Album Review: Diamond Rings, Free Dimensional

After only two albums, Diamond Rings (John O'Regan) has carved out a distinctive sound: melodic, catchy as all hell, emotive throwback '80s electro-pop. And O'Regan owns it with his follow-up to 2010's breakthrough, Special Affections.

Having recently dropped Free Dimensional, his latest effort away from the homestead with the still-active D'Urbervilles, the gauzy synths, earworm guitar riffs, and that unmistakable angular baritone and oft-used handclaps are back. Releasing almost two years to the day after his debut album, which attracted a flurry of positive reviews and fanfare, O'Regan's (or as he calls himself, John O's) sophomore disc carries the flame. The question is how much brighter does that flame burn, if at all?

Enlisting the support of co-producer Damian Taylor (Robyn, Austra, Bj?rk), Free Dimensional is an easy upgrade from the out-of-nowhere freshness that is Special Affections. Not a departure, that's for sure. It's best described a sort of honing, polish on previously laid groundwork.

This time around, O'Regan goes deeper into the personal anthems exploring self-identity ("I'm Just Me"), questionable love ("All The Time"), shameless and cheesy love-pop ditties ("Day & Night") and some additional personal anthems about self-identity ("I Know What I'm Made Of" and "Stand My Ground"). That said, he's still yet to take the next step and explore compositions with greater depth. O'Regan clearly found comfort in his addictive and accessible take on electro-pop and "this is me" songwriting.

That's not necessarily a huge problem. But even though there's a hip hop presence on a track like "I Know What I'm Made Of" and the production value in general is definitely sharper and cleaner, the overall package leaves the pining for a bit more when it's all said and done ? more experimentation, more depth, evidence of artistic progression. Just more.

Free Dimensional is a solid effort, to be sure. It's accessible pop that's stil unlike what you'll see on the Top 40 charts. And you'll be hearing its anthems throughout the city this fall and winter. Dancing feet will be set in motion. Here's to hoping, however, that as O'Regan continues to pump out the tunes, he makes a few left turns to renew that freshness that gobsmacked us all in the first place.

My top tracks: "All The Time," "Runaway Love," "I'm Just Me"

Source: http://www.blogto.com/music/2012/11/album_review_diamond_rings_free_dimensional/

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Puerto Rico votes on US ties and chooses governor

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) ? Puerto Ricans were facing a fundamental question on Election Day: Should they change their ties with the United States?

Citizens in the U.S. island territory cannot vote in the U.S. presidential election, but many were excited to participate in a referendum that could help determine the island's political future, pushing it toward statehood, greater autonomy or independence.

Car horns blared and party flags waved as voters headed to polling stations, some of them yelling their political preferences. Many carried umbrellas to shield themselves from a blistering tropical sun as temperatures neared 90 degrees Fahrenheit (31 degrees centigrade).

The two-part referendum first asks voters if they want to change Puerto Rico's 114-year relationship with the United States. A second question gives voters three alternatives if they do want a change: become the 51st U.S. state, independence, or "sovereign free association," a designation that would give more autonomy for the territory of 4 million people.

"Puerto Rico has to be a state. There is no other option," said 25-year-old Jerome Lefebre, who picked up his grandfather before driving to the polls. "We're doing OK, but we could do better. We would receive more benefits, a lot more financial help. Let's finish what we started."

But 42-year-old Ramon Lopez de Azua said he favors the current system, which grants U.S. citizenship but prevents Puerto Ricans from voting for U.S. president and gives the island only limited representation in Congress.

"Puerto Rico's problem is not its political status," he said. "I think that the United States is the best country in the world, but I am Puerto Rican first."

Both President Barack Obama and presidential candidate Mitt Romney have said they supported the referendum, with Obama pledging to respect the will of the people if there is a clear majority. Any change would require approval by the U.S. Congress.

The island also is electing legislators and a governor, with Gov. Luis Fortuno of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party seeking a second term. Fortuno, a Republican, is running against Alejandro Garcia Padilla, whose Popular Democratic Party favors the status quo.

Pro-statehooders say Puerto Rico would benefit from becoming a state because it would receive an additional $20 billion a year in federal funds to boost the local economy and fight crime. The island currently has a higher unemployment rate than any U.S. state at 13.6 percent, and last year it reported a record 1,117 killings.

A status of sovereign free association, meanwhile, would award Puerto Rico more autonomy and allow U.S. jurisdiction only in certain judicial matters. The details of the relationship would have to be agreed upon by the U.S. and Puerto Rican governments.

A third choice, outright independence, has received little support in the last couple of decades.

At a small university in historic Old San Juan, balloting moved slowly, a line of voters snaking out the door and into a sunbaked plaza.

Manolo Nunez Negron, a 31-year-old literature professor, was annoyed at the wait but said he was excited to vote for a change of governor.

