Category: Children / Kids / Minors / Teens / Family
How God Made the 10 Commandments
I really enjoy this creator and how he has done this entire series on the Christian god and the inconsistancies of the bible and the figures in it. In this series the god is a self centered older teenager who only thinks of themselves and their needs/ wants. The full series starts out with a future highly technological civilization having graduates from school take a psychological test as them an omnipotent being and their assistant is actually their teacher in real life. But in this case “god” is so narcissistic it causes problems in the simulator they are all connected with. But the series does show how narcissistic and only thinking of their feelings, wants, and needs this Christian god is. Sadly the creator has moved on from making the series and the spin-offs from them as his main YouTube product but he still produces these videos which I am grateful for. But try to remember that God is a student and Jefferies is in reality his teacher still trying to teach him how to be a good person. Reverse the roles of the characters and you get the joke. Hugs.
One Of The Many Things U.S. Reps Do
for their constituents (or are supposed to!), and not posted as a dig on the National Weather Service, which is doing what it can with what it has, and has very little leeway to talk about why they don’t get everything done as they used to in the Before Times.
U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids urges NWS to be transparent about data collection shortcomings
Democrat renews alarm at missed Kansas balloon flights that assist forecasting
By:Tim Carpenter-May 22, 2026
TOPEKA — U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids expressed frustration Friday with the National Weather Service’s failure in the last month to launch three-fourths of the balloons typically sent aloft in Kansas to assess atmospheric conditions and assist with weather forecasting.
Davids, a Democrat representing the 3rd District in eastern Kansas, said publicly available records indicated NWS didn’t conduct on 25 of the past 30 days the standard 7 a.m. weather balloon flight dedicated to collecting atmospheric data in Kansas.
“That’s unacceptable,” she said. “Kansans deserve transparency about what’s happening, why it’s happening and what’s being done to fix it. Kansans deserve confidence that the systems meant to keep them safe are fully operational during tornado season and meteorologists deserve the reliable data they need to do their jobs.”
In the past year, Davids and U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, have raised questions about staff shortages and other issues at NWS bureaus in Kansas.
Moran recently said staffing problems persisted despite Congress appropriating sufficient funding for 24/7 operation of Kansas weather offices in Topeka, Wichita, Dodge City and Goodland.
Davids said she requested explanations one month ago from NWS about disruptions in gathering data after an outbreak of severe weather. NWS didn’t respond to the inquiry, the congresswoman said, despite seven more tornadoes touching down in Kansas last week.
NWS has an obligation to be transparent with the public about data collection failures, Davids said.
“These are not abstract bureaucratic problems,” Davids said. “You don’t get to quietly scale back something this important without transparency, especially in a state where severe weather can turn deadly fast. The administration owes the public answers and immediate action to address these reported failures before tragedy strikes.”
Davids said weather balloons provided forecasters real-time measurements, including temperature, humidity, pressure and wind conditions useful in anticipating storm intensity. Missed launches limited information available to meteorologists, she said.
She previously asked NWS to share details about reasons for missed balloon launches and how missing data contributed to delayed tornado advisories.
“For decades, 7 a.m. weather balloon launches have been a standard part of how we track severe weather and protect communities. If that standard has changed, the National Weather Service owes Kansans clear answers about why and the science and data behind that decision,” she said.
Eco-News
It was actually some Canadian-made little-kids’s science TV show on The Learning Channel (when it actually was!) that first got me acquainted with Dr. Suzuki, then I read more in a “The Nation” interview. I’m glad he’s still out here kickin’.
David Suzuki Turns 90, Says We’re All Screwed!
Dr. David Takayoshi Suzuki — an author, environmental A-lister and original host of CBC’s long-running documentary series The Nature of Things — marked his 90th spin around the sun at a star-studded gala Friday night in Vancouver. Jane Fonda and Al Gore were among the VIPs who flew in to show the old tree-hugger some love and enjoy performances from Sarah McLachlan, Bruce Cockburn, Snotty Nose Rez Kids, and even a surprise set from Neil Young.
Dr. Suzuki may not be a household name outside of Canada and maybe Japan but he came in a solid fifth place in a big CBC contest back in the early aughts to name the best Canadian ever, ahead of the more problematic Don Cherry and Wayne Gretzky, the only other living finalists to make the top 10.
