"This is just fun for me. This is not a job. I don�t do it for the money, I do it because I love driving and because I�m a sociable person."

Says the man officially recognized as the best Uber driver in Canada.

"I only Uber when I�m upbeat, positive, feeling good, when the car�s clean, I want to go be sociable and get to know my own city a little bit more," he said. "The key is that if this ever feels like a job, I�m done. I�m out... Driving has always come very naturally to me. It�s a passion,� he said. He was raised in rural Saskatchewan, where �your driver�s licence is your ticket to freedom. This allows me to enjoy it even more, be social, meet new people, tour my own city and have some fun,� he said.

He was awarded Uber's Sixth Star medal, which he'll display in the car but not call attention to because "That would be un-Canadian."

He has 5 tips for Uber drivers: "1. A clean car... 2. Smooth driving... 3. Amenities... cold water, Perrier, mints, gum and cellphone chargers...  free Wi-Fi... 4. Music... 'chill house music'... 5. Clean personal appearance... shirt with a collar, blue jeans, driving shoes...."

Note: This man also has a regular job.

"Our city lost today because the mayor wouldn�t listen to the voices of moderation and pragmatism."

"This should be an issue of local control and, in the end, we are seeing Democrats and Republicans gang up on the city as we were unable to act over the course of months."

Said Madison mayoral candidate Scott Resnick, about a new and bipartisan bill in the Wisconsin legislature that would authorize companies like Uber to operate throughout the state and block local legislation imposing various limitations of the sort Resnick and his opponent Mayor Paul Soglin have been showing enthusiasm for in their campaigns. Soglin said:

"The point is, Uber has got a lot of muscle, they�ve got a lot of money, they have a lot of influence, they�ve done this around the rest of the country, and they have absolutely the best, most vulnerable legislature in the country in Wisconsin to use their campaign dollars to get the legislation they want which is not in the best interest of the riding public. The public needs essential cab service every day of the year, every hour of the day.�

"In at least 20 incidents, taxi drivers blocked Uber cars as they attempted to pick up passengers, threw eggs and in some cases dragged passengers onto the street..."

"... Filip Nuytemans, Uber�s general manager in Belgium, said Monday."

At the Madison mayoral debate, the crowd chanted "Indict, convict, send those killer cops to jail, the whole damn system is guilty as hell."

"Thursday night's mayoral debate between incumbent Paul Soglin and challenger Scott Resnick was marked by sharp hostility -- both between the candidates, and the candidates and the crowd," Isthmus reports.

When Resnick said "We need to come together in this community," there was laughter.

Soglin tried: "I find it very, very difficult to address this subject in the context of a mayoral debate, of the context of some of the anger in this room.... The larger concern in the community, where parents are concerned about well-being of children, we're all concerned about our neighbors."

The crowd shouted him down � "What about Tony?" � and Soglin sat down without finishing.

I don't know who to vote for in the mayoral election. How does one decide between Resnick and Soglin? Some people are deciding based on their different positions on � of all things � Uber, as Larry Kaufmann explains here:

Leading the charge is Mayor Paul Soglin, who treats Uber as if it were the spawn of Satan, or at least the Koch brothers. The Paul Soglin for Mayor website describes Uber as a "company headed by a devotee of Ayn Rand" that makes "conscious decisions to destroy full-time jobs." The mayor likens Uber to a "new form of serfdom," which might be accurate if medieval serfs used smartphone apps and complex, back-end routing algorithms to find rides to their masters' fields.

His mayoral challenger, Scott Resnick, takes a different view. The first item on his campaign's site declares that Uber, Lfyt and other ridesharing firms "are here and they are not going away." Resnick believes cutting-edge ridesharing technology can help "devise innovative solutions that meet our city's transportation needs." Nevertheless, he wishes to load a number of regulations onto Uber and similar firms that currently apply to taxis, including licensing by the city, background checks on drivers, insurance requirements and restrictions on "surge" pricing during high-demand times.

Keep Uber out or let it in but regulate the hell out of it.  That's the choice in Madison, Wisconsin. I'm thinking of protest-voting, writing in the name Mike Koval.

"New York City cabs are one-night stands. What happens during the encounter doesn�t really matter because I�ll never see that driver again."

"I wouldn�t have back-seat crazy fests in Uber because, hypothetically, the voyeur driver would have my name, address and a system that lets them rate me...Getting naked in an Uber has occurred to me about as often as I�ve considered doing a striptease in public, which is never."

AND: From the comments at the link (which goes to a NYT article titled "Taxi Flings Take a Back Seat to Uber"):

I drove a NY yellow cab at night back in the mid-1980's. Many comments today fail to appreciate the wild heady atmosphere that prevailed in the city back then - especially in certain parts of the city at certain times. "Dehumanizing to the driver"? Hell no... the driver was often part of the action - or at least invited or acknowledged. Drugs, sex, alcohol, run-ins with celebrities, impromptu parties, out-of-the-ordinary conversations, tawdry confessions, scoring smack in flaming alphabet city, "ghetto tourism", invites to chat with unsavory (yet often sweet) characters... this was not fiction, despite sworn testimony by a few straight-laced cabbies' that it never happened in their cabs. I'm not saying it was all pretty, just that when life is lived to the fullest with no screens attached - and when alternative lifestyles have not yet been snuffed out by $5,000 monthly rents - wild things can happen. At least they did on my watch.