« Open Thread | Main | Ten Plagues Brought by Global Warming »
December 24, 2008
Seattle Too Moonbatty to Salt Its Icy Streets
Seattle moonbattery can be hazardous to your health, especially if you're trying to drive through all this global warming. The moonbats running the city won't use salt to keep its streets from turning into skating rinks, for fear it might end up in Puget Sound:
To hear the city's spin, Seattle's road crews are making "great progress" in clearing the ice-caked streets.
But it turns out "plowed streets" in Seattle actually means "snow-packed," as in there's snow and ice left on major arterials by design.
"We're trying to create a hard-packed surface," said Alex Wiggins, chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. "It doesn't look like anything you'd find in Chicago or New York."
The city's approach means crews clear the roads enough for all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles, or those with front-wheel drive cars as long as they are using chains, Wiggins said.
The icy streets are the result of Seattle's refusal to use salt, an effective ice-buster used by the state Department of Transportation and cities accustomed to dealing with heavy winter snows.
"If we were using salt, you'd see patches of bare road because salt is very effective," Wiggins said. "We decided not to utilize salt because it's not a healthy addition to Puget Sound."
Puget Sound, which branches off of the Pacific Ocean, consists of salt water.
As usual, the only ones to benefit from the moonbattery are criminals:
The city's patrol cars are rear-wheel drive. And even with tire chains, officers are avoiding hills and responding on foot, according to a West Precinct officer.
Instead of salt, Seattle is using sand, which does not melt snow, but which does clog sewers. It also causes air pollution in the form of dust and runs into waterways. But at least it doesn't get any salt in the salt water.

On tips from LT Nixon, MP, V the K, Burning Hot, and mandible claw.
Posted by Van Helsing at December 24, 2008 7:03 AM
Comments
BUFFOONS ALL!
beautiful area - untouched by an ounce of intelligence, however.
Posted by: nanc at December 24, 2008 7:07 AM
Green moonbat stupdidy the motorists must endanger their lives becuase some fish might get poisoned by road salt SOME BIRDS ACUIALY EAT ROAD SALT INCLUDING MYSELF ITS GOOD IN CRAWDAD CHOWDER YUM YUM SQUAWK SQUAWK SQUAWK
Posted by: Spurwing Plover at December 24, 2008 7:42 AM
"We decided not to utilize salt because it's not a healthy addition to Puget Sound."
Hahahahaha ... I still can't get over this part. What a classic. It'd be completely plausible to someone reading the article without knowing the background.
Posted by: mandible claw at December 24, 2008 7:53 AM
One good thing: They wont be able to get to Starbuck's and sales will plummet. LOL!
Posted by: Starbuck is a MAN not a WOMAN! at December 24, 2008 8:15 AM
Attention: Puget Sound is now on a Low Sodium Diet as prescribed by Dr. Al Bore
Posted by: Name at December 24, 2008 8:16 AM
Pray for me. I live in the same county as Seattle - on a steep hill. We haven't seen a snow plow or a sanding truck in our neighborhood since this round of global warming started a week and a half ago. No mail delivery or trash pickup either.
Posted by: Kathleen at December 24, 2008 9:18 AM
Kathleen, I'm truly sorry for you.
The Eco-Correctness insanity is reaching epic proportions. We truly need to stand up as a nation and say "Yes, we want a clean, beautiful but human beings are a part of the equation and their health, safety and quality of life count also!"
Get the PC crowd out of government NOW!
Posted by: matt at December 24, 2008 11:39 AM
I meant to say "want a clean beautiful country, but..."
These morons get me so angry I can hardly type!
Posted by: matt at December 24, 2008 11:40 AM
As your brave anthropologist forward observer, I have resided within the People's Republic of Seattle for near 12 years now (much to the dismay of my wife, who would like nothing better than to move out of this s*!thole). This stuff is par for the course.
I don't know if the article also indicates this, but the few plows that the city does have are equipped with rubber scrapers rather than bare steel so as not to actually do much snow removal. After all, it would defeat the stated purpose of having every street covered in a 6-inch solid slab of ice.
There's been a related phenomenon of twenty- and thirty-something hipsters to "take back the streets" with urban snow parties. The degree of recklessness is astonishing. e.g. sledding on refuse out into major arterials. Leaving massive amounts of debris in the street after their drunken festivities. Walking obliviously in the middle of the road, ignorant of the laws of physics on cars trying to navigate in the treachery. Dragging couches into intersections and setting up checkpoints for cars, saying 'whose streets? our streets!' and then berating people for actually trying to drive and lead productive lives are then pelted with snow or worse if they fail to appease the hipster-gestapo.
Seattle really needs to be walled off into an incarnation of the next Snake Plissken vehicle. Just wait for me and mine to get clear!
Posted by: chunkstyle at December 24, 2008 12:12 PM
Are these moonbats concerned with saving the environment, or simply inconveniencing their fellow man? It seems that no matter what the problem, the solution they propose is always bound to be unpleasant.
Posted by: James McEnanly at December 24, 2008 1:43 PM
Inconveniencing their fellow man is only a half-measure.
Taking full blown gaia-worship to its conclusion yields the notion that man is a parasite on the earth and must be removed. This concept manifests itself in various ways such as pro-abortion, anti-development, anti-children, anti-families, and anti-population sentiments.
Posted by: chunkstyle at December 24, 2008 1:57 PM
Posted by: chunkstyle at December 24, 2008 1:57 PM
Yes. After I read some background information on the assorted fruits and vegetables that run PETA and Animal Liberation Front years ago, I was shocked.
Well, not that shocked.
There was a terrific website out of the UK that detailed even more information but this site has oodles.
http://www.petakillsanimals.com/
This is the wholesale totalitarianism that moonbats would love to inflict upon this nation.
Posted by: Mike at December 25, 2008 4:40 PM
DEATH TO CAPTIAN PLANET,RIP HIS HAIR OUT PULL OUT HIS TEETH CUT OFF HIS HANDS AND FEET RIP HIM TO PEICES LOOK WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ECO-FREAK BULL CRAP BECOME STUPID A STUPID LAW
Posted by: Spurwing Plover at December 25, 2008 11:24 PM
Welcome to the beautiful Northwest! Don't you wish you could live in the region of no plastic bags, no salt on the street and the million dollar street johns! As Seattle does, so follows Portalnd, like a little brother walking in the older's footsteps. Ahhhhh, how sweet!
gomergirl from portland
Posted by: gomergirl at December 26, 2008 9:54 AM
Matt,
We had an excellent time sledding down your hill - yes on a box! - partying late into the night! And I still manage to live a productive life - at least I just finished my thesis. I'm guessing it may have been your hill because of the sofa, but who knows... maybe sofas parked at the bottom of other hills too? Queen Anne Ave. Come on, just a few damn days you can't chill a little bit and let people enjoy winter wonderland in the streets? Honestly I think you are the Grinch. No way was anyone going to try to drive down that, and right they shouldn't. Take a day or three without driving. Leave the car parked, don't go to work (I'm guessing you're professional enough to work from home, aren't you now?)
I seriously don't get why the local small government people complain so much. Suddenly you want government to be out there clearing the streets when it's YOUR convenience at stake. People don't seem to realize that we all have to decide our priorities together. Maybe we'll change our mind now (that's right, that's what I said - democracy is consensus), but so far snow hasn't been a major problem frequently enough to warrant the investment
Posted by: Anne at December 30, 2008 12:32 AM