"Puerto Rico is deciding if it will continue supporting Republican policies that have hurt the middle class and the working class," Nunez said after casting his vote.

Nilda Rodriguez, a "40-something" nurse, said she was supporting statehood and Fortuno as governor, mostly because she wants Puerto Rico to be more like the United States, where she believes the government is more efficient and responsive.

"We've had the same status all these years and it needs to change," Rodriguez said as she headed off to work, a pink stethoscope slung over her shoulder. "We're going to see if things get better because it has gone from bad to worse."

Puerto Rico also held non-binding referendums in 1967, 1993 and 1998, with statehood never garnering a clear majority and independence never obtaining more than 5 percent of the vote.

In a poll this month, local newspaper El Nuevo Dia found that a very slim majority favored the current political status. On the second question, the preference for statehood topped sovereign free association. Few said they favor independence.

___

Associated Press reporter Ben Fox in San Juan, Puerto Rico contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/puerto-rico-votes-us-ties-chooses-governor-145403629--election.html

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Geoffrey R. Stone: The Perils of Income Inequality

The Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which authorized the federal government to impose an income tax on individuals, will turn 100 years old on February 3. It is unlikely that many corks will pop in celebration. But they should, because the income tax plays a central role in ensuring American democracy. More to the point of contemporary politics, the Sixteenth Amendment was designed precisely to protect the 47 percent of Americans Mitt Romney has reviled.

Before passage of the Sixteenth Amendment, the federal government obtained its funds primarily from tariffs on imported goods. The effect of these tariffs was to artificially raise the price of foreign products and thus to protect American manufacturers from international competition. American workers and farmers paid more for their purchases, while the moguls of industry (whom we would today recognize as "the 1 percent") reaped the benefit.

By the mid-1890s, in the midst of a devastating depression, tariff reform leapt to the front of electoral politics. In order to lower artificially-inflated prices, Populists and Democrats demanded tariff reform. To make up for lost revenue to the government, they proposed a federal income tax. In 1894, congressional Democrats succeeded in enacting such a tax.

But the Supreme Court, then -- as now -- controlled by a coterie of very conservative justices, wasted no time in holding the income tax unconstitutional, thus halting what the majority decried as a "communistic" assault on the sacred right of private property. In an impassioned dissent, Justice Henry Billings Brown castigated the majority's decision as "nothing less than the surrender of the taxing power to the moneyed class."

Adding insult to injury, conservative Republicans in a Senate dominated by a cadre of men representing the boardrooms of corporate America, enacted an even more aggressive tariff. This led to a bitter dispute that eventually split the Republican Party, paving the way for the Democratic Party's capture of the White House by Woodrow Wilson in 1912.

Wilson made tariff reform his first priority. He denounced high tariffs as a hidden subsidy to industrialists, characterizing them as "class legislation"designed to benefit a class that needed no extra help. In 1913, the Underwood Tariff Act, which was supported by a coalition of Democrats and progressive Republicans, cut tariff rates by more than a quarter. To make up for the reduction in federal revenue, Congress once again turned to the idea of a federal income tax.

Because the Supreme Court had ruled a legislated income tax unconstitutional, Congress proposed the Sixteenth Amendmennt, which was enthusiastically ratified by the states. Congress then enacted an income tax that left most workers and farmers untaxed, but focused primarily on corporations and the wealthiest Americans.

The Sixteenth Amendment was therefore not only about raising revenue. In targeting excessively concentrated wealth, the income tax addressed broader concerns about gross income inequality, which Americans rightly considered a menace to democracy.

As Louis D. Brandeis explained at the time, "We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." Theodore Roosevelt agreed. American civilization, he insisted, must not be "the civilization of a mere plutocracy, a banking-house, Wall-Street-syndicate civilization." Roosevelt openly attacked the "malefactors of great wealth" who imperiled the Republic through their outsize economic and political influence.

The Sixteenth Amendment also laid a vital foundation for the social safety net begun under the Progressives and elaborated upon throughout the twentieth century. The tax on wealth articulated the nation's dedication to a limit on economic inequality. The definition of those limits would change over time, but the role of the federal government in policing them in the interest of a healthy national political community would endure.

It was this community that lay behind Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes' applause for the new income tax. "I like to pay taxes," he announced. "With them I buy civilization." By "civilization," Holmes did not mean museums and public libraries, although he enjoyed both. He meant the civic peace and sense of national community and responsibility necessary for American civilization, with its unmatched dedication to political equality, to flourish.

Unfortunately, over the past half-century a succession of Republican administrations, representing the same constituents as those who opposed the income tax a century ago, has lowered the marginal tax rate on the wealthiest Americans from 90 percent under President Eisenhower, to 70 percent under President Nixon, to 50 percent under President Reagan, to 35 percent under President George W. Bush. The consequent income inequality, so celebrated today by Mitt Romney, once again represents a clear and present danger to American democracy.

