Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

What I like about Uber is that I have my own rating, and it's within my control (mostly) to keep it so high that no Uber driver would ever not pick me up. Cabbies are racist assholes who frequently refuse to pick me up. So their business model can go straight down the drain for all I care.

TM

Has your experience dropped lately?

The car service guy I use joined Uber a year ago. He was praising it. This October he had quit because they were squeezing the driver's share to stay competitive with cabs in Manhattan. He told me he, and most "good" drivers he knows said "fuck no."

We got in our first Uber in Manhattan a few days later. Lower east to 93rd and Broadway. Every cab ever takes Houston to West Side highway to 95th. I looking at the guy's GPS and there were no directions, just a spinning symbol. He started off on Houston, but then veered off into a small street in the Village, me thinking "shortcut to WSH?" But then he turned south on an avenue and was headed for NJ. I finally stepped in. He admitted he really had no clue.

I appreciate getting into a car is important, but it has to be good thereafter too. Contrast to positive experience from Bk.

fixed typo- NJ not NY

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Is vaccination the issue on which the GOP's anti-science wing joins with the mistrust-government wing, in a way that makes the moderates of this country finally realize that the party has lost its way in batshit-land?

I wish. Instead, we face the scary specter of the Fox News contingent going full anti-vax.

Which would be scarier still if there was any meaningful part of the Fox News audience that is still young enough to breed.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

Until this week, I thought it was the left's climate change, and I was terribly embarrassed that I'm more likely to know an anti-vaxxer through neo-hippies circles than I was through any of the oil and gas types.

I was worried about that as well, but I was seeing a counter-reaction to the anti-vaxxers among the circles I know, starting a few years ago.

Back when we were in a child-birthing class (nearly 15 years ago now), people were asking about autism risks, etc. And while there is a frighteningly-large culture of anti-vaxxers around here still, it seems to have receded, among the left, to the overly-crunchy Marin types and the wealthy non-working "Thinking Moms" groups who have too much time on their hands and use it to do "internet research."

I think a lot of those people are getting a wake-up call with the current outbreak. And there will be more and more pushback in the private schools -- people are spending 30-40k per year, at some "elite" private schools in SF, to be in a school where, in some cases, more than one-third of the kids are not vaccinated? Fuck that noise. The minute a severe measles case hits the Hamlin School, the people with brains who don't want their kids living in platinum pitre-dishes will get seriously up in arms, and more private schools will enforce vaccine requirements.

On the other hand, the anti-guv'mint right-wingnuts (the Keep the Government Out Of Medicare types) are going to get more extreme as Rand Paul makes this an issue of Freedom and the Baby Jesus. I mean, Obama has called for getting vaccines -- it must be evil, with Death Panels just a few days away.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Has your experience dropped lately?

The car service guy I use joined Uber a year ago. He was praising it. This October he had quit because they were squeezing the driver's share to stay competitive with cabs in Manhattan. He told me he, and most "good" drivers he knows said "fuck no."

We got in our first Uber in Manhattan a few days later. Lower east to 93rd and Broadway. Every cab ever takes Houston to West Side highway to 95th. I looking at the guy's GPS and there were no directions, just a spinning symbol. He started off on Houston, but then veered off into a small street in the Village, me thinking "shortcut to WSH?" But then he turned south on an avenue and was headed for NY. I finally stepped in. He admitted he really had no clue.

I appreciate getting into a car is important, but it has to be good thereafter too. Contrast to positive experience from Bk.

Have you ever fucked your Uber driver, or is that phenom strictly a female-passenger, male-driver thing?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Have you ever fucked your Uber driver, or is that phenom strictly a female-passenger, male-driver thing?

my wife and daughter have the app

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Has your experience dropped lately?

The car service guy I use joined Uber a year ago. He was praising it. This October he had quit because they were squeezing the driver's share to stay competitive with cabs in Manhattan. He told me he, and most "good" drivers he knows said "fuck no."

