As an interesting side note, on the same day that the Crumbleys were sentenced, Ebony Parker, the assistant principal at the school where a 6 yr old shot his 1st grade teacher, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of felony child abuse, claiming that she "did commit a willful act or omission in the care of such students, in a manner so gross, wanton and culpable as to show a reckless disregard for human life." The 6 yr old had a long history of violent behavior, and had been kicked out of kindergarten after choking his teacher and another student, but he was placed in a regular 1st grade class, with little additional support other than allowing one of his parents to sit in class to help control him (which teachers claim was a security risk in itself given the father's criminal history and the mother's extensive drug use). His teacher, Abby Zwerner, along with other teachers and aides, repeatedly complained to Parker about his dangerous behavior; a few days before the shooting he had smashed Zwerner's cell phone. On the day of the shooting, four different staff members informed Parker that the boy was in a violent mood, had threatened to beat up another child, and claimed he had a gun, which two other students said they had seen, but she ignored them. Zwerner had seen him take something out of his backpack and put it in his pocket, so Parker was asked for permission to search him, which she refused — 20 minutes later he shot Zwerner in the hand and chest, and the only thing that kept him from continuing to shoot was that the gun jammed. Parker and another staff member were in the main office, along with a student and a grandmother who was there to pickup a different child, when someone burst in to say there'd been a shooting. Parker and the other staff member immediately went into their private offices and shut the doors — leaving the grandmother and the student in the outer office. Zwerner managed to get her students out of the classroom and ran to the office where she collapsed on the floor. The other staff member opened her door, saw the bleeding unconscious teacher, and shut the door again, leaving the grandmother to render aid while the terrified child tried to hide behind a photocopier! Meanwhile, the police who had been called stood outside banging on the door so long that they contemplated shooting their way in, because the front door was locked and the button to buzz people in was broken; luckily a janitor eventually saw them and opened the door. And when investigators tried to get the school's files on the boy, they had mysteriously disappeared from both the main office and Zwerner's classroom, even though the files on all other students were in place. Parker faces up to 5 years on each count if convicted. The boy's mother has already been sentenced — she pleaded guilty to one count of child neglect in return for prosecutors dropping additional charges and they requested a 6 month sentence, but the judge sentenced her to 2 years anyway, which is the maximum for the child neglect charge. It seems like a lot of people, and at least some judges, are truly fed up with the lack of accountability.

The judge gave them both the maximum sentence possible on the manslaughter charges (15 years), and they will have to serve at least 10 before they're eligible for parole. I hope the parole board does take the death threats into consideration and keeps him there for the full 15.

From the CDC: "The ‘Spanish’ influenza H1N1 pandemic of 1918-1919 killed an estimated 50-100 million people worldwide. Although the virus was not isolated during 1918-1919, when the technology was available the genetic sequence was later determined to be an avian-like H1N1 virus." "In February 1957, a new influenza A(H2N2) virus emerged in people in East Asia, triggering a pandemic (“Asian Flu”). This H2N2 virus was comprised of three different genes from an H2N2 virus that originated from an avian influenza A virus. ... The estimated number of deaths was 1.1 million worldwide and 116,000 in the United States."

At least they're coming right out and admitting that they're pretending it's a different disease in order "to maintain confidence in the safety and accessibility of beef and dairy products for consumers." <eyeroll>

If you enjoy the event and don't mind organizing it as long as Sam is not included, then I would continue it that way and just tell Sally upfront that this event will no longer include Sam, and if she isn't comfortable attending under those circumstances, that's her choice and you understand. But she needs to understand that the only two options at this point are an event without Sam or no event, because you do not want to attend, and will not organize, one that includes him.

