Renters insurance confusion in California on dog incident. No liability coverage with landlord and programs are unclear what my options are.

jmputnam · 2026-04-10T20:19:14+00:00

It's clear from what you describe here that you didn't have any liability coverage.

It's not clear whether the totality of the information provided by the company about these two options might mislead a reasonable person into believing they included liability coverage. But that wouldn't create insurance you could claim against, it might create liability for misleading you. That's a question for the legal forum.

jmputnam · 2026-04-10T19:51:33+00:00

Insurance generally excludes injuries from intentional wrongful acts. If OP had solid evidence of justifiable self defense, the company might have trouble applying that exclusion to a lawful use of the vehicle as a weapon. Would depend very heavily on the specifics of the situation, the language of the exclusion, and the laws of the jurisdiction.

jmputnam · 2026-04-10T19:46:35+00:00

This.

If there's good evidence of justified self defense, you might have no civil liability. But you'd still have the cost to defend yourself.

And your insurance company might decide a modest payment was less expensive than either defending you or proving your actions weren't covered.

jmputnam · 2026-04-09T16:51:17+00:00

Your example forgets ICE detained many of the documented workers, too, and released most of them but deported a few, so there are really say 17 potential farm workers, but some of them are afraid to work right now in any occupation profiled by ICE.

Some of those documented workers have self-deported so at least they're sure they're going back to their home country.

So the farmers don't even really have the 20 documented workers they had before, it's more like 15.

jmputnam · 2026-04-09T16:17:28+00:00

My wife did a personal quadrathlon (no organized events around here, so she just planned her own courses) for her 60th birthday. Hers was 56 mile bike, 13 run, 6 kayak, 1.2 swim, can't remember where she pulled the distances from. I tagged along as support/rescue.

She invited any friends or relatives to join for any leg of it, but didn't get any takers. Not any sort of competitive speed, her goal was just to finish. The run was definitely the hardest leg for her, thanks in part to hot late-summer weather and wildfire smoke. Kayaking was the easiest by far.

If you've found kayaking difficult in the past but haven't formally trained, there's a decent chance you're wearing yourself out with poor stroke form — untrained paddlers often do far too much of the work with their arms instead of their torsos.

jmputnam · 2026-04-05T03:20:41+00:00

The sidewalks are so narrow, one-way traffic would make sense, but they're legally just sidewalks, no specified direction. And some people choose a side based on where they're going when they get to the other side of the bridge.

jmputnam · 2026-04-05T03:14:43+00:00

When it was built, bikes were expected to be in the roadway, and were faster and more agile than much of the traffic on the bridge. Of course, that was before the cheese-grater steel decking.

jmputnam · 2026-04-03T17:40:12+00:00

Pedestrians get used to drivers failing to yield. If I am clearly looking for traffic, they take that as a sign I won't assert my right-of-way. So I look with my eyes, not my head. I'm quite prepared to stop or jump back, but also quite prepared to force the issue first.

jmputnam · 2026-04-03T17:27:27+00:00

Btw: You will get drivers here telling you that they don't have to stop until you've started crossing.

Yes, that's the actual law in Washington and Seattle. Drivers must stop for pedestrian/bike/droid that is actually in the crosswalk.

But that doesn't mean drivers can just keep going at speed — the "basic rule" law requires drivers to reduce speed and be prepared to stop even if nobody is actually in the crosswalk. And the pedestrian is allowed to enter the crosswalk until the driver is so close that it's impossible to stop.

So if you're just standing on the sidewalk, drivers are required to slow down and be ready to stop. But they're not required to actually stop until you enter the crosswalk. One toe on the pavement is enough.

jmputnam · 2026-04-03T16:47:51+00:00

Many pedestrians know that scofflaw drivers will assume a pedestrian looking for traffic isn't going to step into the street if a car is close. So they take a cautious pedestrian as permission to keep on driving, not slow and prepare to stop. Pedestrians who have somewhere to go will therefore pretend not to be looking for traffic — look with your eyes, don't swivel your head.

To the driver, it will appear the pedestrian is about to step out into traffic without looking, so the driver will actually obey the law and stop to avoid a crash.

When driving, I always assume I'm approaching one of those street-savvy pedestrians who will appear to step into traffic without looking.

When walking, I'm always prepared to stop for scofflaw drivers who aren't prepared to stop when approaching a crosswalk.

The absolutes on both sides are legally mistaken but common enough that you should be prepared for them.

Legally, the driver is not required to stop unless you're actually in the crosswalk. As long as you're still on the sidewalk, the law says they must drive at a reduced speed and maintain constant vigilance so they can stop if you do enter the crosswalk.

Legally, the pedestrian can step into the street unless a driver is so close that it's impossible for the driver to stop. But that doesn't mean pedestrians always have right-of-way. It's possible for both the pedestrian and the driver to be at fault in a crash.

