Word: balloons
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Beyond zoning restrictions, there are countless other minutely detailed regulations at all levels of government?but chiefly local?that balloon builders' costs. A Rutgers University study of 2,000 builders concluded that "excessive" regulation of all kinds now accounts for $9,844, or almost 20%, of the price of a home that sells for $50,000. Many communities specify not only minimum lot sizes but also minimum house sizes; that is a sure way to keep out the lower income groups...
...better for an individual to wait until age 68 rather than the current 62 or 65 to receive benefits. An irate woman complained: "The working class has really been overburdened with taxes and inflation. Now you're taking away our playtime." Hastily dissociating himself from Kreps' trial balloon, Studds responded that many of his constituents wanted to lower the age for receiving payments to 60 or even 55. Said he: "The toughest tax on people is the Social Security...
...learn how it feels to sail the skies, Staff Writer Michiko Kakutani attended a balloon rally at the Mullen farm in Whitehouse Station, N.J. Her report...
Time: 5 a.m. Sky: a pale chiaroscuro. Air currents: gentle (0-10 m.p.h.) and congenial to fine art of ballooning. There is a sense of fervor, an anticipation of adventure, as the balloonists spread their deflated vehicles on the dewy ground. My hosts are Douglas Economy, 16, one of the youngest pilots licensed by the FAA, his father, and their instructor, Bill Lewis. They aim a battery-powered fan into the limp mouth of their balloon, Fat Albert, breathing life into the sagging nylon skin. Then Lewis ignites the propane burner. With a roar, hot air fills the billowing mushroom...
Dougie and I climb aboard Fat Albert's gondola, Dougie fires the burners again, and our craft ascends into the New Jersey mist. In the distance, other balloons move like baubles on a mobile, rising and dipping in the breeze. There is solitude in the air. Except for the occasional fire of the burners, the rest is silence. The land shrinks to lilliputian dimensions; horses run from this spectacle in the sky, and people on their porches, retrieving their Sunday papers, look up and wave. There is no sensation of movement-our balloon is moving with the wind...