I don't know about Jennifer, but James is one very angry, very scary dude. In his presentencing statement he continued to insist that he was unjustly charged and convicted and that there were absolutely no signs that Ethan was disturbed — he literally said that Ethan always appeared "very stable" and had never expressed any concerns about mental health, therefore he could not possibly have known of the danger. He insisted that the SIG Sauer 9mm was his gun, not Ethan's, despite Jennifer's post referring to it as Ethan's Christmas present and Ethan's own testimony, backed up texts and journal entries, that the gun was bought for him, at his request, and that he had specifically chosen that model. James insisted that the gun was legally secured and he had no idea his son was able to access it, despite the fact that police found the cable lock that was sold with the gun inside the case still in an unopened plastic bag; his other guns were in a small gun safe on an easily accessible shelf with the combination still set to the default code of 000, and even before they bought the SIG Sauer Ethan had posted photos of himself playing with one of the other guns, fully loaded, while joking about shooting up a school. He made really vile threats against the prosecutor, calling her a "f***** stupid bitch," promising "there will be retribution, believe me," and saying he was "going to f***** take her down," she's "f***ed as soon as I get out," she'll be "f***** sucking hot rocks in hell soon," and "I am on a rampage... your ass is going down and you better be f***** scared." After his phone privileges were revoked, he gave the prosecutor the middle finger in court (his attorney argued that he was just "adjusting his headphones" and that the death threats were just "venting"). I sure hope they give the prosecutor a heads up before he is released, and that she has a restraining order and some serious protection when he gets out!

He was found competent because he admitted to carefully planning the killings in advance with the full understanding that what he was doing was wrong and that he would go to prison for it. He admitted that the reason he asked his parents to buy him a gun was specifically so he could shoot up the school, saying he wanted to be known as the biggest school shooter in Michigan history. He wrote in his journal the day before the shooting that "the first victim has to be a pretty girl" along with a drawing showing him shooting a girl in the head. It's possible to be mentally ill and still understand that what you are doing is wrong — the defense's own psychological evaluation deemed him competent, which is why they withdrew their initial insanity plea. The defense did argue for a shorter sentence with the possibility of parole, on the grounds that Ethan was young and could be rehabilitated, but prosecutors pointed out that he remained obsessed with violence while in jail, and had managed to bypass protections on a tablet in order to access violent content, including visiting a specific website more than 30 times to watch videos of murder and torture. He was supposed to be using the tablet to study for his GED.

I think the convictions and sentences were fully warranted. IMO the fact that there wasn't a "safe gun law" on the books at the time is irrelevant; they were charged with involuntary manslaughter by gross negligence, and their negligence went so far beyond just leaving a gun unlocked. These parents purposely bought a gun as a Christmas present for a child they knew was mentally ill, while simultaneously refusing his requests for psychiatric help. He repeatedly told his mother that he was hearing voices and seeing demons, and begged them to take him to the doctor, but he told a friend that his mother just laughed at him and his father told him to suck it up. He texted a friend that he wanted to call 911 on himself, but was afraid his parents would be "so pissed" if he did. During the same period he was begging for help, he was making videos of himself torturing and killing baby birds, he was watching hundreds of violent videos, including mass shootings, he was recording his violent thoughts in a journal, and posting gruesome pictures on social media. Months before they bought him his own gun, he texted a friend photos of himself playing with his father's loaded gun and "joking" about shooting up a school. His parents knew he was struggling with mental health, they even knew about the journal, but they never bothered to check his phone or browser history, or look in his room where they would have found a severed bird head in a jar. They were so preoccupied with their own lives that instead of getting him into therapy, they bought him a gun and taught him to shoot it. The day before the shooting they were told he'd been searching online for ammo while in class and Jennifer texted Ethan "LOL next time just don't get caught." On the day of the shooting they were shown Ethan's drawing — a gun and a murder victim with the words "blood everywhere" and "the thoughts won't stop, help me" — and they refused to take him home, even though Jennifer's boss testified she could easily have taken the day off and James was just a DoorDash driver. They also purposely withheld from the school the fact that he owned a gun just like the one in the drawing, and that they knew he was having intrusive thoughts and hearing voices. Ethan's backpack was in the room with them, and his parents didn't even bother opening it to see if the gun they bought for him might be in there. What happened that day was absolutely predictable and 100% preventable, but at every single point where the parents could have taken action to prevent it, they made grossly negligent choices that made the tragic outcome more likely rather than less. Other actions that the judge considered as part of the sentencing included the parents attempts to flee, their refusal to take responsibility (Jennifer said she wouldn't have done anything differently and James repeatedly referred to himself as a martyr and victim of persecution), and the fact that James made so many death threats against the prosecutor that his phone privileges were revoked.

