Tootfinder

"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

How to raise children
A wee little painting (11×14”, sans stick) I made last week. This one got auctioned off on Bluesky to help folks in Minnesota. I’m making more. This week’s...

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…

How a Planned Disney World Vacation Turned Into Four Months in Immigration Detention
A 9-year-old shares her story of being held at the nation’s only operating detention center for immigrant families in Dilley, Texas.

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

Social media addiction trial: the plaintiff, Meta, and YouTube make closing arguments; jurors begin deliberations Friday on liability for harm to children (Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/meta-instagram-facebook-tr…

Closing arguments begin in landmark social media trial set in Los Angeles
After about a month of hearing from addiction experts, therapists, platform engineers and executives, including Mark Zuckerberg, a jury will listen to closing arguments before heading to the deliberation room to decide whether social media companies should be liable for harms caused to children using their platforms. Closing statements in the trial will begin Thursday at the Spring Street Courthouse in Los Angeles. Lawyers representing the plaintiff, a 20-year-old woman, and those representing …

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

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

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 …

“I Have Never Felt So Much Fear”: Immigrant Children Speak Out on Life Inside ICE Jail in Dilley, TX
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 the southern border with Mexico, detains an estimated 3,500 people, more than half of them children. “I have never …

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…

Wow does the AI-BAD crowd who moans like children about these really great AGENTS.md files and how bros aren’t writing docs for humans but for AI instead get butt hurt when you point out those are written by AI and not humans.

📦 Post office and children's sanatorium – targets of RUSSIAN MISSILES tonight #shorts: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/13/post-office-and-childrens-sanatorium.html

Despite the hot air from government about protecting children, they've voted down our Bill to turn off the toxic algorithms.
These algorithms push toxic content promoting eating disorders, self harm, misogyny and hate.
Big Tech profits should not come before children's health.
— Paul Murphy, Member of the Irish Parliament for the party People before Profit.

Did you know the average human large intestine is about 1.5 meters long? [1]
#SuperBowelFacts
[1] https://www.chp.edu/our-services/transplan

Differences in Small & Large Intestines | Children's Pittsburgh
Do you know the main differences between the small and large intestines? Learn exactly how your body absorbs nutrients from your food on a daily basis.

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

US strike likely hit Shajareh Tayyiba school in Minab, Iran due to outdated intelligence, sources briefed on initial findings say | CNN Politics https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/11/politics/us-iran-school-strike-civilians

US strike likely hit a school in Iran due to outdated intelligence, sources briefed on initial findings say
The US military accidentally struck an Iranian elementary school, in an attack that state media said killed at least 168 children and 14 teachers, likely due to outdated information about a nearby naval base, according to two sources briefed on the preliminary findings of an ongoing military investigation.

Putin wages war on CHILDREN & RESCUERS! Russia launches cynical double strike on Ukrainian cities: https://benborges.xyz/2026/03/08/putin-wages-war-on-children.html

The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement arm
is requesting unfettered access to what is considered to be the most comprehensive government database of people in the United States
and their most private information,
including sensitive details about individual children, according to six current and former federal officials.
It is called the "Federal Parent Locator Service", and it’s meant for finding people who owe child support.
Granting acc…

DHS Seeks Access to Massive Employment, Salary and Family Database Legally Restricted to Use in Child Support Cases
The Trump administration’s immigration enforcers are requesting unfettered access to the government’s “most powerful people-finder system,” which contains sensitive information on children and victims of domestic violence.

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…

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

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

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

"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/

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.

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…

How did we end up threatening our kids’ lives with AI?
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

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<…

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.

💔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

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/

🤬 National poll: Less than half of parents say swearing is never OK for kids
#swearing

National poll: Less than half of parents say swearing is never OK for kids
Today's parents may be growing more relaxed about their children using curse words, according to a national poll.

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, …

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.

chatcontrol e oscuramento: la guerra alla crittografia è in aumento. A causa di una losca collaborazione tra Stati Uniti e Unione Europea.
Sorveglianza di massa statale
Dopo la denuncia di Snowden nel 2013, ampie porzioni di Internet sono diventate crittografate, consentendo comunicazioni private e sicure. Non tutti hanno accolto con favore questo cambiamento. In particolare, l'FBI e altre agenzie governative statunitensi hanno combattuto quella che viene spesso definita la &q…

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…

»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)
🤷

Scoop: TikTok signs deal for U.S. unit after yearslong saga
The deal would end a yearslong saga to force TikTok's Chinese parent ByteDance to sell the company's U.S. operation.

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

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

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸
Rob Reiner and his wife were tragically killed at the hands of their own son, who reportedly had drug addiction and other issues, and their remaining children are left in serious mourning and heartbreak. This is a family tragedy, not about politics or political enemies. Many families deal with a family member with drug addiction and mental health issues. It’s incredibly difficult and should be met with empathy especially when it ends in murder.

"GiveWell has long recognized the potential for highly cost-effective vaccine programs. We started supporting #vaccination programs in 2015 and have made over $200 million in vaccination-related grants to date. For example, New Incentives, one of our Top Charities, aims to increase routine childhood vaccinations in northern Nigeria by providing small cash incentives to caregivers who brin…

Podcast Episode 24: Testing New Strategies to Increase Vaccination Coverage - The GiveWell Blog
In this episode, GiveWell CEO and co-founder Elie Hassenfeld speaks with Natalie Crispin about how our research approach has evolved and what it means for helping more children access life-saving vaccinations.

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

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…

“Let Us Out”: ICE Detention of Children Sparks Protests at Immigration Jail in Dilley, TX
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, guards yelling at parents if their kid…

Ukraine war latest: Russian attack kills 11 in Kharkiv, including 2 children: https://benborges.xyz/2026/03/08/ukraine-war-latest-russian-attack.html

@…
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…

What about all those kids who enjoy #Gladiators. It might finish after their bedtime now.
Won't somebody think of the children!

Russia ATTACKS CHILDREN in DONBAS! Brutal drone-missile strikes on Ukraine: https://benborges.xyz/2026/01/25/russia-attacks-children-in-donbas.html

Ukraine returns 2 children from Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast: https://benborges.xyz/2026/02/21/ukraine-returns-children-from-russianoccupied.html

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…

Inside the Trump Administration’s Man-Made Hunger Crisis
“Brutal and traumatizing”: Interviews and a trove of internal documents show government officials and aid workers desperately tried to warn Trump advisers about impending disaster and death.

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

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

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…

Inside the Trump Administration’s Man-Made Hunger Crisis
“Brutal and traumatizing”: Interviews and a trove of internal documents show government officials and aid workers desperately tried to warn Trump advisers about impending disaster and death.

🔥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

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