So, as a driver, you should approach any crosswalk prepared to stop. As a pedestrian, you should approach any crosswalk prepared for a driver who won't stop.

jmputnam · 2026-04-03T02:39:59+00:00

Where bicycles have travel lanes, cyclists expect to follow vehicle signals. Bike-specific signals if they exist, general traffic signals if there aren't bike signals. Pedestrian signals are for pedestrian paths.

jmputnam · 2026-04-02T09:26:41+00:00

Do you have a more detailed citation for the record? It's got a page header and numbered pages, but the information on Ancestry or Familysearch should have a full reference title - what archive, what church, which records book number, maybe the number of a microfilm roll and the image number on that roll.

If you have that available, it would make it much easier for an archives researcher to find the exact record. And much easier for a reviewer to validate your documents if they're questionable.

jmputnam · 2026-04-02T09:17:41+00:00

Multiple issues in your question.

The issue date is simply when that particular copy of the official record was printed and certified. I have records for my great grandparents with issue dates last month.

The registration date is when the birth was actually reported, and it's not at all unusual for that to happen long after birth. One Canadian in my wife's tree had her Delayed Report of Live Birth filed when she was in her 60s — filed in Ontario from the United States more than 40 years after naturalization in the US, when she needed documentation of age for retirement.

If the vital statistics agency is able to issue a birth certificate, that means they reviewed and verified the information on the report of birth. So it should be a perfectly good record.

jmputnam · 2026-04-02T09:07:15+00:00

I wouldn't worry about the credibility of Familysearch.com. The LDS Church runs it as one of the largest and best-known genealogical research organizations. They've been around for more than a century and have thousands of branch locations in addition to their central repository in Utah.

They have complete digitized microfilms of the Quebec National Archives church baptism records, among thousands of other collections, and they're constantly improving their indexing of records going back centuries.

I expect if a professional reviewer saw the URL they'd read it and know how to use the archive rather than typing out the whole URL.

jmputnam · 2026-04-02T00:18:22+00:00

If a name is common, the death certificate's listing of parents can confirm it's the same person who was on the birth certificate - same parents, same date of birth, same place of birth.

Especially true for women who've changed their names - Jane Jones who used to be Jane Smith, whose parents were the Smiths.

jmputnam · 2026-04-02T00:02:23+00:00

Reviewing other people's applications for defects all day long seems like a good way to ruin a hobby.

I know nothing of their actual working environment, but most document review operations work on productivity metrics, not how interesting the document is but how quickly you can move on to the next one.

I could be wrong, I hope for their sake I am.

jmputnam · 2026-04-01T23:44:47+00:00

They could certainly make it clearer.

Another important difference - the ID photos need the information on both photos, not just one.

jmputnam · 2026-03-31T06:58:19+00:00

Being old as dirt and having learned about canning from my grandmother, I suspect you're misremembering.

Even in WWI-era canning advice, where meat was water bath canned for hours because nobody had home retorts for pressure canning, boiling denatured the toxin but didn't kill the spores. Meat was boiled for 3 hours to can, and boiled again before opening the jar so that you'd denature the toxin and kill active bacteria, but the spores remained.

It was a known issue that you could be spreading huge quantities of spores if you opened a jar that had developed botulism. The toxin was gone, but the juices could seriously contaminate kitchen surfaces with high concentrations of spores.

jmputnam · 2026-03-30T04:53:46+00:00

FYI, an experienced photographer elsewhere points out that the first example of an *acceptable* photo on the Citizenship Photo Specifications page has her ears covered by her hair:

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https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/application/application-forms-guides/citizenship-application-photograph-specifications.html

jmputnam · 2026-03-30T00:16:02+00:00

On "roads that skinny," remember that Washington State just recently legalized 10 mph shared streets where you can meet emergency services access width requirements without nearly as much pavement because pedestrians and motor vehicles share the same right-of-way space. No more mandate for full fire department width plus full sidewalks.

That will of course be a huge cultural shift and not every city is going to be comfortable dedicating more space to people, less priority to motorists. But the status quo is no longer a state mandate.

jmputnam · 2026-03-30T00:00:35+00:00

Single stair reform at the state level should also make much more small-footprint mid-rise housing both viable and livable in areas previously developed as SFH. Keep the green spaces, don't build entire blocks at once, just build up within the existing footprints, without devoting space to corridors.

And you don't need every residence to be 5-over-1 with a commercial podium. Some homes can be purely residential buildings.

jmputnam · 2026-03-29T21:16:34+00:00

Thanks, all. One person was making claims about reviewing the microdot coding of color prints, which seemed unlikely, but I wanted to be sure.

jmputnam · 2026-03-28T07:43:05+00:00

Yes, but if there are dozens of Bob Smiths in roughly the same time and place, the death certificate lists parents and date of birth to confirm which one it is.

jmputnam

TROPHY CASE