Daily Topics - Wednesday June 8th, 2011
By shawnt56
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Hour One: Bush Tax cuts...who's better off 10 years later? Cliff Schecter, Libertas LLC
Hour Two: Student loans in arears? Swat Team could be coming to visit you! David Sirota
Hour Three: America in Default? Mark Williams, MarkTalk
Comments
#2
I looked up the verb "weinen" in my German dictionary, and contrary to what the caller said a couple days ago, it means "to cry", not "to whine" (although I'd bet it's the cognate of "whine"), which makes Anthony Weiner's last name the German version of "Cryer". This may be appropriate given how his confessional press conference went, but at least it doesn't translate as "Sheen".
#3
Re. German verb weinen.
If I recall, the discussion was about the meaning of Weiner, and someone mentioned "wein." Wein means wine (not whine.) So conceivably the name Weiner could mean something related to wine, but who knows.
But speaking of Weiner, I thought of a surefire way out for Anthony Weiner, switch parties. The Republicans would say the matter is between Weiner and his wife, and the Dems would be too spineless to take on the GOP. And while I was looking up the GOP response when the shoe was on the other foot, I found the following that is hilarious in retrospect:
Ensign calls for Stevens to resignFrom MSNBC's Adam Verdugo
Sen. John Ensign, the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the man in charge of keeping the Democrats from reaching a 60-seat majority, told Norah O'Donnell on MSNBC today that Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) should step down.
"Sen. Stevens should do the right thing and resign."
Sen. Ensign joins a list of high profile senate Republicans to call for Stevens' resignation. "The statesman-like thing for Sen. Stevens would be to resign," he continued. "I'd like to see a special election in the state of Alaska, so they can actually choose between a Republican and Democrat."
"This was unfortunate, obviously, timing." http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2008/10/29/4435985-ensign-calls-for-stevens-to-resign
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How should we tax people? Well, lately I've been thinking that we should simply have two brackets. The lower one would have a 0% rate, and other than that Congress could decide on the rate of the upper bracket and the border between the two. I'd restrict changes in the border to an increase by the inflation rate +/- 1%, and restrict changes in the rate to +/- 1%, each year.