So, you don't want to be compelled to clear snow for others, not now and not when you're 80. But you're okay with being compelled to pay for "free" national healthcare for everyone.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
:bulb:
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So, you don't want to be compelled to clear snow for others, not now and not when you're 80. But you're okay with being compelled to pay for "free" national healthcare for everyone.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
:bulb:
Hmm, different things.
Yeah, they're different things. It's ironic that Rand in the UK is OK with SSSocialized medicine, but he gets bent out of shape about shoveling snow. :confused:Quote:
Originally Posted by agamemnus
One is a tax for teh goodz (theoretically) and the other is tyrannical forced labor for the lulz, though.
It's more ironic that people are okay with socialised healthcare but get bent out of shape over public funding for snow-shovelling. Time and energy are worth more to me than money is.
In the UK we have the NHS and I have never suggested it should be abolished, although I would reform it.
What's the difference?Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Many cities don't have the financial resources to hire someone to clean up everyone's sidewalk's.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Oh, poor Amerika! :(
BTW I thought we talk about public side walks, so I don't really get the "everyone's" part.
Homeowners generally "own" the sidewalk in front of their house.
The sidewalk is uaually an easment controlled by the local jurisdiction. The owner can do what they want with it up to the point it interferes with the jurisdictions requirements. For example, you are rarely allowed to park your car on a sidewalk.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Not here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
I've seen people get traffic tickets for parking across sidewalks in Michigan cities.Quote:
Originally Posted by Being
Another interesting thing about our city is that they (police/DPW) don't care/are afraid if a horde of obese "Youth Flag Football" parents park their car on someone else's sidewalk (among many other things -- shouting, trashing the place, etc), but they will most likely ticket you if you yourself do... they are not afraid of ticketing one person, but when it comes to a horde, they run for the hills.Quote:
Originally Posted by Being
For aggie and Rand:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...LEFTTopStories
Quote:
Removing snow safely is of mounting concern, particularly to the 76 million aging baby boomers. Shoveling snow places extraordinary demands on the cardiovascular system, raising heart rates to dangerous levels after only two minutes, and risks injury to soft tissue, according to a recent study in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine. One culprit: non-ergonomic shovels, the study finds.
For 75-year-old Walter Bearse, clearing snow off the driveway is a matter of pride. "I'm strong as an ox," he crows.
But recently Mr. Bearse's sons have been hounding dad to drop the shovel and invest in equipment less taxing on his heart and body. So he bought a $200 electric Snow Joe snowblower—it starts with the push of a button—and used it to clear his Toms River, N.J., property of more than two feet of winter mess left by recent storms.
The verdict: "I found out there's an easy way of doing this," says Mr. Bearse, a former butcher and turnpike toll collector.
Joseph Cohen, CEO of Snow Joe LLC, said sales of both electric shovels and snowblowers are up 30% over last year.
Electric shovels -- they give you a shock if you don't put your back into it!?!
Did you read the whole article? This "professional" sounds like he couldn't claw his way out of a paper bag:
Quote:
Richard Silverstein of Chappaqua, N.Y., says he paid a "couple of hundred thousand dollars" to rip up his home's steep 8,000-square-foot driveway, the walkways and outdoor hot tub to install a Warmzone system. The 60-year-old neuro-ophthalmologist, who works out of his house, says he was concerned that patients and visitors might hurt themselves and wanted to be "stress free" during the winter.
Temperature and moisture sensors turn the system on automatically when it snows. "It looks like there was a blizzard all over—except where I live," says Mr. Silverstein, who used to depend on an armada of plows and snowblowers to clear his property.
"Now I go to sleep and watch TV and don't think about it."