On the 12th there was a false alarm in Israel as well. Now, a false alarm in Israel isn't unheard of for sure, but taken with Hawaii and Japan, it makes you wonder. https://www.timesofisrael.com/rocket-sirens-wail-in-southern-israel-but-idf-says-false-alarm/

IOW, no they were not moving to a dangerous country they had fled from. It's very relevant. Choosing to move is very different from being told you must move right now (military doesn't count as they know going in they will be moving regularly). It shows that the experience of your numerous friends and relatives is not even sort of the same as TPS being renewed for nearly two decades only to be suddenly ended (without your country of origin being any safer than it was before).

Today I finished Until We Collide by Charlotte Fallowfield. That was one of the U's in turquoise. It was a lovely little love story. The couple were in love for years, but every time they bumped into each other, they were with other people so it was never "their" time. In between, her love life was a comedy of errors. While it was easily put-down-able, I enjoyed it a lot.

And all of these friends and relatives were moving to a very dangerous country, yes? ETA: And had to move because someone told them it was time, not because they chose to?

https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/temporary-protected-status You might want to look into what federal benefits refugees get as well (including how quickly they have to pay back the LOAN we give them in order to come here; benefits they are eligible for vary by STATE).

Yup. The problem we have gotten into is the people have been here - this has been HOME - for nearly two decades. They've gotten married, had children, bought houses, started business, gotten jobs... things everyone does over the course of 17 years. It is just as dumb to kick people who live in Chicago out of Chicago as it is to kick people out of the US after letting them stay here for what appeared to be indefinitely. But we do know exactly where people with TPS are so it does make it a bit easier to force them to leave.

People who live in Chicago have told me Chicago is safe, yet statistics don't bear that out. Back when DC was having lots and lots of murders, the city didn't bother me at all because I went there all the time. The thing is, if you are familiar with a place, you tend to know where to go and where not to go. Overall, though, El Salvador is simply not a safe place to live. Just because one person, who goes through one airport there regularly, thinks it's safer than other places, doesn't make it so overall.

This morning I finished The Trumpeter of Krakow by Eric P. Kelly. It's historical fiction. I pre-read it for Cameron and Fritz. It slowly unfolds the story and each chapter starts with some background historical information that relates to the chapter somehow. I liked it.

The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo - I read it to the boys. I'm not sure I like the writing style, but the story was very sweet. My 9yo absolutely loved the end. He was practically in tears and said, "I just love a good ending!" Intelligence Was My Line by Ralph W. Hauenstein. That was I in turquoise. The author was an intelligence officer during WWII. Interesting stuff, but he repeated himself a whole lot.

The author is wrong, or at the very least does not agree with the vast majority (um, all) of experts on the subject.

Interesting. My dad had cancer and finished his chemo almost two years ago. Ever since he's been unable to sleep more than a couple hours at a time or put on weight. He got a new oncologist when they moved here and she told him the lack of sleep is part of the cause of his inability to gain weight which is part of the cause of his lack of sleep so it's a vicious cycle. Sleep affects so incredibly much.

Ah. So you are offended by people who were actually white men being portrayed by someone of some other race. I saw Jesus Christ Superstar on stage when I was a teen. Caiaphas and Judas were played by black men. Jesus was played by a very pale blond white guy. Pretty sure they were all Jewish, but no biggie. They could sing the roles and that's what mattered. LMM conceived of the musical with black men playing the parts. It's how he wrote the script. The characters are black/Hispanic/etc. It is very common for scripts to call for characters to be of a certain race. That's not racist. That's how the writer "saw" the characters. If you are not going to hire a white person to play Burr, Jefferson, Hamilton, etc. then it would make sense to say whites should not apply. Basically, it would be a waste of time for all involved. This is VERY common in the theater world when they want someone of a specific race to play a character. (ETA: And there ARE white people in Hamilton's cast.)

