News Quiz

No. 45: “Threes”

No. 45: “Threes”

By Randy Cohen

What is “the Federal Triangle,” and why is it news?

by noon ET Thursday to e-mail your answer (NewsQuiz@slate.com).

Responses to Tuesday’s question (No. 44)–“Sixes”:

What is the significance of these numbers:

$66,000,000; $600,000; $600.51?

“Amount IRS says I owe it; amount accountant says I owe him if he is to extricate me from IRS’s mistake; amount I actually made.”–Patty Marx

“Admission prices to Disney’s new Animal Kingdom. In descending order: family of four, first date couple, PETA ex who’s always wanted to slap around an emu.”–Beth Sherman

“They represent the descending street value–tabulated two years ago at her marriage, last Christmas, and yesterday, respectively–of Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s pancreas, were it to be illegally harvested by renegade Chinese organ poachers.”–David Rakoff

“Amount I fantasize the sex will be worth; amount I realistically think the sex will be worth; amount I actually pay.”–Brian Danenberg

“In the order given: of incredible significance; of major significance; of barely–why, you miserly little cheapskate bastards!! Why don’t you and Mom take a fucking Greyhound down to your frugal little timeshare and leave me the hell alone!!”–Bill Franzen

“The payoff on a $1 bet on the United States winning the Soccer World Cup; the black-market price for Viagra; the supermarket price for Gillette’s Mach 3 replacement blades.”–Stephen Murray

“$66,000,000–my estimation of Dad’s weekly salary, age 2; $600,000–Dad’s estimation of my future annual earnings, age 2; $600.51–amount Dad and I cleared in neighborhood robbery of Old Man Neidermeyer’s penny collection, 40 years later.”–Charlie Rubin

Click for more responses.

Randy’s Wrap-Up

Several references to the IRS, the only government agency whose enforcement powers Republicans find too harsh and, coincidentally, the government agency whose enforcement powers Republicans think they are most likely to face. Maybe if Newt Gingrich spent some time trapping pigeons in Central Park and providing modestly priced “squab” to local restaurants, I’d be treated with a little more courtesy by those Health Department goons.

Price-Fixing, Sexually Harassing Answer With a Side of Gluttony

Sixty-six million dollars is what a federal jury in Kansas awarded to 1,900 assistant coaches whose salaries had been illegally restricted by the National College Athletic Association.

Six hundred thousand dollars is what Merrill Lynch & Co. agreed to pay eight female brokers to settle charges of sexual discrimination.

Six hundred dollars and 51 cents is what Dan Aykroyd and Donna Dixon spent on dinner Monday night at Nirvana, an Indian restaurant in New York. “It was a tremendous amount of food,” said Shamsher Wadud, the owner. “What they couldn’t eat they took with them in a shopping bag.”

Leftovers

“I always worried that it was going to seem as if we were trivializing rap.”–Aaron Sorkin, screenwriter on Warren Beatty’s Bulworth.

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