wow factor

Stolen from Crikey.com.
I pay a fortune in subscriptions so small theft is justified.

Comparative Word Clouds - 2008 / 2009 Budget speeches.

Budget Speech Cloud 2008 Pre Recession Good Times

Budget Speech Word Cloud 2009 During Recession Bad Times

Tickled my fancy.

Update: Prompted by Miles, I found the ABC Budget Word Clouds. They use Wordle to generate comparative clouds between the Budget speech and the Budget Reply.

Calling the US Financial system for what it really is, Alan offers Geithner some real advice on bailouts.

Geithner's grand illusion

One of the problems, it seems me, is the term 'toxic assets' itself. It was invented by the banks to give the impression that they had been poisoned – that they’re victims of some dastardly act by someone else.

They are not the victims, of course, but the perpetrators, and the so-called toxic assets are the lingering evidence of a vast fraud, in which securities were created against nothing and sold to investors stamped AAA by credit rating agencies. It’s like selling a bridge to a sucker.

The assets are only toxic if someone else pays anything resembling real money for them, including the Government.

Tonight’s bank bailout scheme by Timothy Geithner should actually involve locking up the bankers beside Bernard Madoff, the only one of the current crop of Wall Street crooks who has admitted to running a Ponzi scheme.

via: Crikey

I'm sure Castro's tombstone/monument will end up with the word Tyrant scratched into it and for good reason, however I was struck by one section of Guy Rundle's opinion in Crikey. Subscription required

Image source: ABC

For Castro, Guevera, and anyone else south of the Rio Grande, politics has to be understood in terms of three key events – 1954 when the CIA overthrew the elected and moderately left Arbenz government of Guatemala, plunging that country into decades of dictatorship and civil war, leaving a quarter of a million dead, 1961 when Kennedy backed a bunch of gangsters to take back Havana - and the other september 11, 1973, when the Allende government met the same fate.

Yes, they even tried the exploding cigar trick.
The Cold War strategies of America and Russia have left a fantastic people in an ideological and economic limbo for too long.

Lets hope common-sense prevails post Fidel.

So, where are you with Climate Change? Column A or B?

Column A or B This video opens in a pop up window.

via:Crikey

Content courtesy of Crikey.com Subscription required

Despite water cannons, neo-Nazi provocateurs and legions of twitchy cops, the APEC protests actually manifested less violence than the average inner-city Saturday night.

APEC, or was it OPEC, is over and Peter Murphy's panoramas provide a fantastic alternative to YouTube clips and mainstream media.

Two views of the same Sydney intersection... The Flag Burning before the $700,000 water cannon arrives.
The cannon never used a drop in anger

Peter's work covers more than just Apec. Enjoy.