The comments on the squirrel story are great!

I love that DoorDash policy to have their office workers go out and occasionally do the jobs upon which their business is founded. Uber and Lyft should do the same (assuming they aren't). I find it rich that DoorDash's office workers are having a hissy fit about the company simply restoring their policy but more important that they consider it beneath them to perform the labor upon which the entire business is founded.

I already have a good answer personally about this issue. I have a former manager who's a director or whatever at Lyft. I saw he had a tweet or LinkedIn post recently saying they were hiring for multiple positions. But I would never dream of going to work at Lyft. Why? Because I would rather not spend a moment of my limited time in this world working for a company whose entire business model is labor exploitation.

Oh, and no, not a hypocrite here. Never took an Uber or a Lyft in my life.

Feel free to call me a sanctimonious (fill in a cuss word here) for constraining my behavior out of ethical concerns and having the temerity to talk about it. I make no apologies about having values, practicing those values, and wishing to preach those values in the open marketplace of ideas. Feel free to live your life as you wish.

Half-mast flags are pretty pointless these days since they are lowered almost weekly for one shitshow or another. But still, this guy does not deserve any sort of honor or respect whatsoever. Dump his body in a landfill and lets move on, hoping more of his kind get culled ASAP.

Agree with @3, but add monetary penalties, exclusion from society in general for the antivaxxers still amongst us for a while.

I'm surprised Jas did not link to https://www.sorryantivaxxer.com/post/doug-ericksen-52-ferndale-wa-state-senator-anti-vaxx-dead-from-covid

@3/@4: Blast your pouting. It's a reverence afforded to any legislator who dies and the governor had the grace to honor it, despite political differences. I suggest you guys mature up. It's only for one day.

@2 ok I’ll bite since I’m bored today. How is Lyfts business model labor exploitation?

@7 maybe it shouldn't be. Honoring objectively horrible people serves no purpose except legitimizing them and their horribleness. The concept of decorum in these cases is antiquated - why do we need to go through these motions for someone who was a danger to society? I'm glad he's dead.

and rainy it's not "political differences." You're acting like I disagree with him on fiscal policy or some shit. He was a dangerous moron, who refused to acknowledge reality, spread dangerous information and suffered the consequences of his own ignorance and beliefs. Good riddance.

@10 Not to mention supporting autocratic regimes by declaring their sham elections free and fair while also slamming the actually free and fair WA elections as rigged.

@10: I understand the passion of your points. But once we start calibrating the threshold of when decorum can be breached, well, Rome falls.

Rome falls? I don't think the pillars of our civilization rest upon our ability to successfully navigate the nuances of meaningless gestures.

People like Erickson don't want to be a good citizens and do their part to keep "Rome" stable, so there is really no reason they shouldn't be shunned from the empire.

Again, it's not like I'm saying we'll, he's a republican, so fuck him. It's way beyond that. This isn't that slippery of a slope.

@8 - it's actually more tax evasion than labor exploitation but they converge on the same point: weaseling out of any liability for anything by starting a huge business and then claiming that your employees are not employees.

Mr. Plastic Explosive Squirrel could have taken care of this little problem in Wales without the need to involve the authorities.

@14 Yes, I would agree with that. I really didn't get the labor exploitation angle. Thx.

@16 There's a labor exploitation angle attached to the contractor labor issue as well. By not paying the employer portion of the income taxes, they shift it to the employees. Contractors are far easier to fire than employees in non-at-will states, are harder to organize into unions, along with a bunch of other issues (workplace safety, overtime pay, etc. etc.)

Nice round-up, although I never knew Harry Reid had been Governor of Nevada? Might want to check your sources on that.

Ericksen would have had a tough election next cycle vs. Rep. Shewmake. Fingers crossed she has an easy win against someone else up here in the 42nd.

@periwinkle Updating to Lt. Gov.!

dvs99 @14, thanks for sparing me from humoring that other commenter's exercise in obtuseness, even if I wasn't going to anyway.

@5, not that I would be the one to say what you just said, but... Yup. Oh, and you said it much better than I ever could have if I would have.

@20 that’s where I was going with the exploitation angle. You could argue pretty much any service industry job is labor exploitation so where to draw the line. There is something to the contractor model @17 references but I’d say that is still more of a tax avoidance scheme rather than exploitation. Any contractor faces the issues with tax/benefits so that’s not unique to Lyft/Uber.

Meanwhile in Hong Kong .... [SIGNAL CANCELED DUE TO CENSORSHIP AND MASS ARRESTS]

@3, @9, @10, & @13: Brent and @11 boatgeek for the WIN!!! I don't give a rat's ass if U.S. flags throughout Washington State are flown upside down today. The body of Doug the Thug Ericksen should be interred properly in a reeking pile of dog shit, and shipped off with love to his Lord and Master, Orange Turd in the Mar-a Lunatic Swamp. When Orange Turd goes the world will cheer.