Imagine if Bill Nye the Science Guy and Sir David Attenborough had a baby and you’re on the right track. The hot ticket event was livestreamed for free but hasn’t yet been uploaded anywhere, presumably to cut down on the footprint from permanent data storage, so we may never know if he had anything interesting to say about attending a lavish celebration of his life’s work when it has widely fallen on deaf ears.
He was pretty blunt when asked about his hopes for the future in a recent interview with Piya Chattopadhyay where he said hunkering down in communities is our best shot at survival now that we’ve reached the point of no return:
For years I was told on The Nature of Things, “you can’t say that, that’s too depressing.” So I’ve been held back from telling the truth. And now, when the science has said “we have passed a tipping point, we cannot go back,” people are going “oh well, what the hell, it’s too late.” It’s true we are now headed for a catastrophic way and it’s unavoidable. The science is telling you that. So do you just throw up your hands? If you have children or grandchildren, you can’t do that. So you have to hunker down and say “it’s coming.” Because when the emergency comes, we don’t know what it will be. Government won’t be able to respond with the speed and the scale that you’re going to need so get your act together. The reality is the science says we’ve come to that point, and so I believe that the unit of survival is going to be your local community.
This is coming from a father of five who watched Justin Trudeau sign the Paris Climate Accords to limit the rise of global temperatures and then turn around to buy a new frickin pipeline two years later. And now the new prime minister has essentially declared war on the environment by tossing regulations aside to fast-track new projects because Donald J. Trump poses a more immediate threat to the country than Mother Nature does.
Mark Carney recently announced plans for a potential new bitumen pipeline from Alberta to somewhere in the Pacific, with construction expected to begin as early as September 2027 if they can find anyone to put build it. “This is Canada working, this is co-operative federalism, this is Canada building,” he told reporters at a press conference with Alberta preem Danielle Smith. “In effect, it creates an energy transition — all aspects of energy — but really sets the stage for an industrial transformation.”
OK. Time To Rock and Roll.
I’ve been away a bit, but am back, and just finished reading this great Guardian piece about The Boss. Enjoy!
Bruce Springsteen is a model for how celebrities should resist Trump
His recent concerts are a thunderous call to fight for democracy. The nation could use more like him
The Bruce Springsteen concert I went to in Brooklyn last week was unlike any concert I’ve attended in decades. It was far more than a fabulous, joyous concert; it was also an inspiring resistance event.
From the get-go, the Boss made clear that this concert would be part of the anti-Trump resistance. It was a three-hour-long ode to the resistance and a thunderous call to Springsteen fans to step up and do more to fight for democracy and against authoritarianism. In this way, Springsteen is serving as a model for how celebrities can stand up against Trump and fight for what’s right.
As in the other concerts in his Land of Hope and Dreams tour, Springsteen began his Brooklyn concert with some uncontroversial, patriotic words: “We begin tonight with a prayer for our men and women in service overseas. We pray for an end to this conflict and for their safe return.” But in his very next sentence, the Boss plunged into full-scale resistance mode: “The E Street Band is here tonight in celebration and defense of the American ideals and values that have sustained our country for 250 years. We call upon the righteous power or art, of music, of rock’n’roll in these dangerous times.
How do we get more men to join the anti-Trump resistance?Read more
“Our democracy, our constitution, our rule of law,” he continued, “are being challenged right now as never before by a reckless, racist, incompetent, treasonous president and his ship of fools administration. So tonight we ask all of you to join with us in choosing hope 0ver fear, democracy over authoritarianism, the rule of law over lawlessness, ethics over unbridled corruption, resistance over complacency, truth over lies, unity over division and peace over war.”
As soon as Springsteen uttered the word war, the E Street Band began blasting Motown’s leading anti-Vietnam war song, War (What Is It Good For). Immediately came the roaring answer: “absolutely nothing.” It was Springsteen’s not-so-subtle way of dissing Trump’s disastrous war against Iran. Next, to immense applause, Springsteen belted out his great anti-war anthem, Born in the USA.