This piece was co-authored with Jane Dailey, Associate Professor in the Department of History and the Law School at The University of Chicago.

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-r-stone/the-perils-of-income-ineq_b_2074374.html

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Rock Star Real Estate - Curbed National

Monday, November 5, 2012, by Sarah Firshein

Aerosmith is set to play a concert in front of the Boston apartment building where the band lived in the early '70s. It was here where Steven Tyler and Joe Perry wrote much of their 1973 debut album, including the song "Movin' Out"?which was apparently recorded on a waterbed inside. [Curbed Boston]

Source: http://curbed.com/archives/2012/11/05/rock-star-real-estate.php

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Vehicles, roadways 'talk' in efforts to improve traffic safety

ScienceDaily (Nov. 5, 2012) ? One day, your auto and the roadway will be in constant communication and able to suggest route changes to avoid accidents, construction, and congestion; coordinate your vehicle with signal lights, other vehicles, and lane markers; and let you know where you can park. Right now, a fleet of instrumented vehicles are testing these systems on two instrumented test beds -- one in Northern Virginia and one in Southwestern Virginia.

In the United States, as motorists speed along Interstate 66 in Northern Virginia, or move more sedately along Routes 29 and 50, they may notice large metal boxes with eggbeater-like antennae along the sides of the roads.

The test beds are being operated by the Connected Vehicle/Infrastructure University Transportation Center, a Tier 1 University Transportation Center operated by a consortium made up of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, the University of Virginia's Center for Transportation Studies, and Morgan State University. Robust vehicle-to-vehicle, vehicle-to-infrastructure, and vehicle-to-device communication will enable applications addressing the U.S. Department of Transportation's strategic goals of safety, state of good repair, economic competitiveness, livable communities, and environmental sustainability.

"The Northern Virginia test bed is a tremendous asset with respect to testing and deployment of research findings," said Center Director Tom Dingus, director of the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. "Key elements of this test bed are strong partnerships with local agencies, including law enforcement and transit providers, particularly the Fairfax County Transit Authority."

"The Fairfax County test bed experiences the very real and significant transportation challenges in terms of congestion, safety, and environmental impact that are of concern nationwide," said University of Virginia Consortium Leader Brian Smith, a professor and the chair of the department of civil and environmental engineering. "Through this test bed, our research team will have the opportunity to develop, test, and demonstrate tangible connected vehicles applications that will have a positive impact on the travelers' experience."

Southwest Virginia test bed resources include Route 460 in Montgomery County for real-world testing as in Northern Virginia, and Virginia's Smart Road, a closed-circuit transportation research facility in Blacksburg where experimental procedures can be tested.

"The test beds provide a variety of roadway types, topography, and driver types that allow us to exercise connected-vehicle systems across a range of environments under controlled conditions, so that a high number of equipped vehicle interactions will occur," said Morgan State Consortium Leader Andrew Farkas, a professor and the director of the National Transportation Center.

The 55 roadside units report road hazards, optimize de-icing operations, warn of congestion and emergency vehicles, and monitor pavement condition. The instrumented vehicles, which include 10 cars, a semi-truck, and a bus, have forward-collision, road-departure, blind-spot, lane-change, and curve-speed warning system and advance geographic information systems. They also have sophisticated recording devices that download to the University Transportation Center so that researchers can observe in real-time and accumulate data for later transportation.

Test bed development and vehicle instrumentation will be finalized by the end of the year. Research already under way includes safety and human factors of adaptable stop/yield signs; connected vehicle applications for adaptive lighting; intersection management using in-vehicle speed advisory/adaptation; eco-speed control; "intelligent" awareness system for roadway workers; emergency vehicle-to-vehicle communication; connected vehicle enabled freeway merge management; infrastructure safety assessment; infrastructure pavement assessment; and connected vehicle-infrastructure application development for addressing safety and congestion issues related to public transportation, pedestrians, and bicyclists. Future research projects include optimized routing, road hazard reporting, optimized de-icing, beacon for at-risk pedestrians, and vehicle-to-vehicle communication to enhance rear signaling.

The consortium universities will conduct education and outreach programs to safely and efficiently implement successful connected vehicle and infrastructure technologies.

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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_technology/~3/WZwbphxcW_A/121105092612.htm

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Blackbaud Third Quarter 2012 #Earnings Conference Call $BLKB

Thursday, November 01, 2012 @ 8:00 am ET

Live Dial in number: 1-877-941-2321 or 1-480-629-9666

Replay Dial in number: 1-877-870-5176

A telephone replay of the conference call will be available through Nov 08, 2012

Passcode: 4573758

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Source: http://www.viavid.com/?p=2646

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