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Comment Re:Just build more roads (Score 1) 199

The Cypress Street Viaduct (the major double-decker that collapsed in the Loma Prieta quake) was built in 1957 by US contractors. Embarcadero was similarly built by US contractors in the 1960s. Russians had nothing to do with it. The only thing Russian about any of it is Embarcadero running near Russian Hill, which was named for a Russian cemetery near its peak.

Comment Re: Better idea. (Score 2) 192

Extracurricular activities would not be a problem if kids were not also wasting time on video games and the internet. Kids that are not addicted to gaming, short videos, and social media do just fine with extracurriculars. The extracurriculars keep them from getting bored. I took my son's devices away and now he is happy with three music lessons a week, music practice, math tutoring, and rocketry.

Comment Homework is an advanced learning skill. (Score 1) 192

Kids might be able to get through K-12 curriculum without homework. But if they have not learned to work at home they will not succeed in advanced education. College and many trade schools will continue to require work outside of class. Kids who do not know how to manage the workload, how to do their own research, and how to write without a teacher on hand will fail in adult education. So they need some homework to prepare them for life beyond high school.

Comment Re:Ah, right back at yah (Score 1) 91

Most of the deaths are explainable.

  • Amy Catherine Eskridge died by suicide in 2022. The cause of death was a single gunshot to the head. Her activities leading up to her death are suggestive of mental health struggles, though they're used by some people as evidence of a conspiracy leading to her death.
  • Michael David Hicks died in June 2023, age 59. He worked at JPL on comet and asteroid missions. No cause of death was released.
  • Frank Maiwald died in July 2024, age 61. He worked at JPL on planetary missions. No cause of death was released.
  • Anthony Chavez has been missing since May 2025. He was 78 when he disappeared. He left his wallet, keys, and cigarettes on a table at home, a common action right before a suicide.
  • Melissa Casias has been missing since June 2025. She was an administrative worker at Los Alamos and held no security clearance. She was last seen walking down a street. She had left her keys, wallet, purse, and both work and personal phones at home after telling colleagues that she was going to work from home. Shoes similar to those she was wearing were recently found in a nearby forest. This also lines up with a possible suicide.
  • Monica Reza has been missing since June 2025. She worked at JPL in California, and went missing during a hiking trip. Her hiking companion said she was there one minute and gone the next. A fall is a much more likely event than an abduction.
  • Steven Garcia has been missing since August 2025. He worked at the Kansas City National Security Campus in Albuquerque. He was last seen walking away from his phone carrying a gun and had left behind his wallet, phone, and keys. As with others above, this is a common behavior of suicidal people.
  • Nuno Lureiro was killed on his doorstep by the Brown University shooter in December 2025. Motive hasn't been established, but the shooter left a recording that he had planned both shootings for years.
  • Jason Thomas went missing in December 2025 for three months before his body was found in March 2026. He was last seen walking along railroad tracks, another frequent precursor for suicides. A cause of death doesn't seem to have been released so far, but law enforcement said that they don't suspect foul play.
  • Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Neil McCasland has been missing since February 2026. He was last seen on a neighborhood surveillance camera with hiking boots and a .38 revolver. He had left behind his wallet, phone, and wearable devices. Many suicides start the same way.
  • Carl Johann Grillmair was killed at his home in February 2026. He was a prominent astronomer and astrophysicist. A suspect has been arrested and has been charged in his murder, which may have happened after an argument.

One suicide (Eskridge), one likely suicide (McCasland), four possible suicides (Chavez, Casias, Garcia, and Thomas), two murders (Lureiro and Grillmair), two other deaths (Hicks and Maiwald), and one missing (Reza). Neither of the murders are linked. Reza may have simply fallen while hiking and been severely injured or killed. The two other deaths were both in the age range where sudden deaths start to become unfortunately common.

Comment Re:Once again, la Presidenta loses (Score 4, Informative) 133

Stage 3 smog alerts were year-round when I was a kid in the 1980s. They were more common in the summer, but they could happen any time the temperatures rose, and they were a fact of life at school in the spring and fall. I spent a lot of recess and PE time indoors for Stage 2 and 3 alerts. This page shows the number of days at different air qualities for Los Angeles going back to 1980. The highest number of good air quality days was 11 in 1983. For all but two of the remaining years, it was in single digits. The combined number of unhealthy, very unhealthy, and dangerous days usually covered a cumulative six months or so out of the year.

You can see the numbers shifting to the left starting in 1989. Both Republicans and Democrats in the state government (which was run by Republicans at the time) had authorized various government agencies to make changes that would affect smog levels. Since 2002, the number of moderate or good air days has covered at least half of the year, a huge reversal from the 1980s. The number of very unhealthy or dangerous air days has been in the single digits every year (bar one) since 2007, even reaching zero in 2010 and 2013 and only one in six of the other years.

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