One of the concert’s final numbers was another in-your-face song to our authoritarian president: Bob Dylan’s Chimes of Freedom. Springsteen sang of those chimes flashing “for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight” and “for the rebel”, “the outcast” and the “underdog”. To an arena filled with young and old fans, he also delivered some of the oldies but goodies they hungered for: Born to Run, Hungry Heart and Dancing in the Dark. In a special bonus, Tom Morello raged against the Trump machine by joining Springsteen in an amped-up version of The Ghost of Tom Joad, about a depressing “new world order” with “families sleeping in [their] cars”. Throughout the turbocharged concert, Springsteen had phenomenal, unflagging energy, seeming more like 26 than 76.
If anyone harbored doubts about whether this was a night of resistance, Springsteen said, in a direct slap at Trump: “Honesty, honor, humility, character, truth, compassion, humanity, thoughtfulness, morality, true strength and decency – don’t let anybody tell you that these things don’t matter any more – they do… So many of our elected leaders have failed us that this American tragedy can only be stopped by the American people – by you. So join us and let’s fight for the America that we love.”
Then he shouted: “Are you with us? Are you with us?” The crowd thundered back with thousands of yeses.
In another jab at Trump, Springsteen said: “Our museums are being told to whitewash American history of any unpleasant or inconvenient facts, like the full history of the brutality of slavery. You want to talk about snowflakes? We have a president who can’t handle the truth.”
Springsteen seemed totally comfortable as he laid into Trump, who has childishly (and preposterously) called him a “total loser” and “not a talented guy”. From his early days in Asbury Park, Springsteen has championed the working class, singing about “broken heroes” who “sweat it out”, Vietnam vets who “ain’t got nowhere to go”, and twentysomethings for whom there “ain’t been much work”. While Trump has delivered to billionaires, Springsteen has been fighting for working men and women, for those who get the short end of the stick. That has given him extraordinary cred with average Americans.
To be sure, many other celebrities have stood up to Trump, among them Stephen Colbert, John Legend, Jimmy Kimmel, Robert De Niro, Lady Gaga, the country superstar Zach Bryan, and the Chicks’ Natalie Maines. Unfortunately, the courageous Mr Colbert has seemingly been punished for criticizing the thin-skinned president. His last show was on Thursday (Springsteen appeared on Wednesday’s episode). Perhaps because Springsteen knows there are hundreds of thousands of Americans willing to pay $100 or more to see him perform, he takes on Trump with less hesitation and greater abandon than other celebrities. The Boss doesn’t have any corporate overlords watching his every word.
His resistance is unflinching. In Brooklyn and at each concert, he gives a variation of this broadside: “So many American families struggle while our president and his family enrich themselves by billions of dollars trading on the people’s office in corruption unmatched in American history … This White House is destroying the American idea and our reputation around the world. We stood as a beacon for hope and liberty as an imperfect, but strong defender of democracy– standing for the global good, and to many now we are just America, the reckless, unpredictable, predatory, untrustworthy, rogue nation that is this administration and this president’s legacy.”
Every resistance movement needs an anthem, and Springsteen has obliged by writing The Streets of Minneapolis, which denounces Trump’s deployment of thousands of masked agents to intimidate that deep blue city, to essentially step on its neck.
When he began singing Streets of Minneapolis, the crowd went wild. I excerpt it:
Oh, our Minneapolis, I hear your voice
Singing through the bloody mist
We’ll take our stand for this land
And the stranger in our midst
Here in our home, they killed and roamed
In the winter of ‘26
We’ll remember the names of those who died
On the streets of Minneapolis …
At song’s end, he led an earsplitting chant: “ICE out now!” and gigantic photos of Renée Good and Alex Pretti suddenly appeared behind the stage.
Springsteen has carried his resistance message across the nation. At the flagship No Kings rally in St Paul in late March, he told the immense crowd: “The power and the solidarity of the people of Minneapolis and Minnesota was an inspiration to the entire country … You gave us hope. You gave us courage. And for those who gave their lives, Renée Good, mother of three, brutally murdered, and Alex Pretti, VA nurse, executed by ICE and left to die in the street without even the decency of our lawless government investigating their deaths. Their bravery, their sacrifice, and their names will not be forgotten.”
At his Minneapolis concert on 31 March, he poignantly told of Good’s last words: “To the man who she was protesting against, the man who would take her life, she said: ‘That’s fine, dude, I’m not mad at you. I’m not mad.’ God bless her.
“So tonight, when you go home,” Springsteen continued, “hold your loved ones close. And tomorrow, do as Renée did, find a way to take aggressive, peaceful action to defend our country’s ideals. And as the great civil rights leader John Lewis said, ‘Go out and get into some good trouble.’
