1/31/26)
This was a mid-afternoon march with the Unions. It was peaceful and respectful until ICE got insecure and decided to be dicks about it. No warnings either.
Source:
https://reddit.com/comments/1…
Seven Ukrainian children abducted to Russia returned in initiative backed by Melania Trump: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/04/seven-ukrainian-children-abducted-to.html
📦 Post office and children's sanatorium – targets of RUSSIAN MISSILES tonight #shorts: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/post-office-and-childrens-sanatorium.html
Nova Poshta terminal and children's medical facility damaged as Russian attack kills 4, injures 6 in Kharkiv outskirts: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/nova-poshta-terminal-and-childrens.html
RE: https://smnn.ch/@nohillside/115962247338547543
"Finally, it matters that this was the second broad-daylight murder, and that it came after weeks of horror stories about kidnapped children, citizens pepper-sprayed in the face, and more. I already knew, …
Several Ukrainian children abducted by Russia forcibly sent to North Korea, expert tells US Senate: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/04/several-ukrainian-children-abducted-by.html
20 former children at school with #NigelTheStockboker allege racist behaviour then, which he denies.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/
Just checked out some truly excellent books from the library to read to my 4-year-old:
Adèle & Simon by Barbara McClintock (things to find), The Marvelous Now by Angela DiTerlizzi and Lorena Alvarez Gómez (rhyming & positive encouragement about mood regulation), and Forts by Katie Venit & Kenard Pak (lovely ode to children's forts).
I had a wonderful reverse-Magritte moment reading Adèle & Simon where Simon loses his drawing of a cat and my kid pointed out one of the actual cats in the image. I said "No, that's a cat, we're looking for a drawing of a cat," before realizing that technically we were looking for a drawing of a drawing of a cat, and the thing my kid pointed to was indeed a drawing of a cat, just not in that category relative to Simon's frame of reference...
#AmReading #ReadingNow #ChildrensBooks
Liam Ramos, the 5-year-old from Minnesota who was detained last week after coming home from preschool,
is being held in the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas.
Congressmembers who visited Liam report that has been depressed and hasn’t been eating well.
Javier Hidalgo, legal director at RAICES, has worked with families at the detention center for years.
“We often hear about food with bugs or worms in it,
half-frozen food being given,
gua…
CHILDREN AND PREGNANT WOMEN INJURED! 💔 Russia began February with bloody terror in Zaporizhzhia!: https://benborges.xyz/2026/02/01/children-and-pregnant-women-injured.html
Good Morning #Canada
Most of us - who are not CEOs, or CFOs, or CTOs, or C-somethings - know that #AI makes the user experience shittier and we'd prefer it wasn't installed on our phone, tablets, applications or toasters. But when it gets installed on children's toys, that becomes a whole new level of evil perpetrated on us by the tech bros. Numerous media outlets reported in the past month about the dangers of letting your kids access AI via a cute and cuddly toy, most focused on a teddy bear that used Chat GPT to explain fetishes and role playing to unsuspecting children. I don't think Santa's Elves were involved in the quality control process. Stick with something low tech, like Play-Doh or LEGO.
#CanadaIsAwesome ##BeSafeOutThere
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/ai-toys-for-kids-safety-9.7001764
💔129-drone attack: Ukraine readies laser air defense; Russia killed a father and three children!: https://benborges.xyz/2026/02/11/drone-attack-ukraine-readies-laser.html
A federal vaccine committee decided on Friday to end the decades-long recommendation that all newborns be immunized at birth against hepatitis B,
a highly infectious virus that leads to chronic liver disease in most infected children.
The vote was a victory for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has sought for decades to overhaul the childhood vaccine schedule.
But the divisiveness and dysfunction of the committee in making the decision raises questions about the r…
Russia ATTACKS CHILDREN in DONBAS! Brutal drone-missile strikes on Ukraine: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/25/russia-attacks-children-in-donbas.html
USAID’s dismantling is estimated to have already killed 600,000 people,
⇔ of them children.
Officials simply deny any harm,
while halting data monitoring and firing inspectors general who’d have documented it
https://www.newyork…
Propaganda in Russia is passed down from parents to children #shorts: https://benborges.xyz/2025/11/30/propaganda-in-russia-is-passed.html
⚡HUMAN SAFARI: Russian Drones Hunt Volunteers & Strike "CHILDREN" Signs!: https://benborges.xyz/2025/11/30/human-safari-russian-drones-hunt.html
UN calls for return of Russia-abducted Ukrainian children in US-backed vote: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/04/un-calls-for-return-of.html
Russian drone strike on Zaporizhzhia kills 2, injures at least 8, including children: https://benborges.xyz/2026/02/03/russian-drone-strike-on-zaporizhzhia.html
Russian attacks against Ukraine kill 4, injure 21, including children, over past day: https://benborges.xyz/2026/02/01/russian-attacks-against-ukraine-kill.html
🔥Massive strike on Kherson and Odesa: wounded children and elderly! Part of the city without power!: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/28/massive-strike-on-kherson-and.html
10 HOURS OF HELL IN KYIV! ⚡️ Russia targets heat and power: 28 injured, children under rubble!: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/27/hours-of-hell-in-kyiv.html
DOUBLE STRIKE ON KYIV! 🔥 500 drones and "Kinzhals": 28 injured, children in hospitals!: https://benborges.xyz/2025/12/27/double-strike-on-kyiv-drones.html
Russia tightens passport rules for children in occupied Ukraine, complicating escape, activists say: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/26/russia-tightens-passport-rules-for.html