We got in our first Uber in Manhattan a few days later. Lower east to 93rd and Broadway. Every cab ever takes Houston to West Side highway to 95th. I looking at the guy's GPS and there were no directions, just a spinning symbol. He started off on Houston, but then veered off into a small street in the Village, me thinking "shortcut to WSH?" But then he turned south on an avenue and was headed for NY. I finally stepped in. He admitted he really had no clue.

I appreciate getting into a car is important, but it has to be good thereafter too. Contrast to positive experience from Bk.

First time I took Uber, the driver missed an exit on his way to come get me and didn't seem to notice until I texted him to ask where he was going. So he was at least 20 minutes late. I was at an airport and could have just taken a cab, but wanted to give Uber a try -- my mistake. But then I was locked in, because I figured that if he gave me a bad rating, I'd never get the chance to try it again.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

Until this week, I thought it was the left's climate change, and I was terribly embarrassed that I'm more likely to know an anti-vaxxer through neo-hippies circles than I was through any of the oil and gas types.

Thesis: On the left, anti-GMO is just socially acceptable anti-vax, because people don’t imagine their own children dying of food-borne pathogens or, more broadly, of the starvation effects of scarcity.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Have you ever fucked your Uber driver, or is that phenom strictly a female-passenger, male-driver thing?

Don't worry, they developed an app for that. Well, at least they tried.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Don't worry, they developed an app for that. Well, at least they tried.

France has a different standard for crossing a sexual boundary than we do, and you already made clear that you can't call out companies for not applying US norms in their home countries.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

As I said, I thought the anger at Uber (comparing them to "the mob"), was extreme and misdirected, to the point of being silly.

The general snobbishness about "the UMC" and "gutting the economy," as if you are not part of the former and not participating in (what you characterize as) the latter is enjoyable, but I think not in the way you intend.

Rant away. Throw in some comments about misogyny and accusations of "stereotyping" (not "racism," because that's much different) -- it can only make you more convincing, really.

It seems like I'll never understand, though, why I should be lecturing Indians on minimum wage. Alas.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

France has a different standard for crossing a sexual boundary than we do, and you already made clear that you can't call out companies for not applying US norms in their home countries.

Holy Shit! You drew those threads together!

Can you explain to me what I'm supposed to lecture Indians about?

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

It seems like I'll never understand, though, why I should be lecturing Indians on minimum wage. Alas.

It's a way for you to show your non-UMC cred.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

Thesis: On the left, anti-GMO is just socially acceptable anti-vax, because people don’t imagine their own children dying of food-borne pathogens or, more broadly, of the starvation effects of scarcity.

Or watch their children go blind for lack of beta-carotene.

I have a strong urge to bitch-slap those people whenever I see them. Even though it's a bit easier to understand mistrust of agribusiness, at a conceptual level.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Adder

I wish. Instead, we face the scary specter of the Fox News contingent going full anti-vax.

Which would be scarier still if there was any meaningful part of the Fox News audience that is still young enough to breed.

I was wrong. The GOP anti-guvmint, anti-science strain leads to even weirder, crazier, ever-more-batshit places.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...51423006539317


I love the line "Isn't requiring a sign a regulation?" I mean, should the true freedom-lover say that the restaurant can opt out of that policy, too? I mean, a private company could do hygiene ratings more efficiently and objectively, the way S&P and Moody's did for bond issues.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Or watch their children go blind for lack of beta-carotene.

I have a strong urge to bitch-slap those people whenever I see them. Even though it's a bit easier to understand mistrust of agribusiness, at a conceptual level.

No, it isn’t. It makes no more sense to trust a pharmaceutical industry driven by profits than an agricultural commodity industry driven by profits. The only difference is the social acceptability of saying “I don’t trust them.” Which means you don’t “understand” one objection over another; you’re just more tolerant of one than the other. “Understand” implies a level of rational distinction. I just find GMO objectors to be a more likely demographic among my friends, but I don’t kid myself that they’re any less crazy (or selfish).