My biggest weekly splurge is probably organic fruit, followed by nuts and seeds. More occasional splurges would include good spices, balsamic vinegar, imported sauces/condiments, and really good dried beans from Rancho Gordo. OTOH, I don't buy meat, dairy, or eggs, I never eat out, and I cook almost everything from scratch, so even with the "splurges" my food bill is probably pretty average.

This. I think a lot of people don't understand the difference between totality and even a fractional % less than totality. Even when the sun is 99.9% covered by the moon, the remaining light is still bright enough to prevent you from seeing the corona. At true totality you can see the stars on a clear day and you can see the corona. In an area that gets 90-99%, watching the moon occlude the sun and seeing it get a little darker is fun, but it's a completely different experience from a total eclipse. The kids and I were able to see the 2017 total eclipse on a totally clear day and we all thought it was really amazing. DS was able to see the one today by driving about 20 minutes, and said it wasn't quite as dramatic as 2017 due to a few more clouds, but it lasted longer and he was really glad he got to see it.

This. I have one kid who is quite frugal, to the extent that it's really hard to buy him Christmas and birthday presents because he wants so little, while my other kid spends every penny she earns on clothes, make-up, and fast food. They grew up with one frugal Boomer parent (me) and one spendthrift parent (my ex). And one of the reasons I grew up dirt poor is because my Silent Generation dad was terrible with money and would spend what little we had on stupid stuff while his kids went hungry. There are frugal people and spendthrifts in every generation. I also think many young working adults don't see the point of trying to save for a house because it's just totally out of reach here, where a 2 BR fixer-upper is $500K — and that's if you can find it before the flippers and investors snap it up. Why scrimp and save and do without for decades, only to find that prices have outpaced your savings anyway? Another current media trope is that kids today are so spoiled to want to have their own apartment, they should be sharing a house with lots of roommates to save money. DD's boyfriend shares a 3 BR house with 4 other people, while working full time plus taking online classes (which he pays for himself). Each person is allocated one kitchen cabinet, one shelf in the fridge, and a tiny space in the freezer, which makes it really difficult to plan and prepare meals at home (not to mention the issue of multiple people trying to use a very small kitchen at the same time). So of course they tend to get takeout more often — but then that's seen as being spoiled and spendthrift. I guess Gen Zers should all be living in shared rental houses and eating from communal pots of rice and beans while saving every penny they earn until they're 40. But then the headlines would be about all the industries "Gen Z killed" by selfishly refusing to support the economy.

I was curious about the origins of the avocado toast meme, and ironically it comes from Australia! From a 2017 article in The Guardian: "An Australian millionaire and real estate mogul has advice for millennials struggling to purchase a home: stop buying avocado toast. Tim Gurner, a luxury property developer in Melbourne responsible for over $3.8bn in projects, is facing heat for comments he made on 60 Minutes in Australia, implying that young people can’t afford to buy property because they’re wasting money on fancy toast and overpriced coffee. “When I was trying to buy my first home, I wasn’t buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each,” he said. “We’re at a point now where the expectations of younger people are very, very high.” He added: “We are coming into a new reality where … a lot of people won’t own a house in their lifetime. That is just the reality.” Asked if he believes young people will never own a home, he responded: “Absolutely, when you’re spending $40 a day on smashed avocados and coffees and not working. Of course.” <snip> Gurner is not the first to suggest that young people’s love of avocado toast was making it harder for them to buy homes. Demographer Bernard Saltwrote in the Australian last year that if young people stopped going to “hipster cafes”, they could purchase property. He wrote: “I have seen young people order smashed avocado with crumbled feta on five-grain toasted bread at $22 a pop and more. I can afford to eat this for lunch because I am middle aged and have raised my family. But how can young people afford to eat like this? Shouldn’t they be economising by eating at home? How often are they eating out? Twenty-two dollars several times a week could go towards a deposit on a house.” So now Gen Z and millennials are buying more groceries and eating out less — and it's being spun as wasting money on frivolous things like soda and snacks (as if Boomers don't buy soda and snacks???). What these guys are really saying is "We the wealthy have spent the past few decades screwing the economy for our own benefit to the extent that many young people will never be able to afford a home — but we're going to blame them for not living on bread and water."

