Tag: seattle

Seattle discovers new and exciting way to get rid of Uber.

Unionization.

…in Seattle, new legislation the City Council will vote on today [*] could give these drivers a way to collectively bargain regardless of how they’re classified. Some call it the Voice for Drivers legislation, others the Uber unionization bill (not technically correct,  since it applies to all of Seattle’s for-hire drivers, including taxis). Either way, the proposed bill appears to be the first of its kind in the nation: a clever workaround to a federal law that has so far prevented Uber and Lyft drivers from organizing and jointly negotiating on pay and working conditions. It’s Seattle’s bold plan to let its drivers form what would essentially be their own union.

Continue reading Seattle discovers new and exciting way to get rid of Uber.

Never have radical Greenies over for coffee. They’ll break your coffee table and feel no shame.

So here’s this story from Seattle from a few months ago…

A cleanup crew with divers spent the morning picking up pieces of anchor and cable left from the initial Shell protests in May. The cement anchor blocks and steel cables were left behind from the Solar Pioneer protest barge. Divers say they damaged a dive park and a protected habitat.

The job cost approximately $10,000, according to Koos du Preez with the Seattle branch of Global Underwater Explorers, a nonprofit aquatic conservation group.

Continue reading Never have radical Greenies over for coffee. They’ll break your coffee table and feel no shame.

Seattle Uber users can still get a Mad Max car to pick them up.

The promotion lasts until tomorrow.

The new MAD MAX video game is coming out on September 1st and we’re working with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment to give you an adventure like no other! Buckle up, hunker down, and prepare to live life as a Wasteland Warrior.

WHEN AND WHERE

Friday, August 28th through Monday, August 31st from 10am-6pm in downtown Seattle

Continue reading Seattle Uber users can still get a Mad Max car to pick them up.

More inevitable results of the Seattle minimum wage hike.

In a development that will shock precisely nobody who wasn’t paying attention, the new Seattle minimum wage hike has claimed another business (Z Pizza). This is of note partially because there’s apparently a wrinkle to the Seattle law: while ‘regular’ businesses have six years to get their wages up, franchises have only two.  Don’t you just love it when progressives play their little social engineering games with your livelihood and neighborhood? – I mean, it’s pretty clear by now that you can’t expect these people to come in out of the rain, but they are certainly always so enthusiastic when they drive the car into a ditch. Continue reading More inevitable results of the Seattle minimum wage hike.

The fascinating thing about these stories of Seattle restaurant closings…

…is how the comments section here and here is so full of people who refuse to admit that their successful drive to impose a $15/hr minimum wage on Seattle businesses is going to result in the steady exodus of businesses from Seattle (see also here).  This is what happens when you let people who think that ‘capitalism’ is a dirty word run economic policy; it’s like letting a Ptolemic astrologer write your astronomy textbooks, or a phlogiston-believing alchemist plan out your chemistry curriculum.   I mean, I’m sure that some of those economic illiterates meant well, but meaning well doesn’t make payroll. Continue reading The fascinating thing about these stories of Seattle restaurant closings…

A handy illustration of the problem with just hiking the minimum wage.

This Tweet says it all:

Continue reading A handy illustration of the problem with just hiking the minimum wage.

#Obamacare refuses to pay for sick kids’ care in Seattle, Washington. Like it does.

Back when Obamacare was all shiny and new, I was in the habit of calling it ‘health care rationing.’ I did this because I knew that you can’t have ‘less people uninsured’ AND ‘lower prices’ AND ‘improved services’ – and I assumed that the government would choose the first two and let the third go away on the wind. I got out of the habit of using the term ‘health care rationing’ because before the Obamacare launch it became clear that the government wasn’t going to manage ‘lower prices,’ either – and after the launch it’s becoming increasingly clear that they’re not going to manage ‘less people uninsured,’ either. In short: the word ‘Obamacare’ itself is sufficient warning.

But it remains true that we’re rationing care now.  Kids’ care, too [link added: sorry!].  Continue reading #Obamacare refuses to pay for sick kids’ care in Seattle, Washington. Like it does.

T-minus 12 hours to the Draconic outbreak in Seattle, Washington.

Constant Reader BigGator5 tweets a reminder about this story:

Deep beneath Seattle, something has brought the world’s biggest tunnel boring machine to an abrupt halt. The tunnel is currently just 1,000 feet but planned to be almost 10,000 feet long.

“We’re being really cautious. We want to make sure we don’t damage this $80 million machine,” said Washington State Department of Transportation’s KaDeena Yerkan.

…while noting that this is how horror SF movies start. I heartily concur; and would also like to note that ‘KaDeena Yerkan’ is an anagram of ‘A Yankee Drakken,’ which should give us all a clue about the draconic menace under Seattle… hmm.  Seattle.  Dragons.  Hey, does this feel Shadowrun-y to anybody else?

Fallout from Seattle’s killer plastic bag ban policy.

Quick background: Seattle last year instituted a ban on plastic bags and mandated a charge for paper bags, on the grounds that doing so would force consumers to use recyclable bags. This is all ostensibly for improving the quality of life in Seattle:

“I think we’ve gotten to a place where it’s really going to work for the environment, businesses and the community in general,” Councilman Mike O’Brien said at the time.

So, how did it work? Continue reading Fallout from Seattle’s killer plastic bag ban policy.