Lauren Broomall got on her motor scooter one day, only to find that she had an unexpected passenger. She looked down at the footrest and there sat a happy, medium-sized dog. He was looking up at her and seemed to be smiling. He was matter-of-factly planted exactly where he belonged and had no interest in moving along. @sweep_everything ♬ Take Me Somewhere – Joel Adam Russell Being an adventurer, Lauren shrugged and rolled with it. She started slowly, but the dog did not jump off. He settled in for the long ride. Several people in the comment section asked about the special passenger and what happened after the ride. Lauren mentioned to one person that she considered keeping the animal, but her apartment doesn’t allow pets. She did the next best thing. She hung out with the dog and kept him company until he wandered off on his own. Image from TikTok. One look at those eyes and even the hardest, hardcore meany would melt. This pup was there for the moment, and all he wanted was a ride. He sat like a veteran passenger, so even though he was unexpected, he was ready to ride. Lauren said he sat for the entire ride without flinching. At no time did he seem uncomfortable or wary of the motorbike. There was plenty of talk in the comment section about the doggy distribution system. Unfortunately, Lauren was not able to provide a permanent home for her unexpected passenger. She did manage to stretch the encounter into a joyful afternoon. This was definitely not the dog’s first time hitchhiking. Lauren remarked several times how comfortable he was on the motorbike while in motion. It was difficult to let the free spirit wander off, but Lauren had no choice. Please share. You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post Traveler Shares The POV When She Gets An Unexpected Passenger appeared first on InspireMore.

Widespread Panic emerged from the Athens, Georgia music scene in 1986, initially performing as a six-piece ensemble before solidifying their lineup. The band has released thirteen studio albums, with several achieving notable commercial success on the Billboard charts. Their longevity spans nearly four decades, during which they have experienced two guitarist changes due to the death of founding member Michael Houser in 2002 and the subsequent replacement of George McConnell in 2006. The band’s discography includes both studio and live releases, with their live performances becoming a hallmark of their career. They have sold millions of albums and accumulated a The post Complete List Of Widespread Panic Band Members appeared first on ClassicRockHistory.com.

At this writing, 20 remaining living Israeli hostages have been released by Hamas. Thank God. Twenty-four dead remain still to be released. These of the 251 taken hostage on that infamous Oct. 7, 2023, day. President Donald Trump is taking legitimate credit, thanks to his insurmountable will and prodigious negotiating skills, for this breakthrough. But with all the joy, there remains the hurt and disappointment. Disappointment that this could have happened two years ago. For two years, a deeply confused and lost world has given credibility to the depraved Hamas terrorists and murderers as legitimate negotiating partners. While hostages were still being held, pusillanimous leaders in France, the U.K., Canada, and elsewhere called for a Palestinian state, thus justifying and encouraging the terrorists to dig in. Immediately after the attack on Oct. 7, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres accused Israel of bearing responsibility. “It did not happen in a vacuum,” he said. Guterres heads the organization that voted to partition in 1947 and create a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted the partition. The Arabs rejected it and then attacked the newly formed State of Israel. Yet, the U.N. secretary general sees Israel as the problem. Israel has not had one day of peace since it declared statehood after that U.N. partition. The other day, Israeli press reported the suicide of one young man who was at the music festival that October day where Hamas murdered and committed atrocities against several hundred. The young man’s girlfriend was shot in front of him. For two years, the alleged civilized world has treated these depraved murderers as legitimate negotiating partners with legitimate political claims. Freedom House is a nonpartisan organization in Washington, D.C., that ranks nations worldwide according to political liberties and civil rights. There is only one nation in the Middle East ranked “free” by Freedom House—Israel (score 73/100). The U.S. scores 84/100. Yet, misguided leaders see Israel as the problem. How about the countries that Trump has engaged to pressure for the release of the hostages and to start negotiations for a peace plan? Egypt, Freedom House score 18/100—not free. Turkey 33/100—not free. Qatar 25/100—not free. Everyone looks to Saudi Arabia for cues on what to do. Saudi Arabia’s Freedom House ranking is 9/100. Yet, when the Saudi prince sets a Palestinian State as the condition for peace, no one asks him what, in his view, that state should look like. His? I recall my first visit to Israel years ago. I saw the plight and struggles of the Palestinian people and was struck at the great similarity between their situation and the economic and political realities in America’s inner cities. I am talking about populations dominated by a political leadership who instructs them that they have no control over their lives. Their plight, they are told, is entirely because of injustices that have been inflicted by others. Meanwhile, the dismal state of affairs enriches this political leadership. Hamas leaders are multimillionaires, billionaires—skimming off the riches of mega-dollars flowing from their enablers such as Iran and others. Similarly in Washington, we have a political class for whom it is very lucrative to perpetuate the culture of blame and dependence and never-ending expansion of government largesse as the solution to all problems. The secret for the Palestinians, which perhaps by some miracle they will grasp with emergence from this terrible period, is the country that they should emulate is the one that they have been taught to hate—Israel. Israel is the model of taking personal responsibility for one’s future. It is the model of what happens when people respond to duress by moving forward with an insurmountable will to live and a will to create. Willingness to admire and emulate success is what my friend George Gilder calls “The Israel Test.” COPYRIGHT 2025 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Will the Palestinians Pass the Israel Test? appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Maybe the astronomers are seeing rings instead of the full planet.

