What the city could look like by tomorrow morning iStock / Getty Images Plus

Comments

2

"Leave it to the Silicon Valley bros to embrace Robocop [with Explosives!] instead of finding a way to use their massive hoards of wealth to alleviate poverty."

just blow up the Opposition?
NO ONE couldda seen
this one coming.

take Note
bad guys.

3

if you just blow 'em up
ya don't gotta pay for
a stinkin' social safety
Net. Ta-DUH!

4

Here's a gut wrenching post on Nextdoor from I saw from someone homeless:

"Help! I need HELP! I have such a hard time asking I live by the QFC on 145 st I need gas to charge up my generator I need propane for my heat I need food to eat oh my I'm in a bad spot at the moment. I try to keep that I'm homeless out of conversations I have always been able to get my necessities bit not at the moment I'm really not OK. With the Lil snow we got its breaking tree branches left and right I'm scared my tent will be smashed by morning not sure if anyone can help but I'm desperate and will be so grateful to any help I can get"

6

The railroad strike issue is so complicated: On the one hand, the railroads have always been bastards and have in recent years consolidated into just a few roads that are run by people with no knowledge of, or interest in, railroading. OTOH, a lot of these unions were just fine with things like no sick days because it meant more money for the members. But then when Covid hit, the railroads for no good reason axed a lot of their employees and started working the remaining ones to death. Add to that the 1900's - era work rules and the introduction of freights that are literally miles long, and you have a completely dysfunctional industry.

In the economic sense, a railroad strike would be an absolute disaster for the country, so I reluctantly support the congress stepping in, but the whole industry and their unions are in drastic need of reform.

7

our poor Billionaires'd
have it so much Easier
if people were Robots

how long till
they Fix that?

stupid question:
but whattabout
the Humans?

8

"The only time we applaud prosecutors"

I guess I'll break with the SLOG conventional wisdom here, and suggest prosecution of rape, sexual assault, murder, hate crimes, employer wage and hour violations, workplace safety violations, and so on are generally desirable.

9

If you weed out the mentally unstable people who are prone to quick anger and irrationality, you won't have many cops.

10

if you literally take them
literally every single
Time your mind'll
be figuratively
Blown time
after time.

12

@5, 6 thats the genius of hypercapitalism. we are all so deeply entrenched in this fucked up economic system that any sort of effort to make long-term, pro-labor progress is usually inhibited by pretty severe short-term damage for which no one wants to take the political hit

13

Glad to see the feds nailed #1 Proud Boy on a charge of Seditious Conspiracy for Jan. 6th. Thatā€™s the one Trump should face as well. Give ā€˜em each twenty years in a windowless cell to think about how seriously we here in the good olā€™ U.S. of A. take threats to our Constitutional democracy.

13

According to Will and TS anything that doesnā€™t completely accede to the demands of a union is ā€œunion bustingā€. It is possible to be pro union yet recognize the harm done by shutting down the railways far exceeds the marginal benefits of a strike for the workers. Itā€™s called pragmatism.

14

I forgot to mention that move by Senator Sanders, oldwhiteguy dear. I suspect (and hope) that he's working with the Biden administration on this, and that they will use that to leverage it against the railroads, who will lose billions if the strike goes through.

16

@11 -- most typical is centrist
Dems beginning 'negotiations'
from What they'll Settle for and
coming away empty-handed yet
Again. gosh! how's that working?

17

Looks like the bill passed by Congress and signed by Sleepy Joe is working to help cut carbon emissions. Instead of treating this as a win and praising effective climate solutions let's just make some sarcastic comments about how it's not enough or too late.

18

I had forgotten, until Mr. Vel-DuRay - a retired forty year veteran of Amtrak - reminded me, that the railroads have an absolutely ancient process for sick leave: You have to be sick for six days before you get anything, and after that you get $25 a day (yes, twenty-five dollars) from the Railroad Retirement Board, which is the railroad version of Social Security.

It depends on the contract of course - clerical workers have something more akin to what the rest of us are used to - but most Engineers and Conductors are bound by that policy.

21

NOW you're worried about how cutting housing prices will hurt the middle class? There's been nothing but relentless complaining about high house prices, and insinuations that middle-class homeowners are conspiring to keep the working class living on the streets, from this paper as long as I can remember.

Which is it?

22

'Enough Is Enough!' Rail
Workers Decry Biden's Push to
Impose Strike-Breaking Labor Deal

President Biden is pushing Congress to block a pending nationwide rail strike and push through a contract deal that includes no sick days and is opposed by four of the 12 rail unions.

Bidenā€™s latest request is an attempt to ā€œlegislate us basically back to work, before weā€™ve even had a chance to strike,ā€ says locomotive engineer and Railroad Workers United organizer Ron Kaminkow.

