From: no_offline_contact@example.com   
      
   On 2026-02-22 5:05 p.m., BTR1701 wrote:   
   > On Feb 22, 2026 at 1:30:26 PM PST, "danny burstein"  wrote:   
   >   
   >> In <10nfoqo$2dsin$1@dont-email.me> BTR1701  writes:   
   >>   
   >> [snip]   
   >>> He did so poorly clearing the snow from the last storm that he's now asking   
   >>> people to sign up and volunteer do the shoveling after the upcoming storm   
   >>> clears. Imagine that. Paying all those taxes for a city department   
   >>> specifically to clear snow, only to have the government beg you to do it   
   >>> yourself because they ran out of money.   
   >>   
   >> umm, you might try some magnesium.  It's often a good treatment   
   >> for kneejerks.   
   >>   
   >> a: these are NOT "volunteers" [1] but are paid positions to   
   >> help augment in areas such as sidewalk curb cuts and bus stops.   
   >> Oh, and fire hydrants.   
   >>   
   >> b: this has been a standard NYC deal for years. More likely decades.   
   >   
   > The fact that it's been going on a long time isn't the flex you think it is.   
   > People in NYC pay some of the highest taxes in the nation and one of the   
   > things they're supposed to get for all that state-sanctioned robbery is an   
   > efficient snow-removal department. Asking the citizens who have already   
   *paid*   
   > for snow removal to do it themselves, either as volunteers or temporary   
   > employees, would be fucked up even if this was the first time it happened.   
   For   
   > it to have been going on for years just makes it all the more appalling.   
   >   
   > Here's an idea: instead of spending billions of tax dollars on illegal aliens   
   > and vagrants, how about fully fund the sanitation department (or whatever   
   > department snow removal falls under)?   
   >   
   > This is also happening in L.A., except it's trash rather than snow. We have   
   an   
   > entire Bureau of Sanitation that has more than 3000 employees, yet the city   
   > looks like a giant trash heap. Of course, the city is in a budget crisis,   
   > having spent literally billions on the homeless (only for homelessness to   
   > increase) and giving illegal aliens free hotel rooms, meals, health care, and   
   > debit cards full of taxpayer money, so the city council has all but   
   completely   
   > defunded the Bureau of Sanitation (along with the fire department, police   
   > department, and a bunch of other city departments) to pay for all that. As a   
   > result, trash now blows through the streets like tumbleweeds in Tombstone.   
   And   
   > it doesn't help that we have 80,000 vagrants who are continually making more   
   > of it and throwing it into the street.   
   >   
   > So what does Mayor Karen Bass do (who I wouldn't trust to manage a Starbucks,   
   > let alone the nation's second largest city)? She goes on TV and announces a   
   > new citizen initiative where we're supposed to organize trash collecting   
   > groups in our neighborhoods and go out and pick up the trash ourselves. Yes,   
   a   
   > service we've already paid for with the highest taxes in the nation, now   
   we're   
   > supposed to do it ourselves-- and *keep* paying those taxes at the same time.   
   >   
   >   
   That sounds like the very definition of chutzpah....   
      
   I'd tell her to pound sand. Or maybe refuse to pay whatever taxes go to   
   trash collection.   
      
   --   
   Rhino   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)