If only Ophelia had ditched the flowers and gotten herself a redwood tree, maybe she could have turned things around.Such are the latest musings of pop's most famous AP English student. Beware, all ye who listen here.We have, in real time, watched Taylor Swift age but not grow. Her discography charts the elevation of emotional immaturity into an art form.We weren’t surprised when a teenage girl struggled to control her emotions and thought that a boyfriend could save her. But to witness the “all grown up” version of that girl still in that same mental state is to feel a certain existential dread.What we have in Taylor Swift's "Life of a Showgirl" — her 12th studio release in a career spanning two decades — is a cautionary tale about a middle-aged woman in a perpetual state of arrested development. (Cue Ron Howard: "Hey, that's the name of the show!")This new album earns an “explicit” label for bad words and sexual content. But the deeper problem is not the vulgarity of the body — it’s the vacuity of the mind. "Showgirl" is less a collection of songs and more a case study in what happens when emotional adolescence becomes a permanent condition. Swift is not merely immodest; she’s foolishly immature. Let’s look at a few songs to get the point across.Get thee to a nunneryEvery Taylor Swift song addresses the same inexhaustible mystery: How does Taylor feel? At times the feelings are so big that Swift has no choice but to enlist the help of the kind of literary heavyweights they write CliffsNotes about.In “The Fate of Ophelia,” it's William Shakespeare's turn. Swift casts herself as Hamlet's doomed girlfriend — with a crucial revision: Instead of being undone by spiritual despair, Swift's Ophelia is saved by romantic ecstasy. Why drown yourself in the river when you can dive into the sheets? It takes a certain talent to depict sexual yearning poetically without making the reader cringe in embarrassment. Shakespeare had it in spades; Swift emphatically does not.Never mind: This is Swift's vision, and her emotions are in the driver’s seat. But her peculiar vision of salvation through (finally) finding Mr. Right suggests serious spiritual depression rather than empowerment. Add to that her pride in thinking that referring to one of literature's most well-known characters imparts intellectual depth, and you have no reason to think she will ever mature.It’s not so much a feminist reimagining as it is the fan fiction of a sophomore lit major. In this story, Ophelia has some prurient advice for her would-be Hamlet, but more on that soon enough.Feminists will hate that she wants to be saved by a man. Christian parents should warn their children that no man or woman can save you and that entering a relationship with that expectation will surely doom it to failure. They needn't take Mom and Dad's word for it; this is a lesson you can see play out again and again in Swift's own songs.Naughty 'List'While Swift's "sex-positive" Ophelia has left her religious hang-ups behind, that's not to say that "Showgirl" discards the numinous altogether. In "Wi$h Li$t" Swift prays to God for “a best friend who is hot.”The chorus petitions for a husband, kids, and a basketball hoop in the driveway. Lest this vision appear too wholesomely straight and suburban, Swift punctuates it with the F-word. She's also quick to acknowledge the listener's weary skepticism: Haven't we heard this all before? “I thought I had it right once, twice, but I did not,” she confesses. Yes, Taylor — we noticed.This moment of honesty is meant to sound self-aware; instead it reads like the notes of a 20-year group therapy session that never progressed past week one. It’s a chronicle of romantic exhaustion mistaken for wisdom.In some sense she sees her need for salvation, and she recognizes it must be personal/relational, but she looks for it in sex and not from Christ. A teenager missing this is sad but understandable. A