“God bless Alex Pretti, God bless Renée Good, God bless you and God bless America.”
What’s giving me hope now
I, along with many others at the Barclays Center concert, came away jazzed and inspired. I imagine that hundreds of thousands of fans who have seen Springsteen in concerts across the US in recent weeks felt the same way. That gives me hope. That many young people are attending the Boss’s resistance concerts also gives me hope.
Springsteen does what celebrities should do. He uses his star power to fight the good fight. He talks to people. He doesn’t talk at them or down to them or lecture them. He voices common concerns, he rallies, he inspires. It’s perhaps easier for the Boss to do this than it is for other stars because he has a tremendous, decades-old fan base and is widely embraced as a man of the people. Let’s hope that his hugely successful Land of Hope and Dreams tour inspires other celebrities to do more to speak out and resist.
I wish that Springsteen would give dozens of free, outdoor concerts across the US over the next year or two or three, but that might be too complicated and expensive to pull off. I don’t doubt that those concerts would attract hundreds of thousands of people each, and that might help turn the tide further against Trump, the most corrupt authoritarian president in US history.
Springsteen is an unarguable leader of the resistance. The nation could use more like him.
Long live the Boss.
- Steven Greenhouse is a journalist and author, focusing on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues
We’re Wrong About the Rates of Trans People
I love Ethel and her way of presenting facts and reality. She points out that studies in high schools indicate that the rates of trans children are 3.+ and those questioning are 2.+. Plus she points out the reason more trans people are out is the same reason more gay kids came out in the 2000s, it was the left handed issue again. When being left handed became OK to admit more people admitted and openly lived as left handed. Despite everything, trans kids feel safer coming out in the US than ever before. Hugs.
“Americans overwhelmingly oppose data centers. Women most of all.”
New polling shows women have stronger concerns than men over the implications of the massive and costly complexes used to power AI.
This story was originally reported by Jenae Barnes, Climate Reporter of The 19th. Meet Jenae and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.
As data centers rapidly emerge at unprecedented rates across the country, they are being met with increasing opposition — particularly from women, according to a recent Gallup poll.
More than two-thirds of adults oppose the construction of the massive and costly complexes used to power artificial intelligence, with a majority saying they’d prefer to have a nuclear power plant in their backyard instead. While women and men overwhelmingly expressed opposition, women did so more intensely. Out of 1,000 adults surveyed, 55 percent of women said they strongly oppose data centers, compared to 43 percent of men. In fact, men were more likely to favor data centers, citing their economic benefits and job opportunities.
Jeffrey Jones, a senior editor at Gallup and the study’s author, attributed the distinction to women having more empathy for public-facing issues like the environment and healthcare, and favoring Democratic policies that protect the environment. Resistance to data centers often focuses on the imposition of environmental and financial problems, like water scarcity, noise and air pollution, and excessive energy use that can result in higher utility bills and increased health complications for the low-income communities of color who live near where they are usually built.
“A lot of the opposition is based on environmental concerns about using too many resources, especially water,” Jones added. “Centers need a lot of water to cool the computing machines that they’re using. Land, electricity, and resources are the most common concerns people have.”
Gendered fears about the environment are nothing new, experts say. Women are disproportionately impacted by environmental degradation and at higher risk of poverty, food insecurity and gender-based violence when displaced by climate change, the United Nations reports. Studies have consistently shown that women are also key to driving inclusive, effective action to address the impacts of climate change.
“I’ve been organizing for 15 years, and it’s always been the case that women are leading our fights,” said Danny Cendejas, a campaign specialist for MediaJustice, who works with grassroots movements across the country that are opposing data centers. “We are definitely seeing everyone join the fight, but we have to recognize the truth, and it’s women, trans, queer and nonbinary people leading the work.”
Cendejas pointed to environmental justice movements in places like Memphis, Tennessee, and Amarillo, Texas, which have already been overburdened by environmental pollutants and health impacts from gas and oil industries. Those impacts are now being exacerbated by data centers.
“There’s a big connection where big tech is targeting Black, Brown and Indigenous communities,” Cendejas said. “The progress that has been made over the years to shut down coal plants or gain protections… a lot of that is being undone, by big tech and the demand for data centers.”