ā€œWorkers should have the right to take off work for a reasonable amount for whatever reason they need it,ā€ says labor professor Nelson Lichtenstein, who urges the rail workers to strike anyway.

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/11/30/railroad_workers_rail_strike_unions_biden

Are We the peeps willing to Sacrifice
for Decency in the Workplace? our
Holiday Shopping Experience may
be adversely affected -- who's
Side is Santa on? how 'bout
baby Jesus? does He get
to Vote? what do the
Fundies say?

23

Young white woke Seattle "journalist" tries to explain to the public what black people want/need without researching what black people want. Hint: it's GREATER POLICE PRESENCE IN THEIR NEIGHBORHOODS!
https://news.gallup.com/poll/316571/black-americans-police-retain-local-presence.aspx

24

Unholy SHIT look at I-405 (I-5 and I-90, too, for that matter)! I feel really sorry for anyone having to drive in this weather.

Robocops programmed to use lethal force?? You've gotta be shitting me!! What next---shape shifting laser-eyed Terminator T-1000s annihilating everything in sight? WTF is the SFPD thinking??
The former Governator of California was right: "Hasta la vista, baby!"

@6, @14, and @18 Catalina Vel-DuRay: I thank both you and Mr. Vel-DuRay (congratulations on your Amtrak retirement!) for enlightening us--especially me--on the current situation with the pending railroad strike. I knew working conditions were draconian but this really is inexcusable. I blame a lot of this on Warren Buffett, owner of Burlington Northern Sante Fe, and his fellow billionaire ilk for their insatiable greed and relentless tax-free profiteering.

@22 kristofarian: Holiday shopping? For food and household supplies if we're lucky in our household. January 2023 is going to be a longer stretch than recycled bubblegum.

25

Obviously the solution to a potential railway strike is to build nationwide high speed passenger and freight (autoload containers) rail and nationalize it.

And then have a public sector union.

26

Big Rail
did a lot of
Stock Buy-backing
and paid Dividends up
the Kazoo or wherever so
the Workers gotta take the Hit

but @ Will
an Exceptional Idea!
Pragmatic even for those
Supply-Chain Businessfolk types.

@Auntie gee:
Damn! Best of Luck!
food banks can be Life Savers

27

All the hand-wringing over the "killer robot" is really wasted energy. Any police robot, like the bomb disposal kind can be used as a "killer" robot with minimal modification. Dallas PD did just that to finally take out the sniper that killed 5 cops a few years ago. So, nothing to see here really.

@9 - That's how I got hired, it was my high "irrationality" score that put me over the top and into a blue suit!

In all seriousness, this is a perfect example of what I've said several times in these comments; mid-level supervisors and trainers attempt to rid department of the unfit, and upper management (Chief-level personnel) routinely ignores such recommendations and keeps the unfit cop anyway. This often leads to millions in payouts to victims of the unfit cops later. It happens over and over and over and...

28

i hate to agree with @21, but if the Seattle housing market was "overheated" (and it was), then cooling it down isn't a bad thing. fuck realtors and speculators.

29

Auntie dear, I actually would cut the BNSF some slack on this one. They are pretty progressive for a railroad. To me, the villain is the Union Pacific, which is controlled by Philip Anshutz (of the Anschutz Entertainment Group). Heā€™s sort of the Mr Burns of Railroading.

Although really, I think what Congress should have done is said that Railroad Retirement will reform their leave policy so that you get a set number of sick days paid out at your salary, and then turned around and billed the railroads for those claims.

31

Cars bad! Cars bad!

33

Maybe it's time for Will to take his own advice and organize a workers' union.

(Said the proud Union member since 2001)

34

30 - Bullshit. For one, I've done it. It took a 35-page recommendation explaining the reasons for the officer being unfit, but it worked...barely. It took additional lobbying by several of us in the chain-of-command below Deputy Chief level. He was fired, and it was upheld, and the cause was for simply being psychologically and temperamentally unfit for the position of police officer.

Most of these cases are for probationary officers, who lack job rights in most places. But even that doesn't matter, most upper management is irrationally afraid of litigation most of the time, despite the fact that in the 20 years I was supervising, not one probationary officer with Dallas PD was able to successfully litigate their reinstatement...not one. It turns out juries don't want unfit officers on the force; what a shock. Chief-level officers are simply ball-less and would rather kick the liability payouts down the road...to when someone else is Chief. I've had one all but as admit as much to me.

They're afraid of dreamed-up visions of wrongful termination suits when the very real prospects of excessive force payouts are jumping up and down in front of them. Again, on one level, they know that, but the vast majority gamble that bill won't come due until after they've moved on.


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