middle-aged woman still missing it is culpable ignorance.But wait. What if this really is the relationship that's going to save her? Swift makes her case in the next song.RELATED: Taylor Swift isn’t a role model — and it’s time for moms to stop pretending she is Todd Owyoung/NBC | Getty ImagesStiff competitionIt is called “Wood." And if that title prompts some involuntary Beavis-and-Butthead-style snickering, you are on Swift's wavelength.The listener, having already endured the desecration of "Hamlet," must now endure the anatomical metaphor of the redwood tree. “He ah-matized me and opened my eyes,” she sings, before clarifying: “His love was the key that opened my thighs.”Just ponder this. Swift has been wrong more than once before. But this time she's right, because this time she has proof: his "redwood." Is it too cynical to conclude that the only thing this guarantees is future musical torture — yet another song tearing down another false savior? It's too bad the title "Timber" has already been taken.These are the kinds of lyrics that make one nostalgic for the intellectual rigor of bubblegum pop. Somewhere, Shakespeare’s ghost is filing a restraining order. Hamlet’s father bids us adieu.But Swift needs more than an editor to fix her songwriting. Her problem isn't just bad taste — it’s a disordered worldview. In one sense, the title "Showgirl" is sadly apt: On this album Swift puts her spiritual emptiness on full display. She craves deep and lasting love, but years of seeking it in fleeting infatuations have left her soul in a deplorable condition.Taylor's (re)versionWe have, in real time, watched Taylor Swift age but not grow. From the dear-diary teenage angst of her self-titled debut to these latest middle-age manifestos of sensual self-affirmation, her discography charts the elevation of emotional immaturity into an art form. Taylor and her emotions are always in the center. There is no self-mastery, no self-discipline, no lessons learned. Just doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.Even the most dazzling career is a cautionary tale in the making. Just ask Madonna, still gyrating unhappily at 67. Parents may one day scare their daughters with the warning, “You better shape up or you’ll end up like Taylor Swift.”Some will say I’m a grumpy old man. So be it. But Swift could stand to be a little more pessimistic herself. While she revels in her freedom to use bad words and talk about sex, she can't see that it changes nothing; she's still fleeing the same profound emptiness. We all are, and the more frantically we try to escape it on our own, the closer we get to the same grim destination: spiritual death.It's only Christ's love that can save us. That Swift has persisted for so long on the same fruitless path is a testament to the allure of the world and the stubbornness of the soul. Perhaps instead of Ophelia, Swift should have drawn inspiration from another of Shakespeare's indelible creations: the Fool in "King Lear."“Thou shouldst not have been [middle aged] till thou hadst been wise.”In the world of this album, however, wisdom is passé and self-absorption is a virtue. Swift gives us a spectacle with endless costume changes and a plot that goes nowhere. But even as we turn away in boredom, we should hold out hope that Swift will someday find a better ending. God's love has confounded expectations many times before. Even the most jaded showgirl sometimes gets a second act.

Congress and President Trump must act quickly to give 32 million small businesses permanent relief from a painful and pointless government mandate.

It’s the time when the White House is the People’s House and history is most palpable, thanks to Mrs. Kennedy. But, alas, the tours are now canceled to build the ballroom.

Google has unveiled its new recovery contacts feature that lets you regain access to lost accounts by prompting a friend. Here's how to set up such contacts.