The passage of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (H.R. 1424) was a good thing for rum lovers:
SEC. 308. INCREASE IN LIMIT ON COVER OVER OF RUM EXCISE TAX TO PUERTO RICO AND THE VIRGIN ISLANDS.
(a) In General.–Paragraph (1) of section 7652(f) is amended by striking “January 1, 2008” and inserting “January 1, 2010”.
(b) Effective Date.–The amendment made by this section shall apply to distilled spirits brought into the United States after December 31, 2007.
This change extends the limit on taxation of rum from Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands to a maximum of $13.50 per gallon. Figuring that out was not an easy process, requiring looking from the bill’s amendments, to to the original text thereof, and finally to the internal revenue code being referenced.
References
*Ammendments to HR1424 - Division C, Title 3, Sec. 308, Page S10368
*26USC ยง7652f
It’s always interesting to see what keywords debaters drop to get their points across. To analyze tonight’s debate between Biden & Palin, I grabbed a transcript from CNN that was posted shortly after. The transcript listed each speaker’s name (Biden, Ifill or Palin), followed by their first sentence in that statement, with subsequent statements on new lines. To make it easily grepable, wrote a quick Perl script to join each speaker’s full passages into a single line, beginning with their name. With that done, it’s trivial to search for words the candidates spoke. The transcript is here.
First up, “change” and “hope”, adages of the Obama campaign that McCain and Palin have picked up in recent weeks:
* Biden (change|hope): 17
* Palin (change|hope): 25
Which presidential candidate got more mentions?
* Biden (John|McCain): 72
* Biden (Barack|Obama): 45
* Palin (John|McCain): 42
* Palin (Barack|Obama): 24
Palin’s state makes a lot of energy and high prices are on the mind of voters:
* Biden (energy): 9
* Palin (energy): 29
Both talked a lot about the war:
* Biden (war|iraq|afghanistan): 51
* Palin (war|iraq|afghanistan): 58
Palin cares about her family:
* Biden (family|child): 8
* Palin (family|child): 15
Biden said “clean coal” a couple of times to Palin’s one; they both mentioned “coal” in general more than that:
* Biden (coal): 7
* Palin (coal): 2
The economy was a talking point:
* Biden (economy): 4
* Palin (economy): 13
Only one of the candidates knows about deregulation of Wall Street in recent years:
* Biden (deregulation): 7
* Palin (deregulation): 0
Wall Street or Main Street?
* Biden (wall street): 3
* Biden (main street): 1
* Palin (wall street): 5
* Palin (main street): 2
Any suggestions?
See also:
edit: added link from Karl; added IBM links
Best known for their eponymous debut album, Dune is a mid-90’s techno outfit whose music incorporates many of the styles endemic to House and Dance at the time. Expedicion is a good exploration of the style, featuring lots of fast beats throughout, a bit singing vocals and even some good-old meaningless talking throughout some tracks. The entire album is also sprinkled with radio recordings including the classic NASA piece, “we’re go for auto-sequence start” on the opening track Rising.
The album opens with my favorite track, Million Miles from Home which incorporates some speedy 808 beats, broken by slow and emotive sections and all with a melodic vocal loop. The track In My Dreams has a very IDM/drum and bass style to it and is topped off by vocals that are a bit more odd, but appropriate. In The Air, which is split into two disparate tracks, lends a somewhat trancey feel with it’s lower tempo and slower progression. The balance of the album, including Hand in Hand, Rainbow to the Stars and Around the World are almost Happy Hardcore anthems, save for their just-a-bit-too-slow tempos.
