“Doh!”

RECYCLING YOUR ENERGY

You consume calories to power your 100-odd-pound self around the mall. And all that energy is currently lost. What if each footfall pumped a tile that recycled some of that lost energy? There’s a company making such tiles right now. Here’s the story. Obviously, only a small piece of our energy puzzle, if it can be brought to scale at all – but I love it.

THE TOP BRACKET OVER TIME

Peter S: “Take a look at this table. What it shows is that Republicans dropped the top tax rate from 73% down to 25% and the Great Depression followed. And it shows that the top rate was above 80% through the Golden Age of America that Conservatives always want to go back to, the 1940s and 1950s. Kennedy lowered it to around 70% (took effect in 1964) where it stayed until Reagan lowered it to 50% from 1982-86. At the end of his administration, Reagan lowered it to 28% and George Bush Sr. had to raise it to 31% to combat deficits as far as the eye could see. Bill Clinton raised the top rate to 39.6% which was still far lower than in 7 of the 8 years of the Reagan administration – and we had the greatest economy in world history with 22 million jobs created. George W. Bush lowered it to 35% – and the rate on dividends and capital gains to 15% – and created zero net new jobs and added $4 trillion in debt. President Obama wants to raise it back to Clinton’s 39.6% and Chris Christie says that’s dividing the country and just election year politics. According to my reading of this table, it’s just intelligent economics. Doh!”

CANARD A L’ORANGE

Toby: “Why use a word like ‘canard,’ as you did yesterday, when there is a simpler, better understood one available: LIE. They are liars and they should be called as such! And the people they are lying to will have an easier time understanding what you have to say, and thus be more likely to listen. Ten to one you’ll never hear the word ‘canard’ on Fox!”

Happy birthday, Scooter, Jane, Darrique, Jaap . . .