I hate the way a tucked top sheet squashes my feet, so even before I switched to a duvet I would leave it untucked and then the sheet, blanket, quilt, and any other layers on the bed would all have to be individually straightened in the morning. To me, a duvet is just so much easier and more comfortable — no squashed feet, no layers to get tangled up, just shake it and the bed is made. And it only takes a couple of minutes to put the cover on — lay the cover on the bed inside-out, lay the duvet on top, tie the corners, flip it right-side-out. I can use a big puffy down duvet in the winter, a midweight one in spring and fall, and in the summer I just use the empty cover — two layers of linen is the perfect weight for summer, and linen is much cooler and more breathable than cotton. ETA: When my kids were little they both had bunk beds in their rooms, and there's no way I'd mess with a top sheet plus blankets in a top bunk — just getting the fitted sheets on was hard enough!

Gen Z, meanwhile, says the money they choose to spend on high-quality snacks and beverages makes for expensive grocery bills. One 23-year-old Gen Zer told Business Insider by text that he spends about $130 for a week and a half on groceries. "Fancy sodas and drinks" and "random snacks at Trader Joe's" account for the bulk of the bill. He also said he spent about $35 on protein bars. I just want to point out that the above quote from the Business Insider article is not based on the McKinsey survey data in the article they link. It's like some hack at BI texted their 23 yr old nephew and said "hey kiddo, what kind of groceries would you consider to be a splurge?" and then they got one quote and turned it into this sweeping generalization that Gen Z are wasting their money on fancy sodas and snacks. This is what the McKinsey survey of 4000 people actually says: "rather than splurging on dining out, consumers said they intended to splurge on food at home more than they did at the end of 2023. This change was most evident among Gen Zers and millennials." There's nothing in the data specifying what kind of foods they are "splurging" on. There's one quote from a Millennial saying "We’ve been shopping at the grocery store more often to buy things that are healthier for us. And in the process, we get to save money and spend time with each other cooking and eating together. So it’s really a win–win for everybody." But I guess that's not enough of a hook. "Gen Z blows their money on soda and protein bars" seems like the new "Millenials spend all their money on fancy coffee and avocado toast."

You can buy separate fitted sheets pretty much everywhere — Amazon, Target, WalMart, Lands End, Pottery Barn, Company Store, etc. I've been buying fitted sheets separately for at least 30 years, since I started using duvet covers instead of top sheets. And even as far back as the late 70s, I used to buy individual flat sheets to make cheap curtains when I was a starving grad student, so I'm pretty sure separate fitted sheets were available then too.

I would try denture cleaning tablets, that's what I use to get tea stains out of ceramic mugs and steel travel cups.

From the conclusion: "Based on these findings, we have estimated that vaccine efficacy against the SARS-CoV-2 ancestral strain 6 months to 1 year after the second dose was at least 65.5 % (95 % CI: 23.0–90.8), including for participants aged 65 years or older." The 4 covid infections that occurred in the vaccine group were all more than 300 days post-vaccine, and were mild (2) to moderate (2). The study was done pre-Omicron, but if these results turn out to be applicable to Omicron as well, this is really good news for Novavax. It's such a shame that they had so many supply chain and quality control issues with their adjuvant repeatedly delaying the launch, because this seems like a really good vaccine with very few side effects.

That's quite an autocorrect, lol. It made me wonder where the name formica came from, so I looked it up: Electrical engineers Daniel J. O'Conor and Herbert A. Faber discovered that high-pressure plastic resins could be used to make electrical parts, replacing the mineral mica, and established the Formica Products Company in 1913. As they were searching for a substitute “for” the insulation material “mica,” they coined the name “Formica.”

When my gas cooktop died, I bought a couple of portable induction hobs to tide me over until I can do a full gut-job. When I was originally planning the remodel, I was very gung-ho about switching to induction for environmental reasons, but now that I've actually used it for a while, I've changed my mind. One issue is the super high-pitched hum; it comes and goes, and one burner is worse than the other, but it absolutely drives me nuts. I thought it might just be a function of less expensive portable burners, but I've read the same complaint about full size cooktops and stoves, and there's no way I could put up with that every time I cook for the rest of my life. Another big issue for me is that the heat cycles on and off, especially at lower temperatures. So if I'm trying to keep a pot at a low simmer, what I actually get is a pot that goes from no bubbles to boiling to no bubbles to boiling every few seconds or so. I want even heat, not constant cycling on and off. ETA: I thought of another thing — the only part of the pan that really gets hot is the part that is over the magnet. So for example, my portable burners have 2 concentric circles and if the pot is smaller than the outer circle, even by a fraction of an inch, only the inner circle heats. And if the pan is much bigger than the outer circle, you can clearly see the circle of heat in the middle of the pan and everything around that circle does not get nearly as hot. I eat a lot of stir fries and I have a very large pan, and there's just no way to get the edges of the pan hot enough to cook the food evenly. I've cooked with gas most of my life, with the exception of the 10 years I was in the UK, when I had a glass top halogen stove. Induction is definitely much faster and more responsive than electric or halogen, but the noise and the cycling on and off are dealbreakers for me.