We did for a little while. It really helped cement in their heads that school time means working and the division between school and fun in our house. Once they got that down (after a few months), we stopped the uniforms and haven't needed them since. And they were really adorable lol

That's why it's a maybe. He wouldn't be able to take over as president more than 2 years since 10 years is the max. The Supreme Court would be the ones to interpret the two amendments together if a former president tried to become the VP.

I read Utopia by Thomas More. It rambled as old books tend to do. I found it quite interesting that what we refer to as Utopia today doesn't really resemble the society invented by More.

LOL I was very puzzled. Brain farts happen to all of us. Interestingly, a lot of historians, etc. talked about whether a former president elected twice could be a VP running mate because of Hillary Clinton. For some reason, some people expected her to pick her husband as a running mate and the question was could she. The answer was immediately no, but for a different reason. The presidential and vice presidential candidates on the same ticket must be from two different states (hence why in 2000 Cheney changed his residency to Wyoming I think it was where he had previously lived rather than Texas where he had been living).

Yes, that is the text of the 22nd amendment. The problem is when you look at the 12th AND 22nd together. It's the end of the 12th amendment: "But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States." Obama is Constitutionally ineligible to be elected to the office of President (according to the 22nd amendment) because he was elected twice as president. In 1804 when the 12th amendment was ratified, the requirements for president were only about age and citizenship, but that changed in 1951 when the 22nd was ratified adding term limits to the requirements for running for president. The confusion comes in when you put those two amendments together. In the case of a VP rising to the office of president, they are not elected to the office making it theoretically possible that he could serve an additional 2 years (making the 10 year max according to the 22nd amendment). But that hasn't been Constitutionally tested because no former president has been a running mate and, because it involves interpretation of the Constitution, it would have to be decided by the Supreme Court.

That's something she almost definitely can't do. He has been elected president twice, therefore he is now prohibited from running for president ever again according to the 22nd amendment. According to the 12th amendment, anyone Constitutionally prohibited from running for president is also prohibited from running for vice president. It gets sticky and untested because of the wording of the 22nd amendment. It says no one can be elected to the office of president more than twice. Obama has already been elected twice. The question is what if he wasn't elected but rose to the position of president from VP due to the president no longer being able to serve as president. The 22nd amendment would make it so he could only serve 2 additional years in addition to the 8 he already served, but it doesn't necessarily mean he never can be VP. It would likely go to the Supreme Court to determine if a former president who served two terms could later return as VP or not. General consensus is no, but there is some dissent to that because the 12th and 22nd amendments are not totally clear when taken together, and the fact is, we don't know how the SC would interpret the Constitution on that particular situation. (As for serving as Secretary of State, he could do that. He would almost definitely not be eligible for the line of succession for the above reasons if he did, though. Not that we've ever gotten beyond VP in the line of succession.)

Who knows. I could see it. Will Kanye?

I finished A Question of Love by Isabel Wolff. That was Q in turquoise. I liked it. It was 100% predictable pretty early on, but that didn't make it any less enjoyable.

Add dyslexia and that's my son. He is going to be a taekwondo instructor. He already works almost 30 hours a week doing it at 16 and is paid very well for what he does. He loves it. It takes training (obviously) before getting to the point where he is, but my son never did martial arts until age 12, so starting "late" isn't a problem.

My bladder was so prolapsed it was totally to the right side. My uterus was hanging out of my vagina so surgery was the only option ultimately. They had to physically move my bladder to the right spot before tacking it in place. Kegels would've done nothing in my case simply because it was just so out of place and so movement would put pressure on it totally wrong.

That's one of the things it is about definitely. One person in the article I read said that fluoride is a mind control drug. Like, the government is controlling the minds of the American citizens through people drinking fluoridated water.

It's straight up unfiltered and untreated from wherever. Usually a spring. I wondered that about RO myself, but in the article I read, it said that RO, distilled, filtered, etc. water is "dead." Apparently, water is only good for you if it turns green in a few weeks...

The power went out many times over the years. The freezer, however, was amazing and never did quit working. It had been my grandparents' freezer and they died in 1962 and had had it many years by then. They didn't even consider trying it after all that time.