Word: carded
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Last February Congress tried to give itself a hefty raise by playing the political equivalent of three-card monte: let the 51% increase recommended by a special commission go into effect, then appease constituents by voting against it, and keep the cash. But scandal-weary voters saw through the game, and the pay hike for Congressmen, federal judges and skilled federal employees died a humiliating death. Ever since, the search has been on for a more palatable proposal. Last week there were indications from House Speaker Thomas Foley and aides to President Bush that new ideas for boosting top Government...
...Justice Byron White declared that banning indecent but not obscene telephone calls for adults went beyond what was needed to protect children from such messages. He said children could be shielded from phone sex by technological restrictions, like access codes or scramblers, or requiring payment by credit card. The decision, however, still left prosecutors free to go after the billion-dollar industry for phone calls that are judged obscene...
...forever. He's a bigger-than-life person whose presence fills a room, though not in an ostentatious way." Yet he was often willing to torpedo his career to make a point. In Frances, one of his first movies, he risked not getting a Screen Actors Guild card when he balked at saying what he deemed an inappropriate line of dialogue. When Oliver Stone asked if he wanted to play the Tom Berenger role in Platoon, "I didn't even meet with him," Costner says, "because my brother Dan had been in Viet Nam, and I was reluctant...
...ticket works out to about a dime in expected payouts for every dollar in premiums, leaving Amex 90 cents to cover expenses and profit. The Statue of Liberty stood to gain a penny every time you charged an $80 dinner or a $400 airline ticket to your card, leaving Amex 319 pennies in the case of the dinner (at its service charge of about 4% for restaurants) or 999 pennies in the case of the ticket (at its 2 1/2% or so on airline fares). The premium you paid for the platinum card, which has an annual...
Annuities are like nondeductible IRAs, only without the $2,000 annual limit. With this one, Amex was offering to charge my card anywhere from $50 to $3,000 a month, at my option, and to pay me interest on my monthly contributions at a 12% "introductory rate" through June of next year. Thereafter the rate would be "set above a nationally recognized interest index plus 1.5%." I was all set to sign up, when I noticed...