@7 & @12: Isn't it about time for your nap before weenies, tater tots, cheap beer, and your usual glut of meaningless KVI and FOX TEEVEE, Elmer? Now run along. If you're lucky maybe you and Swifty can engage in a nice snowball fight until your mom says to knock it off and come back inside.

@18 periwinkle: Well said and kudos! Spot on and agreed. I'm concerned about fossil fuel industry coddling Whatcom County Council member Tyler Byrd lusting after the 42nd District Washington State Senator seat that Douggie vacated.

@25: Uuuuuuh-huh. And I'm a bubbly Farrah Fawcett in a red speedo, Bugs.

Park Place @24, I think you've made a pretty convincing defense of labor exploitation in all forms, all the way up to slavery.

Thanks, but I think I'll pass on the unattainable purity test you want to impose on me. I'm happy with the ethics of my consumer choices, even though you might not be happy with them. And I'm sure my choices are a lot more ethical than yours. And interestingly enough, the transportation choices I make instead of using these ride-share apps hardly qualify as taking a vow of roughing it.

Actually, I think I have a condensed version of what Park Place is arguing @24. Anyone who wishes to make ANY ethical choices is a hypocrite unless they are pure as the driven snow in ALL their ethical choices. Hence, the only intellectually consistent path is to live life completely free of any ethical constraints.

Of course, this commenter will say that's not what he (yes, he is a he) is saying, but that's just because he's been exposed. Our consumer choices don't exist in an ethical realm outside our other life choices.

Now, as Sir Toby II says @20 says, there's an argument to be made that the ride-sharing industry is no less exploitative than the taxi industry. But that's not the argument Park Place wants to make because that would involve a substantive, sincere, serious discussion. Much easier to blow smoke with reductio ad absurdum nonsense.

Little did I know how right you_can't_stop_us @5 would be about my original comment @2.

@25 re @28: I'm going with Trumpian denial here, Bugs. The late Doug the Thug Ericksen's widow, family & friends (See fellow GOP fossil fuel coddling co-conspirators) don't want to elaborate further on Douggie's cause of death for obvious fear of exposing Ericksen as any more of a heartless crook than he already was, before fleeing in desperation to El Salvador for mo' money.

Take it away, Eagles' lead singer and drummer Don Henley:
"Can we film the operation? Is the head dead yet?
You know, the boys in the newsroom got a running bet!
Get the widow on the set we need dirty laundry!"

Love thy neighbor

Park Place: "They made an unqualified statement that they by not ride sharing, are avoiding toxic companies and exploitation."

All I said was I was avoiding THIS particular form of labor exploitation where I have alternatives. And you know very well that's all I was saying. Sorry I don't fit into your easy narrative about Kshama Sawant and Amazon. Sorry I actually practice what I preach and that I'm not preaching disengaging from our economy and joining a commune.

To quote @5: "And don't worry, the commenters on here will give you both barrels of their misconstrued poetic retelling of what you actually wrote while projecting all their latent and impotent frustrations onto you."

And of course, you have to resort to the usual ad hominem attack of calling me "smug" because I dare express a moral viewpoint about our consumer behaviors that you might not share. Like, is that the best you can do? As I said @1: "Feel free to call me a sanctimonious (fill in a cuss word here) for constraining my behavior out of ethical concerns and having the temerity to talk about it."

@32: Down, Muffy, down.

@ 32 rainy...
You first.

C'mon... You can do it!!!

@36: Check. Tis the season!

Yup, it is.
Best to you and yours...

@39: .......and therefore, Douggie didn't really have to flee to El Salvador did he, when he was already wetly smooching the Orange Turd's fat, white little shroom. I think Douggie sought the Central American drug cartels once he realized Orange Turd wasn't going to bail him out (and after all those Lynden GOP hate rallies in 2016--DARN!). DJT does have a world renowned reputation for turning on members of his supposed inner circle without notice, out of sheer paranoia and total lack of reason.
Methinks there was some major money laundering gone afoul in Douggie's neck of the Whatcom County Woods. Orange Turd laughed its rancid ass off at Douggie's suddenly desperate cries for help. When it was obvious everything would come crashing down on him, Douggie resorted to what he's always done in a crisis: flee the country posing as Someone Internationally Important to shake the dogs off his stench. Douggie thought--El Salvador--yeah! Why not? Ha-ha! I don't have to be a RESPONSIBLE Washington State Senator, I can just play one on Twitter and FOX TEEVEE! They won't miss me in Olympia--they're USED to my taking leaves of absence (and missing just about every single legislative session this year). I'll tell these Third World schmoes I'm a big U.S. Senator--they won't know the difference! What can go wrong?
And then everything blew up in his face like an outhouse sitting atop Mount Vesuvius.
Dumb luck that.

Wow, what a year. I planned on staying home for New Year's Eve and am happy to comply.
Everyone stay warm, healthy, and safe.