Blackadder is my absolute favorite TV series of all time; I used to have the full DVD set and have watched every episode many times. The Regency series in particular, with Hugh Laurie as the Prince Regent, is pure genius. Most of my favorite tv shows are from the UK actually: Absolutely Fabulous, Little Britain, Morse, Mr Bean, Red Dwarf, Dr Who, Thunderbirds (the original puppet one), Grand Designs, Monty Python, Black Books, The Young Ones, Ballykissangel, Jeeves & Wooster (Hugh Laurie & Stephen Fry), Q.I., Fawlty Towers, The Fast Show, Harry Enfield, Waiting for God For US shows, I'd probably pick Big Bang Theory, King of the Hill, Simpsons, Star Trek (original & TNG), Friends. I haven't had a TV since we moved 10 years ago though, so most of my picks are quite old!

Those numbers are very characteristic of what's been called a "Lean Mass Hyper Responder" phenotype (LMHR), the definition of which is normal BMI with total cholesterol >200 mg/dL, HDL >80, and TG <70. People who fit that pattern generally exercise a lot and eat a high fat/low carb diet. It's a hot topic in current research, and some believe that high LDL is not a risk factor for CVD as long as BMI is normal and the other numbers are in optimal range (as yours are). However, the research on this is very new, and not everyone agrees with the concept. In people with this pattern, high LDL is generally the result of high animal fat and low fiber, which is characteristic of keto/carnivore/HFLC diets. If you're already at a normal BMI and don't eat refined carbs, I'd focus on reducing saturated fat (especially red meat and high-fat dairy like butter and cheese), increasing Omega 3s, and eating a lot more soluble fiber (only soluble fiber reduces cholesterol, insoluble fiber has no effect). Black beans are especially high in soluble fiber, and oats contain a type of soluble fiber called beta-glucan, which has been shown to reduce both blood sugar and cholesterol levels. "Overnight oats" (uncooked rolled oats soaked in low fat milk, yogurt, or plant milk) are much higher in resistant starch and have a lower glycemic index than cooked oats. Adding a tablespoon each of chia seeds and ground flax seed to overnight oats significantly boosts soluble fiber plus adds Omega 3s, which also lower LDL. Top with a cup of berries, for even more soluble fiber plus antioxidants; berries have also been proven to reduce LDL (e.g. this meta-analysis).

I have both types of documents that are often colloquially referred to as "living wills": (1) a document that allows one of my kids to make decisions for me if I am incapacitated, and (2) a revocable trust that includes assets that will pass to my children without probate if I die. One of the assets in that trust is a house that my father and (recently deceased) stepmother have lived in for the last 20 years, which was originally jointly owned with my ex-husband. My #1 concern in the divorce settlement was ensuring that I got that house in my name only so my ex could not kick my parents out if something happened to me. I offered my ex a larger percentage of the equity in our family home in return for ownership of the house my parents live in. That house is now titled in the name of the revocable trust, of which I am trustee, and if anything happens to me then my kids will inherit it and there is a specific clause that gives my father and stepmother a lifetime right to live there, which of course my kids would abide by. That is why I posted that your sister needs to sort out her divorce settlement first. You can't make any decisions about what "rights" you will have to continue living in the house until you know what rights she will have to the house, and the "cleaner" the divorce settlement is, the better — ideally one spouse will buy the other out (either with cash or with concessions in other areas), or the house will be sold and the proceeds distributed equitably. Then you and your sister can set up an arrangement that suits the two of you, instead of trying to shoehorn yourself and your "rights" into the middle of someone else's divorce proceedings.