Data centers have become an increasingly pressing issue for candidates and their campaigns heading into the midterms in November. They’re also a rare source of bipartisan concern in a polarized political environment.
“There are really strong feelings about this. I see this playing out as a political issue, and now people who are running for governor, Senate, or local offices, are having to take a position on this, whereas this is not something people were talking about two years ago,” Jones said. “And now politicians across both parties are coming out as against data centers, which seems like the more popular viewpoint.”
During a House hearing on Wednesday featuring the Environmental Protection Agency’s Assistant Administrator for Water Jessica Kramer, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York held up jars of an opaque, brown liquid that she said had come out of a rural community east of Atlanta where Donald Trump got 70 percent of the vote in the last election. Meta has disputed the claim.
“This is the current drinking water in Morgan County, Georgia, right after a data center was constructed, the Meta data center was constructed,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “The only difference between the clean water and this was that data center.”
In New Mexico, first-time candidate Daisy Maldonado is running for county commissioner in Doña Ana County on a platform that includes opposition to Project Jupiter, a $165 billion mega data center under construction in the area. Maldonado was recently endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a proponent of data center regulation, adding to the national conversation about community resistance to AI infrastructure and environmental accountability.
Women are also at the forefront of the opposition in Pittsburgh, where the majority of the data centers in Pennsylvania are being built.
“I see a lot of moms concerned,” said Ana Carolina de Assis Nunes, a researcher at the nonprofit Data & Society Research Institute who studied Pittsburgh’s data center industry. “It’s very connected to ‘I want a good future for my kids and if things go this way, I don’t know what world we will have for them in 15 years.’”
To Nunes, the Gallup poll’s results serve as a reminder and reflection of the gendered impacts of AI in society.
“A lot of the interviewees we had in Pennsylvania, when it comes to developers, or people in government, are mostly men, but people who are activists and doing work on the ground, they are mainly women,” Nunes said.
A Quick Newsy Tidbit
Judge dismisses human smuggling charges against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported
By TRAVIS LOLLER Updated 2:38 PM CDT, May 22, 2026
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A human smuggling case against Kilmar Abrego Garcia, whose mistaken deportation helped galvanize opposition to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, was thrown out Friday.
Abrego Garcia’s deportation to El Salvador last year became an embarrassment for Trump officials when they were ordered to return him to the U.S. Abrego Garcia claimed that both the timing of the criminal charges and inflammatory statements about him by top Trump officials demonstrated that the prosecution was vindictive.
U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, ruling from Nashville, granted Abrego Garcia’s motion to dismiss for “selective or vindictive prosecution.”
Without Abrego Garcia’s “successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the government would not have brought this prosecution,” said Crenshaw, dismissing claims of “new evidence” against him.
In earlier court filings, Crenshaw wrote he had found some evidence that the prosecution against Abrego Garcia “may be vindictive.” The judge said many statements by Trump administration officials “raise cause for concern.” He cited a statement by then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche that seemed to suggest the Justice Department charged Abrego Garcia because he won his wrongful-deportation case.
A Jenny Lawson That Was Just Disinterred From My Inbox!
Don’t begrudge yourself happiness, sweet friend.
Hello, lovely!
This is my last week of book tour for How To Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay and I have conflicting emotions because touring can be hard with anxiety and chronic illness, but it’s also so uplifting to see people in real life and remind myself that the work I do does make a difference even when my mind says otherwise. It can be so easy to listen to the lies that depression tells, and it helps me refill my cup in a way that I can’t explain.
I suspect that you also probably have no idea how much the work you do in your own life (including the work of just being human, kind, and yourself) makes ripples in fantastic ways you’ll never see, but never doubt that it does.
I drew a lot last week because I was in a depression and it helped, but my brain wouldn’t work enough to put together the words I wanted on the drawings so instead of showing you the three unfinished sketches that I’m still working on, here’s a drawing from the book that I’ve been reminding myself of during this depression:
“Don’t begrudge yourself happiness.”
Because there isn’t enough joy in life to just let it pass you by. When it arrives, celebrate it…enjoy it…don’t let guilt or the drudgery of life get in the way of grabbing joy and whimsy and relief whenever it comes and however it shows up. Because you deserve it.
And I do too.
And when this depression passes completely I want to be ready for it.
I super crazy love you,
~ Jenny
Joy
More short videos.
Scottie's Playtime 